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Fall 12-2011 Following the Principles: Case Studies in Operations Other than War, 1945-1999 Kevin Joseph Dougherty University of Southern Mississippi
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The University of Southern Mississippi
FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES:
CASE STUDIES IN OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR, 1945-1999
by
Kevin Joseph Dougherty
Abstract of a Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
December 2011
ABSTRACT
FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES:
CASE STUDIES IN OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR, 1945-1999
by Kevin Joseph Dougherty
December 2011
In the post-World War II-era, operations other than war (OOTW) were the types of conflict most commonly faced by the United States. This term for what had previously been called by such names as small wars and low intensity conflict was incorporated in the Army’s capstone manual, Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, in 1993. Field
Manual 100-5 also listed objective, unity of effort, legitimacy, perseverance, restraint, and security as the six principles of OOTW. An analysis of eight OOTWs that occurred between 1945 and 1999 indicates that the balanced application of these principles is a reliable predicator of the operation’s outcome and that there is a relationship among several of the principles themselves. These findings suggest the principles of OOTW are a useful planning tool for military commanders and staffs.
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COPYRIGHT BY
KEVIN JOSEPH DOUGHERTY
2011
The University of Southern Mississippi
FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES:
CASE STUDIES IN OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR, 1945-1999
by
Kevin Joseph Dougherty
A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of The University of Southern Mississippi in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Approved:
______Director
______
______
______
______Dean of the Graduate School
December 2011
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The writer would like to thank the dissertation chair, Dr. J. J. St. Marie, and the other committee members, Dr. David Butler, Dr. Tom Lansford, and Dr. Robert Pauly, for their advice and support throughout the duration of this project. I would also like to thank Program Coordinator Elizabeth Hughes for her administrative support. This dissertation is lovingly dedicated to my wife Rhonda who, like all good Army Wives, has fought and won many operations other than war of her own.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ...... ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iii
LIST OF TABLES ...... vii
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
Literature Review Methodology The Principles of OOTW OOTWs Used in This Case Study
II. THE GREEK CIVIL WAR: A PRETTY GOOD BALANCE ……….…40
Background Analysis of the Principles Conclusion
III. LEBANON: FOLLOWING THE PRINCIPLES, BUT BY CHANCE OR DESIGN? ………………………………….……….……66
Background Analysis of the Principles Conclusion
IV. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: SECURITY ALLOWS RESTRAINT ….…94
Background Analysis of the Principles Conclusion
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V. VIETNAM PACIFICATION: THE PRIMACY OF OBJECTIVE….....122
Background Analysis of the Principles Conclusion
VI. NICARAGUA AND HONDURAS: RESTRAINT ENABLES PERSEVERANCE ……………………………………………….……..157
Background Analysis of the Principles Conclusion
VII. BEIRUT: UNITY OF EFFORT BETWEEN DIPLOMACY AND FORCE……………………………………………………..……….…..192
Background Analysis of the Principles Conclusion
VIII. SOMALIA: WEAK OBJECTIVE LEADS TO WEAK PERSEVERANCE…………………………..……………………….….231
Background Analysis of the Principles Conclusion
IX. HAITI: RESTRAINT NEEDS EITHER SECURITY OR LEGITIMACY………………………………………………………….270
Background Analysis of the Principles Conclusion
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X. CONCLUSION: THE USEFULNESS OF THE PRINCIPLES...... ….296
Successful OOTWs Failed OOTWs Crisp Set Preliminary Model Subset/superset Analysis Analysis of Necessary Conditions Fuzzy Sets Conclusions Recommendations
APPENDIX ...... 315
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 317
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LIST OF TABLES
Table
1. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during (name of case study)...... 17
2. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during US Intervention in Greek Civil War.. 64
3. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during US Intervention in Lebanon ...... 93
4. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during US Intervention in the Dominican Republic. ………………………………………………………………………..121
5. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during US Pacification Effort in Vietnam...156
6. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during US Intervention in Nicaragua and Honduras...... …………………………….….191
7. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during US Intervention in Beirut.…………230
8. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during US Intervention in Somalia ...... 269
9. Adherence to Principles of OOTW during US Intervention in Haiti...... 295
10. Summary of Adherence to Principles of OOTW during Successful OOTWs….296
11. Summary of Adherence to Principles of OOTW during Failed OOTWs……....298
12. Crisp Set of Adherence to Principles of OOTW in Selected Cases 1945-1999.. 300
13. Subset/superset Analysis of Adherence to Principles of OOTW in Cases 1945-1999 ……………………………………………………………………....304
14. Analysis of Necessary Conditions Concerning Adherence to Principles of OOTW in Selected Successful Cases 1945-1999 ...... 305
15. Analysis of Necessary Conditions Concerning Adherence to Principles of OOTW in Selected Failed Cases 1945-1999 ...... 307
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16. Calibrated Values for Principles of OOTW . …………………………………...308
17. Fuzzy Set (Calibrated Values) Analysis of Necessary Conditions Concerning Adherence to Principles of OOTW in Selected Failed Cases 1945-1999.. . …...309
18. Fuzzy Set (Calibrated Values) Analysis of Necessary Conditions for Principle of Perseverance in Selected Failed Cases 1945-1999 ..………………310
19. Fuzzy Set (Calibrated Values) Analysis of Necessary Conditions Concerning Adherence to Principles of OOTW in Selected Successful Cases 1945- 1999…………………..………………………………………………………....311
20. Comparison of Hierarchy of Principles among Model, Superset/subset Analysis, Crisp set, and Fuzzy set ...... 312
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
After World War II, United States military forces increasingly found themselves involved in operations that have been described variously as small wars, low intensity conflicts, operations other than war, support and stability operations, and many other titles. This study will call such actions operations other than war (OOTW), using the name that was common for much of the 1990s when an explosion of doctrinal material on the subject was published. Among this material was the army’s capstone manual, FM
100-5, Operations, which appeared in 1993 and listed six principles of OOTW: objective, unity of effort, legitimacy, perseverance, restraint, and security.
FM 100-5 asserts that “while these [principles] are not immutable, they serve as guides for action.”1 The manual also states that “commanders must balance these principles against the specific requirements of their mission and the nature of the operation.”2 These statements suggest that there is a relationship between the balanced application of the principles of OOTWs and the outcome of the operation, as well as a relationship among the principles themselves. This idea is grounded in the
Enlightenment philosophy that emphasized rational objective analysis and the search for clarity in all fields. A series of military theorists, perhaps most notably Baron Antoine-
Henri de Jomini, sought to uncover the natural scientific laws relating to the conduct of war, confident that the military art “like all others is founded on certain and fixed principles.”3 After twenty years of study, Jomini was convinced that “there exists a small number of fundamental principles of war, which could not be deviated from without danger, and the application of which, on the contrary, has been in almost all time
2 crowned with success.”4 It was pursuant to this theory that FM 100-5 presented its principles of OOTW.
The research question associated with this dissertation is “In the era between 1945 and 1999, is the balanced application of the principles of OOTW a reliable predictor of an operation’s success or failure?” The alternate hypothesis is that FM 100-5 is correct, and a balanced application of the principles of OOTW will result in a successful operation.
The null hypothesis is that there is not a causal relationship between an operation’s success and the balanced application of the principles of OOTW. The research objective of the dissertation is to conduct a disciplined configurative case study of eight OOTWs
(four that were successful and four that were failures) and then use the congruence method to test the hypothesis that a balanced adherence to the principles of OOTW contributes to a successful outcome.
This study is important to the military because, when the army rewrote FM 100-5 as FM 3-0 in 2001, it eliminated any specific principles of OOTW. Instead, the manual stated that “the nine [traditional] principles of war provide general guidance for conducting war and military operations other than war at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels.”5 If the dissertation confirms the validity of the theory generated by FM
100-5 that there is a causal relationship between the balanced application of a specific set of principles tailored to OOTW and the operation’s outcome, the army should reconsider its doctrinal move away from the principles of OOTW reflected in FM 3-0.
This study is important to the international development community because of the strong consensus that security is a prerequisite for other development.6 If security can be facilitated by adherence to the principles of OOTW, then the development process can
3 be accelerated. Additionally, one of the OOTW activities is nation assistance, and even
OOTWs with other specific purposes often engage to some degree in this developmental endeavor.
Literature Review
United States military doctrine concerning OOTW in the last half of the twentieth century was sporadic. In 1940, the Marine Corps, building on its vast experience in the
Caribbean and elsewhere, published its classic Small Wars Manual, which addressed
“operations undertaken under executive authority, wherein military force is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or external affairs of another state whose government is unstable, inadequate, or unsatisfactory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are determined by the foreign policy of our Nation.”7 While the authors declared small wars to be “the normal and frequent operations of the Marine Corps,”
World War II suggested to many others, particularly in the army, that the future would be based on big wars rather than small.8
Thus, with the end of World War II and the onset of the Cold War, the army set out to build a force structure and organizational culture that was European-based and conventionally oriented. It was not until 1962 that the army began discussing a spectrum of war, in FM 100-5, Operations. This spectrum progressed from Cold War through limited war to general war. Such a structure made sense, given the work done by
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor to support President
Dwight Eisenhower’s move away from the strategy of massive retaliation to one of flexible response. The 1962 FM 100-5 discussed unconventional warfare, military
4 operations against irregulars, and situations short of war. In all these situations, FM 100-
5 astutely stressed that “political considerations are overriding.”9
Nonetheless, by the time the US became seriously involved in Vietnam, there was a dearth of published doctrine available to provide direction in other than conventional scenarios. Max Boot laments, “the Small Wars Manual and its lessons had been all but forgotten.”10 The army rushed to fill the void with a host of specialized manuals such as
FM 100-20, Counterinsurgency in 1964, which envisioned the employment of large formations of US troops with some reliance on indigenous forces. In 1967, the manual was retitled Internal Defense and Development (IDAD) and updated to include lessons from the Vietnam experience. These included the increasing role of civilian agencies and the host nation in a revolutionary or insurgent situation and a lessening of the US military’s role.11
A plethora of manuals and other literature was published during the Vietnam War, including the 1967 FM 31-33, Stability Operations, US Army Doctrine. These stability operations were defined as the “full range of internal defense and development operations and assistance which we can employ to maintain, restore, or establish a climate of order within which the Government under law can function effectively…” The 1968 edition of
FM 100-5 included a new chapter on stability operations, as well as a discussion of
“nationbuilding” in which US forces would “assist in the planning and execution of military civic action and other aspects of internal development programs.” The objective of nationbuilding was to assist in the prevention or suppression of insurgency by facilitating the modernization process.12 Also in 1968, the Handbook for Military
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Support of Pacification was published “in view of the recent dynamic changes in the government of Vietnam and its pacification program.”13
As the realities of Vietnam set in and the Nixon Doctrine of 1969 marked a reluctance to commit ground forces to revolutionary conflicts, the 1972 edition of FM 31-
23 and the 1974 edition of FM 100-20 amplified the host nation’s responsibility for the conduct of the war and delineated the army’s role as providing logistics, training, and advice, along with a combat function limited to the protection of American forces and activities.14 The frustrating experience in Vietnam also prompted a new doctrinal term to describe the counterinsurgency, IDAD, and stability operations associated with Vietnam:
“low intensity conflict” or LIC.15 A subtle distancing of the main army population from
LIC also occurred as the latter's doctrinal proponency was placed under the purview of the Sp