British to adopt LRDG tactics on Iraq-Iran frontier

[flamingknives]

And it's so much worse than a bunch of 'overtrained' soldiers sitting in a static base getting shot at and their £1m+ vehicles damaged why, exactly?

[cassh]

C'mon. Iraqs is country that smuggles (probably) hundreds of thousands of tons of oil every year, with the complicity of plenty of government officials. Iraq is a place where the central government can't collect taxes, where the courts are corrupt, and where there is a civil war in progress.

So we do nothing do we; walk away and let the Iranians instigate a civil war and a sectarian bloodbath - is that about right - or did you have an alternative to doing nothing?

And a bunch of overtrained soldiers in Land Rovers, unable to speak Arabic, are going to seal the Iranian frontier, in that kind of situation?

Let me just follow your logic here -

1. We need less well trained soldiers

2. If they are not fluent in Arabic (glad you got the actual language right this time) then they serve no military or operation purpose in COIN operations in the border zone?

3. That the British belief is that one can actually "seal" the border; rather than make life more difficult for the insurgents and reduce the volume of weapons and support coming across the border?

Specificially, the fraud being the contention that the British government knows how to deal with the Iraq border problem, and further that it has the tools to do so, and what's more that a few hundred soldiers trained for desert raiding are a rational choice for securing hundreds of kilometers of the Iran-Iraq border.

4. That the decision to redeploy the QRH battlegroup was from / at the behest of the HM Government as some kind of PR stunt / propaganda ploy rather than an in-theatre operational decision?

Wow. That really is something you got going on there Bigduke6.

I suggest you ponder and study the following:

1. Training, doctrine and the utility of force - why better trained soldiers are more flexible.

2. The history of successful COIN campaigns - and the interrelationship of language vs. people skills, understanding local politics, history, customs and culture.

3. UK command system and decision making processes within the armed forces.

4. Logical argument - difficult when most of your premises are false.

[Bigduke6]

Sure it does. But you don't need to speak the language that well to do lots of things. I only really speak two foreign langages, and am only really good in one, but I have functioned successfully at a basic level in a couple of others.

Coincidentally, I speak two foreign languages well, one of which I think it is safe to say very well. When I stop and think about it, I've functioned in all sorts of languages in

all sorts of places. IMO that's no big deal, any one with a brain, curiousity, and a reasonable understanding of people can do that.

For the job of breaking into the human confusion that is the Iran-Iraq border, IMO, I would want enough Arabic to sit down with the chieftan and talk for hours, so he can know me and I can know him. Not through an interpeter - one of the great misconceptions among the unilingual is that solves the problem. As you well know, the more nuanced the conversation, the more useless the translator.

Without the cooperation of the people living in the border regions, the whole project is a waste of time, effort, and resources IMO. And I don't see how you can get Bedouin whose livelihood depends on smuggling, to give it up, without talking not just to the tribal leaders but the head of just about every extended clan.

Here's a test: You're a tourist in the country where you speak the language well, and then you're a tourist where you don't speak the language. All other things being equal, where are you more likely to get fair prices and proper service?

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

It's worth noting that learning to function in a foreign language is really assisted if the learner brings to the task a curiousity in a foreign culture, a flair for book-learning, a desire to talk to strangers, an open mind, and a willingness to "be different" and feel uncomfortable in a group of people: none of which characteristics are typical of the professional soldier.

Which of these characteristics you think soldiers don't have? Have you actually met any serving soldiers from the British army?

To varying degrees, all of them. The professional military is regimented and hierarchical, and as a general thing it does not condone creative thought or curiousity about social groups besides itself. This is not to say you can't get people with those characteristics into uniform, or is it to smear all militaries with a Colonel Blimp brush.

But, if you will pardon my citing personal experience, I have worked in East Europe for years, and in my job I have yet to see a professional military man from an English-speaking country - usually assigned to an embassy - learn the local language to any extent. The diplomats do a bit better, but the ones who really do well are journalists, businessmen, and of course academics. The people that hang out with the "locals", and have a need or desire to talk to them, those are the ones who learn the language.

People who study it for their job usually are too busy with their careers to actually involve themselves much with the foreign culture, and so its people and language, from what I have seen.

That's what I've seen, take or leave that impression as you choose.

The English-language tradition is, of course, our boys with their good looks and friendly grins, and their excellent organization and devotion to sports and their kindness to children, will win over the hot country foreigners despite the language barrier. We read about John Masters' fluent Gurkhali, but we forget about all the other Englishmen that spend entire careers in the subcontinent, and learned next to nothing of its languages.

John Atkins' pidgin Hindi was not enough to prevent the India Mutiny, if you will.

The British obviously did better than the Americans, but speaking foreign languages better than Americans is not exactly a barn-burner of an achievement. No matter how poor the English are at foreign languages, they are a nation of polyglots compared to the Americans.

I think you're right that trust is crucial. I also think that trust arises from people learning that you do what you say you will do, not from fluency in a language. Indeed in Anglophone culture there is a tendency not to trust people who have too much verbal facility. However, making people believe that you will do what you say is something the Army is very, very good at. The degree of language skill needed to do so is much less than you seem to imagine. I don't think the successful "Hearts & Minds" campaigns of the past have depended on the rank and file being trained to degree-standard language competence.

John, if you can't say what you will do, in a way the person you are trying to impress can internalize it, you are going to have problems.

"We...dig...well...give...you...gold... you tell us when you see terrorists, yes?" won't cut it. When your people can penetrate the organization doing the smuggling, then you can get some leverage. But primitive hail-soldier-well-met exchanges are going to be laughable. The smugglers are smart and human and a good deal more experienced than the average English-speaking soldier in the nuances of conversation.

You are not going to impress these people with some basic phrases and an obvious bribe. There are are no short cuts, you have to sit down and talk with them, using their definition of the word "talk".

English soldiers extremely skilled at desert navigation, survival in an arid environment, and noctrnal raids are worthy of respect.

Certainly, the SAS mere presence might convince a few of the bedouin to stop smuggling weapons and maybe try and live on goat herding this year, but not many.

You have to convince these people living in the border region it's worth their while to get out of the smuggling business, and since you have to be nice and can't kill them, you can either promise them a nice future or bribe them. Bribery they understand.

But bribery isn't a nice contract written up by lawyers, it's talking and negotiations and feeling out the other guy, where he sits, who does he know, to whom can he rat on about this deal and what levers do you have over him.

A spy would have a chance of doing that. A relative of the smugglers would have a chance. Heck, T.E. Lawrence (was he Oxford or Cambridge?) did just that.

But an SAS patrol, though in a physical position to talk to the bedouin, can't have that conversation. As a result, the squaddies are going to be limited to the obligatory feast for foreigners, eating the sheep's eyes, shooting weapons over the campfire, and then both will go their separate ways; the LRDP convoy convinced their are ingratiating themselves to the locals, and the bedouin pleased they have scored some loot off the English, and now we can get back to smuggling.

Hand-held translators are nice, and interpeters are nice, and basic Arabic language clases are nice, and gifts and smiles are nice. But the key to human interaction is language. Middle Eastern society is verbal in a way English-speaking societies have not been for, oh, a century or more.

So my POV, the conversation that is needed to get the smugglers to begin to to think about stopping the smuggling, is an insurmountable barrier to these desert special forces boys.

I quite agree with you the decision-makers are even more stupid about language than soldiers; unlike the soldiers, I would expect a person responsible for foreign policy to have a reasonable understanding of what command of a foreign language will and will not do. Soldiers I expect to be able to kill other people efficiently.

The bottom line here is that the task here isn't killing.

[Bigduke6]

So we do nothing do we; walk away and let the Iranians instigate a civil war and a sectarian bloodbath - is that about right - or did you have an alternative to doing nothing?

I'm not quite sure how you've morphed over to sectarian violence and quitting and so on, but all I'm talking about is what I think what and what will not work if the task is reducing smuggling on the Iran-Iraq border.

About that task, I thought I was clear. My suggestion is money, spies, and police. Military forces are, IMO, a waste.

Now, if you you are of an opinion that the spies and the police in question - the Iraqis - just might take the bribe money and keep right on cooperating with the smugglers, then say so.

Of course, I might then ask you about the wisdom of supporting a government incapable of getting enough honest officials on its border to stop a simple crime like smuggling, sinking ship and all that, but that a whole 'nother thread.

And a bunch of overtrained soldiers in Land Rovers, unable to speak Arabic, are going to seal the Iranian frontier, in that kind of situation?

Let me just follow your logic here -

1. We need less well trained soldiers

2. If they are not fluent in Arabic (glad you got the actual language right this time) then they serve no military or operation purpose in COIN operations in the border zone?

3. That the British belief is that one can actually "seal" the border; rather than make life more difficult for the insurgents and reduce the volume of weapons and support coming across the border?

[flamingknives]

Bigduke6, I question the position that soldiers cannot stop smuggling/insurgency.

In Malaya, Kenya, Indonesia, Oman and Borneo soldiers have proved successful in stopping and preventing terrorism, insurgency and smuggling. In some cases stated these have been special forces, but sometimes they've been regulars or even National Service draftees.

Furthermore, I belive you to be mistaken in your premise that removing soldiers (targets, in your words) from Iraq would lead to a decrease in attacks. These weapons and explosives would surely be aimed at the police, who would be utterly ill-equipped to handle it as they don't, and IMHO shouldn't, have the kind of heavy equipment and armour that a military force does or the mobility to compensate (they operate from fixed positions).

The police would be targetted as they represent the government who have been doing better at lining their and western pockets than improving the lot of the average Iraqi. Much of the insurgency stems from local leaders trying to improve their power-share at the expense of the government. With the soldiers providing the strength behind the central government gone, the police would either switch sides or be annihilated.

IMHO, of course.

[cassh]

So I would say your use of the acronymn COIN in a discussion about dealing with smuggling on the Iran-Iraq border is pretty narrow thinking on your part.

No, I’d say it is because you don’t have a clue. Your naivety is gob smacking; and for someone who espouses intellectualism and derides the military for their inability to think you repeatedly demonstrate that very facet yourself.

What makes you think the British redeployment is about just smuggling? If a bunch of Iranian and Iraqis want to get together and move CDs or Levi Jeans or any civil commodity across the border the British Army are not going to be too concerned about it. It’s a police and customs matter.

However, when its weapons, explosive and the machinery to support an INSURGENCY then operations put in place to reduce this activity are called... wait for it... counter-insurgency (COIN).

You may think the really important thing in Iraq is the insurgency, but for the smugglers it's just business like always, getting stuff across the border without the government seeing, for a profit

Okay - look at the first clause of the sentence where you indicate that the insurgency is not important.

Now look at the second part where you say smuggling is business as usual.

So if that is the case - and smuggling in its wider sense to include all smuggling is the focus of the British border deployment, why did they not do it in 2003? You've said it yourself - smuggling in this area is omnipresent "business as always". Yet they waited all this time and suddenly though - hang-on, lets police the border and stop CD and Levi smugglers.

This is to do with the Mahdi's militia getting support from Iran. This increases sectarian violence, weakens security and destabilises the region. It means more civilians, Iraqi policemen and security force and MNF personnel are at risk. Therefore the commanders in the British sector are attempting to counter this insurgent threat with a range of measure - amongst which is deploying the QRH battlegroup into the border area to patrol.

You want to lower illicit weapons transfers into Iraq, reduce the number of targets available to the Iraqi insurgents for attack.

That's your glib way of saying the British should pull out and let the Iraqis sort their own security nightmare is it? Bit of a problem if the violence is sectarian as the targets are civilians - ethnic cleansing is not nice and civil war would be beyond tragic. Your throwaway suggestion would have blood on its hands. I think this outlook indicates a smugness that is both callous and crass. It's easy to mock when you don't have people's lives in your hand.

Your whole linguistics argument is tripe as countless successful counter-insurgency campaigns have proven you don't need to have perfect language skills to make a human connection and build trust and cooperation.

Your argument about smuggling being an omnipresent background activity that cannot be affected also stands in the face of contrary evidence from successful counter-insurgency campaigns where this sort of activity has been controlled.

On COIN, hey, that's classic a square peg round hole thinking. The smuggling predated the insurgency. It's just that now that there is an insurgency in Iraq, that smugglers are supplying weapons and explosive and so on the insurgency needs, although frankly the insurgency pretty much has all it needs right at home. Well, maybe cash currency, that's probably being smuggled in.

Quote me one reliable source that indicates that the insurgents have all the weapons they need? Have you inspected any insurgent weapon stashes recently? Had a chat with the Mahdi's QM recently have you? Know what the insurgents are planning in the next six months and verified they've got the kit to do it? What a crock of inventive ****e. Make up all the facts, figures and reality you like - it doesn't wash though mate. Your flippant remarks and statements merely underscore your BS.

You can imagine the world to be any way you like and pass of your flights of fancy as fact; but in reality most of what you've said in this thread is weak supposition base on bull**** facts and a lack of any real knowledge of the subject.

Thank God the members of the board are better read than most, as in the public domain your bollocks could gain currency - at least here there's enough people who know what's what to smell ****e when they read it.

I am sorry, I usually try and be quite civil where possible, but I find I cannot be with you Bigduke6.

I shall refrain from any further responses as I think discussing issues where you make such bones arguements is futile.

[Bigduke6]

Flaming Knives,

I'm not saying remove all soldiers from Iraq. That's a different issue. I'm talking about securing the Iran-Iraq border.

I'm saying soldiers are a poor solution for that problem, and that placing an overtrained unit like the SAS in Land Rovers to try and solve the problem nonetheless is a waste of resources doomed pretty much from the outset.

In separate messages I have been arguing that a very big reason why I believe that effort to be doomed is that the key to stopping the smuggling is convincing the smugglers it's a bad idea to do that, and without an excellent understanding of Arabic no convincing will take place. Just guys driving around in the desert thinking they're ueber.

Actually they are, of course. But IMO ueber-British Special Forces are wasteful choice for border security.

You make a reasonable point with Malaya, Borneo, etc., but unfortunately for every example like that there are several more like Vietnam, Cuba, etc. Insurgencies are very difficult to stamp out, and in countries where the insurgents can take on the mantle of the national resistance to the foreigner, it's almost impossible without killing the population, or at mimimum herding it into camps.

The goal is getting to the smugglers and convincing most of them to stop smuggling, and killing or jailing the worst ones. My contention is this British unit is a stupid choice for that goal.

Essentially, I do not see how the LRDF can "provide the strength" to support the local police, which as you rightly say is what needs to happen. Several divisions of British infantry, backed up by two or three regiments of helicopters, and a physical takeover by the British government, of most border functions currently performed by the Iraqi government - that might well do the job.

A weak battalion of desert raiding specialists cannot, and pretending that they can is silly.

Cassh,

No need to worry about being impolite, this is an Internet conversation after all. It's not like our comments here cause physical damage. You can be as impolite as you want, but just the same I will keep on trying to be polite.

You seem to be of the opinion the US and British government have a (I love this expression) "range of measures" aimed at meaningfully reducing the insurgency, of which sending a bunch of SAS in Land Rovers to the Iran-Iraq frontier is a useful part.

Please enlighten me. What are some of the other measures? One request: Please make sure that it all adds up to a reasonable chance of success.

Because if it doesn't, then it is half measures, and logically the most expensive ones with the least useful effect should be cancelled. It is my contention this desert patrol force falls decisively into that category.

But if you can explain otherwise, I am all ears, and what's more I am sure the White House and Whitehall would be as well.

Further, you assert:

Your whole linguistics argument is tripe as countless successful counter-insurgency campaigns have proven you don't need to have perfect language skills to make a human connection and build trust and cooperation.

That's intriguing. "Countless" is alot. I can think of plenty of historical instances where unrestricted violence crushed an insurgency, and I quite admit the crushers needed little language skills to do in the crushees.

But absent the ability to kill anything that you find, lock up the population in concentration camps, and I am having trouble recalling a lot of historical cases where an army crushed an insurgency without being able to talk to the populace.

So maybe, out of those "countless" insurgencies you are talking about, you can name me, oh, five.

It's gratifying you consider the readers of this forum too smart to fall for my tripe. I too think that as a group, they're an awfully well-read bunch of people.

With a few exceptions, of course.

[flamingknives]

originally posted by Bigduke6:

I'm not saying remove all soldiers from Iraq. That's a different issue. I'm talking about securing the Iran-Iraq border.

OK, but could you clarify what you meant by this:

You want to lower illicit weapons transfers into Iraq, reduce the number of targets available to the Iraqi insurgents for attack.

?

I'm saying soldiers are a poor solution for that problem, and that placing an overtrained unit like the SAS in Land Rovers to try and solve the problem nonetheless is a waste of resources doomed pretty much from the outset.

In separate messages I have been arguing that a very big reason why I believe that effort to be doomed is that the key to stopping the smuggling is convincing the smugglers it's a bad idea to do that, and without an excellent understanding of Arabic no convincing will take place. Just guys driving around in the desert thinking they're ueber.

You're conviced that it cannot possibly work, despite my five examples (there were two campaigns in Oman) of successful COIN/anti-smuggling campaigns conducted by British soldiers?

Also, why keep mentioning the SAS? It's a bunch of regular soldiers

But absent the ability to kill anything that you find, lock up the population in concentration camps, and I am having trouble recalling a lot of historical cases where an army crushed an insurgency without being able to talk to the populace.

Now that's a bit of a strawman. You've been claiming, AIUI, that you need fluency in the language to conduct COIN ops, cassh has been claiming that such proficiency is not needed. It is still possible to communicate without having five years training. One may miss some of the nuances, but there are historical examples where COIN ops have been successful without a total understanding of the local language. Perhaps not countless examples, but quite a few.

You make a reasonable point with Malaya, Borneo, etc., but unfortunately for every example like that there are several more like Vietnam, Cuba, etc. Insurgencies are very difficult to stamp out, and in countries where the insurgents can take on the mantle of the national resistance to the foreigner, it's almost impossible without killing the population, or at mimimum herding it into camps.

Right. Now look at the failures and successes and look at how they were carried out and by whom.

The mobile force cannot act in isolation, but it's less of a target than a fixed base with patrols moving along predictable routes and less likely to antagonise the locals by having firefights in their streets.