A letter to the Secretary of the Army from a Colonel in Afghanistan: going-over heads and coalitions

In My Humble Opinion
1

This letter was written in 2010 from Afghanistan by Colonel Harry Tunnell, the Brigade Commander of 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, to John McHugh, the Secretary of the Army. It was published on-line a few weeks ago (the link above sets up the full PDF of the letter).

I have never served. But in all my reading, including in fiction, I have never seen such an audacious leap-above command chain, with comments on so many aspects of doctrine, strategy, and tactics down to the smallest engagements.

Has anyone seen/written this kind of letter that you know? Examples in other wars (optimally US)? What could the Colonel have been expecting? Part of it, but by no means the bulk of it, is devoted to intra-coalition events, so perhaps he felt more justified to unwind. The national rivalries of the Allies in WWII are the stuff of legend; there must be examples of similar-type letters. Actually, all the subsequent US wars, peacekeepings, engagements, kinetic military actions, etc., except for, I think, Vietnam, Grenada, and Panama, have been nominally a coalition endeavor.

I also don’t know at what rank officers (or actually any soldier) decide to put their jobs on the line (which I presume is one of the bottom lines in play here). There must be some kind of sociological/psychological matrix that could be identified. There probably is, now that I think about it, by some military psychologists somewhere.

Hell, I wouldn’t have 1/millionth of the testicles to do this at work to my immediate supervisor.

It reads like a professional’s cri-de-couer. I have no idea of the particular after-effects of this letter.

Leo

I would prefer that this not go to another board, if possible.

2

An excerpt from this book does not paint the colonel in a good light about his command. Then there’s this:

3

Y’know, a quick check of the Wikipedia page would have saved you from making that mistake.

  • Shakester, who has met a few Australian Vietnam Vets over the years.
4

Couple of my South Koreans friends and also the grandfather of the lass I’m chasing after served in Vietnam, too.

5

Most of the questions in the OP require speculation, so let’s move this over to IMHO.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

6

Some may say that he’s being scapegoated and vilified for complaining about the COIN strategy and coalition partners, but between this story, and this story, one can form a more complete picture of what the real issues were.

The second link above, and other stories about the report (centered on the “Kill Team” murderers) it mentions, will give you a pretty good idea about that.

7

[QUOTE=Colonel Tunnell]
… [it is inaccurate] that a population can be a center of gravity …
[/QUOTE]

Tunnell’s letter has further mentions that a “population-centric” approach is “absurd.” I could try to guess what he means, but would prefer to hear from Doper experts.

8

He’s basically deriding the application of the whole Counter-Insurgency (COIN) strategy. A fundamental tenet of that strategy is to win (or at least, not lose) the hearts and minds of the general population by not letting your efforts against the insurgents adversely affect the innocent population. You basically want them to like you, and hate the insurgents. If you’re killing innocents or generally causing them a lot of grief, they are going to hate you, and either provide aid and comfort to your enemy, or maybe even become insurgents themselves.

Put into practice, it means that the troops have to get out on foot amongst the population with very strict rules of engagement, and not treat them all like potential threats. At least initially, it does mean that you’re putting your troops at more risk than if they kept their distance, locked up in armored vehicles, behind walls, or sniper scopes, shooting everything that remotely looks like a threat. Put very simply, they try to behave a lot more like we expect our own police to act around us.

That’s the really basic gist of it, if you wanna know more, here’s the wiki on COIN.

9

I wanted to add:
That can be a very difficult adaptation for a military that has historically been a lot more geared at being the best at killing and blowing shit up in an effort to take and hold territory. Specially when they’re in such a foreign and dangerous environment, and particularly when the enemy takes efforts to exploit those restrictive rules of engagement.

10

I’m not qualified to comment on the specific operational observations he makes re military strategy and tactics, but his comments about the realities of the Afghan culture and the very limited ability of the Afghans to be part of a modern, technologically infantry seemed to be quite accurate.

11

The example that jumped into my head was Col David Hackworth. He went to the press with his criticism of everyone above him. I read his books. He was a very good author and had some excellent ideas. I also know from first hand accounts that he was an arrogant prick. That shows in his opinions. He always felt he knew better than everyone about everything. Hackworth lost his army job due to his comments.

12

Something that is lacking IMO with the H.A.M.s idea, is that for many Third World cultures; its not only non effective, it is actually counterproductive if you do not GAIN THEIR RESPECT.

Western culture is often despised because we apologise all the time for our actions in war.

They never do because they believe their cause is right, and if they apologised or tried to make their enemy "like " them, then their cause wouldn’t be right.

You don’t apologise to a burgular for hitting him.

We are forever saying sorry for actions that in the eyes of the people we’re fighting are absaloutely appropriate .

Though for propaganda purposes they’d never say that to us.

The fact that we do means that somehow, in their eyes, we’re doing wrong; and that we know it.