--Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post
TRANSITION
Obama Close to Choosing Clinton, Jones for Key Posts - Michael Abramowitz, Shailagh Murray and Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post
Barack Obama appears intent on naming an experienced and centrist foreign policy team, with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones as national security adviser, sources said yesterday.
The Jones appointment would put the onetime Marine Corps commandant and NATO commander in charge of managing an interagency process that many Democratic foreign policy experts say has been broken under the Bush administration.
With many Democrats expecting Robert M. Gates to remain as defense secretary, the emerging national security team appears to be centrist in orientation, with deep experience in many of the areas likely to be the focus of Obama's foreign policy -- including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and instability in Pakistan and the Middle East, where Obama advisers have been signaling a desire to make an early mark in the stalled peace process.
More at the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Times and here:
Obama Tilts to Center, Inviting a Clash of Ideas - New York Times
Jones Would Bring Broad Experience To Security Post - Washington Post
Democratic Sources: Obama Picks Homeland Security Chief - Voice of America
The Cabinet So Far - Washington Post editorial
AFGHANISTAN
Gates Optimistic Troop Surge Will Ensure Smooth Afghan Election - Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service
Secretary Robert M. Gates expressed confidence today that more troops being sent to Afghanistan’s Regional Command South will be sufficient to shore up security for Afghanistan’s elections in late September.
Gates, speaking at a joint conference with his counterparts whose countries provide 90 percent of the troops to RC-South, declared a successful presidential election one of the most important objectives in Afghanistan in the upcoming year.
The secretary spent the day here at a former Canadian military base conferring with defense ministers from Canada, Australia, Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Romania and the United Kingdom about the situation in Afghanistan.
Topics covered a broad range of issues, including a shared interest in “surging as many forces as we can” to provide security for the elections, Gates told reporters. “All of us agree that one of our most important, and maybe the most important, objective for us in 2009 in Afghanistan is a successful election,” Gates said.
The secretary described US plans to increase its troop commitment, currently about 31,000, with just under half assigned to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
A heavy battalion of about 1,800 Marines, many of them from 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, has already deployed, he said. In addition, the US Army 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team will start arriving in Afghanistan in January for duty in Regional Command East.
No decisions have yet been made about the timetable for providing the three additional brigade combat teams and aviation assets requested by ISAF Commander Army Gen. David McKiernan. However, Gates said he expects at least some of those troops, once committed, to be sent to southern Afghanistan.
More at American Forces Press Service and Washington Post.
PAKISTAN
Pakistani Soldiers Train to Shoot Drones in Desert - Zeeshan Haider, Reuters (Washington Times)
Pakistani soldiers practiced shooting at pilotless "drone" aircraft Friday, the military said a day after the government lodged a protest with the US Ambassador over drone missile strikes in Pakistani territory.
Anti-aircraft guns and short-range surface-to-air missiles were used during the exercise conducted at a desert range near the city of Muzaffargarh in the central Punjab province.
"The elements of Army Air Defense demonstrated their shooting skills by targeting the drones flying at different altitudes," the military said.
More at The Washington Times.
PIRACY
Niche Enterprise for the Despicable, Desperate and Daring - Tim Travers, The Times
Ever since freelance booty-hunters spotted the vulnerability of Homeric-age galleys forging trade routes in the Mediterranean, pirates have been a scourge of the high seas.
Three thousand years later and the pirates holding out for a $25 million (£17 million) ransom for the Sirius Star are heirs to a niche enterprise that has sometimes been romanticised, but has always been the preserve of the daring, the desperate and the despicable.
All that has changed is some of the methodology used to get the loot, and the general disinclination of modern-day pirates to engage in the same level of ruthless murder and gruesome torture that characterises the blood-soaked annals of piracy.
More at The Times.
How to Deal With Pirates - Michael Oren, Wall Street Journal essay
Washington's frustration could well be echoed today in the face of escalating assaults by pirates from Somalia. Over 90 such attacks have occurred this year alone -- a three-fold increase since 2007 -- resulting in the capture of 14 ships and 250 of their crew members. Among their prizes, the pirates have seized a Ukrainian freighter crammed with Soviet-made battle tanks and, most recently, the tanker Sirius Star with $100 million worth of Saudi crude in its holds. These shipments are now being held off the Somali coast where the pirates are bargaining for their return.
Superficially, at least, there are many differences between the Somali pirates and their Barbary predecessors. The Somali bandits have no declared state sponsors and no avowed religious pretext. Their targets are no longer principally American ships but flags of all nations, including those of Arab states. And they are more interested in ransoming cargoes of arms and oil than hapless sailors. Yet, no less than in the 18th century, 21st-century piracy threatens international trade and confronts the US with complex questions.
More at The Wall Street Journal.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
Marines Got More Than They Bargained For - Los Angeles Times
Islamists Hold Peshawar Ransom - The Times
Missile Strike Kills Suspected UK Terror Plotter - The Times
UK Militant 'Killed in Pakistan' - BBC News
Suspected U.S. Missile Strike Kills 5 in Pakistan - Associated Press
‘Guard Farmers’ Join Counterinsurgency Fight in Afghanistan - AFPS
Combined Forces Kill Insurgents, Save Civilians in Afghanistan - AFPS
Soldiers Build New Aid Station in Afghanistan - AFPS
Wanted: Entertainers for War Zone. Helmets Provided. - Washington Post
Iraq / OIF
Iraq's Parliament Resumes Debate on US Pact - Associated Press
Sadr Supporters Protest New Military Pact in Baghdad - Voice of America
Sadr Followers Rally Against US Accord - Washington Post
Protests in Baghdad on US Pact - New York Times
Iraqi Protesters Burn George Bush Effigy - Los Angeles Times
Mahdi Army Warns of New Insurgency - The Times
Pentagon Urged to Reverse Mask Ban - Washington Post
Iran
Iranian Ex-President Says IAEA Unfair - New York Times
Man Charged With Spying for Israel Hanged - Associated Press
US Department of Defense
DoD Takes Steps to Defend Cyberspace Warfighting Domain - AFPS
Department Defers F-22 Funding Decision to Next Administration - AFPS
Sounding the Nuclear Alarm - Wall Street Journal opinion
United States
Bush, Final Trip Abroad, Goes to Asia-Pacific Summit - Washington Post
Bush Arrives in Peru for APEC Summit - Los Angeles Times
United Kingdom
Anti-Land Mine Campaign Says Britain Isn’t Abiding by Treaty - New York Times
Africa
Dozens Killed as Fighting Intensifies in Somalia - New York Times
Somali Islamists 'Hunt Pirates' - BBC News
Zimbabwe Refuses Annan Group Visa - BBC News
Obama's Opportunity to Help Africa - Wall Street Journal opinion
Americas
Scandal Plagues Mexico's War on Drugs - Wall Street Journal
Mexico Traffickers Bribed Former Anti-drug Chief - Los Angeles Times
Mexico Arrests Ex-Chief of Antidrug Agency - New York Times
Mexico Says Former Drug Czar Took Cartel Money - Associated Press
Chavez Faces Challenge in Election - Wall Street Journal
Flux in Latin America Affects Russia’s Diplomacy - New York Times
A Plan B for Colombia - Los Angeles Times opinion
Cuba Policy Could be a Portent - Washington Times opinion
Asia Pacific
Chinese Governor, Demonstrators Hold High-Profile Meeting - Washington Post
Burma: Comedian Gets Jail for Criticizing Junta - Associated Press
Europe
France's Socialists Struggle for a Voice - Wall Street Journal
Middle East
Palestinian Police Hit for Use of Force - Washington Times
Israel to Free 250 Prisoners Before Muslim Holiday - Associated Press
Clinton, Obama and Israel - Los Angeles Times opinion
South Asia
Tibetans Debate Independence - New York Times
Exiles Throw Weight Behind Dalai Lama - The Times
India to Focus on Growth, Poverty - Wall Street Journal
India: Can Love Conquer All? - Washington Post
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.
8 December - Counterinsurgency Leadership Seminar (Seminar). Quantico, VA. On 8 December 2008 the US Marine Corps Center for Irregular Warfare (CIW) will host a Counterinsurgency Leadership Seminar at Little Hall (Base Theater), Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Virginia, featuring Colonel Stephen Davis (USMC), Colonel David Maxwell (USA) and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling. This seminar is cosponsored by CIW, US Joint Forces Command Irregular Warfare Center (IWC), the US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center (COIN Center) and Small Wars Journal (SWJ). Seminar Panel Members: Colonel Stephen Davis, USMC. Col Davis is currently the Deputy Commanding Officer of Marine Corps Special Operations Command. Previously, Col Davis commanded Regimental Combat Team 2 in Iraq. Colonel David Maxwell, USA. COL Maxwell is currently the G-3 (Operations Officer) of the US Army Special Operations Command. Previously he commanded the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, USA. LTC Yingling is the Commander of 1st Battalion, 21st Field Artillery and is currently deployed to Iraq performing detainee operations. He has served two previous tours in Iraq, and has also deployed to Bosnia and Operation Desert Storm. Colonel Daniel Kelly, USMC, will moderate. Col Kelly is the Director of the US Marine Corps Center for Irregular Warfare. He has held a wide variety of command and staff billets and participated in numerous operations to include Operations Restore Hope / Continue Hope (Somalia), Operations Allied Force / Joint Guardian, (Kosovo) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF I and II).
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 February 26th to the 28th. While the conference activities 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 roundtables. More information can be found at scona.tamu.edu and interested parties can contact scona.information@yahoo.com.
