Many years after President George W. Bush declared that U.S. achieved its military goals in Iraq, the U.S. military stationed in Iraq still faces one of the worst forms of insurgency. The situation is not any better in Afghanistan where U.S. forces have been maintaining law and order for more than a decade. The unconventional and irregular warfare fought in both countries presented significant challenges that promoted war planners to rethink their strategy. Historical lessons learned from the French-Algerian War (1954-1962) as well as the American experience in Vietnam proved to be useful in developing a plan for adapting and succeeding in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the case of French-Algerian War, the main objective of the insurgents was to establish an autonomous state governed by the principles of Islam. This came after French colonial rule of 124 years. The majority of the Muslim population remained repressed while the French minority maintained a stronghold of political power and economic opportunities (Benbow and Thornton 95). To the Muslim population, the acceptance of French citizenship was tacit approval of secularism and outright rejection of Sharia, something that amounted to apostasy. This led to an uprising expressed through armed resistance.
Although the French won the military war, they lost the political war. This is because the French used torture and indiscriminate killing to achieve their objectives. The use of such means led to greater resistance and escalation of violence. In addition, the public was not sure that this was the best way to go about the matter.
One of the most important insights learned from this war is that the locals should be given a certain level of autonomy. As a result, the U.S. supports the local communities playing a bigger role in governance, in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Although initially, U.S failed to plan for insurgency, it is apparent that the failure to plan for post-invasion stability had negative implications on the success of the war. This gave the insurgents the leeway to organize, plan and attack U.S. forces.
Other useful lessons in planning a successful counterinsurgency doctrine can be learned from the Vietnam War. Despite the lack of a clear military objective, U.S. continued to pour resources into Vietnam (Davis 430). In addition, the prolonged war wore out the psyche of citizens with more bodies of U.S. soldiers flown home frequently. The lesson learned here is that there must be a clear objective to avoid engaging in a prolonged war that does not achieve strategic objectives.
As the U.S. forces continued to carry out air raids, the North Vietnamese Army sustained sporadic guerrilla attacks without engaging their enemy in a direct confrontation. The lack of a good coordinated intelligence capable of stopping the guerrilla attacks was also lacking. For example, the U.S. forces were caught unawares during the Tet Offensive carried out in more than 100,000 towns, in Vietnam (Davis 430). The lesson learned here is that a good intelligence network is a key to success. During the early days in Iraq, the U.S. forces lacked good intelligence sources, which resulted into unforeseen attacks.
In conclusion, the experiences learned from the French-Algerian war as well as the experiences in Vietnam provide insights into developing a successful counterinsurgency strategy. Some of the key things learned from both wars is that having a clear military objective, having good intelligence sources and giving people the autonomy to run their affairs will be a key pointer to success.
Works Cited
Benbow, Tim and Rod Thornton. Dimensions of Counter-insurgency: Applying Experience to
Practice . New York, NY : Routledge , 2013. Print.
Davis, Paul K. 100 Decisive Battles: From Ancient Times to the Present. Oxford : Oxford
