This morning’s Gorilla’s Guides points up a thematic of irregular warfare espoused by Lt Col T E Lawrence, of the General Staff, Egyptian Expeditionary Force. Yes, that Lt Colonel Lawrence. Some of the picked out passage is quite apt to our shaky occupation of Iraq, and perhaps we should look to see if the dynamics of war in the desert of 1916-1918 are still viable today. (This will be a brief look because one could write a book about the topic. I see no reason to give it all to you for free when I might be able to score some beer money.) OK, I’m kidding about the beer money.

The piece was first published in Army Journal and Defence Quarterly, October, 1920 and is available on microfilm, I believe.

As I recall, most of Colonel Lawrence’s writings were not well received within the ranks of Britain’s small professional Army in great part because of institutional prejudice against a temporary officer who had “gone native” and served with irregular forces rather than with one of his country’s regiments. His very well known “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” was quite well-received throughout the world, but not in Britain. (cf: Matthew, 13:57, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country.)

It seemed that rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as we had in the Red Sea Parts, the desert, or in the minds of the men we converted to our creed. It must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfil the doctrine of acreage: too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts.1 It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy.2 Rebellions can be made by 2 per cent. active in a striking force, and 98 per cent. passively sympathetic.3 The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply. 4 They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyse the enemy’s organized communications,5 for irregular war is fairly Willisen’s definition of strategy, “the study of communication” 6 in its extreme degree, of attack where the enemy is not. In fifty words: Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain.[emph added]

1. Aware readers will recognize that some of Lawrence’s requirements exist in Iraq. The resistance has enjoyed freedom not only from attack but from fear of it only because the occupying US troops were unable to exert their technological superiority of intelligence-gathering and observation until, within the last year UAVs had been brought to bear monitoring group movements. Direct intelligence gathering has suffered due to a lack of qualified translators. This is due in part to a failure within the Armed Forces to perceive that the Russians would in fact not be coming through the Fulda Gap, and future strategic threats might evolve in other theaters, and to prepare accordingly. Additionally the failure to supply sufficient ground forces to carry out the occupation is directly attributable to the ideological insistence of the civilian leadership that the invasion and conquest of Iraq would be a “cakewalk” and their eagerness to seek advice from “yes-men.”

2. Until the application of UAVs the occupation was severely limited in obtaining real-time information regarding movements of resistance bands. Direct intelligence gathered from the populace was often prompted by motives of clan and sectarian revenge.

3. It has been estimated that the actual “resistance” never comprised more than about 45,000-60,000 fighters gathered from all sources, including disgruntled ex-Iraq Army officers and senior NCOs, Sunni tribesmen, principally from Anbar province, and some Shiite dissidents from the Badr Corps and Mahdi Army, both of which held some degree of loyalty to Iran, the principal wellspring of the Shia sect of Islam. There were also a small number of non-Iraqi fighters drawn to Iraq in opposition to the presence of US troops on “Arab soil.” It has been variously estimated that these fighters were about 65-75% Saudi. As you can see these forces total less than the 2% figure presented by Lawrence, (Iraq’s population being estimated at 25 million) yet were able to hold the occupation for almost four years and inflict grievous losses.

4. The rebels, having grown from youth in the hardpan of Iraq, with its brutal Summer temperatures, were well-adapted to urban combat in the country. US troops were at a considerable disadvantage because of environmental conditions and the necessity to weigh themselves down with a great deal of equipment, which slowed them down and forced them to slower movement on the ground. The resistance fighters were adapted to operating in small, semi-independent bands of 4-8, considered an optimum size for guerrilla warfare. Such small groups can more easily go to ground, disappearing among the populace, more readily than larger bands.

(This is a core point of guerrilla warfare: strike with overwhelming force where the enemy is weak, create casualties, and melt back into the populace.)

5. It’s important to understand that Lawrence uses “communications” here in the sense of unit communication on the ground, i.e. logistical (supply) and tactical support of nearby fraternal units, and not voice and date communications as enabled by the use of radio and data link. This reference to Willisen’s (Lt Gen Karl Wilhelm von Willisen) dictum about communications describes the need in early 19th century warfare to maneuver ground units – infantry battalions and artillery batteries – in close contact in order to maintain cohesion and deliver a killing blow at the schwerpunkt of the battle., where the enemy was weakest, and most vulnerable to a strong penetration of his defenses. When you lose contact with a neighboring unit and find enemy troops moving into the breach, a commander’s instinctive reaction is to withdraw.

6. Lawrence exploited this weakness well, moving rapidly into the Turkish Army’s rear areas, spreading destruction and panic. Nothing like this has occurred in Iraq, but the resistance has maintained a strategy of slow abrasion. The death of 10,000 cuts, wearing down soldiers weary from long days of patrolling and defensive watch at their bases. The overstretching of combat forces and the slow but steady attacks against the supply convoys that the occupation depended upon has been classic communication strategy as practiced by Lawrence. The prodigious use of military-quality explosives left unguarded during the invasion afforded the resistance access to generous supplies of the means to bleed the occupation.

Utilizing its technological superiority in intelligence gathering, a temporary combat superiority through massive infusion of troops, and utilizing the Israeli method of walling off districts into sectarian enclaves, the Occupation forces have managed to create a lessened level of violence in Baghdad. It has long been a military rule that control of a country’s capital is a primary strategic, tactical, and propaganda goal. Through these means the “surge” has apparently tamped down the violence in Baghdad, lending a veneer of control to the central government.

The occupation has adapted one of Lawrence’s rules to its own use. The co-option of native forces through the argument of self-interest has enabled them to create a large force of semi-trained, lightly armed auxiliaries in Anbar province. It should be noted that the Shiite central government has little interest in incorporating these units (estimated as high as 75,000 armed men) into the country’s security forces. Some have speculated that only the payment of monthly salaries by the US has kept these tribesmen calm.

Failure to replace these salaries with gainful employment will keep the restive West a tinderbox, and the tribes tied to the US by monthly stipend. The Shiite central government is resisting the idea of political reconciliation, which would have to include economic development of the tribal areas. The strength of tribal and religious enmity is too great to bring about reconciliation, it seems.

Maintaining peace on the ground will last only as long as the Occupation forces continue to pay off the tribesmen.