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--Rufus Phillips - Small Wars Journal
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS
NATO to Target Afghan Drug Lords Who Aid Taliban - Peter Finn, Washington Post
NATO defense ministers reached a compromise agreement Friday that allows forces operating in Afghanistan to target heroin networks funding the Taliban. The deal, viewed by the Pentagon as critical to beating back a resurgent Taliban, essentially allows some members of the military alliance to opt out of counternarcotics operations.
US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, backed by Britain, had called on NATO allies to begin striking drug traffickers, who are a key source of funding for the Taliban's increasingly lethal insurgency. Gates estimated this week that as much as $80 million a year flows into the Taliban's coffers from the drug trade.
But some European countries, including Germany and Spain, said drug interdiction was beyond their mandate in Afghanistan and could incite Afghans who depend on income from growing opium poppies.
More at the Washington Post, New York Times, The Times, American Forces Press Service, Associated Press and Voice of America.
Bomber Strikes Anti-Taliban Meeting, Killing More Than 40 - Qazi Jawadullah and Pir Zubair Shaah, New York Times
A suicide bomber detonated a vehicle laden with explosives during a meeting of elders in Pakistan’s tribal territories on Friday, killing more than 40 people and wounding more than 100, according to a government official, television accounts and witnesses.
Elders in the Orakzai tribal area, vowing to push Taliban extremists out of their area, were planning the details of how to wipe out a Taliban headquarters, said Kamran Zeb, the government’s senior official in Orakzai.
As the armed elders gathered outdoors, a pickup truck loaded with explosives drove into the meeting, participants said. The explosion was so powerful that the pickup truck carrying the bomb was buried in the ground after it blew up, they said.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, attacked the headquarters of the antiterrorism police, which is supposed to be a crucial force in protecting the city.
For the last month, the authorities in the tribal territories, on Pakistan’s western border with Afghanistan, have been encouraging the formation of lashkars, or private armies, as a way of fighting back against the Taliban militants.
The private armies are seen as a supplement to the offensive against the Taliban by the Pakistani Army in Bajaur, another tribal area, and as a way to mobilize tribal elders dispirited by the enormous gains made by the Taliban in the last several years.
More at The New York Times and Voice of America.
Pakistan Tribes Raze Taliban Houses After Bombing - Reuters (New York Times)
Angry Pakistani tribesmen traded fire with Taliban militants and demolished their houses in a northwestern tribal region after a car suicide attack killed at least 30 people, residents said on Saturday.
Television channels put the death toll at as high as 70.
The bomber drove his explosive-laden car into the middle of a tribal council meeting in Orakzai tribal region on Friday where hundreds of tribesmen were discussing a government-backed plan to raise a lashkar or tribal militia to force militants out of the region.
Pakistan's tribal areas on the Afghan border are regarded as safe havens for al Qaeda and Taliban militants, and the government is under tremendous pressure from the United States to take stern action to stem the flow of insurgents to Afghanistan.
"Everyone is angry and upset here. The tribesmen attacked houses of the Taliban in Khadizai after the bombing. Two houses have been demolished," Noorzad Orakzai, a resident of the Khadizai area where attack took place, told Reuters by telephone.
More at The New York Times.
IRAQ
Petraeus: Serious Ethnic Challenges Loom in Iraq - Ravi Khanna, Voice of America
The Iraqi Shi'ite faction lead by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says one of its senior lawmakers has been killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad. The bombing comes as a senior US military commander warns of a possible "uptick" in violence ahead of regional elections. And in Washington, a key general and international peace leaders spoke of ethnic tension and violence in Iraq.
A bomb struck a convoy carrying lawmakers loyal to anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad.
A senior member of the Shiite bloc was killed in the Thursday incident. Saleh al-Auqaeili was a member of the Sadrist political faction.
Reports from Baghdad say al-Auqaeili was known for his peaceful stance, unlike the more militant factions in the movement.
The ethnic tensions were on the mind of the the former US commander in Iraq when he spoke in Washington at the Heritage Foundation. General David Petraeus cited remaining challenges.
More at Voice of America.
24 Killed, 45 Injured in Bombings and Shootings Across Iraq - Mary Beth Sheridan and Qais Mizher, Washington Post
A car bomb exploded in a market in southern Baghdad late Friday afternoon, killing at least 14 people and prompting an outburst of sectarian rioting, according to police and witnesses.
The attack was one of numerous bombings and shootings around the country in which 24 people were killed and 45 injured. They illustrated the tenuousness of the security situation in Iraq, where violence has fallen to four-year lows in recent months but political and sectarian divisions can quickly lead to bloodshed.
The bomb in a red Daewoo sedan blew up in the Abu Dsheer neighborhood, a Shiite enclave in the largely Sunni area of Dora, according to Iraqi security officials. The district had been a hotbed of insurgency before US troops engaged in major combat there last year during the buildup of forces.
The US military now considers parts of Dora safe enough to begin removing the giant blast barriers installed around the city as part of its counterinsurgency strategy to control the population and forestall attacks.
More at The Washington Post.
RUSSIA / GEORGIA
Russian Compliance in Georgia Is Disputed - Ellen Barry, New York TImes
European leaders confirmed Friday that Russians had met a deadline to withdraw troops from buffer zones outside the breakaway enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, though the French foreign minister said Russia had only “partially complied” with a European-brokered peace accord.
Georgia formally protested the continuing presence of Russian troops in the Akhalgori District, an ethnically Georgian section of South Ossetia, and of the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia, which was held by Georgian forces until the August war.
In a written statement, Georgia’s state minister for reintegration said “it has become evident that the Russian government is not intending to fulfill” a provision of the French-brokered peace accord that requires both sides to pull back troops to pre-war positions. Georgia also said Russia had violated the accord by keeping 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia - substantially more than were present before the war.
More at The New York Times and Voice of America.
HORN OF AFRICA
With Spotlight on Pirates, Somalis on Land Waste Away in the Shadows - Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times
While the audacity of a band of Somali pirates who hijacked a ship full of weapons has grabbed the world’s attention, it is the slow-burn suffering of millions of Somalis that seems to go almost unnoticed.
The suffering is not new. Or especially surprising. This country on the edge of Africa has been slowly, but inexorably, sliding toward an abyss for the past year and a half - or, some would argue, for the past 17. United Nations officials have called Somalia “the forgotten crisis.”
The causes are unemployment, drought, inflation, a squeeze on global food supplies and a war that will not end. Fighting between Somalia’s weak transitional government and a determined Islamist insurgency has been heating up in the past few weeks, driving thousands from their homes and cutting people off from food. The hospital wards here are one indicator of the conflict’s intensity.
More at The New York Times.
African Pirates Threaten Global Commerce - Ariel Cohen, United Press International (Washington Times)
Piracy off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden threatens a vital artery of international trade. Sources at Lloyds of London warn that if they are not stopped, the Somali pirates will threaten Suez Canal traffic.
Piracy also is contributing to instability and warfare on the African continent and is enabling radical Islamist and secessionist forces in Somalia and Sudan. For now, it seems, some pirates may have al Qaeda Somali affiliates, such as the Islamic Courts committees, as supporters but are lacking a prominent state sponsor. This, too, may change.
Pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia have risen significantly since 2004. Pirates use assault rifles, submachine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, grenades and machine guns. There are indications that some may have man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS.
The long coast and the sea are for the pirates what the mountains are for the Taliban and urban slums are for the Iraqi or Gazan terrorists. It is a sign of the times that in addition to the small arms and small weapons, pirates employ a variety of modern information technologies to support their attacks: global-positioning systems (GPS), satellite phones and laptop computers.
More at The Washington Times.
Chaos Sets Out to Sea - Washington Post editorial
Somalia, chronically failed state that the world wants to ignore, is back on the international agenda thanks to the quaint-sounding but deadly serious problem of piracy. Forget the Jolly Roger jokes: This year alone, bandits based on the Somali coast have attacked some 60 ships in one of the world's busiest and most important sea lanes and have collected up to $100 million in ransom. More than a dozen vessels and 300 seamen are being held hostage. For years the United States and other Western powers have mostly ignored this scourge, even though an American-led antiterrorism naval task force has been operating off the Horn of Africa.
Finally, last month, the pirates inadvertently made a capture that commanded attention.
More at The Washington Post.
NORTH KOREA
US Tries to Build Consensus on North Korea Deal - Paul Richter and John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
American diplomats worked Friday to allay Japanese concerns and address other problems with a key agreement needed to salvage negotiations over North Korea's nuclear disarmament, further delaying its completion, US officials said.
US officials have been predicting that an understanding on rules for verification of North Korea's disclosures about its plutonium-based nuclear program is imminent. The agreement, which is key to the larger disarmament deal, would also open the way for the US to take North Korea off its official list of countries that it says sponsor terrorism.
North Korean officials have been increasingly upset that they have not been dropped from the list, and have increased pressure by taking steps that suggest they are ready to restart their suspended nuclear weapons program. US officials view the overall disarmament deal as a major part of President Bush's foreign policy legacy, and have been hurrying to complete as much of it as they can before he leaves office Jan. 20.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Military Recruiters are Seeing Better Days - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times
The economic downturn could make it easier to attract new recruits to the military, Defense officials said Friday as they announced that the Pentagon had met its 2008 recruiting goals.
Economic uncertainty and a declining job market are likely to make potential recruits and their parents more receptive to a pitch from the military, said David Chu, undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness.
"We do benefit when things look less positive in civil society," Chu said. "That is a situation where more people are willing to give us a chance."
Historically, military recruiting has been easier in periods of a weak economy and dim job prospects. If the recent financial turmoil translates into a deep recession and job losses, more high school graduates may consider military service, officials said Friday.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
Canadian Troops Find Massive Taliban Arms Stash - Canadian Press
Afghan Intel Says Attack on Afghan Prison Thwarted - Associated Press
Dozens of Slain anti-Taliban Tribesmen Mourned - Associated Press
Iraq
Iraqi PM: Top Cleric Won't Block US Pact - Associated Press
Violence in Mosul Forces Iraqi Christians to Flee - New York Times
Turkish Air Strikes Target Kurdish Rebels in Iraq - Voice of America
Webb Seeks Freeze on Iraq Propaganda Effort - Virginia-Pilot
Western Journalists in Iraq Stage Pullback of Their Own - Washington Post
Africa
Mugabe Okays Mediation to Break Zimbabwe Impasse - Agence France-Presse
Nigerian Oil Workers to Strike - Voice of America
Americas
Gunmen Kill 11 in Northern Mexico - Associated Press
Peru Says 19 Killed in Rebel Bomb Attack - Associated Press
Peru's Cabinet Resigns Amid Bribery Scandal - Los Angeles Times
Venezuela: For Ousted Candidate, Fight Goes On - Washington Post
Colombia Orders Arrest of Ex-general - Associated Press
Asia Pacific
North Korea Releases Pictures of Kim Jong Il - Associated Press
Europe
Gates Cites Importance of Europe Visit - AFPS
Serb Fury at West Over Kosovo - The Australian
Ex-President Of Finland Is Awarded Peace Prize - Washington Post
Former Finnish President Wins Nobel Peace Prize - New York Times
Middle East
Israeli Police Deploy in Coastal Town After Jewish-Arab Clashes - VOA
Two American Journalists Say They Were Abducted - Los Angeles Times
South Asia
Hindu 'Storm Troopers' Flex Their Muscles - The Times
India's Shame - The Times editorial
Kashmir Activists Don't See Guns as the Answer - Washington Times
US, India Sign Civilian Nuclear Accord - Voice of America
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 U.S. 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
3-7 November - Counterinsurgency Leaders' Workshop (COIN Workshop). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Sponsored by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center. This event is a five-day program focused on understanding the fundamentals of insurgency and counterinsurgency. This is a version of the same extremely popular workshop offered to hundreds of military and civilian attendees over the past two years. The COIN Center has expanded the number of slots available to compensate for the high demand of previous sessions. The proceedings are UNCLASSIFED and registration is open to all interested US government and allied personnel.
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.