James Mattis and his Strategic Approach to COIN

Yesterday, I watched an interview (found here) with retired U.S. Marine General and Secretary of Defense candidate James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis. Mattis is an incredibly knowledgeable veteran who reached the rank of 4 star general (the 5 star rank was retired in the early 80s) and has had a celebrated career in both the armed forces and in policy analysis at the Hoover Institute. In his time in the Marines, he was known as a champion for a better American approach to COIN (counterinsurgency) and an executor of innovative responses to irregular warfare by focusing on thorough analysis of one’s enemies. Mattis’ candidacy for the Secretary of Defense is a really exciting idea, and I sorely hope that Trump has the common sense to see that.

But back to the interview. At one point, Mattis responded to a question, stating, “Technology throws a few odd wrinkles in, but the bottom line is: the fundamental impulses, the fundamental challenges, and the solutions are pretty timeless in my line of work.” He elaborated...

 “For all the intellectuals running around today saying that the nature of war has fundamentally changed, I must respectfully say, ‘not really.’ Alexander the Great would not be in the least perplexed by the enemy that we face right now.” 

Common sense would seem to tell us that the “nature” of war has, in fact, changed quite a bit. As evidence, many people would likely refer to the sheer barbarism represented by the tactics that terrorists, insurgents, and other violent non-state groups now use to counter the asymmetric advantages of nation states. The “intellectuals” that Mattis references here are those who would claim that we have entered an entirely new (the 4^th) generation of warfare- war that further blurs the line between combatant and civilian, melds warfare and politics, and includes the violent participation of non-state armed groups. To many, this shift represents a shift in the essence of warfare- not only how it is fought.

Mattis’ view, on the other hand, represents a traditional, Clausewitzian perspective on the nature of war: Clausewitz himself espoused that warfare has an inherent nature that does not change, despite the circumstances. The context of war (as in the unique tactics, strategies, technologies, and populations with which it is fought) merely changes the degree to which the war matches or evokes that inherent nature. Clausewitz develops this idea ad nauseum in On War.

There are certainly elements of Clausewitzian analysis that I agree with, and this happens to be one of them. The nature of warfare (whatever it may be) has not changed, despite human development. It is contingent on human nature, and it will not change until something drastic changes with regards to the nature of human beings or another combatant enters the fray.

But, Mattis also continues his thought to discuss the consistent challenges of warfare: Alexander “…was concerned with was how to understand this enemy… It was still a culture that looked at the world differently that his. So he sought to understand it, and as he understood it, he understood how he would go after it.”

Here, as some may expect, Mattis incorporates ancient military wisdom, most notably communicated in the over-quoted Sun Tzu. His famous poem, The Art of War, discusses (at several points) the importance of knowing and understanding one’s enemy in order to predict his actions- only then can you truly defeat him.

Although this idea was largely overshadowed by Clausewitzian theory in the past 40 years, it has (in the last few decades) seen a resurgence in the military and intelligence community’s operating doctrine. During his time in the Iraq war (specifically in the Anbar region), Mattis was a pioneer in this field- he developed pragmatic and practical approaches to implementing Sun Tzu’s ideas, based on analysis of the social, cultural, and ethnic identities of Iraqi insurgents and civilians alike. The methods of the marines under his command led to one of the more successful counterinsurgency operations in the last 20 years.

I hope to be talking much more about the ideas above and how they can be implemented with regards to America's enemies today. These ideas (and the Marines’ approaches in Iraq) are fundamental to the research I hope to do in the coming years, and ultimately to the work that I wish to do down the line. It’s an exciting topic, because so few authorities outside of the intelligence and military communities are currently addressing the nuanced social structures, political identities, and cultural features of America’s enemies in order to understand their military capabilities. So there’s plenty to talk about and plenty to grow! Stay tuned if you’re interested…