In the course of the reporting, the article also ends up highlighting some of the primary contradictions and limitations at the heart of the Counterinsurgency ("COIN") Doctrine – the military doctrine that has been given too much credit for "winning" the war in Iraq (Iraqis are still dying each month in the hundreds as the war continues) and that supposedly lights the way forward in Afghanistan.

To generalize, COIN Doctrine – as embodied in the Army and Marine Corps’ Counterinsurgency Field Manual and other relevant texts – makes clear that a large number of troops are required for any successful COIN operation. Further, this large number must usually be kept in theater for 5-15 years, at least. The exact ratio varies, but is usually in the range of 1 soldier for every 50-200 members of the underlying population – a ratio that would have mandated more than double the 145,000 troops committed to the Iraq war at the beginning and, roughly speaking, throughout.

COIN Doctrine also requires that the soldiers involved develop (or already have) some level of cultural sensitivity/knowledge, that they show restraint in the use of force and that they win the loyalty of that same population (the infamous "hearts and minds").

Therein lies the tension: On the one hand, an extremely large force is needed – much, much larger than the force that our military has strained to maintain in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 7+ years. On the other hand, despite the sheer numbers involved, that force also has to be well educated (even if only contextually), well disciplined and capable of showing restraint despite the effects of combat.

Yet, all groups will inevitably have a few bad apples. When you expand the size of the group (especially through lowering standards and turning a blind eye to behavioral problem cases), you only increase the number of undisciplined soldiers capable of hindering efforts to win over the population. But here’s the kicker: even the non-bad apples eventually breakdown in a war zone. The stresses and psychological trauma of combat have effects on the decision making/moral faculties of soldiers, regardless – as a rule.

This is especially true when they are required to make multiple, prolonged deployments in the pursuit of those COIN-recommended troop levels. In Iraq, we didn’t even reach those vaunted ratios, and the effort to keep a lesser number of boots on the ground still wreaked havoc:

The psychological casualties may be particularly heavy in Iraq, he said.

“In the Civil War, if you experienced really traumatic fighting, chances are you didn’t make it,” he said. “Today, you can be blown up multiple times and go right back into the fight.”

In Vietnam, most draftees did one yearlong tour. Since the start of the Iraq war, some soldiers have been deployed three times for 12 to 15 months each.

Those soldiers will not be able to maintain the high level of discipline/restraint required by COIN Doctrine. From the article:

Soldiers said discipline started to break down.

“Toward the end, we were so mad and tired and frustrated,” Freeman said. “You came too close, we lit you up. You didn’t stop, we ran your car over with the Bradley.”

If soldiers were hit by an IED, they would aim machine guns and grenade launchers in every direction, Marquez said, and “just light the whole area up. If anyone was around, that was their fault. We smoked ’em.”

Other soldiers said they shot random cars, killing civilians.

“It was just a free-for-all,” said Marcus Mifflin, 21, a friend of Eastridge who was medically discharged with PTSD after the tour. “You didn’t get blamed unless someone could be absolutely sure you did something wrong. And that was hard. So things happened. Taxi drivers got shot for no reason. Guys got kidnapped and taken to the bridge and interrogated and dropped off.”

More from the same article:

In the quest to win, John Needham said, some in his platoon turned ugly.

The soldier said some loaded their rifles with hollow-point bullets designed to expand on impact, making them more lethal. These bullets are banned by international treaties.

It wasn’t just one platoon, either. Eastridge said soldiers in his platoon, including himself, used hollow-point bullets, too. It was easy to get them sent from home, Eastridge said. Both soldiers said some guys in their units carried illegal stun guns, as soldiers had in the first deployment.

The Army said it investigated Needham’s claims and found no evidence.

But there was more to the platoon’s tactics.

In a December 2007 letter to the Inspector General’s Office of Fort Carson, which investigates crimes within the Army, Needham told of the atrocities he saw. His father provided a copy to The Gazette.

One sergeant shot a boy riding a bicycle down the street for no reason, John Needham said. When Needham and another soldier rushed to deliver first aid, the sergeant said, “No, let him bleed out.”

Another sergeant shot a man in the head without cause while questioning him, Needham said, then mutilated the body, lashed it to the hood of his Humvee and drove around the neighborhood blaring warnings to insurgents in Arabic that “they would be next.”

Other Iraqis were shot for invented reasons, then mutilated, Needham said.

The sergeants particularly liked removing victims’ brains, Needham said.

Needham offered a photograph of a soldier removing brains from an Iraqi on the hood of a Humvee and other photos as evidence. His father supplied copies to The Gazette.

Therein lie some of the fundamental weaknesses of COIN Doctrine: the number of troops required is generally not available for the prolonged lengths of time required (at least, not as our armed forces are presently configured). By augmenting ground forces to accommodate those target levels (especially in a crisis where lower standards are applied), one also increases the risks of including larger numbers of ill-disciplined soldiers that will undermine the effort. Further, by keeping soldiers deployed for extended periods – and frequently redeploying them – in order to keep the proper troop-to-population ratios, it is likely that even well-disciplined soldiers will lose their self control.

That, completely aside from the grisly human costs on both sides of any conflict.

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