The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture

278 Conclusion
US ability to shape it, then they will continue to place Marines in counterinsurgency
environments in which they may make significant headway against
belligerents, may build an impressive array of infrastructure, and may succeed
in providing a security perimeter around elections but cannot transfer
whatever legitimacy they earn to a failing host government and therefore
cannot, despite the host of lessons learned, achieve a true strategic victory.
As a military force, Marines are well trained to do what foreign forces
can do in a host theater: provide a measure of security space for the host
government to effectively engage its own population. The lessons leathernecks
have adopted and cultivated over time have created a Marine Corps
that is prepared to implement counterinsurgency best practices toward that
end. The primary insight derived for students of counterinsurgency, however,
is that it is not doctrinal formulas or effective tactical execution of
counterinsurgency tasks that are in need of primary attention. Much of this
has arguably been mastered. The lessons lost and perennial blind spots that
continue to plague American counterinsurgency efforts abroad are those
born out of fundamentally misplaced notions regarding what one nation
can do on behalf of another.
Notes
1. Lt. Col. Patrick Carroll (Ret.) and CWO5 Terry Walker (Ret.), “A Legacy
Pete Ellis Would Embrace,” Marine Corps Gazette (February 2015); Lt. Col.
David Brown (Ret.), “Marine Corps Advisors: Past and Present,” Marine Corps
Gazette (August 2011).
2. Capt. Dilan Swift, “A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Rounds,” Marine Corps
Gazette (February 2016).
3. West, Strongest Tribe, 83.
4. Ibid., 78, 185.
5. Ardolino, Fallujah Awakens, 84–85, 204; Staff Brig. Gen. Haqi Isma’eel Ali
Hameed, oral history in Montgomery & McWilliams, Al- Anbar Awakening,
2:231.
6. Russell, Innovation, Transformation, and War; Lt. Col. Timothy Oliver, “A
Blueprint for Success,” Marine Corps Gazette (July 2010): 78–83.
7. Capt. Duane A. Durant, “(Re)Shaping the Battlespace,” Marine Corps Gazette
(December 2007): 41–43; Capt. Jeffrey S. Dinsmore, “Intelligence Support to
Counterinsurgency Operations,” Marine Corps Gazette (July 2007): 13–16;
Maj. Eugene P. Wittkopf, “Catching More IED Emplacers,” Marine Corps
Gazette (May 2007): 58–60; Capt. Matthew T. Kralovec, “Intelligence Information
Management,” Marine Corps Gazette (July 2009): 35–42.
8. Across enlisted Marines interviewed for this project, this term was regarded
as neutral or pejorative but represented a general dismissiveness toward the
mixed Arab population of Iraq.