Aufstands- und Partisanenbekämpfung (COIN)

[Quintus Fabius]

Ein Artikel über die Taskforce 714 im Irak:

https://mwi.usma.edu/rapid-and-radical-a...4-in-iraq/

The account of Task Force 714’s innovations in Iraq from 2003 to 2005 provides valuable lessons for future conflicts.

A Cultural Change

While these organizational changes were necessary to build an effective network to combat the enemy’s network, they alone were not enough. The bigger change was cultural, and it occurred once the operators embraced and mastered the new targeting cycle and understood the main effort needed to shift from the finish phase to the exploit and analyze phases.

The operators soon became involved in every phase of the targeting cycle. They started watching ISR feeds, directing drones, reading interrogation and other intelligence reports, and mapping the enemy networks on dry-erase boards. As a result of their study, the operators became more effective on target because they could ask more pointed questions during their tactical questioning.

The operators also assisted the interrogation teams when they transferred detainees to the tactical interrogation facility. During their debriefs, they provided the interrogation teams with detailed sketches showing where detainees had been captured and where documents and media had been recovered. This information was necessary to identify the most significant members captured on target and to determine what equipment belonged to whom. It served to jump-start the interrogations. While operators were debriefed by the interrogation team, other members of the task force and its extended network immediately set out to exploit captured documents and media so that they could be analyzed quickly.

As the culture changed and the analytical and technical capabilities expanded, the targeting cycle accelerated. Soon operational teams could immediately exploit captured personnel and material on target and move to subsequent targets during the same period of darkness. The task force became so effective that many al-Qaeda fighters started to sleep with suicide vests to prevent capture.

By the end of 2005, McChrystal had fully transformed the task force. He had flattened the organization and created an environment where situational awareness was centralized but decision making was decentralized. With (1) the expanded ISR; (2) interrogation, document and media exploitation, and intelligence capabilities; and (3) cultural change of the operators, the F3EA cycle had accelerated from a process that took days and weeks into what became hours and minutes.