US ARMY

Is the US Army Ready for Conventional War? - Gian Gentile, Christian Science Monitor opinion

Images of Georgian infantry moving under fire and Russian tanks on the attack show that the days of like armies fighting one another on battlefields are far from over.

What does this mean for the US Army? As it considers its role after Iraq, should it be restructured for war and conflict along the lines of counterinsurgency and nation-building, or toward conventional fighting as represented by the Georgian war?

Armies trained to fight conventional warfare can quickly and effectively shift to counterinsurgency and nation-building. Contrary to popular belief, the US Army proved this in Iraq.

Its lightning advance up to Baghdad in the spring of 2003 happened because it was a conventionally minded army, trained for fighting large battles.

If the Army had focused the majority of its time and resources prior to the Iraq war on counterinsurgency and nation-building, the march to Baghdad would have been much more costly in American lives and treasure.

Critics argue that because the Army did not prepare for counterinsurgency prior to the Iraq war, it fumbled for the first four years of the war until rescued by the surge in February 2007.

Not true, according to "On Point II," a Army history of the Iraq war by Donald Wright and Timothy Reece. In fact, according to this book, the US Army very quickly transitioned from the conventional fighting mode. By the end of 2003, the Army – which spent much of the 1980s and 1990s training to fight large battles – moved into the successful conduct of "full-spectrum" counterinsurgency and nation-building operations.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

IRAQ

Victory in Anbar - Wall Street Journal editorial

Two years ago, on September 11, 2006, the Washington Post stirred an election-year uproar with this chilling dispatch:

"The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the US military can do to improve the political and social situation there..."

But there was something we could do: Pursue a different counterinsurgency strategy and commit more troops. And on Monday, US forces formally handed control of a now largely peaceful Anbar to the Iraqi military. "We are in the last 10 yards of this terrible fight. The goal is very near," said Major-General John Kelly, commander of US forces in Anbar, in a ceremony with US, Iraqi and tribal officials. Very few in the American media even noticed this remarkable victory.

Yes, the stunning progress in Anbar owes a great deal to the Awakening Councils of Sunni tribesmen who broke with al Qaeda terrorists and allied with US forces. But those Sunni leaders would never have had the confidence to risk their lives in that way without knowing the US wasn't going to cut and run. The US committed some 4,000 additional troops to Anbar as part of the 2007 "surge," along with thousands more Iraqi troops.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

US Hands Over Anbar, Iraq's Once-deadliest Region - Tom Peter, Christian Science Monitor

The US military handed over control of Anbar Province Monday, marking a significant milestone in the Iraq war.

Anbar was the deadliest Iraqi province for US troops, with nearly 1 in every 3 Americans killed there. It was once the symbol of Sunni resistance, the base of operations for Al Qaeda, and home to two major US military offensives and the most intense urban combat of the war.

But in the past two years, Anbar has emerged as the symbol of a turnaround as Sunni sheikhs formed "Awakening Councils," ousted Al Qaeda, and created community police forces.

Anbar is the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces to return to Iraqi control, but it is the first predominately Sunni province handed over.

While most praise the transition, some Iraqis are concerned that corrupt police and Al Qaeda remain a threat. "Now the major challenge is how to build on the victories and maintain the situation," says Sheikh Ali al-Hatem, one of the founders of the Awakening movement in Anbar. However, he is critical of the hand-over, saying that Iraqi and American politicians made a rushed decision. "The threat of Al Qaeda has not ended in Anbar," he says.

More at the Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times and The Times.

US Military Will Transfer Control of Sunni Citizen Patrols to Iraqi Government - Erica Goode, New York Times

Come Oct. 1, the Iraqi government will take over responsibility for paying and directing the Sunni-dominated citizen patrols known as Awakening Councils that operate in and around Baghdad, American and Iraqi officials said Monday.

The transfer will involve 54,000 Awakening members who are now paid by the American military to guard neighborhoods or, in some cases, simply to refrain from attacking American and Iraqi forces.

Once the transfer takes place, the Iraqi government will have “full administrative control” of the Awakening cadres, said an American military official who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.

It was not clear whether the Iraqi government, which is dominated by Shiites, had given the Americans or the Awakening forces assurances about how long, or even whether, it would keep the patrols intact. Some senior Iraqi officials have expressed reservations about paying armed Sunni militias, which draw from the ranks of former insurgents.

Awakening members have complained in turn that the Iraqi government has been far too slow in making good on promises to bring them into the Iraqi security ranks.

More at The New York Times

The General's Dilemma - Steve Coll, The New Yorker

Early in 2007, when David Petraeus became Commanding General of United States and international forces in Iraq, he had in mind a strategy to manage the political pressures he would face because of the unpopularity of the war, then four years old, and of its author, George W. Bush. He pledged to be responsive to “both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue”—to his Commander-in-Chief in the White House, of course, but also to antiwar Democrats on Capitol Hill. Petraeus earned a doctoral degree at Princeton University in 1987; the title of his dissertation was “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam.” In thinking about how to cope with political divisions in the United States over Iraq, he was influenced, he told me recently, by Samuel Huntington’s 1957 book “The Soldier and the State,” which argues that civilian control over the military can best be achieved when uniformed officers regard themselves as impartial professionals. Petraeus is registered to vote as a Republican in New Hampshire—he once described himself to a friend as a northeastern Republican, in the tradition of Nelson Rockefeller—but he said that around 2002, after he became a two-star general, he stopped voting. As he departed for Baghdad, to oversee a “surge” deployment of additional American troops to Iraq, he sought, as he recalled it, “to try to avoid being pulled in one direction or another, to be in a sense used by one side or the other.” He added, “That’s very hard to do, because you become at some point sort of the face of the surge. So be it. You just have to deal with that.”

More at The New Yorker.

PAKISTAN

Zardari Orders Ceasefire for Votes - Bruce Loudon, The Australian

Pakistani political leader Asif Ali Zardari ordered a government ceasefire against the Taliban at the weekend to shore up the votes of an extremist religious party for his presidential bid, reports said yesterday.

Mr Zardari, the widower of slain former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and head of the Pakistan Peoples Party, is the leading candidate for president in an electoral college vote scheduled for Saturday.

A three-week Pakistani military assault in the country's tribal regions around Bajaur has killed more that 400 al-Qa'ida and Taliban-linked militants, but the Government in Islamabad called a ceasefire at the weekend, citing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins tomorrow.

Reports yesterday said the military was not involved in the decision to halt what was regarded as the most successful offensive against the militants in almost two years.

The reports said the ceasefire was designed to ensure Mr Zardari secured the support of the electorally important Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam religious party in Saturday's presidential poll.

Military commanders in charge of the offensive against the militants were taken aback when told of the order to suspend operations.

More at The Australian.

Pakistani Tribesmen Organize Private Armies to Fight Taliban - David Montero, Christian Science Monitor

Pakistan's Taliban might be getting stronger, wreaking havoc along the country's border with Afghanistan, but they are also growing wildly unpopular, inciting their own tribesmen to turn against them.

In the latest of a series of incidents, a lashkar, or private army comprised of Pakistani tribesmen, torched the houses of Taliban commanders in Bajaur, near the Afghan border, vowing to fight them until they are expelled, the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reports.

Tribesmen in Bajaur Agency's Salarzai tehsil on Sunday formed a private army (lashkar) of around 30,000 people against the local Taliban. A local jirga decided to form the lashkar in the wake of the increasing presence of the local Taliban in the area. The lashkar torched 14 houses, including the house of a local Taliban commander. Tribal elder Malik Munsib Khan, who heads the lashkar, said tribesmen would continue their struggle until the Taliban were expelled from the area, adding that anyone found sheltering Taliban militants would be fined one million [rupees] and his house would be torched. The tribesmen also torched two important centres of the Taliban in the area and gained control of most of the tehsil.

Dawn, another English-language daily in Pakistan, cited the lashkar at a much lower number.

The tribe has raised a lashkar of more than 4,000 volunteers. Malik Munasib Khan, who is leading uprising against the militants, said that the houses destroyed by the volunteers included one of militant leader Naimatullah, who had occupied several government schools and converted them into seminaries.

The development comes in the midst of the Pakistan Army's bombardment campaign, which has been unfolding for weeks in the tribal agency of Bajaur, a militant stronghold where some top commanders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding.

More at The Christian Science Monitor

AFGHANISTAN

Selling the Taliban - Joanna Nathan, Wall Street Journal opinion

In the West, assumptions about Afghanistan too often seem premised on the idea that the Taliban are "men in caves," raising questions about why thousands of international troops cannot quickly defeat them.

However, an insurgency is at its heart a battle of wills and staying power, not of military might. Insurgents in Afghanistan appreciate this and have created a sophisticated propaganda operation that both targets what is seen as weakening support back in foreign capitals and seeks to mold perceptions among the Afghan population.

This is no small-scale operation. The efforts include a Web site, Al Emarah, which is updated several times a day in five languages. The English may often be laughable -- with reference to gourds (guards), a "poppet" (puppet) government and "spatial fours" (special forces) -- but it does the job. The Web site mocks government weakness and highlights every perceived foreign misstep to tap a deep vein of nationalism in Afghanistan -- and to raise questions back in foreign capitals about the role of their forces.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

RUSSIA

Older weapons' Efficacy Evident in Georgia Conflict - Martin Sieff, United Press International (Washington Times)

The effective use of decades-old Russian T-72 main battle tanks in the brief conflict with Georgia again shows how supposedly obsolete weapons can still play a potent and even decisive role in modern war.

The Russian army did not rely exclusively on its 30-year-old T-72s. State-of-the-art T-90 main battle tanks also were identified during Russia's brief but highly effective five-day drive into the former Soviet republic of Georgia last month.

But the old T-72s, upgraded with explosive-reactive armor, were there, too.

The Russians pushed ahead with overwhelming concentration of force, according to classic Carl von Clausewitz principles, using artillery, tactical air support for ground forces and a mix of older T-72 MBTs and modern ones backed up with overwhelming forces of highly mobile infantry.

Special forces were used effectively to pre-emptively seize potential bottleneck positions in the heavily forested Caucasus Mountains to prevent Georgian forces from slowing down the Russian drive.

In all, about 10,000 troops, still a very small proportion of the Russian armed forces, were used in the operation.

More at The Washington Times.

NEWS & OPINION NOTES

Iraq

Credit Where Credit is Due - National Post opinion

Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas

NATO: Forces Accidentally Killed 3 Afghan Children - Voice of America
3 Afghan Children Killed in Western Artillery Strike - Los Angeles Times
Paramedic-style Aid for Diggers - The Australian
Diggers Admit Taliban Held in Dog Pens - The Australian
Cameron Calls for More Leave for Troops in Afghanistan - Daily Telegraph

Russia / Georgia / NATO

EU Backs Away From Sanctions on Russia - Washington Post
Europeans Meet on Crisis in Georgia - New York Times
EU Condemns Russia Over Georgia Action - Voice of America
Russia's Strongmen Warn the West - The Australian
Fear Lingers for Georgian Refugees - New York Times
Understanding Russia - Washington Post editorial
'Stop! Or We'll Say Stop Again!' - Wall Street Journal editorial
Putin Twists UN Policy - The Australian opinion

The Long War

Invisible Nuclear Threat - Washington Times opinion

Americas

Can Mexico's Calderón Stop the Killings? - Christian Science Monitor
Colombia's Betancourt Meets With Pope Benedict - Associated Press

Asia / Pacific

State of Emergency Declared in Bangkok - The Times
State of Emergency in Thailand - New York Times
Thailand's Premier Declares Emergency - Washington Post
Thailand's Political Stalemate Deepens - Christian Science Monitor
Thai Army Chief Won't Use Force Against Protesters - Associated Press
Australians Join Exercise off Thailand - The Australian
Thailand's New (Old) Politics - Wall Street Journal editorial
Japan's Unpopular Prime Minister Resigns - Christian Science Monitor
Aso Set as Besieged Fukuda Quits - The Australian
Japan’s Prime Minister Resigns - New York Times
Japan's Premier Resigns Position After 11 Months - Washington Post
Japan Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda Resigns - Los Angeles Times
Japanese PM in Shock Resignation - The Times
Yasuo Fukuda: Japan Retrospective - The Times editorial
Farewell, Mr. Fukuda - Wall Street Journal editorial

Middle East

Israel Has Learned From Hezbollah War 'Mistake,' Official Says - Toronto Star
A US Role in Syrian-Israeli Peace - Boston Globe opinion

South Asia

Pakistan Poll Tactics Reopen Islamic Schools - The Times

United Nations

US Fights Islamic Anti-defamation Push - Washington Times

BOOK REVIEW

With the Best Intentions - Adam Hochscild, New York Times

Freedom’s Battle is really two books that don’t quite fit together. The longer and better one is a lively narrative history of a string of European efforts to stop various massacres in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire. In several short chapters before and after this story is a shorter and weaker book, in which Gary J. Bass argues for humanitarian military interventions as a tool of international justice today. The historical episodes, he claims, are “rare lights along an otherwise dark road” that show us how these might work. For me that road remains dark, for reasons I will come back to, but much of the history Bass unearths is fascinating and well told.

BOOKS

Baghdad at Sunrise - Peter Mansoor

This compelling book presents an unparalleled record of what happened after US forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003.

The Strongest Tribe - Bing West

From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around–and the choice now facing America.

Tell Me How This Ends - Linda Robinson

After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war.

We Are Soldiers Still - Joe Galloway

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results.

BOOK DISCUSSIONS / SIGNINGS

The Strongest Tribe by Bing West. 11 September 2008, 12:00 - 2:00 PM - Hudson Institute, Washington, D.C. Headquarters. Details.

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.

2 October - Civil Affairs Roundtable (Public Event - Roundtable). ROA Headquarters, One Constitution Ave, NE Washington, DC. Sponsored by the Reserve Officers Association. In earlier roundtables, the observation was made that the center of gravity for stability operations is the human population in the area of operations. Civil affairs professionals and information operators are the key national security resources for influencing the human population. Civil affairs professionals assist in humanitarian operations and building civilian capacity. Information operators develop messages and keep the population informed. This roundtable will explore the relationship between the civil affairs and strategic communications functions.