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From Washington to Kabul to Beijing
Assessing Prospects for U.S.-China-Afghanistan Cooperation
by Nirav Patel and David Capezza, Small Wars Journal

Assessing Prospects for U.S.-China-Afghanistan Cooperation (Full PDF Article)

The Cold War ended almost twenty years ago but American policymakers and national security strategists continue to apply a transatlantic centric model for complex global engagements. This is particularly true in regards to Afghanistan where combat operations and reconstruction assistance are primarily driven by Western actors. Clearly, it would be foolish to dismiss the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – after all, it is the most integrated and militarily capable organization in the world – or the European Union which represents the pinnacle of a successful liberal regional order. Their members share similar strategic interests and values and have significant experience in complex contingency operations. However, many European nations continue to suffer from nostalgia of yesteryear where its troops and soldiers enjoyed the Cold War comforts of a “cold peace.” What is becoming even more evident is that Western nations are facing significant financial limitations due to the economic recession and will unlikely be able to provide necessary economic assistance for reconstruction efforts.

Afghanistan is not only an Article 5 mission for NATO, but also represents a major test for the organization. Despite beliefs among many in the U.S. national security community that failure for NATO-members to take a lead in Afghanistan operations will sound the death knell for the Alliance; it seems more likely that Afghanistan will impel a major strategic reassessment of the function of NATO. Regardless, these debates often induce policy paralysis and are part of a condition that frames American strategic engagement through a transatlantic perspective. In many ways, cooperating with Europe has almost become an a priori issue of diplomatic protocol and a pillar of politically correct behavior. If America is to succeed in Afghanistan it must begin to think beyond how Europe fits into the equation and start a process of better integrating emerging powers, particularly China into its strategic process.

Assessing Prospects for U.S.-China-Afghanistan Cooperation (Full PDF Article)

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... at what's happening. Normal Small Wars Journal daily news and opinion roundup resumes tomorrow.

The Rise of Kilcullen and the COINdinistas at Tom Rick's Best Defense

An Air Force pilot explains why he found the rise of counterinsurgency specialists in the U.S. military over the last couple of years personally and professionally reassuring...

U.S. Weighs Putting 70,000 Troops in Afghanistan - Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal

President Barack Obama is weighing whether to deploy 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan but lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are questioning an increased commitment and seeking specific measures of progress against the deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan and Pakistan...

Military Wants More Troops for Afghan War - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post

Gen. David H. Petraeus disclosed yesterday that American commanders have requested the deployment of an additional 10,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year, but he said the request awaits a final decision by President Obama this fall...

Petraeus Warns About Militants’ Threat to Pakistan - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander for Iraq and Afghanistan, warned a Senate panel on Wednesday that militant extremists in Pakistan “could literally take down their state” if left unchallenged, as he and two other top officials presented a grim picture of growing dangers in the region...

Sen. Carl Levin Questions Pakistan Aid Plan - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times

A senior Democratic senator expressed concerns Wednesday about the Obama administration's plan to triple nonmilitary aid to Pakistan, saying he wasn't sure that would push Islamabad to take more aggressive action against extremists...

Obama Plan for Afghanistan, Pakistan Short on Bold - Michael Yon, Washington Times

President Obama's new plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) was eagerly anticipated. I first reported from Afghanistan in early 2006 that the war was being lost, so any new plan to address the problems is at least three years late. This is not Mr. Obama's fault, but it is his problem...

As Mexico Battles Cartels, The Army Becomes the Law - Steve Fainaru and William Booth, Washington Post

President Felipe Calderón is rapidly escalating the Mexican army's role in the war against drug traffickers, deploying nearly 50 percent of its combat-ready troops along the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout the country, while retired army officers take command of local police forces and the military supplies civilian authorities with automatic weapons and grenades...

N. Korea Is Said to Be Fueling Rocket - Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times

North Korea has begun fueling its rocket, a news report said on Thursday, in what missile experts consider a definitive indication that the Communist state will launch it as early as this weekend...

N. Korea Threatens To Down U.S. Spy Aircraft - Blaine Harden, Washington Post

The government of Kim Jong Il warned Wednesday in a radio broadcast that its forces "will relentlessly shoot down" U.S. reconnaissance aircraft that monitor preparation for its missile launch, which could occur as early as this weekend...

U.S., Russia Agree to Seek Warhead Cuts - Christi Parsons and Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed Wednesday to open negotiations on a treaty that could slash their nuclear arsenals by a third, part of what they described as a step "to move beyond Cold War mentalities" in relations between Washington and Moscow...

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Washington Post Presents Mexican Drug War Series

The Washington Post today introduces the first installment in an on-going series, "Mexico at War: On the Front Lines," about the increasingly violent Mexican drug war. Post reporters Steve Fainaru, William Booth and video producer Travis Fox spent months traveling throughout some of the most dangerous areas and interviewed top officials about their military strategy (a selection of quotes is below). The Post’s series will continue throughout the year.

As Mexico Battles Cartels, the Army Becomes the Law - By Steve Fainaru and William Booth

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All Available Tools
Parallel Governance and Modern Insurgencies
by Patrick Devenny, Small Wars Journal

Parallel Governance and Modern Insurgencies (Full PDF Article)

The ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have energized a vibrant discussion of counterinsurgency (COIN) that will influence American military doctrine and strategy for years to come. A substantial portion of this dialogue has focused on the conduct of stability operations encompassing the provision of security to local populations, the facilitation of political development, resource allocation, and the training of indigenous forces. Given its self-inflicted absence from America’s post-Vietnam strategic discussion, the revitalization of this particular strain of COIN theory is long-overdue. However, recent efforts designed to refine COIN practices within the American military have not been complimented by a commensurate initiative that seeks to better describe our "competition" – namely, the methods, strategies, and structures the enemy utilizes to attract or transform local populations in the furtherance of their political and military goals. This is a critical oversight. Absent a comprehensive and precise understanding of insurgent efforts to garner influence within the population, American counterinsurgency strategy will remain incomplete, regardless of the talent and experience of its authors.

This article will not attempt to thoroughly describe parallel governance systems, frequently referred to as “shadow governments” operating today. Instead, it is simply intended to galvanize interest in the study of the population control measures of our current enemies, primarily Islamic extremists operating in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although some suggest these groups have failed to realize the importance of building the shadow government structures that attracted extensive American attention during the Cold War, this article casts some doubt on that proposition. Unfortunately, given the often covert nature of these activities and the surprising lack of institutional interest in them, my data points will raise more questions than answers. Rather than dissuading study, however, the "hard-target" nature of research into parallel governance should serve as a challenge to irregular warfare analysts. Additionally, the key role that shadow governments have historically played, as well as the critical roles they assume in our current battles with irregular actors, should further motivate research. We cannot claim lack of precedent as an excuse: throughout the Cold War, American military analysts as well as academics were directly engaged in the study of insurgent population control, giving rise to a fascinating body of research that aided the era’s COIN practitioners.

Parallel Governance and Modern Insurgencies (Full PDF Article)

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Provincial Reconstruction Teams: How Do We Know They Work? - Dr. Carter Malkasian and Dr. Gerald Meyerle, Strategic Studies Institute

Over the past 6 years, provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) have played a growing role in the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. PRTs are one of several organizations working on reconstruction there, along with civilian development agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, numerous nongovernmental organizations, and the Afghan government’s National Solidarity Program. Perhaps unsurprisingly, something of a debate has emerged over whether PRTs are needed. The authors argue that civilian reconstruction agencies cannot do the same job as the PRTs. While these agencies remain essential for long-term economic and political development, the PRTs conduct reconstruction in ways that help create stability in the short term. Absent the PRTs, the “build” in clear-hold-build efforts deemed essential to effective counterinsurgency would fall flat. Based on over 2 months of field research in 2007 and 2 months in 2008 by a CNA team with 4 different PRTs—Khost, Kunar, Ghazni, and Nuristan—plus interviews with the leadership of 10 others, the authors recommend that the United States give the PRTs the lead role in reconstruction activities that accompany any surge of military forces into Afghanistan.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams: How Do We Know They Work?

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SWJ's 11th weekly contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick - is now posted. Topics include - Plan for two wars? Or plan for endless war? - and - How to cope with bad generals.

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Irregular Warfare and Adaptive Leadership
by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling, Small Wars Journal

Irregular Warfare and Adaptive Leadership (Full PDF Article)

First, I’d like to thank the leadership and staff of the Command and General Staff College for putting this event together. It’s an honor to speak to this class; I’m told that 78% of you are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before going further, I’d like to thank you for your service to our country and acknowledge the sacrifices your families have endured to make that service possible. I’d also like to acknowledge that your class is broadly representative of the war effort itself, including every service in the Department of Defense, as well as our allies and our interagency partners. I’ll keep my comments short; given your experiences, your questions comments are likely to be far better than my responses.

I’d like to open our dialogue today on the subjects of irregular warfare and adaptive leadership. When I was a battalion XO in Iraq in 2003, I served with a company commander whose vehicle was struck by an early version of an IED. The fragmentation shattered his windshield and severed his antennas, the smoke and dust obscured his vision and the blast temporarily deafened him. In the first critical seconds after the blast, the commander saw the ubiquitous white pickup leaving the blast area, but didn’t pursue it. His battalion commander was furious, and later harangued the captain for his failure to act. The company commander was crushed; he felt the battalion commander was questioning his courage, and in fact he was.

The battalion commander later complained to me about his company commander’s inaction. He was right on the tactics – in those rare moments when we make contact with insurgents, if indeed this truck contained insurgents – we must capture or kill them. I was less certain about his methods of leader development, so I asked about the company commander’s preparations for deployment. For example, prior to deployment, who had the authority to cancel PT in the event of an electrical storm? He answered, ‘the brigade commander had that authority.’ I then asked him, who had the authority to change the PT uniform, if for example it was warmer than expected? That decision was at the battalion level. This company commander, who only a few months ago lacked the authority to tell his troops to come in out of the rain or take off their hats, was now expected to pursue the enemy unto death.

Officers conditioned to conformity in peacetime cannot be expected to behave boldly and flexibly in combat. This phenomenon is not new.

Irregular Warfare and Adaptive Leadership (Full PDF Article)

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Gates Planning Major Changes In Programs, Defense Budget - R. Jeffrey Smith and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected to announce on Monday the restructuring of several dozen major defense programs as part of the Obama administration's bid to shift military spending from preparations for large-scale war against traditional rivals to the counterinsurgency programs that Gates and others consider likely to dominate US conflicts in coming decades.

Gates's aides say his plan would boost spending for some programs and take large whacks at others, including some with powerful constituencies on Capitol Hill and among influential contractors, making his announcement more of an opening bid than a decisive end to weeks of sometimes acrimonious internal Pentagon debate.

Among the programs expected to be heavily cut is the Army's Future Combat Systems, a network of vehicles linked by high-tech communications that has been plagued by technical troubles and delays; with a price tag exceeding $150 billion, it is now one of the most costly military efforts...

More at The Washington Post.

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Rewired For War: Militant Operating Environments

By Michael Innes, Cross Post from CT Lab

I just came out of a conversation with an editor at a major magazine, in which I was embarassingly incapable of intelligently relating my own alleged expertise on insurgent and terrorist sanctuaries to an open discussion that just threaded its way through the blogosphere over the last few days. The conversation forced me to think hard about what my issues were with the debate, which earn said editor an acknowledgments whenever I get my damn book on the subject written. What initiated all of this was Andrew Exum's (a.k.a. Abu Muqawama) short article entitled "No Place To Hide" in The New Republic. Ex made a lot of smart points about safe havens, and as I wrote in an email to him, it's good that he's addressed this publicly and sparked some straight thinking. No one has seriously addressed the problem of militant sanctuaries in years – really, not since the post-911 Bush Administration’s first term, when it was still all about hunting down Al Qaeda honchos and "smoking them out of their holes."

Unfortunately, Ex's write-up, which took the Obama Adminstration's new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan to task for its "obsession" with physical sanctuary (among other things), was also heavily flawed, for reasons I'll get into below. I've always maintained that most of the policy on denying sanctuary to terrorists has been distracted and partisan, and the scholarly literature, with few exceptions, too misguided or constrained by disciplinary stovepipes to be useful. Likewise any popular understanding of what havens, much less the safe kind, actually mean. All sorts of aphorisms and buzzwords have been bandied about, withouth much consideration to whether they actually apply to the specifics we have to deal with in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a few other trouble spots. I'm highly skeptical, for example, that slapping some pomo jargon or sexed-up architectural theory on the problem will help fix things. I'm equally skeptical that a classical COIN model of sanctuary can be faithfully applied to transnational terror groups without some sort of adaptation...

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Short '06 Lebanon War Stokes Pentagon Debate - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post

A war that ended three years ago and involved not a single U.S. soldier has become the subject of an increasingly heated debate inside the Pentagon, one that could alter how the U.S. military fights in the future.

When Israel and Hezbollah battled for more than a month in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the result was widely seen as a disaster for the Israeli military. Soon after the fighting ended, some military officers began to warn that the short, bloody and relatively conventional battle foreshadowed how future enemies of the United States might fight.

Since then, the Defense Department has dispatched as many as a dozen teams to interview Israeli officers who fought against Hezbollah. The Army and Marine Corps have sponsored a series of multimillion-dollar war games to test how U.S. forces might fare against a similar foe. "I've organized five major games in the last two years, and all of them have focused on Hezbollah," said Frank Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico...

More at The Washington Post.

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The Army's Strategic Role - US Army Strategic Studies Institute - 2 through 15 April 2009.

In this first debate, Mr. Nathan P. Freier, CSIS/PKSOI, and Dr. Steven Metz, SSI, discuss the future strategic role of the US Army.

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The New Balance: Limited Armed Stabilization and the Future of US Landpower - Nathan P. Freier, Strategic Studies Institute

The author takes a critical look at the mission assignment and orientation of US landpower. He calls for an unconventional revolution in US land forces that optimizes them for intervention in complex and violent crises of governance and security in states crippled by internal disorder. In the end, he argues that the armed stabilization of states and regions in crises will be not just equivalent in importance to traditional warfighting in future land force planning but instead the primary land force mission for the foreseeable future.

The New Balance: Limited Armed Stabilization and the Future of US Landpower

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Department of Defense Budget Press Briefing - As Prepared for Delivery by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Arlington, VA, Monday, 6 April 2009.

Today, I am announcing the key decisions I will recommend to the president with respect to the fiscal year 2010 defense budget. The president agreed to this unorthodox approach – announcing the department’s request before the White House submits a budget to the Congress – because of the scope and significance of the changes. In addition, the president and I believe that the American people deserve to learn of these recommendations fully and in context, as the proposed changes are interconnected and cannot be properly communicated or understood in isolation from one another. Collectively, they represent a budget crafted to reshape the priorities of America’s defense establishment. If approved, these recommendations will profoundly reform how this department does business.

In many ways, my recommendations represent the cumulative outcome of a lifetime spent in the national security arena and, above all, questions asked, experience gained, and lessons learned from over two years of leading this department – and, in particular, from our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. I reached the final decisions after many hours of consultations with the military and civilian leadership of the department. I have also consulted closely with the president. But, I received no direction or guidance from outside this department on individual program decisions. The chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are in complete accord with these recommendations. The chairman is traveling abroad but he has provided a statement that we will distribute at the end of the briefing...

Department of Defense Budget Press Briefing

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Defense Secretary Proposes Sweeping Defense Budget Changes - Greg Jaffe and Shailagh Murray, Washington Post

Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined sweeping changes to the defense budget Monday that would shift hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon spending away from elaborate weapons toward programs more likely to benefit troops in today's wars.

The proposal by Gates amounts to a radical change in the way the Pentagon buys weapons. For decades, the US has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons programs striving for revolutionary leaps, but often were delivered years late and billions of dollars over budget. In proposing his 2010 budget, which will likely face stiff resistance from Congress, Gates emphasized that he wanted to change the "priorities of America's defense establishment."

The effort to pare back weapons programs that Gates derided as "truly in the exquisite category" reflects a growing recognition in the Pentagon that the days of soaring defense budgets are over. And it highlights Gates' long-stated desire to increase spending on surveillance systems and other relatively low-tech weapons that are best suited for guerrilla or irregular war, which has traditionally been an industry backwater. "I'm just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table and to institutionalize some of the needs they have," he said.

More at The Washington Post.

Gates Budget Plan Reshapes Pentagon’s Priorities - Elisabeth Bumiller and Christopher Drew, New York Times

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Monday announced a broad reshaping of the Pentagon budget, with deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but billions of dollars for new technology to fight the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The decisions represent the first sweeping overhaul of American military strategy under the Obama administration, which wants to spend more money on counterterrorism and less on preparations for conventional warfare against large nations like China and Russia.

Mr. Gates announced cuts in missile defense programs, in the Army’s expensive Future Combat Systems and in Navy shipbuilding operations.

But he proposed, as he has before, spending an extra $11 billion to finish enlarging the Army and the Marine Corps and to halt reductions in the Air Force and the Navy. He also announced an extra $2 billion for intelligence and surveillance equipment, including more spending on special forcers units and 50 new Predator and Reaper drones, the unmanned vehicles that are currently used in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq for strikes against militants.

More at The New York Times.

Pentagon Pushes Weapon Cuts - Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday unveiled a sweeping overhaul of weapons priorities to reorient the US military toward winning such unconventional conflicts as the war in Afghanistan rather than fighting China, Russia or other major powers.

With thousands of jobs at stake, political battles over the proposal are likely to be intense. The defense secretary is seeking a wide range of cuts, affecting pet programs at almost every major US contractor, as well as several high-profile contracts with European companies.

Mr. Gates's proposed baseline 2010 Defense Department budget of $534 billion is up 4% from last year. But it signals a major departure from business as usual at the Pentagon, with a heavy emphasis on overhauling a procurement process that he and congressional leaders have decried as being too heavily influenced by powerful contractors.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Gates Proposal Reveals His Alienation From Procurement System - R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post

After reading a newspaper article's report that a particular armored vehicle had dramatically cut fatality rates in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other senior defense officials traveled 80 miles northeast to Aberdeen Proving Ground in spring 2007 to see for themselves how the V-shaped hull of the costly Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle deflected the worst blast effects of buried explosives.

Within weeks, and after some pointed demands for the MRAPs from Capitol Hill, Gates decided to make accelerated production of the vehicles his top priority, using a special task force that circumvented the department's normal purchasing methods -- and the initial opposition of the Army and the Marine Corps. The results were not perfect -- an inspector general's report said later that in its rush, the department overspent by tens of millions of dollars -- but they were effective: Thousands of additional MRAPs flooded into Iraq and fatality rates dropped precipitously.

Aides say that the experience was like a baptism for Gates into the weirdness of the Pentagon's weapons-procurement system, which experts have long assailed for buying the wrong arms and paying far too much.

More at The Washington Post.

Gates Axes Some Costly Weapons, Emphasizes 'Irregular' Warfare - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor

In a dramatic departure from tradition, Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled a Pentagon budget Monday that aims to help the US fight a hybrid form of warfare – one in which an insurgent with an AK-47 rifle is backed by a sophisticated ballistic missile.

Defense spending traditionally reflects conventional threats, posed by countries such as China or perhaps Iran. But Secretary Gates's $534 billion budget recommends billions of dollars for the counterinsurgency needs of unconventional conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan, while making broad and controversial cuts to weapons programs such as the F-22 stealth fighter that Gates sees as part of an outdated, cold-war mind-set.

"I'm not trying to have irregular capabilities take the place of conventional capabilities," Gates said Monday. "I just want the irregular guys to have a seat at the table."

This "reform budget," he said, is an opportunity "to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements – those things that are desirable in a perfect world from those things that are truly needed in light of the threats America faces and the missions we are likely to undertake in the years ahead."

More at The Christian Science Monitor and:

Department of Defense Budget Press Briefing - Transcript
Gates Proposes Major Changes - Wall Street Journal
Gates Unveils Broad Changes - Los Angeles Times
Gates Lays Out Budget Recommendations - AFPS
Defense Chief Proposes Weapons Cuts - Washington Times
Pentagon Budget Kills F-22, Pumps Up Special Ops - CS Monitor
Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out - Washington Post
Defense Budget 'Overhaul' Meets Resistance - Washington Times
Defense Chief Proposes Weapons Cuts - Associated Press
Secretary Gates' US Defense Recommendations - Reuters
Pentagon Unveils Large Cuts to Defence Budget - The Times
Gates Plans Radical Weapons Budget Cut - The Australian
Gates Proposes Ending Lockheed F-22, Expediting F-35 - Bloomberg
Gates Unveils US Defence Budget - BBC News
Gates Announces Major Pentagon Priority Shifts - CNN
Pentagon Chief Rips Heart Out of Army's 'Future' - Danger Room
Live Blog of Gates’ 2010 Budget Blast - DoD Buzz
The Prominent Dominant - Attackerman
Robert Gates Reshapes DoD Budget Plans - Captain's Journal

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Irregular Warfare
Operational Theme or Full-Spectrum Operation?
by Colonel Richard Pedersen, Small Wars Journal

IW: Operational Theme or Full-Spectrum Operation? (Full PDF Article)

Irregular warfare needs to be an element of full spectrum operations co-equal to offense, defense, stability, and civil support operations. DOD Directive 3000.07 (Dec ‘08) states that irregular warfare is a strategically important as traditional warfare. It explicitly calls for the integration of irregular warfare concepts and capabilities across all activities including doctrine. FM 3-0 (‘08), the Army’s overarching doctrinal guidance and direction for conducting operations, frames irregular warfare as an operational theme comprised of counterinsurgency, foreign internal defense, unconventional warfare, support to insurgencies, and combating terrorism. From about 1975 to 2001, irregular warfare was pretty much the exclusive responsibility of special operating forces. The current reality is that for the past eight years virtually the entire conventional Army and Marine Corps have been leading and conducting irregular warfare in various forms of security force assistance, counterinsurgency, combating terrorism, or foreign internal defense. This trend is likely to continue into the near and distant future. It is therefore critical to determine whether the Army’s operational concept is broad enough to effectively describe operations in the near and distant future and whether it is flexible enough to effectively frame irregular warfare.

IW: Operational Theme or Full-Spectrum Operation? (Full PDF Article)

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Newshour with Jim Lehrer

Interview with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

By Judy Woodruff

7 April 2009

Bolded Emphasis by SWJ

JUDY WOODRUFF: Secretary Robert Gates, thank you very much for talking with us.

SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: My pleasure.

MS. WOODRUFF: As we sit here at the Pentagon in Washington, President Obama is right now in Iraq talking to the troops, meeting with Iraqi leaders. What is his message to the Iraqis?

SEC. GATES: I think, first of all, his message to our troops is one of appreciation and gratitude for their dedication and their service. I think his message to the Iraqis is, almost certainly, keep on doing what you’re doing; keep on resolving problems politically; keep on working at reconciliation; get ready for your elections. We are going to keep our side of the bargain in terms of the agreement, in terms of draw-downs of troops and you have to step up to your responsibilities now, too.

MS. WOODRUFF: You’ve obviously been in Iraq many a time. What would you hope the president would take away from this visit?

SEC. GATES: Well, I hope that he will be successful in encouraging the Iraqi leadership to continue working together. And I hope that he will – in fact, I am confident that he will come home impressed by the caliber of our men and women in uniform out there.

MS. WOODRUFF: The violence has been escalating recently. In fact, there was a car bomb today, I guess, in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. The U.S.’s pledge to get most of the troops out – 19 months, most of them will be out by next year. But if this violence were to step up considerably, is there a contingency plan?

SEC. GATES: I think the president always has the authority to, as commander-in-chief, to change his plans. But I think the view of our commanders is that, while there are some of these spectacular attacks, overall, the level of violence continues to be quite low compared with, particularly, 2007 and the first part of 2008, in fact, at levels not seen since 2003.

I think what we’re seeing is al Qaeda trying sort of as a last gasp to try and reverse the progress that’s been made through these attacks. But these car-bomb attacks generally are the signature kind of thing that al Qaeda in Iraq does.

MS. WOODRUFF: Are they reversing the progress?

SEC. GATES: I don’t think so, no. And, in fact, I think it’s been quite impressive how people, how resilient people have been in Baghdad, in Iraq in general.

MS. WOODRUFF: President Obama has used part of this overseas trip not only to emphasize he’s different from his predecessor, but to reach out to the Muslim world, especially with that speech in Turkey. As somebody who’s observed U.S. national security up close for three decades, do you think this is something that’s going to pay dividends?

SEC. GATES: I think it will. I think that – I gave a speech last year in which I made the comment that, how can it be that the nation that discovered public relations is being out-communicated by a guy in a cave? The reality is, I think we probably have not done as well as we should have in terms of reaching out to Muslims and making clear that what we’re concerned about are violent extremists. This isn’t the war against Islam. And I think the president is communicating that message.

I think the challenge for the rest of the government is to figure out how we do that on a more comprehensive and continuing basis...

Continue on for the entire transcript.

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Pentagon Chief: Why I Tore Up the Army's 'Future' - Noah Shachtman at Danger Room

Of all the hard choices Defense Secretary Robert Gates had to make in his radical overhaul of the Pentagon's arsenal, the toughest, he tells Danger Room, was the decision to gut Future Combat Systems, the Army's $200 billion effort to design a fleet of next-generation tanks and troop carriers...

Gates: I Expect the Services to Get On Board With My Reforms - Spencer Ackerman at Washington Independent

Pentagon chief Bob Gates and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, held a conference call to talk about their defense budget reforms. I asked whether and how they had secured consensus from the service chiefs for reductions or cancellations of programs that some of them had seriously desired...

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With a hat tip to Galrahn at Information Dissemination - Buy Ford, Not Ferrari by Commander Henry J. Hendrix, U.S. Navy at Proceedings.

... A key tenet of post-9/11 strategic thought is that extremist religious terrorism is avoidable. Societies with infrastructural resources such as electricity, clean water, public education, and some modicum of medical care do not generally incubate extremist groups in their midst. Naval forces that have basic abilities to police the sea lines of communication while also seizing port call opportunities to build the basic communal building blocks of productive life ought to be an important component of the future Navy.

The next step on the Navy's path to a new future should be the creation of "Influence Squadrons" composed of an amphibious mother ship (an LPD-17 or a cheaper commercial ship with similar capabilities), a destroyer to provide air, surface, and subsurface defensive capabilties, a Littoral Combat Ship to extend a squadron's reach into the green-water environment and provide some mine warfare capabilities, a Joint High Speed Vessel to increase lift, a Coastal Patrol ship to operate close in, and an M80 Stiletto to provide speed and versatility.

The Influence Squadron should also heavily employ unmanned technologies to further expand the squadron's reach. Unmanned air, surface, and subsurface platforms could be deployed and monitored by the various vessels, extending American awareness, if not American presence.

These forces, operating every day around the world, would represent the preponderance of visible U.S. naval power. Their understated capabilities would epitomize America's peaceful, non-aggressive intent, and would carry out the new maritime strategy's stated purpose of providing positive influence forward. However, the Influence Squadron, carrying credible firepower across a broad area of operations, could also serve to either dissuade or destroy pirate networks that might seek to prey upon increasingly vulnerable commercial sea lines of communication...

Much more at Proceedings.

And more at Information Dissemination - Influence Squadrons - The Next Evolution

... The "Influence Squadron" should sound very familiar to readers here, because it is essentially the strategic concept forwarded on this blog of what I have previously called Littoral Strike Groups. Essentially, it is a call for an organizational framework of ships to operate IN the littorals instead of conducting operations in the littoral from over the horizon. I particularly like the idea because it leverages coastal patrol vessels (PCs) and small fast boats (M-80s), supported by a combination of a Marine Company (LPD-17), credible firepower (DDG-51), unmanned systems (LCS), and NECC capabilities (JHSV) with credible littoral centric capabilities. I don't really care about the debate regarding the specific platforms, it doesn't matter and is parochial to the discussion, the specific platform should be derived from requirements planning anyway. What is important is the layered blue-green-brown water approach which I believe is strategically solid as a driving requirement for a littoral organizational squadron, and a tactical necessity for any legitimate littoral influence.

My only point would be this. On the coastal patrol vessels and the small, fast boats the payload is manpower, not missiles. Armed with guns, built for endurance and to be sustainable, capable of having crews rotated at sea while equipment can be repaired at sea; this type of sustained organizational task group can establish regional maritime domain awareness by distributing sensors, leverage helicopters and armed UAVs to engage in combat when the task is required, and be the physical presence to uncover opposition forces operating with stealth in the complex human terrain of the littorals. In this type of organization, the Littoral Combat Ships can be C2 nodes for multiple coastal patrol vessels and small, fast boats operating as ink spots on regional seas.

This type of organizational task group becomes the perfect match for all of our desired cooperative partnerships. We know the LPD and JHSV are the desired platforms for our Global Partnership Stations. We have seen the good results with both of those platforms. We also know our littoral forces need the sensors and capabilities the LCS delivers, and we need the warfighter capabilities of our AEGIS ships to protect our organized task forces, so both of those platforms make sense. What we also need though are the low end, small platforms that can work with partners at the level they are comfortable with, the PC and small, fast boat level...

Much more at Information Dissemination - Note: also see the comment section below the blog entry.

Also see Theodore Roosevelt's Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century by Henry Hendrix.

Theodore Roosevelt's Naval Diplomacy examines President Roosevelt's use of U.S. naval seapower to advance his diplomatic efforts to facilitate the emergence of the United States as a great power at the dawn of the twentieth century. Based on extensive research, the author introduces a wealth of new material to document the development of Roosevelt's philosophy with regard to naval power and his implementation of this strategy. The book relates Roosevelt's use of the Navy and Marine Corps to advance American interests during the historically controversial Venezuelan Crisis (1902 03), Panama's independence movement (1903), the Morocco-Perciaris Incident (1904), and the choice of a navy yard as the site for the negotiations that ended the Russo-Japanese War. The voyage of the Great White Fleet and Roosevelt's initiatives to technologically transform the American Navy are also covered. In the end, the book details how Roosevelt's actions combined to thrust the United States forward onto the world s stage as a major player and cemented his place in American history as a great president despite the fact that he did not serve during a time of war or major domestic disturbance.This history provides new information that finally puts to rest the controversy of whether Roosevelt did or did not issue an ultimatum to the German and British governments in December 1902, bringing the United States to the brink of war with two of the world s great powers. It also reveals a secret war plan developed during Panama s independence movement that envisioned the U.S. Marine Corps invading Colombia to defend the sovereignty of the new Panamanian republic. Theodore Roosevelt s Naval Diplomacy brings new understanding to how the U.S. Navy was used to usher in the American century.

Cdr. Henry J. Hendrix, USN, is a career naval officer currently assigned to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. In his twenty years of active service he has made six operational deployments and earned advanced degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School and Harvard University, as well as a PhD from King s College, London. A Naval Historical Center Samuel Eliot Morison Scholar and the 2006 recipient of the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement, he is the author of numerous articles in professional journals. He lives in northern Virginia.

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The Good and Bad of Gates's Agenda - Max Boot, Commentary

... He proposed many initiatives that make sense. These include spending an extra $2 billion on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities including 50 new Predator-class unmanned aerial vehicles; $500 million more for helicopter operations; and $500 million for training and equipping foreign militaries to fight our mutual enemies. Other valuable increases include more Special Operations Forces, more cyberwarfare specialists, and more Littoral Combat Ships that are especially useful for operations such as hunting pirates and terrorists.

I am also amenable to some of the cuts he proposed. I have never been convinced of the need to buy both the F-22 and F-35, so I think Gates made a perfectly defensible decision to stop buying more F-22s while increasing and speeding up the acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. I am also concerned that future Navy ships are ruinously expensive and too vulnerable to low-cost missiles...

Gates described his decision to halt and restructure the Army's Future Combat System as the hardest call he had to make (he said he didn't reach a final decision until this weekend), but I believe it was the right call. The conceit behind the FCS program -- that a single line of lightly armored vehicles could meet all the needs of the army in the future -- was always questionable...

More at Commentary.

Obama and Gates Gut the Military - Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt, Wall Street Journal

... Mr. Gates justifies these cuts as a matter of "hard choices" and "budget discipline," saying that "[E]very defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk . . . is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in." But this calculus is true only because the Obama administration has chosen to cut defense, while increasing domestic entitlements and debt so dramatically.

The budget cuts Mr. Gates is recommending are not a temporary measure to get us over a fiscal bump in the road. Rather, they are the opening bid in what, if the Obama administration has its way, will be a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop. But what is true for the wars we're in -- that numbers matter -- is also true for the wars that we aren't yet in, or that we simply wish to deter.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

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The Battlefield Can Be an Unforgiving Teacher - Janet Maslin, New York Times

The Unforgiving Minute is former United States Army Capt. Craig M. Mullaney’s brisk, candid memoir about his education as a soldier. He learned different lessons in different places. As a cadet at West Point he learned to be dutiful, punctilious and unerringly accurate, even about the military method of folding underwear. At Ranger School he learned how to navigate difficult physical terrain and endure grueling tests of mettle. At Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar, he had a teacher who advised: “Read and think. Simultaneously if possible.” At home he thought he had learned how to make his father proud — until that father walked out and never came back.

As a reader he learned from writers as diverse as T. E. Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling (from whose poem “If” this book takes its title), Jane Austen and Thucydides. As a traveler he vacationed with buddies, partied heartily and learned that the world is very large. And as an American he was in New Zealand on Sept. 11, 2001, when someone asked if he had seen the news and said, “I’m so sorry.” At that point every lesson absorbed by this soldier in training suddenly took on different meaning...

More at The New York Times.

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The So-Called COIN Debate and Institutional Memory
by Bill Van Horn, Small Wars Journal

The So-Called COIN Debate and Institutional Memory (Full PDF Article)

I’ve been following with some interest the debate between the “Nagl-ites” and the “Gentile-ites” (for lack of better terms) regarding the supposed future of the Army. Both sides make some good points and some weak points, but what really strikes me is the historical vacuum both sides have established for their discussion. Neither camp seems willing to admit that there IS military history before Vietnam, or that we’ve seen this debate many times before. And in almost every case the debate ignores the reality that created it, preferring to seek refuge in what appears to be a distorted view of the past or a dream picture of the future.

I'd like to frame this discussion with two propositions. The first is that for the majority of its history, the U.S. Army has been a force that was used mainly for internal security or COIN-type missions. And the second proposition is that for the same majority of its history the Army has rejected that role; the amount of force in that rejection varying based on external considerations.

The So-Called COIN Debate and Institutional Memory (Full PDF Article)

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The iSoldier
How the Army Can Capitalize on Technologically Savvy Troops
by Nick M. Masellis, Small Wars Journal

The iSoldier (Full PDF Article)

Upon arriving in Iraq as a stout 18 year old in March 2003, I was well-versed in the tactics associated with being a Military Police (MP) soldier. I knew how to respond to ambushes and perform evasive maneuvers if caught in a skirmish. I could instantaneously react to any potential nuclear, biological, or chemical attack. And I knew the Rules of Engagement directed by the Army through and through.

Yet, I had no knowledge of Islam nor understood the difference between Shi’a, Sunnis and Kurds. I couldn’t explain the significance of the twin mosques in Karbala. I had no idea that showing the heel of your shoe is considered to be very offensive in the Arab culture. The culture shock was indescribable. This not only made the task of providing local security and training to Iraqi police more difficult, but also inadvertently added to the growing resentment of the American presence. By now, the service men and women of the US military are privy to being on the ground. In lieu of the shifting strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq, however, I wonder how better prepared and culturally competent the average soldier marine and sailor is today, than when I was on the ground nearly six years ago?

The iSoldier (Full PDF Article)

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Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner
Clear, Hold and Build in Shulla, Baghdad
by First Lieutenant Matthew Valkovic, Small Wars Journal

Clear, Hold and Build in Shulla, Baghdad (Full PDF Article)

If there's one word to describe what is going here in Iraq right now, between all the parties involved--US forces, the Iraqi security forces, the government of Iraq, the insurgents/militias, and--lest we forget--the Iraqi people--it is transition. What makes it difficult is that while each these groups are going through their own separate transition, each of these transitions are inextricably linked together.

For my fellow troopers and me our transition, as our new commander in chief recently spoke about, will be the drawdown of combat brigades and the deployment of what are being called advisory and assistance brigades, units charged with training, advising and mentoring the Iraqi army and police over the next several years. The theory is that as our presence gradually reduces, the Iraqi army and police will take over providing security to the people of Iraq with the aid of US advisors, air support, intelligence and reconnaissance assets. State Department provincial reconstruction teams will stick around as well to help build the capacity of the Iraqi government and economy.

President Obama announced that "combat operations" would cease on Aug. 31, 2010 and that these new advisory brigades will start rotating into country over the next year, but "combat" itself will not cease here. To clarify, "combat" as we traditionally understand it (tactical fire and maneuver, shooting and killing the bad guy) doesn't really occur here anymore. Believe it or not, not one soldier in our battalion has fired a round with the intent to kill a positively identified target since we've been here--there've been no targets we've had to positively identify.

Clear, Hold and Build in Shulla, Baghdad (Full PDF Article)

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SWJ will be taking a two-week and change break from the Daily Roundup - time crunch time right now - day job and catching up on all the great submissions for posting to SWJ - and a bit more rack time in the zero dark early hours.

Expect the Roundup to return on or about Monday, 27 April - will stay abreast of wave-top / critical issues analytical news and opinion important to our community of interest and will post a quick excerpt and link to help fill the void.

Dave

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Words are Important
by Colonel Jeffrey D. Vordermark, Small Wars Journal

Words are Important (Full PDF Article)

Americans love to throw around foreign words, be it in casual conversation or while waxing eloquent on your favorite blog. I recall as a kid – long before blogging was even a concept - the joke about being able to speak Japanese. “Sure I can, I know Suzuki, Kawasaki, karate, and a few other Japanese words.” Then it was fun and games, but in today’s era of transnational terrorism and globalism it does more than just point to cultural gullibility, is a dangerous predilection. It is time that our lexicon’s level of sophistication matches our commitment to winning the Global War on Terror.

We have fallen into the “jihad” trap. The term is used in casual banter yet most remain clueless regarding its origin or meanings. We think, therefore we know. Pundits, academics, and laymen profess to know its meaning, and the term is daily news in the mouths of reporters and in the banners of headlines. Unfortunately, its very use assumes that Islam is simple and monolithic – something we can easily grasp merely by purporting to understand the basic tenets of the religion and of course, we must use it because everyone else does. As a nation and society, we could not be more incorrect. A simple Google search for the term jihad yields over 15 million hits. Why not, as the perpetrators of international terror themselves often use “jihad” to describe the attributes and actions of their organizations. Face it, there is meaning in a name, and groups struggling for legitimacy will cling to what they can in order to sell their product.

Words are Important (Full PDF Article)

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Indicators and Warning
Case Studies in Genocide
by Captain Matthew Orris, Small Wars Journal

Case Studies in Genocide (Full PDF Article)

No matter what system is emplaced to measure and gauge the “atmospherics” of a group of people (ethnic, religious, tribal etc) the most accurate is the one that can articulate their motives via deeds and words. If for instance a specific group has decided to move literally enmasse from one location to another, there are existing tools to provide a good mechanism for assessing in a specific area what is occurring and how that may lead to future events in the near term. The purpose of his paper is not to create another system for categorizing and tracking indicators but rather what can be done once it is apparent that there is a problem that ongoing and it is about to get far worse. There is a non-doctrinal term we can ascribe to such a unique mass migration of people: GETHOOD (GETting-The-Hell-Out-Of-Dodge).

Few things in life ever just occur spontaneously even though it may seem that way. The job of MI soldiers is not to be soothsayers, regardless how much commanders may want this, but rather to ensure that commander’s and the soldiers on the ground are not surprised by what the enemy might do (i.e. identifying the operation an enemy is likely to take at a given time and place as opposed to the exact tactics he will use as that time and place). The goal is not just preventing the enemy from doing something, but assisting the commander in preparing and planning for all likely eventualities.

As an institution the trend is to think that humanitarian operations are a completely separate mission set that a unit could deploy in support of, when it actually should be addressed at the battalion level should such a mission suddenly appear in the middle of another ongoing operation (combat and peacekeeping). The scope being addressed here is not the opening of a bazaar, building a well or clinic but rather how to help a battalion staff start the initial planning of what to do if suddenly caught in the middle of a true humanitarian crisis –such as genocide or ethnic gerrymandering.

Case Studies in Genocide (Full PDF Article)

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SWJ's 12th weekly contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick - is now posted. Topics include - Gates's defense budget refights a very old battle - Governing from the shadows - Is crime part of the spectrum of conflict?

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Changing Jihadist Behavior
The Saudi Model
by Dr. Lawrence E. Cline, Small Wars Journal

Changing Jihadist Behavior (Full PDF Article)

The US, together with most other countries, has begun paying considerably more attention to countering terrorist ideology. In many cases, this effort has been more theoretical than practical, and stress has been placed on changing attitudes among larger populations rather than terrorist group members. One program that has in fact focused on actually trying to change individual behaviors and attitudes of terrorist group members and supporters has been that conducted by Saudi Arabia over the last several years. Since the Saudi program is one of the few organized efforts to change terrorist attitudes at the grass root level, it is worth examining for its operations and results thus far.

Changing Jihadist Behavior (Full PDF Article)

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Talking to the Taliban - Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic

No matter how much leverage you hold over a country, it is rare that you can get it to act against its core self-interest. The United States has struggled with this dilemma for decades in regards to its relations with Israel and South Korea. Self-interest based on the facts of geography is what makes America’s relations with these two close allies particularly fractious. Israel has long refused to scale back settlements in the occupied territories, frustrating U.S. efforts at peacemaking, even as American soldiers die in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conversely, South Korea has, in certain periods, extended an olive branch to the North Korean communists, frustrating U.S. efforts to erect a strong, united front against the Pyongyang regime. Now the U.S. faces the same problem with another of its ostensible allies, Pakistan.

The U.S. demands that Pakistan’s Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), its spy agency, sever relations with the Taliban. Based on Pakistan’s own geography, this makes no sense from a Pakistani point of view. First of all, maintaining lines of communications and back channels with the enemy is what intelligence agencies do. What kind of a spy service would ISI be if it had no contacts with one of the key players that will help determine its neighbor’s future?

Much more at The Atlantic.

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The War Within Islam - Jim Hoagland, Washington Post opinion

"Leave me for the moment -- you can beat me again later," a 17-year-old girl begs between sobs in a video airing on Pakistan's private television networks and circulating on the Internet. But the local Taliban commander continues to flog her without mercy as a group of village men watch in silence...

... this video reminds us of another driving force too often neglected or minimized in the analysis and commentary: the desire of Pakistani and Afghan men to be left in peace to deal with their womenfolk as they see fit. There may be no more important recruiting tool for the Taliban and other Islamic extremist organizations...

The realists are right about this: The United States and its NATO partners cannot "win" the war inside Islam. Perhaps all they can accomplish is to buy time for mainstream Islamic forces in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere to organize an effective response to the existential threat in their midst. That will be a costly, and essentially thankless, task for the United States. But it may yet be the least disastrous course to follow...

More at The Washington Post.

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Civilians Reassert Themselves in US Foreign - Dexter Filkens, New York Times

... The reassertion by civilian leaders is being led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has promised to restore the State Department’s centrality in the making of foreign policy. In the first six years of the Bush presidency, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dominated the administration’s interactions with the world, pushing aside Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Likewise, in places like the Balkans and Iraq, the military began undertaking activities once reserved for diplomats, like overseeing reconstruction and development projects. Mrs. Clinton says she not only wants to take back those former responsibilities, but to restore diplomacy’s primary role in resolving crises. One of the centerpieces of that effort would be Iran, which the West fears is rapidly developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons.

She has a long way to go. According to an article in the January-February issue of Foreign Affairs by J. Anthony Holmes, there are more musicians playing in military bands than there are diplomats working around the globe. The Pentagon’s budget is 24 times larger than the State Department’s and Usaid combined, Mr. Holmes found. For the recent trip to the subcontinent, Mr. Holbrooke flew on a Pentagon jet...

More at The New York Times.

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News / News Analysis

Ship and Crew Are Docked; US Navy Is in Standoff With Pirates - Sarah Childress, Wall Street Journal. The Maersk Alabama pulled into its berth in Mombasa port Saturday evening, while US warships tried to stop Somali pirates from sending reinforcements to a lifeboat where the Alabama's captain is being held hostage off Africa's eastern coast.

US Cargo Ship Reaches Kenya - Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post. The Maersk Alabama cargo ship docked at this Kenyan port city Saturday night, its American crew appearing tired but in high spirits, with some sailors leaning over the ship's railing to wave, ask for a beer and tell how they thwarted an attack by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean.

Negotiations Break Down in Standoff With Pirates - New York Times. Negotiations over the American captain taken hostage by Somali pirates broke down on Saturday, according to Somali officials, after American officials insisted that the pirates be arrested and a group of elders representing the pirates refused.

Hijacked US-flagged Ship Arrives in Kenya - Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times. Somali pirates are still holding the ship's captain. Pirates also hijacked an Italian-flagged tugboat today and are holding its 16-person crew hostage, officials in Kenya said. The latest attack brings the total number of pirated ships in the ongoing hijackings to more than 20, with about 300 hostages.

Hijacked US Ship Safely Reaches Kenya - Sara Carter, Washington Times. The crew of the Maersk Alabama reluctantly left the ship's captain - still held hostage in a small lifeboat by Somali pirates - hundreds of miles away, as the US cargo ship docked at a Kenyan port Saturday evening. Navy SEALs guarded the 17,000-ton US-flagged ship as it pulled into port in Mombasa, four days after pirates tried to hijack the ship and ended up taking Capt. Richard Phillips, 53, hostage.

US Ship Reaches Kenya Minus Kidnapped Captain - Elizabeth Kennedy and Katharine Houreld, Associated Press. Nineteen American sailors reached safe harbor on Saturday four days after escaping a pirate hijacking at sea, exhilarated by freedom but mourning the absence of the captain they hailed for sacrificing himself to save them.

US Ship Arrives in Kenya Without Captured Captain - Voice of America. The head of the Maersk company, John Reinhart, told reporters the ship is now being treated as a crime scene and is under control of US federal investigators. He said crew members are being briefed by investigators and will remain on board until that process is finished.

Pirates Hijack Italian-flagged Boat as US Ships Converge - Associated Press. Somali pirates hijacked an Italian-flagged tugboat with 16 crew Saturday, a NATO spokeswoman said, as US warships closely watched a lifeboat where an American captain was being held hostage for a fourth day.

Somali Pirates Seize Another Boat - BBC News. Somali pirates have hijacked a tugboat in the Gulf of Aden with 16 crew members on board - 10 of them Italians. Maritime industry sources say the tug was towing two barges at the time of the attack at 0800 GMT. The crew are said to be unharmed.

US Hostage Hailed a 'Hero,' Pirates Seize Italian Tug - Agence France-Presse. A shipmate of the US merchant captain captured by Somali pirates hailed him as a "hero" Saturday, as an Italian ship was the latest vessel to be hijacked in the Gulf of Aden. As US officials considered how best to free Captain Richard Phillips from the lifeboat off the Somali coast where he is being held, members of his crew arrived at the Kenyan port of Mombasa. In Italy meanwhile, the owners of the tug captured by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden gave more details of the 16-strong crew.

Death on the High Seas as Pirates Put to the Sword - Matthew Campbell, The Times. Daring French commando raid brings five-day hostage crisis to a bloody end. For the first time yesterday, details emerged of an extraordinary rescue operation piloted from the Elysée Palace. It involved three French warships, a German frigate and the airdrop of dozens of French commandos some 400 miles off the African coast.

French Commandos May Have Killed Hostage, Defense Minister Says - Tara Patel, Bloomberg. Florent Lemacon, the hostage killed yesterday during a gun battle aboard a yacht seized by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, may have died from a bullet fired by France’s special forces, Defense Minister Herve Morin said.

Obama Team Mulls Aims Of Somali Extremists - Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post. Senior Obama administration officials are debating how to address a potential terrorist threat to US interests from a Somali extremist group, with some in the military advocating strikes against its training camps. But many officials maintain that uncertainty about the intentions of the al-Shabab organization dictates a more patient, nonmilitary approach.

Obama Keeps a Weather Eye on America’s Own Piracy Problem - Sarah Baxter, The Times. Radio silence from Barack Obama over the pirate crisis is a sign of his natural caution mixed with a deepening apprehension of the perils of finding himself at sea.

Navy Relying on Patience in Pirate Standoff - Ann Scott Tyson and Edward Cody, Washington Post. As US Navy warships surrounded the lifeboat where four pirates held an American sea captain hostage yesterday, defense officials and analysts said the most likely military option for ending the standoff would not involve any significant use of naval firepower, but rather blocking maneuvers or a discreet operation by elite US sailors.

American Captain Tries to Escape From Sea Pirates - Siobhan Gorman, Sarah Childress and David Gauthier-Villars, Wall Street Journal. The American sea captain held hostage by Somali pirates tried to escape Friday and was recaptured, a US official said, with no action from the US Navy destroyer monitoring the situation from nearby in the Indian Ocean.

US Skipper Thwarted in Escape Bid - The Australian. The American sea captain being held hostage in a lifeboat by pirates off Somalia jumped off the boat under the cover of darkness, but failed to escape his captors yesterday.

FBI Joins US Navy In Pirate Standoff - Stephanie McCrummen and Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post. The FBI and US Navy were in delicate negotiations Thursday with Somali pirates holding an American captain in a lifeboat drifting in the Indian Ocean, as one US destroyer hulked nearby and additional naval ships were speeding to the scene, US officials said.

Somali Pirates a Far Cry from Buccaneers of Old - Todd Pitman, Associated Press. They've been described as "noble heroes" by sympathetic Somalis, denounced as criminals by critics. But the word most used to describe the men holding an American captain off the Horn of Africa is "pirate" - conjuring images of sword-wielding swashbucklers romanticized by Hollywood.

Growing Sophistication of Pirates - Mary Harper, BBC News. Somali piracy has been transformed from something very basic into something far more sophisticated in recent years. The pirates have graduated from being simple fishermen with rickety boats and maybe a couple of rusty guns into high-tech operators armed with modern weapons travelling in expensive speedboats. They have been able to do this because they have earned so much money from ransom payments.

Why Somali Piracy is Booming - Colin Freeman, Daily Telegraph. Indeed, many pirate recruits have literally nothing left to lose in life. For them, being arrested and caught by the international piracy force is little deterrent. At least they will get three square meals a day. If really lucky, they may get taken to a European jail, where they will have a chance of applying for asylum upon release. One of my own captors told me once how he'd tried to flee to Europe after his parents had been murdered, travelling thousands of miles to Libya and then in an overladen people smuggling boat to Greece, only to then be deported home again. As long as Somalia is a nation where people are tempted to resort to such desperate measures, buccaneering is likely to remain a promising career option.

Maritime Officials Seek More Authority to Confront Pirates - Alexandra Marks, Christian Science Monitor. With the media suddenly shining a sharp spotlight on the increase in piracy off the coast of Somalia, maritime experts are calling for more clearly delineated international authority to stop and board suspect boats, as well as the authority to use armed force to engage potential attackers who might resist inspection.

Attack Raises Debate on Guns for Sailors - John Miller and Paulo Prada, Wall Street Journal. This week's pirate attack on an American vessel in the Indian Ocean has renewed a fierce debate in the shipping industry: Should sailors carry guns? Many sailors support the idea. But ship owners and naval officials tend to say armed crews would only add to the volatile mix in a hostile environment.

Lessons From the Barbary Pirate Wars - Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times. An American skipper in the hands of seafaring rogues. Some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes under attack. Tough men from a messy patch of Africa eluding and harassing the world’s greatest powers. Sound familiar? Well, it’s not last week’s drama on the high seas we’re talking about, when Somali pirates attacked an American freighter in the Indian Ocean and took its captain hostage, then made off with him in a lifeboat. We’re talking about the Barbary Wars, about 200 years ago, when pirates from the Barbary Coast (today’s Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya) hijacked European ships with impunity and ransomed back the crews.

Could 19th-Century Plan Stop Piracy? - BBC News. International efforts to thwart Somali piracy would appear to be floundering. Perhaps words from the 19th Century could offer a solution, writes the BBC News website's world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds. If the navies of the world need some advice on ways to stop piracy off Somalia, they could look to Lord Palmerston, British Foreign Secretary in 1841.

Ships Have Few Options Against Somali Pirates - Anita Powell, Associated Press. The 20,000 merchant ships that traverse the Gulf of Aden each year have few options to combat the scourge of piracy off Somalia's lawless coast. Given their massive size, the ships can't always outrun the small, agile speedboats that the pirates use. If ships arm their crew, they risk escalating the situation or potentially igniting their flammable cargo. Bypassing the Gulf of Aden to get between Asia and Europe also can rack up a massive costs and add as much as two weeks to the already long voyage.

A Placid Man on Land, Caught in a Drama at Sea - Serge Kovaleski and Abby Goodnough, New York Times. At sea he is intense and resolute, so when Capt. Richard Phillips tried to escape his pirate captors Friday by leaping off their slow-moving lifeboat, some of his closest friends did not blink.

Pentagon Official Mum on Pirate Hostage Details - Gerry Gilmore, American Forces Press Service. A senior Pentagon spokesman today declined to provide details on the ongoing situation involving a US maritime captain being held hostage by pirates in a small boat adrift off the coast of Somalia. “There will be a point in time where we can be fully forthcoming with what the military role was and our thinking on it, and why we did what we did," Bryan Whitman told reporters. “That time is not right now.”

How Will Somali-American Pirate Standoff End? - Andrew Cawthorne, Reuters. Somali pirates have captured their first American hostage, a cargo ship's captain. They and their prisoner are drifting on a lifeboat without fuel, and are being tracked by a US warship and other naval vessels in the area. How will the saga end?

Editorials

The Barbarian Coast - Wall Street Journal. In one of its more overstretched spins on a news event involving the US military, the New York Times front page yesterday opined that the hostage stand-off with the Somali pirates "showed the limits of the world's most powerful military." What it has in fact showed so far is the apparently still-needed distinction between the behavior of the civilized world and of barbarism.

Sink 'Em - New York Post. What a mess. What to do? Lord Palmerston, the British statesman who directed that nation's successful effort to break both piracy and the slave trade, got it right in 1841: "Taking a wasp's nest... is more effective than catching the wasps one by one." Certainly the wasps are on the loose off the coast of Somalia.

Perhaps it's Time to Take the Fight to the Pirates - Tampa Tribune. At some point we can't wink and nod at the pirates and pay them off. They live in a lawless land with no working government to control their actions. They have a safe haven in Somalia, and their attacks on the high seas keep increasing with money being easy. We don't need a war in Somalia, but we must start fighting back against the pirate operations. Until now, hostages have been let go after ransoms were paid, but the world community can no longer sit back and allow this kind of criminal activity.

Opinion

Anarchy on Land Means Piracy at Sea - Robert Kaplan, New York Times. Piracy is the maritime ripple effect of anarchy on land. Somalia is a failed state and has the longest coastline in mainland Africa, so piracy flourishes nearby. The 20th-century French historian Fernand Braudel called piracy a “secondary form of war,” that, like insurgencies on land, tends to increase in the lulls between conflicts among great states or empires. With the Soviet Union and its client states in Africa no longer in existence, and American influence in the third world at an ebb, irregular warfare both on land and at sea has erupted, and will probably be with us until the rise of new empires or their equivalents.

Pirates Must be Hunted Down and Their Vessels Sunk on Sight - John Keegan, Daily Telegraph. Last year, more than 130 such attacks were reported, centred on the Gulf of Aden. Approximately 50 were successful, with millions of pounds being extracted in ransom money, most notoriously for a Saudi supertanker carrying £70 million in oil, and a Ukrainian ship transporting 33 tanks. The civilised world long believed that piracy was part of history, long ago stamped out by the navies of the industrialised nations. Instead, at the chokepoints of sea lanes, off the shore of weak – or completely failed – states, piracy is flourishing.

What's The Big Idea? - Emily Langer, Washington Post. After Somali pirates tried to commandeer a US-operated container ship in the Indian Ocean last week and captured its American captain, the United States dispatched a Navy destroyer to the scene, creating a showdown between a massive warship and a tiny lifeboat on which the pirates held their hostage. The Navy destroyer is just one more mammoth foreign vessel floating in the waters off the Somali coast, where piracy is raging at levels not seen since the Barbary corsairs ravaged northern Africa. But when it comes to a long-term strategy for battling pirates, are big ships really the answer? Not if you ask Navy Cmdr. James Kraska, a self-described "smaller vessel kind of guy."

Why Don't We Hang Pirates Anymore? - Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal. It's a safe bet, dear reader, that the title of this column has caused you to either (a) roll your eyes and wonder, What century do you think we're living in? or (b) scratch your head and ask, Yes, why don't we? Wherever you come down, the question defines a fault line in the civilized world's view about the latest encroachment of barbarism.

The Pirates Challenge Obama's Pre-9/11 Mentality - Mackubin Thomas Owens, Wall Street Journal. When Somali pirates hijacked the US-flagged Maersk Alabama this week and took 20 Americans hostage, President Barack Obama refused to comment. It seems that our new president is desperate to do everything he can to distance himself from his predecessor, which is why his team has launched a campaign to rebrand the War on Terror. The results are mystifying. "Overseas contingency operations" is the new name for the war, while "man-caused disasters" is a euphemism for terrorist attacks.

No Pain No Gain - Seth Cropsey, Weekly Standard. The principles that are being tested in Iran and off the coast of Somalia hold no matter how many Americans are wrongfully detained by hostile governments or international outlaws: the United States is obliged to protect its innocent citizens. Failing to do so effectively invites more and bigger trouble.

Pirates Test the ‘Rule of Law’ - Andrew McCarthy, National Review. There is nothing less civilized than rewarding evil and thus guaranteeing more of it. High-minded as it is commonly made to sound, it is not civilized to appease evil, to treat it with “dignity and respect,” to rationalize its root causes, to equivocate about whether evil really is evil, and, when all else fails, to ignore it - to purge the very mention of its name - in the vain hope that it will just go away. Evil doesn’t do nuance. It finds you, it tests you, and you either fight it or you’re part of the problem.

Hang 'Em High - Ralph Peters, New York Post. For a young Somali, piracy's a glamorous profession, the local equivalent of being a Manhattan hedge-fund manager a few years back: His risk is minimal, the rewards are huge - and there's no punishment for pillaging other people's wealth. Just as we encouraged those strutting wizards of finance not long ago, we now embolden pirates.

Blogs

Somalia is Bigger than Piracy Even as Piracy Dominates the News - Information Dissemination. With Somali piracy in the news, every incident will become fuel on the fire regarding the piracy issue. This may not be a good thing. The Obama administration seems to be thinking about Somalia in the correct context, terrorism, which is not the same issue of piracy. Piracy is not a strategic threat to the US, it is a big problem for Europe and Asia but not for us. It wasn't until Asia and Europe realized we weren't going to solve this problem for them that they stepped up themselves.

The Big Question - Abu Muqawama. Does it not strike anyone else that what we're doing in the Horn of Africa looks a lot like what we were doing in Afghanistan before 9/11? Here is the problem into which the Obama team has backed itself. By saying - in Afghanistan and Pakistan - that we're not going to allow the terrorists to maintain safe havens from which they can plot and train to carry out attacks, the Obama team now has to explain why we're not pursuing the same kind of whole-of-government approach toward bringing effective governance to the Horn of Africa.

Observing the Obama Administration Somali Piracy Policy - Information Dissemination. The current policy for addressing Somali piracy was the first major foreign policy decision implemented by the Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after Obama became president. As a new policy, it is fluid and must be assessed at each step. I contend that when a US flagged ship is hijacked by pirates for the first time in 200 years while our naval forces are struggling under the law enforcement policy to produce successful prosecutions, thus deterrence, the Obama pirate policy is not working.

How to Beat the Somali Pirates - USNI Blog. Now, I know very well that what I said before about time and money are negative motivators for merchant ships to wait for convoys to be formed. And, after all, the odds of being nabbed by pirates are pretty slim. However, there are some risk adverse ship owners who will accept the convoys, especially if their insurance carrier will lower premiums for convoy participants. I said it before and I’ll say it again - given a chance - convoys work.

Barry and The Pirates - Outside the Beltway. There’ve been a number of blog posts over the last couple days accusing President Obama of fecklessness, cowardice, and being out-toughed by the French with regard to his handling of the Somali pirate situation. Fairness compels me to point out that the current spate of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and East Africa began roughly two years ago and Obama took office roughly ten weeks ago.

The Negotiations for Captain Phillips - The Belmont Club. What happens next is a matter for conjecture. The men, both captors and captives, cannot remain in the lifeboat forever. One unrecognized element in this drama is the media. The international coverage given to the crisis and the involvement of “elders” has introduced a political factor into the equation.

An Anti-Piracy Mission Transforms From Interdiction to Strategic Communication - MountainRunner. Now that the pirates have gotten the attention of the world, a low-profile mission to interdict criminals in the Indian Ocean now is a major strategic communication. Does the Pentagon and the State Deptartment understand that?

Will the Maersk Alabama Seizure Become a Media Spectacle? - Westhawk. Ultimately, the problem will escalate into an embarrassment for the US Navy the longer it remains unresolved. Observers will soon rightly wonder what the purpose of CTF 151 is and why the US led its recent expansion, if the piracy problem near Somalia is as bad as ever and 20 U.S. citizens and a US-flagged ship are being held for ransom. Having committed itself to an expanded anti-piracy mission under the command of a US Navy admiral, it will be very difficult for the US to walk away from the problem under these circumstances.

Can We End Piracy? - The Corner. The seizure of Maersk Alabama is but the latest episode in a tremendous contemporary upsurge in piracy. While pirate activities are certainly rampant off the Somali coast, pirates have been active worldwide. The reasons are obvious - given the lame performance of the world's navies, including the US and British navies (that in the 19th century substantially eradicated piracy) - piracy pays.

Insuring Armed Security More Expensive Than Piracy? - Threats Watch. From a governmental perspective, when the majority of American flagged ships become hardened targets enough to turn the pirates' perception into one of a losing proposition rather than the current perception of being profitable to take on, then the threat of piracy (for at least those ships) diminishes or ceases to be. Nonetheless it is stunning, if perhaps logical, in the final calculation that insuring a protected ship is a greater expense than insuring against defenseless piracy at sea.

Piracy: The Only Solution - The Captain's Journal. Somali pirates recently hijacked a US-flagged cargo ship with 20 Americans on board. Apparently the crew retook the vessel, but the pirates still have hostages in their custody along with a lifeboat that is out of fuel. In any case, the valuable information concerning Somali piracy has nothing to do with the specific details of this particular incident. The most interesting place to start is with a quick survey of the reactions across the web. As we survey the reactions, my hypothesis is that piracy exists because we want it to.

Standoff with Somali Pirates Shows Limits of Naval Response - CSM Global News. As the standoff between the US Navy and Somali pirates intensified Friday in the Indian Ocean, with pirates vowing to fight on as the US encircled them, analysts were pointing to the episode as evidence that international naval power may have a limited role in ridding the seas of the pirate scourge.

Naval Gazing - Contentions. So America’s foes look on, observing a president hesitant to act in robust defense of American interests. Let’s hope the Obama team is simply perfecting its plans to recapture the captain and send an unmistakable signal that American ships and seamen should not be trifled with. Let’s hope they are not afraid to strike terror camps wherever they may be. Over two hundred years ago another American president realized it would be folly to remain passive as pirates tormented the civilized world. It would be a welcome development if the current one comes to his senses - soon. We could use more Thomas Jefferson and less Jimmy Carter right about now.

Why the US Navy is a Second-Class Pirate-Fighter - Danger Room. Both the U.S. Navy and the Somali pirates are sending in reinforcements, in their Indian Ocean showdown. And in this particular fight of destroyers vs. life rafts, put your money on the big boats. But in anything much longer than the immediate term, think twice about putting down a bet. Because the American Navy, as currently configured, doesn't have the right gear to clamp down on piracy.

Why The Pirates Are Immune From Attack - Strategy Page. In dealing with a piracy problem like this, you have three main choices. You can do what is currently being done, which is patrolling the Gulf of Aden and shooting only when you see speedboats full of gunmen threatening a merchant ship. The rule appears to be that you fire lots of warning shots, and rarely fire at the pirates themselves. This approach has saved a few ships from capture, and the more warships you get into the Gulf, the more pirate attacks you can foil. But it won't stop the pirates from capturing ships. Establishing a similar anti-piracy patrol off the east coast of Africa would cost over half a billion dollars a year, at least.

How to Be a Somali Pirate - The Corner. With his call for piracy hearings, John Kerry is a bit behind his House colleagues, who held a very informative one last month. The hour-and-forty minute hearing dealt with pirates' tactics and government progress so far in curtailing pirate activities off the coast of Somalia, which tripled between 2007 and 2008.

To Stop Pirates, Do Ships Need Firepower? - CSM Global News. Most US maritime academies do not offer weapons or force-on-force training. That’s because most shipping companies follow a long tradition of merchant vessels remaining unarmed – which makes them easy prey for pirates, but prevents bloodshed and damage to the ship. Except for using fire hoses and axes to try to prevent pirates from boarding, merchant crews have few options except to surrender. Many shipping companies remain opposed to weapons training for crews, but that could change, educators say.

Somali Piracy: A Practical Solution - The Tank. Accepting this persistent fact for what it is, the most effective way to protect civilian shipping vessels is to have well-armed security teams aboard them that can sink approaching speedboats and other vessels deemed a threat before they can come alongside, and can kill pirates as they attempt to board if that fails.

Winds off Somalia - USNI Blog. Last year the Office of Naval Intelligence analyzed the pirate attacks occurring in the Gulf of Aden, as set out here. Most of these appear to continue to hold true, so I offer them up yet again.

Background / Research

IMB Piracy Reporting Centre - International Maritime Bureau

Piracy Map 2008 - ICC Commercial Crime Services

Q&A: Somali Piracy - BBC News

Continue reading "Weekend Piracy News, Opinion, Blog Roundup" »

The AfPak Challenge - Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer opinion

When Gen. David Petraeus testified on Capitol Hill 11 days ago about the new US policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the story was relegated to the inside pages of major papers. What a contrast to the media circus when Petraeus testified on the Iraq war.

Shell-shocked by the financial crisis, the American public hasn't focused on Obama's war, which calls for 17,000 more combat troops this year, as well as 4,000 new military trainers. Polls show the public is wary about the AfPak conflict, but opposition is more muted than to the war in Iraq. That could change should casualties increase, as is likely over the next year.

So, I sat down with Petraeus in the venerable but far-from-fancy Fairfax hotel in Washington where he was staying, to ask why Americans should support this war, and what it would take to win it...

More at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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Lexicon and Struggle
by Major Matthew Orris, Small Wars Journal

Lexicon and Struggle (Full PDF Article)

Winners and losers of a war may already be known long before the first shot is ever fired if a belligerent has prepared or long term strategic information operations (IO). This is the one weapon of mass destruction we as a nation can ill afford to lose control of, but yet it seems it is the one ‘weapon’ that lacks a priority commensurate to its power. IO is, in theory, a continuous loop that runs the entire “spectrum from peace to war and back to peace and it involves all elements of the national government, not solely the military”. It is supposed to be a sequential process in which guidance originates from the National Command Authorities (NCA), through the various departments within the government and performed simultaneously at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels through public diplomacy, foreign aid, cultural exchanges, education, law enforcement, electronic warfare, computer network operations, psychological operations (PSYOP), deception, and operation security (OPSEC) to influence, disrupt, or usurp the adversary. So what does all of that have to do with warfare? In a word, everything.

Lexicon and Struggle (Full PDF Article)

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Putting the PRIORITY Back Into PIR
PIR Development in a COIN Environment
by Ms. Z. Tenay Guvendiren and Lieutenant Colonel Scott Downey
Small Wars Journal

PIR Development in a COIN Environment (Full PDF Article)

Developing successful Priority Intelligence Requirements is the first, most important, and most difficult step of the ISR Synchronization Process. It is in this step that an Intelligence Section either establishes themselves as proactive, predictive, and relevant to the Commander’s Decision Making Cycle or as passive news reporters, giving history lessons, and playing “Monday Night Quarterback” to the Commander and his staff.

PIR development is also what most units get wrong. The generally accepted tenets of PIR development, which most intelligence officers learned in the schoolhouse and most commanders grew up expecting, are not applicable within a counterinsurgency environment. In this article, we will explain how to write COIN PIR that are linked to Brigade or Regimental level decision points within a long-term counterinsurgency campaign plan. In addition, we will discuss how to write PIR Running Estimates, which will track your progress in answering your Commander’s PIR.

The recommendations in this article are based on “A Way” that was successful for the authors’ unit, as intelligence officers in the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. In 2007, 2-1CAV was involved in the planning and execution of the Baghdad Security Plan (BSP) in the Karkh Security District, which was a crucial part of the larger “surge”. The BSP gave Coalition Forces the much needed opportunity to establish security in heart of Iraq’s capital and the subsequent momentum to conduct wide-scale, full-spectrum operations necessary to stabilize the country. While every BCT's sector is unique, and those sectors change over time, we argue that there are certain new tenets of PIR Development in a COIN environment that will never change.

PIR Development in a COIN Environment (Full PDF Article)

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The Associated Press and others are reporting that Richard Phillips, Captain of the Maersk Alabama, was freed unharmed Sunday in a swift firefight that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa. AP cites the ship's owner and an unnamed US official.

Update: CNN reports that Captain Phillips jumped overboard from the lifeboat where he was being held (see Update 2 note below), and US Navy SEALs shot and killed three of his four captors, according to a senior US official with knowledge of the situation. The fourth pirate was aboard the USS Bainbridge negotiating with officials and was taken into custody.

Update 2: a second overboard adventure is not a part of the current final rescue story, not to be confused with his brief dip earlier in the saga. Safe home, Capt Phillips. Nice shooting, USN. Let's all stay tuned to see what kind of a game changer this becomes in GoA piracy.

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The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal and US Counterinsurgency Doctrine
by Major Timothy R. Kreuttner, Small Wars Journal

The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal and US COIN Doctrine (Full PDF Article)

Since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the US Army has wrestled with how to apply socio-cultural factors in counterinsurgency. The case of Nepal provides an example of a state that failed to adequately address socio-cultural problems in an ethnically diverse country and consequently lost power to a Maoist insurgency. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN) gained power by way of free elections after a twelve-year insurgency starting in 1996. While the government of Nepal focused on a military solution, the Maoists grew in strength by out-governing the state and building a solid popular base. After achieving a military stalemate, the CPN transitioned from violence to political maneuvering by exploiting fissures between the parliamentary parties and the monarchy. A key to Maoist success was its ability to mobilize dissatisfied classes and ethnic groups. The government of Nepal was unable to gain or maintain the support of the people because of political upheaval, repressive tactics, and failure to solve social issues among the different groups. US and other foreign training and material support to Nepal were helpful militarily, but insufficient because they did little to address the core political, social, and economic problems unique to Nepal. The Maoist insurgency has implications for US counterinsurgency doctrine that suggest a need for a better understanding of the socio-cultural and political factors that motivate insurgency.

The US military, like the Nepalese Army, faces challenges in understanding the cultures of host nations and adversaries. US counterinsurgency doctrine, as articulated in US Army Field Manual 3-24/Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, stresses gaining legitimacy and gives cultural considerations at the tactical level, but still lacks a comprehensive explanation of how to apply cultural expertise operationally for strategic success. The preface of FM 3-24 warns that the manual “is not intended to be a standalone reference. Users should assess information from other sources to help them decide how to apply the doctrine…to the specific circumstances facing them.” The writers acknowledge that given the complexity and changing characteristics of counterinsurgency operations, FM 3-24 is incomplete. Professional journals and blog sites serve as forums for updating counterinsurgency methods. A case such as Nepal, where insurgents adapted Maoist strategy to the conditions of their country, illustrates the difficulty of formulating a counterinsurgency strategy in a challenging political environment with limited means.

The Maoist Insurgency in Nepal and US COIN Doctrine (Full PDF Article)

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Here it is, one of the best I've attended...

Continue reading "CNAS Book Discussion with Dave Kilcullen" »

'3 Rounds, 3 Dead Bodies' - Scott Wilson, Ann Scott Tyson and Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post. Three deft sniper shots ended a drama that appeared initially as another example of a muscle-bound US military unable to adapt to today's unpredictable security threats. In the end, US Special Operations Forces easily defeated lightly armed, untrained men in a battle that US officials say will not end piracy.

Moment to Shoot Somali Pirates Had Come - Julian Barnes and Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times. Even as details about the daring rescue were still emerging, US national security officials were trying to assess whether it might lead to an escalation in violent tactics along the Somali coast, and were warning that a surge in pirate activity would be difficult to bring under control. President Obama, in his first public remarks on the rescue, pledged Monday to mount a sustained campaign against the escalating attacks on ships off Somalia.

Obama Signals More Active Response to Piracy - Peter Baker, New York Times. President Obama vowed Monday to “halt the rise of piracy” off the coast of Africa following the dramatic rescue of an American merchant captain, foreshadowing a longer and potentially more treacherous struggle ahead as he weighs a series of problematic options.

US Weighs Tough Action on Pirates - Bryan Bender, Boston Globe. A day after the dramatic rescue of an American sea captain held captive by Somali pirates, US officials said yesterday that they are considering launching attacks on the staging areas from which pirates have hijacked a rising number of international merchant vessels.

Rescue at Sea Sparks Calls for Firepower - Chip Cummins and John Miller, Wall Street Journal. Naval officials and seafaring organizations braced Monday for reprisals from Somali pirates, a day after the US Navy killed three in a high-seas hostage rescue in the Indian Ocean. But many maritime officials said they were encouraged by the military action Sunday, and are pushing governments to send more firepower to the Gulf of Aden and the waters along the east coast of Africa.

Will Pirates Join Forces with Islamist Militias in Somalia? - Scott Baldauf, Christian Science Monitor. The four-day hostage ordeal, with Somali pirates holding a US merchant ship captain in a lifeboat, ended in a hail of sniper fire Sunday and the safe return of the captain to his crew. But the twin rescues this past week by the French and American navies off Somalia are unlikely to end the problem of piracy. Quite the opposite, say analysts. The pirates, they say, are likely to increase their use of violence, and that could lead them into the arms of Somalia's small but powerful Islamist militias for protection and support.

A Solution for Somalia - Washington Post editorial. President Obama said in a statement Sunday that "we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for those crimes." Those actions are certainly necessary, and they speak for themselves. But they don't begin to address the underlying problem, which is Somalia's long-standing status as a failed state and the desperation and extremism growing among its Muslim population.

Saving Captain Phillips - Wall Street Journal editorial. The Easter Sunday rescue of cargo ship Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates is a tribute to his personal bravery and the skill and steel nerves of the US Navy. Now the Obama Administration has an obligation to punish and deter these lawless raiders so they'll never again risk taking a US-flagged ship or an American crew.

Killing Pirates - Washington Times editorial. The Navy's bold actions were in sharp contrast to the instinctive waffling of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who promised that the Obama administration was seeking “an appropriate 21st-century response” to the pirates who seized a US-flagged vessel and took its American captain hostage. Thankfully, Vice Admiral William E. Gortney, commander of US Naval Forces Central Command, gets it. He made it clear that “The United States government's policy is to not negotiate.” Such a clear statement of resolve was a refreshing change from President Obama's usual “let's talk about it” approach.

The Price of Piracy - Los Angeles Times editorial. First off, it just has to be said: Nice shooting, SEALs. Simultaneously hitting and instantly killing three partly obscured pirates who were holding guns on an American hostage -- and doing it after nightfall, from the deck of a ship in choppy seas -- is a remarkable feat, making us very glad these highly trained and immensely capable naval troops are on our side. Yet, though there's ample reason to celebrate the rescue Sunday of container-ship Capt. Richard Phillips after a five-day standoff with pirates off the coast of Somalia, it comes with recognition that the aggressive US response risks escalating the piracy threat and endangering the lives of more merchant ships' crews.

Securing the Seas - Philadelphia Inquirer editorial. An ultimate solution to piracy, as outlined in a recent paper by Naval War College professor James Kraska and senior Navy lawyer Brian Wilson, requires international cooperation. The United States can't do it alone. Through the United Nations, naval efforts can be coordinated and countries can work together to track down, prosecute, and jail pirates. Until pirates fear justice, they will continue to terrorize the oceans.

Rescue Takes Fight to Somali Pirates - Miami Herald editorial. The US Navy's rescue of ship captain Richard Phillips on Sunday morning put a face and an identity to what heretofore had been brazen but obscure attacks by Somali pirates on merchant ships in the Indian Ocean. The rescue is a turning point in the long-running standoff with pirates who have made shipping channels near Somalia the most dangerous in the world. The fight is now personal, and America is ready to lead the charge.

Convoys Are an Answer to Piracy - Peter Zimmerman, Wall Street Journal opinion. Pirates, like the Nazi submarines of World War II, do not hunt for their targets; they lie across the sea lanes where ships are likely to travel and simply wait for a victim to come over the horizon. And the same tactic which defeated the U-boats can put an end to the majority of pirate attacks. Merchant ships can be ordered to form convoys for their own protection.

How to Solve the Pirate Problem - Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times opinion. Piracy is still a small problem in the scheme of things, but that makes things easier. Cannibalistic serial killers are relatively rare too. That hardly means there's a great mystery about what should be done with them. What remains to be seen is whether this problem was solved despite Obama's instincts or because of them. The SEALs solved a hostage crisis by shooting three pirates. The question is whether Obama will prevent a pirate crisis from emerging by making it easier to shoot even more pirates.

World Needs US 'Goliath' - Rich Lowry, New York Post opinion. President Obama approved negotiations with the Somali pirates holding Phillips, but authorized force should Phillips appear to be in imminent danger. When one of the pirates pointed his AK-47 at Phillips' back, snipers aboard the nearby USS Bainbridge took out the three pirates with three shots -- not a bullet wasted. Suddenly, the headline The New York Times had run about the spectacle didn't seem so apt: "Standoff With Pirates Shows US Power Has Limits."

The Audacity of Rope - Ralph Peters, New York Post opinion. Will our president behave as Clinton did with al Qaeda, simply hoping the problem will disappear? Despite the blessed rescue of Capt, Richard Phillips, the indicators aren't encouraging. It's time for real audacity, Mr. President. But this one takes rope, not hope. Pirates must hang.

Kill the Pirates - Fred Ickle, Washington Post opinion. With the rescue of American Richard Phillips from the hands of pirates yesterday, there was a blip of good news from the Indian Ocean, but it remains a scandal that Somali pirates continue to routinely defeat the world's naval powers. And worse than this ongoing demonstration of cowardice is the financing of terrorists that results from the huge ransom payments these pirates are allowed to collect.

To the Shores of Tripoli - Harlan Ullman, Washington Times opinion. What appears to have been a highly professional dispatch of three Somali thugs and the capture of a fourth was hailed as a major win for the Obama administration. For those who advocate hitting these pirates hard ashore, as the Leathernecks did in 1804, or at sea, this incident provided more evidence for strong action. However, as the US Navy noted, the rescue of brave Capt. Phillips could provoke a greater response by Somali pirates, who number in the thousands. So what should be done to take on this long-standing scourge of the high seas and coastal waters?

Millions for Tribute but not One Cent for Defense? - Information Dissemination. With the rescue of Captain Phillips many people are ready to move on to the business of killing pirates already, or at least do something. Clearly we have arrived at a moment where policy has changed, but before we start down that road, perhaps we should ask why policy has changed?

Admiral Allen on the Worlds Piracy Threat (and opinion) - USNI Blog. And short of having hired security on these vessels, this does indeed seem the norm. ADM Allen’s answer was the to take the legal road if viable, which on all accounts one should agree with. However, there also needs to be more drastic measures taken to protect not only US general/cargo vessels transiting high piracy areas, but to sway those from doing this to any nations vessel. My solution? Well, I don’t have one. With that being said, we could continue to flex our muscles as we did yesterday by using our Special Ops community to secure the area on a case by case basis. Oh, you didn’t hear (that’s what happens when living under a rock)?

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Is There a Real Threat to Australia’s National Security Posed by Sovereign Wealth Funds?
by Dr. David A. Anderson and Major Richard Mogg
Small Wars Journal

Is There a Real Threat to Australia’s National Security Posed by Sovereign Wealth Funds? (Full PDF Article)

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have existed since the 1950s. However, the size, quantity, and reach of SWFs have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. In 1990 sovereign funds held at most $500 billion, the current total of SWF investments is an estimated US$4.3 trillion , compared to a current global stock market capitalization of US$51 trillion . SWFs are expected to grow to US$12 trillion by 2015 , and are likely to be an enduring feature of global finance and geo-politics. Currently, more than 20 countries have SWFs, and half a dozen more have expressed an interest in establishing such a fund. The holdings remain quite concentrated, with the top five funds accounting for about 70 percent of total assets. Over half of these assets are in the hands of countries that export significant amounts of oil and gas. In the case of China and Singapore, these nations do not export oil or gas, but maintain massive trade surpluses from the export of manufactured goods. The top ten owners of SWFs listed in order of the size of funds include The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Norway, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, China, Libya, Qatar, Algeria, and the United States State (Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation). Many of these countries are not democracies, have unclear national strategic interests, and are not allies of Australia.

About one-third of the total assets of SWFs are invested in Asian and Pacific countries, including Australia. Investment in Australia has mainly come from China, Singapore, Dubai, Kuwait, and France and has been focused in energy, resources, infrastructure, utilities, and defense sectors. The risk raised by recent literature is that foreign ownership in such sectors may threaten national security. This paper investigates if SWFs pose a direct threat to Australia’s national security or an indirect threat through its immediate area of interest (the Asia Pacific region).

Is There a Real Threat to Australia’s National Security Posed by Sovereign Wealth Funds? (Full PDF Article)

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Professors in the Trenches
Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics
(Part 1 of 5)
edited by Rob W. Kurz, Small Wars Journal

This is the first installment of a five-part series. Each article was co-authored by one Army soldier/civilian and one university professor/academic as part of a joint research project. This project and product responds to the Army’s objectives regarding the integration of cultural social sciences into its training and operations.

To Change an Army
The Establishment of the Iraqi Center for Military Values, Principles and Leadership
by Colonel Jack D. Kem and Aaron G. Kirby

The Establishment of the Iraqi Center for Military Values, Principles and Leadership (Full PDF Article)

Field Manual 3-24, the new U.S. Army’s Counterinsurgency Manual, defines culture as a “web of meaning” shared by members of a particular society or group within a society. Culture (ideas, norms, rituals, codes of behavior) provides meaning to individuals within the society (Department of the Army 2006, 3-6). The Counterinsurgency Manual also states:

Culture might also be described as an “operational code” that is valid for an entire group of people. Culture conditions the individual’s range of action and ideas, including what to do and not do, how to do or not do it, and whom to do it with or not to do it with. Culture also includes under what circumstances the “rules” shift and change. Culture influences how people make judgments about what is right and wrong, assess what is important and unimportant, categorize things, and deal with things that do not fit into existing categories... (Department of the Army 2006, 3-7).

The purpose for this article is to examine aspects of culture within Iraq. This examination is based on observations of Iraqi civilian translators and American contractors who worked together to develop classes for the Iraqi military in leadership and ethics studies. These classes were designed to change the Iraqi military into a professional organization that is “ethically based, competently led, loyal to the principles of the constitution and accountable to the civilian leadership and people of Iraq” (MNSTC-I 2006, 6). The preparation for this critically important mission provided the vehicle for observing the cultural differences between these two groups (Iraqi translators and American contractors) based on a “snapshot in time” during the summer of 2006.

The Establishment of the Iraqi Center for Military Values, Principles and Leadership (Full PDF Article)

Continue reading "Professors in the Trenches: Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics (Part 1)" »

A Nuclear Talibanistan? - Tony Blankley, Washington Times / Real Clear Politics opinion

Our view of Pakistan's role in the war in Afghanistan has undergone an ominous but necessary series of shifts. At the outset of the war, in October 2001, Pakistan correctly was seen as a necessary ally -- both politically and geographically...

Over the years, we came to understand that Pakistan's intelligence service was playing a double game -- helping us but also supporting the Taliban -- while Pakistan's northern area became a safe haven for both the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Thus, Pakistan came to be seen as part of the problem that the Obama administration reasonably has taken to calling the "AfPak" war. Gen. David Petraeus recently told a Senate committee that he sees Pakistan and Afghanistan as "a single theater...

Now another perception shift is starting to take hold: The increasing instability of Pakistan's government makes Pakistan -- more than Afghanistan -- the central challenge of our "AfPak" policy...

More at Real Clear Politics.

Islamic Law Now Official for a Valley in Pakistan - Sabrina Tavernese, New York Times

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan has signed a measure that would impose Islamic law in the northwestern valley of Swat, in a move that was largely seen as a capitulation to Taliban militants.

Mr. Zardari’s approval came late Monday, after Parliament voted overwhelmingly for the measure, which would allow militants to administer justice through courts whose judges have Islamic training.

The local government in Swat agreed in February to allow the militants to impose Islamic law in exchange for a cease-fire. The deal came after months of fighting, during which the Pakistani Army was unable to subdue the militants...

More at The New York Times.

US Criticizes Pakistan's Deal On Islamic Law - Associated Press / Washington Post

The Obama administration said Pakistan's imposition of Islamic law in a northwest valley to quell a Taliban insurgency undermines human rights, while a visiting US senator urged the country to "ratchet up" its urgency in the terror fight.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs's comments Tuesday were the most pointed US criticisms of Pakistan's peace efforts in the Swat Valley to date...

More at The Washington Post.

Continue reading "A Nuclear Talibanistan?" »

US Takes Afghan Strategy to Villages - Michael Phillips, Wall Street Journal

The deepening US involvement in the Afghan war is forcing villagers to answer a dangerous question: Whose side are you on?

The Afghan government and US military have kicked off an ambitious project to build local opposition to the Taliban, reminiscent of a successful American effort to win over Sunnis in Iraq's once-turbulent Anbar province. For the elders of the village of Zayawalat, a safe haven for insurgents conducting attacks into Kabul, it's time to make the call on whether to join. So far, they have balked...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

In Recruiting an Afghan Militia, US Faces a Test - Dexter Filkins, New York Times

The ambitious American plan to arm local militias in villages across the country was coming down to a single moment.

The American officers sat on one side of a long wooden table; a group of Afghan elders on the other. The pilot program was up and running, but the area’s big enclave of Pashtuns -- the ethnic group most closely identified with the Taliban -- had not sent any volunteers. The Pashtuns were worried about Taliban reprisals...

The meeting in Maidan Shahr, Wardak Province’s capital, tucked into the mountains about 30 miles southwest of Kabul, concerned one of the most unorthodox projects the Americans have undertaken here since the war began in 2001: to arm, with minimal training, groups of Afghan men to guard their own neighborhoods...

More at The New York Times.

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Continue reading "A Conversation About Somali Piracy" »

Professors in the Trenches
Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics
(Part 2 of 5)
edited by Rob W. Kurz, Small Wars Journal

This is the second installment of a five-part series. Each article was co-authored by one Army soldier/civilian and one university professor/academic as part of a joint research project. This project and product responds to the Army’s objectives regarding the integration of cultural social sciences into its training and operations.

Civil-Affairs Confronts the “Weapon of the Weak”
Improvised Explosive Devices in Iraq
by Dr. Bartholomew Dean, First Lieutenant Charles K. Bartles and Sergeant First Class Timothy B. Berger

Civil-Affairs Confronts the “Weapon of the Weak” (Full PDF Article)

In the elaboration of this essay, the authors have born in mind the need to inform Soldiers, scholars, policy makers, and the broader public at large, about a non-lethal military tactic that responded to the threat of “weapons of the weak” in rural Iraq, namely improvised explosive devices, commonly called IED’s. While we readily concede the inherent limitations of the anti-IED tactic described below, it is argued that anthropological insight is vital to understanding the nature of power, which is essential for formulating clear rules of engagement for civil-military operations (CMO). This point is of particular import given that significant sectors of the US public, as well as the international community, have persuasively brought into question the oversight and administration of security services in theaters of operation, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, which many believe to be woefully inadequate. Anthropology provides us with the best vantage point for studying military operations in peacekeeping and in times of war, chaos and great human suffering.

A civil-military, non-lethal approach to the threat of IED activity (pre- and post-detonation) is, we posit, a viable strategy to responding to the changing character of contemporary armed conflict, including the multifaceted nature of terror. By no means a panacea for dealing with all IED activity, the tactic outlined below does provide us with useful clues to the complexities of armed conflict, as well as an actual case study that manifests the challenges posed by the US military’s lack of cultural and linguistic skills necessary to sustain an effective, long-term anti-IED campaign in Iraq.

Civil-Affairs Confronts the “Weapon of the Weak” (Full PDF Article)

Continue reading "Professors in the Trenches: Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics (Part 2)" »

The Department of Homeland Security recently disseminated two FOUO reports - Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (7 April 09) and Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade (26 January 09) - that are now in the public domain. These two reports - which say absolutely nothing helpful to those on the frontlines of defending our nation - will most certainly stoke partisan bickering.

David Rehbein, National Commander of the American Legion, expressed his concern over such analytical mush as this nugget from the "right-wing" report...

The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.

... in a 13 April letter to Secretary Janet Napolitano at the DHS:

... The best that I can say about your recent report is that it is incomplete. The report states, without any statistical evidence, "The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."

The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during the Oklahoma City bombing, but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime. To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical "disgruntled military veteran" is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam...

The cited DHS report is almost as sad as this Penn State 'instructional video' entitled The 'Worrisome' Veteran.

Update:

US Officials: Recession Could Fuel Right-Wing Extremism - Voice of America

Homeland Security Warns of Rise in Right-Wing Extremism - FOX News

US Officials Warn of Radical Activity - United Press International

Federal Agency Warns of Radicals on Right - Washington Times

Right-wing Extremists Seen as a Threat - Los Angeles Times

Napolitano Defends Report on Extremism - Washington Post

Napolitano Says 'Risks' Monitored, Not Ideology - Reid Wilson, The HIll

Napolitano Defends DHS Report - Politico

Six Things You Should Know About the Homeland Security Report on ‘Rightwing Extremism’ - Judge Andrew Napolitano, FOX News

Homeland Security Report Characterizing Veterans as Potential Terrorists is “Offensive and Unacceptable” - Congressman John Boehner

Legion Objects to Vets as Terror Risk - Washington Times

Homeland Insecurity - San Francisco Chronicle

Top Dem 'Dumbfounded' by 'Extremism' Report - Washington Times

Republicans Criticize Report on Right-wing Groups - Associated Press

The New McCarthyism: DHS Reports on Right-Wing Extremism - US News & World Report

DHS Report on Right-Wing Extremists Is No Attack on Tea Party Conservatives - US News & World Report

You Might Be A Right-Wing Extremist If… QandO

Continue reading "Right Wing Extremist Vets, Left Wing Extremist Puter Hacks, Oh My..." »

Today at Inside the Pentagon (subscription required) - Iregular Warfare Term Stirs Debate as DoD Prepares for QDR by Christopher J. Castelli. Here are several excepts:

-- A QDR issue paper developed late last month at U.S. Southern Command argues that security cooperation efforts and so-called phase zero missions aimed at preventing conflict should not be described as irregular warfare (IW) because key “interagency and multinational partners” shun the term.

-- Gates has embraced the term “hybrid warfare,” which includes low-end and high-end asymmetric attacks.

-- A service official tracking the issue said there is “a very good chance” that a broader continuum spanning security cooperation, contested stability operations, irregular warfare, hybrid warfare and major conventional operations will displace the overly simplistic, bipolar framework that has been in vogue.

-- As ITP reported last month, one of five Pentagon issue teams that will play a key role in the QDR will focus on irregular warfare. InsideDefense.com reported this week that the IW capabilities team will include Garry Reid from the DOD policy shop, Timothy Bright from the program analysis and evaluation shop and Maj. Gen. Bill Troy from the Joint Staff. Cmdr. Jerry Hendrix will be the group’s executive secretary.

-- The term “irregular warfare” has been criticized for some time. In a 2007 monograph titled “The Rise of Hybrid Wars,” Frank Hoffman wrote, “What we ironically and perhaps erroneously call ‘irregular’ warfare will become normal, but with greater velocity and lethality than ever before.” Foes will eschew rules and use unexpected, ruthless modes of attack, predicted Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. In his recent Foreign Affairs essay, Gates cited Hoffman’s contention that hyrbid warfare merges “the lethality of state conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervor of irregular warfare.”

Continue reading "Term IW Stirs Debate" »

Professors in the Trenches
Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics
(Part 3 of 5)
edited by Rob W. Kurz, Small Wars Journal

This is the third installment of a five-part series. Each article was co-authored by one Army soldier/civilian and one university professor/academic as part of a joint research project. This project and product responds to the Army’s objectives regarding the integration of cultural social sciences into its training and operations.

Fitting Into the Fight - An Engineer’s Dream
From a Brigade Troops Battalion S3
by Major Alexander Fullerton and Dr. Garth Myers

Fitting Into the Fight - An Engineer’s Dream (Full PDF Article)

The provision of infrastructure and services for Sewer, Water, Electricity and Trash (or SWET in its military acronym form) is boring to most people, or, more charitably, SWET belongs to a category of things people don’t like to think about. In much of the urban United States for at least the last fifty years or more, most of the time, indeed, people don’t have to think of these things. Most residents of US cities flush their toilets, turn on their taps, switch on their lights, computers, televisions, or microwaves, or take out their garbage without a thought. The trash might require some thought: is trash day on a Monday, or a Wednesday, maybe we should recycle, can I take the hazardous stuff to the special collection spot on Saturday or not. There are certainly professionals in all of these spheres who think about them all the time, because their companies or government offices are all about sewage, water supply, electricity, or solid waste management – there are a lot of people who work for a living in these realms. But for most American urbanites and suburbanites – even most rural dwellers - SWET just happens.

But there are a lot of places in the world where SWET doesn’t happen at all. Urban geographers have often thought of cities like organisms, or spoken of the urban metabolism, the circuits and networks of a city’s body. In the US, or in the Western world in general, SWET provision works like the respiratory system, it is like breathing, in, out – this was the first time all day, as you read this, that you thought about breathing. But in many other places, when SWET does not happen (in other words when infrastructure and services are lacking for SWET), cities and the people in them must somehow find ways and means to get by. There is no getting by without water, but millions of people throughout the world go without the other components, or subsist with makeshift or even illegal service provision for them.

Fitting Into the Fight - An Engineer’s Dream (Full PDF Article)

Continue reading "Professors in the Trenches: Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics (Part 3)" »

The Post Oceanic Navy, the New Shadow Zones, and the U.S. Navy’s Force Structure Challenge
by Claude Berube, Small Wars Journal

The Post Oceanic Navy (Full PDF Article)

For the past century, the United States Navy has grown from an emergent force among traditional colonial powers able to compete on a world stage to one able to act as a counterbalance in a bipolar environment. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. became the naval hegemon, able to assert national power as needed through the traditional application of a large force with comparably large capital ships. The nation’s investment in smaller platforms to combat smaller threats, such as the deployment of gunboats on the Asiatic station or of riverine craft during the Vietnam War, has ebbed and flowed, a condition that remains true in the early twenty-first century. But the traditional U.S. naval paradigm may need to change due to changing political and fiscal realities and emerging asymmetric maritime threats. This essay examines the domestic and foreign conditions challenges to tomorrow’s navy and how a changing force structure may be required.

The Post Oceanic Navy (Full PDF Article)

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The April issue of the CTC Sentinel is now posted – The Sentinel is the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point’s public face and – as many are now saying - an essential read. April’s edition includes:

Defining the Punjabi Taliban Network by Hassan Abbas
The 2008 Belgium Cell and FATA’s Terrorist Pipeline by Paul Cruickshank
President Obama’s Overseas Terrorism Challenge by Tom Sanderson
Improving India’s Counterterrorism Policy after Mumbai by Paul Staniland
Leveraging History in AQIM Communications by Lianne Kennedy Boudali
AQAP a Rising Threat in Yemen by Brian O’Neill
Role of the UN in Defeating AQ and Associated Groups by Richard Barrett
Recent Highlights in Terrorist Activity

Here’s what Tom Ricks at Foreign Policy’s Best Defense has to say about the CTC Sentinel:

Overall, I am struck by how quickly the Sentinel has become one of my essential reads. I think this is partly a reflection of the electronic age-they can pull together an issue and publish it almost instantly, with the electrons racing around the globe. It reminds me a bit of Andrew Exum's Abu Muquwama and The Small Wars Journal, which went from start-ups to essentially daily reads almost overnight. It also represents a form of disintermediation, which may be one reason that newspapers are becoming less important. That is, if the experts can publish their own newsletter and make it broadly available, why wait for generalist reporters to re-hash it?

Continue reading "April 09 Issue of CTC Sentinel Now Online" »

The Role of PRTs on the Battlefield
by Colonel Michael F. Scotto and Jason S. Alexander
Small Wars Journal

The Role of PRTs on the Battlefield (Full PDF Article)

The role of the PRT on the Iraqi battlefield and in the immediate post-conflict phase is an interesting topic. As insurgency warfare took hold in the 20th century, the battlefield transformed from a strictly military-based operation focused on geographical terrain to one that employs civilians in the human terrain, for reasons of political expediency, economics, and tactics ‘other than war’. This transformation has been challenging, not just for reasons derived from enemy actions, but also due to the challenges of various agencies’ cultures and the bureaucracy of the US government. The article in the Foreign Service Journal by Captain Sean P. Walsh, Improving the PRT-Military Professional Relationship delves into the issue of how to make this interagency process work more effectively. Captain Walsh makes two very important points—that the PRT must closely coordinate with the military “battle-space” owners, and secondly, that PRT members must better understand DoD culture and lingo. Without these two points being closely adhered to, PRT members will be lost and unable to find their way. It is the purpose of this essay, which is directed at young military officers, is to discuss from the PRT perspective the value of civilians in modern conflict zones, using Captain Walsh’s article as a jumping-off point. Small wars and counterinsurgencies are the way many wars are likely to be fought for the foreseeable future, and it is up to the DoD and DoS to arrive at solutions on how best to cooperate and coordinate efforts to stabilize struggling nations. Furthermore, it is critically important to prepare today’s young leaders to meet the challenges of interagency operations for both today’s and tomorrow’s battlefields.

The Role of PRTs on the Battlefield (Full PDF Article)

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Translating Russia’s Military Reform
by David Capezza, Small Wars Journal

Translating Russia’s Military Reform (Full PDF Article)

Following Russia’s incursion into Georgia and its energy standoff with Ukraine, there has been a rising perception that Russia’s increased vigor is a stark reminder of the Cold War days of East-West competition. The BBC has exemplified this message running a special report titled “Resurgent Russia”. Even during the US presidential campaign, the situation took center stage as the candidates debated on how to deal with the awakening of the old beast. This “Resurgent Russia” – a term that has recently caught fire and has a line of rhetoric that has led the media to stroke old thoughts of the Soviet Union once again repainting the world red with its military might and autocratic agenda – incorrectly defines Russia’s actions as being irrational when, in fact, these actions are quite rational from the Russian perspective.

Further calls for speculation regarding Russia’s intent are inflated given the fact that ties between the Washington and Moscow have grown colder over recent years, while many analysts have been focused on Russia’s position in the world and the role that the “new” Russia will play militarily. This discussion has become increasingly vocalized since President Medvedev announced a renewed effort to overhaul and modernize the Russian military. In fact, if Medvedev’s vision is realized, the future Russian military will be completely different from the military that is operating today. The question is why is the Russian Government proposing such an overhaul? What are its intentions? In answering these questions, we find that Russia is acting in support of her own national interests, whether it is protecting energy supplies to its south or thwarting internal threats from terrorists, and in doing so, acting in a rational manner.

Translating Russia’s Military Reform (Full PDF Article)

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Guess which countries are in deep trouble or bordering on the same? Matthew Bandyk at US News & World Report highlights the countries most in danger from the global recession. Countires in deep trouble include Mexico, Pakistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Argentina. Countries to keep an eye on include Latvia, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Belarus.

Read Greg Burno and Robert McMahon's interview with General Abdul Rahim Wardak, Minister of Defense of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan at the Council on Foreign Relations. Wardak is "unhappy with the Obama plan".

In northern Iraq Kurds and Arabs are maneuvering ahead of United Nations reports that are expected to propose joint administration of Kirkuk and make a case for the annexation of some districts to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Ernesto Londoño at The Washington Post has more.

Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shar at the New York Times are reporting that the Taliban are exploiting class rifts in Pakistan.

Just a taste - add your Friday odds and ends - or an odd or an end in comments below - thanks...

Continue reading "Some Friday Odds and Ends" »

SWJ's 13th weekly contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick - is now posted. Topics include fighting terrorism with psychotherapy and who should pay for Somalia's pirates?

Continue reading "This Week at War # 13" »

Five part National Review video interview with General Jack Keane:

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 1 of 5 - Retired Gen. Jack Keane outlines the origins of the surge in Iraq — the successful military strategy he helped design.

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 2 of 5 - Jack Keane describes why changing the U.S. war strategy in Iraq was such a difficult process.

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 3 of 5 - Jack Keane says President Obama’s plan to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq is a good one. And was the war in Iraq worth it? Keane says, “Absolutely, yes.”

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 4 of 5 - Can the U.S. military win in Afghanistan, just as it is winning in Iraq? Jack Keane is optimistic - strategy depending.

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 5 of 5 - Jack Keane discusses the multiple challenges facing the U.S. military, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and more.

Continue reading "At War with Gen. Jack Keane" »

A Review of Joker One by Donovan Campbell
reviewed by Commander Philip Kapusta
Small Wars Journal

A Review of Joker One by Donovan Campbell (Full PDF Article)

In brief, Joker One is a compelling story superbly told. Written by then First Lieutenant Donovan Campbell, the book chronicles his platoon’s experiences in the cauldron that was Ramadi, Iraq in 2004. Ironically, Donovan and his platoon were afraid that they had missed the war, and when they first arrived in Ramadi, they were concerned about whether they would even qualify for Combat Action Ribbons. That worry was soon eclipsed by their struggle to stay alive, as the thinly stretched Marines found themselves in daily firefights against shadowy and surprisingly well armed insurgents. Campbell’s platoon was a part of the single Marine Corps Company that prevented Ramadi from descending into the medieval chaos that enveloped the nearby city of Fallujah as the insurgency intensified throughout the country and in Al Anbar province in particular. Wisely, Campbell leaves the strategic and Washington-level analysis to others and concentrates on what he knows – the street-level reality that was Iraq as the insurgency blossomed.

A Review of Joker One by Donovan Campbell (Full PDF Article)

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Pentagon Jams Web, Radio Links of Taliban - Yochi Dreazen and Siobhan Gorman, Wall Street Journal

The Obama administration is starting a broad effort in Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from using radio stations and Web sites to intimidate civilians and plan attacks, according to senior US officials.

As part of the classified effort, American military and intelligence personnel are working to jam the unlicensed radio stations in Pakistan's lawless regions on the Afghanistan border that Taliban fighters use to broadcast threats and decrees.

US personnel are also trying to block the Pakistani chat rooms and Web sites that are part of the country's burgeoning extremist underground. The Web sites frequently contain videos of attacks and inflammatory religious material that attempts to justify acts of violence.

The push takes the administration deeper into "psychological operations," which attempt to influence how people see the US, its allies and its enemies. Officials involved with the new program argue that psychological operations are a necessary part of reversing the deterioration of stability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

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Professors in the Trenches
Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics
(Part 4 of 5)
edited by Rob W. Kurz, Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS
Small Wars Journal

This is the fourth installment of a five-part series. Each article was co-authored by one Army soldier/civilian and one university professor/academic as part of a joint research project. This project and product responds to the Army’s objectives regarding the integration of cultural social sciences into its training and operations.

An Advisor’s Experience
C CO, 2/19th SFG (A) December ’01 to September ‘02
by Master Sergeant Michael Coker and Dr. Pauletta Otis

An Advisor’s Experience (Full PDF Article)

Interacting with indigenous civilians and indigenous militaries on a daily basis, and in a way that enhances mission success, force protection, and building democracy, is a role that is a new challenge for most soldiers. Training and preparing soldiers for this cultural interaction is as important as training for the kinetic piece.

Successful interaction between US military forces and the indigenous population is successful when it results in an indigenous citizenry that supports the country and its future. When it is not successful, there is an enhanced possibility that indigenous people will take the side of an insurgency with all of its destructive potential for the country, the region and even US interests in the AO.

The following essay provides valuable insight for the teaching and training of future soldiers who find themselves in advisory roles whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere. This knowledge and understanding is based on experience as well as formal on-the-job training provided by the US Army and other military teaching/ training experiences.

An Advisor’s Experience (Full PDF Article)

Continue reading "Professors in the Trenches: Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics (Part 4)" »

Why We Should Get Rid of West Point - Tom Ricks, Washington Post opinion

Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time? Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.

After covering the U.S. military for nearly two decades, I've concluded that graduates of the service academies don't stand out compared to other officers. Yet producing them is more than twice as expensive as taking in graduates of civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC student). On top of the economic advantage, I've been told by some commanders that they prefer officers who come out of ROTC programs, because they tend to be better educated and less cynical about the military...

More at The Washington Post.

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Gates Proposes Change in Strategy - Nancy A. Youssef and David Lightman, McClatchy News Service (Miami Herald)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who often complains that the Pentagon isn't on a war footing even as it fights two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he plans to start a new era with the new budget he'll present to Congress this week.

''I kept running into the fact that the Department of Defense as an institution -- which routinely complained that the rest of government wasn't at war -- was itself not on war footing, even as young Americans were fighting and dying every day,'' Gates said on a three-day tour of military installations last week, adding: ``These proposals, then, begin the effort to establish an institutional home in the Department of Defense for today's war fighter as well as tomorrow's.''

The question before Congress is whether his budget focuses too much on the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and not enough on potential threats from countries like China, Iran and North Korea.

The debate begins Wednesday at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing on the readiness of U.S. ground forces...

More at The Miami Herald.

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Apple’s New Weapon - Benjamin Sutherland, Newsweek

Tying the hands of a person who is speaking, the Arab proverb goes, is akin to "tying his tongue." Western soldiers in Iraq know how important gestures can be when communicating with locals. To close, open and close a fist means "light," but just opening a fist means "bomb." One soldier recently home from Iraq once tried to order an Iraqi man to lie down. To get his point across, the soldier had to demonstrate by stretching out in the dirt. Translation software could help, but what's the best way to make it available in the field?

The U.S. military in the past would give a soldier an electronic handheld device, made at great expense specially for the battlefield, with the latest software. But translation is only one of many software applications soldiers now need. The future of "networked warfare" requires each soldier to be linked electronically to other troops as well as to weapons systems and intelligence sources. Making sense of the reams of data from satellites, drones and ground sensors cries out for a handheld device that is both versatile and easy to use. With their intuitive interfaces, Apple devices—the iPod Touch and, to a lesser extent, the iPhone—are becoming the handhelds of choice...

More at Newsweek.

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Interviews with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke - Real Clear Politics

Holbrooke: This is a work in progress, quite frankly, Fareed.

The Obama administration came into office only nine weeks ago, 10 weeks ago, without having inherited a clear policy on this from the previous administration. We are examining it at every level. It is an extremely important and interesting issue.

But at this point -- and I'm being very honest with you, Fareed -- we don't really know how this program or project might work.

But the importance of reaching out and making clear to those people fighting with the Taliban, who are not committed to its values, but are there because they misunderstand why NATO is present, that's a very important thing.

More at Real Clear Politics.

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Winning the War in Afghanistan
An Oil Spot Plus Strategy for Coalition Forces
by Dr. Karl A. Slaikeu, Small Wars Journal

Winning the War in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

While granting that Afghanistan is centuries behind Iraq in terms of infrastructure, the central question remains: can we build on the successes and lessons learned in Iraq and a half century of other counterinsurgency (COIN) wars to emerge victorious over the Taliban and al Qaeda? Or, will we go the way of Great Britain and Russia, who left Afghanistan in defeat? This paper offers a plan for victory that builds on classic COIN--the oil spot or ink spot strategy--customized to address the unique challenges of the Afghan area of operations (AO).

Winning the War in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

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Karzai Agrees with US Strategy, But Says No al-Qaida Bases in Afghanistan - Voice of America. Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he agrees with almost all elements of US President Barack Obama's strategy for Afghanistan, but the Afghan leader does not believe al-Qaida has a presence in his country. Mr. Karzai made the comments in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN, on Fareed Zakaria's GPS program. Mr. Obama's plan involves deploying thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, and it makes defeating al-Qaida and other terrorist groups the top priority.

Extremist Tide Rises in Pakistan - Pamela Constable, Washington Post. A potentially troubling era dawned Sunday in Pakistan's Swat Valley, where a top Islamist militant leader, emboldened by a peace agreement with the federal government, laid out an ambitious plan to bring a "complete Islamic system" to the surrounding northwest region and the entire country.

A Blast, an Ambush and a Sprint Out of a Taliban Kill Zone - C. J. Chivers, New York Times. The American patrol had left Korangal Outpost, the base for Company B of the First Battalion, 26th Infantry, on Wednesday, roughly an hour before the ambush. Its mission had been to enter the village of Laneyal and meet with local elders.

Missiles Demolish Taliban Compound - Nahal Toosi, Associated Press. Suspected US missiles leveled a Taliban compound in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, officials said, killing three people despite militants' threats of a wave of suicide bombings if the strikes don't end. Meanwhile, a hard-line cleric who mediated a deal that imposes Islamic law in a northwest valley in exchange for peace with the Taliban warned that the Pakistani government must enforce the law, not simply make announcements about it.

Karzai Asks NATO to Explain Deaths - Jason Straziuso, Associated Press. The top US general in Afghanistan said Sunday there wasn't enough money in the world to replace the loss of an Afghan civilian, in comments that followed repeated calls by Afghan President Hamid Karzai for explanations of civilian deaths.

Raids Crack Afghan Opium Trade - Sara Carter, Washington Times. US-Afghan operations have led to the arrests of seven of Afghanistan's most wanted drug lords and revealed the growing involvement of the Taliban in turning opium into heroin and morphine, Pentagon and Drug Enforcement Administration officials said.

Stability in Afghanistan Must Be No. 1 Goal - Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer opinion. Of all the pressing foreign-policy items on President Obama's plate, bar none, AfPak is the most troubling. The nightmare scenario used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war - the possibility that terrorists might obtain nukes - was applied to the wrong country. Iraq had no nukes and no al-Qaeda before we invaded, but Pakistan has both.

Maliki Critic Wins Iraqi Speaker Role - Charles Levinson, Wall Street Journal. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's political opponents scored a victory Sunday, electing a critic of Mr. Maliki's as speaker of parliament. Mr. Maliki emerged from local elections earlier this year claiming a popular mandate and broad support among Iraqis of different sects. But the election of Eyad al-Samarrai, head of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, could provide a platform in parliament for Maliki critics to challenge the prime minister.

Iraq's Wobbles - Washington Post editorial. It's been only seven weeks since President Obama outlined a strategy for Iraq aimed at withdrawing most U.S. troops by the end of next summer. But already there is cause for concern. During the past month security around the country has been slipping: At least 37 people have been killed in four major attacks on security forces in the past week alone, and there have been multiple car bombings in Baghdad and other cities. Those strikes have been claimed by al-Qaeda, which appears to be attempting a comeback. But there have also been new bursts of sectarian violence among Sunni and Shiite extremists.

NATO Stops Attack by Somali Pirates - Matthew Clark, Christian Science Monitor. A Canadian warship and NATO helicopters foiled a pirate attack on a Norwegian tanker on Sunday, says the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. American forces also pursued pirates who fired rocket-propelled grenades at the 80,000-tonne MV Front Ardenne, reports BBC.

US Projects Openness at Summit - Laura Meckler, Wall Street Journal. President Barack Obama came to the Summit of the Americas determined to reach out to his Latin American neighbors, and he departed with two of the most antagonistic having reached back.

Obama Defends Greeting Hugo Chavez - Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times. Rebuffing criticism of the warm greetings he exchanged with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, President Obama said Sunday that the United States, with its overwhelming military superiority and need to improve its global image, could afford to extend such diplomatic "courtesy."

Police Swoop on Leader of Mexican Drug Cartel La Familia - Daily Telegraph. Rafael Cedeno Gonzalez, the alleged cartel head in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan - where the gang is largely based - and in the southwest state of Guerrero, was arrested on Saturday, federal police chief Rodrigo Esparza said. Gonzalez is presumed to report directly to the main "La Familia" head Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, who is one of the most wanted drug lords in Mexico; the government has offered 30 million pesos bounty for his capture.

Support Mexico - Rich Lowry, National Review opinion. President Barack Obama went to Mexico and, unlike many of his presidential predecessors, didn’t stay in a remote resort, but in the midst of Mexico City, the sprawling metropolis of 20 million. The visit - Obama’s first stop in Latin America - and the locale - the capital where an American president hadn’t visited in 12 years - sent the signal that the United States is committed to a country that is a punching bag in American domestic politics, but an indispensable ally in a region buffeted by revolutionary left-wing politics.

US, Netherlands to Boycott UN Racism Conference - Associated Press. The Obama administration will boycott "with regret" a UN conference on racism next week over objectionable language in the meeting's final document that could single out Israel for criticism and restrict free speech, the State Department said Saturday.

Britain Should Boycott This UN Charade - Rosemary Righter, The Times opinion. A UN conference “against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance” ought to be unexceptionable. No one can contend that prejudice and racial hatred are yesterday's problems. Yet the persistence of intolerance is precisely what makes the decision by America, Canada, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands and Israel to boycott the conference, which opens today in Geneva, a brave defence of principle; just as it makes Britain's resigned participation a supine exercise in hypocrisy.

Inter-Korean Talks to Start Tuesday - Kurt Achin, Voice of America. North and South Korea are planning to hold their first inter-governmental talks since the South's conservative president assumed office last year. The rare meeting comes as North Korea sharpens its menacing rhetoric and detains a South Korean businessman. North Korean officials have mostly refused to sit across a table from what they call South Korean "traitors" for more than a year. Now, says South Korean Unification Ministry Spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo, the South has accepted an offer from Pyongyang to talk.

Spinning a UN Failure - Wall Street Journal editorial. It's strange enough that the Obama Administration is hyping last week's toothless statement by the United Nations Security Council condemning North Korea's recent rocket launch. Even more amazing, it says the UN move is "legally binding" on member states.

Obama Adviser Defends Release of Secret Memo - Kara Rowland, Washington Times. Top White House officials denied Sunday that President Obama's release of top-secret memos hurt national security by giving terrorists details of US interrogation techniques - as charged by the former head of the CIA and four of his predecessors - saying the information was already public.

DHS Wants to Know What You’re Thinking - Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review opinion. For eight years, we’ve been treated to hysterical rhetoric from Democrats, including Barack Obama, about the scourge of “domestic spying.” Now that the Obama administration is openly calling for domestic spying - the real thing, not the smear used against President Bush - they’re suddenly silent. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in coordination with the FBI, has issued an intelligence assessment on what it calls “Rightwing Extremism.” It is appalling. The nakedly political document announces itself as a “federal effort to influence domestic public opinion.” It proceeds, in what it acknowledges is the absence of any “specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence,” to speculate that “rightwing” political views might “drive” such violence - violence, it further surmises, that might be abetted by military veterans returning home after putting their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. And for good measure, in violation of both FBI guidelines and congressional statutes, the Obama administration promises scrutiny of ordinary Americans’ political views, speech, and assembly.

(Right) Winging It at the DHS - Jonah Goldberg, National Review opinion. The Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division of the Department of Homeland Security issued a report last week. It’s called “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” The problem with it is that it makes little effort to document or demonstrate its contention that “extremist” groups are resurgent, that they are right-wing, or that they may be formed from the ranks of “disgruntled military veterans.” Worse, it’s very sloppy about what qualifies someone as “extremist” in the first place. Basically, it’s fancy bureaucratese for: We’re guessing bad people will do bad things because the economy is bad and the president is black. But we have no real evidence.

ETA Military Chief Jurdan Martitegi Arrested in France - Graham Keeley, The Times. The military leader of ETA, the Basque separatist organisation, has been arrested - delivering another serious blow to a group that has been weakened by a series of recent setbacks.

'Thousands Flee' Sri Lanka Combat - BBC News. About 5,000 Sri Lankans have escaped from a Tamil Tiger-held area in the north of the country, the army says. The military said the people fled after the army broke through a fortification which had been blocking its advance into the Tigers' last stronghold.

Continue reading "Monday News Quicklook" »

The Challenge of Retaining Majors in Our Army - Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV (aka Frontier 6) at the US Army Combined Arms Center Blog.

A recent article in the Armed Forces Journal by MAJ Myles Caggins, III, discussed possible incentive plans to retain U.S. Army majors. Caggins asserts that qualified enlisted recruits receive up to $40,000; Army captains $35,000; Navy officers $121,000; and a typical Army major – nothing. He offers some creative proposals he believes would help retain more of our field grade officers – you all.

The Global War on Terror has tested our Army’s personnel management systems. The shortage of majors has many causes, not the least of which is junior officer retention rates, the creation of modular brigades, and growth of our Army.

Consider, for example, the “cohort” of Army officers who were commissioned in 1998. They originally numbered 4,155. Those the Army retained have now served 10 years of active duty. Although the Army still requires about 2,200 of these officers, it has only kept about 1,800. Additionally, the ranks of captain through lieutenant colonel are only manned at 80 percent strength.

The Army cannot accept risk in its officer corps, and the consequences of how we act now will have generational impacts. We’re soliciting your help. Please provide feedback on how you think we can retain quality field grade officers. Specifically, what motivates you and your peers to continue to serve? Do you think there should be increased incentives? Should there be changes in assignments, policies or education? What would you recommend?

Would encourage you to read MAJ Caggins’ article and comment on the pros/cons of his argument. We need to get this right and we need your help.

Thank you for helping shape the public debate on this important subject. We will highlight your feedback with leaders at the highest level in our Army as they look for creative solutions to today’s complex personnel management environment. Nothing would send a more powerful message than to have the entire CGSC class sound off and provide input. We look forward to your thoughts and recommendation.

-----

Be sure to check out this post's comments at the CAC Blog.

Continue reading "The Challenge of Retaining Majors in Our Army" »

Counterterrorism and Military Occupation
by Dr. Bernard I. Finel, Small Wars Journal

Counterterrorism and Military Occupation (Full PDF Article)

The American presence in Afghanistan is sustained by a very straight-forward rationale. We were, after all, attacked on 9/11 by al Qaeda which at the time was operating with impunity under the protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Given that history, allowing the Taliban to reestablish itself in Afghanistan seems self-evidently unacceptable. After all, history suggests a direct linkage between Taliban control of Afghanistan and the most devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

But, as with many seemingly straight-forward rationales, the logic of the argument dissipates under more careful scrutiny. While the lesson of 9/11 suggests that giving terrorist groups a safe haven is a recipe for disaster, the lesson of the military occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 demonstrates the inability of occupying forces to stamp out the kinds of networks that can support attacks on the scale of 9/11 or much worse.

The essay will make four interrelated points. First, the attacks of 9/11 though spectacular in consequence, were simple in execution. Second, the IED networks that have proliferated in Afghanistan and Iraq are orders of magnitude more complex than the portion of al Qaeda that planned and executed the 9/11 attacks. Third, there is no conceivable tactical or strategic approach to military occupation that could plausibly eradicate groups capable of attacks as unsophisticated as those of 9/11. Fourth, as a consequence, of all the possible rationales for a continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan, the counterterrorism argument is demonstrably the weakest.

Counterterrorism and Military Occupation (Full PDF Article)

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Leadership, Petraeus Style - Paula D. Broadwell, Boston Globe

With a faltering economy, soaring unemployment, and overseas military commitments consuming more each day than the gross domestic product of many small nations, the United States urgently needs adaptive and transformational leaders. In paying tribute to Harvard veterans at a Kennedy School Forum tonight, General David H. Petraeus will underline the importance of adaptive leaders in today's complex national security environment.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called Petraeus the "preeminent soldier, scholar, and statesman" of his generation - roles that he transitions among as the commander of US Central Command.

Is his leadership unique? And if so, in what way? In more than 100 hours of interviews with Petraeus, his mentors, peers, and subordinates, I have elicited numerous perspectives on his style of leadership and approach to juggling the responsibilities of "soldier, scholar, and statesman." A common theme is that Petraeus models the very principles of adaptive leadership that he advocates...

More at The Boston Globe.

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Tom Ricks, the Washington Post's special military correspondent, wrote a controversial article in Sunday's Post proposing that the three military academies -- West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy -- be closed. Ricks' suggestion raises the age-old question: Can leadership really be taught? This question is explored in On Leadership, The Washington Post’s special section on leadership, vision and motivation.

Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time? Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.

After covering the U.S. military for nearly two decades, I've concluded that graduates of the service academies don't stand out compared to other officers. Yet producing them is more than twice as expensive as taking in graduates of civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC student). On top of the economic advantage, I've been told by some commanders that they prefer officers who come out of ROTC programs, because they tend to be better educated and less cynical about the military...

On Leadership panelists weight in:

Ed Ruggero, author of a definitive book on the training of leaders at West Point, says Ricks missed the mark.

A retired Army General says perhaps leadership can’t be taught, but there is something to be said about West Point, which is the only institution of higher education devoted exclusively to creating leaders of character for our Army and the nation.

A retired Navy Captain and former Annapolis professor asks why the question needs to be asked in the first place.

Continue reading "School Isn't Out..." »

Advancing the Art and Science of Psychological Operations Requires a Serious Investment
by Lieutenant Colonel Timothy D. Huening, Small Wars Journal

Advancing the Art and Science of Psychological Operations (Full PDF Article)

A pivotal question facing the Psychological Operations (PSYOP) career field over the next few years is whether PSYOP can overcome its previous Cold War paradigm and posture to become a more effective instrument of information and influence during this era of, as President Obama has stated, “Smart Power”. Smart Power is the skillful use of all of our resources, both non-military and military, to meet the challenges America faces at the start of a new century. The PSYOP career field must adapt to this paradigm shift, whereby even the application of military power must temper a hard and soft approach. The recent establishment of PSYOP as a basic Branch in the Army is a significant development, signaling clear recognition of the profession and providing a unique opportunity to implement change. However, to meet the operational expectations of the Army’s general purpose (GPF) and special operations (SOF) forces, several internal changes must be made to the PSYOP career field, force allocation, structure, training and doctrine in order to achieve the desired results.

Advancing the Art and Science of Psychological Operations (Full PDF Article)

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The Future of U.S. Ground Forces
A Counter View
by Colonel Robert M. Toguchi and Colonel Victor M. Rosello
Small Wars Journal

The Future of U.S. Ground Forces (Full PDF Article)

During recent testimony on 20 March 2009 before the Airland Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Dr. Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments provided an interesting perspective on the future of U.S. ground forces. In particular, he noted the declining quality of the U.S. Army, the need to create a bifurcated force or “Dual Surge” force, and criticized the Army as barely being a “jack-of- all- trades” and “master of none.” Several of his characterizations of the Army are debatable and perhaps not taken within the whole context of the U.S. Army’s challenges and experiences.

The Future of U.S. Ground Forces (Full PDF Article)

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Professors in the Trenches
Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics
(Part 5 of 5)
edited by Rob W. Kurz, Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS
Small Wars Journal

This is the fifth installment of a five-part series. Each article was co-authored by one Army soldier/civilian and one university professor/academic as part of a joint research project. This project and product responds to the Army’s objectives regarding the integration of cultural social sciences into its training and operations.

Some Concluding Remarks on a New Era in Warfare
by Dr. Felix Moos

Some Concluding Remarks on a New Era in Warfare (Full PDF Article)

Like death and taxes, warfare has become a fact of life in the 21st Century, ranging from 15 major wars at the end of 2003 (the United Nations defines “major wars” as conflicts inflicting 1,000 battlefields deaths per year) to insurgencies in India (Naxalite Uprising since 1967), Peru (Shining Path, since 1970s) and Nepal (Maoists, since 1996). Although some have argued that the nature of war has not changed (Hew Strachan, Oxford Today, 2007), this is not necessarily so. Warfare has indeed evolved to become primarily asymmetric. What has stayed true however, is that war, as Clausewitz noted long ago, nevertheless remains “a serious means to a serious end. It is a political act. It always arises from political conditions and is called forth by political motive” (quoted in Anatol Rapoport’s 1968 Clausewitz on War). This is certainly as true in India, Nepal and Peru as it is for the ongoing conflicts engaging the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clausewitz thought that no war should happen if “people acted wisely.” However, how often in real life do ‘the people’ act wisely? Thus, (traditional) war shouldn’t break out suddenly, but asymmetric conflict apparently does.

Some Concluding Remarks on a New Era in Warfare (Full PDF Article)

Continue reading "Professors in the Trenches: Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics (Part 5)" »

Petraeus: What I Learned in Iraq, and How it Applies to Afghanistan - Christa Case Bryant and Carol Huang, Christian Science Monitor

As the US shifts focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, much attention has been given to how counterinsurgency strategies honed against Al Qaeda in Iraq may be applied to a resurgent Taliban.

If one man has the answer, it just might be Gen. David Petraeus.

Credited with turning around a war in Iraq that many considered hopeless, the four-star general has since become CENTCOM commander – putting Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran under his aegis as well. In a speech Tuesday at Harvard University, he laid out the elements that helped reduce violence in Iraq to its lowest levels since 2003. Many aspects of those counterinsurgency efforts, he said, can be successfully applied in Afghanistan – if they are applied in “culturally appropriate” ways...

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

Reservists Might Be Used in Afghanistan To Fill Civilian Jobs - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post

Military reservists may be asked to volunteer to fill many of the hundreds of additional U.S. civilian positions in Afghanistan called for in the Obama administration's strategy for that nation and neighboring Pakistan, officials said yesterday.

Although the State Department is still recruiting agronomists, engineers, accountants and other experts for Afghanistan, "pressure coming from the president for action is making us consider that some of the people might come from the reserves," one senior administration official said.

In announcing his plan last month, Obama called for a "dramatic" increase in civilian aid and development workers, and the goal is to send several hundred by the end of this fiscal year...

More at The Washington Post.

US Faces Rising Violence in Southern Afghanistan - Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal

The shape of the Afghan conflict is shifting, as US reinforcements have brought hints of progress along the porous eastern border with Pakistan, while security conditions in southern Afghanistan continue to deteriorate, according to US officials.

Senior American commanders say they believe the war may be won or lost in southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold and one of the world's largest opium-producing regions, where an estimated 80% of Afghanistan's insurgent violence occurs. A shortage of US forces has allowed the Taliban to create safe havens in the south.

"We're at a stalemate" in the south, said US Maj. Gen. Michael Tucker, deputy chief of staff for operations for the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization force in Afghanistan. He didn't provide figures on worsening violence...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Taliban Seize Vital Pakistan Area Closer to the Capital - Jane Perlez, New York Times

Pushing deeper into Pakistan, Taliban militants have established effective control of a strategically important district just 70 miles from the capital, Islamabad, officials and residents said Wednesday.

The fall of the district, Buner, did not mean that the Taliban could imminently threaten Islamabad. But it was another indication of the gathering strength of the insurgency and it raised new alarm about the ability of the government to fend off an unrelenting Taliban advance toward the heart of Pakistan.

Buner, home to about one million people, is a gateway to a major Pakistani city, Mardan, the second largest in North-West Frontier Province, after Peshawar...

More at The New York Times.

Continue reading "Petraeus, Reservists in Afghanistan, More" »

SWJ's 14th weekly contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick - is now posted. Topics include attacks begin on the Afghan war "consensus" and do Defense and State need a marriage counselor?

Continue reading "This Week at War # 14" »

Below is a copy of this 1971 memo from General Volney F. Warner (then the Executive Officer and Senior Aide to the Army Chief of Staff) to General William C. Westmoreland (then the Army Chief of Staff). This memo concerns issues associated with ground force military assistance.

16 January 1971

Department of the Army
Office of the Chief of Staff
Washington

General Westmoreland,

The summarizes my paper on using foreign aide (sic) and military assistance as leverage to improve GVN performance which you saw in another form several years ago. It might be useful background material for your session with the East Asian Bureau tomorrow.

It’s interesting to note that, with the exception of their leader Amb Sullivan, the SEA group at State has always opposed the use of any form of advisors in Vietnam or any other developing country. They are convinced that we “made a big mistake” in Vietnam when we brought advisors into the country; they are unable to see that if we “made a big mistake” it was when we let equipment, not people in, for it soon became obvious that if equipment goes, advisors must go with it if there is to be any hope whatever of its effective employment. That’s a lesson the Russians learned years ago, but unfortunately everyone in the US Government was not as perceptive.

This, of course, ties in with the PACOM cable I flagged separately which is predicated on the premise that the Nixon Doctrine permits assistance only in the form of material and prohibits advisors in any form. This is a very disturbing element, not only because it leaves the Army completely out in the cold while acknowledging possible need for air and sea power (alone, without land-power” “if our vital interests are threatened.” But because it simply will not work, as we proved in Vietnam and are proving again in Cambodia, which may yet prove a good test case of the futility of providing equipment without advisors to insure its good use.

You might like to try to make some these points tomorrow.

V.F. Warner

Continue reading "1971 Lessons Learned?" »

Local Wars - Janine di Giovanni, New York Times Book Review

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by Dr. David Kilcullen

David Kilcullen is a former officer in the Australian Army, a strategist and a scholar. He is also an expert on counterinsurgency, or how to combat a rebellion, and one of the few brave souls who had the ear of people in the Bush White House and advised against the invasion of Iraq...

In “The Accidental Guerrilla,” Kilcullen draws on his vast experience not only as a dedicated field researcher, but also as a soldier — he commanded an infantry company in counterinsurgency operations in East Timor in 1999. The most extensive sections of his book concentrate, naturally, on Iraq and Afghanistan (which he still sees as “winnable” with a long-term commitment), but his analysis leads him as well to smaller movements in such places as Chechnya, Thailand, Indonesia and the Horn of Africa...

Kilcullen skillfully interprets the future of counterinsurgency, the proper use of military force and what we must learn from our losses and mistakes...

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by Dr. David Kilcullen

Continue reading "Local Wars" »

Three views concerning the use of private military companies by the US Government at The American Interest.

The Mercenary Debate by Deborah Avant. Private security contracting undermines democratic control of US foreign policy.

The Mercenary Debate by Max Boot. Mercenaries are inevitable and, if employed wisely, they can be effective adjuncts of US policy.

The Mercenary Debate by Jörg Friedrichs and Cornelius Friesendorf. Privatized security cripples statebuilding; Iraq is a case in point.

Continue reading "The Mercenary Debate: Three Views" »

Storm of Violence in Iraq Strains Its Security Forces - Steven Lee Meyers and Sam Dagher, New York Times. A deadly outburst of violence appears to be overwhelming Iraq’s police and military forces as American troops hand over greater control of cities across the country to them. On Friday, twin suicide bombings killed at least 60 people outside Baghdad’s most revered Shiite shrine, pushing the death toll in one 24-hour period to nearly 150.

Bombers Strike Outside Baghdad Mosque - Charles Levinson, Wall Street Journal. A wave of attacks targeting Shiites in Iraq continued Friday as two suicide bombings struck outside the holiest Shiite mosque in Baghdad. The bombings killed at least 71 people according to reports Saturday. The attacks came a day after three bombings -- one in Baghdad and two in Diyala province -- left about 80 people dead and capped one of the bloodiest 24-hour periods in more than a year. Since Thursday afternoon, at least 140 people have died and hundreds more have been wounded in five attacks, all but one targeting Shiite holy sites, pilgrims, or predominantly Shiite neighborhoods.

Secretary of State Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq - Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Iraq on Saturday, stressing the Obama administration's commitment to the country as a series of horrific suicide bombings fanned fears about its precarious stability.

Clinton, in Iraq, Blames ‘Rejectionists’ for Violence - Mark Landler, New York Times. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here Saturday morning for a one-day visit, delivering an American show of support for Iraq as it battles a sudden eruption of violence, in the wake of suicide bombings that killed at least 140 people and wounded several hundred more on Thursday and Friday.

In Iraq, Clinton Says Country on Right Track - Matthew Lee, Associated Press. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says this week's deadly suicide bombings in Iraq are a sign that extremists are afraid the Iraqi government is succeeding.

Could Iraq Violence Affect US Withdrawal Plan? - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor. The wave of violence in recent weeks, coming as US troops have begun preparing for withdrawal, threatens to bring Iraq back to the front burner, after months of increased security coupled with Obama's focus on Afghanistan had pushed it back. Gen. David Petraeus, formerly the top US commander in Iraq and who now oversees both the wars there and in Afghanistan, warned lawmakers Friday that despite "substantial progress" in Iraq there remain lingering concerns. Al Qaeda in Iraq, as well as other groups, continue to pose a threat, he said.

Continue reading "25 April Iraq Update" »

Petraeus Calls On Pakistan To Redirect Military Focus - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post. Gen. David H. Petraeus warned yesterday that al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists in Pakistan are posing "an ever more serious threat to Pakistan's very existence," and he said that Pakistan's leaders must act to counter the challenge with a well-trained military counterinsurgency force.

Some Taliban Retreat as Pakistan Troops Advance - Zahid Hussain and Matthew Rosenberg, Wall Street Journal. Pakistan's military chief dispatched army troops to the Buner district seized by the Taliban and gave the insurgents 24 hours to pull out, warning they would not be allowed to "impose their way of life" on the nation. Some Taliban were seen withdrawing Friday, piling into pickup trucks and minibuses with their assault weapons and rocket-propelled grenades in video broadcast by Pakistani news stations.

Taliban Shift Forces, but Hold Pakistan Valley - Carlotta Gall and Dexter Filkens, New York Times. The chief of Pakistan’s Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, on Friday defended his army’s performance and said it was committed to fighting militancy, in the face of growing criticism from American officials and Pakistani politicians that the military has failed to halt the Taliban insurgency as it creeps toward Islamabad, the capital.

Continue reading "25 April Afghanistan / Pakistan Update" »

Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...

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Plazas for Profit
Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency
by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus
Small Wars Journal

Plazas for Profit: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (Full PDF Article)

In August 2008, we published an essay in Small Wars Journal called “State of Siege: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency.” We were concerned at the lack of attention and policy discussion paid to the growing cartel violence in Mexico, which we called a “criminal insurgency.” Now it is hard to escape discussion of Mexico’s drug war. While we are heartened that security commentators are now focusing on Mexico, we feel that the “failed state” debate is at best a distraction that diverts discussion of the issue and a concrete discussion of the conflict’s political-military dynamics would be more productive. We have updated our earlier assessment to include new events and trends in Mexico’s criminal insurgency, and we will continue to periodically revise our assessment as the dynamics of the conflict evolve.

In broad scope, US policy should focus on helping Mexico rebuild the rule of law while hedging against cartel actions on the border. To do so, the US must engage both informal Mexican governing networks and help construct new cross-border partnerships that can act as policy shops for coordinating policy response and military/law enforcement cooperation against the cartels. At the same time, revamping of domestic security approaches also are needed to guard against overflow of drug war violence.

Plazas for Profit: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (Full PDF Article)

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Back to the Future
A Study of Post Partisan Warfare Reconstruction
by Lieutenant Commander Larry H. Henke
Small Wars Journal

A Study of Post Partisan Warfare Reconstruction (Full PDF Article)

In 1780, British Redcoats decimated the Continental Army in the South following the siege of Charleston and the subsequent battle at Camden. Afterward, all that remained were civilian guerilla fighters to pick up the torch and sustain the American cause for freedom. From here grew a bitter partisan war pitting neighbor against neighbor as the British Redcoats, with the aid of American Loyalists, maneuvered to remain in control.

Historically, the violent overthrow of an autocratic rule creates a governmental void, with the victorious insurgent army filling the void and imposing their brand of autocracy over the state. Examples include the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution, and more recently the Cuban and Somali Revolutions. The cycle has rarely led to the successful formation of a democracy; however, the United States of America is arguably the sole exception. How is it then that following the violent irregular warfighting of the American Revolution the factions, both Patriot and Loyalist, were able to put aside their differences, unite for the popular common good?

This article analyzes the events that led to the American uncommon unification following the bitter partisan fighting of the American Revolution. From this study, the author identified common threads in events, commonality of thought, or ideals that fostered the birth of a united nation following guerilla warfare within. The focus did not center on a model for construction of a Constitutional Republic, but instead the focus was on gleaning the basis for popular unity following irregular conflict. From these insights into the historic experiences of the partisan fighters in the American Revolution, a framework for present day and future rebuilding nations was collected.

A Study of Post Partisan Warfare Reconstruction (Full PDF Article)

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Combat Advising
Three Challenges We Must Overcome to Succeed in Afghanistan
by Christopher Bluesteen
Small Wars Journal

Combat Advising in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

Combat advising is central to successful counterinsurgency operations in existing U.S. conflicts around the world. As U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates observed, “The most important component in the War on Terror is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our partners to defend and govern their own countries.” Similarly, in 2006 the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, identified the most critical task required to conduct effective counterinsurgency operations as, “…developing an effective host-nation security force.” The importance of combat advising is not a new realization. In fact, major U.S. efforts in this area began in the early 1950s when U.S. forces provided training and assistance to Greece, the Philippines, China (Taiwan), Iran, and Japan. Since that time, protracted combat advising operations have occurred in Korea, Vietnam, and El Salvador. Perhaps because U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) have been primarily responsible for the conduct of this mission, the United States has never implemented permanent solutions to enable the general purpose force to execute combat advising operations. However, it is now critical to identify and implement these permanent solutions since the need for combat advisors is likely to exceed the limited capacity of SOF in current and future U.S. conflicts.

Combat Advising in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

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Been on two road trips and missed getting an early jump on Dave Kilcullen’s testimony before the House Armed Services Committee concerning the situation in Pakistan. They dragged Dave out of our wargame last week to testify and I saw him off as he headed from our pristine suburban Maryland locale to the Hill – but such is life - and our loss was a gain for Congressional SA on a worsening problem.

Anyway, kudos to Ex (also at the wargame) at Abu Muqawama for the link and for a bulletized summary of the “lowlights of the Pakistani Army's recent history”. I have to agree - Studying the past few years, one could arrive at the conclusion that Pakistan's army is epically incompetent. One could similarly arrive at the conclusion that Pakistan's army is competent -- but fighting for the other side. Either way – not much to cheer about.

Here is Dave’s “bottom line” from his testimony:

The United States Government has spent $10 billion dollars supporting Pakistan since 9/11, and in that time we have seen a dramatically worsening situation across the whole country. More of the same will not help, and indeed may make the situation worse. I fully support the benchmarks in the bill and would like to see an even greater emphasis on rule of law, policing and civilian administration, with even greater conditionality and stringency placed on continued assistance to the Pakistani military, unless and until it demonstrates a genuine commitment to cease supporting the enemy and begin following the direction of its own elected civilian government.

Rather than continuing to pretend that Pakistan is a weak but willing ally against extremism, we need to recognize that while some elements in Pakistan – some elected civilian political leaders, the majority of the Pakistani people, many tribal and community leaders and some appointed administrative officials – are genuinely committed to the fight against extremism, substantial parts of the Pakistani security establishment are complicit with the enemy, whether through incompetence, intimidation or ill intent. Our approach in assisting Pakistan should be to strengthen our friends and limit the power of our enemies, while helping Pakistan stabilize itself and govern its people responsibly and humanely. Increasing assistance to the police – making the police, in effect, the premier counterinsurgency force – while channeling all military support through civilian authorities and ensuring greater accountability and conditionality on military assistance, is the correct approach. We are way past prevention in 2009, and need to focus on stopping the rot and stabilizing the situation in 2009‐2010, then rolling back extremism and militancy thereafter.

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From Nightmares to Dreams
The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa
reviewed by Nick M. Masellis
Small Wars Journal

From Nightmares to Dreams (Full PDF Article)

While some have called the U.S. involvement in Iraq a nightmare, the authors of The Defense of Jisr al Doreaa used a series of dreams to discuss the adaptation of counterinsurgency in today’s conflict environment. The book particularly exemplifies the lack of such thought in 2003, as well as consistent gaps in unit combat readiness that preside today. The book immediately brought back a personal account of the former, and encapsulates the latter.

Stowing all of the battle-worn rucksacks and bulky weapons on the commercial flight, there was a sense of disbelief that we were finally heading home. I turned to a couple of my friends and said, “what would you do if you took a nap on this flight, woke up, and realized that you were just arriving to Iraq – that the whole past year was just a dream?” I received laughter and mixed responses of who would jump out of the plane first. Only after reading The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa do I realize that I wish that I would have had such dreams before serving my time in Iraq, where only persistent nightmares prevailed.

This captivating book brings to light the intricacies and imbroglios of counterinsurgency warfare for the tactical leader and soldiers on the ground. The authors, Army majors Michael Burgoyne and Albert Marckwardt, served tours in Iraq, observing the situation as it evolved from the dreams that they portray throughout their book. This novella is a contemporary reinterpretation of E.D. Swinton’s account of the Boer War, a counterinsurgency campaign fought by the British in South Africa. In that account, Swinton describes the situation in a version of a dream in a tale called The Defense of Duffer’s Drift, which has been long taught to infantrymen in learning the fundamentals of small unit tactics (Swinton’s original work is included in the second half of the book).

From Nightmares to Dreams (Full PDF Article)

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MEDIA ADVISORY
April 29, 2009

2009 Joint Warfighting Conference Addresses Key Themes of Building a Balanced Joint Force

Norfolk, Va. – U. S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) will address the theme of “Building a Balanced Joint Force: How Best to Meet the Demands of the Future Security Environment,” during the 2009 Joint Warfighting Conference from May 12-14, at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, Virginia Beach, Va.

USJFCOM Commander Marine Gen. James N. Mattis will deliver opening remarks, and USJFCOM Deputy Commander Vice Adm. Robert S. “Bob” Harward will participate on a panel Tuesday, May 12, to provide insights about hybrid warfare and its impacts on the future of joint warfare.

The conference also will focus on two recently released military documents – the Joint Operating Environment (JOE) and the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations (CCJO).

The JOE lays out the problem statement and sets demand signals for future challenges, and the CCJO, signed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, articulates his vision for how the future Joint Force will operate to address the challenges and meet the demands of future operating environments.

For current conference information and to register for the Joint Warfighting Conference, go to our registration site. Registration is free and open to the public.

During the conference, senior leaders from the Joint Warfighting Center, the Joint Center for Operational Analysis, Joint Concept Development and Experimentation Directorate as well as many others will be available to discuss individual programs and subjects of interest.

For those who will not be in attendance USJFCOM will provide "liveblogs" on both the command's website and USJFCOM's Twitter channel.

Interested media should contact Kathleen Jabs at the USJFCOM Public Affairs Media Section (757) 836-6553 or via e-mail and LCDR Rob Lyon, USJFCOM Media Operations Officer, at (757) 836-6559 or via e-mail.

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Japanese Counterinsurgency in the Philippines: 1942-45
by Brian Hardesty, Small Wars Journal

Japanese Counterinsurgency in the Philippines: 1942-45 (Full PDF Article)

The first Japanese attack on the Philippines in World War II (WWII) was on December 8, 1941, only hours after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese occupied the islands from 1942 until 1945. Much of the conflict was a conventional war for territory, remembered for the Battles of Bataan, Corregidor, and the Bataan Death March much more than actions afterwards, at least until MacArthur’s return. Yet one could argue that there was a nascent insurgency in the Philippines during this period: In fact, post war studies suggested that as many as 260,000 people were in guerrilla organizations. The fact that the fall of the Japanese occupation ultimately depended on returning American forces, rather than strategic victory through insurgency, might limit the insurgency’s historical significance, but does not diminish its value as a case worthy of study.

The theory of counterinsurgency warfare that David Galula explained in his influential book Counterinsurgency Warfare provides a lens through which to view the internal conflict in the Philippines during WWII. In this way, one can analyze the Japanese successes and failures. I argue that the Japanese counterinsurgency methods in the Philippines were largely ineffective because of the excessive use of military force and political mistakes. This case may suggest that Galula’s theory has some explanatory power for insurgency / counterinsurgency during a hot war between great powers.

Japanese Counterinsurgency in the Philippines: 1942-45 (Full PDF Article)

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Gates's Next Lever to Reshape the Pentagon: QDR - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor

Defense Secretary Robert Gates's bid to remake the Pentagon enters a new and crucial phase this week as the Defense Department begins a year-long review of its own strategy that will inform how it should spend billions of dollars and what its priorities should be.

The result is the Quadrennial Defense Review, and in addition to the Pentagon budget, the QDR is one of the most powerful tools at Secretary Gates's disposal to try to put the military on a new course. He has argued the Pentagon must get its head in the current fights in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of gazing at the strategic horizon – preparing for hypothetical threats, such as the one posed by China.

The QDR, released every four years, is designed to consider all scenarios. According to a Pentagon internal document, this year's QDR will assess the risks for scenarios including the possibility of militants in Pakistan getting control of its nuclear weapons and a potential conflict between China and Taiwan. Ultimately, the review must answer the question of whether the US should worry about conventional threats from established countries or more "asymmetric" threats emanating from unstable countries such as Somalia...

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

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National Security Facilitator - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.

One of the puzzles of the Obama administration's first few months was how the National Security Council would work under Gen. James Jones. He had the tricky challenge of managing an all-star "team of rivals" and working with a young president who was just 6 when Jones went off to Vietnam in 1967 as a Marine Corps second lieutenant.

So far, the foreign policy process has generally been smooth, and one reason is that Jones has played a lower-profile role than some of his predecessors as national security adviser. That collegial style has helped avoid fireworks, but some analysts have wondered about Jones's own strategic views. Jones explained his outlook in an interview this week at the White House...

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US Takes Dutch Military as Role Model in Afghan Operation - Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal

The Obama administration, which wants to send hundreds of additional civilian personnel into Afghanistan, is looking at the Dutch military's operations there for lessons on how to combat the Taliban.

The civilian deployment is part of a US focus on economic development meant to weaken support for the Taliban and dry up finances it derives from the opium trade. The civilians will complement the deployment in the coming months of 21,000 new troops, many of whom will be posted to southern provinces where the Taliban are thriving.

The Obama administration, however, is having trouble finding civilian experts at the State Department to send to Afghanistan. Pentagon officials said they may need military reservists to fill any shortfall in the 500 to 600 civilians Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seeking for Afghanistan.

The Netherlands, with nearly 2,000 personnel in southern Uruzgan province, has better integrated the efforts of its military and civilian personnel than the US, senior US officials say...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

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"The American Military Advisor" - Michael J. Metrinko, Middle East Quarterly

In the post-9/11 world, an advisory position at the political and strategic level in the Islamic world can have great and immediate consequence for US interests, and can make the American advisor a prime figure in the decision-making process of foreign leaders. The advisor is as likely to be dealing with a civilian counterpart as he is with a foreign military officer, and the range of duties will go far beyond mere military tasks. The position has become a critical one in today's world where stability, peacekeeping, and obtaining civil support are considered equally important to kinetic offensive and defensive operations, and where "nation-building" has become a de facto and integral part of the military mission.

The American advisor must take care not to let himself be regarded as just another person who has come to pass out gifts in order to curry favor. He must not be regarded as simply a source of material assistance, supplies, high tech presents, and trips abroad under the rubric of training. In resource-strapped Afghanistan, for example, local and even senior officials became accustomed to requesting telephones, office furniture, office supplies, security accessories, equipment of all sorts, vehicles, and a wide variety of other items from Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) commanders, American officials, and other foreign visitors and donors. On many occasions, the Afghans would request the same items from multiple sources. The advisor must look at himself through local eyes and the local culture. If the American officer's "can do" attitude is too highly developed, he may just seem ill-mannered and abrasive to the official and his staff, who often operate at a different tempo than that in US military circles. If he appears to be too young and lacking in authority, the American may be regarded simply as a decorative foreign staff aide who tags along to add luster to the official's entourage...

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SOF vs. SOF-like
by Brigadier General Bennet S. Sacolick
Small Wars Journal

SOF vs. SOF-like (Full PDF Article)

Recently, there has been significant discussion regarding the need for America’s conventional military forces to be more like Special Forces or “SOF-like”. I completely endorse this proposition, assuming it is not a knee-jerk reaction to our current conflicts but a conclusion drawn from our potential 21st century adversaries. There have been numerous forecasts describing our future environment- an environment without any peer, or near-peer competitors, one in which our most likely threats will resort to an alternative to conventional military confrontation such as irregular warfare.

Special Operations Forces are specifically trained and equipped to conduct irregular warfare, so I can’t argue with our leadership when they propose the requirement for additional small combat and advisory teams along the Special Forces model. Neither can I quarrel with the need for additional troops who are culturally adept and comfortable working outside the conventional structures of the Army or Marine Corps. Joint Forces Command recently created a Joint Irregular Warfare Center, headed by a retired Special Operations officer (Navy SEAL), to guide their efforts in shifting general purpose force capabilities more towards a Special Operations Forces approach to fighting. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reinforced the necessity for more SOF-like forces when he said, "the one requirement that jumps off the page is the requirement for all services to be SOF-like--to be netted, to be much more flexible, adaptive, faster, lethal, and precise”.

From my vantage point, that of a career Special Operations officer, I thought it would be helpful to describe the complexities associated with creating those Special Operation Forces and the unique role they are prepared to play in the execution of an American foreign policy predicated upon Global Engagement. I chose Special Forces, commonly referred to as Green Berets, as a representative example of SOF because they represent the largest single component assigned to the United States Special Operations Command.

SOF vs. SOF-like (Full PDF Article)

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