In 2006, Ramadi was one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq. Jocko Willink was there as commander of SEAL Team Three’s Task Unit Bruiser. In this clip from his 2016 London Real interview, he tells Brian Rose what it was like to arrive, how he led his men through months of sustained combat, and why the strategy that finally worked went against one of the most common ideas in warfare.
It’s a nine-minute lesson in leadership that applies well beyond the military.
▶ Watch the full episode: Jocko Willink – Extreme Ownership
Who was really fighting
Brian starts by asking about the insurgency that grew after the invasion. Willink is clear that it wasn’t driven by ordinary Iraqis, who he says were glad to be rid of Saddam and wanted to live peacefully. The organisers were foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda, coming in from Syria and elsewhere, with financial backing. Was it about money or ideology? “It’s both,” he says. They were hungry for money and power, and used the money to fuel their views.
“Welcome to Ramadi”
His second deployment began with a jolt. Almost immediately, he says, his unit was attending memorial services for soldiers and Marines who had just been killed. From their base across the river, they could watch tracer fire in the city all day and all night, and they were shot at from the opposite bank. It was, in his words, “legit combat.”
Leading people under pressure
How do you lead through that? Willink’s answer is the same principle he teaches business leaders: you have to modulate. Every team leader has to recognise when people need pushing and when they need rest. In combat that is amplified, because people pushed too hard break quickly.
He’s honest that he didn’t always get it right. Sometimes, he says, he went too far, saw the look on a man’s face, and realised he should have given him a rest earlier.
Why cutting off the head didn’t work
The heart of the clip is strategy. Until 2006, he explains, the approach in Iraq was to find insurgent leaders and capture or kill them, based on a saying that sounds obviously true: cut off the head of the snake and the snake dies. “It’s just not true,” Willink says. The snake grows another head.
A group of officers, including General David Petraeus, who co-wrote the US Army’s counterinsurgency manual, H.R. McMaster and Colonel Sean MacFarland, understood that you had to change the environment the snake lived in. The decisive terrain wasn’t a building or an airfield, as it might have been in the Second World War. It was the people.
Seize, clear, hold, build
MacFarland’s brigade, the Ready First (1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division), brought that approach to Ramadi after McMaster had used it in Tal Afar. Instead of raiding and leaving, coalition forces built reinforced combat outposts inside enemy-held neighbourhoods and stayed there permanently, alongside Iraqi troops. It was riskier and more aggressive, Willink says, and it was the right thing to do: protect the local population so they could turn against the insurgents.
He also pays tribute to the Pennsylvania reservists who held Ramadi for 14 months before them, ordinary civilians who had become battle-hardened warriors.
What to take from it
Two lessons stand out for any leader: read your people constantly, and don’t trust a strategy just because it sounds obvious. Sometimes the answer isn’t removing the problem at the top, but changing the conditions that keep producing it.
Who is Jocko Willink?
Jocko Willink is a retired US Navy SEAL officer who served for 20 years and commanded Task Unit Bruiser during the Battle of Ramadi, for which he received the Silver Star and Bronze Star. He co-wrote the bestseller Extreme Ownership with Leif Babin and hosts the Jocko Podcast.
In the full 2016 episode, he talks with Brian Rose about leadership, discipline and taking ownership. London Real also made the feature-length documentary Jocko Willink – Lessons From War.
See everything Jocko Willink has done with London Real on his guest page: Jocko Willink on London Real.
More on London Real
Transcript
Transcript: Jocko Willink – The Battle Of Ramadi: Why “Cut Off The Head Of The Snake” Failed
0:00 Brian Rose: So it’s 2004, 2005, and you’re starting to hear that things are really changing in Iraq, and I’m guessing you’re already preparing for a second deployment. I want to ask about the organisation that happened, and what it was like that first week in Ramadi. Was the regrouping something they had been planning for years, or was it a natural progression after you first went in?
0:27 Jocko Willink: The folks who were organising the regrouping were not Iraqis. They were foreigners. They were al-Qaeda, coming in from other areas, from Syria, from all over. They were starting to organise, and they had the financial backing. It wasn’t the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people were happy to be rid of Saddam and were looking forward to living in some kind of peaceful society. And then in come the insurgents and the extremists and the terrorists, who have their own plans.
1:03 Brian Rose: Is it more about money than about religion or jihad? Are these guys gangsters running a money racket at the end of the day, or are there a lot of blurred lines about why people are fighting?
1:18 Jocko Willink: It’s both. They’re definitely money hungry and power hungry. And I guess you could say that roots back to wanting money so they can fuel their viewpoints. But it’s all combined. They want power.
1:39 Brian Rose: It always strikes me that the fight happened in Ramadi, not in the middle of the desert where there are no resources. It’s happening there for a reason. You get back to Ramadi in 2006. When you land on the ground, how does it feel different, and what are those first few days like compared with your first tour?
2:01 Jocko Willink: Almost immediately we’re going to memorial services for Army guys and Marines who’d been killed, which was a rude awakening. So that’s the welcome to Ramadi: you go and pay your respects to some guys who were just killed. And there are firefights in the city. We’re just across the river, and there are firefights in the city all day and all night. You can sit on the rooftop of our building and watch tracer fire go back and forth. We’re shot at from across the riverbank. It was legit combat, a legit bad scenario with sustained combat operations.
2:49 Brian Rose: How do you lead your men through that, when they’re dealing with the funerals, which definitely take a psychological toll, and the constant firefights? Do you lead stronger, or a little easier in certain situations?
3:08 Jocko Willink: You do have to modulate your leadership. And you have to do that in the business world, if you’re leading any kind of team. You’ve got to recognise when your guys need to be pushed and when they need to be given a rest. In combat it’s amplified, because if you push your guys too hard in combat, they’re going to break, whereas in business maybe they make errors, or maybe they snap. It does happen in business, but in combat it happens very quickly. So you’re constantly taking measure of where your guys are at.
3:55 Jocko Willink: And sometimes I didn’t do a great job of that. Sometimes I went a little far and said, whoa, I just saw the look on that guy’s face. He needs a rest, and I should have recognised that earlier. You make mistakes, no doubt.
4:16 Brian Rose: Those first few weeks in Ramadi, what are you assessing? What do you decide you have to do differently from the previous tour?
4:32 Jocko Willink: One of the biggest things was the strategy. On my first deployment, and throughout the beginning of the Iraq war up until 2006, the strategy was to go out and capture or kill the bad guys. Find out where the insurgents and terrorists are, go out, capture and kill them. And the thought was, and it’s one of those sentences that makes so much sense that everyone believes it: if you cut off the head of the snake, the snake dies.
5:07 Jocko Willink: So the thought was, if we can cut off the head of the snake, meaning the leadership of the insurgents, the insurgency will die. And it’s just not true. There was a group of US military people who knew this. General Petraeus was one of them, who wrote the counterinsurgency manual along with a core group of, and I don’t know if they’d take this as an insult, intellectuals. Guys who were smart: H.R. McMaster, General Petraeus, and a guy I ended up working for, Colonel Sean MacFarland. Those guys understood that if you cut off the head of the snake, the snake grows another head. What you have to do is change the environment the snake is in.
6:05 Jocko Willink: So the decisive terrain in this battle was not a building or a mountain or an airfield, like it would be in World War Two. The decisive terrain was the people, the local populace of Iraq, normal people who wanted to live simple, peaceful lives. They recognised that, and they brought in a new strategy. We’d continue to go out and capture and kill bad guys, because that’s still part of counterinsurgency, but you have to secure the populace. You have to make them feel you are the stronger side and that they don’t have to live in fear of the insurgents. That strategy was called seize, clear, hold and build.
7:01 Jocko Willink: When we arrived in Ramadi, there was a reservist unit, the 2/28 out of Pennsylvania, and they were awesome guys. If you don’t know what a reservist is, in England it’s the TA: plumbers, physicians, drivers, teachers, civilians who serve one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. All of a sudden their number gets pulled, and there they are in Ramadi. They were there for 14 months, they fought heroically, and by the time we got there they were battle-hardened warriors. But it was their turn to go home.
7:44 Jocko Willink: Taking their place was an armoured brigade called the 1/1 AD, the Ready First, the first brigade of the First Armored Division. They brought in Sean MacFarland, who, like I said, was an incredibly smart guy, and experience plays a big role. Colonel McMaster had used this strategy in a city in northern Iraq called Tal Afar and won and pacified the city, and he turned over with MacFarland. Colonel MacFarland then came to Ramadi knowing the strategy to use, which was completely different from what we’d been doing. It was a lot more risky and a lot more aggressive, and it was the right thing to do.
8:43 Jocko Willink: Go into these enemy-controlled neighbourhoods and build combat outposts, reinforced buildings where coalition forces, meaning American soldiers and Iraqis, would go and live and stay and drive out the insurgents. Not go and get a bad guy one night and leave, but stay there permanently, drive the insurgents out of those areas, and protect the local populace, so the local populace could live in peace, turn against the insurgents, and finish them off.
