Connor Burne

Abstract

While U.S. Counterinsurgency Strategy (COIN) proved successful at mitigating insurgencies when US forces were present in Iraq, the rise of the Islamic State reveals a lack of effectiveness of that strategy in the post-American Iraq. This project will assess COIN’s role in achieving such polarized results. The development and implementation of COIN in Iraq significantly detracted from the insurgent threat. Prior to major drawbacks of soldiers deployed, COIN had laid the groundwork for a stable government to begin forming and significantly reduced the number of terror attacks. After the withdrawal of American forces, the Islamic State rapidly gained power and repeatedly defeated Iraqi Security Forces. After analyzing the successes and shortfalls of COIN in Iraq, these lessons learned will be applied to a revision of COIN to improve its effectiveness in achieving positive outcomes against the Islamic State and in future U.S. involvements.

Introduction

For the past four years, media have been filled with reports about the terrorist group initially known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, commonly referred to acronymically as ISIS, or ISIL. The group jumped onto the media mainstage with extensive territorial gains and brutal oppression of the peoples it overtook. While the world watched horrifyingly as ISIS executed any dissidents, there was no overwhelming clamoring for intervention. Fears of an ISIS attack in America were dispelled by President Obama’s dismissal of the group as being a “JV team.”¹

The American, and world, sentiment changed after the group claimed responsibility for a string of sensational terror attacks around the globe in late 2015. The Islamic State claimed the bombing of a Russian airliner in Egypt, killing 224, in October.² In late November, the group orchestrated the shocking attacks in Paris, killing 130 and injuring 368.³ December saw the Islamic State-inspired San Bernardino attacks in the United States, which killed 14 and injured 24.⁴ These attacks propelled the Islamic State to the fore of every news cycle and national security discussion. The Islamic State was certainly not a “JV” team, but a robust, calculating, and capable terror group. The territorial claims, the transnational reach, and available funds of the Islamic State have made it the most capable and powerful Islamic terrorist group ever to threaten the global community.

While the past year has seen a slow degrading of the Islamic State, the international community still struggles with devising a strategy to soundly defeat the group. In determining this strategy, it may be beneficial to analyze how the group came to be, and what effect American actions in Iraq had on the Islamic State’s rise to power. After the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, the United States implemented a new Counterinsurgency Strategy (COIN) to deal with the various insurgent groups which arose in the anarchic Iraq.

This project will analyze how COIN succeeded in mitigating the challenges of insurgencies while U.S. forces were in Iraq, yet did not prevent the rise of the Islamic State upon the withdrawal of American combat troops. After assessing the successes and shortfalls of COIN in Iraq, these lessons learned will be applied to revising COIN to best achieve a positive outcome against the Islamic State and in future U.S. involvements.

In order to explain the sudden increases in the Islamic State’s development, this project will consider the primary outside contributing factors. The focus will be to determine to what extent the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq affected the growth of the Islamic State. While there is a seeming correlation between the timing of the Islamic State’s rise to power and the American withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, the question remains if there is any true causation involved.

Research Methods

This research project is structured as an historical-comparative study and utilizes qualitative methodology in its review of ISIS and COIN. The analysis considers the strength of the Islamic State at various time points, with the operative date being the 2011 American withdrawal from Iraq. There are several key measures by which to examine the growth of the Islamic State and assess the effectiveness of COIN. For the Islamic State, territorial occupation is important to consider, as it shows the area available for terror activities, such as training, planning, and resourcing attacks. It also is a prime measurement of the terror group’s success in more conventional operations. Financial capital is a key measure of the Islamic State’s wellbeing. Funding is necessary to lure recruits, pay fighters, purchase supplies, and finance terror operations abroad. The third measure is total personnel strength, which assesses the manpower capabilities of the terror group. Personnel numbers can be predictive of the group’s ability to expand or maintain its territorial claims. These are the three primary measures of the Islamic State’s development that will be utilized in this project to assess the group’s growth on either end of the American withdrawal.

In the assessment of COIN, this project will rely on a deductive analysis of what can be inferred from the rise of the Islamic State. The analysis will include an in-depth description of COIN and present definitive links to its impact on events in Iraq. This analysis will be supplemented with a case study of the Anbar Province of Iraq during and after the American military presence.

In order to assess the timing and growth of the key areas of the Islamic State’s development, this project will utilize various news and journal articles, government publications, and first-hand accounts of American personnel in Iraq. The same types of sources will be relied upon in the description of COIN and the analysis of its effectiveness in Iraq. Due to the recent proximity of the events to this project, a statistical calculation of the strength of the Islamic State throughout its growth has yet to be compiled and measured. Statistics, however, will be utilized in assessing all three areas of growth to demonstrate sizable increases in the Islamic State’s territory, funding, and personnel. Similarly, statistical data have yet to be devised to reflect the effectiveness of COIN. Given the lack of data sets in regard to COIN, statistics will play a much smaller role. Furthermore, qualitative research is more applicable to COIN as the questions of achieving stability are more aptly answered by non-statistical analysis.

History: The U.S. Response to Unconventional Warfare

The United States has been fighting unconventional wars since the nation gained its independence in 1783. The Revolutionary War gave the nation its first experience of irregular warfare, most notably passed down through Maj. Robert Rogers’s “Rules of Ranging,” which are still employed in the 75^th Ranger Regiment and at the U.S. Army Ranger School to this day.⁵ Following the Revolution came the Barbary Wars in the early 1800s, the ongoing Indian Wars of the 19^th century, and the Vietnam War in the 1970s, all of which honed America’s skill at fighting unconventional wars. Excursions in Panama and Grenada, as well as the Kosovo Campaign and Somalia, were the first in a flurry of new age conflicts in which America engaged in a more modern form of unconventional warfare. The campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have come to the forefront of irregular warfare and have been the testing bed for new equipment, tactics, and strategy. Of the plethora of new developments, perhaps the most critical has been a new strategy for Counterinsurgency, dubbed COIN. COIN has been the guiding rod for United States and coalition operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Vietnam

In academic circles, Vietnam is the touchstone of unconventional warfare. Indeed, the conflict represented a sizeable shift in warfighting strategy from the Second World War and the Korean War. The Vietcong did not fight in conventional force-on-force engagements but rather sought to strike targets of opportunity and then slip back into the recesses of the jungle.⁶ While this strategy of avoiding major engagements is mimicked by terrorist organizations in Iraq and Afghanistan today, the similarities end there. The Vietnam War was fought between two recognizable military forces, each side fighting for objective control of the nation. While the political ideologies of democracy and communism were at play, the reality of the situation on the ground was not drastically different from the Pacific jungle warfare of World War Two.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has faced opponents with no conventional military and who do not abide by any conventional, or unconventional, doctrine. The preferred method of engagement is non-engagement through the implementation of Improvised Explosive Devices, and quick strikes upon targets of opportunity are followed by a seamless re-blending into the surrounding populace. The primary objective is not to become the legitimate government of the country but simply to establish such a state of chaos that terror activities will be unimpeded. These conflicts may share library shelves, but on the battlefield, they are two entirely distinct situations.

Perhaps the single most notable lesson from Vietnam that applies to Iraq and Afghanistan is the inability to alter the physical environment of the conflict. The American strategy of napalm and Agent Orange to root out the Vietcong by scorching the jungle proved disastrous. The strategy only served to garner the animosity of the Vietnamese population and erode popular and political support for the war in America.⁷ If the United States is to engage with a vastly overmatched opponent, the strategy must account for the situation at hand and defeat the opponent at his own game. Overwhelming firepower to reshape the earth will not be effective against an unconventional opponent.

Counterinsurgency (COIN)

In light of the lessons learned in late 20^th-century conflicts, as the United States entered Iraq and Afghanistan, development began on a new strategy for combating insurgencies. The new strategy would be first published in December 2006, as Army Field Manual 3-24, entitled Counterinsurgency. The manual, largely developed by then Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, would quickly become singularly referred to as COIN. COIN focuses on the importance of gaining the support of the local population through protecting the locals. Protecting the local population is deemed the key element in defeating an insurgency.⁸ If the people are on your side, the insurgents lose their freedom of maneuver, safe havens, and logistical support. Without these necessities, an insurgency can be hunted down, rooted out, and eliminated. While sounding relatively simple, this premise of COIN is perhaps the most compelling problem the United States, and the world, has faced in modern military strategy.

COIN asserts achieving victory entails “winning the hearts and minds” of the population. “Winning the hearts” is concerned with “persuading the people that their best interests are served by COIN success.”⁹ The second half, “winning the minds,” is dedicated to “convincing them (local populace) that the force can protect them and that resisting it is pointless.”¹⁰ Working in tandem, “winning hearts and minds” is supposed to lead to the establishment of “trusted networks” which will “displace enemy networks, which forces enemies into the open.”¹¹ This is the principle that has guided coalition operations throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. While this understanding of COIN can be credited for successes in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is perhaps this same principle that can be faulted for the regression of stability in these countries after coalition force withdrawals.

COIN operations in Iraq’s Anbar Province provide a well-rounded picture of how COIN works. Anbar Province was the deadliest region of Iraq for American troops, accounting for 43% of all U.S. fatalities in 2006.¹² During the first few years of the war, the coalition failed to work effectively with the local sheiks. Assigning the blame for this failure is a difficult proposition. On one hand, the sheiks supported the Iraqi government yet refused to allow Anbaris to be trained outside of Anbar with the other Iraqi Security Forces. Conversely, the coalition refused to allow the Sunni tribes to raise their own militias within the region. This left the entirety of counterinsurgency operations to be run by 40 coalition company elements stationed in combat outposts across the region.¹³

In September 2006, a powerful Sunni leader, Sheik Abu Risha Sattar, led a “tribal rebellion” to defeat the insurgency within Anbar.¹⁴ The coalition supported Sattar’s efforts, but through an unconventional methodology. Instead of Sattar working with Pentagon brass and the State Department, all coordination and partnerships developed at the local level through “trusted networks.” The coalition leaders scattered across the 40 bases in the region worked directly with the “Iraqi battalion commanders, police chiefs, and tribal leaders” within their small areas.¹⁵ This allowed relationships to be built on a people-to-people level, rather than state-to-state, which is difficult to accomplish in an ethnically divided and non-unified nation. With personal bonds between leaders on the ground, coalition and Sunni forces enjoyed the support of the population in rooting out insurgents. By imbedding coalition troops in the neighborhoods they patrolled, and patrolling with the local Iraqi forces, the American forces were able to win over the hearts and minds of the Anbar populace, assuring the locals coalition troops sought the best interest of the people and were capable of accomplishing that task. With the support of the population, coalition forces reduced the number of monthly attacks from 450 to less than 100 by summer 2007.¹⁶ Furthermore, American fatalities in the region fell to 17 percent of the total in Iraq, a 26 percent drop from the previous year.¹⁷ The key contributing factor to the success in Anbar was the “change of sentiment within the Sunni population,” which enabled coalition forces to establish the critical “trusted networks” needed to defeat the insurgency.¹⁸

The Rise of the Islamic State

The beginnings of the Islamic State can be traced back through its leaders’ prior embodiment organizations. Abu Musab al Zarqawi developed the Al Qaeda affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, or AQ-I, in Iraq between 2002 and 2006.¹⁹ While the United States coalition in Iraq developed a predominately Shia government, Zarqawi exploited the sectarian tensions to rally Sunni extremists to his fledgling group. During this time, Zarqawi and AQ-I carried out numerous attacks, from the assassination of American Laurence Foley to bombings in Jordan and across Iraq. In June of 2006, a United States airstrike killed Zarqawi.²⁰ Leadership of AQ-I then fell to Abu Ayub al Masri, who restructured the group under the name the Islamic State of Iraq and appointed Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al Badri al Samarra’i, known to the United States as Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the figurehead leader.²¹ Baghdadi and Abu Mohammed al Adnani, the other key leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, had both been detained by U.S. forces in Iraq at Camp Bucca but were subsequently released after varying times of confinement.²²

The following two years saw a degrading of the Islamic State of Iraq’s capabilities. This can be attributed to the effectiveness the new COIN strategy guiding U.S.-led Iraqi Security Force operations in coordination with the so-called Sunni Awakening.²³ Sheik Abu Risha Sattar led a tribal anti-Al Qaeda campaign, primarily in the Anbar Province of Iraq.²⁴ The multifaceted approach of the U.S., Iraqi government forces, and locals forming “trusted networks” proved highly successful at mitigating the operational capacities of Al Qaeda and their Islamic State of Iraq counterpart.²⁵

After the setbacks of 2007-2008, the Islamic State of Iraq began to regain support and rebuild, carrying out several major attacks in 2009.²⁶ The beginning of 2010 saw the death of al Masri at the hands of a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid; al Baghdadi assumed full leadership of the Islamic State in Iraq.²⁷ Over the next three years, al Baghdadi grew his group’s capabilities, carrying out “dozens of deadly attacks a month” by the start of 2013.²⁸ In April 2013, al Baghdadi attempted to merge his group with the al Nusra Front in Syria to create the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, however, the attempt failed as Al Qaeda re-avowed its claims that al Baghdadi’s group owed its allegiance to them.²⁹ Despite the inter-terrorist group quibblings that followed, al Baghdadi declared the establishment of the caliphate in 2014, claiming the official name of the Islamic State.³⁰

It is in this iteration of the group that the Islamic State has carried out its worldwide terror attacks and received pledges of support from other terror groups around the globe, such as al-Shabab and Boko Haram.³¹ Recent studies have shown garnering the support of established terror organizations can be a prime contributor to the longevity of a group.³² While outside the scope of this thesis, Brian Phillips’s research explores the effect of terror group connections, which could lead to a deeper understanding of the implications of the Islamic State’s connected groups. For the purposes of this thesis, the critical point from Phillips’s research is connections immensely benefit a terror organization. Baghdadi’s leadership has given the group’s claims to the caliphate legitimacy among many supporters, as he is a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad’s tribe.³³ This abbreviated account of the rise of the Islamic State allows for an in-depth look at what outside factors might have contributed to its successful rise in the wake of the American withdrawal.

Findings: Sucesses of the Islamic State

Territorial Occupation

The first measure of the Islamic State’s success is its territorial occupation. The group had no territorial control prior to 2011, when U.S. combat forces withdrew from Iraq. Within three years of the American withdrawal, the Islamic State had seized approximately 90,800 square kilometers of territory across northern Iraq and eastern Syria.³⁴ In the immediate years following the United States withdrawal, the Islamic State averaged a gain of 30,250 square kilometers per year. This is an astounding territorial expansion rate. The Islamic State seized the territorial equivalent of the entire nation of Belgium each year, taking over the total land mass of Great Britain in three years. For a relatively small, step-child terror group, these gains reflect a drastic change in outside factors. The Islamic State did not simply acquire a blitzkrieg-like competency of conventional warfare upon the departure of America combat troops. While the acquisition of left-behind American military equipment was certainly beneficial, it does not explain the group’s ability to repeatedly rout Iraqi Security Forces.³⁵

Financial Resources

The second measure of the Islamic State’s success is its financial capital. Terrorist finances are similar to any legitimate stock market indices. When the group is successful, its profits and fundraising prove more lucrative, and when the group shows signs of instability, its financial resources falter. A terrorist supporter, individual or nation-state, wants to back a successful group, so success is the biggest driver of funding. Private fundraising is the traditional means for financing terror operations; however, the Islamic State revolutionized terrorist financing through its expansive acquisition of territory.

Prior to the U.S. withdrawal in 2011, Baghdadi’s terrorist organization received its funding primarily through its Al Qaeda affiliation. According to research by the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment and Deutsche Bank, the average terror attack with explosives, in Europe, costs roughly $10,000 to carry out.³⁶ Attacks in Iraq can be carried out for a much lower expense of capital. Even using the high European attack estimate, based on the attacks Baghdadi orchestrated prior to 2011, the group operated on roughly $500,000, which comes to an annual budget of approximately $100,000.³⁷

The majority of the Islamic State’s increase in funding is inherently linked to its increase in territory. The top two sources of income for the Islamic State, oil revenue and taxation, are both directly correlated to, and dependent upon, territorial expansion. It is necessary to understand the interdependence of these measures, as providing for appropriate counter terrorism strategy must account for mitigating all three of these measures in an effective and efficient means.

Much like its territorial gains, the Islamic State’s financial assets set it in a category of its own among terrorist groups. Following the American withdrawal in 2011, prior to coalition airstrikes beginning in June 2014, the Islamic State was procuring two million dollars per day from its sale of oil.³⁸ By the time the airstrikes began, the Islamic State had accrued roughly 1.6 billion dollars from its oil revenue alone. This does not include the $500 million of assets it seized from Iraqi banks, $120 million in ransom monies paid, unknown private donations, $2 billion in taxation of the people in its territory, $1 billion in seized salaries, or up to $100 million from the black-market sale of historical artifacts.³⁹ The result of its various sources of income gave the Islamic State an aggregate total between $6.23 and $7.72 billion dollars from 2012 to mid 2015.

The staggering numbers can be broken down into a yearly income for another perspective. Each year the Islamic State netted $400 million from salaries, $730 million from oil revenue, $900 million in taxes, $40 million in ransoms, and $30 million in non-oil resource sales.⁴⁰ Adding the proceeds from salaries, oil, taxation, ransom, and resources gives the Islamic State a net yearly income of $2.1 billion. That amount could finance 210,000 terror attacks, which equates to 575 attacks per day for an entire year. This is certainly a drastic increase from the 50 total attacks the group could have financed prior to the American withdrawal. After the American withdrawal, the Islamic State saw a yearly income growth of 2.1 million percent, and a net aggregate income growth of 1.3 million percent.

Personnel Strength

The third measure of the Islamic State’s success is its personnel. If the group is doing well, recruitment increases as more people flock to join a “successful” cause. When the organization faces setbacks, recruitment falters. Before the U.S. withdrawal in 2011, the Islamic State of Iraq had an estimated 3,000 members.⁴¹ The estimates of Islamic State manpower post-2013 range from 20,000 to 200,000,⁴² with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimating 100,000 fighters in 2014.⁴³ Based on casualty estimates from the coalition air strikes, it appears the higher end estimates are proving to be more accurate. U.S. Special Operations Commander Gen. Raymond Thomas stated the U.S.-led coalition estimates that airstrikes have killed 60,000 Islamic State militants over the past two years.⁴⁴ If the Islamic State truly numbered 20,000, it would have been destroyed three times over. Even the Syrian Observatory’s 2014 estimate appears low, as if the Islamic State had sustained 60,000 casualties, a loss of 60%, then the group would have faltered some time ago.

Instead of collapsing, in defiance of the airstrikes, the Islamic State continues to fight tooth-and-nail for every inch of its territory.⁴⁵ These are the actions of a group with plenty of manpower to expend, not one struggling to survive. Accounting for a casualty rate as high as 40%, puts the Islamic State’s total strength at 150,000. Realistically, given the Islamic State’s continued to-the-last-man fighting, the group has likely sustained a roughly 30% loss, putting the total strength around 200,000. This estimate reveals the Islamic State swelled approximately 67 times its size in the three years since American combat forces left Iraq. Such increases comprise a growth rate of 6,666% for the Islamic State, a Biblically apt figure for the hellish group.

Changes in Iraq

It is clear the Islamic State enjoyed incredible gains in territory, funding, and personnel in the post-American combat troop world of Iraq. However, in order to determine the extent of the effect of the American withdrawal in causing these gains, this project must address other significant changes in Iraq surrounding 2011. The other major shifts in Iraq during this time were the leadership change within the Islamic State and the Iraqi parliamentary elections of 2010.

The killing of al Masri in 2010 left the Islamic State fully in the charge of al Baghdadi. While leadership can play a pivotal role in any organization’s effectiveness, the seismic shifts seen by the Islamic State appear unlikely to have been caused by the change. Baghdadi had been a top leader of the group for four years at this point and his influence was well-endowed throughout the organization. While Baghdadi’s assumption of complete control likely contributed to the Islamic State’s rise, it would arguably have marginal effects on the group’s success, and not explain the incredulous gains made by the group.

Iraqi State Capacity

The Iraqi parliamentary elections of 2010 have a much higher potential for effecting the Islamic State’s dramatic rise. The Islamic State, being a Sunni extremist group, could have gained support given an unfavorable, Shia-dominated election. The top two seat-winning parties in the 2010 Iraqi national election were the Iraqi National Movement, a mixed secular party, and State of Law, a predominately secular Shia party.⁴⁶ Thus, there was no overwhelming traditional Shia majority in the election. Also of note, the 2010 election saw a higher turnout rate in majority Sunni provinces, suggesting the Sunni population was even more well represented than in the previous election.⁴⁷ Additionally, Sunni voters favored the moderate, inclusive Ayad Allawi, of the Iraqi National Movement, over traditional Sunni strongmen.⁴⁸

Given the Sunni voice in the election and the favorable results, it would be difficult to attribute a swelling of Sunni extremism to the election. If anything, the 2010 election reveals the Sunni population was willing to work with their Shia countrymen. The new Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, may not have been as open to working with the Sunnis. Maliki had a strong fear of sectarian plots against him and worked to oust Sunni government leaders and marginalize the Sunni population.⁴⁹ Despite Maliki’s distrust of Sunnis, he was unable to act upon his beliefs while coalition forces remained in Iraq.⁵⁰ After the 2011 withdrawal, Maliki began to execute his Sunni purge. While Maliki’s actions contributed to pushing Sunni extremists to the Islamic State, he could not have conducted his government in such a way without the withdrawal of American forces. As such, Maliki’s role in the development of the Islamic State can be understood as a secondary effect caused by the withdrawal of American forces.

U.S. Withdrawal

Of the three major changes in Iraq occurring at the time of the Islamic State’s rise, the only remaining unmitigated change is the withdrawal of American combat forces. American forces began drawing back in 2009, reducing forces in Iraq by 32,000. In the first five months of 2010, American troops decreased by another 24,000. By August of 2010, America had reduced its troop presence to 50,000, representing a withdrawal of 38,000.⁵¹ Finally, by December of 2011, the remaining 50,000 troops had been withdrawn.

At the time of the withdrawal, the majority of Iraqis were favorable to coalition forces, with nearly 60% of polled Iraqis disapproving of the upcoming departure of American forces and 51% foreseeing negative consequences from the withdrawal.⁵² The Iraqi populace felt coalition forces were playing a critical role in maintaining peace and stability in their nation. The rise of the Islamic State validates this sentiment.

The top American military leadership has strongly showed its belief the withdrawal allowed for the Islamic State to become so powerful. Gen. Odierno, discussing the Islamic State’s success, stated, “If we had stayed a little more engaged, I think it might have been prevented,”⁵³ a sentiment that has been supported by a former Marine Corps Commandant, Central Command chief, and Secretary of Defense, among other Pentagon leadership. The consensus today is the full American withdrawal allowed the Islamic State to attain a foothold in Iraq, launching its territorial expansion, which subsequently provided the money and recruitment for the group to grow astronomically.

In short, since the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq, the Islamic State has made extensive territorial expansions, seen astronomical financial gains, and a dramatic spike in personnel. The tipping point in the Islamic State’s success was clearly 2011. The years prior to 2011 saw a struggling, even suppressed, militant organization. American forces were able to work with the Iraqi government and people to effectively mitigate Baghdadi’s group.⁵⁴ After 2011, the Islamic State saw a steady increase in all three measures of success. The Islamic State’s rapid development is a direct result of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

Discussion and Analysis

COIN Failures

The rise of the Islamic State in the aftermath of the American withdrawal signifies a key learning point for the Unites States. It demonstrates the current ideology of COIN is inadequate for preparing a nation to stand on its own. Specifically to Iraq, COIN failed to ensure Iraqi forces were effectively trained in the time U.S. forces were in Iraq. The ultimate goal of being in Iraq was to leave Iraq as a stable nation, capable of providing its own security. Instead, the United States strategy placed too much focus on combating insurgencies on its own, rather than training Iraqi forces. While it is paramount to maintain a safe environment for American forces, this cannot be achieved at the cost of the real mission, training the local nationals. To do so would be mission failure. This failure can be avoided through the employment of the surge strategy, as was done in Afghanistan. By creating such an influx of troops that both security and training could be maintained, the United States allowed for Afghan national forces to become fairly well trained. This did not happen in Iraq. When U.S. forces departed Iraq in 2011, ending their frontline role in security operations, the Iraqi forces were incapable of taking over those responsibilities.

The failure to train the Iraqi forces adequately signifies a major shortfall in the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy. The COIN focus on “hearts and minds” led American forces to become fixated on protecting civilian lives and often hopelessly striving to gain the popular support and shared understanding necessary to create “trusted networks.” In the pursuit of winning “hearts and minds,” the United States failed on a strategic level to prioritize objectives. Protecting the civilian population is essential to garnering local support; however, there must be an understanding that the role of security is transitioning back to the host nation. While involved in the nation, the U.S. must supply adequate forces to both suppress insurgencies and train the local forces to be equally capable of doing so on their own, without U.S. forces in the lead. The brutal, rapid rise of the Islamic State in Iraq after the departure of U.S. combat forces shows the flaw of the central mantra of U.S. counterinsurgency strategy.

As well as Anbar touts the successes of COIN, post-American Anbar reveals the strategy’s failures. After the departure of American troops, Anbar became the first Iraqi province to fall to the Islamic State. The reasons for the short-lived success could be attributed to numerous combinations of coalition and Iraqi players. The most blatant is the lack of the United States to effectively designate appropriate task organization between the military and other government entities. American troops were called upon not just to win battles, but build infrastructure, recruit and train police forces, advise politicians, develop rule of law, and provide economic assistance from teaching agriculture to creating jobs. It is self-evident these responsibilities go far beyond the extent of training a soldier receives in a 10-week boot camp. As a result, the American forces were successful at building local partnerships in as far as conducting military operations, and thus protecting the Iraqi people. They were not successful at setting the Iraqis up for their own success. The coalition caught fish, in the form of insurgents, for the Iraqis. It did not teach the Iraqis how to fish, or obtain bait, or build docks, or cook fish, and so on. To do so would have taken extensive efforts from across the American government’s agencies of expertise, which failed to happen in Iraq. Instead, it was wholly left to those trained to neutralize threats, to develop a nation.

COIN’s “hearts and minds” campaign is intended to be a complex blend of military operations, diplomatic efforts, and humanitarian support. All of these elements can negate each other’s gains through uncoordinated actions. Conversely, they can also multiply each other’s effects by working in tandem. All of these elements are consistently hindered by linguistic and cultural differences. It takes excruciating training, coordination, and execution to successfully pull off a COIN operation and win over the civilian populace. Yet, even after a seeming COIN victory in Iraq and Afghanistan, the gains have rapidly eroded with the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq. So, what went wrong and how can COIN be revised to meet the new threat of the Islamic State today and the emerging threats of tomorrow?

The Problem with Winning “Hearts and Minds”

The problem with COIN is arguably the “hearts and minds” focus. While it is essential to get the populace to buy into the coalition’s mission, the coalition is not going to remain indefinitely. The ultimate goal of the coalition is to return military and security operations over to a stable, competent host nation. “Hearts and minds” derails that goal. The mantra encourages playing to the emotional whims of the populace to ensure support, rather than streamlining operations to ensure a quick and successful transition of operations to the new government.

The rise of the Islamic State in the wake of the American departure from Iraq is a prime example of the need for improvement of COIN. The American policy in Iraq mandated a focus on winning over the Iraqi people, primarily through protecting the Iraqi populace from attacks. While successful in protecting the Iraqis, the coalition was unable to complete both its protect and train missions simultaneously. Thus, as political and popular support in America for the campaign waned, the American coalition was forced to withdraw, leaving the Iraqi Security Forces with a wealth of resources but significantly unprepared to carry on counterinsurgency operations.⁵⁵

In a brief example of Afghanistan, a major shortfall of COIN can be seen in the lack of development of effective Afghani airpower. Airpower was a key contributor to the success of coalition operations in Afghanistan.⁵⁶ Airpower allowed for rapid, overwhelming support of troops on the ground, reducing casualties by medical evacuation abilities, and minimizing transiting troops exposure to insurgent IED attacks. The underdeveloped and under-resourced Afghani Air Force was simply incapable of providing these crucial operations on their own. Thus, without airpower, insurgents gained a more level field on which to fight. This same rationale can be applied in Iraq as well, where Iraqi Gen. Zebari stated the Iraqi Air Force would be unable to provide the same capabilities as the coalition air support until at least 2021.⁵⁷

Under the “hearts and minds” mantra, the coalition was overly concerned with gaining the trust of the people by rebutting the image of occupiers and striving to appear as liberators. As such, the campaign outlasted the goodwill of the Iraqi people, and the coalition could no longer sustain its presence as being in the best interest of Iraq. In essence, the American forces faced the compounded problem of overstaying their welcome by trying to earn the support of the people for them to stay. A focus on training and leaving would likely have resonated strongly with the Iraqi populace. In such a manner, the coalition could have maintained its popularity as liberators, installing a new, legitimate government with properly trained security forces, and leaving the country prepared to provide for its own wellbeing.

Coin 2.0: Hope and Faith

To this point, it has been made evident that while past COIN operations were successful strategies for American involvement, they lacked the foresight of establishing a successful end-state. The strategy did not include a site picture of the nation without American involvement. “Hope and Faith” reshapes COIN to focusing its efforts on achieving that goal. America cannot be in all places at all times. Modern involvements must be conducted quickly, with minimal cost to American lives and impact on taxpayer dollars. It is therefore in the best interest of the local nation, and America, to minimize its time spent in country, while maximizing its empowerment of the country.

Army Colonel John Spiszer, a Brigade Combat Team commander in Afghanistan, was the first to suggest “hearts and minds” should be replaced by “hope and faith.”⁵⁸ The goal of COIN should be to give the populace hope in a better future and faith in their government’s ability to provide that future. The focus is no longer on getting the people’s support independently, but rather, gaining the people’s support by providing them with a competent government, in which they will place their faith. This guiding principle shifts the priorities of COIN to a heavy focus on training local forces and providing them with the means to carry out the operations of the coalition. The military aspect must be matched by a diplomatic mission helping the formation of a competent, non-corrupt government, as well as the necessary humanitarian support needed to sustain the population. The end goal of all of these missions is to leave the country to be run sovereignly.

It is critical to emphasize the importance of sovereignty as the ultimate end state of COIN operations. Sovereignty does not mean Westernized. A short-term, even multi-year, involvement will not upend centuries and millennia of cultural establishment.⁵⁹ This approach does not mean the United States must overlook human rights abuses. Indeed, inspiring and persuading the new government to abide by the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights should be a central task of diplomacy in COIN involvements. By doing so, the United States will have provided for the hope and faith of the people for a better future in their new government.

Iraq would be a drastically different environment today had “hope and faith” been the guiding mantra of COIN operations. The Iraqi population would have been pushed to critically participate in their government, shaping it to serve the best interests of the nation as a whole. Maliki’s Sunni purge would have been countered by engaged citizens whose faith had been placed in their government, rather than a population dejectedly relying upon a foreign coalition for protection. An American presence primarily focused on training would have allowed for Iraqi forces to rapidly assume responsibility for the protection of their own citizens. The Islamic State’s attractiveness to marginalized Sunnis would have been stifled by Sunni participation in the government. Ultimately, “hope and faith” would have instilled, at least politically, a sense of unity among the Iraqi population. A stable Iraqi government, constituted by all segments of the population, would likely have been able to stunt the rise of the Islamic State.

Future Application

The constantly evolving world has undergone significant changes over the past year since this project was initiated. The Islamic State has suffered sizable losses to its territorial claims, at the cost of thousands of personnel, and resulting in a significant reduction in its financial resources. However, despite these losses, the Islamic State has maintained its global influence and continues to inspire and instigate terror attacks around the world. The impacts of this influence have been seen in Orlando, where 49 were killed and 53 injured at the Pulse nightclub,⁶⁰ on the promenade in Nice, France, where 86 were killed and 434 injured,⁶¹ at a German Christmas market on December 19, where 12 were killed and 56 injured,⁶² and at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in January of 2017, where 5 were killed and 6 injured.⁶³ In order to prevent the continuation of these attacks, the United States needs to defeat the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations using a strategy that not only eliminates the current threat but also prevents the development of new terror groups.

As the world foreign affairs and political focus shifts to near-peer advisories, such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, it is important not to lose sight of the relevance of counterinsurgency operations. Russia has already demonstrated in the Crimea its willingness to engage in insurgency-style conflicts in order to gain power, while Iran continues to sponsor terrorism and strives to increase its influence in Iraq. With the exception of North Korea, it is highly improbable, given the globalization of economics, that any conventional conflict will break out between the United States and another sovereign nation. The possibility of insurgencies being utilized by nations to spread influence and power is a more likely course of action. Syria and the Middle East remain an extremely volatile and unpredictable region.⁶⁴ Corrupt nations throughout South America and Africa are a constant concern for potential insurgency influence. Russia’s power hungry eyes toward Latvia and its large ethnic Russian population could result in an insurgency-led annexation. In any of these scenarios, and in countless others that will arise, the world may turn toward the United States to intervene. It is best the United States have an effective and efficient Counterinsurgency Strategy, shaped by the lessons of the past, ready for implementation when the need arises.

Endnotes

Works Cited