{"id":18056,"date":"2015-01-29T14:30:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T03:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=18056"},"modified":"2015-01-30T12:21:03","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T01:21:03","slug":"its-not-the-size-of-the-footprint-that-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/its-not-the-size-of-the-footprint-that-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not the size of the footprint that matters…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>How times change. Yemen has fallen to the Iranian-backed Houthi<\/a> rebels and the situation on the Arabian Peninsula\u2019s more uncertain than ever. Just a few months ago, President Obama was touting the success<\/a> of the US\u2013Yemen partnership as a \u2018model\u2019 for fighting terrorism. This sudden reversal has caused some analysts\u2014like Max Boot\u2014to draw a set of premature and extreme conclusions<\/a> about the efficacy of so-called \u2018small-footprint\u2019 interventions. But we should beware throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Better we understand first what\u2019s involved in a small-footprint approach, the limitations of the model, and possible flaws in the Obama administration\u2019s application of it.<\/p>\n

In its most recent iteration, the small-footprint approach<\/a> typically appears as part of the \u2018lessons learned\u2019 from Iraq and Afghanistan. But it\u2019s not new though. Small-footprint approaches were far more the norm than the exception throughout the Cold War and even in the post-Cold War period. In such cases, the US and other allies\u2014including Australia\u2014provided assistance to countries fighting insurgencies. Yet the success of those approaches has been overshadowed by the mixed outcomes of large-scale counterinsurgency campaigns in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The US, Australia, Britain and France all once used the more technical term for small-footprint approaches, foreign internal defence<\/a> (FID). Unfortunately, that term has fallen out of favour. FID involves the participation by civilian and military agencies of one government in efforts undertaken by another to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness and insurgency. In short, rather than fight someone else\u2019s counterinsurgency campaign, we provide assistance and advice to a host government and let the host country do most of the actual fighting. Conceptually, it isn\u2019t rocket science. But it\u2019s a difficult strategy to construct and implement. That\u2019s because it\u2019s an indirect approach to strategy that relies heavily on partners who may not be everything we wished they were. It relies on host country leadership and organisations whose interests and politics may diverge from our own.<\/p>\n

Still, those small-footprint approaches are both the right way and the only way to counter the threat of radical Islam. They\u2019re the right approach given the strategic context of the threat. That point\u2019s made effectively in a recent ASPI Strategic Insights paper<\/a> by Peter Leahy<\/a>. In Leahy\u2019s assessment there\u2019s little the West can do in these political conflicts within the Islamic world, like the power struggle in Yemen. What we can do is lend support to those governments that want to counter radical Islamist groups.<\/p>\n

A recent RAND Corporation report<\/a> on the subject exposes some of the limitations and risks involved in using small-footprint approaches. According to the study, the effectiveness of such approaches improves when the host government is politically inclusive and has the capacity to fulfil core civil and security functions. That means places like Yemen have the odds stacked against them and aren\u2019t likely to see success anytime in the near future. While the West can help build state capacity in the civil and security sectors, fostering political inclusiveness is something that requires host government leadership. \u2018Incentivizing\u2019 a host government toward security-sector reforms and inclusiveness is a difficult prospect at the best of times.<\/p>\n

All that\u2019s not to say that there aren\u2019t real problems with the implementation of the small-footprint approach as conceived by the Obama administration. Even though it\u2019s an indirect approach that shouldn\u2019t preclude direct action where necessary and effective. When defending<\/a> its \u2018Yemen model\u2019 the Obama administration uses the rhetoric of a false dichotomy between an indirect, small footprint, like Yemen, or a direct approach with a heavy footprint like a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That\u2019s a phony choice. Military operations with troops on the ground can be short and decisive in creating space and time for the building of host-nation capacity. Recent French operations in Mali<\/a> provide one example of coming in heavy and transitioning. Raids by military forces can be effective in destroying or denying a resource base for an insurgent group, especially when that group\u2019s in firm control of territory. When building state capacity, foreign advisors accompanying<\/a> the units they\u2019ve mentored can also improve the chances of success. A strategy can be mostly<\/em> indirect while still relying on direct actions as shaping operations. But the administration\u2019s taken all those options off the table.<\/p>\n

Small-footprint approaches don\u2019t have to mean restricting the use of foreign combat forces. A better version of this approach is one where, as General Martin Dempsey said<\/a>, all the options are on the table. While a more detailed assessment of US efforts in Yemen needs to be made, it\u2019s a mistake to rush to hasty conclusions. It\u2019s not the size of the footprint that matters, it\u2019s what you\u2019re willing and able to do with it.<\/p>\n

Lieutenant Colonel Jan K. Gleiman is an active duty US Army officer and a visiting fellow at ASPI from United States Pacific Command.\u00a0These are his personal views. Image courtesy of Flickr use US Army<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How times change. Yemen has fallen to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and the situation on the Arabian Peninsula\u2019s more uncertain than ever. Just a few months ago, President Obama was touting the success of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":18070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[128,1117,66,1116,182,979,31,542],"class_list":["post-18056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-counterinsurgency","tag-foreign-international-defence","tag-history","tag-insurgency","tag-mali","tag-unconventional-warfare","tag-united-states","tag-yemen"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIt\u2019s not the size of the footprint that matters... | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/its-not-the-size-of-the-footprint-that-matters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It\u2019s not the size of the footprint that matters... | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How times change. 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