The following excerpt is from a draft ‘think piece’ -- work in progress -- on an issue that is a recurring theme in much of the work I’ve been involved in over the last several years. I am not the author -- but did participate in many of the discussions concerning Strategic Compression and its implications for coalition forces that fed the content of the paper. It is presented to provoke thought, help frame a debate, and be a catalyst for further discussion.

What is Strategic Compression?

Strategic Compression is the forming of unexpected causal relationships and breaking of expected causal relationships among the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of conflict. Furthermore, Strategic Compression occurs due to the rapidity of information transmission and Blue actors’ lack of understanding of pre-existing and emergent trends and social appetites both within the local area of operations and within the world-wide audience. As such, the levels of war seem to compress in time and in causal linkages.

Continue reading "Thoughts on 'Strategic Compression'" »

This is the second installment of “posts of note” from the Small Wars Journal’s discussion board - the Small Wars Council. Poster JCustis, a long-time Council member, is a Marine infantry officer with two tours in Iraq under his belt. Where a military acronym is used I have inserted an explanation. For starters, the ‘battle captains’: the S-3 is the Operations Officer and the ‘A’ or Alpha is his assistant, the AirO is the Air Officer, the FSC is the Fire Support Coordination Officer, the FAC is the Forward Air Controller, the TF IO is the Task Force Information Operations Officer, and the SJA is the Staff Judge Advocate (legal).

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RTK has written on his experiences using the framework of Dave Kilcullen’s Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency and I felt that same framework could be used to offer some lessons learned on the battle captain system that my unit applied during its 2004-2005 rotation.

Continue reading "28 Articles - Practical Application 102: The Battle Captains" »

Odom, Thomas P. Journey Into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. (Price - $18.96 Paperback on Amazon.com)

Review by Council member Major Adam Strickland, USMC.

Marine officers are taught that the two most important components of any operations order are the commander’s intent and mission statement. Above all else, each statement should be clear and concise so as to leave the recipient with no doubt as to what must be accomplished. In 1994, at the height of a humanitarian crisis in Goma, Zaire, US Army LTC Thomas Odom, an Africa Foreign Area Officer, was told by his superiors – “We must stop the dying,” and thus tasked to “stop the dying.” Though clear and concise, these provided little true guidance as he tried to assess the needs of over one million Rwandan refugees escaping violent retribution in front of the steadily advancing Rwandan Patriotic Front...

Continue reading "Small Wars Council Book Review: Journey into Darkness" »

All organizations must be concerned with the growth, retention, and utilization of their best and brightest. Call them what you will – the Iron Majors, the Strategic Corporals, the go-to desk officers and field operators – they are the backbone and future of all of our organizations, and our aces-in-the-hole for the Long War.

Our bright and dedicated professionals have a passion to fight to win. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm, flexibility, and innovation often collides with the inertia of the status quo, which is frequently manifest in legacy attitudes, organizational rice bowls, and careerism and bureaucracy that linger amongst the establishment. Today’s personnel systems at best fail to support employing all of our manpower in ways that our missions require, and at worst impair our up-and-comers who somehow find a way to contribute anyway in the arena where needed, rushing to the action while others stay comfortable.

Continue reading "A Wake Up Call for DIA" »

Posted to the Small Wars Council by Jedburgh...

Headquarters
Multi-National Force - Iraq
Baghdad, Iraq
APO AE 09342-1400

February 10, 2007

Office of the Commanding General

To the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Civilians of Multi-National Force-Iraq:

We serve in Iraq at a critical time. The war here will soon enter its fifth year. A decisive moment approaches. Shoulder-to-shoulder with our Iraqi comrades, we will conduct a pivotal campaign to improve security for the Iraqi people. The stakes could not be higher.

Continue reading "General Petraeus' Letter to MNF-I" »

Here's a generous offer from Council member Tom Odom over on our discussion board...

An Offer to Potential Authors

To many, the idea of writing is harkens back to memories of dental work; it is painful and it leaves you numbly speechless. Over the past 6 years or so I have repeatedly asked hundreds of Soldiers the question: "How many of you liked your high school English teacher?" Soldiers being soldiers, the handful of positive responses to that question had nothing to do with the subject of English. That almost instinctual aversion to the idea of writing is therefore understandable. Writing like any other skill takes practice, patience, and not a little determination to develop. I would encourage all to set improvement of their written communication skills as a worthy goal. But I will also say that what counts most in writing are the ideas communicated; writing is the delivery means.

Continue reading "Let it be Written" »

I'll lead off with two short excerpts from the new Army Counterinsurgency (COIN) Field Manual, FM 3-24 and Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5:

- Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Thus, COIN operations always demand considerable expenditures of time and resources.

- At the strategic level, gaining and maintaining U.S. public support for a protracted deployment is critical.

Which leads us to an excerpt from a 21 February NY Post article that appeared on the DoD Current News (Early Bird) and linked to from the Small Wars Council discussion board - America Says Let's Win War by Andy Soltis:

Continue reading "Déjà Vu, All Over Again?" »

[Note: While I have received official approval to offer personal comment at SWJBlog, the following post has not been vetted or screened in any way. It represents personal opinion only, and is strictly Unclassified and based solely on open source material.]

It has been a busy few weeks. Operation Fadr al-Qanoon (which the media calls the “Baghdad security plan”) is shaping up. Progress is measurable, but this is a marathon, not a sprint, and it’s still too early to know how it will turn out.

The message for all of us, as professionals who do this for a living, is patience, patience, patience. The war has been going for nearly four years, the current strategy less than four weeks. We need to give it time.

Continue reading "The Baghdad Marathon" »