Ralph Peters has distilled "10 Lessons From the War in Iraq."
Drawing rigid lessons from the military experience of the moment is foolhardy. The human capacity for mischief plays havoc with doctrinaire analysis. Yet, our military establishment and, especially, its civilian leadership fell prey to a worse temptation: Clinging to a vision of war as they wished it to be, while the dimensions of conflict changed in ways that mocked their cherished plans.We need to be wary, but we can't refuse to learn. We must do our best to harvest the enduring lessons from our recent military campaigns, while winnowing out the case-specific issues. Thereafter, we must be merciless in amending our doctrine, our procurement programs, our force structure and, above all, our mentality - if we are to lessen our risks in the grave, new world around us.
Here's just one (via The Braden Files):
9. Language skills and cultural knowledge are vital combat multipliers.A single officer fluent in the local language and aware of cultural nuances can be far more valuable to our military than entire squadrons of F/A-22s.
If there is any single factor our military services neglect that could enhance our strategic and tactical performance, it's the command of foreign languages. How can we "know our enemies" if we don't know what they're saying?
Although valuable, current foreign-area-officer programs and hasty pre-deployment courses barely scratch the surface of our needs. Officers should be required to develop at least a rudimentary ability in one high-threat foreign language, and superior skill levels should be rewarded handsomely. This goes against our thinking about what an officer should be, but we are going to have to change our thinking as the world changes around us.
A battalion commander forced to rely on a local-hire translator is no longer the most powerful figure in his or her battalion. We will never penetrate our enemy's local codes unless we can enter his mindset, and language skills are the indispensable key.
The reply I got from one four-star general that "OPMS won't support language training for officers" was fodder for satire. If the Officer Personnel Management System isn't giving us what we need, then we need to change the system. And wartime is the one time when we can do it.
To their credit, the Marines are shaping an ambitious language-skills program. The Army must make a similar commitment. Languages are weapons.
Posted by Alan at April 13, 2005 12:42 AM