Interview: The Political Counter-Insurgent

Last week we highlighted a new article by a young Army officer who discovered "the key role that politics play in counter-insurgency" during his 2006 deployment to Iraq. I fired off a few questions to Major Jeremy Gwinn, who is currently pursuing a Master's at the University of North Carolina:

DR: You said in your piece that you initially had considered the political element "a mere distraction." Is this a common perception among young officers? The reason I ask is ... I figured that by now, several years into the Iraq war, politics would be widely considered a key part of the fight.

My experience in Iraq is almost two years old at this point, so my comments should be considered in that light. At that time, yes, my view of the political element as a distraction was very common among company commanders, although commanders at higher levels seemed to have a better handle on the importance of these activities. The Army has gotten a lot smarter on counter-insurgency in the interim, and I would bet that company commanders going into the fray now have a much better grip on the political aspect than I did. That said, most could still use some nuts and bolts advice to get beyond the conceptual and help on a day-to-day basis, which is why I wrote the article.

DR: Do you believe that the Army is adequately institutionalizing the lessons you learned regarding political COIN? In other words, are young officers being trained to handle these challenges?

*The publishing of FM
3-24, the new COIN manual, is a huge step in the right direction and you can see positive changes in training as well. Still, we're not at the top of the curve, and never will be as situations constantly evolve. The most important thing is to keep learning, and I think most have now embraced that fact. *

DR: You seem to have done a lot of low-level power-broking in Iraq. But did you see your "clients" -- that is, Iraqi forces and political leaders -- figuring out how to do this on their own? Without U.S.
troops to bridge the gaps between sectors of Iraqi society, is there any hope at all that they'll learn to get along?

With the security situation as degraded as it was in 2006, U.S. troops were necessary to bridge the gap because everyone (various Iraqi constituencies) were so focused on basic survival. I think in COIN, as the security situation improves, different groups are more able to set aside differences and strike deals without the help of mediators. We're probably a lot closer to that point now than two years ago.

(Photo: Army)