--Robert Gates - New York Times
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
The State Department, Not the Pentagon, Should Lead America's Public Diplomacy Efforts - Kristin Lord, Christian Science Monitor opinion
Today's public diplomats wear boots, not wingtips. Increasingly, the Defense Department is at the forefront of US efforts to engage public opinion overseas. While the State Department formally leads the effort, the Pentagon has more money and personnel to carry out the public diplomacy mission.
This trend is risky. The message foreign publics receive – not the message the US sends – changes when the Pentagon is the messenger. Putting our military, not civilians, at the forefront of US global communications undercuts the likelihood of success, distorts priorities, and undermines the effectiveness of US civilian agencies.
According to a Washington Post report, the Department of Defense will pay private contractors $300 million over three years to produce news and entertainment programs for the Iraqi public. These well-intentioned efforts aim to "engage and inspire" Iraqis to support the objectives of both the US and Iraqi governments.
Such outreach campaigns can be powerful if done well and as part of a broader strategy of engagement, political reconciliation, and economic development. Indeed, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has argued eloquently that the United States must call increasingly upon "soft power" to advance national interests. Soft power can take many forms, but it is primarily the use of culture, values, and ideas to attract, instead of military or economic threats to coerce.
More at The Christian Science Monitor.
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS
Pakistani, Afghan Delegates Agree to Talks With Taliban - Barry Newhouse, Voice of America
Pakistani and Afghan political and tribal leaders meeting in Islamabad Tuesday have agreed to seek talks with Taliban insurgents in a bid to limit violence along their shared border. The announcement came after a two-day meeting described as a mini-jirga in the Pakistani capital.
The two-day "mini-jirga" in Islamabad ended with pledges to create new committees in both countries that will try to establish contact with Taliban groups.
Afghanistan's former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said those committees will work independently from any other peace talks being pursued by the two governments.
"We agreed that contacts should be established with the opposition," he said. "Apart from whatever else is happening in that regard, joint contacts will be established through jirga-gai by using other influential figures through the opposition groups in both countries."
Representatives of the Islamabad jirga said the term "opposition groups" refers to all those involved in the armed conflict in both countries.
Officials said the names of the representatives seeking talks with militants will be kept secret because of security concerns.
More at Voice of America.
Prospect of Peace Talks Rises in Afghanistan - Laura King, Los Angeles Times
The Afghan war is at its highest pitch since it began seven years ago, growing daily in scope and savagery. Yet on both sides of the conflict, the possibility of peace negotiations has gained sudden prominence.
Among Western and Afghan officials, analysts and tribal elders, field commanders and foot soldiers, the notion of talks with the Taliban, once dismissed out of hand, has recently become the subject of serious debate.
Both sides acknowledge that there are enormous impediments. Each camp has staked out negotiating positions that are anathema to the other. Neither side professes the slightest trust in the other's word. Each side claims not only a battlefield edge, but insists that it is winning the war for public support.
But whether they are willing to admit it publicly, both sides have powerful incentives for turning to negotiations rather than pushing ahead with a grinding war of attrition. Would-be mediators have emerged, preliminary contacts have taken place, and more indirect talks are likely soon.
All around, a sense of battle fatigue is undeniable.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
US Considers Talks With Some Afghan Taliban Elements - David Gollust, Voice of America
State Department officials say the United States is considering contacts with elements of Afghanistan's militant Islamic Taliban movement, as part of a broad Bush administration review of the conduct of the Afghan war. The review is expected to be completed after the US presidential election.
Officials here say that while no decisions have been made, the policy review could lead to a direct US dialogue with what are termed "reconcilable" elements of the Taliban.
The Bush administration began an urgent review of Afghanistan policy earlier this month, in the face of what US military officials say is a mounting insurgent threat in Afghanistan by the Taliban, elements of al-Qaida, and other Islamic extremists.
The Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai has been engaged in contacts with relatively moderate Taliban elements brokered by Saudi Arabia.
The United States, while supporting the Saudi-led dialogue, has thus far spurned direct talks itself.
But a senior State Department official who spoke to reporters here Tuesday said the idea of UScontacts with some Taliban factions is "certainly something that has been discussed as part of the review."
More at Voice of America.
Afghans, Pakistanis Opt to Talk to Taliban - Shaiq Hussain, Washington Post
Pakistani and Afghan leaders on Tuesday agreed to make contact with insurgent groups, including the Taliban, in a bid to end bloodshed and violence in their troubled border regions.
Leaders from the neighboring countries reached the decision here at the end of a two-day jirgagai, or mini-tribal council, which was attended by 50 officials and tribal elders from both sides.
The meeting was held as a follow-up to a grand tribal jirga in Kabul in August 2007. "We agreed that contacts should be established with the opposition in both countries, joint contacts through the mini-tribal council," said former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, leader of the Afghan delegation.
More at The Washington Post.
IRAQ
Iraq Seeks Changes to Security Pact - Mary Beth Sheridan and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
The Iraqi cabinet decided Tuesday to reopen negotiations on a security pact intended to give US forces the legal authority to stay in the country beyond Dec. 31, further delaying an agreement that American officials had hoped to conclude by now.
The call for changes in the proposed accord came as the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki criticized an attack by Iraq-based US forces on alleged al-Qaeda operatives inside Syria last weekend. The cabinet now wants the agreement to include language to "confirm that Iraqi land would not be the center for aggression" against its neighbors, said Planning Minister Ali Baban, who attended Tuesday's meeting.
Ministers also want the pact to grant Iraq more legal authority over US soldiers accused of crimes, to harden a tentative 2011 departure date for US troops and to allow Iraqi inspection of US military shipments. The inspection demand, along with an explicit ban on attacks on neighboring countries, reflects concerns that the United States might launch an attack on Iran from Iraqi territory.
More at The Washington Post.
OIF / SYRIA
Syria Protests US Raid To UN, Orders Closures - Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post
Syria protested a deadly US raid into its territory to the United Nations on Tuesday, saying those killed were "innocent civilians," and announced it was closing an American school and cultural center in its capital.
A government spokesman for Iraq, from which US forces launched Sunday's raid, joined Syria in condemning the US incursion. "The Iraqi government rejects US aircraft bombarding posts inside Syria," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in Baghdad.
US military officials said Monday that American forces flew by helicopter about four miles into Syria on Sunday, targeting the leader of a smuggling network used to funnel fighters, arms and money into Iraq. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said US forces shot dead several armed men and wounded or killed the targeted man, whom they identified as a leader of the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
More at The Washington Post.
THE LONG WAR
Gates Gives Rationale for Expanded Deterrence - Thom Shanker, New York Times
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Tuesday that the United States would hold “fully accountable” any country or group that helped terrorists to acquire or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
The statement was the Bush administration’s most expansive yet in trying to articulate a vision of deterrence for the post-Sept. 11 world. It went beyond the cold war notion that a president could respond with overwhelming force against a country that directly attacked the United States or its allies with unconventional weapons.
“Today we also make clear that the United States will hold any state, terrorist group or other nonstate actor or individual fully accountable for supporting or enabling terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction - whether by facilitating, financing or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts,” Mr. Gates said.
The comments came in an address in which he said it was important to modernize the nation’s nuclear arsenal as a hedge against what he described as “rising and resurgent powers” like Russia or China, as well as “rogue nations” like Iran or North Korea and international terrorists.
More at The New York Times.
MIDDLE EAST
Slowdown in Persian Gulf Reverberates in Middle East - Michael Slackman, New York Times
For many of the financially strapped nations of the Middle East, the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf have served for years as an economic lifeline, providing jobs for their citizens, who in turn sent millions of dollars back home; tourists, who filled their hotels when Westerners were reluctant to visit; direct investment; and the kind of checkbook diplomacy that has helped stabilize an often volatile region.
Suddenly, that lifeline appears frayed, dangerously so for countries like Egypt and Jordan, as the energy-rich nations find themselves pulled into the global financial crisis and undermined by dropping oil prices. Across the Persian Gulf, stock markets are down, causing panic among investors. Even in the boomtown of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the once-mighty real estate market has cooled as access to credit has tightened.
More at The New York Times.
CONGO
UN Seeks Reinforcements in E. Congo - Stephanie McCrummen and Colum Lynch, Washington Post
Congolese rebels fought their way closer to the city of Goma in eastern Congo on Tuesday, sending tens of thousands of villagers fleeing down muddy roads, as the top UN representative in the country appealed to the Security Council to reinforce its peacekeeping force.
Congolese government soldiers, better known for preying on civilians than helping them, retreated from the front lines north of Goma, according to UN officials, leaving the job of protecting Goma's population of 600,000 to the UN mission, known as MONUC.
"The situation is very intense. There is fighting not too far from Goma," said Alan Doss, the UN secretary general's special envoy to Congo, adding that diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis are underway. "There are indications that [rebel] elements are trying to move forward, and MONUC has made it clear that this would be unacceptable."
More at The Washington Post.
UN Blocked From Pulling Workers Out of Congo - Jeffrey Gettleman and Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times
With rebels closing in and artillery shells raining down, the United Nations said it decided on Tuesday to extract its aid workers who were holed up in the eastern Congolese village of Rutshuru.
But the attempt to evacuate roughly 50 aid workers trapped in the battle zone deep in the forest was halted after furious villagers attacked the armed convoy and blocked the road, United Nations officials said. In the melee, even Congolese government forces fired on the convoy, the officials said.
“The situation was very chaotic,” said Ivo Brandau, a United Nations spokesman in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital. “The convoy had to turn back.”
United Nations troops deployed helicopters and established infantry lines to try to prevent the rebels from overrunning Rutshuru and from reaching Goma, the provincial capital, said Alan Doss, the top United Nations official in the country. The rebels were breaking up into small groups to try to get around the United Nations forces, he said, but the peacekeepers were determined to try to repulse any attack on Goma, if it came.
More at The New York Times.
RUSSIA
Gates Suggests New Arms Deal With Russia - Walter Pincus, Washington Post
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that he would advise the next president to seek a new nuclear arms agreement with Russia that provides for further reductions in nuclear warheads, keeps the existing verification procedures and is easy to amend in the event threats develop.
No matter who is elected president, Gates said, "there is a willingness and an ability to make deeper reductions" below the limit of 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads called for in a June 2003 treaty signed by President Bush and then-President Vladimir Putin. "I am confident that . . . whoever is elected president, we will go to the bargaining table," Gates said in response to a question at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he delivered a wide-ranging speech on nuclear weapons.
A new agreement, Gates said, ought to be "shorter, simpler and easier to adjust to real-world conditions than most of the strategic arms agreements that we've seen over the last 40 years."
More at the Washington Post and New York Times.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
US Forces Kill Militants After Helicopter Attack in Afghanistan - AFPS
Afghanistan, Pakistan, US Military Forces Cooperate in Border Region - VOA
Garbage Sustains Afghan 'Ragpickers' - Washington Times
Iraq / OIF
Iraq Proposes Changes to US Troop Pact - Voice of America
Iraq Condemns US Assault on Syria - Los Angeles Times
Iraq Court Convicts Killer of 2 Soldiers - Washington Post
Iraqi Court Sentences Man to Die for Killing 3 GI’s - New York Times
Iraqi Security Forces Increase Footprint in Southern Baghdad - AFPS
Iraq's Blast Walls Become Canvases - Los Angeles Times
Report on Iraq Security Lists 310 Contractors - New York Times
Iran
Arrested American Woman Felt the Tug of Iran - Los Angeles Times
Sleepless in Tehran - New York Times opinion
Turkey
Funeral Director Looks to End Blood Feuds - Washington Times
The Long War
Judge Narrows Definition of Gitmo's 'Enemy Combatants' - Washington Times
US Department of Defense
Gates Calls Nuke Capability Critical to Deterrence, Reassuring Allies - AFPS
Gates Calls for Modernization of US Nuclear Weapons - Los Angeles Times
82nd Airborne Trains to Re-assume Global Response Force Mission - AFPS
Military Linguists Learn Language Skills Vital to Operations - AFPS
Transportation Command Delivers on Promises, General Says - AFPS
US Department of Homeland Security
Coast Guard Gets Expanded Budget for Fiscal 2009 - AFPS
US Presidential Election
How McCain, Obama Would do as Commander in Chief - CS Monitor
Africa
Rebels Advance in Eastern Congo - Voice of America
Battles Rage Near Key Congo Town - BBC News
Zimbabwe Opposition Says Ruling Party Not 'Genuine' - Voice of America
Will Killing of Oil Workers Harden China's Darfur Policy? - CS Monitor
Americas
Colombia: America's Forgotten War - Washington Post opinion
In Mexico, an Unstanched Flow of Drug Money - Washington Post opinion
The Useless Cuba Embargo - Los Angeles Times opinion
Asia Pacific
Kim Jong-Il Hospitalized but at Helm, Japan Says - Associated Press
North Korea Threatens to Turn South Into 'Debris' - Voice of America
Bali Will Be Attacked Again Warn Bombers - The Times
Europe
Russians Know Missile Defenses Not Aimed at Them, Gates Says - AFPS
Middle East
Armored Against Turmoil, Lebanon Lures Investors - New York Times
South Asia
Earthquake in Pakistan Kills 100, Official Says - Associated Press
Scores Dead After Pakistan Quake - BBC News
BOOKS
Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips
Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.
Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor
This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.
The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - 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. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.
Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - 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. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.
The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward
Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.
We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and 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. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.
In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy
The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.
Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz
Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.
EVENTS OF INTEREST
6-7 December - Boyd Conference 2008 (Conference). Charlottetown, Prince Edward, Canada. There is an opportunity to hold a short, intense seminar on the applicability of Boyd’s ideas, particularly operating inside the OODA loop and grand strategy (sustaining our own morale and attracting the uncommitted), on the weekend of December 6-7 at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI. Canada. The theme would be applying these ideas to conflict in the post-Iraq era, and more specifically to the types of diffused, networked, “open source” armed conflicts that some have called “fifth generation warfare.” We are also interested in exploring solutions, such as the role of “resilient communities” (RC), for countering them. As Oil and food prices have climbed and the mortgage crisis has grown, the need to think more about Resilient Communities has become more urgent. We may have to re-invent our world! We envision this as a working seminar to help shape the policy agenda in the first year of the new administration.
