Today’s Guardian article (“Military Chiefs Give US Six Months to Win Iraq War”) misrepresents the Baghdad advisers. So much so, it makes me doubt the reliability of the single, unidentified source responsible for much of the article’s reporting.

I hope SWJ colleagues will forgive this more "personal" post than usual, but as Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser I have a duty to set the record straight on this.

There is a real country called Iraq, where a real war is going on, with real progress but very real challenges. We are not going to "win the war" in six months -- nor would anyone expect to. But the Guardian seems to be describing some completely different, (possibly mythical) country, and some imaginary group of harried and depressed advisers bearing no resemblance to reality.

Continue reading "Guardian Article Misrepresents the Advisers' View" »

Based upon a February 2007 trip revisiting locales in Anbar and Baghdad that I had tracked for years, permit me to offer the following observations.

Overview. What is shaping up in Iraq? There are four ongoing wars. 1) Shiite mafias in the south, 2) Anbar Sunni extremists 3) Shiite ethnic cleansing around Baghdad 4) Sunni extremist car bombings in Baghdad.

1. In the South the U.S. is doing little. The energy sector funnels billions to corrupt officials, criminals, militias and insurgents. The Brits weren’t able to impose control. The hope is that the south remains a long-term mafia-type mess, and does not spill north to Baghdad.

Continue reading "Iraq Trip Report" »

In the April 2007 edition of Vanity Fair - The Night of the Generals by David Margolick.

The six retired generals who stepped forward last spring to publicly attack Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war had to overcome a culture of reticence based on civilian control of the military. But while each man acted separately, all shared one experience: a growing outrage over the administration's incompetence, leading some of the nation's finest soldiers to risk their reputations and cross a time-honored line.

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Just below the 24/7 “if it bleeds it leads” MSM headlines there is another story -- an encouraging story -- concerning our worldwide counterinsurgency efforts. What follows is a sampling of recent reporting on COIN efforts in the Philippines...

Continue reading "COIN in the PI: Below the Doom and Gloom Radar" »

Even the liberal-leaning and oft anti-war Los Angeles Times has concerns, as expressed in an editorial this morning - Do We Really Need a Gen. Pelosi?

Though the focus is on the surge, the LA Times - in their own way - seems to be reaching an understanding that the surge is not the strategy. And if Congress overwhelmingly confirmed General Dave Petraeus to lead our efforts in Iraq, then it makes sense to give him the time and tools to do his job and, more importantly, not micro-manage the war from inside the beltway.

Continue reading "General Pelosi's Slow Bleed Strategy" »

I’ve been on Jim Guirard’s (TrueSpeak.org) e-mail list for years and have found his discussion of ‘the power of words’ quite fascinating, to say the least. Jim is an ‘out of the box’ thinker in regards to information operations and has taken on the West’s choice of Arabic terms and the message they convey as a life-mission.

For those interested in Jim’s work I recommend beginning with the following as an introduction and reference point for further research...

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Professor Colin Kahl of the University of Minnesota’s Political Science Department has been kind enough to permit the Small Wars Journal to post an e-mail of his that was widely circulated. This e-mail concerns U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts in Iraq and a briefing presented by Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments titled The “New” Counterinsurgency Doctrine and the Baghdad Surge: Formula for Success?...

Continue reading "The Four Phases of the U.S. COIN Effort in Iraq" »

Do timetables work? So asks Small Wars Council member TROUFION on this Council thread.

The Wall Street Journal also addresses the issues surrounding the House’s micromanagement of the war and the implications -- with a spot-on editorial today titled ‘A Triumph for Pelosi’...

Continue reading "Timetables, Conventional Metrics and COIN - WTF Are We Thinking?" »

It has been an interesting few weeks here in Baghdad. Myself and the other advisors felt that a comment on recent developments might be in order. It is still early days for Fardh al-Qanoon (a.k.a the “Baghdad Security Plan”) and thus too soon to tell for sure how things will play out. But, though the challenges remain extremely severe, early trends are quite positive. Counter-intuitively, the latest series of car bombings includes some encouraging signs...

Continue reading "From the Advisors -- Bombs in Baghdad" »

The following is a summary of an article that will appear in Volume 8 of the Small Wars Journal online magazine to be published in April. Scott Swanson is an intelligence specialist who advises military and government special projects in the area of irregular warfare and counterinsurgency. He can be reached at s2@delphiresearch.us.

Continue reading "Viral Targeting of the IED Social Network System" »

US Army Captain and Small Wars Council member Captain Ryan Kranc e-mailed us yesterday with his thoughts on advising indigenous forces. CPT Kranc is a two-tour Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran who served as a platoon and troop commander with the 3rd Armored Regiment...

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I've gotten lots of feedback on this National Public Radio (Future Iraqi Advisers Face Hard Lessons) piece that ran this week in which Steve Inskeep and I discussed the moral dilemmas that often confront counterinsurgents. Situations like the one described below are why one of the paradoxes of counterinsurgency is that "Sometimes the best action is to do nothing" and why we put a chapter on ethics and leadership in counterinsurgency into Field Manual 3-24.

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