Military Police Operations and Counterinsurgency

Abstract

Within the Department of Defense (DoD), each service is assigned military police officers, special investigators, and special agents charged with countering every kind of criminal activity. These personnel are highly skilled in obtaining evidence to disrupt and neutralize criminals and their illicit networks. It is precisely this skill set that when applied to an insurgency simplifies the process of targeting and neutralizing insurgent leaders, subsequently leading to more effective security operations. Using current cultural training and linguistic support, this DoD capability could be organized immediately and assigned to jurisdictions in a given occupied country. By adopting a military government and law enforcement command and control structure, military forces would be able to focus on restoring security and justice to occupied areas using police techniques. Organized within a proper military government C2 structure, security operations could be kept in lock-step with local, provincial and theater-level counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns. With no interagency support available for the foreseeable future, the DoD must turn to its own organic capabilities immediately and organize appropriately to support the functions needed to maintain security while properly identifying and neutralizing insurgent leaders and groups. Throughout history, several organizations have been designed to identify and neutralize insurgent leaders in COIN campaigns. The following manhunt programs and their organizations will be analyzed and compared: (1) Pseudo-gangs operations in Kenya (1955-1956), (2) Provincial Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) operations in Vietnam, (3) Selous Scouts operations in Rhodesia (1978), and (4) Joint Task Force Balad (JTFB) operations in Iraq (2006-2007). The programs employed in these irregular warfare campaigns can provide insight into the proper employment of indigenous scouts and informants, and the appropriate organization of forces for future conflicts.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA491510

Entities

People

  • Matthew R. Modarelli

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Cyber
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Asymmetric Warfare
  • Command And Control
  • Counterinsurgency
  • Employment
  • Insurgency
  • Management Personnel
  • Military History
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Police
  • Military Science
  • Personnel Management
  • Psychological Operations
  • Students
  • Terrorism
  • Terrorists
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.

Technology Areas

  • Fully Networked C3
  • Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control