1 May SWJ News, Op-Ed & Blog Roundup
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May 1, 2008
May 2, 2008
2 May SWJ News, Op-Ed & Blog Roundup
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal roundup of the news, editorials, opinions and blogosphere postings...
Why Strategy is Simple
Why Strategy is Simple
by MAJ Aaron Bazin, Small Wars Journal
Download interim version of article as PDF
If strategy is difficult, it is only because those who ponder and execute strategy have made it that way. In an attempt to kill enemies in unclear ways, the strategic use of force has become muddled. Today, the lexicon of American strategic thought has become a mix of technologically enabled micromanagement, restrictions that ensure a healthy dose of gridlock, and constant political “blame-storming”. With a Nostradamus-like mix of art, science, and conjecture, modern strategy is lukewarm at best. To the soldier, the use of force is simple, kill, if you have to, so you can come back home alive in 15 months. Why is the use of force so complicated to strategic thinkers?
Strategy must be translated through the levels of theater-strategic, operational, and countless other bureaucratic filters to be understood by American Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen. Strategy must be one thing; simple. It must be so, not only to communicate to the military what to do, but tell the American people what the military is doing (that ever-important part of Clausewitz’s secondary trinity) and finally, to make the enemy understand that until they capitulate all they will experience is death, political failure, and economic ruin. Strategy should be a situationally applied tool that uses violence and the other elements of national power to adjust an international actor’s behavior so that it falls into concert with international norms.
Social Epidemics and the Human Element of Counterinsurgency
Social Epidemics and the Human Element of Counterinsurgency
by CPT Nils French, Small Wars Journal
Download interim version of article as PDF
Insurgency has historically presented a significant security challenge and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. Insurgents typically choose to operate from within a population and for this reason it is the human element that has had and will continue to have the most considerable impact on their operations and the operations that counter them. In The Tipping Point, bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell combines research from several disciplines to give incredible insight into the unusual and counterintuitive principles of the human element. He does this by exploring social epidemics; occasions where ideas, messages, and behaviors spread like viruses. The principles of social epidemics can be applied to business growth, crime rates, fashion trends, and other social phenomena. Because of the common human element, the concepts are equally applicable in an insurgency setting. It is universally acknowledged that insurgents work to spread their ideas and messages and promote certain behaviors within a population. Those wishing to counter them must do the same. Three principles can be employed in concert to ensure such efforts see results. First, the proper environment must be established and maintained. Second, the manner in which information is presented must be very carefully tuned to the population. And third, the right people must be carefully selected to spread the information. Precise requirements that address the peculiarities of human behavior, none of them obvious or intuitive, are given for each method and explained. This paper will show how these principles relate to counterinsurgency. Each principle will be placed in the context of insurgency and ideas and recommendations will be presented that are immediately relevant to contemporary security challenges.
Download interim version of article as PDF
Continue reading "Social Epidemics and the Human Element of Counterinsurgency" »
Friday Night Read
Hybrid Wars by Greg Grant at Government Executive with a hat tip to Frank Hoffman for the pointer.
What if the battles of the future are neither conventional nor irregular, but a combination of both?
The October 1973 Arab-Israeli War featured some of the largest set-piece battles fought since the end of World War II. For American defense planners, the conflict provided a bounty of information on the performance of the latest military hardware from Western and Soviet arsenals that had been sold to the Israeli and Arab armies, respectively. After the war, U.S. defense officials went to Israel and picked over the battlefields, searching out lessons from the fighting.
The United States was busy extricating itself from the disaster of Vietnam, and many in the U.S. military, particularly in the Army, saw the big battles fought on the Golan Heights and in the Sinai as an opportunity to refocus their intellectual efforts away from fighting shadowy guerrillas in jungles and back to the conventional, big battles they preferred. The 1973 war displayed the lethality of new precision weaponry. It was the first war to feature large numbers of guided missiles, launched from both the air and the ground. Egyptian and Syrian troops, for example, used vast numbers of Soviet-built Sagger portable anti-tank missiles to savage attacking Israeli tanks.
Now, in a touch of déjà vu, American defense planners are examining another Arab-Israeli clash - this one from 2006, when Israel's army faced off against fundamentalist Muslim organization Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. In a war that lasted 34 days, Hezbollah fought the vaunted Israeli Defense Forces, considered one of the most technologically advanced militaries, to a standstill. The outcome sent shock waves through the world's military establishments, particularly the Pentagon. Ever since, Defense Department planners have been trying to discover how Hezbollah guerrillas could have defeated a conventional army outfitted with U.S. equipment.
Much more at Government Executive.
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May 3, 2008
3 May SWJ News, Op-Ed & Blog Roundup
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Maras in Central America
Maras in Central America
National Security Implications of Gang Activity South of the Border
by COL Terry Saltsman and LTC Ben Welch III, Small Wars Journal
Download interim version of article as PDF
The strategic nature of conflict and violence, in addition to the definition of insurgent, is in a state of rapid change in both the defense and intelligence community. In the post September 11, 2001 world the United States is compelled to take a 360 degree view of the world in its efforts to “observe, orient, decide and act” against potential threats to vital national interests.
The challenge facing today’s defense establishment is an asymmetrical enemy that most Western militaries are ill equipped to challenge and defeat in a manner that is acceptable to the civilian population. If Iraq has taught us anything it is that even the best publicly supported military plan can turn sour, and that support can wane, if the operation morphs into a perceived tar pit. It is imperative that the public’s discernment of the events that will lead to ultimate victory be molded in an honest and realistic manner. This is increasingly essential in our pursuit of terrorists.
In the months following the unthinkable acts of 9/11, many terrorism experts specializing in violent conflict began to ponder the expanded dimensions of the new face of terror as it might apply toward the United States. Soon after, when President Bush introduced the American public to the “War Against Terrorism,” many of these same individuals turned their attention on the obvious avenues of Middle Eastern and Islamic Fundamentalist centric terrorism.
In the past several years the United States has pursued the “War Against Terrorism” on a number of fronts. In one, fighting in a conventional manner, territory has been the central issue with military forces seeking and then taking control of entire countries (Afghanistan and Iraq). In another scenario, Special Operation cells have worked with the military forces of concerned regimes in order to restrict the use of territory by terrorists seeking to establish training camps in countries such as Algeria and Mali.
With so many issues confronting the National Security interests of the United States it is easy to overlook one particular unprotected, and often ignored, flank – the maras (gangs) of Latin America.
May 4, 2008
4 May SWJ News, Op-Ed & Blog Roundup
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Sunday Light Reading
Will Hartley, Insurgency Research Group, has a great lineup of documents recently posted on the 'Net. Here are several examples:
Rethinking Counterinsurgency - John Mackinlay, Alison Al-Baddawy, Rand.
During the period of decolonization in Asia and Africa, the United Kingdom faced more insurgent activity than any other Western power. British government officials and military forces proved proficient at defeating or controlling these rebellions. However, these uprisings were much less complex than the modern jihadist insurgency. Past insurgent movements were primarily monolithic or national in form, had very specific local goals, and derived most of their power from the local population. These limitations made past rebellions vulnerable to strong military responses. In contrast, the modern jihadist insurgency is characterized by its complex and global nature...
Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 - US State Department.
US law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.
Iraq after the Surge I: The New Sunni Landscape and Iraq after the Surge II: The Need for a New Political Strategy - International Crisis Group.
The US military surge contributed to a significant reduction in violence but has reached the limit of what it can achieve. Without fundamental political changes in Iraq, success will remain fragile and dangerously reversible. The second of two companion reports, The Need for a New Political Strategy, analyses reasons for the current deadlock and suggests a way forward.
Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958 - Rand 2006 reprint of 1963 David Galula article.
Thus begins Lt Col David Galula’s account of his two years commanding a company of French troops in the Kabylia district, east of Algiers, at the height of the 1954–62 Algerian War of Independence. That uprising against French rule is remembered, if at all, as the last of the immediate post–World War II nationalist struggles waged by a colonized population against its European masters. For that reason, perhaps, France’s experiences in Algeria were mostly ignored by other countries, including the United States, which later found itself fighting remarkably similar insurgencies in Southeast Asia and Latin America, and today in Southwest Asia (e.g., Iraq).
Much more at Insurgency Research Group to include recent Small Wars Journal magazine offerings. Hat tip to ya Will.
Lastly, one not on the IRG list - American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and El Salvador by Benjamin Schwarz of Rand.
This report assesses the political and social dimensions of American counterinsurgency policy in El Salvador. It attempts to explain why low-intensity-conflict doctrine has not produced the desired results and to reassess that doctrine's future utility. The author's appraisal of U.S. involvement in El Salvador leads him to conclude that there is a vast disparity between U.S. objectives and achievements there. For a decade, U.S. policy toward El Salvador tried to synthesize liberal and conservative aims: foster political, social, and economic reform, and provide security to a country whose freedom from communism the United States deemed essential. In attempting to reconcile these objectives, however, the United States pursued a policy that used means unsettling to itself, for ends humiliating to the Salvadorans, and at a cost disproportionate to any conventional conception of the national interest.
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Conversation with Fareed Zakaria
May 5, 2008
5 May SWJ News, Op-Ed & Blog Roundup
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A Conversation with Meghan O'Sullivan
May 6, 2008
6 May SWJ News, Op-Ed & Blog Roundup
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New Army Handbooks Focus on First 100 Days of Combat
New Army Handbooks Focus on First 100 Days of Combat by Navy Seaman William Selby.
American Forces Press Service
The U.S. Army has published three new handbooks to help soldiers prepare for the first 100 days of combat, officials said on a teleconference with online journalists and “bloggers” yesterday. (Transcript).
Army Col. Steven Mains, director of the Center for Army Lesson Learned, and Milton Hileman, a senior military analyst, explained that there was a small but clear rise in the number of casualties early in a combat deployment, concentrated in the first 100 days.
“It’s not a new phenomenon that … we just figured out and nobody had ever seen before, but it’s something we could clearly show was the case in Iraq,” Mains said.
“And so it drove us to say, well, what do they know at day 250 that they really need to know during those first 100 days?”
After an extensive interview process with approximately 1700 soldiers, Mains and Hileman said that there were three key elements to surviving the first three months; avoiding complacency, good decisions made by junior leaders, and the efficient staff processes at the battalion and brigade level for commanders...
Continue reading "New Army Handbooks Focus on First 100 Days of Combat" »
IW on Roles and Missions Task List
Inside Defense (subscription required) is reporting the Defense Department is forming seven working groups to examine "priority" roles and missions issues, a few of which could plunge the military services into bitter internecine turf battles and give the Bush administration's Office of the Secretary of Defense a parting opportunity this summer to realign the defense bureaucracy.
The priority issues include ISR / Unmanned Aerial Systems, Intratheater Airlift / Joint Cargo Aircraft, Cyberspace Operations / Information Operations, Irregular Warfare, Excessively Overlapping Service Capabilities, DOD Governance Roles and Responsibilities, and Supporting Interagency Roles and Missions.
On Irregular Warfare Inside Defense had this to say:
The fourth issue group will focus on irregular warfare. It will be led by Michael Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special operations / low-intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities; Marine Corps General James Mattis, commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command; and Lieutenant General John Sattler of the Joint Staff, also a Marine.
This group will examine irregular warfare capabilities that are common to special operations forces and general purpose forces in order to explore opportunities to forge greater integration and interoperability between the two, according to the draft document.
"What DOD organizational structure would provide the best oversight for irregular warfare, maximize efficiencies across DOD components, better balance risk and investment priorities, enhance future capabilities development and ensure effective operations?" asks the draft document.
With the Army and Marine Corps shouldering the bulk of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, this issue group will examine how "to develop air and maritime capabilities for counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense," according to the document.
For those who subscribe to Inside Defense there is much more on roles and missions issues and the upcoming review. Good read...
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Army Focus on Counterinsurgency Debated Within
National Public Radio's Guy Raz has a combination article, audio report / interview and link to a recent Army AAR (The King and I) that has been circulating via e-mail throughout the military community.
From Army Focus on Counterinsurgency Debated Within:
An internal Pentagon report is raising concerns about whether the Army's focus on counterinsurgency has weakened its ability to fight conventional battles. The report's authors — all colonels with significant combat experience — say the Army is "mortgaging its ability to (successfully) fight" in the future.
The report, recently obtained by NPR, is the latest twist in an ongoing debate within the Army over whether it is now too focused on counterinsurgency training. The counterinsurgency doctrine emphasizes the use of minimal force, with the intent of winning the hearts and minds of a civilian population...
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sent a subtle but firm message to the Army a couple of weeks ago when he announced that Gen. David Petraeus — a staunch counterinsurgency advocate — has been nominated to take the helm of Central Command, where he will oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The post is arguably the highest-profile assignment in the U.S. military today.
"I would say that Gen. Petraeus' promotion is an affirmation of the fact that the counterinsurgency doctrine he wrote and the counterinsurgency strategy that he implemented in Iraq was successful," says Lt. Col. John Nagl, one of the Army's top experts on counterinsurgency doctrine...
Col. Sean MacFarland was among the first to successfully apply counterinsurgency doctrine in Iraq in 2006. And yet he was a co-author of the recent internal Army report suggesting that the Army is far too focused on counterinsurgency training. This singular focus, he writes, is weakening the Army.
The report cites field artillery as an example of an area that has suffered from inattention. Since 1775, artillery units have served as the backbone of the U.S. Army. But today, a stunning 90 percent of these units are unqualified to fire artillery accurately — the lowest level in history.
MacFarland declined to be interviewed for this story. But views like his have been amplified publicly by an iconoclastic, Berkeley-educated officer, Lt. Col. Gian Gentile.
"Due to five years in Iraq and six years in Afghanistan, I believe that the U.S. Army has become a counterinsurgency-only force," Gentile said recently during a public lecture in Washington. He also declined to comment for this story.
Gentile, who served two tours in Iraq, is perhaps the most outspoken internal critic of what he calls the Army's dangerous obsession with counterinsurgency...
In a recent posting on a counterinsurgency blog, Col. Peter Mansoor, a top aide to Petraeus who also helped write Field Manual 3-24, accused Gentile of "misreading the history of what's happening in Iraq...
Much of this debate has played out here on SWJ and the Council. Expect more in the coming months...
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May 7, 2008
7 May SWJ News, Op-Ed & Blog Roundup
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Events of Interest
13 May 2008 - After the Iraqi Offensive: An Address by Colonel H. R. McMaster (Public Event). Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute. The government of Iraq has made great strides both militarily and politically over the past year and a half. After dramatically reducing al Qaeda in Iraq’s operational capability, the Iraqi Security Forces have successfully undertaken operations to reclaim segments of Basra and Sadr City from Shiite extremist elements. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al Maliki has won increasing support from the major Sunni, Kurdish, and Shiite blocs due to his leadership in this offensive. Moreover, in a sign of bottom-up reconciliation, nearly 90 percent of Sunnis polled declared their intention to participate in the October provincial elections. How will Iraqi political dynamics evolve as operations against Shiite extremists continue? How will the security situation in Iraq evolve as the July drawdown in U.S. forces approaches? How have recent events in Iraq influenced our understanding of nation-building strategy? Having recently returned from working with Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus in Iraq, Colonel H. R. McMaster will address these and other questions at AEI on May 13. Following his address, Michèle Flournoy of the Center for a New American Security and AEI’s Thomas Donnelly will join Colonel McMaster for a discussion of these issues.
15 May 2008 - Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power (Public Event). Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute. In Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power (AEI Press, May 2008), AEI scholars Thomas Donnelly and Frederick W. Kagan pose a series of urgent questions for policymakers: What is the strategic role of American ground forces? What missions will these forces undertake in the future? What is the nature of land warfare in the twenty-first century? What qualities are necessary to succeed on the battlefields of the Long War? What is the ideal size and configuration of the force--and how much will it cost? On Thursday, May 15, Donnelly, Kagan, and Kathleen Hicks of the Center for Strategic and International Studies will discuss these and other questions about the size, shape, and costs of the land forces the United States will require in the years ahead.
17-19 June 2008- 3rd Annual North American Security Colloquium: Wars Without Borders (Public Event). Kingston, Ontario. Sponsored by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, Queen's Centre for International Relations, Defence Management Studies at Queen's University, and the Canadian Forces Land Doctrine and Training System. The conflicts today in Iraq and in Afghanistan are examples of what some leading scholars and many commanders have termed “continuous wars among the people.” This type of conflict is developing or occurring in other regions of the world, in Africa and in Latin America for example. In many of these situations traditional and legal borders no longer define or contain the conflict, nor do obvious sovereign entities control belligerents. International commitments to control these conflicts necessarily demand complex, multi-dimensional diplomatic, military, police, and humanitarian responses. What has been learned about such conflicts from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan may to some degree be transferable to conflicts in other regions. Assuming that the international community may well face future operations characterized by regional, borderless “wars among the people”, the centres at Queen’s University and their partners propose convening a distinguished group of approximately 200 experts from academic, military, governmental, and international institutions to examine how best to prepare commanders, military units and governments to plan for and conduct complex, multi-dimensional stability campaigns in this new environment.
16-18 September 2008 - The U.S. Army and the Interagency Process: A Historical Perspective (Public Event - Conference / Call for Papers). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Sponsored by the U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute. The symposium will include a variety of guest speakers, panel sessions, and general discussions. This symposium will explore the partnership between the U.S. Army and government agencies in attaining national goals and objectives in peace and war within a historical context. Separate international topics may be presented. The symposium will also examine current issues, dilemmas, problems, trends, and practices associated with U.S. Army operations requiring close interagency cooperation.
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FSI PRT Course
Are you deploying to an Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) or embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team (ePRT)? If so, then the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute has a course you should take. The Iraq PRT Orientation course provides members of Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and associated personnel, with critical skills needed to function in an interagency organization in a combat environment. The Small Wars Journal has posted a course brochure received earlier today via e-mail. The brochure contains a course outline, dates for the 5-day course (yes only 5 days, but better than no days we guess) and contact information. The FSI web page contains information on additional courses you may be interested in.
Nothing follows.
May 8, 2008
8 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Iraq Briefing
UK Troops and US Marines Join Forces
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...
Guerrilla Warfare and the Indonesian Strategic Psyche
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
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May 9, 2008
9 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Abu Ayyub al-Masri Captured (Or Not - Updated)
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.
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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)" »
On Executive Agent Authority for IW
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.
Leaving the Green Zone
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...
Human Terrain Team Member Killed in Afghanistan
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" »
May 10, 2008
10 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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SECDEF, CJCS Briefing and EUCOM Roundtable
Continue reading "SECDEF, CJCS Briefing and EUCOM Roundtable" »
Canadian Military Journal
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.
May 11, 2008
11 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Prison Break
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.
May 12, 2008
12 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Contracting Out Iraqi Army Advising
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
May 13, 2008
13 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Force Structure for Small Wars
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.
“Burying the Ghosts of Vietnam”
“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
The Daily Show - Douglas Feith Uncut
Secretary Gates on "Next-War-Itis"
Remarks to the Heritage Foundation (Colorado Springs, CO)
As Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Colorado Springs, Colorado, Tuesday, 13 May 2008.
Excerpts (Emphasis by SWJ):
... There is a good deal of debate and discussion – within the military, the Congress, and elsewhere – about whether we are putting too much emphasis on current demands – in particular, Iraq. And whether this emphasis is creating too much risk in other areas, such as preparing for potential future conflicts; being able to handle a contingency elsewhere in the world; and over stressing the ground forces, in particular the Army.
Much of what we are talking about is a matter of balancing risk: today’s demands versus tomorrow’s contingencies; irregular and asymmetric threats versus conventional threats. As the world’s remaining superpower, we have to be able to dissuade, deter, and, if necessary, respond to challenges across the spectrum.
Nonetheless, I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called “Next-War-itis” – the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict. This inclination is understandable, given the dominant role the Cold War had in shaping America’s peacetime military, where the United States constantly strove to either keep up with or get ahead of another superpower adversary...
But in a world of finite knowledge and limited resources, where we have to make choices and set priorities, it makes sense to lean toward the most likely and lethal scenarios for our military. And it is hard to conceive of any country confronting the United States directly in conventional terms – ship to ship, fighter to fighter, tank to tank – for some time to come. The record of the past quarter century is clear: the Soviets in Afghanistan, the Israelis in Lebanon, the United States in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Smaller, irregular forces – insurgents, guerrillas, terrorists – will find ways, as they always have, to frustrate and neutralize the advantages of larger, regular militaries. And even nation-states will try to exploit our perceived vulnerabilities in an asymmetric way, rather than play to our inherent strengths.
Overall, the kinds of capabilities we will most likely need in the years ahead will often resemble the kinds of capabilities we need today.
The implication, particularly for America’s ground forces, means we must institutionalize the lessons learned and capabilities honed from the ongoing conflicts. Many of these skills and tasks used to be the province of the Special Forces, but now are a core of the Army and Marine Corps as a whole...
For years to come, the Air Force and the Navy will be America’s main strategic deterrent. We need to modernize our ageing inventory of aircraft, and build out a fleet of ships that right now is the smallest we’ve had since the late 1930s. These forces provide the strategic flexibility we need to deter, and if necessary, respond to, other competitors...
A few words about global risk – the threats we face elsewhere in the world while America’s ground forces are concentrated on Iraq...
Today’s strategic context is completely different. While America’s military was being bled in Vietnam, a superpower with vast fleets of tanks, bombers, fighters, and nuclear weapons was poised to overrun Western Europe – then the central theater in that era’s long twilight struggle. Not so today...
Gates Urges Military to Focus on Current Wars - Josh White, Washington Post
Gates Says New Arms Must Play Role Now - Thom Shanker, New York Times
Gates Urges Focus on Needs in Iraq, Afghanistan - Julian Barnes, Los Angeles Times
Gates on Low-Intensity Warfare - Max Boot, Contentions
That's Why Abu Muqawama Loves You, Bobby - Abu Muqawama
Gates’ Speech at Colorado Springs - David Betz, Kings of War
Nothing follows.
Which “Ghosts” Should We Be Trying to Bury from Vietnam
Which “Ghosts” Should We Be Trying to Burry from Vietnam
A Response to Bob Cassidy’s Recent SWJ Post
By LTC Gian P. Gentile
The United States lost the war in Vietnam because it was unwinnable. One of the best books on the history of American involvement in Vietnam by historian George Herring stated just that. But we keep trying to rescue the Vietnam War from its impossibility by turning it into a “better war.” There was no “better war” in Vietnam.
America’s major involvement in the War in Vietnam starting with Westmoreland was as good as it could have gotten. Westmoreland along with the rest of the American Army prior to 1965 had developed a reasonable counterinsurgency doctrine that was understood by senior army leaders. That doctrine was premised on classic counterinsurgency theory. Arguably it was premised a bit too much on “counter-guerilla” warfare as part of an overarching counterinsurgency approach, but the basic tenets of good Coin practices were understood by the American Army on the eve of Vietnam: the importance of the people in COIN, the need to separate the insurgents from the people, etc. In fact Westmoreland’s approach as he started the major American involvement in 1965 was premised on the classical notion in COIN of “clear, hold, and build.” The strategy Westmoreland devised in 1965 was a reasonable one. He knew the population was the key along with government legitimacy but to get at those two keys he had to provide security. And that security was threatened by regular South Vietnamese communist military outfits and elements of the NVA Army operating in South Vietnam. The notion of having Westmoreland start of the campaign by dispersing American combat outposts of squad and platoon size throughout the countryside is nothing but chimera; they would have been crushed by a Vietcong and NVA enemy that could easily mass in company size and larger formations within South Vietnam. If Abrams would have been put in place as MAC-V commander instead of Westmoreland in 1965 he almost certainly would have adopted the same strategy. When General Abrams replaced Westmoreland in 1968 he did not radically and immediately alter course but instead shifted priorities and placed pacification of the population on top. What allowed Abrams to do this was the fact that the South Vietnamese Vietcong had been decimated by the Tet Offensive and no longer posed a determined threat to dispersed American troops. Abrams was also operating under the political direction to draw-down American forces in Vietnam which required a shift to focusing on South Vietnamese Army forces to carry out counterinsurgency operations with the American military in support with its new priority of the pacification of the countryside. By and large the American Army did the best that it could with the situation that it was presented and the mission assigned in a war that was fundamentally unwinnable. No amount of better “interagency cooperation and function (the term “interagency” by the way is a metaphor for America’s Sisyphean attempts to create imperial institutions along the lines of the old British empire) could have rescued it from its inherent impossibility.
Armies exist primarily to fight; that is their most important and basic core competency. The capability to conduct stability operations must flow from that core competency of fighting. Conventional wars are not things of the past. But in so saying this it does not mean that those of us who argue this point believe that the Soviet Union will soon emerge again so that we can go back to 1985 and prepare to fight them at the Fulda Gap reminiscent of the huge tank engagements at the World War II battle of Kursk. No, instead when we argue that conventional wars are not things of the past we mean that there is, to use scholar Frank Hoffman’s conception, hybrid enemies out there who can fight along the full spectrum of conflict. The recent Israeli experience in south Lebanon is a clear example of a “hybrid enemy” in Hizbollah who fought Israeli tactical combat units the way small units of German infantry fought the American Army in the Hedgerows of Normandy in World War II. The Israeli Army experience also shows what can happen to ground combat units when their army becomes overly focused on stability operations like the Israelis had in the years preceding in the Palestinian territories.
The notion that the Army’s new operational doctrine FM 3-0 treats conventional war and stability operations as equal is a bit off of the mark. In fact in the 11 pages in the chapter that deals with full spectrum operations 7 of those 11 pages are dedicated to stability operations, 2 to offensive operations, and 2 to defensive operations. How is that equal?
The American Army’s conventional warfighting capabilities are not a constant. Yet proponents of stability operations often assume that they are and from that point of departure keep hounding the American Army to get better at COIN and stability operations. Their premise is that up to about February 2007 in Iraq the American Army for the most part fumbled at COIN. This assertion is fallacious. Most American combat outfits have been conducting best COIN practices in Iraq since the middle of 2004. For examples of this go back into the past issues of Military Review and see that as far back as 2004 the experience shown in these articles was of American ground units who figured out very quickly that they were not in a “conventional fight,” that they were in a counterinsurgency and therefore learned and adapted very quickly to its necessities.
It is wrong to think that American Army’s conventional capabilities are at the same level they were in 2001, in fact they have atrophied severely. A recent study by three former Army Combat Brigade Commanders who served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 wrote an analysis for the Chief of Staff of the Army pointing out serious problems with the Army’s field artillery branch. After 6 years of counterinsurgency war a key means for the Army to fight conventional war through firepower delivered by artillery has become, to use the words of the colonels, a “dead branch walking.”
The “ghosts of Vietnam” actually rest in those who want to fight Vietnam all over again in Iraq. It is time for the American Army to start looking outside of its self-imposed Counterinsurgency box and toward a reasonable and realistic view of the future. For the American Army to remain in this box we are courting huge strategic risks.
Nothing follows.
Continue reading "Which “Ghosts” Should We Be Trying to Bury from Vietnam" »
The Children of the Left
The Children of the Left
By Geoffrey C. Lambert, Major General (Ret.), US Army
From the 1960’s through the 1980’s, those of us in the US Army Special Forces, along with our interagency partners, successfully stunted communist-sponsored insurgencies throughout Latin America. One of our prouder moments was in 1967, when Bolivian solders, trained, equipped and guided by Green Berets and the CIA, captured and killed Che Guevara.
From Guatemala to Chile, we taught our allies to defeat insurgency by destroying key nodes and personalities in insurgent networks, countering communist propaganda, developing internal security measures and population control, sharing intelligence with regional partners, and suppressing leftist movements.
The dictators we supported grasped our instruction and went into action with total freedom of action, unfettered by moral or legal limitations. As a result, counterinsurgency turned ugly as anti-communist zeal led to the imprisonment, torture or death of innocents among the thousands that perished in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and throughout the region. Sadly, it wasn’t until the Carter Administration and the War in El Salvador that human rights became a cornerstone of U.S. counterinsurgency planning and execution.
Today, we see the Children of the Left, now adults, (whose parents were disenfranchised or worse) finding their voices in Argentina, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and elsewhere. As a result, Latin America is increasingly drifting towards building new economic, diplomatic and military relationships, diminishing US influence in the region.
As we continue our struggle against radical Islamic terrorism, expanding the effort to our allies and coalition partners, we need to remember the Children of the Left. Our 20,000+ prisoners in Iraq, the death of innocent civilians, the loss of face of the many men now unemployed in a culture that values the man’s role as bread-winner more that we can understand, and our status as occupiers and Crusaders collectively may result in conditions far worse than the situation in Latin America today.
As we begin our exit from Iraq and begin focusing on building host nation counterinsurgency capability in Iraq and other countries, analysis of long term implications of seeking only short-term gain may provide insight to allow us to match word and deed in the upcoming decades to minimize long-term blowback – blowback from the Children of the Crusade.
During Unified Quest 09, The US Army Title 10 war game, there was discussion of the long term effects of the US counterinsurgency effort in Latin America, which led to this commentary.
Nothing follows.
May 14, 2008
14 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Army Values
Army Values
By Major Joseph A. Jackson
General Colin Powell’s recent visit to the Command and General Staff College reminded us that history, if not repetitive, is at least parallel in its dimensions. To fully grasp what leadership and the concept of a life spent in service to the Nation means, one need look no further than to the laurels and accomplishments that mark General Powell’s service. However, as General Powell mentioned, the attainment of accolades, high office, and material rewards reflect the simple, timeless, and real values that underpin our institution at the Command and General Staff College.
A veteran of two tours in Vietnam, General Powell shared the insights imparted by his journey through history. Then, as now, CGSC stands as a bastion of learning in turbulent and ambiguous times. Our institution does not promise that academics alone or a single methodology will ever triumph; rather it proposes that capable individuals grounded in relevant axioms can hone their mental agility and will deduce the clearest path to shape successful outcomes. We know that our values – Army Values – of which General Powell spoke, work because we have seen them in action. The values that were in instilled when General Powell’s class was in attendance then do not vary greatly from those we promulgate now. The testing grounds for these values are the rotations between Iraq and Afghanistan in places with names that sound decidedly foreign here in the Midwest -- Kabul, Ghardez, Baghdad, and Ar Ramadi. Forty years ago, Hue, Be Luong, and the A-Shau Valley of General Powell’s experience would have sounded equally as exotic. Conflict forces us to re-evaluate and reinvigorate ourselves with our core principles despite the time or place.
General Powell’s words and his selection of topics resonate beyond the vaulted ceilings of Eisenhower Auditorium. They resound in the classrooms where we students remain hard at work solving fictitious problems for service in a world of often cold, hard facts. Succinctly, General Powell charged us to remember that just as those leaders who preceded us, we serve in a time of great challenge. The challenges that General Powell’s generation faced were a nation divided politically over the morality of the war in Vietnam and a culture further separated by racial tensions. Today, we are a society wrestling with the moral issues of a protracted war abroad, domestic border security issues, and financial insecurity at home.
Yet, as tomorrow’s senior leaders, we see equally that along with these difficult issues there is great opportunity. As students we recognize that the dilemmas we face are not necessarily unique to our time but have parallels in our military history. The United States and its Officer Corps continue to serve as a model and a beacon for others to follow. Further, we acknowledge that we are a resilient and dynamic culture that prizes the timeless values of equality and the rule of law. Finally, General Powell’s visit reminds us to acknowledge that the common sense values of our institutions mirror the uncommon experience that is our composite American culture.
Major Joseph A. Jackson, US Army, is a student at the US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Iraq Briefings
May 15, 2008
15 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Army's Next Crop of Generals Forged in COIN
Army's Next Crop of Generals Forged in Counterinsurgency by Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post.
An Army board headed by Gen. David H. Petraeus has selected several combat-tested counterinsurgency experts for promotion to the rank of brigadier general, sifting through more than 1,000 colonels to identify a handful of innovative leaders who will shape the future Army, according to current and former senior Army officers.
The choices suggest that the unusual decision to put the top U.S. officer in Iraq in charge of the promotions board has generated new thinking on the qualities of a successful Army officer -- and also deepened Petraeus's imprint on the Army. Petraeus, who spent nearly four of the past five years in Iraq and has seen many of the colonels in action there, faces confirmation hearings next week to take charge of Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia...
They include Special Forces Col. Ken Tovo, a veteran of multiple Iraq tours who recently led a Special Operations task force there; Col. H.R. McMaster, a senior Petraeus adviser known for leading a successful counterinsurgency effort in the Iraqi city of Tall Afar, and Col. Sean MacFarland, who created a network of patrol bases in Ramadi that helped curb violence in the capital of Anbar Province, according to the officers...
More:
Proper Promotions - Max Boot, Contentions
McMaster Promoted, Finally... - Abu Muqawama, Abu Muqawama
This is Promising News - David Betz, Kings of War
The New Generalship - Mark Safranski, ZenPundit
Continue reading "Army's Next Crop of Generals Forged in COIN" »
Iraq Briefing
May 16, 2008
16 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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A Conversation with Robert Kagan
A Conversation with Michael Rose
Friday food for thought...
In the 7 May issue of Jane's Defence Weekly there is an article about how Israel is adapting based on lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War. Here's an excerpt:
"At the same time, the IDF's doctrine was completely revised: concepts that were developed in the long years of low-intensity conflict with the Palestinians were replaced by simplified, classic warfare constructs. 'For years we have developed a language that no one understands,' said a senior IDF source. 'From now on there are no longer 'spectacles' or 'effects-based warfare'. There is the objective, the method and the required achievement."
Retired general Yossi Peled, who was one of the severe critics of the IDF's previous doctrine, told Jane's "The only effect I know in warfare is to kill the enemy."
Hat tip to Bill Aldridge.
Nothing follows.
Welcome to the Blogosphere
In my day job I have the pleasure of observing and interacting with majors from the Marine Corps’ Command and Staff College and the Army’s Command and General Staff College at Joint Urban Warrior, a Marine Corps – US Joint Forces Command annual seminar-style war game. Now in its sixth year, JUW has seen CSC and C&GSC participation since its inception and the success the program has seen is largely due to the extraordinary knowledge, professionalism and drive of what we call our “iron majors” and “young Turks”.
When these majors talk it’s best to listen, with one or more combat deployments under their belt and as serious students of our craft, they more often than not cut to the quick in identifying what works, what is broken and what needs to be done.
Hopefully we’ll hear much more from the Army iron majors with the recent decision by Lieutenant General William Caldwell, IV, Commanding General of the US Army Combined Arms Center, as excerpted from a recent CAC memorandum below:
Command and General Staff College faculty and students will begin blogging as part of their curriculum and writing requirements both within the .mil and public environments. In addition CAC subordinate organizations will begin to engage in the blogosphere in an effort to communicate the myriad of activities that CAC is accomplishing and help assist telling the Army’s story to a wide and diverse audience.
LTG Caldwell’s memo detailed the purpose of his directive as an essential part of CAC’s responsibilities to provide information to the public and usher in a culture of change within the Army’s officer leadership, development and education community as well as to support military operations - leaders within the Army need to understand the power of the internet and leverage as many communications means as possible to communicate what CAC is doing. You can visit the new CAC Blog here. And of course; faculty, staff and students at our PME schoolhouses have an open invitation to blog here at SWJ, contribute to the online magazine or spar with Council members at the SWC.
Nothing follows.
May 17, 2008
17 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Saturday Twofer With Secretary Gates
Business Executives for National Security (Full Transcript)
As Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Washington, DC, Thursday, May 15, 2008.
Excerpt:
... Tonight, I’d like to discuss three elements of that support structure that I’ve made my top management priorities as Secretary of Defense – areas where I’ve identified shortcomings and want to see fundamental institutional change before my time in office expires. Which if you’re wondering, that’s about 250 days, 14 hours, and 45 minutes from now.
My priorities are focused on better supporting our troops in combat and include:- Sending more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets to Iraq and Afghanistan;These are issues I take seriously – and very personally. Each goes directly to our profound, even sacred, obligation to do everything we can to support the men and women currently fighting on the front lines – people like the four we recognized tonight - to see that they are successful on the battlefield and properly cared for at home. These needs require the Department to focus on the reality that we are in the midst of two wars and that what we can provide our soldiers and commanders three or four years hence isn’t nearly as important as what we can provide them today or next month. In each case, there was some sort of leadership shortcoming:
- Providing troops the best possible protection on dangerous roads in Iraq and Afghanistan; and
- Improving outpatient care and support for our wounded.
- A lack of vision or sense of urgency;A common mantra at Defense is that the rest of the government isn't at war. Well, a lesson I learned fairly early on was that important elements of the Defense Department weren't at war. Preoccupied with future capabilities and procurement programs, wedded to lumbering peacetime process and procedures, stuck in bureaucratic low-gear. The needs of those in combat too often were not addressed urgently or creatively...
- An unwillingness or hesitancy to upend assumptions and practices that have accumulated in a largely peacetime military establishment; and
- An assumption that the war would soon be over and therefore we shouldn’t impinge on programs that produce the kinds of equipment and capabilities that probably would not be needed in today’s combat.
Virginia Military Institute Commencement (Full Transcript)
As Delivered by Secretary of Defense Robert M.Gates, Lexington, VA, Friday, May 16, 2008.
Excerpt:
... The VMI community mourns the recent loss, just last month, of Marine First Sergeant Luke Mercardante in Afghanistan. VMI alum said of this honorary “Brother Rat”: “His legacy lives in his cadets and others who served with him, who are now taking the field across the globe.”
In a national radio address in 1940, on the anniversary of VMI’s founding, its most distinguished graduate, General George Marshall spoke of the Institute and the values it instills, he said: “Our graduates seldom amass great wealth, but just as seldom do they display weakness or indifference to their duties as citizens. They are trained to be soldiers, if there be need for soldiers . . . ; but what is far more important, they are trained to be good citizens.”
Taking on the full mantle of citizenship through public service is not for the timid or the faint of heart, even without the dangers of combat or rigors of military life. In fact, public service can often seem like a burden...
If, in the 21st century, America is to continue to be a force for good in the world – for freedom, justice, the rule of law, and the inherent value of each person; if America is to be, still, a beacon for all who are oppressed; if America is to exercise global leadership consistent with our better angels, then the most able and idealistic of today’s young people must step forward and agree to serve their country with the same honor, and courage, and dignity that marked the service of the long line of patriots that came before them. Your country asks nothing more than that you live up to the values you have learned and lived in this place for these past four years. You owe yourself nothing less...
Nothing follows.
Third World Experience in Counterinsurgency
Third World Experience in Counterinsurgency
Cuba’s Operation Carlotta, 1975
by Russ Stayanoff, Small Wars Journal
Download interim version of article as PDF
On December 2, 2005, Cuba's aging Fidel Castro addressed his nation's armed forces in his last personally delivered Revolutionary Armed Forces Day speech in Havana. The speech commemorated the 30th anniversary of the Cuban army’s Angolan intervention. The speech was the archetypal “Castronic” socialist diatribe long-time Fidel watchers have come to expect. However, during this speech Fidel, for the first time, shed some light on the history of the secret deployment of 36,000 Cuban troops, sent in 1975, to defend the newly declared independent Marxist government of Angola. “Never before,” declared Fidel, “had a Third World country acted to support another people in armed conflict beyond its geographical neighborhood.” The Cuban leader declared that contemporary historical assessments of the region consistently omit the contributions of the Cuban expeditionary forces. Castro called the contributions of the Cuban army "decisive in consolidating Angola's independence and achieving the independence of Namibia.”
What was Operation Carlotta and, more importantly, what will be its legacy to a people soon to have their history re-examined in the post-Castro era? What are the assessments of those who fought this bloody war some 30 years later? Pragmatic Cuban veterans consider the long official silence concerning Operation Carlotta an admission of failure in another of Fidel’s many botched programs of “Leninist internationalism.” Yet, others regard participation in Fidel’s African adventures, a patriotic duty proudly performed. A retired Cuban military doctor explained, “Well, you have to give credit to Fidel, he was one to back his words with deeds, and the deed was our presence in Angola. Most were quite proud to have participated. Remember, that at the time, the South Africans were a nasty bunch that never merited a lot of international sympathy.”
Download interim version of article as PDF
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May 18, 2008
18 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Recent DoD Bloggers Roundtables
The Bloggers Roundtable provides source material for stories in the blogosphere concerning the Department of Defense (DoD) by bloggers and online journalists. Where available, this includes transcripts, biographies, related fact sheets and video.
Here are several recent Bloggers Roundtables:
Afghan Police Training and Mentoring
U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. Richard Hall, commander of 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, talked about his battalion’s deployment to Afghanistan and their mission to train and mentor Afghan police forces on the bloggers roundtable.
Colonel Describes Progress With Afghan Army, Police
U.S. Army Col. Michael J. McMahon. Coalition trainers working to build Afghanistan’s national army and police force have fielded 52 infantry battalions to date.
Brigade Leaves Iraq Region Secure, Revitalized
U.S. Army Col. Wayne W. Grigsby, Jr. Nearing the end of a 15-month deployment in Iraq’s Madain Qada region, the 3rd Infantry Division’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team has helped reduce violence.
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, commander of Multinational Division North and 1st Armored Division, provided an update on operations in northern Iraq on the bloggers roundtable.
New York Guardsmen Support Task Force Phoenix in Afghanistan
U.S. Army Col. Brian K. Balfe. Members of a National Guard combat team from New York are training and mentoring Afghan national security forces.
Pilot of First Burma Relief Mission Describes Experience
U.S. Air Force Capt. Trevor Hall. The Air Force pilot who flew the first U.S. relief flight to Burma said he and his crew delivered 30,000 pounds of supplies to grateful citizens.
May 19, 2008
19 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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May 20, 2008
20 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
The SWJ Roundup will be "on break" 20 May but will return with full coverage on Wednesday, 21 May.
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A Conversation with LTG Ricardo Sanchez
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The Warrior Scholar
The Warrior Scholar
By Sam Liles
I have this fantasy that the warrior scholar elite can happen in my life time. Yes, I believe in the elite who are the best because in the realm of conflict failure to be elite carries the badge of vanquished. I believe that America has not only the most technologically sophisticated military, but the smartest and most creative military in history. Washing aside the driveling nauseous tripe of generational conflict between aging boomers, effete generation x’rs and dullard generation y’rs and you find honorable and efficient soldiers. Soldiers who expand beyond a passive roll into the active roll of scholar.
This is not a case of radical changes in the public education system serving society as some have received waivers and have “other” issues prior to enlisting or accepting a commission. America's soldiers succeed in spite of the mediocrity of a declining society that does not support them. In the midst of conflict the military system has a tendency to wring the vinegar out in a Darwinian evolutionary cycle. The bloated, bleeding, puss of a megalithic military industry complex collapsing before our own eyes is creating a generation of Spartan warriors. In the terror of wounded veterans, amputees, haggard eyes, and tired bodies is a systematic return to the scholarship of war. Failure to learn and implement the lessons of battle has no positive result...
Persistence as the 10th Principle of War
Persistence as the 10th Principle of War
by LTC Gregory A. Grimes, Small Wars Journal
Download interim version of article as PDF
Hap Arnold had it right: give the enemy time to recuperate and your efforts are wasted; relentless engagement crushes an enemy’s morale and will to fight. General Arnold recognized the value of persistence in attack, but in his day persistence meant persistence in effort, keeping up the fight day in and day out. Despite a commander’s best efforts the fight could be interrupted by bad weather preventing movement of friendly forces, by the logistical demands of feeding, resting and re-arming men, or by terrain that granted cover or concealment to an enemy. Lulls between engagements were often measured in days, sometimes weeks. The bombing raids of Germany during World War II were considered ‘persistent’ even though the bombings were only daily at best, leaving many hours of respite for the enemy between attacks. The applicability of persistence is changing now as technological advancements have bridged the previously unavoidable gaps. The apex tool for commanders, true persistent offensive engagement, is now possible. This paper therefore argues for persistence as the 10th Principle of War.
What makes true persistence now achievable? The answer lies in the appearance of a new system on the battlefield, the armed Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). UAS’s provide an unprecedented capability to match continuous target tracking with offensive strike capability. The key achievement of UAS’s, the step that makes true persistence possible, is the removal of the human pilot from the engagement loop. Humans still control the process but are no longer integral to its execution. In the past, persistence meant persistence in effort; it now means persistence in engagement. Military strategists have long recognized the human pilot as the limiting principle of aerial platforms. The need for life support systems and the physiological limits of human endurance inherently limit piloted platforms. And in the arena of large force-on-force engagements the logistical demands of feeding, resting and re-arming men are a constraint; as necessary as they are unavoidable. The modern commander now has an asset to bridge those engagement gaps. Armed UAS’s provide the critical tool to fill the inevitable gaps in human-on-human warfare.
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Upcoming Iraqi Elections Must Consolidate Security Gains of 'Sons of Iraq'
The editors would like to share the following article with the SWJ community. Published in World Politics Review on 20 May 2008, this piece examines the challenges and opportunities to arise from the Sons of Iraq phenomenon. It also seeks to debunk some of the myths to have been spun from this remarkable development. The article is also the forerunner of a longer piece on the political integration of irregular armed groups in Iraq since 2003 to the present day. Republished here with permission from the author; comments, criticism and feedback would be most appreciated.
Upcoming Iraqi Elections Must Consolidate Security Gains of 'Sons of Iraq'
By David Ucko
In the typically polarized debate on Iraq, the significance of the "Sons of Iraq" -- the predominantly Sunni militias now allied with the U.S. military against insurgents and terrorists -- can easily be lost. Depending on one's point of view, the U.S. military's new Sunni friends are either "concerned local citizens" or "opportunist insurgents" -- with pro- and anti-war camps each using the phenomenon to support pre-existing political positions. As Iraq approaches provincial elections in October, however, and the United States nears its own presidential vote, it is high time to abandon easy slogans and to examine the fresh challenges and many opportunities presented by recent events in Iraq. Among such events, the emergence of the Sons of Iraq stands out as particularly important.
Sons of Iraq (SOI) is the collective name used for the tribal elements, insurgents and civilians that turned against extremist groups active in Iraq and began working instead with the U.S. military. With the help of U.S. soldiers and Marines, the SOI have been largely responsible for the decrease in violence seen since the onset of the so-called "surge" in early 2007. The phenomenon, however, predates the surge, finding its origins in al-Anbar province in late 2006. There, the U.S. military and local Sunni tribes were able to seal security pacts with locals to work together against al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) and other Islamist armed groups. This pattern soon repeated itself in other parts of Iraq, bringing stability to former insurgent and AQI strongholds. At present, an estimated 103,000 Sons of Iraq (70 percent Sunni; 30 percent Shiite) are working with the U.S.-led coalition...
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May 21, 2008
21 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Military Review: Interagency Reader
Military Review Special Edition - Interagency Reader
America’s Frontier Wars: Lessons for Asymmetric Conflicts by Congressman Ike Skelton.
Congressman Ike Skelton suggests how to overcome the threat of asymmetrical warfare by examining yesteryear’s battles to develop strategies and tactics for tomorrow’s conflicts.
Revisiting CORDS: The Need for Unity of Effort to Secure Victory in Iraq by Major Ross Coffey, U.S. Army.
An innovative solution to unity of effort in Vietnam, CORDS offers a blueprint for realizing the national strategy for victory in Iraq.
The Most Important Thing: Legislative Reform of the National Security System by James R. Locher III.
Whatever its adequacy in a former era, today’s national security system is an inefficient anachronism. We need sweeping reforms that create a much more agile system.
Beyond Guns and Steel: Reviving the Nonmilitary Instruments of American Power by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.
The secretary of defense says the U.S. must develop a cadre of deployable civilians to strengthen the Nation’s “soft” power in today’s national security environment.
Learning From Our Modern Wars: The Imperatives of Preparing for a Dangerous Future by Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli, U.S. Army, with Major Stephen M. Smith, U.S. Army.
Looking beyond the current wars, a former commander of the 1st Cavalry Division and Multi-National Corps-Iraq calls for significant changes to the way we train and fight.
FM 3-0 Operations: The Army’s Blueprint by General William S. Wallace, U.S. Army.
TRADOC’s commander introduces the newest version of FM 3-0, the Army’s guide to operating in the 21st century.
FM 3-07, Stability Operations: Upshifting the Engine of Change by Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV, U.S. Army, and LTC Steve Leonard, U.S. Army.
FM 3-07 is the first doctrine of any type to undergo a comprehensive joint, service, interagency, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental review. This FM will institutionalize a whole-of-government approach to combating insurgency and sustaining success in an era of persistent conflict.
Cause for Hope: Economic Revitalization in Iraq by Paul Brinkley, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Business Transformation.
An interagency initiative, the Task Force for Business and Stabilization Operations is helping to quell insurgent violence by resuscitating Iraq’s old state-owned industries.
Combating a Modern Insurgency: Combined Task Force Devil in Afghanistan by Colonel (P) Patrick Donahue, U.S. Army, and Lieutenant Colonel Michael Fenzel, U.S. Army.
Two principals describe how Combined Task Force Devil employed a balanced strategy of military, economic, and political actions to quiet eastern Afghanistan during OIF VI.
Preparing for Economics in Stability Operations by Lieutenant Colonel David A. Anderson, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired, and Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wallen, U.S. Air Force.
During stability operations, economic actions become as important as military actions.
The Role of USAID and Development Assistance in Combating Terrorism by Colonel Thomas Baltazar, U.S. Army, Retired, and Elisabeth Kvitashvili.
The USAID, now recognized as a critical component for fighting the War on Terrorism, is transforming to take on greater responsibilities to shore up unstable countries.
Counterinsurgency Diplomacy: Political Advisors at the Operational and Tactical Levels by Dan Green.
In the age of the strategic corporal, it is high time for the tactical POLAD.
Control Roaming Dogs: Governance Operations in Future Conflict by Major Troy Thomas, U.S. Air Force.
Governance operations have been treated as tangential postconflict missions, leaving field commanders ill-prepared for governance tasks and delaying consolidation of political aims.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Department of Defense Humanitarian Assistance Programs by Colonel Eugene V. Bonventre, U.S. Air Force.
Measures of effectiveness, normally ubiquitous throughout DOD, do not exist for monitoring and evaluating military humanitarian assistance activities. Making efforts to gauge these programs can pay dividends in stability operations.
Why We Need to Reestablish the USIA by Michael J. Zwiebel.
Since 1999, when the USIA was abolished, U.S. public diplomacy efforts have been spotty. Reestablishing the old agency would be one way to fix a glaring problem.
The Sole Superpower in Decline: The Rise of a Multipolar World by Shri Dilip Hiro.
A widely-published author asserts that we are witnessing the rise of a multipolar world in which emergent powers are challenging American hegemony.
Nothing follows.
Iraq Briefing
May 22, 2008
22 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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IW Shortfalls, TMAAG Update
Inside the Pentagon (subscription required) is reporting on a 15 May memo by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England that spells out Irregular Warfare (IW) shortfalls within the Department of Defense.
In a May 15 memo to the armed services, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, the combatant commanders and other defense officials, England says an irregular warfare study uncovered steady-state shortfalls in the general-purpose forces' capability and capacity to handle counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense missions.
Inside the Pentagon, which obtained a copy of the memo, quotes England as identifying deficiencies in doctrine, training and institutions before general-purpose forces can train, equip and advise large numbers of foreign security forces in key irregular warfare missions.
DOD's roles and missions review will seek to find the right division of responsibilities for special operations troops and general-purpose forces across the spectrum of irregular warfare, including for counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense, according to a draft terms of reference that ITP reviewed.
Based on the study's results and recommendations, England directs specific follow-up actions. Transforming the Pentagon's institutions for irregular warfare requires "concerted effort and continued attention by all DOD components," he writes.
SWJ has more at a 6 May post - IW on Roles and Missions Task List
On a related issue, Inside the Pentagon also reports that Outgoing Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody has rejected plans for a new breed of units that would spearhead the training of foreign armies, asking instead that the service's Training and Doctrine Command reassess the idea, according to service sources.
Harvey Perritt, a TRADOC spokesman, said Cody gave officials at the Ft. Belvoir, VA-based command until Aug. 31 to present a revised concept to Army leaders. Service officials will know by the end of July whether they will field a previously planned pilot TMAAG unit, he added. "By that point, the review will be far enough along," he told InsideDefense.com.
One Army official, who requested anonymity, said service leaders still believe the goals behind the TMAAG -- an expeditionary cadre of trainers fostering military relations around the globe -- have merit.
SWJ has more at The Army's TMAAG.
America’s Greatest Weapon
Where would one find the U.S.’s greatest weapon? Try traveling to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the home of the Army’s War College.
You will enjoy the trip. The College’s stunningly beautiful campus hosts historic buildings that reflect the service’s proud warfighting history in a dignified yet refreshingly unapologetic manner. Just being there makes you stand straighter and – importantly – think clearer about serious subjects.
Clear thinking about serious subjects is what marked the Army’s XIX Strategy Conference convened there in early April. The premier convocation of its type, the meeting displayed an often misunderstood aspect of how the U.S. military improves itself: by welcoming critiques from the widest variety of sources, and encouraging opposing ideas to collide with great force.
The ability to think, learn, and adapt is what makes America’s military the finest in the world. Though it does not use these words, the Army exploits conferences like that at Carlisle to, in effect, tap into a concept from the Nation’s powerful engine of change, its free enterprise system.
Free enterprise triumphs as an economic system because it respects and empowers competition. Competition breeds efficiency and innovation. Unfortunately, the competitiveness outsiders may see in military debates can be misread as mere parochial squabbling. Sometimes that’s true, but more often the rivalry reflects honestly-held but differing beliefs as to how to use the military instrument most effectively in today’s very complex environments.
The good news is that those differences can make the U.S. military a devilishly difficult problem for our adversaries. Increasingly Iraqi insurgents are finding themselves watched and targeted by the Air Force’s unmanned drones linked to high-flying bombers. The satellite-guided weapon that lands precisely in their lair could come from aircraft they never saw or heard.
There is really no escape. Just when the insurgents think they’ve somehow outsmarted the Air Force’s high-tech surveillance capabilities, a young Army captain could show up on their doorstep with a platoon of no-nonsense U.S. and Iraqi troops. How? Today's captains carefully cultivate information sources among the locals as the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual teaches them to do. Schooled in the manual, such captains deliver offers the insurgents can’t refuse: be captured or be killed.
These are exactly the kinds of dilemmas the U.S. military loves to impose upon our enemies.
To get to the point where differing approaches are meshed to produce battlefield success requires passing through a crucible where white hot exchanges of ideas are forged into joint and interdependent “steel”. The process is not always “pretty”, and certainly not for the timid, but is one that – regardless – works.
The Army’s conference is central to this eminently “American” way of strategizing for war. Panels convened to wrestle with such questions as how can the interagency process work more effectively? What is the right balance of military forces? What is the role of civilian specialists? How can the armed forces optimize themselves for the future?
Moreover, the attendees, who represented a myriad of organizations in and out of government, showed no hesitation in challenging panelists with the toughest questions.
If you were hoping that at the end everyone stood and sang “Kumbaya” you will be disappointed. Disagreements still exist – and may (should?) always exist – but views do evolve. Military professionals know that being challenged intellectually forces them to re-examine their thinking. In some instances it will simply make views even firmer; in other instances, fresh information produces new insights. Both results are valued.
The finest military leaders want, indeed, demand, that differing ideas be ruthlessly explored. They expect and encourage vigorous debates. Can that process go awry? Sure. When it devolves into personal attacks and gets mired in finger-pointing, progress ceases. Accountability for the past may have its place, but it is vastly more important to look to the future. The stakes are too just too high.
Looking to the future is what took place at Carlisle. The American way of war is renewing itself. Our most powerful weapon - the competitive analysis of security issues by America’s military - is taking the field. Our enemies ought to beware. And update their wills.
Lt Col Nagl was one of the principal authors of FM 3-24, the Army/Marine Corps’ new counterinsurgency manual; Maj Gen Dunlap is the author of “Shortchanging the Joint Fight?” a critique of that same manual. These are their personal views.
May 23, 2008
23 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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General Zinni Redux
May 24, 2008
24 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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May 25, 2008
25 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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May 26, 2008
26 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Reducing the Mission is Not the Answer
Thomas Donnelly and Frederick Kagan hit a home run with their analysis and recommendations in yesterday’s New York Post - The Proud, The Few – Stretched to its Limits, Our Military Needs One Million Men.
First up – setting it straight – defining vs. ignoring the problem.
The fix-the-military argument was recently made at greater length by the New York Times. On May 18, the paper's editorialists noted that the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a serious toll on the Army and Marine Corps, wearing down not only people but equipment "at an unprecedented rate." Well, the loss rates would not have been surprising to the defenders of Bastogne, the armies at Antietam, or the servicemen and women in any other major war, but it is true that US land forces have been asked to do too much with too little for too long.
The question is how we should respond to this fact. The Times and its anti-war allies argue that the remedy is not to expand the force to meet the wartime mission, but to reduce the mission to what a small force can handle, consistent with a decent family life, defense budgets constrained to historic lows and peacetime recruitment and promotion "standards." In other words, let's not fix the problem. Let's give up.
And second up, the solution.
The Army and the Marines are indeed under great stress, but, as service leaders, officers, and sergeants-major take great pains to explain, they are far from broken. If anything, the tactical performance and discipline of US forces in the field has improved significantly in recent years. The Iraq surge is a case study of counterinsurgency warfare planned and executed brilliantly. Broken forces do not conduct such operations. From the level of team and squad to supreme command, US forces have adapted themselves remarkably to a war they were not at first ready to fight. In retrospect what is remarkable is how resilient and flexible the all-volunteer, professional force has proven to be.
The compelling reason to reinvest in America's Army and Marine Corps is not to withdraw and prepare for the "next war," but to build land forces capable of sustaining and prevailing in the so-called "Long War," the effort to secure more legitimate governments, and thus a more durable stability, in vital regions like the Persian Gulf.
So what does a Long War land force look like?
To begin with, it's bigger. Much bigger…
Read the rest here.
Memorial Day 2008
HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868
I. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.
If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.
Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.
II. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.
III. Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.
By order of
JOHN A. LOGAN,
Commander-in-Chief
N.P. CHIPMAN,
Adjutant General
Official:
WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.
Bush Pays Tribute to Troops on Memorial Day - Associated Press
Bush Urges Americans to Honor Holiday's Meaning - John Kruzel, AFPS
This Memorial Day - Washington Times
Honoring life on Memorial Day - Mike Mullen, Washington Times
Fallen But Never Forgotten - Blackfive, Blackfive
Reflections by Frontier 6 - Frontier 6, CAC Blog
Promises to Keep - COB6, Blackfive
Reflections by Frontier 6 - Jack, DoD Live
Memorial Day 2008 - CJ, A Solider's Perspective
Missing - Jules Crittenden, Forward Movement
The 173rd Airborne in Vietnam - Blackfive, Blackfive
Thank You From Those Left Behind - Blackfive, Blackfive
Roundtables: Memorial Day Edition - Grim, Blackfive
Memorial Day: Remembering the Fallen - Laughing Wolf, Blackfive
Memorial Day and Dog Tags - Phillip Carter, Intel Dump
Mullen Cites Importance of Remembrance in Memorial Day Message - AFPS
To Live with Honor - Joseph Morrison, National Review
Saluting Those Who Serve - Ed Feulne, Washington Times
Memorial Day - Baltimore Sun
The Dead We Honor - New York Post
The Fallen Live On - Boston Globe
Memorial Day 2008 - Austin Bay, Washington Times
How We Can Really Honor Our Veterans - Joe Galloway, McClachy News Service
Forgotten Heroes - Ed Sherwood, Washington Times
Mystic Chords of Memory - Mackubin Thomas Owens, National Review
The Gates of Heaven - Blackfive, Blackfive
A Weekend to Remember Them - Joseph Rehyansky, Human Events
Returning Meaning to Memorial Day - Bret Schulte, US News & World Report
Burial at Arlington - Douglas Stone, Human Events
Let Us Remember Them - Colbert King, Washington Post
Protesting the Antiwar Protestors - Kevin Ferris, Wall Street Journal
The Last Doughboy - George Will, New York Post
On Memorial Day - Los Angeles Times
His Family Chose to Serve - Mac Thornberry, Washington Times
Ross McGinnis: Medal of Honor - Chuck Simmins, America's North Shore Journal
Where They’ve Been, What They’ve Done - Cannoneer No. 4, CIIDG
Memorial Day - Herschel Smith, The Captain's Journal
Memorial Day - Eagle1, EagleSpeak
Memorial Day - Maj Pain, One Marine's View
Why Didn't We Listen to Their War Stories? - Edward Lengel, Washington Post
Washington Set to be 'Thunder'-Struck - Jennifer Harper, Washington Times
Memorial Day Book Suggestion - COB6, Blackfive
Funeral Duty - William Troy, Washington Post
Remember to Remember - William Kristol, New York Times
Arlington Burial: Fanfare, Precision - Karen Goldberg Goff, Washington Times
Five Best Works of War Poetry - Wall Street Journal
Vietnam Wall: Personal, Searchable - Washington Times
Training Afghan and Iraqi Military Chaplaincies
Training Afghan and Iraqi Military Chaplaincies
A Battle-proven Model from an Experiment in Afghan Indigenous Chaplain Training
by Chaplain (CPT) Eric A. Eliason, Small Wars Journal
Download interim version of article as PDF
As new Afghan and Iraqi armies come online in their deeply religious countries, their soldiers will naturally begin to seek chaplain support. Religious leadership in Islamic countries is much more valued and enjoys far more influence than in the West. So the issue of training Iraqi and Afghan chaplaincies is orders of magnitude more important than might be the case for other Armies—particularly in a conflict that has such complex religious dimensions.
This need for indigenous chaplains presents a thorny challenge to coalition efforts. If we take a role in setting up indigenous chaplaincies, the risk is serious for giving offense or appearing to meddle in religious affairs not our own and hereby set back our own efforts. However, if we are not involved in fostering chaplaincies for these new armies, then a wily enemy will surely find a way to infiltrate their radical religious leaders and ideas into the armies we are training and co-opt them to subversive ends.
So, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma that will not go away and will likely get worse if we do nothing. As to how we might find our way through this difficult issue, I offer in this article lessons learned from an experiment in indigenous chaplain training that took place in Afghanistan in 2004. I believe that refined and expanded, it might serve as a model for future projects to be undertaken on a larger scale that will help ensure the Afghan and Iraqi security forces remain protectors of liberty and not devolve into enemies of it.
Download interim version of article as PDF
Continue reading "Training Afghan and Iraqi Military Chaplaincies" »
May 27, 2008
27 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Well Intended but Largely Mistaken Attacks on NCTC and DHS “War of Words” Advisories (Part 1)
Part 1 of 6 Parts
In recent days, many "war of words" op-ed essays and newspaper editorials have been linked to by Small Wars Journal -- and appropriately so, for the issues they raise must surely be resolved in a far more adequate way than is now the case.
Most of these postings have been written by well-intentioned but, I think, mistaken authors who are angrily objecting to recent advisories -- not mandates but preliminary advisories -- by the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that we begin avoiding the very familiar "Jihad" (Holy War) and "mujahideen" (holy warriors) labels in the ongoing War on al Qaeda-style Terrorism.
For my own part, when I first saw these two documents long before they became public, I gave one of them a C- and the other a C+ at best -- but for reasons entirely different from those of the critics who are now attacking them in their entirety. At this point, I agree with only about half of their dozen or more specific recommendations of words to use and not to use.
Unfortunately, both of these advisories are insufficient to the situation and are, therefore, vulnerable to charges that they let both the terrorists and the despotic perversions of Islam which sponsor them "off the hook" -- and leave us with an unclear idea of exactly who and how very dangerous the "Jihadi" (but no longer to be called that) enemy really is.
This essay will attempt to describe the truth-in-language path which the NCTC, DHS, Department of State, Department of Defense and National Security Council experts should now follow in correctly and adequately defining what I have long called "The al Qaeda Apostasy" -- and doing so in several of the Islamic religious words they say should be avoided. In other words, I am a critic, too -- but in a largely constructive and supportive way rather than an angry and confrontational one.
Rather than trying to deal with each of these commentaries individually, I have selected a representative one -- a May 1, 2008 New York Post editorial, entitled "Jihad Newspeak" -- and will attempt to respond not only to its rationale and particulars but also to many of the individual columnists' worries, objections and understandable confusion...
May 28, 2008
28 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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FM 3-0: Operations on the Cusp of Postpositivism
FM 3-0: Operations on the Cusp of Postpositivism
by Christopher R. Paparone, Small Wars Journal
Download interim version of article as PDF
Complex operations require complex mental models. Our traditional model for developing and disseminating professional military knowledge has been tied to a kind of pseudoscience and as such doctrine has historically been akin to finding independent variables (e.g., variations of offensive and defensive activities), that when scripted correctly, are believed to create military effectiveness (with the dependent variables include variations of enemy outcomes, such as defeated or destroyed). The eighteenth century tradition of the Western positivist world view demands a single, best solution – derived “objectively” from the best analysis and best course of action that together drive effects in a focused, Jominian-style pathway. We are on the cusp of shifting paradigms because a doctrine based in positivist philosophy is not working well for us. The text of the new Army FM 3-0, Operations, is an example of how the Army-at-war is transitioning from a positivist to a postpositivist philosophy.
Download interim version of article as PDF
Continue reading "FM 3-0: Operations on the Cusp of Postpositivism" »
Iraq / Pentagon Briefings
May 29, 2008
29 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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May 30, 2008
One of SWJ's "Rogue Cousins" Says Thank You, and Goodbye
SWJ will miss Abu Muqawama's posts at the blog that bears his 'Net moniker - Find out more at Thank You and Goodbye.
Continue reading "One of SWJ's "Rogue Cousins" Says Thank You, and Goodbye" »
30 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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May 31, 2008
31 May SWJ News, Op-Ed, Events & Blog Roundup
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Small Wars Council Quote of the Day
- Schmedlap
- SWC Thread Saving their Souls in Fallujah?
Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence
Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence: The U.S. Military and Counterinsurgency Doctrine, 1960–1970 and 2003–2006 by Austin Long, Rand.
The linked Rand paper is worth the read. Great doctrinal historical run down.I have to take slight exception to the wording of this paragraph (page 28) below. It is not that we (in Army Special Forces) consider Foreign Internal Defense (FID) to be a core mission, it is by law a core Special Operations Force (SOF) mission but by doctrine all services are required to provide forces trained and ready to conduct FID. It is not an exclusive mission to any one service or force.
Note that the variation in observed COIN practice in Iraq likely stems from differences in military organizations. Army Special Forces have always considered FID to be part of their core mission and have developed patterns of thinking appropriate to that mission. These patterns are often highly at odds with the larger Army. The Marine Corps falls somewhere between the Special Forces and the larger Army in terms of patterns of thinking. Of course, the Special Forces are not expected to win a high-intensity conflict alone and, despite the occasional exuberant Marine rhetoric, neither is the Marine Corps.
And I would also a caveat to the above. Just as Special Forces and the Marine Corps are not expected to win high-intensity conflicts alone, Special Forces an/ or the Marine Corps, and General Purpose Forces in general do not “win” FID or COIN alone. It takes an integrated whole of government effort not to win the FID/COIN fight but to support friends, partners, and allies in their fight against an insurgency (or lawlessness, or terrorism or ungoverned spaces and sanctuaries, whatever internal or transnational threat exists the country or region). But again, I hate to beat a dead horse, one of the fundamental problems I think we have with FID/COIN is that we approach it from the perspective of the US winning the FID/COIN fight. While our past doctrine has alluded to it and you can read it in the attached paper when it discusses the paramount requirement for the local government to win (or win back) the support of the population, we tend to pay lip service to that fact and a consistent theme in all our operations in post WWII has been about the US winning in FID/COIN. For example we place great emphasis about “living with the people.” While I absolutely believe that is critically important (see CIDG, CAP, and CORDS discussions in the paper on pages 14-15) , it is not so much about us (as in big US) living with the indigenous people - it should be us living with the indigenous security forces - but with us in the background advising those indigenous security forces to live among their people. We have to get out of the mindset that we have to be the victors in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can only be the external support to help the Iraqi and Afghan people be the victors by helping those governments and their security forces to be successful. In the long run, it is counterproductive to try to win these fights ourselves, because we cannot. The only COIN fight we can win is one directed against the United States.
And one last editorial comment. We have to get over the “we-they” in our own military and our own government. What we have learned in the era of jointness is that no one service or one capability (e.g., SOF vs GPF) can be successful in any campaign. It takes the proper application of the right joint capabilities and resources to be successful. And the we-they problem is not just within the military – we have a “we-they” problem within our whole of government particularly as evidenced when we say “the military and the interagency.” We seem to forget that DOD is part of the interagency when we tend to talk like it is something separate. We need to get over our parochialism and get on with accomplishing the mission and getting the job done as a joint and interagency team.
Well Intended but Largely Mistaken Attacks (Parts 2 & 3)
Well Intended but Largely Mistaken Attacks on NCTC and DHS “War of Words” Advisories
Parts 2 and 3 of 6 parts.
Part # 2: George Orwell to the Rescue?
Turning to the New York Post's editorial, which sees no problem whatever in the current lexicon, both its eye-catching title and its message throughout argue that the legendary George Orwell -- author of "Newspeak" fame in his great works "1984" and "Animal Farm" -- would disapprove of these NCTC and DHS recommendations and would opt for retaining these two controversial "holy war by holy guys" labels forever more.
With all due respect, I emphatically disagree. As the 20th Century's supreme authority on the manipulation and cynical distortion of language and labels, Orwell would have wanted these two words (and others like them) of asserted "holiness" and "martyrdom" on the part of al Qaeda, Hizballah, Hamas and their hater-mongers and suicide mass murderers to be rejected outright as the worst sort of "Newspeak" disinformation.
He would have strongly favored such sharply negative and condemnatory Arabic and Islamic terms as "Irhab" (Terrorism), "Hirabah" (unholy war, war against society, crimes against humanity), "mufsiduun" (evildoers, sinners, corrupters) and "shaitani" (satanic) -- along with several more of these demeaning and demonizing labels recommended below.
Those commentators who allege that these new sharp-edged labels would somehow "soften the Lexicon" and "blind us to the real nature of the enemy" would do well to reconsider their (unintentionally) pro-al Qaeda conclusions in that regard. After all, the Terrorists WANT to be known by the halo-polishing language of "Jihadi Martyrdom" and never, ever by the harsh and condemnatory language of Irhabi Murderdom (Terroristic Genocide)...
Continue reading "Well Intended but Largely Mistaken Attacks (Parts 2 & 3)" »
Do We Need a Proponent for COIN?
Just to play a little devil’s advocate here as people debate proponency. Why do we need a proponent for Counterinsurgency (COIN)? Why does it have to “compete” with Infantry, Armor, etc? Is there a proponent for Major Combat Operations (MCO)? Is there a proponent for offense or defense? Obviously, the answer to my rhetorical questions is no. Why is that?
Because every service and every component, and every branch contributes to those operations. COIN is the same way. I think this is counter-intuitive but if we want COIN to be equal to Major Combat Operations then we should NOT have a single proponent because once we do that we allow abdication of responsibility for it to studied and practiced by all the organizations that are not the proponent...
About May 2008
This page contains all entries posted to SWJ Blog in May 2008. They are listed from oldest to newest.
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