The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

236 Chapter 9
to predeployment briefs, CAOCL experts provided Marines with a useful
textbook for navigating cultural terrain, Operational Culture for the Warfighter,
and supplied input for the Marine’s signature predeployment training
feature, the exercise Mojave Viper. 100
For grunts, Mojave Viper was perhaps the most recognized and appreciated
of the Marines’ stateside counterinsurgency innovations. It was situated
at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms,
California, whose desertscape supplied the right topography for simulating
operations in Iraq. The thirty- day exercise provided Marines training across
all aspects of Krulak’s three- block war: live fire, force- on- force training, and
practice with stability operations enhanced by Arab role- players. Exercises
emphasized the skill set necessary in a counterinsurgency environment:
appropriate use of force, dealing with angry crowds, interfacing with Iraqi
soldiers and civilians, running checkpoints, responding to incendiary press
reporting, mediating tensions between the Iraqi army and police, and pursuing
the enemy in a way that preserves normalcy and develops trust with
the population. As the training exercise became more advanced, its designers
worked to duplicate the demographic divisions on the ground in Marine
AOs and add more lessons drawn from the SULG. 101 Marines writing to the
Gazette about the utility of this exercise emphasized its value and advocated
for more of it, along with earlier exposure in the predeployment cycle. 102
The existence of such counterinsurgency- specific training, augmented by a
dose of cultural education, represents a significant step forward from the
two weeks of CAP school offered during the Vietnam War or the ill- attended
classes set up in the Caribbean.
Gen. John Allen attributes much of the success Marines had in their
outreach to the tribes in 2006 to the enhanced military education being supplied
stateside. Officers who internalized and applied the education on offer
aimed for a deeper understanding of tribalism and Iraqi codes of conduct
in order to recognize the opportunities in front of them. “We learned from
Iraqis, we brought in sociologists, and we went over. This was an historic
means of preparation, and we hit the ground running and immediately were
able to capitalize on the great work that had been done . . . ahead of us.” 103
Patient, Persistent Presence and Establishing
the Moral High Ground
The “great work” referenced by General Allen during 2004–6 period comprised
two basic elements: the persistent presence of US forces and their
much higher standard of moral conduct vis- à- vis the core enemy, al- Qaeda.
General Kelly acknowledges that al- Qaeda’s outrageous brutality likely
“caused” the Sunni Awakening and tipped the tribes toward partnering with
US forces, but he emphasizes that Marine behavior enabled the Awakening’s