CISS Event: Beyond the Three Block War

Yesterday I attended a conference which outlined US, UK and Canadian perpectives on Three Block War. The Three Block War (3BW) concept was first articulated by retired Commandant of the Marine Corp, General Charles Krulak in a speech in 1997, and a famous article in 1999 entitled The Strategic Corporal. Krulak thought that the lessons of the 1990s indicated that the battlefield was becoming increasingly complex, forcing military units to be faced with a full-spectrum of tactical challenges within the same timeframe and battlespace. Three Block War is when a unit is engaged in moderate combat on one city block, peacekeeping operations on the next, and humanitarian releif on the third block.

The event was organized by the Canadian Institute for Strategic Studies and was held at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto. Speakers included the Director General of Strategic Planning for the Canadian Forces MGen Andrew LESLIE, Marine 3 Corp commander LGen Thomas Metz as well as other interesting speakers from the US and UK militaries, Foreign Affairs and the rest of the CF services.

Two of the dominating themes of the conference were joint operations between services, and the Military-Civilian disconnect. Most of the officers were unsatisfied with the seeming non-cooperation of civilian agencies (Foreign Affairs, CIDA, USAID, etc) and felt that reconstruction responsibilites were being defaulted to military forces, which isn’t fair. Interestingly enough, there was only 1 Foriegn Affairs representative at the conference (which was open to the public), and she was a speaker! All she did was blame the bureaucracy for not being able to support military ops overseas (and she is right).

I also noted how the US officers’ presentations had a Barnettian flavour to them. But what surprised me the most was the Canadian Captain Paul Maddison, Director General for Maritime Force Development who quoted Barnett three times and used Core-Gap terminology throughout his presentation.

Following are some notes from the event:

LGen Mertz (US):

• globalization allows people in developing nations understand disparity with developed nations
• the conflict: do we help them gain access, or will the “thugs” drag them down?
• terrorists feel the current situation in the US is favourable to them
• Trend in Iraq: Attacks on rise, but casualties remain horizontal
• Re: Iraqi forces: a 60% Iraqi effort is better than a 100% US effort
• We must remain on the moral high ground
• Soldiers on the ground: scan – focus – act [similar to Strategic Corporal]

MGen Leslie (CDN):

• Canadians have realized that the Away Game is just as critical as the Home Game
• must maintain some conventional capability, but how much is enough?
• Canada’s practical focus on Block 2 (Peace keeping)
• intellectual focus on Block 1 (Combat ops)
• still exploring Block 3 (Humanitarian)
• Team Canada as application of 3BW

Corporal Agoglia (US):

• there is no civil-military division of labour for stability and reconstruction, mil does it all
• who are the “civilian experts” the mil is supposed to pass the torch to?
• Iraq indicates a 4th Block of war: governance and economics (Sgt’s finding themselves as mayors of one or more towns)
• Ad-hoc approach to reconstruction not working… need more systematic approach

Brig. Barry (UK):

• success in 3BW requires “agility”
• Civvie “Reconstruction Brigade”
• run logistics more like business
• SpecForces not largely expanded to maintain quality, but new support forces created (SF Recon Regiment, Para Battalion)
• rebalance forces: less numbers/platforms, more quality and utility across mission types
• counter-terrorism is long term; should be led by FSO, Intel & host nations; strike capability is important
• BUT: SpecForces are not for everything. Don’t misuse them (ie. for political reasons) when conventional forces will do fine