--Robert Haddick, Small Wars Journal
THE LONG WAR
CIA Chief: Iraq Not Main Front - Walter Pincus, Washington Post
CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said yesterday that al-Qaeda remains the single greatest threat to the United States but that Iraq is no longer the central front in the broader war on terrorism.
"Today, the flow of money, weapons and foreign fighters into Iraq is greatly diminished and al-Qaeda senior leaders no longer point to it as the central battlefield," Hayden told an audience at the Atlantic Council, a bipartisan group that deals with international affairs. But he warned that al-Qaeda remains "a determined, adaptive enemy" that is resilient and operating "from its safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas."
"If there is a major strike on this country, it will bear the fingerprints of al-Qaeda," he said. While law enforcement and diplomacy have their place, Hayden said, "this war -- and no one should mistake it as anything else -- is far from over."
More at The Washington Post.
CIA Chief Says Qaeda Is Extending Its Reach - Mark Mazzetti, New York Times
Even as Al Qaeda strengthens its hub in the Pakistani mountains, its leaders are building closer ties to regional militant groups in order to launch attacks in Africa and Europe and on the Arabian Peninsula, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency said Thursday.
The director, Michael V. Hayden, identified North Africa and Somalia as places where Qaeda leaders were using partnerships to establish new bases. Elsewhere, Mr. Hayden said, Al Qaeda was “strengthening” in Yemen, and he added that veterans of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan had moved there, possibly to stage attacks against the government of Saudi Arabia.
He said the “bleed out” from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also extended to North Africa, raising concern that the countries there could be used to stage attacks into Europe. Mr. Hayden delivered his report in a speech to the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington, and it offered a mixed assessment of Al Qaeda’s ability to wage a global jihad.
More at The New York Times.
AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan Struggle Takes a Heavy Toll on Civilians - M. Karim Faiez and Laura King, Los Angeles Times
An attack on a US military convoy Thursday, which killed at least eight Afghan bystanders along with an American soldier, pointed up one of the conflict's grimmest patterns: civilians being caught up almost daily in insurgent attacks aimed at foreign troops.
Western military officials accuse Taliban-led militants of deliberately causing hundreds of such deaths this year.
The explosion in a market outside the city of Jalalabad injured scores of Afghans and more than a dozen US soldiers, and created a scene of carnage. Terrified animals bleated, clouds of smoke and dust billowed, and traders screamed for someone to help the wounded. Several vehicles, including flimsy motorized rickshaws often used in Afghan towns and cities, were incinerated in the explosion. Clothes and shoes lay scattered in the dirt.
Even hours after the attack in the Bati Kot district, reports on the number of casualties were contradictory. A spokesman for the US military, which helped treat the wounded, initially put the number of Afghan dead at 20. The governor of Nangarhar province, Gul Agha Sharzia, later said eight civilians were confirmed dead and more than 60 injured. The victims were taken to different hospitals and clinics, further confusing the casualty count.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
How to Win in Afghanistan - Michael O'Hanlon, Wall Street Journal opinion
The war in Afghanistan is not going well, and the critical problem is the same one that dogged our efforts in Iraq for years: grossly inadequate troop levels. Western troop totals there have just inched over 60,000, while Afghan security forces total some 140,000. Let's put this into perspective: We are trying to do with 200,000 personnel what it took 700,000 soldiers and police (plus 100,000 "volunteers") to accomplish in Iraq. But Afghanistan is even larger than Iraq, and more populous.
President-elect Barack Obama has wisely promised an increase in US forces for Afghanistan. But his proposed minisurge of perhaps 15,000 more troops, on top of the 30,000 Americans and 30,000 NATO personnel now there, will not suffice as a strategy. More is needed.
To be sure, it is not all about numbers. As Gen. David Petraeus has already underscored, Afghanistan is not Iraq, and what worked in one place may not succeed in another. Among other things, the Pakistan sanctuary enjoyed by Taliban fighters, as well as partisans supporting Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords, complicates the Afghan situation enormously. That said, basic principles of counterinsurgency and stabilization do have a general applicability across missions. The size of security forces always matters.
More at The Wall Street Journal.
IRAQ
Iraqi Urges Passage of US Deal - Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post
Iraq's interior minister has criticized the country's politicians for not approving an agreement that would allow US troops to operate in Iraq after the end of the year, and called their continued presence crucial.
"The security agreement is important for Iraq to ban and stop foreign influence and interference," minister Jawad al-Bolani said in an interview Wednesday. "The Iraqi people need this security agreement."
Bolani, one of the few top Shiite leaders to speak publicly in favor of the deal, said Iraqi politicians should declare their stances on it.
More at The Washington Post.
Militants Turn to Small Bombs in Iraq Attacks - Katherine Zoepf and Mudhafer Al-Husani, New York Times
They are usually no bigger than a man’s fist and attached to a magnet or a strip of gummy adhesive - thus the name “obwah lasica” in Arabic, or “sticky bomb.”
Light, portable and easy to lay, sticky bombs are tucked quickly under the bumper of a car or into a chink in a blast wall. Since they are detonated remotely, they rarely harm the person who lays them. And as security in Baghdad has improved, the small and furtive bomb - though less lethal than entire cars or even thick suicide belts packed with explosive - is fast becoming the device of choice for a range of insurgent groups.
They are also contributing, in the midst of an uptick in violence, to a growing feeling of unease in the capital.
“You take a bit of C4 or some other type of compound,” said Lt. Col. Steven Stover, a spokesman for the United States military in Baghdad. “You can go into a hardware store, take the explosive and combine it with an accelerant, put some glass or marble or bits of metal in front of it and you’ve basically got a homemade Claymore,” a common antipersonnel mine.
More at The New York Times.
RUSSIA / NATO
US Rejects Russian Offer to Scrap European Missiles - David Gollust, Voice of America
The Bush administration Thursday dismissed as not credible a Russian offer to forego deployment of missiles near Poland, if the United States drops its European missile defense plan. But US officials said they still want dialogue with Moscow on a looming missile threat from Iran.
Officials here said the Russian proposal to nullify missile deployments on both sides is not a serious approach to the issue, buy they said they remain interested in talks with Moscow to ease Russian concerns about missile defense.
Russia has opposed, as a threat to its strategic deterrence, a US plan for a central European missile defense system to counter an anticipated threat from Iran.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has threatened to respond by putting short-range missiles in Russia's Kaliningrad enclave.
More at Voice of America.
Gates and European Officials Criticize Medvedev for His Bellicose Talk - Stephen Castle, New York Times
Russia’s threat to station missiles along its border with Europe drew strong criticism from senior United States and European officials Thursday, as they prepared to confront President Dmitri A. Medvedev on the matter before heading together to Washington to discuss reforming the world financial system.
In an interview, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, strongly criticized Moscow’s threat to put missiles in the enclave of Kaliningrad, which shares a border with Poland and Lithuania, and he warned that “cold war rhetoric” over the issue was “stupid.”
“We don’t need a cold war,” he said in an interview. “We need cool heads.”
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates used a visit to Estonia and a meeting with NATO defense ministers there to sharpen Washington’s criticism of the Russian threat.
More at The New York Times.
SOMALIA
Islamists Continue Advance Through Somalia - Jeffrey Getleman, New York Times
Islamist militias in Somalia on Thursday continued their steady and surprisingly uncontested march toward the capital, Mogadishu, capturing a small town on the outskirts of the city.
Several dozen Islamist fighters poured into Elasha Biyaha, which is 11 miles southwest of Mogadishu, after government-allied militias fled. No shots were fired, but residents feared it was only a matter of time.
“Many people are now on the verge of fleeing,” said Yusuf Abdi Nur, a shopkeeper in Elasha Biyaha.
The tense but bloodless capture of Elasha Biyaha was a carbon copy of what happened in Merka, a strategic port town, on Wednesday, when hundreds of heavily armed Islamist militants took over the town after government-allied troops beat a hasty retreat.
More at The New York Times.
NORTH KOREA
The Information Fortress Known as North Korea - John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
For months, North Korea watchers have played a frustrating guessing game: Is leader Kim Jong Il healthy? Incapacitated? Or even dead?
Many speculate that the reclusive 66-year-old has been sidelined by a stroke, while the government in Pyongyang continues to release undated photos showing an active Kim, sporting his trademark bouffant, at public events.
The question of Kim's whereabouts underscores the difficulty of knowing anything conclusive about what goes on in North Korea, an isolated society with somewhat primitive technology and an obsession with forbidding any information -- even the price of rice -- to escape its borders.
For years, the autocratic Kim has cloaked his impoverished nation beneath a veil of secrecy that has defied the prying eyes of outsiders. Making a cellphone call to the outside world can be punished by death.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
Afghanistan Suicide Bombing Targets US Military Convoy - Voice of America
US Soldier, 18 Others Die in Afghan Bombing - Washington Post
UK: Marine Deaths Bring War Toll to 300 - The Times
Laura Bush Condemns Taliban Attack on Schoolgirls - New York Times
Afghan Commandos Capture Explosives Expert - AFPS
US Drone Strike Kills 11 in Pakistan - The Times
Up to 12 Die in US Attack in Pakistan - Reuters
Iraq / OIF
Coalition Forces Target al-Qaida Networks, Capture 10 Suspects - AFPS
Azerbaijan to Withdraw Troops from Iraq - Associated Press
Iran
World Power Meeting Yields No Breakthrough on Iran Nuclear Issue - VOA
An Intellectual Makeover for Iranian Women - Los Angeles Times
Iranian Diplomat Kidnapped in Northwestern Pakistan - Voice of America
Iranian Diplomat Is Abducted by Gunmen in Pakistan - New York Times
The Long War
Al Qaeda's Deafening Silence - Washington Times opinion
US Department of Defense
Submarines and Whales - Washington Post editorial
G-20 Summit
Global Deals in Works On Eve of G-20 Summit- Washington Post
G20 Summit Unlikely to Produce Quick Solutions - Los Angeles Times
United States
Bush: Religious Freedom Central to US Foreign Policy - Voice of America
Bush Says Faith Leads to 'Common Values' - Washington Post
Diplomats: Good Will Up Since Obama Win - Washington Times
A World of Advice for Obama on Foreign Policy - New York Times
Clinton 'Considered for Secretary of State Role' - The Times
Obama's Missile Gap - Los Angeles Times editorial
Australia
Defence Defies PM on White Paper - The Australian
Africa
Zimbabwe Is on the Ropes - Wall Street Journal opinion
Great Expectations and Sudan - Washington TImes opinion
Rwanda vs. France - Los Angeles Times opinion
Americas
Jesuit Killings in El Salvador Could Reach Trial in Spain - New York Times
Hugo Chávez Spreads the Loot - Wall Street Journal opinion
Asia Pacific
China: Confessed Police Killer Lionized - Washington Post
South Korea Seeks Talks as North Takes Dramatic Self-Isolation Steps - VOA
N. Korea to Shut DMZ Border with S. Korea - Associated Press
Europe
Gates Criticizes Latest Russian Missile Threats - Voice of America
Gates Criticizes Russia President's Missile Remarks - Los Angeles Times
Gates Criticizes Russian President’s Post-Election Speech - New York Times
Gates Notes Ukraine’s Progress, Hopes for Change in Russia - AFPS
NATO Defense Ministers Discuss Ukraine - AFPS
Putin 'Wanted to Hang Georgian Leader by Balls' - The Times
In Russia's Putin-Medvedev Shuffle, Putin is the Lead Dancer - Los Angeles Times
Middle East
Israeli Blockade Creates Food Shortages in Gaza - Voice of America
Israel Blockade Leaves Much of Gaza City Without Power - Los Angeles Times
Mideast Peace Headway - Washington Times opinion
South Asia
Bangladesh Poll After Anti-corruption Failure - The Times
Bangladesh's Mortal Enemies Prepare to Talk - The Times
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.
13 January - The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948: Past, Present, and Future (Symposium). Washington, D.C. Mark your calendar for January 13, 2009. That is the confirmed date for “The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948: Past, Present, and Future”, a symposium to discuss the legislation on which America’s arsenal of persuasion is anchored. The one-day event will be hosted in Washington, D.C., with the location and co-sponsor all but confirmed. The format is four 90 minute panels and will emphasize Q&A, discourse, and debate and not presentations or monologues. The four panels will focus on past, present, future, what to do, respectively. Panelists will be drawn from practitioners (State and Defense Departments), academics, Congress, and the media. The event is free and open to the public but registration will be required (see below). This is a first of its kind in-depth discussion into the legislation that continues to set the parameters of our global engagement. Enacted at the beginning of the First War of Ideas, it is long past time to discuss it ten or more years into the Second War of Ideas, a struggle that goes beyond terrorism and insurgency and into economic and financial power.
26-28 February - Student Conference on National Affairs (SCONA) (Conference). Texas A&M University - Memorial Student Center Complex, College Station, TX. Sponsored by Texas A&M University. The Student Conference on National Affairs at Texas A&M is in its 54th year. This years conference topic is US Interventions in Problematic Area's Around the World. It will take place from Feburary 26th to the 28th. While the conference activites are focused toward Graduate and Undergraduate students, the speakers we have are open to the general public. Two of the at least five speakers we have confirmed are, Joe Galloway, Author of We Were Soldiers Once and Young, and James Olson, former Director of Counter Intelligence for the CIA. The other speakers will be the best individuals we can find in military, humanitarian, and business issues. We are currently interested in any individuals with a background in Humanitarian issues to speak, or individuals with professional knowledge on the topic to facilitate our student delegate roundtabels. More information can be found at scona.tamu.edu and interested parties can contact scona.information@yahoo.com.
