Embracing the Fog of War: Assessment and Metrics in Counterinsurgency
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Embracing the Fog of War ASSESSMENT AND METRICS IN COUNTERINSURGENCY BEN CONNABLE Prepared for the U.S. Department of Defense Approved for public release; distribution unlimited NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE The research described in this report was prepared for the U.S. Department of Defense. The research was conducted within the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by OSD, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community under Contract W74V8H-06-C-0002. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Connable, Ben. Embracing the fog of war : assessment and metrics in counterinsurgency / Ben Connable. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8330-5815-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Counterinsurgency—United States—Evaluation. 2. Counterinsurgency— Afghanistan—Evaluation. 3. Counterinsurgency—Vietnam—Evaluation. I. Title. U241C63 2012 355.02'180973—dc23 2012001598 The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R® is a registered trademark. Cover design by Carol Earnest © Copyright 2012 RAND Corporation Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes. Unauthorized posting of RAND documents to a non-RAND website is prohibited. RAND documents are protected under copyright law. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit the RAND permissions page (http://www.rand.org/ publications/permissions.html). Published 2012 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2665 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: [email protected] Preface In late 2009, RAND undertook an examination of military and nonmilitary assess- ment processes to help improve military methods for assessing counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. The original purpose of this research was to assist a military oper- ational staff in shaping campaign design, in shifting priorities of effort during ongoing operations, and, ultimately, in meeting operational and strategic objectives in southern Afghanistan. The original intended audience for this resulting monograph was a single staff in Afghanistan. However, the study was expanded to include an examination of COIN assessment across the U.S. military. The findings of this broadened research effort will be of interest to military commanders and staffs who produce and use assess- ments, policymakers who rely on assessments to make decisions, and the U.S. public, the ultimate decisionmakers in any long-term U.S.-led COIN campaign. An assessment is a report or series of reports intended to inform operational and strategic decisionmaking. Military staffs build campaign assessments, and military commanders use them to make operational decisions in the field. These command- ers add their comments to the assessments and then pass them along to policymakers. Assessments can be presented in a variety of forms, including narrative papers, quan- titative graphs, maps, and briefing slides. Senior military leaders and policy staffs use these materials to assess the progress of military campaigns, determine how to allocate (or reallocate) resources, identify trends that may indicate success or failure, or ascer- tain whether and when it may be necessary to alter a given strategy. In support of this process, this monograph captures the complexity of the COIN operational environment, examines case studies of COIN assessment in context, explores critical weaknesses in the current assessment process, offers recommendations for improvement, and presents an alternative assessment process. The manuscript for this publication was completed in mid-2011. Since that time, various elements in the U.S. Department of Defense have published new doctrine on assessment, some of which addresses criticisms raised here. Perhaps more importantly, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has completely revamped its assessment process, adopting many of the recommendations suggested in this mono- graph and in other subject-matter expert reports on COIN assessment. iii iv Embracing the Fog of War: Assessment and Metrics in Counterinsurgency This research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and conducted within the Intelligence Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Insti- tute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the military services, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community. For more information on the RAND Intelligence Policy Center, see http://www. rand.org/nsrd/ndri/centers/intel.html or contact the director (contact information is provided on the web page). Contents Preface ................................................................................................. iii Figures ................................................................................................. ix Tables and Text Boxes ............................................................................... xi Summary .............................................................................................xiii Acknowledgments ................................................................................xxvii Abbreviations .......................................................................................xxix CHAPTER ONE Introduction ........................................................................................... 1 Background ............................................................................................. 2 Differences Between Campaign Assessment and Intelligence Analysis ....................... 2 The Role and Purpose of Military Campaign Assessment ...................................... 4 Dissatisfaction with Counterinsurgency Campaign Assessment ............................... 6 Literature Review ...................................................................................... 8 Research Methodology ...............................................................................12 Issues Not Addressed .................................................................................16 Organization of This Monograph ...................................................................17 CHAPTER TWO Concepts That Shape Counterinsurgency Assessment ........................................19 Policy Requirements and Counterinsurgency Assessment .......................................19 Wicked Problems and Counterinsurgency ........................................................ 27 Complex Adaptive Systems, Nonlinearity, and Chaos .......................................... 30 Military Doctrine and the COIN Environment ..................................................33 Chapter Summary ................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER THREE Centralized Assessment Theory and Pattern and Trend Analysis ..........................37 Centralized Quantitative Assessment .............................................................. 38 Differences Between Scientific Research and Campaign Assessment ...........................41 Applying Scientific Rigor to Assessment .......................................................... 44 v vi Embracing the Fog of War: