Continue reading "The Daily Show - Douglas Feith Uncut " »

“Burying the Ghosts of Vietnam”

By Bob Cassidy

The recent spate of posts and editorial pieces that have amplified the emerging debate between counterinsurgency advocates and big conventional war advocates, coupled with Phillip Carter’s 12 May Washington Post Online post, “Vietnam Ghosts,” compelled me to post these links (below) to three studies that were published between 1970 and 1980. These studies testified to why the U.S. Government (USG) and the U.S. military failed to achieve their objectives in Vietnam. Also, because the USG and the U.S. military failed to heed, absorb, and institutionalize the lessons derived in these analyses during the two decades following the last study (BDM), the USG was initially ill prepared to counter the insurgencies it confronted in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, the 28 November 2005 Department of Defense Directive (DODD) 3000.05, Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations DODD 3000.05, the extant work by USSOCOM and the USMC on the re-emerging notion of irregular warfare (IW JOC), and the latest version (February 2008) of the U.S. Army’s capstone manual, FM 3-0, Operations, together prescribe an emphasis on irregular warfare, stability operations, and counterinsurgency, equal to that of regular, conventional, war. These documents help provide the requisite philosophical and doctrinal balance for a military that must be able to conduct both counterinsurgency and conventional big wars.

Since it generally requires up to 12 years, ultimately, to prevail when prosecuting counterinsurgency, and, because it takes between five to ten years to change military cultural preferences, the USG and U.S. military can ill afford to revert to an almost exclusive military cultural focus on big war, as they certainly did following Vietnam. To recapitulate the essence of these three studies in distilled form, the USG and the U.S. military did not succeed in Vietnam because they failed to integrate the interagency within a unified effort and purpose to prosecute the counterinsurgency in Vietnam, they failed to understand the nature of the war they were fighting, and the U.S. military’s cultural preference, and almost sole focus, for big conventional war precluded (impeded) it from adapting to prosecute counterinsurgency successfully. While U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have witnessed some significant successes during the last two years, it is still not completely certain that the American military’s culture, doctrine, and organization changed with sufficient celerity to ultimately succeed. But, it currently seems that these changes were effected just in time. However, in future permutations of this long irregular war, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and their ilk, will not likely elect to fight the U.S. with methods that approximate “head-on tank battles.” For this reason, it would be exceedingly prudent to sustain the recently achieved co-equal emphasis on both irregular and regular warfare that has been absent heretofore. Perhaps, now, the USG and the U.S. military, with their concomitant organizational and cultural preferences, are genuinely on the verge of expunging the ghosts of Vietnam.

Links:

1. A Study of Strategic Lessons Learned in Vietnam (Omnibus Executive Summary) - BDM Corporation, 9 March 1981.

2. The Unchangeable War - Brian M. Jenkins, Rand, November 1970.

3. Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam – R. W. Komer, Rand, August 1972.

Post-Script: Note Appendix A (Asymmetries in the Second Indochina War) and Appendix C (Characteristics of the American Way of War) in the Executive Summary of the 1980 BDM report, A Study of the Strategic Lessons of Vietnam. Some of these salient points, surprisingly, still resonate today if one takes a hard, introspective look, at the American military and the enemies it faces.

SWJ Editors' Links:

The Ghosts of Vietnam - Richard Fernandez, The Belmont Club
Discuss at Small Wars Council

Continue reading "“Burying the Ghosts of Vietnam” " »

Force Structure for Small Wars

by Andrew C. Pavord, Small Wars Journal

Download interim version of article as PDF

Since 9/11 the armed forces of the United States have paid a steep price to acquire proficiency in counterinsurgency operations. After going through a painful learning process the Army and Marines published the now acclaimed counterinsurgency manual and implemented a new approach in Iraq that is delivering impressive results. It is now a logical time to consider how to redesign combat units to reflect these lessons and prepare for the small wars of the future.

This article will argue that counterinsurgency brigades should be added to the U.S. Army’s force structure. Lacking forces specially trained and equipped for counterinsurgency, the Army has fought the war on terror with conventional units adapted to counterinsurgency operations. For most units, the transition from conventional organization and tactics to the very different and challenging tasks of counterinsurgency was traumatic. The costs of poor organization for counterinsurgency, in terms of battlefield mistakes and the misallocation of resources, were substantial. To provide the optimal force for fighting insurgencies the Army should develop Brigade Combat Teams (BCT) that are specifically organized, equipped, and trained for the complex challenges of counterinsurgency operations.

Download interim version of article as PDF

Continue reading "Force Structure for Small Wars" »

Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal roundup of the news, editorials, opinions, events, and blogosphere postings...

Continue reading "13 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup" »

Lessons Not Learned: Contracting Out Iraqi Army Advising by Peter W. Singer at The Brookings Institution, 12 May 2008.

Singer is with Brooking's 21st Century Defense Initiative which is charterd to produce cutting-edge research, analysis, and outreach that address some of the most critical issues facing leaders shaping defense policy in the coming century. The initiative focuses on the following three core issues: The Future of War, The Future of U.S. Defense Needs and Priorities, and The Implications for the U.S. Defense System.

From Contracting Out Iraqi Army Advising:

One of the key questions surrounding the government’s escalating uses of military contractors is actually not whether they save the government client money or not (this, however, is getting harder to argue with the more than $10 billion that the Defense Contract Audit Agency believes was either wasted or misspent on contracting in Iraq. Rather the crucial question that should asked at the onset of any potential outsourcing is simple: Should the task be done by a private company in the first place?

...the Pentagon is seeking to hire private contractors to help fill out the teams that will train and advise Iraq army units, including in their operations in the field. In more blunt terms, arguably the most important aspect of the operation in Iraq, the crux to defeating the insurgency/getting our troops out of there (whichever you care more about), is starting to be outsourced.

This one is a doozy of lessons not learned. First off, outsourcing training of the Iraqi military has been tried before and is actually one of the many, many factors into why we have had such a hard time...

Second, to turn over the task of advising the Iraqis now, at such a critical stage in the war effort as we try to translate the limited tactical success of the surge into something more permanent, is not just horrible timing. In the words of one U.S. Army officer, it is “definitely not a job that rational USG policy-makers should want in the hands of U.S./western contractors anytime soon.”...

Thirdly, the resultant messaging and long-term effects have to be a cause for concern. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testified a few weeks to Congress that building up Iraqi capabilities was the priority in the year ahead. Contrast this with the message that this contract sends to Congress, the American public, and most importantly, our Iraqi counterparts...

But, fourth, advising a partner military is not just about building up their military skillset. It is also about passing on values and building long-term relationships. When you contract out military advisors, the values of civil-military relations and professionalism are supplanted by the evident commoditization of military skills, not always the best message in a developing democracy. In turn, the relations are not built between officers advancing up the ranks between the two forces, but with a company and its ever-changing staff of employees...

Much more at Brookings. Hat tip to Phil Carter at Intel Dump for the e-mail pointer to this piece.

Discuss at Small Wars Council

Continue reading "Contracting Out Iraqi Army Advising" »

Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal roundup of the news, editorials, opinions, events, and blogosphere postings...

Continue reading "12 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup" »

Prison Break: Maybe the Army's Not So Hidebound Afterall by Fred Kaplan at Slate.

On April 23, I wrote a column (Gates Celebrates Dissent) that turns out to have been mistaken—that, I've since found out, underestimated the U.S. Army's capacity to reward its creative dissidents...

I concluded the column: "[A]s long as junior officers see (as Gates put it) 'principled, creative, reform-minded leaders' like Paul Yingling assigned to lowly positions, the military will not nourish many more."

It turns out that I was wrong on two points. First, contrary to my implication, Yingling's battalion was not sent to prison-guard duty as a punishment. There isn't much demand these days for artillery fire in Iraq or Afghanistan. Still, artillery battalions have to do something...

More crucial (and here is where some good news enters the picture), "detainee operations" in Iraq have become a lot more important—and more innovative—than they used to be. With no fanfare, they have become a key element in the broader counterinsurgency campaign. If Yingling was singled out for his current job, it was in recognition—not in grudge-slinging defiance—of his talents. And, in fact, it seems that he was singled out.

This morning, I spoke with Maj. Gen. Doug Stone, commanding general of Task Force 134, which runs detainee operations in Iraq. On the speaker phone with him was his deputy commander, Paul Yingling.

About a year ago, Stone told me, he and Gen. David Petraeus realized that something had to be done about the detention centers in Iraq. There were two centers, holding a total of 26,000 detainees, and the few jihadists among them were indoctrinating a large share of the rest. "It was becoming Jihadi U. in there," Stone said.

Stone set out to apply counterinsurgency principles inside the centers' walls...

More at Slate and Abu Muqawama.

More on "counterinsurgency inside the wire" at MountainRunner.

Update: With a hat tip to David Ucko - Bloggers' Roundtable With Gen. Douglas M. Stone, Washington Post transcript.

Continue reading "Prison Break" »

Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal roundup of the news, editorials, opinions, events, and blogosphere postings...

Continue reading "11 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup" »

Finally got around to visiting the Canadian Military Journal web page again, long overdue. Here are three articles the SWJ community should find interesting.

Political Warfare Is A Double-edged Sword: The Rise And Fall Of The French Counter-insurgency In Algeria by Pierre Pahlavi.

This article will examine how French counter-revolutionary warfare in Algeria developed, how it was implemented, and what successes it achieved. It will also focus upon how the strategy impacted the traditional practices and structures of the army, with a view to better understanding the reasons that caused the French government to begin dismantling the army in 1959. The objective here is to elaborate upon the notion of a doctrine that became a vérité devenue folle1 [truth run amok], which resulted in the Grande Muette (the army) overextending its responsibilities, establishing for itself a political conscience, and rising against a central national power suspected of trying to betray its initial mission. The purpose of examining this ideologization and its possible role in the failure of the counterinsurgency experiment is also to better grasp the principles and the perverse impacts of a strategy that would play an increasingly important role in conflicts and in international relations during the 21th Century.

Preparing for Coalition Command - The Three Ps: People, Processes, and Plans by Ian Wood.

Coalitions are always complex systems, involving frictional interaction between political and military leaders through the entire spectrum of operations spanning the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. To that end, this article is designed to add to the body of professional knowledge on the important issue of coalition warfare command. More specifically, it will be argued that a methodology is needed that future commanders may apply during the pre-deployment period to assess the competence and capabilities of coalition force contributions. A series of factors will be provided that are intended to assist commanders in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their assigned multinational forces. This article also, hopefully, will help prepare future Canadian commanders for success in areas such as leadership preparedness, force interoperability, and unity of effort.

Assimilating Urban Battle Experience - The Canadians at Ortona by Ian Gooderson.

At Ortona, the Allies encountered, for the first time, a built-up area turned by the Germans into a defensive zone in which to fight not just a rearguard action but also a prolonged defensive battle. For what it revealed of German urban fighting techniques, Ortona was invaluable, and the experience was characterized by further significant features. Defending Ortona were some of the most combat-proficient and motivated German soldiers in the field anywhere - paratroopers of the 1st Parachute Division, whose battalions had been deployed into theatre to stiffen critical sectors of the German front in Italy. Unlike their opponents, the Canadians lacked experience of, and possessed very little training for, such a battle, but, nevertheless, they gained the upper hand in the fighting. They adjusted to an unfamiliar battle environment quickly, and they devised and employed the methods necessary to win that battle.

More at the Canadian Military Journal.

Continue reading "Canadian Military Journal" »

Continue reading "SECDEF, CJCS Briefing and EUCOM Roundtable" »

Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal roundup of the news, editorials, opinions, events, and blogosphere postings...

Continue reading "10 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup" »

From the Human Terrain System,

It is with deep sorrow that we must inform you of the tragic death of Michael Bhatia, our social scientist team member assigned to the Afghanistan Human Terrain Team #1, in support of Task Force Currahee based at FOB SALERNO, Khowst Province.

Michael was killed on May 7 when the Humvee he was riding in was struck by an IED. Michael was traveling in a convoy of four vehicles, which were en route to a remote sector of Khowst province. For many years, this part of Khowst had been plagued by a violent inter-tribal conflict concerning land rights. Michael had identified this tribal dispute as a research priority, and was excited to finally be able to visit this area. This trip was the brigade's initial mission into the area, and it was their intention to initiate a negotiation process between the tribes.

Michael was in the lead vehicle with four other soldiers. Initial forensics indicate that the IED was triggered by a command detonated wire. Michael died immediately in the explosion. Two Army soldiers from Task Force Currahee were also killed in the attack, and two were critically injured.

During the course of his seven-month tour, Michael's work saved the lives of both US soldiers and Afghan civilians. His former brigade commander, COL Marty Schweitzer testified before Congress on 24 April that the Human Terrain Team of which Michael was a member helped the brigade reduce its lethal operations by 60 to 70%, increase the number of districts supporting the Afghan government from 15 to 83, and reduce Afghan civilian deaths from over 70 during the previous brigade's tour to 11 during the 4-82's tour.

A copy of Colonel Schweitzer's comments can be found at the Human Terrain System web page.

We will remember Michael for his personal courage, his willingness to endure danger and hardship, his incisive intelligence, his playful sense of humor, his confidence, his devoted character, and his powerful inner light. While his life has ended, he has not disappeared without a trace. He left a powerful effect behind, which will be felt by his friends and colleagues and by the people of Afghanistan for many years to come.

Steve Fondacaro
Program Manager

Montgomery McFate
Senior Social Science Advisor

Human Terrain System
US Army TRADOC

“The program has a real chance of reducing both the Afghan and American lives lost, as well as ensuring that the US/NATO/ISAF strategy becomes better attuned to the population’s concerns, views, criticisms, and interests and better supports the Government of Afghanistan.”

--Michael Vinay Bhatia, November 2007

More:

Medway Scholar Killed in Afghanistan Combat - Boston Herald
Afghan Bomb Kills Scholar from Mass. - Boston Globe
Brown Grad Killed in Afghanistan - Providence Journal
Medway Native Killed in Afghanistan - Daily News Tribune
Michael Bhatia - The QWU Blog
Meet Michael Bhatia - Foward Movement
In Memory of Michael Vinay Bhatia '99 - Brown University
The Cost of Being There - Complex Terrain Laboratory
Michael Bhatia Killed in Khost - Ghosts of Alexander
Social Scientist Killed in Afghanistan - Kings of War
'Human Terrain' Social Scientist Killed in Afghanistan - Danger Room
Fallen American - Forward Movement
In Memory of Michael Bhatia - Coming Back to Kabul
Human Terrain Team Member Killed - Historicus

Continue reading "Human Terrain Team Member Killed in Afghanistan" »

Leaving the Green Zone

By Sam Brannen

In the middle of Baghdad sits one of the United States’ greatest strategic liabilities in the Iraq war: a four square-mile swath of territory called the Green Zone (the “International Zone” when in polite company). Still crowded with the gaudy war memorials and palaces of Saddam’s regime that are too big to tear down, it is for many Iraqis the icon of U.S. occupation and a telling window into a post-surge security environment that looks more likely to loop back than move forward. The onetime seat of Paul Bremer and the Coalition Provisional Authority, the Green Zone is now shared by the sprawling Embassy Baghdad, the core of Iraq’s central government, and thousands of international contractors, including the infamous Blackwater security details. Green Zone denizens live in trailers, sometimes stacked one on top of the other, accustomed to the blare of the incoming round siren and ducking for cover in evenly spaced cement bunkers that are a bizarre juxtaposition to swimming pools, palm trees, and marble buildings.

Outside the Green Zone, American troops are fighting pitched battles in the high-density urban slums of Sadr City. Their objective is to reduce the mortar and rocket fire that has lately rained down on the Green Zone. By installing a massive cement wall to cut Sadr City in half, U.S. forces are attempting to corral militiamen and mortar teams out of range. As soldiers build the Sadr City wall, they fight for every inch in a slow grind that recalls trench warfare, taking casualties and under constant fire.

It is worth asking whether the Green Zone would be attacked absent such a pronounced U.S. presence tucked behind elaborate security checkpoints and layered defenses...

Continue reading "Leaving the Green Zone" »

According to Inside Defense (subscription required) U.S Special Operations Command is calling for a new executive agent for Irregular Warfare (IW) as part of its version of the fiscal year 2009 defense authorization bill.

Members of the House Armed Services terrorism, unconventional threats and capabilities subcommittee unanimously adopted the establishment of an executive agent of irregular warfare into their version of the FY-09 defense authorization bill.

While the legislative language is vague, subpanel Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) noted that whatever action the department decides to take on the executive agent authority, the Pentagon needs to ensure that approach will have an interagency aspect. "There are a lot of different people that have concerns" with irregular warfare operations, Smith said, adding an interagency approach would ensure those concerns would be heard.

As far as which organization should be granted the executive-agent authority, subcommittee member Jim Marshall (D-GA) noted that of the two likely candidates for the job - the Army or U.S. Special Operations Command - the Army would benefit the most.

Arguing that the majority of future, full-scale conflicts the United States may be involved in will likely be conducted as irregular-warfare campaigns, Marshall said the Army had better become adept in waging that kind of war. "Big Army is going to have to be able to do [irregular warfare] and do it well," he said, adding that executive-agent authority for irregular-warfare would be a step toward that goal.

More at Inside Defense to include funding of USSOCOM’s unfunded mandates.

Nothing follows.

Continue reading "On Executive Agent Authority for IW" »

UPDATE: Via Voice of America and Associated Press - US military officials in Iraq say the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq has not been captured. They denied reports from an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul Karim Khalaf, who told Iraqi state television on Thursday that Abu Ayyub al-Masri had been detained in a raid in the city of Mosul.

"Neither coalition forces nor Iraqi security forces detained or killed Abu Ayyub al-Masri. This guy had a similar name," said Maj. Peggy Kageleiry, a US military spokeswoman in northern Iraq. She said no additional details were being immediately provided.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said the confusion arose because the commander of Iraqi forces in northern Ninevah province was convinced that he had arrested al-Masri — also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

-----

The London Times, Associated Press and Reuters are reporting that al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri has been captured by Iraqi troops in Mosul. The capture was also reported on Iraqi television though there has been no official denial or confirmation from Multi-National Forces-Iraq or the Pentagon. Al-Masri took over al-Qaida in Iraq after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed 7 June 2006 in a US airstrike northeast of Baghdad. From the reports:

"The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, has been arrested, the Arabic television station al-Arabiya reported on Friday, quoting the Iraqi Defense Ministry."

"Arabiya said Muhajir had been detained in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The US military said it had no information on the reports at this stage..."

"US officials said al-Masri joined an extremist group led by al-Qaida's No.2 official. He later joined al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in 1999 and trained as a car bombing expert before traveling to Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003."

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway probably has it right as to the significance of al-Masri's capture:

I doubt this will make any terrific difference. We’ve captured or “otherwise dealt with” more number twos and number threes than you can shake a stick at over the years and buried this guy’s predecessor under a ton of rubble. Still, if true, it at least means the Iraqi security forces are getting better.

News Links

Man Held is Not Leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq - Freeman and Sabah, Washington Post
US Military Denies Iraq Report of al-Qaida Arrest - Associated Press
Leader of al-Qaida in Iraq Has Not Been Captured - Voice of America
Iraq al-Qaeda Chief Not Captured - BBC News
Al-Qaeda in Iraq Leader Arrested In Mosul - Freeman and Sabah, Washington Post
Al-Qaeda in Iraq Leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri Captured - James Hider, London Times
Iraqis Report Capture of al Qaeda in Iraq Leader - CNN News
Iraqi Army Says Iraqi al-Qaida Leader Arrested - Associated Press
Al Qaeda's Leader in Iraq Arrested - Reuters
Al-Qaeda Iraq Leader 'Arrested' - BBC News

Blog Links

US Military Denies al Masri in Custody - Bill Roggio, The Long War Journal
Abu Ayyub al-Masri Arrested - James Joyner, Outside the Beltway
Al-Masri the Egyptian Falls - Richard Fernandez, The Belmont Club
Favorable Indicators - Jules Crittenden, Forward Movement
Abu Ayyub al Masri Reported Captured - Bill Roggio, The Long War Journal
AQI # 1 Busted - Dr. iRack, Abu Muqawama

Continue reading "Abu Ayyub al-Masri Captured (Or Not - Updated)" »

Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal roundup of the news, editorials, opinions, events, and blogosphere postings...

Continue reading "9 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup" »

Guerrilla Warfare and the Indonesian Strategic Psyche
by Emmet McElhatton, Small Wars Journal

Download interim version of article as PDF

Some analysts of Indonesian affairs have tried to rebut “the conventional wisdom that Indonesia is simply a violent society” and reject “arguments that locate the origins of violence in cultural characteristics that highlight the irrationality of the Indonesian crowd”, asserting instead that military and political elites, predominantly Javanese by implication, use this convenient cultural epithet to mask their role in the instigation, manipulation and coordination of politically expedient violence. Of course all national or ethnic cultures have violent facets, a reflection of both their humanity and their will to survive the depredations of other cultures – even that most civilised of cultures, the Melians of Thucydides’, defended themselves heroically when crunch, in the form of Athens, came calling. This accepted, then Indonesians should not be singled out with a “more violent” tag any more than other comparable societies. Also a reading of all but the most partisan histories of post-war Indonesia demonstrate clearly that the many violent episodes that blot the collective memory are a series of power struggles between opposing elites with the common denominator an Indonesian Army unrestrained in its willingness to use extreme violence to maintain its notion of order.

Acknowledging this, we need also note that there are some aspects to Indonesian social, and particularly martial, culture that do indicate a different approach to violence and its utilisation than the strategic culture of, for example, New Zealand would countenance. For the purposes of this brief survey I will consider the notion of Javanese culture as the dominant force in Indonesian strategic culture and then examine this through a consideration of Indonesian guerrilla warfare theory.

Download interim version of article as PDF

Continue reading "Guerrilla Warfare and the Indonesian Strategic Psyche" »

UK Troops and US Marines Join Forces to Tackle the Taliban in Garmsir

By MoD Defence News via British Defence Staff - United States (BDS-US)

UK troops working as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in southern Afghanistan have been taking part in a joint operation with US Marines aimed at disrupting Taliban activity in the volatile Garmsir area of Helmand province...

Continue reading "UK Troops and US Marines Join Forces" »

Continue reading "Iraq Briefing" »