--Robert Gates - New York Times
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS
Canadian Troops in Afghanistan Measure Success Inch by Inch - Candace Rondeaux, Washington Post
The pace is frustratingly slow for many of the 2,500 Canadian troops fighting to break the Taliban's hold on Kandahar. The insurgents move swiftly under cover through much of the province. But for the Canadians, every tactical wiggle in Kandahar involves days of planning and dozens -- sometimes hundreds -- of soldiers.
Since taking charge of security there in 2005, Canadian forces have mounted several major offensives aimed at driving the Taliban out of Zhari and the neighboring district of Panjwai, in the western part of the province. Yet Taliban fighters maintain a stranglehold on much of the area.
Skirmishes with the Taliban in the province this year alone account for about a quarter of Canadian casualties in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001. The Canadian force is less than a tenth the size of the 33,000-member U.S. force. Nonetheless, the Canadians are responsible for maintaining security in one of the most historically fractious parts of the country.
Meanwhile, they are also struggling to find their footing in their first large-scale combat operation since the Korean War.
More at The Washington Post.
As Taliban Overwhelm Police, Pakistanis Hit Back - Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times
On a rainy Friday evening in early August, six Taliban fighters attacked a police post in a village in Buner, a quiet farming valley just outside Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.
The militants tied up eight policemen and lay them on the floor, and according to local accounts, the youngest member of the gang, a 14-year-old, shot the captives on orders from his boss. The fighters stole uniforms and weapons and fled into the mountains.
Almost instantly, the people of Buner, armed with rifles, daggers and pistols, formed a posse, and after five days they cornered and killed their quarry. A video made on a cellphone showed the six militants lying in the dirt, blood oozing from their wounds.
The stand at Buner has entered the lore of Pakistan’s war against the militants as a dramatic example of ordinary citizens’ determination to draw a line against the militants.
More at The New York Times.
America Decides to Fight and win in Afghanistan - Nick Meo, Daily Telegraph analysis
Charred and mangled bodies littered the building, the victims of a suicide bomber who had penetrated security at one of the most heavily-guarded sites in the capital. A Taliban spokesman later gloatingly confirmed that the attack was aimed at the ministry's Western advisers, part of a new strategy of terror against Kabul's foreign aid community that saw British aid worker Gayle Williams shot dead two weeks ago.
It was a stark reminder of just how vicious the Taliban campaign in Afghanistan has become – and of the scale of the task facing the American general who has been ordered to claw back victory from the jaws of what is starting to look like defeat.
General David Petraeus, the 'warrior-scholar' credited with working a miracle in Iraq, is taking command of the war that America forgot. On Friday he started as head of US Central Command with orders to send more troops to Afghanistan, think up new tactics, and work out a strategy that, after years of muddle, bloodshed and drift under Nato's confused command, will take the battle to the Taliban and win the war.
His old enemy appear to be planning their own surge; US intelligence believes that Arab jihadists have been arriving in the Pakistan borderlands as Iraq cools and Afghanistan hots up.
More at The Daily Telegraph.
IRAQ
Iraq and US Confer on Iraqi Economy - Suadad al-Salhy and Katherine Zoepf, New York Times
With oil prices less than half what they were this summer, Iraqi and American officials are searching for new sources of money to jump-start Iraq’s economy.
At a meeting on Saturday, representatives from the two countries and a handful of foreign business people discussed ways to stimulate investment in business ventures in Iraq.
Almost 95 percent of Iraq’s revenues come from oil exports. The Iraqi government has said that it will have to reduce its 2009 budget to $67 billion from an earlier forecast of $80 billion because of slipping crude prices.
Bayan Jabr, Iraq’s finance minister, said spending would have to be reduced by more than 16 percent, leading to a drop in the money available for rebuilding infrastructure. Mr. Jabr said that the country figured that it needed almost $400 billion to rebuild and upgrade its infrastructure.
“We must seriously activate foreign investment in Iraq,” he said.
More at The New York Times.
IRAN
Some Israelis Feel an Urgency to Attack Iran - Ashraf Khalil and Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times
With international efforts to increase sanctions against Iran at a standstill, many Israelis believe their nation alone stands in the way of Tehran eventually building nuclear weapons.
But officials and analysts in Jerusalem also acknowledge that a unilateral attack is fraught with danger and might fail to cripple Iran's bomb-making abilities. Much of the international community quietly wants Israel to launch a strike, the officials say, but only if it can succeed.
"They will be very happy if we do their dirty work for them," said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. "The world is moving into 'What can we do about it?' mode. There is a strong instinct here to do it on our own."
To many in Israel, the situation is reminiscent of 1981, when the Jewish state acted on its own in bombing the Osirak reactor in Iraq, and last year, when it launched a unilateral strike on an alleged nuclear site in Syria.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
MEXICO
In Mexico’s Drug War, Sorting Out Good Guys From Bad - Marc Lacey, New York Times
Many of the mug shots of drug traffickers that appear in the Mexican press show surly looking roughnecks glaring menacingly at the camera. An anticorruption investigation unveiled last week in the Mexican capital, however, made it clear that not everybody enmeshed in the narcotics trade looks the part.
There was a gray-haired, grandfatherly type who was pushing 70, as well as an avuncular figure with a neatly coiffed goatee and wire-rimmed spectacles perched upon his nose. Some of the five men who found themselves on the front pages of newspapers on their way to jail wore suits, which made them look more like bureaucrats than bad guys.
Among the greatest challenges in Mexico’s drug war is the fact that the traffickers fit no type. Their ranks include men and women, the young and the old. And they can work anywhere: in remote drug labs, as part of roving assassination squads, even within the upper reaches of the government.
More at The New York Times.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
Abductors Take Brother of an Afghan Official - New York Times
Pakistan: Suicide Car Bomb Kills 8 Troops - Associated Press
Iraq / OIF
The US Election, Viewed from Baghdad - Los Angeles Times
Iraq Expects Answer on Security Deal After US Vote - Associated Press
Iraq Sets Aside $15 Billion for Reconstruction - Associated Press
Iran
US Student Held in Notorious Iran Torture Prison - The Times
Who is for Missile Defense? - Washington Times opinion
The Long War
Covert Forces Trumpet Successes in War on Terror - Middle East Times
Terrorism Financing Blacklists At Risk - Washington Post
Charges on Detainees Are Thinning - Washington Post
Nuclear Weapons Proliferation
Gone Missing - New York Times editorial
US Presidential Election
McCain's Honor - Wall Street Journal editorial
Will Obama Gut Defense? - Wall Street Journal opinion
Africa
Rebels Tighten Hold in E. Congo - Washington Post
Europe Weighs Sending Congo Troops - New York Times
European, US Envoys Visit E. Congolese City - Washington Post
Brown: Congo Must Not Become Another Rwanda - Daily Telegraph
Fear of a Bloodbath in Congo as Truce Wavers - The Times
EU Considers Sending Troops to Congo - Associated Press
Chaos and Confusion in Democratic Republic of Congo - Daily Telegraph
Girl Is Stoned to Death in Somalia After Reporting Rape - Washington Post
Somali Rape Victim, 13, Stoned to Death - Associated Press
Mugabe Allies Grab One of Zimbabwe's Last White-run Farms - Daily Telegraph
Libya's Final Payment Clears Way for Normal US Ties - Washington Post
Moammar Kadafi Looking to Improve Ties with Russia - Los Angeles Times
Foundation Says Grants to Africa May Have Been Diverted - Washington Post
ANC Dissidents Hold Convention - Los Angeles Times
Americas
Bolivia Halts US Agents' Anti-drug Operations - Los Angeles Times
Morales Orders DEA to Halt Anti-drug Efforts - Washington Times
Asia Pacific
New Violence in Philippines Sparks Terrorism Fears - Washington Times
N. Korean Facade of Self-sufficiency Can't Hide Hunger - Los Angeles Times
At a Temple in Indochina, Placid Days, but No Peace - New York Times
Europe
UK: Surge in Recruitment as Support for Rroops Rises - The Times
France: Storm Over Spy Chief's Splurge of Information - The Times
Middle East
Israeli Security Chief Warns of Assassination - Associated Press
South Asia
Nepal’s Challenge: Change Ex-Rebels - New York Times
UN Urges Nepal's Leaders to Resolve Differences - Associated Press
Dalai Lama: Dialogue with China Becoming Difficult - Kyodo
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.
