The draft version of the Army’s Full Spectrum Operations Field Manual counsels against the approach used by Rumsfeld (minimum force projection).  “The big idea here is that stability tasks have to be a consideration at every level and every operation,” said Clinton Ancker III, head of the Army’s Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate and an author of the guide … The old manual emphasized that stability operations usually follow combat. The draft version of the 2007 ground operations manual instructs commanders that they cannot wait for offensive operations to end before providing security and services for the population.  “Army forces must defeat enemies and simultaneously shape the civil situation through stability or civil support operations.”  In a more developed understanding of what proper force projection can accomplish – and conversely, what we missed in our toppling of the Saddam regime – it is now seen that lack of security can be the catalyst for an insurgency.

Rumsfeld’s critics generally have pointed to summer 2003 as the period when the most important misstep was made in Iraq. American forces were drawn down, and the military did not react quickly to confront a rising insurgency.

The draft manual says the seeds of an insurgency can be planted early on, even during initial military operations. And the guide’s authors say the missteps that gave rise to the insurgency may have occurred during the march to Baghdad.

“There is a period of time in the immediate aftermath of any fight where the population will rely on the [American] military to keep them safe and provide essential services,” Ancker said.

The concept, according to Ancker, is akin to what battlefield medics call the “golden hour” — the short period in which patients can be saved if their wounds are properly treated. During an offensive operation, if a military does not try to at least bandage the wounds of a society, the effort can suffer even if the battle is won. After an urban battle, commanders must try to provide basic services and security, the manual says.

“If we do not plan to account for those tasks in the immediate aftermath of a fight,” Ancker said, “then there is a period of time somebody else can step in and use that failure as a lever to create disaffected parts of the population, and that can turn into … an insurgency.”

The U.S. war in Iraq was an attempt to perform the operations fast and cheap and good, and therefore we have achieved none of those objectives.  Because we have unnecessary strategic commitments across the globe (e.g., in Japan, Europe), our force projection wanted for troops, and without them the war effort has involved prolonged operations.  While U.S. troops have performed remarkably well and with bravery, the situation on the ground is devolving, with a trend of increasing casualties.  Also because of the prolonged operations, the war effort has been anything but cheap.

The U.S. electorate has no stomach for prolonged operations, as proven by the recent election.  If wisdom is to be gleaned from this, it would be that the old engineer’s adage of “good, fast and cheap, pick any two,” should be amended to say “good, fast and cheap, pick any two as long as ‘fast’ is included.”

As evidence that the Pentagon has still proven incapable of understanding this last point, the panel of officers commissioned by General Pace to study the war and make recommendations has come back with the following: “Go Home, Go Big, or Go Longer.”

Consider the thoughts of a soon-to-be-deployed Soldier or Marine: “Will I be the last one to die in Iraq?”  Perhaps the panel should have deployed to Iraq before authoring the study.  Stubbornness in the military administration is a sign of stolid thinking.  Again, ‘go longer‘ is not an option.  It never was, it is not now, and it never will be.