1/n This short documentary put out by the French military on its operations in #Mali is really good. What do I see? First the positive stuff, then the negative. @armeedeterre .
2/n The FR are doing this by the book. Not Galula or Lyautey's books, but contemp. expeditionary doctrine. Yes, that puts strong emphasis on what they call "civil-military actions"--like med visits, wells, etc. Lyautey still has some influence. But...
3/n ...more importantly, operating organized into small relatively autonomous combined arms task forces practicing sort of a tactical transhumance. (have I coined a term?)
4/n They're always on the move (static positions in the desert are dangerous), and designed to be as agile and reactive as possible to seize rapidly any and all opportunities. The idea, as one of the officers explains, is to search for opportunities to seize the initiative...
5/n ...and force the enemy to do something the enemy doesn't want to do. The advantage then goes to the French, tactically speaking.
6/n This style of operating makes the French prodigiously effective for their numbers. They do a lot and cover a lot of ground despite being spread as thin as gold leaf. This is as lean as it gets.
7/n Military historians will recognize that this is the exact opposite of how the French Army operated against Germany in 1940. That's not an accident.
8/n It's also sort of how the French intend to fight a future conventional war, enabled by its SCORPION networking tech: dispersed forces moving fast, sharing info to seize rapidly whatever opportunities arise hunting for an "effet majeur", i.e. hitting just that right spot...
9/n Now for the negative: For all that lean prowess, when one thinks of the geographic scale of #Barkhane, it's hard not to despair. How can one secure a population or any patch of land with so small a force? Even just that tri-border region is gigantic.
10/n Also: Seizing the tactical initiative does not equate to seizing and holding the initiative at operational or strategic levels. That's why one can win all the battles and still lose a war.
11/n Ultimately FR strategy remains disrupting the adversaries as much as possible for the sake of buying local forces time to step up and provide the mass FR forces lack. That part doesn't seem to be going to plan.
12/n Beyond the tactical level, it seems that the enemy most of the time has the initiative, although to be fair it's really hard to judge from afar. I'm hoping I'm wrong.
13/n I can't imagine any force the size of Barkhane accomplishing more than it already is. But given that Barkhane's not going to get any bigger, something else has to be done. Seems to me the weak links are the local forces: approaches to preparing them need to be reviewed.
