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--Robert Haddick, Small Wars Journal
THE LONG WAR
Unsettling Times for Jihadists - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion
Let's try for a moment to read the mind of an al-Qaeda operative in the remote mountains of Waziristan as he listens to the news on the radio. His worldview has been roiled recently by two events -- one confounding his image of the West and the other confirming it.
The upsetting news for our imaginary jihadist is the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. This wasn't supposed to happen, in al-Qaeda's playbook. Its aim was to draw the "far enemy" (meaning America) ever deeper onto the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Instead, the jihadists must cope with a president-elect who promises to get out of Iraq and whose advisers are talking about negotiating with the Taliban. And to top it off, the guy's middle name is Hussein.
Before the election, the radical Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradhawi even issued a fatwa supporting John McCain: "Personally, I would prefer for the Republican candidate, McCain, to be elected. This is because I prefer the obvious enemy who does not hypocritically [conceal] his hostility toward you . . . to the enemy who wears a mask [of friendliness]."
More at The Washington Post.
Helping Children of War- Gary Knell, Washington Times opinion
"In 1943, my father just disappeared from my life. He was drafted ... [and] I was two-and-a-half years old and didn't know why my father left me. In those days, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles did not believe that children needed to know what was happening ... [or that children] would blame themselves for their father's immediate disappearance." The fear of abandonment expressed in this e-mail, sent to Sesame Workshop from the military community, is still one of the most common and terrifying emotions a young child feels when a parent is deployed.
In April, in response to the staggering number of military families with young children facing deployments of a Mom or Dad, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization behind "Sesame Street," launched Phase 2 of an initiative specifically designed to support military families with children between ages 2 and 5 experiencing deployments, multiple deployments or when a parent returns home changed due to a combat-related injury.
When we think of the causalities, challenges and sacrifices of war, we rarely think of the smallest members of our military families who forfeit something irreplaceable when a parent is deployed: having Mom or Dad at home. For a small child, Mom and Dad are the world, and having that world "disappear" is both upsetting and confusing.
More at The Washington Times.
NATIONAL SECURITY
For Nation at War, Gates Seeks Smooth Transition - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is approaching the presidential transition unlike any of his predecessors.
He has ordered hundreds of political appointees at the Pentagon canvassed to see whether they wish to stay on in the new administration, has streamlined policy briefings and has set up suites for President-elect Barack Obama's transition team just down the hall from his own E-ring office.
Gates's efforts to ensure a smooth changeover during the first wartime presidential transition in 40 years mark a consensus-oriented style that has won him strong support inside and outside the Pentagon.
More at The Washington Post.
A Military for a Dangerous New World - New York Times editorial
As president, Barack Obama will face the most daunting and complicated national security challenges in more than a generation - and he will inherit a military that is critically ill-equipped for the task.
Troops and equipment are so overtaxed by President Bush’s disastrous Iraq war that the Pentagon does not have enough of either for the fight in Afghanistan, the war on terror’s front line, let alone to confront the next threats.
This is intolerable, especially when the Pentagon’s budget, including spending on the two wars, reached $685 billion in 2008. That is an increase of 85 percent in real dollars since 2000 and nearly equal to all of the rest of the world’s defense budgets combined. It is also the highest level in real dollars since World War II.
To protect the nation, the Obama administration will have to rebuild and significantly reshape the military. We do not minimize the difficulty of this task. Even if money were limitless, planning is extraordinarily difficult in a world with no single enemy and many dangers.
More at The New York Times.
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS
US Supply Line Threatened by Pakistan Truck Halt - Riaz Khan and Fisnik Abrashi, Associated Press (Washington Times)
A Pakistani decision to temporarily bar some trucks from a key passageway to Afghanistan threatened a critical supply route for US and NATO troops on Sunday and raised more fears about deteriorating security in the militant-plagued border region.
The suspension of oil tankers and trucks carrying sealed containers came as US-led coalition troops in eastern Afghanistan reported killing five al-Qaida-linked fighters and detaining eight others, including a militant leader.
Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are behind much of the escalating violence along the lengthy, porous Afghan-Pakistan border, and both nations have traded accusations that the other was not doing enough to keep militants out from its side.
More at The Washington Times.
IRAQ
Iraq Head, Top Cleric Back 2011 Exit by US - Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post
Iraq's prime minister and its most influential Shiite cleric have decided to support a security agreement that would allow US troops to remain in the country until the end of 2011, sharply increasing its chances of passage in the Iraqi parliament, officials said Saturday.
Approval of the so-called status of forces agreement would be a cause for relief among Bush administration officials, who have grown increasingly concerned that US forces would begin the new year with no legal basis to remain in Iraq. A UN mandate authorizing their presence is set to expire Dec. 31.
A delegation of Shiite lawmakers and government officials met Saturday with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to review the latest changes to the agreement, and the cleric "gave the Iraqi side the green light to sign it," according to an official in Sistani's office who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Sistani's views carry great weight among members of the Shiite parties that dominate Iraq's government.
More at The Washington Post.
Shiite Bloc Fails to Go to Meeting on Iraq-US Pact - Katherine Zoepf and Atheer Kakan, New York Times
Iraq’s political leaders held a high-level meeting on Saturday to gauge support for a security agreement that will determine the future role and presence of American forces in Iraq before crucial votes in the cabinet and Parliament.
But the most powerful Shiite bloc in Parliament, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, did not attend, and the meeting ended without any clear public resolution.
The agreement, which Iraq and the United States have been negotiating for months, faces a vote by the cabinet, which is expected on Sunday, and then a vote in Parliament, which has not set a date for it. The agreement will replace the United Nations mandate authorizing American military operations in Iraq, which expires on Dec. 31.
The unexpected no-show of the Supreme Council, a close ally of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was confirmed by two Iraqi lawmakers, one of whom attended the meeting. Other lawmakers expressed concern and said they were puzzled by what it meant.
More at The New York Times.
Agreement Extends US Presence in Iraq - Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Associated Press (Washington Times)
US and Iraqi negotiators have agreed on a draft of a security pact that would allow US troops to stay in Iraq for three more years after their UN mandate expires Dec. 31, a senior aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday.
The aide said the draft could be put to a Cabinet vote in an emergency meeting Sunday or Monday. Transport Minister Amir Abdul-Jabbar said he had been notified by the Cabinet secretariat that a Cabinet meeting was scheduled for Sunday to vote on the agreement. If adopted by the Cabinet, it would then require parliamentary approval.
In Washington, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe described the final document on the security pact as beneficial to both nations.
More at The Washington Times.
DR CONGO
New Fighting Erupts in Congo - Associated Press (Washington Times)
Renewed fighting broke out Saturday between rebels and soldiers in eastern Congo, as a U.N. special envoy flew in for emergency talks and said President Joseph Kabila was ready to meet his main rival.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo spoke in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, before flying to the eastern city of Goma. Fighting erupted in August in the east, displacing 250,000 people and raising fears the violence could spread through the region.
Mr. Obasanjo met Mr. Kabila late Friday and said the Congolese leader "did not give anything that I would call conditions" for holding talks with rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. "But we are at the exploratory stage now," Mr. Obasanjo said.
Congo's government has always said it was willing to meet with Mr. Nkunda, but only along with the myriad other militia leaders operating in the region - not alone.
Mr. Nkunda says he is fighting to protect ethnic Tutsis from Hutu militias who fled to Congo after Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The mass slaughter left more than 500,000 dead, most of them Tutsis.
More at The Washington Times.
Congo’s Riches Plundered by Renegade Troops - Lydia Polgreen, New York Times
Deep in the forest, high on a ridge stripped bare of trees and vines, the colonel sat atop his mountain of ore. In track pants and a T-shirt, he needed no uniform to prove he was a soldier, no epaulets to reveal his rank. Everyone here knows that Col. Samy Matumo, commander of a renegade brigade of army troops that controls this mineral-rich territory, is the master of every hilltop as far as the eye can see.
Columns of men, bent double under 110-pound sacks of tin ore, emerged from the colonel’s mine shaft. It had been carved hundreds of feet into the mountain with Iron Age tools powered by human sweat, muscle and bone. Porters carry the ore nearly 30 miles on their backs, a two-day trek through a mud-slicked maze to the nearest road and a world hungry for the laptops and other electronics that tin helps create, each man a link in a long global chain.
On paper, the exploration rights to this mine belong to a consortium of British and South African investors who say they will turn this perilous and exploitative operation into a safe, modern beacon of prosperity for Congo. But in practice, the consortium’s workers cannot even set foot on the mountain. Like a mafia, Colonel Matumo and his men extort, tax and appropriate at will, draining this vast operation, worth as much as $80 million a year.
More at The New York Times.
MEXICO / UNITED STATES
Mexico Drug Wars Spill Across the Border - Los Angeles Times
The drug violence that has left about 4,000 people dead this year in Mexico is spreading deep into the United States, leaving a trail of slayings, kidnappings and other crimes in at least 195 cities as far afield as Atlanta, Boston, Seattle and Honolulu, according to federal authorities.
The involvement of the top four Mexican drug-trafficking organizations in distribution and money-laundering on US soil has brought a war once dismissed as a foreign affair to the doorstep of local communities.
The footprints of Mexican smuggling operations are on all but two states, Vermont and West Virginia, according to federal reports. Mexican organizations affiliated with the so-called Federation were identified in 82 cities, mostly in the Southwest, according to an April report by the National Drug Intelligence Center, an arm of the Department of Justice.
Elements of the Juarez cartel were identified in at least 44 cities, from West Texas to Minneapolis. Gulf cartel affiliates were operating in at least 43 cities from South Texas to Buffalo, N.Y. And the Tijuana cartel, active in at least 20 US cities, is extending its network from San Diego to Seattle and Anchorage.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
War on Taliban Sparks Refugee Crisis - The Times
Coalition Troops Kill 10 Militants in Afghanistan - New York Times
Taliban ‘Robin Hood’ Dishes Out NATO Booty - The Times
German Troops Drunk More than 1.8m Pints Last Year - Daily Telegraph
Pakistan
IMF Agrees to $7.6 Billion Loan to Pakistan - Washington Post
Pakistan Agrees to IMF Bailout - Associated Press
Iraq / OIF
Troops to Leave Iraq by 2011 - Daily Telegraph
Friends Fight for ‘Forgotten’ Hostage in Iraq - The Times
Metalheads Defy Baghdad Militias - The Times
US Department of Defense
At Army Base, Stork Landed With the Airborne - New York Times
G-20 Summit
World Leaders Agree to Major Economic Plan - Washington Post
World Leaders Vow Joint Push to Aid Economy - New York Times
G-20 Economic Summit Brings Pledges of Teamwork - Los Angeles Times
Developing Nations Get Ringside Seats - New York Times
Official Declaration from G-20 Summit - Washington Post
United States
What’s Good for GM Is Good for the Army - New York Times opinion
No Open-borders Mandate - Washington Times editorial
Africa
Somali President: Government on Verge of Collapse - Associated Press
The Unnoticed Victims of Somalia's Piracy Wave - Los Angeles Times
Kenyan Police Units ‘Murder Hundreds’ - The Times
Targeting South Africa's 'Guy in the Blue Overalls' - Washington Post
An African Crisis for Obama - Washington Post opinion
Americas
Peru Economy Grows, But Problems Abound - Washington Post
Baseball Diplomacy in A Chaotic Nicaragua - Washington Post
Nicaragua's Spoiled Ballot - Washington Post editorial
Chavez's Caracas Capers - Washington Times opinion
Asia Pacific
Burma Finds Crimes to Fit Harsh Punishments - New York Times
Encompassing Korea - Washington Times opinion
Europe
Russian Hopes Obama’s Win Will Warm Relations - New York Times
Medvedev Hopeful on US-Russia Ties - Washington Post
Russia President Dmitry Medvedev Warms Up Toward US - Los Angeles Times
Medvedev Backpedals on Missile Threats - Washington Times
Militia Leaves a Georgian Village - New York Times
Middle East
Obama Links Israel Peace Plan to 1967 Deal - The Times
Obama Could Change Dynamics in the Arab World - Los Angeles Times
UN Food Aid Runs Out in Gaza - Associated Press
South Asia
Sri Lanka Says It Won Rebel Stronghold - Associated Press
Young Tibetans ‘Will Resist China With Blood’ - 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.
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.