Body Counting Class:
While I find the reticence of the US Armed Forces to promote enemy body counts as a measurement of victory to be a welcome acknowledgment of the horrors of war, I also stand with the frustrated masses who are seeking to gain a perspective on our progress, or lack there of, in Iraq. Let's face it, body counts are an intuitive and seemingly simple means of counting progress against a standing enemy.
American distaste for body counts was acquired during the protracted Vietnam conflict. Bowing to the assumed power of attrition, US Commanders and political leaders from both parties reported the quantities of North Vietnamese killed in conflict. The obvious assumption was that North Vietnam didn't have limitless storehouses of supplies, troops or citizen support and that each body count marked a step closer to their forced surrender. Yet, when waves of Viet Cong continued to whittle away at our forces, the American heartland revolted against the use of body count as it clearly wasn't connected to any classic signs for victory.
While it may be argued that such popular discontent snatched defeat from a certain victory for the US, this is a bit besides the point. It is clear that body counts were not directly correlated in any sort of expected sense to the North's ability or willingness to press the fight.
Then and Now:
After several decades of disavowing body counts, the Pentagon has been carefully, tentatively and almost apologetically reintroducing this metric in reports on Coalition operations in Iraq. Once again, however, this metric seemed unrelated to the establishment of peace on the battle field. During 2004, 2005 and 2006 these measures, and the predictably sensational suicide attacks to follow their release, led to the much quoted description of "whack-a-mole". As in this game from a kid's pizza palace, there is no satisfying vanquishing of the mole. It just keeps getting whacked in one hole and reappearing in another. Ad nauseum. Ad infinitum.
But Why Doesn't It Work?
As I stated above, the body count metric just seems, intuitively, to make sense. Human beings are a scarce resource. Unless Al Qaeda has learned to clone fighters down in the belly of those caves, they have a limited number of zealots from which to choose. So, why are body counts again getting a bad representation in the left-leaning media?
1. Body Counts describe what quantity have died, not what quantity is alive. Killing 100 insurgents is a big deal when there are only 200 fighting you. It's not so meaningful when there are 100,000 awaiting glorious martyrdom.
2. Body Counts tally the number of times the mole is whacked. Not the number of holes removed from the game - through which the mole can never return.
3. Body Counts don't account for the count of the body. Some villains are worth more than others. When we take down an insurgent, is he someone working to plant IED's or is he just someone who supports "the cause".
4. Body Counts don't account for the asymmetrical nature of our battle. Coalition forces develop intelligence, draw up attack plans, move out in formation, take care to space civilians, and take a host of other responsible, precautionary actions to net each "kill". One insurgent, blended into the population can fight a guerrilla battle through IED's, kidnapping and other terror tactics which have a multiplying effect. Killing the one terrorist doesn't mean the other one remaining can't multiply his impact beyond a binary battlefield equation.
In What Ways Does it Work?
Having outlined the above, one can't shake the notion that Body Counts do, indeed must, mean something! Killing bad guys has got to mean that the enemy at least needs to recruit, train, equip and deploy one more replacement. So I submit the question is not if Body Counts are or aren't good metrics of success, in themselves. Body Counts tell us something when the are placed within a larger interpretive context.
In Vietnam, the Body Count metric didn't measure the following:
1. Support for North Vietnam from China and Russia. (Accelerants to Violence"
2. Support for the Viet Cong within South Vietnam. (Hearts and Minds)
3. To what lasting victory was the body count attached? (Populations Freed)
4. To what end was the body count building? (Political Reconciliation and Institutions Built)
These are the very metrics, coincidently, which I'm advocating we use to contextualize the relatively crude body count accounting.
Together, these metrics don't just tell us how many we are killing, they tell us:
1. How many more are there and how effective can they be?
2. How free will they be to operate in our territory?
3. Will their deaths lead to a demonstrable and lasting victory of a desired end (like a city)?
4. In the case of Iraq, are freed areas responding by joining and building the institutions which promote and protect peace?
It is only as we can also measure success along these other vectors that the body count figure is truly informative.
Bodies Counted or Combatants Eradicated?
To further press my case, I suggest we expand the body count metric. The power of body counts is that each dead enemy today is one less enemy to fight tomorrow. It doesn't take kills to achieve this simple goal. Enemies who are captured today and enemies who surrender today are also enemies who won't fight us tomorrow (absent errant political pressure to release these captives). Thus, I suggest we move beyond body counts to "combatants eradicated.
The combined quantity of combatants killed, captured or surrendered is a much more meaningful metric (especially when combined with the others we will later explore) than just those killed. More importantly, rather than repeating "point in time" numbers, this combined metric should be presented as an updated aggregate total. Aggregation over time allows vectors of progress (or not) to be identified and it updates the accuracy of numbers as captured combatants are questioned and released.
Further, captured and surrendered combatants are potentially MORE valuable because they can provide intelligence into the enemy's numbers, arms, strategies, locations, identification, etc. Thus, including them in one collective metric may also serve to address the secondary concern questionably inherited from Vietnam: If Body Counts are what count, body counts are what you'll get - truly enemy or not.
Counting Combatants That Count:
There is one more aspect of counting combatants which should be included in our metrics. Killing, capturing or taking through surrender a leader of the enemy is far more valuable than doing the same to a new recruit. The news pouring in from Iraq informs us that a unique aspect of the surge is the large number of leaders which have been successfully eradicated through coalition efforts. Eradicating leaders doesn't permanently cripple this enemy, but it certainly has a role is disrupting operations, and en mass, it will probably help in weakening the resolve of non-die hards.
I reported on a list of these in Afghanistan. General Petraeus makes mention of this in an interview with Hugh Hewitt. Bill Roggio includes success in targeting enemy leadership in his weekly recap chronicles.
In the end, I think the counting of "combatants eradicated" from the field of battle is a powerful testimony as to our effectiveness in this war. I just hope our leaders on the home front don't shortchange such meaningful metrics because of a faulty application 40 years ago in Vietnam.
Summary:
Killed + Captured + Surrendered + leaders = Combatants Eradicated (Neutralized, Removed, whatever)
Updated Aggregates (perhaps by named Operation) = vectors of progress
On Principle,
CBass
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