IRAQ

Dexter Filkens has a reflectice piece in today's New York Times on General David Petraeus and his tenure at Multi-National Force - Iraq.

General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life...

... also a caveat: Iraq has indeed stepped back from self-destruction... but the gains are tenuous and unlikely to survive without an American effort that outlasts his tenure.

General Petraeus declined to discuss the kind of American troop levels he thinks would be needed to ensure that the positive trends become permanent. Indeed, the way ahead in Iraq seems anything but clear, with many arrangements that are keeping the peace - like 100,000 Sunni gunmen, many of them former insurgents, on the government payroll at $25 million a month - extremely fragile. A collapse of the peace is not difficult to imagine...

David Wood, Baltimore Sun, reports on the calming of violence in Iraq but asks - is the war over?

... "Our ticket out of here was to develop Iraqi security forces. That has been accomplished," declared Maj. Gen. John Kelly, who commands 25,000 Marines and sailors in Iraq's western Anbar province.

"On a day-to-day basis, very seldom do they actually need us," he said of the Iraqi army and police units operating across his huge sector.

Speaking broadly of the nearly 5 1/2 -year US war in Iraq, Kelly said in a recent telephone interview that "we're in the last 10 yards of this thing" but that only "economic development and jobs" can finish it, echoing the view of counterinsurgency warfare expressed by Gen. David Petraeus and others...

Pentagon officials expect that further troop reductions will be announced next month when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appear before congressional committees. Petraeus, who will become overall commander of US forces in the Middle East in October, is not expected to testify as he did last year.

There are doubters, however. One is Michael E. O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a recognized specialist on Iraq...

Richard Tomkins, Washington Times, reports on changing tactics in Iraq - how the improved security allows a lighter hand by MNF-I military forces.

... Troops who once kicked in doors during searches in questionable neighborhoods now knock and ask permission to enter during operations to ferret out terrorists and their weapons.

Military convoys that pushed aside civilian traffic to reach their destinations are less aggressive and bullying in maneuvering through Baghdad´s traffic-jammed streets as the number of improvised explosive devices decreases.

Civil-affairs efforts - from helping refurbish schools to funding business development to improving neighborhood sewerage services - have moved from the back seat to the front...

Interestingly, especially in light of a certain upcoming election, the Washington Times is reporting that Senator John McCain sent a private letter to President Bush on 12 December 2006, that challenged the president to show the "will" to win the Iraq war by deploying 20,000 troops into Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle to beat back a growing insurgency.

... The letter was the climax of a 3 1/2-year effort to persuade the president to send more troops to Iraq. The former Navy pilot, who had his arms repeatedly broken during nearly six years of captivity, couched his argument in the terms born of the Vietnam War.

"The question is one of will more than capacity," wrote the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. "If we are not willing to provide the troops necessary for victory, however, victory itself will be impossible."

Mr. McCain, whose letter is made public here for the first time, added that "surging five additional brigades into Baghdad by March" was the answer....

New York Times is also reporting that Iraqi and American negotiators have agreed to a draft of a long-awaited security agreement to govern the presence of American troops in Iraq.

Abu Muqawama has plenty of coverage and insights on the security agreement, Sons of Iraq and the situation in Diyala. As does The Long War Journal.

LESSONS OF GEORGIA?

The smoke hasn't cleared in Georgia but that hasn't stopped the rush to identify lessons learned from Russian military operations there and the impact these lessons should have on US military force structure and capabilities. Time's Mark Thompson has this to say in The Strategic Lessons of Georgia:

Military strategists see it as vindication for their continued calls for heavy, armor-centric warfare, while geo-strategists take it as a lesson in the dangers of a small country baiting a bigger and nearer foe when its key ally packs little more than rhetorical firepower, at least in the short term.

Despite US embarrassment at the humiliation of its Georgian ally, the US Army's tankers and artillerymen at Fort Knox's armor school have been encouraged by the success of the Russian army's blitzkrieg. Moscow's triumph suggests that there is wisdom behind Defense Secretary Robert Gates' insistence that the US be prepared to wage "full-spectrum operations" - not just the past five years of irregular warfare that America has been engaged in, with small units of soldiers patrolling Baghdad streets and Afghan mountains.

Okay, agreed. Got it. No one here argues against the need for "full-spectrum" capabilities - we just get nervous about any talk of jumping on the way-back machine to the good ole days of fighting the two up, one back, enemy in the Fulda Gap. Please read Secretary Gates November 2007 address at Kansas State University again.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post is reporting on potential signs of a Russian military drawdown in Georgia. The troops are still in Gori - just fewer of them right now. However - the New York Times and Los Angeles Times aren't that hopeful - reporting that despite a Russian pledge to withdraw forces from Abkhazia and South Ossetia by Friday, Russian troops showed no signs of relaxing their grip on critical Georgian roads and ports. In related news - at least in terms of evoking a strong Russian response - the US and Poland have formally signed a deal to deploy American missiles in the east European nation. The United States says the missiles are needed to guard against attacks from rogue states like Iran; Russia says the deployment threatens its own security.

Best one-liner - Tom Barnett on Edward Luttwak - Stupidity doesn't get any better than this.

Westhawk has plenty to say on Georgia, Russia and NATO to include a piece calling for Georgia to switch to unconventional warfare against the Russians. Anyone got a picture of Putin or Medvedev under a mission complete sign? Steve Schippert at Threats Watch also provides insights and analysis.

COUNTERINSURGENCY

Military Review has posted its latest special edition - Counterinsuregency Reader II. In October 2006, the US Army Combined Arms Center published a volume of selected articles in conjunction with the release and distribution of the Army/Marine Corps Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency. Subsequently, numerous articles have been written exploring other dimensions of counterinsurgency not treated, or not well understood, when the first volume was published. These articles reflect both the vastly expanded range of knowledge and experience that US land forces have obtained as well as the painful cost of such lessons with regard to fighting and defeating insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Many outline the first-hand lessons learned in the current operational environment. As the Intellectual Center of the Army, the Combined Arms Center recognizes the importance of sharing these first-hand documents. The Counterinsurgency Center (COIN Center) and editors of Military Review have designed this second collection to complement the recently released FM 3-0, Operations and the soon to be released Counterinsurgency Handbook (produced by the COIN Center); FM 3-24.2, Counterinsurgency Tactics; FM 3-07, Stability Operations; and FM 3-28, Civil Support. While doctrinal field manuals lay out principles and supporting theory for dealing with the asymmetric aspects of warfare inherent in insurgency conflicts, these articles are intended to provide specific lessons and observations drawn from operations in the field.

E-mail RUMINT - No one at SWJ (all three of us) subscribes to Harper's - but we did get this short tip from someone who is "HTT-smart" - you might find Steve Featherstone's thoughtful article "Human Quicksand" of interest. It is on the US Army, Culture and Human Terrain Teams, with emphasis on Afghanistan. The article can be found in September's issue of Harper's Magazine.

Another e-mail alert - COIN Revisited: Lessons of the Classical Literature on Counterinsurgency and Its Applicability to the Afghan Hybrid Insurgency by Harald Havall and published by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. This report addresses the origin of counterinsurgency via studying some of the ‘classical literature’ (the literature on the insurgencies and the ‘revolutionary wars’ of the mid-20th century) and provides analysis of current conflict in Afghanistan in light of these findings. Also check out NUPI's Current Publications page for additional papers, articles and books concerning Small Wars items of interest.

SWC member Tom Odom provides a link to In Contact! Case Studies from the Long War, Volume I. In Contact!, produced by the US Army's Combat Studies Institute, is a companion to CSI’s campaign histories of Operation Iraqi Freedom - On Point (2004), On Point II (2008), and a history of Operation Enduring Freedom (to be released).

On the US Army, counterinsurgency and adapting to war in the 21st century - Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera's Europe correspondent, files his third report on a recent US visit in a series AJ calls "American Challenge". The article, not very deep or thought-provoking for regular SWJ readers, covers training at the National Training Center, education at Ft. Leavenworth, lowering standards to meet Army manpower requirements, new technology to meet modern challenges and the cost of all of the above.

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Speaking of manpower, DoD released its latest numbers on National Guard (In Federal Status) and Reserve Activated yesterday. The tally - the Air Force and Navy announced an increase, while the Army and Marine Corps announced a decrease. The Coast Guard number remained unchanged. The net collective result is 710 fewer reservists activated than last week. A cumulative roster of all National Guard and Reserve personnel who are currently activated can be found here.

Turning to the Navy - CSIS recently released a report entitled Abandon Ships: The Costly Illusion of Unaffordable Transformation. Galrahn at Information Dissemination wasn't much impressed.

I don't want to spend much time on this, but I do not find the new CSIS report compelling, and do not believe Dr. Cordesman had much involvement with it. It is a mess... Why do I have a problem with this report? Because it fails to produce even a single original idea, and essentially stole every thought written down from one of those four men.

But that isn't the only reason. There are factual errors too, for example, what year was the USS Cole attacked? Check the report, "Draft" is appropriate. In the end the report spends 20 pages complaining about the problems with shipbuilding, actually emphasizes the new CVN program (the only evolutionary program) as the centerpiece of the problem, then calls for people to be fired but is too chicken shit to name names, instead implying Winter and Roughead should be fired. Well that is just really damn stupid, the two guys trying to fix shipbuilding problems by canceling or truncating over budget shipbuilding plans that are, even according to the report, unrealistic... should take the fall? What a load of crap.

I'm left underwhelmed...

More at CDR Salamnder.

SMITH-MUNDT DISCUSSION

SWJ ran this by Matt Armstrong (MountainRunner), Sharon Weinberger responded with this, this, and this (Wired) and Matt introduces a new voice in the Smith-Mundt discussion. Lot's of good stuff on an important issue - one that does not receive the attention it deserves...

Related - on the issue of public diplomacy - also see the recent SWJ article Public Diplomacy and National Security by Bruce Gregory.

ENDNOTES

NATO Paralysis - Washington Times editorial
This is What NATO is For - Daily Telegraph editorial
Russia Earns Distrust - Globe and Mail editorial
West Must Acknowledge Russia's Danger - Miami Herald opinion
Putin is Teaching the West a Lesson - New York Post opinion
Not a Cold War - National Review opinion
Sarkozy in Kabul, French will 'Stick it Out' - Associated Press
Brown in Afghanistan, Praises UK Troops - The Times
West Must Commit to Securing Peace in Afghanistan - The Australian editorial
Afghanistan on Fire - New York Times editorial
The Taliban's Big Lie - Toronto Star editorial
Criminal-Terror Nexus in Afghanistan - Counterterrorism
From Tbilisi to Taliban - Washington Times opinion
The Perils of Pakistan - Washington Post editorial
US Better Off Without Musharraf - Wall Street Journal opinion
Fear and Opportunity in Pakistan - Boston Globe opinion
Iraq's Displaced - Washington Times opinion
Iraq's Oil Progress - Weekly Standard opinion
Russia's Syrian Gambit - The Times editorial
More Bombings in Algeria - Washington Post
Philippines Cancels Deal With Rebels - Reuters
London's Terror Bank - Wall Street Journal editorial
The Internet is a Gateway to Jihad - Kings of War
New UN Al Qaeda Assessment Imminent - Ubiwar
Turkey Moving Away From the West? - Voice of America
Venezuela's Weak Strongman - Weekly Standard opinion
Africa: News Good Enough to Bury - New York Times commentary

EVENTS OF INTEREST

11-12 September - DNI Open Source Conferece 2008 (Public Event - Conference). Washington, DC. Sponsored by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Office of the DNI is pleased to announce the "DNI Open Source Conference 2008" to be held on Thursday, 11 September and Friday, 12 September, 2008 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington DC. The conference is free; however, all who wish to attend must register online in advance (deadline 31 July). The two-day conference will explore a wide range of open source issues and open source best practices for the Intelligence Community and its partners. We invite participants from the broader open source community of interest including academia, think tanks, private industry, federal, state, local and tribal entities, international partners, and the media to attend. The conference will include speakers from across the broader open source community participating in panel discussions and focus group sessions. Information about the agenda and break-out sessions is now available. The DNI Open Source Conference 2007 was held 16-17 July 2007 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. More than 900 registered participants and speakers attended. Presentations made at the conference break-out sessions are available on the DNI Open Source Conference 2007 website.

16-18 September - 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.

17 September - The Iranian Puzzle Piece: Understanding Iran in the Global Context (Public Event - Symposium). Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia. Sponsored by the by the Marine Corps University (MCU) and the Marine Corps University Foundation to enhance the overall understanding of Iran, exploring its internal dynamics, regional perspectives, and extra-regional factors and examining its near-term political and strategic options and their potential impact on the course of action of the United States and the USMC.