Ten Years On, Reassessing the ‘Surge’

Ten years ago U.S. forces “surged” into Iraq. The operation was seen as a bold and unexpected move to rescue a counterinsurgency strategy that had been failing. Over the past decade, there have been countless articles assessing whether the surge “worked” and was what reduced sectarian violence in Iraq, as well as whether population-centric counterinsurgency – the idea of protecting the people rather than merely killing the enemy – is the way to defeat insurgencies.

The surge was a dicey gamble. In early 2007, the president ordered five additional brigades – roughly 30,000 troops – to pacify Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle of Anbar Province at a time when public support for the war was going south. The objective of the mission was to clear, hold, and build insurgent strongholds as a way of – to borrow a tired phrase – winning hearts and minds. The philosophy behind population-centric counterinsurgency is that civilian collaboration is the key to identifying and targeting insurgents. But also the aim was to provide enough security to allow Iraqi leaders space to forge a political compromise.

In general warfare the primary goal for opposing armies is conquest, and the center of gravity is the opposing enemy’s force and terrain that he needs to sustain his operations. Clausewitz described such elements as “the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends.” As Army officers, we are drilled repeatedly in the effective use of combat power to out-maneuver enemy forces and attack at the decisive point and time to degrade an opposing force to a condition from which he cannot recover.