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Three years ago, I was one of the first
graduates of the Red Team School at the
University of Foreign Military and Cultural
Studies (UFMCS), located at Ft. Leavenworth,
Kansas. The Red Teaming course is relatively
new to the Army, but the concept of an
advisor to the commanding general has been
around since the time of Napoleon.
The concept of the Red Team requires members to see
through multiple lenses; in the case of
Iraq, looking at a situation from the
perspective of the people or the Government
of Iraq, as well as the enemy. The role has
been effectively used in both government and
business, but until recently, the Army had
no doctrine or recognized education
available to implement the capability in its
operational and strategic units.
The director of UFMCS, Col. (Ret) Greg Fontenot, asked
me to head up the Red Team in December 2008.
Being from outside the 25th Infantry
Division, I was in an ideal position to do
my Red Teaming job - to think outside the
box, to ask the question why, and to often
just listen.
People who work together tend to think the
same after a while. Staffs can get tunnel
vision in complexity of dynamic operational
environment. My team was a fresh set of eyes
to look at the problems and plans, and just
ask questions as to why, or how, they came
up with their ideas. Red Teaming is an
iterative process with the staff to question
the assumptions of our plans and examine how
our actions will be perceived by Middle East
culture we are in, or even our own society
back home.
Red Teaming provides the commander with an independent
capability to fully examine concepts, plans,
and operations from partner, local populace
and adversary perspectives. The Red Team
approach can provide an understanding of the
opposition through their cultural eyes.
Multi-National Division – North has been the
main effort for the fight in Iraq, as Mosul
has been one of the last strongholds in the
country for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Division
staff was focused on the lethal fight. Part
of Red Teaming is to look at the issue from
the side of the culture, the people of Iraq
as well as the enemy. Sometimes you find
them one in the same.
I started to look for what we were missing - what was
the cause of the fight, where were the
support networks, how did the enemy get
their money? What I discovered astounded me,
and I think it is the greatest challenge for
this country and the reconciliation of Iraq.
Much of the violence that still remains today is based
on ethnosectarian violence. The Sunni/Shia
civil violence was ignited with the 2006
bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra. The
aftermath has been the displacement of an
estimated 1.6 million Iraqi people within
Iraq, who are now classified as Iraqi
Displaced Persons.
The Iraq war itself created a group of refugees that
fled the country. More than two million of
the former Bathe Party members fled to
neighboring Syria and Jordon. These groups
of IDPs are the former military leaders,
political leaders, teachers and others who
ran the cities and infrastructure, the heart
of the country. The next group of IDPs was
formed due to the former Iraqi government’s
tyranny. Minority Displacement of various
religious groups, as well as the Kurds to
the North, number around 1.1 million.
The facts are sobering: four million Iraqis, one out of
every eight, are displaced. Of those, 2.8
million - 20% of the population – are
displaced inside of Iraq. The IDP situation
creates masses of people who might otherwise
live lives as normal citizens in Iraq and
places social and economic stresses on
Iraq’s ability to govern.
Displaced people held in IDP camps, or even those
relocated to ethnically different
neighborhoods, increase the chances of
poverty and insecurity. These are key
factors in the recruiting efforts used by
external insurgent organizations, as well as
grass-roots insurgent movement and criminal
groups.
Of the internally displaced, vulnerable groups to
terrorist recruiting are the 1.7 million
widowed women and orphaned children. This
group has no means of support other than
hoping the tribal system in Iraq takes them
in. Many of the suicide bombers are women,
and children are being paid to throw
grenades.
This kind of warfare is not defined in terms of victory
and the defeated as in the past conflicts,
but it is instead frequently dependent on
managing the effects of complex
socio-cultural issues, such as IDPs and the
relationships between Kurds and Arabs, Shia
and Sunni, in a non-lethal framework.
One of the great advantages of the Red Team is we are
independent thinkers who have the ability to
travel throughout the Division’s area of
responsibility to gather information for the
commander and his staff. Red Team is seeing
both sides of the story, to ask the question
why, and give the people and their culture a
voice.
About the
Author
Lieutenant Colonel John Nelson is a resident of Lenexa, Kansas
and a member of the Kansas Army National
Guard, 35th Inf. Div., at Ft. Leavenworth
Kansas. LTC Nelson is on military leave from
his civilian job with Northrop Grumman at
the Battle Command Training Program in Ft.
Leavenworth, Kansas. He is currently
deployed with the 25th Inf. Div.,
Multi-National Division – North in northern
Iraq as the Deputy Officer of the Division
Red Team in support of Operation Iraqi
Freedom.
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