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It’s not often when a SWJ friend lands a starring role in a network news series – so we were quite excited when we learned that Roger Carstens will be co-starring in NBC News’ The Wanted. Congratulations Roger and best of luck with the show! Continue on for the NBC News press release…
Call in the Cavalry! - Patrick Devenny, Foreign Policy.
As American troops in Afghanistan seek to rebuild a flagging campaign, they might do well to read up on the lessons of another troubled Afghan project, the Anglo-Afghan Wars -- and specifically, the lessons of one Captain Charles Trower, a British cavalry officer who deployed to India in the 1830s. His 1845 memoir, Hints on Irregular Cavalry, says pretty much all there is to say about one of the most complicated problems in Afghanistan today: the training and oversight of local defense forces.
Last October, the Los Angeles Times reported that Pentagon leaders had authorized American commanders in Afghanistan to aggressively mobilize and mentor village-based self-defense forces. Made up largely of Pashtun tribesmen and recruited through tribal leaders, such units are expected to provide security in areas where Afghan government forces have failed to stem Taliban encroachment. This shift in strategy is not surprising given the success of similar initiatives in Iraq and the growth of the insurgency across southern Afghanistan. Results of the late 2008 decision are now seeping into the press: American reporters recently covered the graduation and deployment of 80 members of the Afghan Public Protection force, otherwise known as "Guardians." But the fielding of these units entails great risks: lack of government oversight and empowerment of warlords, just to state the obvious...
Much more at Foreign Policy.
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DoD Announces New Defense Policy Board Members
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates today announced the following new members to the Defense Policy Board: Gen. (Ret) Larry Welch, former Air Force chief of staff ; Stephen Biddle, Council on Foreign Relations; Richard Danzig, former secretary of the Navy; Robert Gallucci, former assistant secretary of state; Chuck Hagel, former senator from Nebraska; Robert D. Kaplan, Center for a New American Security; Andrew Krepinevich, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; Rudy deLeon, former deputy secretary of defense; John Nagl, Center for a New American Security; Sarah Sewall, Harvard University; Wendy Sherman, former special advisor to the President.
These members join the following returning members: John Hamre, chairman; Harold Brown; Adm. (Ret) Vern Clark; J.D. Crouch; Fred Ikle; Gen. (Ret) Jack Keane; Henry Kissinger; Dave McCurdy; Frank Miller; William Perry; James Schlesinger; Marin Strmecki; Vin Weber; Gen. (Ret) Pete Pace.
The Defense Policy Board provides the secretary, deputy secretary and under secretary for policy with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning matters of defense policy.
Continue reading "DoD Announces New Defense Policy Board Members" »
US Marines Launch Major Operation in Afghanistan - Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post. Thousands of US Marines descended upon the volatile Helmand River valley in helicopters and armored convoys early Thursday morning, mounting an operation that represents the first large-scale test of the US military's new counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan. The operation will involve about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which was dispatched to Afghanistan earlier this year by President Obama to combat a growing Taliban insurgency in Helmand and other southern provinces. The Marines, along with an Army brigade that is scheduled to arrive later this summer, plan to push into pockets of the country where NATO forces have not had a presence. In many of those areas, the Taliban have evicted local police and government officials, and taken power. Once Marine units arrive in their designated towns and villages, they have been instructed to build and live in small outposts among the local population. The brigade's commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, said his Marines will focus their efforts on protecting civilians from the Taliban, and on restoring Afghan government services, instead of a series of hunt-and-kill missions against the insurgents.
US Marines Try to Retake Afghan Valley From Taliban - Richard A. Oppel, Jr., New York Times. Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan early Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban fighters whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency. The Marine Expeditionary Brigade leading the operation represents a large number of the 21,000 additional troops that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year amid rising violence and the Taliban’s increasing domination in much of the country. The operation is described as the first major push in southern Afghanistan by the newly bolstered American force. Helmand is one of the deadliest provinces in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters have practiced sleek, hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against the British forces based there.
US Launches South Afghan Offensive - Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal. The US military launched a major operation in southern Afghanistan, an early test of the Obama administration's new strategy for beating back the resurgent Taliban and stabilizing the country in advance of this summer's presidential elections. Operation Khanjar, or "strike of the sword," began shortly after 1 a.m. local time when close to 4,000 Marines, backed by about 700 Afghan security personnel, moved by air and ground into villages in the Helmand River Valley, a major opium-producing region and Taliban stronghold. US commanders said the forces would build an array of small patrol bases designed to forge closer ties with local people and better protect them from militants, borrowing an approach used in Iraq that is central to the administration's new counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan. The troops hope to root out pockets of Taliban fighters and find and destroy insurgent weapons caches, a US officer in Kabul said. The troops will also seek to interdict opium shipments and persuade local farmers to plant alternative crops, such as wheat, he said.
US Launches Major Offensive Against Taliban - The Times. Thousands of U.S. Marines stormed into an Afghan river valley by helicopter and land early today, launching the biggest military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency with an assault deep into Taliban territory. Operation Khanjar, which the Marines call simply "the decisive op", is intended to seize virtually the entire lower Helmand River valley, heartland of the Taliban insurgency and the world's biggest heroin producing region. In swiftly seizing the valley, commanders hope to accomplish within hours what NATO troops had failed to achieve over several years, and by doing so turn the tide of a stale-mated war in time for an Afghan presidential election on August 20. "Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan said in a statement.
US Marines Launch Assault in Afghanistan - Reuters. US Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley in southern Afghanistan, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said. A Reuters correspondent in the valley saw flares in the sky over the town of Nawa, south of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. The valley of irrigated wheat and opium fields along the Helmand river is largely in the hands of Taliban fighters who have resisted British-led NATO forces for years. The United States has sent 8,500 Marines to Helmand province in the last two months, the largest wave of a massive buildup of forces that will see the number of US troops in Afghanistan rise from 32,000 at the beginning of this year to 68,000 by year's end. President Barack Obama has declared the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan to be the main security threat facing the United States.
Major Military Operation Under Way in Afghanistan - Fisnik Abrashi and Lara Jakes, Associated Press. Thousands of US Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops moved into Taliban-infested villages with armor and helicopters Wednesday evening in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's revamped strategy to stabilize Afghanistan. The offensive in the once-forgotten war was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold in the southern part of the country. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested Helmand River Valley before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election. Dubbed Operation Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," the military push was described by officials as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase. British forces last week led similar missions to fight and clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar provinces. "Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement. Southern Afghanistan is a Taliban stronghold but also a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen. The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of US forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008, but still half of much as are now in Iraq.
US Opens 'Major Afghan Offensive' - BBC News. The United States army says it has launched a major offensive against the Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. The US military says about 4,000 marines as well as 650 Afghan troops are involved, supported by Nato planes. Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said the operation was different from previous ones because of the "massive size of the force" and its speed. Officers on the ground said it was the largest Marine offensive since Vietnam. The operation began when units moved into the Helmand river valley in the early hours of Thursday. Helicopters and heavy transport vehicles carried out the advance, with NATO planes providing air cover.
US Launches 'Major Operation' in Afghanistan - CNN News. US troops have launched a "major operation" against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, US military officials announced in Afghanistan early Thursday. About 4,000 Americans, mostly from the Marines, and 650 Afghan soldiers and police launched Operation Khanjar - "strike of the sword" - in the Helmand River valley, the US command in Kabul announced. The push is the largest since the Pentagon began moving additional troops into the conflict this year, and it follows a British-led operation launched last week in the same region, the Marines said. It is also the first big move since US Gen. Stanley McChrystal took over as the allied commander in Afghanistan in mid-June. In Washington, a senior defense official said the size and scope of the new operation are "very significant." "It's not common for forces to operate at the brigade level," the official said. "In fact, they often only conduct missions at the platoon level. And they're going into the most troubled area of Afghanistan." Helmand Province, where much of the fighting is taking place, has been a hotbed of Taliban violence in recent months. At least 25 US and British troops have been killed there in 2009. The defense official said the operation is a "tangible indication" of the new approach that McChrystal - a former chief of the Pentagon's special operations command - is bringing to the nearly eight-year war.
US Marines Storm South in Major Afghan Offensive - Ben Sheppard, Agence France-Presse. US Marines launched a massive offensive into the Taliban heartlands of southern Afghanistan early on Thursday as President Barack Obama's new war plan swung into action. Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword) involved nearly 4,000 US forces as well as 650 Afghan police and soldiers, the Marine Expeditionary Brigade said, announcing the pre-dawn launch of the drive in southern Helmand province. Deploying about 50 aircraft, the air and land assault was to push troops into insurgent strongholds in what officers said was the biggest offensive airlift by the Marines since Vietnam. "What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert," MEB commander Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said in a statement. Troops would hold areas they take until they could transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces, said Nicholson. It was the Marines' first major operation since they deployed over the past few months to reinforce the international effort against the Taliban, leading an insurgency that has seen record attacks this year and controlling several areas.
Marine General Takes Fight To The Taliban - Tom Bowman, National Public Radio. The leader of some 4,000 Marines who descended early Thursday morning on the Helmand River valley in southern Afghanistan is Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, a veteran of Iraq who was seriously wounded there five years ago. Commanding general of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Nicholson has one of those lived-in faces - creased and craggy, like a boxer's or a veteran beat cop. And he has the scars of a Marine who survived battle. It was Sept. 14, 2004, a day Nicholson remembers clearly in Iraq's Anbar province. The war was not going well.
Q&A: The New US Strategy in Afghanistan - Jonathon Burch, Reuters. Concrete signs of Washington's new strategy for Afghanistan are taking shape with the final elements of some 8,500 US Marines arriving in southern Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold, to bolster over-stretched British forces. The Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley, with nearly 4,000 Marines and US sailors and about 650 Afghan troops and police involved. The Marines are the biggest single wave of an additional 17,000 extra US troops and 4,000 more to train Afghan forces ordered by President Barack Obama. US forces will reach 68,000 by year-end, more than double the 32,000 at the end of 2008. Former special operations chief General Stanley McChrystal has meanwhile taken command of the present 90,000 US and NATO troops with the Pentagon saying it is time for "fresh thinking." Following are questions and answers about the new strategy and the main areas McChrystal wants to address.
Continue reading "US Marines Launch Major Operation in Afghanistan - "Largest Since Vietnam"" »
If you’ve ever read an Army manual and thought you could make it better if only the Army would give you a chance, your moment has arrived.”
For the first time, the Army is using wikis to update its doctrine. The pilot program—Army Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (ATTP)—converts the contents of field manuals into a wiki format and posts them online. Anyone with an AKO account can edit the manuals by submitting changes in the wiki system. ATTP is a pilot program with seven manuals:
FMI 3-04.155 Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations
FM 3-07.20 Modular Brigade Augmented for Security Force Assistance
FM 3-21.9 The SBCT Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad
FM 3-09.15 Site Exploitation
FM 3-97.11 Cold Weather Operations
FM 5-19 Composite Risk Management
FM 6.01-1 Knowledge Management Section
The software powering ATTP is the same software Wikipedia employs. Users can submit changes, review changes proposed by others, search documents and view previous versions of the field manuals. By converting manuals into wikis, the Army hopes to make doctrine a living document and reduce the traditional three to five year period it takes to staff and write field manuals. This system will allow lessons learned in the field to become an immediate part of doctrine, with rapid dissemination. More than 200 manuals are slated to be converted into ATTPs.
The ATTP program is a collaborative effort among several Combined Arms Center subordinate organizations: Battle Command Knowledge System, the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate and personnel at Fort Huachuca implemented the program in less than two weeks. During the 90-day trial period, site managers will refine their own TTPs for running this kind of collaborative endeavor.
After receiving comments on the manuals, site managers and subject matter experts will review the comments and adjudicate them with existing content and other suggestions. This manner of continuously updated field manuals will ensure doctrine creation is an all-embracing, grassroots effort that serves the needs of our Soldiers more effectively.
Where does this effort fit within big Army? In an interview last fall, GEN Peter Chiarelli, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, spoke about using technology to communicate more effectively and share information.
“We have to find a way to flatten our organizations and pass information faster than we’ve ever passed it before. Take advantage of these tools. There’s a natural tendency not to. There’s a natural tendency to go back to our hierarchical nature, our bureaucratic ways.”
In other words, by participating and supporting ATTP, you are helping drive institutional change within our Army. By embracing technology, the Army can save money, break down barriers, streamline processes and build a bright future.
To access ATTP click here or sign into AKO, click on the “Self Service” tab, select “My Doctrine” and find “ATTP Pilot” on the left hand side of the page.
Please contribute to our Army’s store of knowledge and share your insights through ATTP. This is a great opportunity to flatten traditional Army hierarchy and leverage technology to benefit Soldiers who are deployed or training to deploy.
Frontier 6 is Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, Commanding General of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, the command that oversees the Command and General Staff College and 17 other schools, centers, and training programs located throughout the United States. The Combined Arms Center is also responsible for: development of the Army's doctrinal manuals, training of the Army's commissioned and noncommissioned officers, oversight of major collective training exercises, integration of battle command systems and concepts, and supervision of the Army's Center for the collection and dissemination of lessons learned.
Continue reading "Want to Change Army Doctrine? Do Something!" »
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Via e-mail from David Sobyra, Acting Director, Center for Complex Operations (CCO) - the latest issue of the CCO Newsletter.
... There are two items in particular that I would like to bring to your attention. First, the CCO is launching a new journal of complex operations, called PRISM. You can find more information about it, along with a call for papers, on the front page of the newsletter. If you would like to subscribe to PRISM, please sign up here: (Select "CCO Prism Journal Distribution List" in the first box). The second item is our call for proposals for the second round of our Complex Operations Case Study Series, as we are currently finishing up our very successful first round in this series. These are just two of the many exciting initiatives we are working on at the CCO.
This edition of the newsletter also includes an announcement from LTG William Caldwell, Commanding General of the US Army's Combined Arms Center on the release of FM 3-07.1 Security Force Assistance, an update on recent events sponsored by the CCO, and interview with former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and a "Save the Date" announcement for our 2nd Annual Conference, to be held the afternoon of 28 July at Lincoln Hall Auditorium at the National Defense University. The invitation and agenda for this event will be forthcoming, and we expect to have a number of interesting speakers.
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your colleagues who may not have heard of the CCO and who might be interested in our activities and, as always, we appreciate any feedback...
Continue reading "Center for Complex Operations (CCO) June Newsletter" »
Not So Fast, Amigas y Amigos
by Colonel Robert Killebrew, Small Wars Journal
Not So Fast, Amigas y Amigos (Full PDF Article)
The United States has always had mixed feelings about our relationship with Central America, so when the Honduran Army sent President Manuel Zelaya packing last week, we joined with a chorus of regional leaders, including Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, in condemning the soldier’s putsch.
But now that we’ve exercised our moral indignation, we ought to step back and take a deep breath. As reports continue to come in, it appears that it was Zelaya, not the army, that was most egregiously breaking the law. The president was apparently involved in his own takeover, against the courts and Honduran Congress, and was about to stage a Chavez-style “referendum” on ballots printed in Venezuela and looted from an army warehouse where they were being safeguarded. The army’s move was legitimized by the Honduran Supreme Court and applauded by the Congress, which has appointed a stand-in president until regular elections this November.
Certainly we deplore military coups, just as we deplore sin. But in the tangled web of Central American politics, Honduras has long been the U.S.’ most staunch ally. Among the four states from Nicaragua north, it has tried hardest to convert from a military-run banana republic to a constitutional democracy and, until just the other day, with some success. It supported U.S. trainers in the Salvadoran civil war. It houses an American military joint task force. At our request, Honduran soldiers fought in Iraq. So while the verdict must be that military takeovers are bad, surely in this case there are extenuating circumstances for a faithful ally, particularly since the bottom-line issue seems to have been the survival of its constitutional form of government.
Enhancing the Security Cooperation Marine Air Ground Task Force to Satisfy the Needs of the Uncertain Global Security Environment
by Major Vincent A. Ciuccoli and Dr. David A. Anderson, Small Wars Journal
Enhancing the Security Cooperation MAGTF (Full PDF Article)
The United States Marine Corps (USMC) has developed the Security Cooperation Marine Air Ground Task Force (SC MAGTF) concept of force employment that will enable partner nations to foster stability in their respective regions. The USMC is prepared to be the solitary architect of this force; however the proposed employment of the SC MAGTF is a bold unilateral endeavor. A regionally focused security cooperation force is the ideal employment construct for the Department of Defense (DOD) but it must sufficiently integrate United States government agency capabilities and incorporate joint force multipliers. This paper analyzes the potential requirement for a specialized DOD security cooperation force and determines whether a joint and interagency venture will further enhance and legitimize the US Marine Corps’ current employment concept. The aim of this paper is to develop a significant contribution to the format of the SC MAGTF in order to ensure its success and permanent establishment within the regional civil-military arsenal.
Enhancing the Security Cooperation MAGTF (Full PDF Article)
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Beginning with a Charge: Doug Stanton and the “Horse Soldiers” of Afghanistan
Thursday, 9 July 2009
6:00 PM CST (Presentation and Live Webcast)
Pritzker Military Library
Chicago, Illinois
Their mission was secret, and time was short. So in order to cross the steep mountain trails of Afghanistan, the U.S. Special Forces turned to some top-of-the-line military technology – from the 19th century.
On Thursday, July 9th, Doug Stanton will appear at the Pritzker Military Library to discuss his new book Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan. This event is free and open to the public. The presentation and live webcast will begin at 6:00 p.m., preceded by a reception for Library members at 5:00 p.m. It will also be recorded for later broadcast on WYCC-TV/Channel 20...
By Brig. Gen. Larry D. Nicholson, USMC
Today, nearly 4,000 U.S. Marines and Sailors of Task Force Leatherneck, partnered with Afghan National Security Forces and supported by Task Force Pegasus, the Combat Aviation Brigade of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, conducted a near-simultaneous heliborne and surface insert into the central and southern Helmand River valley. These efforts, combined with closely coordinated UK and Danish operations to our immediate north, will dramatically change and positively impact the security of the Afghan people living in this long-held Taliban heartland.
Our focus is now and will remain the Afghan people. We have worked closely with local Helmand government officials and many tribal and local leaders in the detailed planning of this major offensive. While the initial focus will be on security, the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) working with Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Coalition Forces will rapidly move to introduce the initial essential aspects of governance and economic development into these newly secured areas. These efforts will be focused upon providing immediate assistance to the population, and in setting the conditions for successful elections in August. Today’s operation is designed to separate and isolate the Taliban from the population who has long suffered the effects of their presence.
This large scale operation is not without risk to the many thousands of brave and dedicated Afghan and coalition troops participating. This operation is designed to boldly demonstrate to the Afghan people the determination and dedication of the Government and Coalition Forces in ridding the area of Taliban insurgents who prey upon the people. The Taliban offer no future, no hope, and we will work to provide immediate security gains to the local citizens of the Helmand River valley. What makes Operation Kanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert, and the fact that where we go, we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build, and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces.
Semper Fidelis,
Larry D. Nicholson
Commanding General, Task Force Leatherneck
Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy.
Topics include:
1. U.S. soldiers won't be back to Iraq,
2. Who in the government is "expeditionary" and who is irrelevant?
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
A Pentagon Trailblazer, Rethinking U.S. Defense - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times.
Michèle A. Flournoy, one of the highest ranking women in the history of the Pentagon, did not have a childhood that would immediately suggest a future as a defense policy intellectual who is rethinking how America fights its wars.
Her mother was an actress and singer who performed at the Copacabana, the legendary New York nightclub, and was the understudy to Vivian Blaine in “Oklahoma” on Broadway. Her father was a cinematography director in television at Paramount Studios. She herself is a 1979 graduate of Beverly Hills High School who spent her summers playing, she said, “a lot of beach volleyball.”
But Ms. Flournoy, who went on to Harvard and then Balliol College at Oxford (“I majored in rowing”), has spent her entire professional life immersed in the theory and practice of war, from the arms control debate of the 1980s to the counterinsurgency doctrine of today...
More at The New York Times.
Our TypeKey / TypePad commenter authentication gizmo has stopped a LOT of spam, but it has also stopped lots of legit commenters dead in their tracks. For the few and proud who didn't have any problems with it, carry on, it is still an option. But for the many of you who have had troubles, you can now bypass TypeKey and comment away.
(nothing follows)
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Charlie Rose - A conversation about Cyberwarfare with Michael McConnell, former Director of National Intelligence, James Lewis, Director, Technology and Public Policy Program, CSIS and David Sanger, Chief Washington Correspondent for The New York Times.
Six Reasons Insurgencies Lose
A Contrarian View
by Dr. Donald Stoker, Small Wars Journal
Six Reasons Insurgencies Lose (Full PDF Article)
The American conventional wisdom is of the all-powerful, all-knowing, invincible insurgent. Insurgencies always win; it is pointless to resist them. The archetype is the black pajama-clad Vietcong guerrilla triumphing over supposed American imperialism in Vietnam. The truth, in the case of Vietnam, as with insurgencies in general, is much different.
Insurgencies generally lose, not win. The Dupuy Institute, using a database for an ongoing research project that includes 63 post-World War II insurgencies, found that the insurgents only win 41% of the time.
Insurgencies do win, and most of the writing and talking about insurgencies (which is often very good) focuses on what insurgencies do to win, or how to conduct an effective counterinsurgency. More often, insurgencies lose, and sometimes their defeats are a result of the inherent weaknesses of insurgencies, or of their own actions. There are six critical reasons why insurgencies lose, curses brought down upon their own houses, and not induced by counterinsurgent forces. But first, we need to lay the groundwork for our discussion.
Surge and Destroy - Michael Smith, Sarah Baxter and Jerome Starkey, The Times.
... About 3,000 British, Danish, Estonian and Afghan soldiers from Task Force Helmand are taking part in the operation north of Lashkar Gah while 4,000 men from the US-led Task Force Leatherneck are conducting Operation Khanjar – Strike of the Sword – around the Garmsir and Nawa districts. The arrival of US Marines – part of an American surge that will involve pouring 17,000 US troops into southern Afghanistan – has relieved some of the pressure. The British have given up control of the bulk of the province to the Americans and are now responsible mainly for the central area around the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, though some forces are also still in the north.
It’s all part of a strategic change. In future, American and British troops will be expected to hold their ground, providing security for local people while denying the insurgents access to vital supplies, funding and recruits.
“You don’t really need to chase and kill the Taliban,” said General Stanley McChrystal, the former special forces chief and newly appointed US commander of all allied troops in Afghanistan. “What you need to do is take away the one thing they absolutely have to have – and that’s access and the support of the people.”
... In a spectacular show of force, contrasting strongly with the British lack of equipment, heavily armed Marines, backed up by drones and fighter jets, stormed into the south of Afghanistan’s most dangerous province shortly after midnight on Wednesday. It was the biggest operation in Afghanistan since the Soviet occupation, and the largest American assault since the Battle for Fallujah in Iraq in 2004.
The Marines’ mission is to secure the villages along a stretch of river more than 55 miles long in the heart of poppy-growing territory. They also hope to choke the Taliban supply lines used to ferry guns, drugs and fighters in and out of Pakistan...
More at The Times.
Third-Generation Gangs and Criminal Insurgency in Latin America
by Dr. Hal Brands, Small Wars Journal
Third-Generation Gangs and Criminal Insurgency in Latin America (Full PDF Article)
In May 2006, a previously obscure gang known as the First Capital Command (PCC) threw Sao Paulo into chaos. Over a period of five days, the PCC attacked hundreds of public buildings and private businesses, murdered policemen and civilians, and brought life in South America’s largest city to a standstill. The scope of the violence clearly overwhelmed state and local authorities, and order was restored only after negotiations with the gang’s leader, a man named Marcola. All told, the incident demonstrated that the PCC—rather than the government—effectively ruled large parts of Sao Paulo. As one Brazilian security official put it, “The sad reality is that the state is now the prisoner of the PCC.”
Roughly a year and a half earlier, another Latin American gang staged an even more shocking display of its power and ruthlessness. In December 2004, members of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, stopped a bus in Chamalecon, Honduras, and proceeded to massacre 28 passengers. As Ana Arana relates, the killings were as notable for their apparent randomness as for their gruesomeness. “The slaughter had nothing to do with the identities of the people onboard; it was meant as a protest and a warning against the government's crackdown on gang activities in the country.”
Both the December 2004 incident in Honduras and the May 2006 attacks in Sao Paulo are part of a broader trend in Latin America: the rise of sophisticated, internationally-oriented, and extremely violent gangs. These “third-generation gangs,” as they are often called, participate in the drug trade and myriad other illicit economies, and use violence and corruption to undermine the state. They increasingly straddle the line between crime and insurgency, and constitute a dire and growing threat to internal stability in the region. This phenomenon is most pronounced—and most remarked upon—in Central America, but it has spread well beyond the isthmus and now plagues countries from Mexico to Brazil.
Third-Generation Gangs and Criminal Insurgency in Latin America (Full PDF Article)
Continue reading "Third-Generation Gangs and Criminal Insurgency in Latin America" »
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Pentagon Warns US Arms May be Obsolete - Sarah Baxter, The Times.
America's traditional means of projecting power abroad is growing “increasingly obsolete” and its billion-dollar military hardware could be as ineffectual against future threats as the heavily fortified Maginot line was in defending France against the Nazis, a senior Pentagon adviser has warned.
In a wake-up call to US military chiefs, Andrew Krepinevich, a leading architect of the counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, argues that the Pentagon is ill-equipped to counter rising powers such as China, hostile states such as Iran, the threat from irregular forces such as Hezbollah, and terrorists such as Al-Qaeda. It is also wasting billions on weaponry that could be outdated before it rolls off the production line.
In an interview, Krepinevich said the military, like many bureaucracies, was in danger of “drinking its own bathwater” and discounting new challenges, including the proliferation of precision-guided weapons and threats from space and cyberspace. Last week Robert Gates, the defence secretary, rewarded him for his prescience with a seat on the influential defence policy board at the Pentagon.
Aircraft carriers, navy destroyers, short-range fighter aircraft and forward bases such as Guam and Okinawa in the Pacific Ocean are becoming increasingly vulnerable to technology and tactics being developed by America’s rivals, Krepinevich argues in the July issue of Foreign Affairs...
More at The Times.
The Pentagon's Wasting Assets - Andrew Krepinevich Jr., Foreign Affairs.
The military foundations of the United States' global dominance are eroding. For the past several decades, an overwhelming advantage in technology and resources has given the US military an unmatched ability to project power worldwide. This has allowed it to guarantee US access to the global commons, assure the safety of the homeland, and underwrite security commitments around the globe. US grand strategy assumes that such advantages will continue indefinitely. In fact, they are already starting to disappear.
Several events in recent years have demonstrated that traditional means and methods of projecting power and accessing the global commons are growing increasingly obsolete -- becoming "wasting assets," in the language of defense strategists. The diffusion of advanced military technologies, combined with the continued rise of new powers, such as China, and hostile states, such as Iran, will make it progressively more expensive in blood and treasure - perhaps prohibitively expensive - for US forces to carry out their missions in areas of vital interest, including East Asia and the Persian Gulf. Military forces that do deploy successfully will find it increasingly difficult to defend what they have been sent to protect. Meanwhile, the US military's long-unfettered access to the global commons - including space and cyberspace - is being increasingly challenged.
Recently, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates argued in these pages for a more "balanced" US military, one that is better suited for the types of irregular conflicts now being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, he also cautioned, "It would be irresponsible not to think about and prepare for the future." Despite this admonition, US policymakers are discounting real future threats, thereby increasing the prospect of strategic surprises. What is needed is nothing short of a fundamental strategic review of the United States' position in the world - one similar in depth and scope to those undertaken in the early days of the Cold War...
More at Foreign Affairs.
Obama's Strategic Blind Spot - Andrew Bacevich, Los Angeles Times opinion.
'Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders?" During the bitter winter of 1914-15, the first lord of the Admiralty posed this urgent question to Britain's prime minister.
The eighth anniversary of 9/11, now fast approaching, invites attention to a similar question: Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to choke on the dust of Iraq and Afghanistan?
A comparable failure of imagination besets present-day Washington. The Long War launched by George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11 has not gone well. Everyone understands that. Yet in the face of disappointment, what passes for advanced thinking recalls the Churchill who devised Gallipoli and godfathered the tank: In Washington and in the field, a preoccupation with tactics and operations have induced strategic blindness.
As President Obama shifts the main US military effort from Iraq to Afghanistan, and as his commanders embrace counterinsurgency as the new American way of war, the big questions go not only unanswered but unasked. Does perpetuating the Long War make political or strategic sense? As we prepare to enter that war's ninth year, are there no alternatives?
More at The Los Angeles Times.
US Armed Forces Stretched Thin - Richard Halloran, Washington Times opinion.
Today, US forces are smaller and stretched even further around the world. The US base at Bagram, Afghanistan, for instance, is halfway around the world from the center of the 48 contiguous states near Lebanon, Kan. On any given day, about one-third of the armed forces are deployed abroad.
Moreover, on Independence Day, America's military stretch was aggravated by national political and economic turmoil. In its 233rd year, it would seem the nation is badly in need of retrenchment - not a retreat into the isolation of yesteryear, but a step back to take a deep breath, reflect a bit and sort out priorities...
In foreign policy, priorities really need sorting out. Precedence should go to long-neglected relations with Canada and Mexico and, by extension, Central America. With 5,000 miles of undefended Northern and Southern borders, the United States must have friends across those borders.
Beyond that, the United States should give priority to alliances with Britain, Australia and Japan, the island nations off the Eurasian land mass. India, the subcontinent cut off from Eurasia by mountains, desert and jungle, is a likely candidate to be added to that group. Israel, with which the U.S. has long had special ties, rates high priority.
More at The Washington Times.
Continue reading "US Arms May be Obsolete, Forces Stretched Thin, Strategic Blindspot?" »
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Information Counterrevolution
by Adam Elkus, Small Wars Journal
Information Counterrevolution (Full PDF Article)
When Iranians took to the streets to protest vote-rigging by their nation’s theocratic-military dictatorship, the West was more transfixed by the medium rather than the message. Many journalists fixated on the supposedly revolutionary usage of social media technology by the Iranian protestors, their diaspora supporters, and the bloggers who relayed their messages to the outside world. According to the narrative that developed, Twitter and other microblogging tools offer unprecedented real-time access to crisis situations like the Iranian uprising, giving social media users a vast information advantage over those who rely on traditional forms of media such as magazines and network television.
One writer worried that this self-selecting “information elite” could use their power to rapidly access information and form opinions to influence public views and policy. His concerns, while thoughtful, are ultimately misplaced. Instead of creating a new information elite, Twitter has added another dimension to the longtime problem of the tactical information junkie. Tactical open-source information culled from social media is only useful if it is filtered for white noise, integrated within a sound long-range conceptual frame, and mediated by a mature community of users. As RAND Corporation scientist David Ronfeldt insightfully noted, the real information elite will be those who use networks—both technological and social—to effectively contextualize this tactical information and exploit it.
The purpose of this article is not to bash Twitter, social networking, or blogs, but to critically examine problems in the open-source information ecosystem that “infoenthusiasts” largely ignore and explore possible solutions to the data glut. Twitter and other microblogging tools may not lead to an information elite, but they can undoubtedly be part of a crowdsourced solution.
I applaud the editors of Foreign Affairs for featuring Andrew Krepinevich’s essay (“The Pentagon’s Wasting Assets”) in its latest issue. Better late than never. The issues raised by Krepinevich may seem new to the staff at Foreign Affairs, but they are not; Pentagon planners discussed these topics in the 2006 QDR and in annual editions of its reports on Chinese military power. Most notably, the latest issue of Proceedings contains an essay written by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy and Shawn Brimley, one of Flournoy’s main strategists, that discusses almost point-for-point Krepinevich’s issues.
Flournoy is in charge of the latest QDR; we can be sure that the report will once again discuss Krepinevich’s issues. But will Secretary Gates and his staff actually recommend any effective policies in response to these threats? It is one thing to discuss the issues. It is another to implement policies that will be highly disruptive and controversial.
Continue reading "Krepinevich’s essay implies disruptive change" »
Defense Secretary During Vietnam Build-up Dies at 93
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, July 6, 2009 – The defense secretary who presided over the department during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the U.S. involvement in Vietnam died today.
Robert S. McNamara, the nation’s eighth defense secretary who served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, died here following a long illness. He was 93.
McNamara became defense secretary on Jan. 21, 1961, and served as such during the coldest part of the Cold War. In 1962, the Soviet Union began building missile sites in Cuba. The sites would have Soviet nuclear missiles capable of hitting any city in the United States in minutes. President John F. Kennedy and his advisors challenged Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev.
McNamara was a member of the small group of advisors called the Executive Committee who counseled Kennedy on the matter. In the view of many historians, the United States and the Soviet Union came closer to a nuclear war during this time than at any other in history. McNamara supported the president’s decision to quarantine Cuba to prevent Soviet ships from bringing in more offensive weapons. During the crisis, the Pentagon placed U.S. military forces on alert, ready to back up the administration’s demand that the Soviet Union withdraw its offensive missiles from Cuba.
Vietnam was the major issue for McNamara. During the Kennedy administration, U.S. involvement in South Vietnam was limited to American Special Forces advisor teams and their support. The numbers of U.S. troops in Vietnam reached 17,000 by the time Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963.
In 1964, the so-called “Gulf of Tonkin incident” – in which North Vietnamese ships fired on U.S. Navy vessels – caused President Lyndon B. Johnson to retaliate by bombing North Vietnam. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving the president the authority to increase the number of U.S. troops and missions in South Vietnam.
The number of American troops in South Vietnam hit 485,000 by the end of 1967, and it reached almost 535,000 by June 1968.
McNamara loyally supported the war in Vietnam, but grew disillusioned. By 1966, he questioned whether the war could be won by deploying more troops to South Vietnam and intensifying the bombing of North Vietnam. McNamara traveled to Southeast Asia many times to assess the war first-hand. North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive, launched in February 1968, was a strategic victory for the enemy. American servicemembers won every battle, but the heart had gone out of U.S. determination to win the war.
By the end of the Tet Offensive, McNamara had resigned, leaving office on Feb. 29, 1968. Johnson presented him with both the Medal of Freedom and the Distinguished Service Medal.
McNamara was born June 9, 1916, in San Francisco. In 1937, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in economics and philosophy, and he earned a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard in 1939. In 1940, he married Margaret Craig, who founded the Reading is Fundamental program in the 1960s and died in 1981. He entered the Army Air Forces as a captain in early 1943 and left active duty three years later with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
After the war, McNamara joined the Ford Motor Co. as manager of planning and financial analysis. He rose through the ranks and was named the president of Ford on November 9, 1960. Less than five weeks after becoming president of Ford, McNamara accepted Kennedy’s invitation to join his Cabinet. After leaving the Pentagon, he served as president of the World Bank.
The former defense secretary is survived by a son, Robert Craig; two daughters, Margaret Elizabeth and Kathleen; and his wife, Diana Masieri Byfield, whom he married in San Francisco in 2004.
Robert S. McNamara - Official Department of Defense Biography
Robert McNamara, Architect of Vietnam War, Dies at 93 - Washington Post
Robert S. McNamara, Former Defense Secretary, Dies at 93 - New York Times
Former Defense Secretary McNamara Dies - Washington Times
Robert S. McNamara Dies at 93 - Los Angeles Times
Robert McNamara, Ex-defense Secretary, Dies - CNN News
Robert McNamara, Architect of Vietnam War - The Times
Ex-Pentagon Chief McNamara Dies - BBC News
US Vietnam War Architect McNamara Dies - The Age
McNamara, Defense Chief During Vietnam War, Dies - Associated Press
McNamara Dies, Career Haunted by Vietnam War - Reuters
Robert S. McNamara, RIP - Washington Times
McNamara's Complicated Legacy - Washington Post
Brightness Cloaked in Hubris - Washington Post
McNamara, In Retrospect - Washington Post
Remembering McNamara - Washington Post
After the War Was Over - New York Times
The Tragedy of Robert McNamara - FOX News
Will Books Shape His Legacy? - Los Angeles Times
Robert McNamara: Vietnam War 'Wrong' - Chicago Tribune
It's Always the Media's Fault - Los Angeles Times
Vietnam Legacy Haunted McNamara - National Public Radio
Robert McNamara Dies - Real Clear Politics
His War Finally Over - Politics Daily
How to Think About McNamara - The Atlantic
McNamara Stuck to Vietnam War - Christian Science Monitor
Robert McNamara, Voltaire's Bastards And Barack Obama - The Atlantic
McNamara's Legacy Mired In Vietnam Debacle - National Public Radio
Memories of Robert McNamara - Politico
Robert Strange McNamara, Dead at 93 - Belmont Club
‘Human Computer’ and Pentagon Chief - Danger Room
No Escape from Vietnam - Time
Back Issues: McNamara's Shadow - The New Yorker
McNamara and Me - Boston Globe
Defense Chief During Vietnam War - PBS News Hour
McNamara Dies - Democracy Arsenal
The Fog of Robert McNamara - Mother Jones
George McGovern: Robert McNamara Had 'Courage' - Politico
The War Wizard Passes - History News Network
On Robert McNamara - National Post
The Fog of War - National Post review
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Has Israel received a “green light” from both the U.S. and Saudi governments to execute an air raid on Iran’s nuclear complex? Those were stories that came out over the weekend, one from a television interview of Vice President Biden and the second from The Times that reported that the Saudi government had given permission to the Israeli air force to overfly Saudi Arabia en route to Iran.
Since Monday, the Obama administration has made a somewhat confusing attempt to walk back Mr. Biden’s statements. As for the alleged Saudi “green light,” I will say more in a moment.
Destroying the Iranian nuclear complex will require not an “air raid” but a prolonged air campaign. Those who have in mind Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s reactor at Tuwaitha and the 2007 strike against Syria’s reactor at Dayr az-Zawr do not appreciate the scope and dispersion of Iran’s nuclear complex.
Continue reading "‘Green light’ for an ‘air raid’ is not enough" »
Sponsored by the Foreign Policy Research Institute
Tues.-Weds., July 14–15, 2009
National Press Club
529-14th St NW, 13th Fl.
Washington, DC 20045
On the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have confronted third-party national combatants. Known as “foreign fighters,” these individuals have gained deadly skills and connections that can be exported or exploited to devastating effect in other locations. Over the past two decades this foreign fighters phenomenon has grown after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the ethnically cleansed fields of the Balkans to Chechnya and beyond. But this is not a new problem. This conference brings together recognized academic and analytical expertise in order to not only delve into the foreign fighter problem, but also to recommend prescriptive advice on how to deal with this issue into the future.
Registration
To register, please complete and return the Foreign Fighters Conference Registration Form to FPRI, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA 19102. RSVPs can be made to 215 732 3774, ext 303 or lux@fpri.org.
Space is limited. The conference will be broadcast free over the Internet.
Webcast
To register for a live broadcast of the conference, please follow the links below:
The Foreign Fighter Problem: Day 1 - July 14
The Foreign Fighter Problem: Day 2 - July 15
Click here for the full two-day agenda.
Thoughts on Operations in Southern Afghanistan - Major General (Ret.) Jim Molan at Lowy Institute's The Interpreter.
Due to the dramatic failure of NATO to conduct out-of-area operations, making NATO irrelevant as a military force, the US has taken over the Afghan war, and is trying very hard to resource it. NATO had an adequate strategy but failed to resource it due to lack of will and experience. The US has extraordinary experience, will have less trouble resourcing its strategy but is unlikely to get near an adequate number of troops until about 2011.
The current reinforcement of 21,000 US troops is not a ‘surge’ in the Iraq sense but a small start of what must become a large US build-up. Compared to the magnitude of Afghanistan's problems, 21,000 is better than nothing, but is a drop in a bucket.
It is only fair to see the current US Marine operation in southern Helmand (Operation KHANJAR) as the first operation conducted under the March 2009 Obama strategy, the military part of which was 'disrupt, dismantle and destroy'. The Marine operation is complemented by UK operations to the north and Pakistan operations to the south, with a strong rhetorical focus on protecting the population, controlling collateral damage and re-establishing governance.
There is unlikely to be anything like a decisive result out of this operation, even in the local area in the short term. Marine commanders will talk up the operation because that is what you do, and the media, Congress and commentators will project their own hopes and desires onto the operation, and then castigate the Marines for not meeting them...
Much more at The Interpreter.
Continue reading "Thoughts on Operations in Southern Afghanistan" »
Allied Officers Concerned by Lack of Afghan Forces - Richard A. Oppel, Jr., New York Times.
One week after several battalions of Marines swept through the Helmand River valley, military commanders appear increasingly concerned about a lack of Afghan forces in the field.
“What I need is more Afghans,” said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marine expeditionary brigade in Helmand Province. He accompanied the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, during a visit with troops at Patrol Base Jaker here on Monday.
General Nicholson and others say that the long-term success of the operation hinges on the performance of the Afghan security forces, which will have to take over eventually from the American troops.
General Nicholson said the American force of almost 4,000 had been joined by about 400 effective Afghan soldiers...
More at The New York Times.
Continue reading "Allied Officers Concerned by Lack of Afghan Forces" »
The McNamara Mentality - George F. Will, Washington Post opinion.
The death of Robert McNamara at 93 was less a faint reverberation of a receding era than a reminder that mentalities are the defining attributes of eras, and certain American mentalities recur with, it sometimes seems, metronomic regularity. McNamara came to Washington from a robust Detroit - he headed Ford when America's swaggering automobile manufacturers enjoyed 90 percent market share - to be President John Kennedy's secretary of defense. Seemingly confident that managing the competition of nations could be as orderly as managing competition among the three members of Detroit's oligopoly, McNamara entered government seven months before the birth of the current president, who is the owner and, he is serenely sure, fixer of General Motors.
Today, something unsettlingly similar to McNamara's eerie assuredness pervades the Washington in which he died. The spirit is: Have confidence, everybody, because we have, or soon will have, everything - really everything - under control...
More at The Washington Post.
A McNamara Lesson: When to Walk Out - Jeffrey H. Smith, Washington Post opinion.
Beginning with "In Retrospect" in 1995, Robert S. McNamara began publicly to explain his doubts about the Vietnam War and his break with President Lyndon Johnson. It's not clear when he first had these doubts, but he expressed them to Johnson, in memos, in May and November of 1967. In the May memo, he referred to the war as "a major national disaster." But the public knew little of his dissent.
Why did it take him so long to recognize something so obvious? If he had questioned the war even sooner, as he later asserted, why didn't he speak out?
To most Americans, Vietnam is "McNamara's war." McNamara was haunted by the war long after he left office in 1968 and repeatedly tried to explain what went wrong. He wrote several books spelling out the "lessons" (his word) we should learn from the tragedy of Vietnam. Many Americans brushed them aside because of the deep anger they felt toward McNamara and the war...
More at The Washington Post.
McNamara in Context - Errol Morris, New York Times opinion.
... His refusal to come out against the Vietnam War, particularly as it continued after he left the Defense Department, has angered many. There’s ample evidence that he felt the war was wrong. Why did he remain silent until the 1990s, when “In Retrospect” was published? That is something that people will probably never forgive him for. But he had an implacable sense of rectitude about what was permissible and what was not. In his mind, he probably remained secretary of defense until the day he died.
One angry person once said to me: “Loyalty to the president? What about his loyalty to the American people?” Fair enough. But our government isn’t set up that way. He was not an elected official, he said repeatedly. He served at the pleasure of the president.
This brings us to the question of what, if any, were Mr. McNamara’s lasting contributions as secretary of defense? Mr. McNamara saw his central role as preventing nuclear war. During his tenure as secretary of defense, there were conflicts that could have escalated into nuclear war - the confrontation over Berlin, the Cuban missile crisis. All of this must be seen against the backdrop of the prevailing ideas of the time, the domino theory and the cold war...
More at The New York Times.
McNamara and the Liberals' War - Wall Street Journal editorial.
Robert McNamara died on Monday at age 93 like he lived most of the latter half of his life, scorned and derided by his former liberal allies for refusing to turn against the Vietnam War as early as they did. As the New York Times put it in a page-one obituary headline, McNamara was the "Architect of Futile War."
In historical fact, Vietnam was the liberals' war, begun by JFK, escalated by LBJ, and cheered on for years by giants of the American left before they turned against it. In his 1995 memoir, McNamara apologized for the war. But he probably sealed his reputation on the left by also quoting the New York Times and liberal antiwar reporter David Halberstam for having opposed U.S. withdrawal as late as 1965. "To be fair to Halberstam," McNamara wrote dryly, "the hawkish views he was expressing reflected the opinion of the majority of journalists at the time."
Like JFK and Averell Harriman, Halberstam also supported the 1963 coup against South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, a misguided foray into Vietnamese politics that led to deeper US involvement. Only later as the war dragged on did these liberals lose their nerve, and they never forgave McNamara for fighting on - even years later after he finally agreed they were right...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Training Full Spectrum - Less is More
By General Peter W. Chiarelli
Cross-posted at the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center Blog
Good leaders understand that they cannot train on everything; therefore, they focus on training the most important tasks. Leaders do not accept substandard performance in order to complete all the tasks on the training schedule. Training a few tasks to standard is preferable to training more tasks below the standard.
Transformation is truly a never-ending journey. In the midst of fighting two wars, the Army has organizationally recreated itself within a modular formation and doctrinally ground itself in the capstone operational concept of Full Spectrum Operations.
Our combat leaders balance the probabilities of offense, defense, and stability tasks within a shifting landscape of nuanced transitions. Through the capturing and leveraging of experience they have learned how to orchestrate and dominate the human terrain much the way same way we orchestrate and dominate the physical terrain. They are savvy in manipulating all the elements of national power – kinetic and non kinetic - and can recognize and act upon shifts in the strategic environment. They are versatile and agile. Those in Iraq in and Afghanistan today find their formations involved in combat operations for short, intense periods of time, but just as quickly can reorient across the spectrum of non-kinetic tasks to exploit created opportunities and keep the momentum...
America’s Strategic Intent Applied in South Asia
by Lieutenant Colonel Robert R. Scott
America’s Strategic Intent Applied in South Asia (Full PDF Article)
Secretary of Defense Gates, in his prepared statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee on 27 January 2009 stated, “There is little doubt that our greatest military challenge right now is Afghanistan“. The Secretary of Defense went on to describe the linkage between Afghanistan and Pakistan and that any solution will have to take both nations, and the rest of the region, into account. More importantly, the Administration signaled that it will increase the level of U.S. combat forces deployed to Afghanistan and refine its support to Pakistan in order to achieve a more stable environment in that region. Acknowledging the linkage between Afghanistan and Pakistan in any strategic engagement is an improvement in our understanding of the region.
Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) define the world we live in. Afghanistan and Pakistan are an example of the strategic dilemma facing the international community in the VUCA world. The strategic dilemmas facing the U.S., and by extension the rest of the world, defined by their intractable nature and characteristics, have driven many to approach them as “problems” that can be solved. The U.S. will not succeed in lessening either the number or nature of strategic dilemmas, if it continues to attempt to solve them as it has in the past. We must change the manner in which we view the paradigm that is the VUCA world from one of solving problems to one of managing strategic dilemmas.
America’s Strategic Intent Applied in South Asia (Full PDF Article)
Continue reading "America’s Strategic Intent Applied in South Asia" »
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
I'll keep it short and simple - like us (SWJ) - the Center for Complex Operations (CCO) offers up a venue for substantive interaction amongst the diverse players critical to success in the interesting times we live and operate in.
Also like us – and more on this later concerning SWJ – CCO operates on a shoe-string budget – but is kept alive by and large through the foresight and passion of its small cadre of dedicated personnel. Seems to be the norm right now – those who offer up more on our most important issues – operate on less resources and support – or in some cases – next to nothing.
With that I’ll temporarily get off my soapbox as to draw your attention to a short but important CCO event:
Center for Complex Operations: 2nd Annual Conference
July 28, 2009
National Defense University
Washington, D.C.
The Center for Complex Operations Second Annual Conference will introduce the CCO's latest initiatives, including lessons learned collection efforts, a complex operations journal, and fourteen new case studies written for teaching and training.
Date and Time: July 28, 2009 at 2:00PM. The conference will be followed by a cocktail reception.
Agenda
1:30 PM Registration
2:00 PM Opening Remarks
Dr. Hans Binnendijk
Director, Center for Technology and National Security Policy
Ambassador John E. Herbst
Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, Department of State
Dr. James Schear
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense
2:45 Keynote Address
Lieutenant General David W. Barno, U.S. Army (Retired)
Director, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies
3:15 Break
3:30 Lessons Learned from the Three Ds
Moderator: Michael Miklaucic, CCO (USAID)
Panelist 1: Ambassador James Dobbins, RAND
Panelist 2: Colonel (P) H.R. McMaster, TRADOC, Army Capabilities Integration Center
Panelist 3: Dr. David Kilcullen, Crumpton Group
4:45 CCO Research Initiatives: Complex Operations Case Studies Series
Moderator: Bernard Carreau, CCO
Panelist 1: Colonel Peter Curry, Marine Corps War College (Invited)
Panelist 2: Dr. Volker Franke, McDaniel College (Invited)
5:30 Closing Session
Ambassador Robin Raphel, Senior Vice President, Cassidy and Associates (Invited)
6:00 Reception
Registration
Please RSVP to Jacqueline Carpenter at CarpenterJ5@ndu.edu or (202) 685-6348.
Location
Lincoln Hall Auditorium, National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C.
For additional Information: Check the CCO Portal for event updates: ccoportal.org.
This is a sad but true story, many who contribute and visit here probably have opinions concerning this once "acknowledged guru" of our operations in Vietnam. Ben Steelman of the Wilmington Star-News has an update - sort-of - enough said.
Iraq's Premier Maliki Says He Plans to Thank US for Sacrifices - Gina Chon, Wall Street Journal.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struck a conciliatory tone ahead of his trip to Washington, talking about his gratitude for US sacrifices in Iraq, and offering to negotiate a settlement between Iraq's federal government and the country's Kurdish enclave as tensions heighten between the two.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal as he prepared for a visit to the US on July 21, Mr. Maliki said he planned to thank America for its shared sacrifice with the Iraqi people in the tumultuous post-Saddam Hussein years since the US-led invasion in 2003.
"We have [achieved] a combined victory against terrorism, and there have been sacrifices from both sides that brought fruitful results and democracy to Iraq," Mr. Maliki said.
During the June drawdown of US troops from Iraqi cities, Mr. Maliki praised the Iraqi security services' ability to take over from American forces. But he shied away from offering praise or thanks to US soldiers.
Some American commanders have said they understood that Mr. Maliki's seeming slight was driven by domestic politics. Still, a gesture by Mr. Maliki acknowledging US sacrifice could help to placate some rankled American commanders on the ground...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading "Maliki Says He Plans to Thank US for Sacrifices" »
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Commander to Seek Expansion of Afghan Forces, Officials Say - Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that Afghan security forces will have to expand far beyond currently planned levels if President Obama's strategy for winning the war there is to succeed, according to senior military officials.
Such an expansion would require additional billions beyond the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more US troops as trainers and advisers, officials said.
McChrystal has not yet completed a 60-day assessment of the war due next month. But Defense Department officials in Washington and in Kabul said he has informed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, including in a status update this week, of the need to increase the Afghan force substantially. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss findings that have not yet been made public.
The Afghan army is already scheduled to grow from 85,000 to 134,000, an expansion originally expected to take five years but now fast-tracked for completion by 2011. Several senior Pentagon officials indicated that an adequate size for the Afghan force might be twice the expanded number...
Much more at The Washington Post.
Continue reading "McChrystal to Seek Expansion of Afghan Forces" »
How to Win in Afghanistan - Brigadier Justin Kelly, Quadrant Magazine.
Military activity is never directed against material force alone; it is always aimed simultaneously at the moral forces which give it life, and the two cannot be separated.--Clausewitz
General Sir Gerald Templar’s admonition during the Malayan Emergency that “the answer [to the insurgency] lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and the minds of the people” has echoed through the ensuing half-century and has become the basic precept on which counter-insurgency campaigns are - or apparently should be - designed. Nowadays, hardly a day passes in which some journalist or general is not reminding us that there is no military solution to the war in Afghanistan. Echoing this proposition, in January 2009, the Secretary General of NATO argued that good governance “would suck the oxygen out of the insurgency”. Similar statements were made about the war in Iraq; to argue against Bush’s 2007 “surge” of troops and to emphasise that here lay a “quagmire” - dreaded by all in the US Congress and the New York Times - from which immediate withdrawal was the only solution.
This essay argues that aspects of the above propositions may be true - but they are irrelevant. That, in reality, there is no military solution to any war; that “hearts and minds” might hold the solution but they are beyond our immediate reach; that good governance (and its corollaries of law and order and national infrastructure meeting the physical needs of the community) might suck the oxygen out of an insurgency but is at best a secondary factor unattainable for many years; and that we are, in our timeless way, attempting to fit square Malayan pegs into round Middle Eastern holes. The essay concludes that until there is security there be no real progress and, as a result, we should be doing more fighting and fewer good deeds.
It is not clear from where our present woolly thinking emerged. It is a characteristic trait of humans that we try to understand events and decide on actions by the application of metaphor: “this situation looks like the one last week, Action A worked then, I’ll try Action A again today”. In many situations this works perfectly well, in some it does not. The present application of the “British Model” of counter-insurgency to quite different contexts may be an example of this approach to problem solving. Certainly, the media, the public and politicians find it easier to argue for the benefits of reconstruction, education, political reform - hearts and minds - than they do for the remorseless hunting down and destruction of insurgents.
Equally, perhaps, part of our problem may be that, because of some its specific attributes, the military has tended to conceptually separate counter-insurgency from the rest of its understanding of war, giving it a level of uniqueness which it does not warrant and perhaps clouding our understanding of it. Although in both Iraq and Afghanistan, on the balance of probabilities, we will eventually muddle through and bring the war to some kind of acceptable conclusion, it would be better if we understood what it was that we were about...
Much more at Quadrant.
Bonus - Brigadier Justin Kelly on How to Win in Afghanistan - Quandrant videos - six parts:
Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:
Topics include:
1. Is Obama channeling Bush in Afghanistan?
2. Why insurgencies lose.
New Defense Department Plan on Strategic Communication and Science and Technology
By Matt Armstrong
Cross-posted at MountainRunner
A newly released report from the Department of Defense may be the first to specifically consider the role of science and technology (S&T) efforts supporting the broad range of Strategic Communication (SC) activities across the whole of government. The Strategic Communication Science and Technology Plan, April 2009, (596kb PDF) produced by the Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) within the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Director, Defense Research Engineering (DDRE), responds to direction in the Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act, which calls for the Department to leverage these efforts to designate an “S&T thrust area for strategic communication and focus on critical S&T opportunities.”
Congress and RRTO has authorized publication of this report on MountainRunner.us...
Hat tip to the U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center (thanks John) for sending along this briefing presentation on the University of Kansas Community Tool Box.
The Community Tool Box is is "the world's largest resource for free information on essential skills for building healthy communities. It offers more than 7,000 pages of practical guidance in creating change and improvement, and is growing as a global resource for this work." It contains practical step-by-step guidance in specific community-building skills in over 300 sections. Best of all it is online and accessible to deployed units and personnel who might have a need for the varied skill-sets contained on the site.
Per the COIN Center - Applicability is evident for anyone working with Provincial Reconstruction Teams, Human Terrain Teams, Civil Affair Teams, Civilian Response Corps, Advanced Civilian Teams, etc., as well as general purpose forces that need just in time, internet based resources that can walk them/guide them through and improve their competency in such areas as negotiation, analyzing problems, building leadership, developing an intervention, evaluating an initiative, creating and maintaining coalitions and partnerships, increasing participation and membership and other competency areas critical to successful civil-military operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster response environments.
Continue reading "University of Kansas Community Tool Box" »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is funding the research and development of a four-legged "walker" vehicle known as the Boston Dynamics BigDog. A marvel of modern robotics technology, it has demonstrated incredible stability and maneuverability on steep, snow-covered slopes and even on ice. In many ways, it resembles a miniature version of the four-legged AT-AT Walkers from The Empire Strikes Back, although it appears to be far more stable (then again, I haven’t seen anyone tie its legs up with a tow cable, so the jury is still out).
As we discovered in Iraq, an effective counterinsurgency strategy requires a significant number of infantry maneuvering about the battlefield on foot, as opposed to hunkered down in their vehicles. Although the forthcoming All-Terrain Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (in keeping with the Star Wars theme, AT-MRAP) might have its use in a number of areas, nothing will be able to replace the effectiveness of the infantryman patrolling on the ground. Indeed, during the Iraq War, the use of dismounted patrols as opposed to the “commute to work” philosophy which dominated American strategy during the early half of the Iraq War seems to have contributed, at least in part, to the decrease in violence.
No matter how far we advance in manufacturing technology, we increasingly seem to load our infantrymen down with more and more weight. In Afghanistan, where NATO troops are conducting dismounted patrols over steep, rocky mountains, a simple patrol requires immense physical effort, particularly at the higher altitudes, where the air is thin. Surely, a vehicle like the BigDog would be of use in Afghanistan to carry the bulkiest portions of combat equipment.
But leave it to the US Marines—always short of money and coming up with new ways to stretch their dollars—to come up with a much cheaper alternative to the BigDog, using mules as pack animals, just as the Taliban do. It may not be as sexy as the new BigDog, and they may be temperamenta at times, but they have gotten the job done for centuries. While the BigDog represents incredible technology which will undoubtedly be used in a number of different applications--military and civil--did we really need a mega-expensive walker to carry a few rucksacks when a mule would have done just as well?
The terrain in Afghanistan brings up a number of interesting issues. In order to get off the mega-FOBs and patrol the countryside, troops will need some sort of ground transportation. HMMWVs and MRAPs are, as of now, somewhat restricted in the terrain of Afghanistan. With foot marches being slow and tiring, why not outfit a good number of our troops with Four-Wheeled All-Terrain Vehicles? ATVs have been used in small numbers by the US military for quite some time. They would provide a level of mobility that our troops currently do not possess, and they would certainly not be as expensive as the million-dollar-a-pop MRAP, and considerably more mobile. In fact, an earlier SWJ article which laid out the capabilities of the now-cancelled Future Combat System included a description of a vehicle which was dubbed the “M-5 Tactical Segway” (based on an off-road four-wheeled Segway variant). I will be the first to admit that this project suffers from poor advertising (The words “Tactical Segway” give me the image of a platoon full of socially awkward losers whirring down the street on the two-wheel variant). However, a four-wheeled vehicle certainly looks as if it has many supporters within the military establishment.
Focus question for the SWJ crowd: What sorts of transportation systems would you want to see in Afghanistan?
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Carrots and sticks: When is poppy eradication justified?
By Allison Brown
The common Counter Narcotics term is "carrot and stick" – incentives to diversify out of illicit drugs linked to a real threat to of negative consequences for people who resist change. Experience shows that incentives and threats are necessary parts of a comprehensive supply reduction strategy and that they are effective in locations where cropping systems are not managed by gangsters with guns.
The recent announcement that the USA will no longer push eradication in Afghanistan is a welcome one. The previous administration applied the stick before the carrot was in sight. Targeting politically powerless and impoverished Afghan farmers made the Afghan population very unhappy with many negative follow-on effects that are described elsewhere.
While it is correct to put eradication on hold for now, the firm commitment to rational eradication must also be present if incentive programs are to work. The key word here is "rational".
For the past few years the British government working on a set of science-based metrics to determine when and where poppy eradication should be conducted. The criteria are based largely on the work of David Mansfield and others who have been documenting poppy cultivation patterns in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region for a long time. See Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production - a World Bank report by Christopher Ward, David Mansfield, Peter Oldham and William Byrd - one of the finest works to be found on this topic. (Also search here for a series of six reports that has become known as the "Drivers Report" report)...
Continue reading "Carrots and sticks: When is poppy eradication justified?" »
Continue on for recent news and commentary concerning British operations in Afghanistan to include Helmand force levels, equipment issues and public support...
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Striking a Balance - Frank G. Hoffman, Armed Forces Journal.
We are in another post-Iraq war debate about how to best posture our military investments for the future. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review will center on the critical question about the evolving character of conflict. Exactly what kinds of wars are we expecting to fight, and how should we allocate scarce time and resources to maximize readiness and deterrence while minimizing risk? The not-so-subtle groundswell of resentment, if not outright bureaucratic resentment, coming from Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ effort to allocate just 10 percent of the Pentagon’s investment account for irregular warfare suggests that this will not be a simple matter.
Today’s post-Iraq strategy and forces debate was first depicted in Andrew Bacevich’s tart Atlantic Monthly essay, “The Petraeus Doctrine.” He portrayed a stark choice between two competing camps in the U.S. military. At one end of the spectrum of conflict, he observed that there was a group which he derisively called the “Crusaders,” who were promoting an emphasis on counterinsurgency and irregular threats as the proper focus for our armed forces. At the other end of the spectrum, he identified a competing school of thought, which he labeled the “Traditionalists.” Bacevich personalized the ongoing debate by using two prominent contemporary authors, retired Army officer John Nagl and West Point’s Col. Gian Gentile, as the polar protagonists.
This “black and white” option set created a false binary choice that is great for media consumption but represents a gross oversimplification and distorted conception of America’s strategic options. It also created a caricature of the protagonists who offer much more sophisticated arguments when reviewed closely in context...
Much more at Armed Forces Journal.
Jules Crittenden of Forward Movement e-mails:
OK, I’m confused. I thought that was what they were supposed to be doing. I’m pretty sure that’s what Bill Clinton had in mind when he was lobbing cruise missiles onto assorted patches of desert and rocky crags in Afghanistan. I know that is pretty much was George Bush was talking about with his “dead or alive” speech. In fact, when the U.S. military blew up Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the CIA started lobbing Hellfires into Yemen and Waziristan, I thought that was the basic idea.
Of course he's talking about the big hush-hush secret that the United States plotted to kill AQ leaders as reported in today's Wall Street Journal. Go figure...
Last Saturday, Mexico’s federal police and army paid the price for arresting Arnold Rueda Medina, a lieutenant in Mexico’s La Familia drug cartel.
The urgent question is whether Mexico’s institutions will be able to enforce the rule of law through accepted civil procedures. If not, will Mexico be forced to attack its drug cartels the same way Colombia brought down Pablo Escobar?
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
After suffering another humiliating defeat in local elections in Tokyo, Prime Minister Taro Aso has called for a general election for Japan’s lower house of parliament to be held on August 30. Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party has, except for a quirky two-year period in the mid-1990s, basically ruled Japanese politics since the country regained its sovereignty after World War II. Yet the LDP is predicted to lose power to the Democratic Party, an event which would be a watershed in Japanese political history.
Will it also be a watershed for the U.S.-Japan strategic alliance?
Continue reading "A storm ahead for the U.S.-Japan alliance?" »
Pentagon Deploys New Troops to Iraq, With a Twist - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor.
The Pentagon announced new troop deployments Tuesday that begin to formalize the role of soldiers in Iraq as advisers to Iraqi forces instead of combatants gunning for insurgents.
This year and next, the Pentagon will deploy four new units called Advisory and Assistance Brigades to Iraq. The US military has been advising the Iraqi security forces for several years, but this is the first time the Defense Department has designed a training unit tailored to the needs of Iraq. It reflects the more prominent training role that is emerging for American troops there...
The deployment of the four new units of about 3,500 soldiers each will take place between this fall and next spring. Ultimately, the Pentagon will send to Iraq at least two more Advisory and Assistance Brigades, or AABs, which could deploy in separate units like the ones being deployed currently, infused into traditional combat brigades, or some combination of the two.
The units include more civil engineers, military police, and logistics personnel. They may also include military or civilian specialists to help foster Iraqi rule of law, governance, economic development, and cultural advising, defense officials say...
More at The Christian Science Monitor.
Continue reading "Pentagon Deploys New Troops to Iraq, With a Twist" »
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Is It Worth It? - The Difficult Case for War in Afghanistan - Stephen Biddle, The American Interest.
The war in Afghanistan has been nearly invisible to the American public since its initial combat phase ended in early 2002, but it has rapidly come once again into view. Indeed, the war is now poised to become perhaps the most controversial and divisive issue in U.S. defense policy.
Managing this war will pose difficult problems both in Afghanistan and here at home. The strategic case for waging war is stronger than that for disengaging, but not by much: The war is a close call on the merits. The stakes for the United States are largely indirect; it will be an expensive war to wage; like most wars, its outcome is uncertain; even success is unlikely to yield a modern, prosperous Switzerland of the Hindu Kush; and as a counterinsurgency campaign its conduct is likely to increase losses and violence in the short term in exchange for a chance at stability in the longer term.
But failure is not inevitable. The U.S. military is now a far more capable counterinsurgency force than the Soviets who lost to the mujaheddin in the 1980s; the Obama Administration is committed to reforming a corrupt government in Kabul that the Bush Administration mostly accepted; and perhaps most important, the United States has the advantage of a deeply flawed enemy in the Taliban. The stakes, moreover, are important even though indirect: Failure could have grave consequences for the United States...
Much more at The American Interest.
What to Read on Fighting Insurgencies - Eliot A. Cohen, Foreign Affairs.
Interest in counterinsurgency comes and goes. During the 1950s and 1960s, soldiers, politicians, and scholars wrote voluminously on what was sometimes called “revolutionary war,” a supposedly new mode of conflict that enabled nationalist and communist movements (and some combinations of the two) to thwart or even defeat seemingly stronger European colonial powers. The Vietnam War generated a rich literature on the topic, but attention waned with the U.S. withdrawal from Indochina and the American desire to avoid irregular warfare in the future. In recent years, however, hard experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq have rekindled interest in the subject and caused even some experts to reconsider old ways of waging “the war of the flea.”
Continue on for Eliot Cohen's recommended reading at Foreign Affairs.
The US Air Force and Irregular Warfare
Success as a Hurdle
by Captain Daniel L. Magruder, Jr.
The US Air Force and Irregular Warfare (Full PDF Article)
The Air Force’s difficulty transforming to support irregular forms of warfare is the most pressing issue facing the institution today. The United States Army, Marines Corps, and special operations forces rely on the Air Force’s ability to deliver desired effects on the battlefield. Current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are harbingers regarding the ascendance of low-intensity conflict (LIC). Irregular warfare (IW) is yet another classification of war and the use of asymmetric tactics are generally ascribed to it. Colin Gray, a preeminent strategist states that irregular warfare “calls for cultural, political, and military qualities that are not among the traditional strengths of Americans.” For the Air Force, adapting to a bifurcated strategic environment is a challenge. To be sure, the Air Force has provided the nation with decades of unparalleled excellence in pursuit of air dominance. The point is not to quibble over whether the Air Force can perform its mission in large-scale conventional warfare, but to the degree to which the institution adapts to contemporary security threats. It is a matter of focusing resources and investing in ideas that optimize the unique characteristics of airpower while at the same time meet the traditional expectations of an air force. Three aspects composing Air Force identity influence the institution’s ability to meet organizational demands: the pursuit of technology, a culture of individualism, and the theory of progressive airpower. In fact, the factors facilitating the Air Force’s institutional success simultaneously limit its ability to adapt to irregular warfare.
The Surge: A Military History
By Kimberly Kagan
Book Description: Understanding the role of combat in the Iraq war is essential for both the American people and the U.S. military. Recognizing the objectives of both sides and the plans developed to attain those objectives provides the context for understanding the war. The Surge is an effort to provide such a framework to help understand not only where we have been, but also what happens as we move forward.
Book Review: Turning the Tide Of Battle - Brendan Simms, Wall Street Journal.
... "The Surge" challenges existing accounts in two ways. First, although Ms. Kagan is rightly respectful of Gen. David Petraeus, who led American forces during the surge, she avoids celebrating his genius at the expense of other important figures. She draws attention to the pivotal role played by Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who commanded the day-to-day operations of the Multi-National Corps in Iraq. She shows him helping to ensure that co-operating tribal forces submit fingerprints, weapons serial numbers and family details that would make it difficult for them to take up arms again. It was Lt. Gen. Odierno who executed Operation Phantom Thunder in June 2007, synchronized operations that, as he told Ms. Kagan, aimed to "eliminate accelerants to Baghdad violence from enemy support zones." Other key players include Col. J.B. Burton, commander of the Dagger Brigade that drove the insurgents out of northwest Baghdad, and David Sutherland, whose combat team pacified the eastern province of Diyala. Ms. Kagan does not mention -- though she might have -- the analysts who helped the U.S. to rethink its counterinsurgency strategy, such as John Nagl and David Kilcullen.
Second, Ms. Kagan skewers the notion that the surge marked a shift from unreflective war-fighting to a "smarter" strategy that combined military and civil elements. This notion, in its extreme form, holds that the additional brigades were a relatively minor factor in a process driven primarily by a political change of heart among former insurgents. Ms. Kagan shows the opposite to have been the case...
Read more of the review at The Wall Street Journal.
Kicking The CIA (Again) - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
As other countries watch the United States lacerate its intelligence service - for activities already investigated or never undertaken - perhaps they admire America's commitment to democracy and the rule of law. More likely, I fear, they conclude that we are just plain nuts.
The latest "scandals" involving the Central Intelligence Agency are genuinely hard to understand, other than in terms of political payback. Attorney General Eric Holder is considering appointing a prosecutor to investigate criminal actions by CIA officers involved in the harsh interrogation of al-Qaeda prisoners. But the internal CIA report on which he's said to be basing this decision was referred five years ago to the Justice Department, where attorneys concluded that no prosecution was warranted.
Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are indignant that they were never briefed about a program to assassinate al-Qaeda operatives in friendly countries. Never mind that the program wasn't implemented, or that the United States is routinely assassinating al-Qaeda operatives using unmanned drones. And never mind that Leon Panetta, the new CIA director - fearing a potential flap - briefed Congress about the program soon after he became aware of it. There was a flap anyway -- with a new hemorrhage of secrets and a new shudder from America's intelligence partners around the world...
More at The Washington Post.
Iran Simmers, America Moves On - Wall Street Journal editorial.
That didn't take long. President Obama last week gave Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an autumn deadline to negotiate over Iran's nuclear program. "We remain ready to engage with Iran, but the time for action is now," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. So much for waiting to see how Iran's post-election drama plays out.
Premature would be a generous description of this diplomatic outreach. Leave aside that this regime can't be trusted to negotiate anything. More immediately relevant is that millions of Iranians refuse to accept the "leaders" of the "Islamic Republic" (in Mrs. Clinton's words) that the Administration so eagerly aims to engage. Massive street protests roiled Tehran, Shiraz, Esfahan and other cities in the wake of the transparently fraudulent June 12 poll. The Basij and Revolutionary Guard goon squads got the people off the streets, killing an unknown number, and the regime blocked nearly all foreign reporting out of Iran...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Happy Talk About War Doesn't Fly With Troops on the Ground - David Wood, Politics Daily.
... If we learned anything from conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is that war is uncontrollable. That it does not march to the drumbeats of rhetoric or the PowerPoint plans coming from Washington. That to some extent it is unpredictable – except for the seldom-heard prediction that war will take longer, cost more and resolve less than hoped for.
Obama's comments brought to mind an off-the-cuff remark by President Bush in October 2006, when bloodshed in Iraq had gone off the charts and the Pentagon was desperately casting about for a new strategy.
Asked if "we're winning'' in Iraq, Bush blurted: "Absolutely, we're winning!''
Should presidents and their administrations be relentless cheerleaders after they send young Americans into combat? Or should they risk losing public support by passing on the bad news from their commanders? ...Much more at Politics Daily.
Obama Administration Searching for an Exit Strategy in Afghanistan - Herschel Smith, The Captain's Journal.
... Nothing happens in counterinsurgency in short order, we observed, and thus his counsel to the President is poor. The Generals are indignant, and have retained the right in their mind to request the troops they believe to be necessary for the campaign. But this view has not been heard in Washington, and not only does Obama’s counselors and advisers believe that the campaign can be turned in short order, but we now learn that Obama believes this - contrary to doctrine, contrary to the views of General Petraeus, contrary to the Generals, and contrary to the lessons of Iraq. Everyone wants an exit from war. No one likes to see the human cost of battle. The question is not one of exit - it is of when and how?
While issues of life and death play themselves out in Afghanistan and sons of America continue to lose limbs and lives, the administration blythely continues to believe in myths and fairly tales concerning war and peace, and fashion plans for Afghanistan that have no chance to succeed. The plans must change, but until they do, the question is what the cost will be in national treasure and blood?
Much more at The Captain's Journal.
Mistakes Were Made
How Not to Conduct Post-Conflict Management and Counterinsurgency
by Dr. Wm J. Olson
Mistakes Were Made (Full PDF Article)
We are awash in how-to manuals on stability operations, counterinsurgency, and how we should successfully do the next Iraq or Afghanistan, presumably because we got the first attempt wrong. While the various manuals, hints, cheat sheets, doctrines, wiring diagrams, proposals for the reform of the ‘whole of government’, and all the paraphernalia of post-conflict management pouring forth from every think tank, government research institute, and now-knowledgeable ‘expert’ are not totally useless, they are virtually impossible to make sense of or implement if one could. If for no other reason than they are mutually exclusive, navel-gazing, self-referential, and voluminous. But they also miss the point, misdirect, misinform, and muddy the waters. They are all after the fact, what we should have done not what we did. So, what follows is a ‘How Not To’ manual. As such, it will have no audience, no following, no conclusions, and no effect.
The first part of what follows is a quasi-case study of decisions to invade Iraq and to a lesser degree the evolution of responses there and in Afghanistan. It concentrates on the context for war with Iraq and the Bush Administration’s arguments for war with Iraq. This is not a study in lessons learned. Partly because I was not involved in the processes leading up to the invasion of Iraq, although on the margins I was one of those voices that questioned the thinking behind the decision making. I am also not a big believer in ‘lessons learned’. History is not kind on the subject. Long experience in government in playing in and watching similar efforts as well as a lifetime scholarly interest in how governments screw up guide my thoughts and have ‘taught’ me that we do not learn lessons. We might identify them, but if they do not coincide with our prejudices and inclinations and skill sets, we discount the lesson or fail to take it into account or enlist the wrong ones. And lastly, there are significant cognitive obstacles to learning lessons from complex events that are inherent and unavoidable and whose operation at a given moment and throughout is beyond awareness before the fact and recondite at best afterwards.
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Gates Sharpens Rhetoric In Dispute on F-22 Funds - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made an impassioned case Thursday for terminating the F-22 program after production of 187 planes, as the Obama administration sought to blunt a bipartisan push to add money to the defense budget for the fighter jet.
"If we can't bring ourselves to make this tough but straightforward decision -- reflecting the judgment of two very different presidents, two different secretaries of defense, two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the current Air Force secretary and chief of staff -- where do we draw the line?" he said in a speech at the Economic Club of Chicago. "If we can't get this right, what on earth can we get right?"
In recent days, House and Senate lawmakers from both parties have defied the White House and put money back into the $680 billion defense spending bill to keep the F-22 production line open, prompting President Obama to threaten a veto. It is not clear whether F-22 backers have enough votes to keep the program going. "It looks pretty close," Gates told reporters...
More at The Washington Post.
Text of Secreatry Gates' Address - DefenseLink
... Air superiority and missile defense – two areas where the budget has attracted the most criticism – provide case studies. Let me start with the controversy over the F-22 fighter jet. We had to consider, when preparing for a future potential conventional state-on-state conflict, what is the right mix of the most advanced fighter aircraft and other weapons to deal with the known and projected threats to US air supremacy? For example, we now have unmanned aerial vehicles that can simultaneously perform intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance missions as well as deliver precision-guided bombs and missiles. The president’s budget request would buy 48 of the most advanced UAVs – aircraft that have a greater range than some of our manned fighters, in addition to the ability to loiter for hours over a target. And we will buy many more in the future.
We also took into consideration the capabilities of the newest manned combat aircraft program, the stealth F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The F-35 is 10 to 15 years newer than the F-22, carries a much larger suite of weapons, and is superior in a number of areas – most importantly, air-to-ground missions such as destroying sophisticated enemy air defenses. It is a versatile aircraft, less than half the total cost of the F-22, and can be produced in quantity with all the advantages produced by economies of scale – some 500 will be bought over the next five years, more than 2,400 over the life of the program. And we already have eight foreign development partners. It has had development problems to be sure, as has every advanced military aircraft ever fielded. But if properly supported, the F-35 will be the backbone of America’s tactical aviation fleet for decades to come if – and it is a big if – money is not drained away to spend on other aircraft that our military leadership considers of lower priority or excess to our needs.
Having said that, the F-22 is clearly a capability we do need – a niche, silver-bullet solution for one or two potential scenarios – specifically the defeat of a highly advanced enemy fighter fleet. The F-22, to be blunt, does not make much sense anyplace else in the spectrum of conflict. Nonetheless, supporters of the F-22 lately have promoted its use for an ever expanding list of potential missions. These range from protecting the homeland from seaborne cruise missiles to, as one retired general recommended on TV, using F-22s to go after Somali pirates who in many cases are teenagers with AK-47s – a job we already know is better done at much less cost by three Navy SEALs. These are examples of how far-fetched some of the arguments have become for a program that has cost $65 billion – and counting – to produce 187 aircraft, not to mention the thousands of uniformed Air Force positions that were sacrificed to help pay for it...
Gates Warns Against Excess with F-22s - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times
Gates and Congress Duel - August Cole, Wall Street Journal.
Defense Chief Criticizes Bid to Add F-22s - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times
Gates Challenges Congress - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor
More F-22 Fighters ‘Far-Fetched’ - Tony Capaccio and Allison Bennett, Bloomberg
Gates: Future Jet Supporters Risking Today's Troops - Noah Shachtman, Wired
Gates: DoD Must End Business as Usual - Samantha L. Quigley, AFPS
No More F-22s - Washington Post
Wasteful Defense Spending a Clear and Present Danger - Wall Street Journal
Continue reading "Gates Sharpens Rhetoric In Dispute on F-22 Funds (Updated)" »
Editors Note -- the original announcement here has been edited to reflect the updated [original] content for the submission deadline and some of the verbiage in the topics. Be sure to look at the current and complete information posted here, including the detailed submission instructions referred to below.
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Papers are sought on the topics below. Winning entries and select others will be published in future special volumes of Small Wars Journal. For each of the two topics, a $3,000 Grand Prize and two $500 Honorable Mentions will be awarded. Hence $8,000 total purse.
Papers should be 3,000 to 5,000 words in length. Papers will be blind reviewed and judged primarily for clarity of presentation, relevant insights to the question asked, and overall significance of the key points made to the practice of small wars. No extra points awarded for length, name dropping, or how epic the incidents discussed were as distinct from the weight of the insights. Papers need not be OIF- / OEF-centric. Papers must resonate beyond a single silo, i.e. they must touch on at least some aspect of joint, coalition, interagency, multi-disciplinary, or cross-cultural significance.
Papers are to be submitted by midnight on November 30 [November 10], 2009, with winners to be announced in January, 2010. One entry per author per question. Standard writing competition mumbo jumbo will apply, we will publish a final announcement shortly with those gruesome details, including detailed submission instructions.
Continue reading "Small Wars Journal $8,000 Writing Competition - Warning Order" »
Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy.
Topics include:
1. Why the Taliban are watching the polls in Britain,
2. Adaptation means learning how to learn.
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Town Hall Meeting to Announce the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, July 10, 2009. Excerpt follows:
... We don’t have the luxury of deciding which issues to deal with. We need a framework and a vision that will allow us to address all of them; to, in effect, multitask to get the results and outcomes that we’re seeking. And we have to work simultaneously on the urgent, the important, and the long term. Now I have been fighting for the resources that we need to do our jobs. We cannot send diplomats and development experts into the field underfunded and underequipped. But unless we make better use of the talent and tools at our disposal, we’re not going to succeed. We need to align our resources with strategic priorities to direct our funds and to maximize our impact. As individuals, as an organization, we need to work better, work smarter, and work together with more partners in and beyond our government. And instead of simply trying to adjust to the way things are, we need to get in the habit of looking to the horizon and planning for how we want things to be.
To help us in that effort and to enable the Department and USAID to get ahead of emerging threats and opportunities and to make the case effectively for OMB, the Congress, and the people of our country for the resources we need, today, I’m announcing that we will, for the first time ever, conduct a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, a QDDR, if you will. I served for six years on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. And it became very clear to me that the QDR process that the Defense Department ran was an important tool for the Defense Department to not only exercise the discipline necessary to make the hard decisions to set forth the priorities, but provided a framework that was a very convincing one to those in the Congress, that there was a plan, people knew where they were headed, and they had the priorities requested aligned with the budget, and therefore, people were often very convinced that it made good sense to do whatever the Defense Department requested.
Well, I want to make the same case for diplomacy and development. We will be doing this quadrennial review, which will be, we hope, a tool to provide us with both short-term and long-term blueprints for how to advance our foreign policy objectives and our values and interests. This will provide us with a comprehensive assessment for organizational reform and improvements to our policy, strategy, and planning processes. And this will help make our diplomacy and development work more agile, responsive, and complimentary. This is what we mean when we talk about smart power.
I think we need this type of bottom-up strategic review to coordinate our work and to accelerate transitions from old ideas and outmoded programs. A State Department QDDR protocol will give us the strategic guidance we need to help us allocate our resources more efficiently and deploy people where they will have the most impact. I think it’s a new way of doing business that will give us the dynamism that we should have and better equip us to deal with the accelerating rate of change that we confront...
Full text at US Department of State. (H/T Dave Maxwell)
'How This Ends': Iraq's Uncertain Path toward National Reconciliation - Michael Eisenstadt and Ahmed Ali, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
During Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's visit to Washington next week, the Obama administration will likely seek to reinvigorate that country's flagging reconciliation process as part of ongoing efforts to establish a stable political order in Iraq. Progress, however, continues to be hindered by ongoing violence, deep-seated suspicions, and partisan politics, raising questions about the ultimate prospects for national reconciliation...
Much more at The Washington Institute.
Continue reading "Iraq's Uncertain Path toward National Reconciliation" »
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Center for Complex Operations: 2nd Annual Conference
July 28, 2009
National Defense University
Washington, D.C.
The Center for Complex Operations Second Annual Conference will introduce the CCO's latest initiatives, including lessons learned collection efforts, a complex operations journal, and fourteen new case studies written for teaching and training.
Date and Time: July 28, 2009 at 2:00PM. The conference will be followed by a cocktail reception.
Agenda
1:30 PM Registration
2:00 PM Opening Remarks
Dr. Hans Binnendijk
Director, Center for Technology and National Security Policy
Ambassador John E. Herbst
Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, Department of State
Dr. James Schear
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense
2:45 Keynote Address
Lieutenant General David W. Barno, U.S. Army (Retired)
Director, Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies
3:15 Break
3:30 Lessons Learned from the Three Ds
Moderator: Michael Miklaucic, CCO (USAID)
Panelist 1: Ambassador James Dobbins, RAND
Panelist 2: Colonel (P) H.R. McMaster, TRADOC, Army Capabilities Integration Center
Panelist 3: Dr. David Kilcullen, Crumpton Group
4:45 CCO Research Initiatives: Complex Operations Case Studies Series
Moderator: Bernard Carreau, CCO
Panelist 1: Colonel Peter Curry, Marine Corps War College (Invited)
Panelist 2: Dr. Volker Franke, McDaniel College (Invited)
5:30 Closing Session
Ambassador Robin Raphel, Senior Vice President, Cassidy and Associates (Invited)
6:00 Reception
Registration
Please RSVP to Jacqueline Carpenter at CarpenterJ5@ndu.edu or (202) 685-6348.
Location
Lincoln Hall Auditorium, National Defense University, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C.
For additional Information: Check the CCO Portal for event updates: ccoportal.org.
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It’s not often when a SWJ friend lands a starring role in a network news series – so we were quite excited when we learned that Roger Carstens will be co-starring in NBC News’ The Wanted. Congratulations Roger and best of luck with the show! Continue on for the NBC News press release and an update featuring Washington Post commentary... The Wanted airs tonight at 2200 EST...
Last week I attended a seminar on China at the Brookings Institution. At the seminar David Finkelstein gave a must-read presentation on China’s grand strategy. Finkelstein is a retired U.S. Army officer and director of CNA China Studies at CNA Corporation.
Some key points from the presentation:
Continue reading "China’s grand strategy – past, present and future" »
U.S., U.K. Differ on How to Confront Foes - United Press International.
A new strategic study has spotlighted different approaches adopted by British and U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to confront armed opponents and the tensions created over the differences, publishers for the Kingston University-led research said Monday.
"Hearts and Minds? British Counterinsurgency from Malaya to Iraq," a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies, said the different approaches favored by British and U.S. commanders in Iraq had become a "hot topic" because the military allies looked at ways of combating insurgents from divergent perspectives...
... the various interpretations of "hearts and minds" led to confusion about what degree of consent could be expected from the people and the implication of this for the use of force.
The study said the British military had been generally more "political" and less coercive in its approach to counterinsurgency...
The British approach to counterinsurgency has influenced the recent development of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine, said the study, citing Petraeus and others. But there are still considerable differences in the British and U.S. approaches to counterinsurgency, and that has led to severe tensions in the relationship between these allies, according to the study.
The study concluded the "hearts and minds" description of the British approach to counterinsurgency might soften its public image, but it was not an effective guide to operations, because it could be interpreted in such divergent ways...
More at United Press International.
Continue reading "U.S., U.K. Differ on How to Confront Foes" »
Gates Calls for Increase of 22,000 Soldiers
By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, July 20, 2009 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates today announced plans to add up to 22,000 soldiers to the U.S. Army’s ranks.
The plus-up of active duty troops will take the Army from 547,000 to 569,000 forces in what Gates characterized as a temporary increase of the Army’s “end strength” for three fiscal years.
“This is an important and necessary step to ensure that we continue to properly support the needs of our commanders in the field while providing relief for our current force and their families,” the secretary told reporters during a Pentagon news conference.
Gates pointed to escalating violence in Afghanistan and an added U.S. presence there, political turmoil in Pakistan and elimination of the so-called “stop-loss” policy of involuntarily extending a soldier’s length of service as reasons behind the decision...
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Five weeks after Iran’s presidential elections it is now clear that Iran’s ruling elite has split into two factions. The question now is whether Iran’s security forces will split.
Former presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami have now publicly questioned the legitimacy of President Ahmadinejad’s reelection. In doing so, they have questioned the legitimacy of Supreme Ruler Khamenei’s authority (see NYT, Economist). This is a dramatic development and almost guarantees a deep political crisis inside Iran.
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The July 2009 issue of the Combating Terrorism Center's CTC Sentinel is now online. Articles include:
The Terrorist Threat to Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons - Shaun Gregory
The Significance of Qari Zain’s Assassination in Pakistan - Rahimullah Yusufzai
Pakistan’s New Offensive in South Waziristan - Samir Syed
A Diagnosis of Somalia’s Failing Transitional Government - Anonymous
The Status of Conflict in the Southern and Central Regions of Somalia - Michael A. Weinstein
A New Phase of Resistance and Insurgency in Iranian Baluchistan - Chris Zambelis
Incorporating Law Enforcement Interrogation Techniques on the Battlefield - Gretchen Peters
Recent Highlights in Terrorist Activity
NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook - The New Fight in Afghanistan. Guests:
Joining us from Kabul, Afghanistan, is Laura King, reporter for The Los Angeles Times. She’s recently been in the country’s far eastern region, near the Pakistan border, at Forward Operating Base Salerno. Her piece in today’s LA Times reports on a new wave of coordinated Taliban attacks.
Also from Kabul we’re joined by Pamela Constable, reporter for The Washington Post. She’s just back from Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, the focal point of the current coalition push. She’s also been in Faizabad recently, in the country’s remote northeast.
From Hardin, Montana, we’re joined by Gretchen Peters, a journalist who has covered the Afghanistan-Pakistan region for more than decade with the Associated Press and ABC News. She is author of the new book Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
From Monterey, California, we’re joined by Kalev Sepp, professor of defense analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. He is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and special forces officer. From 2007 to January 2009, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Capabilities, helping to oversee global counterterrorism policy.
The New Fight in Afghanistan - Audio of today's program.
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Wanat (VIII): An Army Report Finds a Major COIN Failure - Tom Ricks, Best Defense at Foreign Policy.
The Army's study of what happened in the Wanat battle a year ago in eastern Afghanistan is even harder on senior U.S. military commanders than I was in my series on it back in February, saying that they didn't understand counterinsurgency doctrine and also that some of their statements about the fight were misleading at best.
The report, which is still in draft form, contradicts a few aspects of the accounts provided by some of the senior officers involved, implicitly raising integrity questions. That's especially significant because two officials at Fort Leavenworth have told me that the Army inspector general's office is investigating how the Wanat incident was reported and reviewed. I also hear that congressional interest in the situation is growing.
The report, which has not been released and was written for the Army's Combat Studies Institute by military historian Douglas Cubbison, finds multiple failures by the battalion and brigade commanders involved...
... The report also is in awe of the bravery and persistence of the 42 soldiers and 3 Marines who fought at Wanat, as I am. I knew that some continued to fight after being hit several times. But I didn't know that one continued to pass ammunition even when he was mortally wounded.
I also think the Army deserves praise for having the honesty to have this report done. I am told that the final version will be released soon. Let's hope it isn't thrown out the back door at 5 pm on a Friday afternoon in August.
Much more at Best Defense.
Iraqi Prime Minister Open to Renegotiating Withdrawal Timeline - Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opened the door for the first time Wednesday to the prospect of a U.S. military presence in Iraq after the December 2011 deadline for troop withdrawal set by last year’s bilateral accord - something President Obama appeared to rule out during a joint appearance on Tuesday.
Speaking to an audience at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, Maliki said the accord, known as the Status of Forces Agreement, would “end” the American military presence in his country in 2011, but “nevertheless, if Iraqi forces required further training and further support, we shall examine this at that time based on the needs of Iraq,” he said through translation in response to a question from The Washington Independent. “I am sure that the will, the prospects and the desire for such cooperation is found among both parties.”
Maliki continued, “The nature of that relationship - the functions and the amount of [U.S.] forces - will then be discussed and reexamined based on the needs” of Iraq...
More at The Washington Independent.
Continue reading "Maliki Open to Renegotiating Withdrawal Timeline" »
Police Operational Art for a Five-Dimensional Operational Space
by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus
Police Operational Art for a Five-Dimensional Operational Space (Full PDF Article)
The last fifteen years have yielded a rich literature on structural dimensions of modern-day tactics and operational art, particularly on the challenge posed by information age command and control (C2) technology, decentralized swarming, and irregular opponents. The linguistic shift of “battleground” to “battlespace” recognizes the current reality of forces operating in a multidimensional battleground against complex opponents. Similarly, many have recognized that in a rapidly urbanizing world, cities will be the main battlefields in fights between military/police units and “hybrid” opponents. “Global cities” such as New York, Tokyo, London, and Mumbai have become prime targets for terrorists, networked insurgents, and criminal organizations. Operations in global cities carry a special weight because of the strategic compression created by globalization, and pervasive communication networks—raising the significance of what would ordinarily be considered purely tactical counterterrorism operations.
In our previous pieces “Postcard from Mumbai: Modern Urban Siege” and “Preventing Another Mumbai: Building a Police Operational Art” we’ve explored the operational level of police and counterterrorism response. While military doctrine for operations is sophisticated and battle-tested, police operational doctrine has lagged behind. Counterterrorism response—situated in a complex operational space (opspace)—can now be considered as part of the operational level of maneuver, the midlevel point where strategic objectives are implemented on the theater level. Genuinely operational doctrine for this unique form of engagement is underdeveloped, consisting of an ungainly mishmash of police, military, and emergency response tactical doctrine.
Police Operational Art for a Five-Dimensional Operational Space (Full PDF Article)
Continue reading "Police Operational Art for a Five-Dimensional Operational Space" »
Combat Advisors: Longer Deployments Required
by Major Morgan Smiley
Several recent articles have cited the growing interest in accelerating the development and expansion of Afghanistan's security forces, which will directly influence the number of US forces sent there to serve as advisors and trainers.
Currently, we have increased the number of advisors by adding a 4000-man brigade to the training element already in place in Afghanistan, and I suspect this will help. But another part of this equation that we ought to consider is how long those advisors remain with their Afghan counterparts. My recommendation....combat advisors need to be on-ground for at least 18, but no more than 24, months. The longer we stay with them, the greater our chances of inculcating in our Afghan allies what we are trying to teach.
While adding more advisors helps to address the issue of expanding Afghan security forces (more advisors means more Afghan forces that can be trained), another equally important area to address is the dynamic created by those advisory teams and how it impacts the Afghans we advise, how our efforts influence their cultural mind-set. We talk of this war as the "Long War" because counterinsurgencies are traditionally lengthy affairs, often taking the better part of a decade to conduct. Despite our acknowledgement of this oft-stated point, we seem to ignore it or brush it aside in favor of our typical "more is better" and "hurry, hurry, hurry" approaches.
The current deployment schedule calls for US units to deploy for 12 months. While this may be adequate for combat units executing traditional combat missions, it is not conducive for the mission of the combat advisor...
Continue reading "Combat Advisors: Longer Deployments Required" »
Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan Requires New Thinking
By John House
Special to American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, July 23, 2009 – International forces in Afghanistan must garner popular support among residents to defeat the insurgency, the director of counterinsurgency training there said yesterday.
“This is different from conventional combat, which is terrain or enemy focused,” Army Col. John Agoglia, director of Counterinsurgency Training Center Afghanistan, said during a “DoDLive” bloggers roundtable.
“Counterinsurgency is population-focused,” Agoglia said in his update on the center’s doctrine, curriculum and methodologies. “How we operate in and amongst the population will determine the outcome more than traditional measures, like capture of terrain or attrition of the enemy.”
Making sure all involved in the war see counterinsurgency “as a mindset, and not just a training event, … and that this mindset permeates all actions they take,” is one of Agoglia’s guiding principles.
A counterinsurgency mindset that encompasses prevention of civilian casualties, fosters public trust in the government and establishes conditions for economic growth is necessary to win the war, Agoglia said...
Continue reading "COIN in Afghanistan Requires New Thinking" »
Air Force Report Envisions a Broader Use of Drones - Christopher Drew, New York Times.
Small remotely piloted planes are now used mainly to gather intelligence and fire missiles at insurgents. But over the next several decades, the Air Force envisions building larger ones that could do the work of bombers and cargo planes and even tiny ones that could spy inside a room.
In a report released Thursday laying out a “flight plan” for developing pilotless systems, the Air Force also said it could eventually field swarms of drones to attack enemy targets. And it will have to be ready to defend against the same threat, which could become another inexpensive way for insurgents to attack American forces.
Col. Eric Mathewson, who directs the Air Force task force on pilotless aerial systems, said in an interview that the service sketched its vision to encourage contractors and university researchers to help create the technologies...
More at The New York Times.
Continue reading "Air Force Report Envisions a Broader Use of Drones" »
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Earlier this month, retired Marine Colonel TX Hammes wrote an article in Armed Forces Journal regarding the drawbacks of pervasive PowerPoint use in the military. He challenged readers to compete in an essay contest at AFJ, with a selection of books as the prize.
Col. Hammes' article has gotten quite a reception throughout the blogosphere, with a few sites (Red Team Journal by Adam Elkus, Building Peace by "Reach 364", The Best Defense by Thomas Ricks) posting their own replies.
In the hopes of spurring some conversation on the topic--I'm too into the whole instant gratification thing to wait for the winner to be announced in November--I'm posting my own reply to Col. Hammes.In January 2009, a military-oriented site, “Company Command”, asked current Army commanders and platoon leaders in Iraq what they spent most of their time doing. One officer, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, answered flat-out: “Making PowerPoint slides”...
Continue reading "The TX Hammes PowerPoint Challenge (Essay Contest)" »
Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy.
Topics include:
1) The Domino Theory returns,
2) Thank you, Rafael Correa.
Continue reading "This Week at War: The Domino Theory returns" »
Avoiding Dien Bien Phu
by Captain Patrick McKinney
Avoiding Dien Bien Phu (Full PDF Article)
On 19 December 1946, armed members of the Viet Minh, a communist Vietnamese resistance group, launched countrywide attacks on French garrisons in Indochina. After more than a year and a half of delicate negotiations, limited conflicts, and the French failure to legitimize their authority, Ho Chi Minh, the Viet Minh’s leader, and General Vo Nguyen Giap, the leader of its armed forces, launched a war that would continue for another eight years until a final French defeat in 1954. More than 300,000 Viet Minh, more than 150,000 Vietnamese citizens, and more than 80,000 French soldiers were killed during the conflict. The French fought the First Indochina War as Allied forces had fought in World War II, focused on controlling terrain and killing the enemy. The Viet Minh fought a different war, focused on winning the Vietnamese people while bleeding the French forces until their withdrawal or until a final guerilla offensive.
In October 2001, American Soldiers and intelligence officers began an offensive in Afghanistan against the ruling Taliban regime and its terrorist allies, al Qaeda. Using indigenous allies, American forces were able to drive the Taliban and al Qaeda from power and into hiding in the mountainous border region with Pakistan. After this initial defeat, the Taliban regrouped and gradually begin a strategy similar to the Viet Minh, focused on the rural and mountainous villages of Afghanistan. Though American strategy was broader in scope, the military strategy remained largely enemy focused, hoping to kill or capture High Value Targets and destroy Taliban, terrorists, and insurgents when engaged. American forces constructed bases throughout the countryside to serve as staging areas for raids, interdictions, and to prevent infiltration. Some units on the ground did conduct population focused counterinsurgency, but as a whole, the military conducted an enemy focused approach.
A Warrior Fighting the Wrong War is the title of Nate Fick's Washington Post review of By His Own Rules: The Story of Donald Rumsfeld by Bradley Graham.
Book Description
A penetrating political biography of the controversial Defense Secretary, by a longtime military affairs correspondent for the Washington Post.
Once considered among the best and brightest of his generation, Donald Rumsfeld was exceptionally prepared to assume the Pentagon's top job in 2001. Yet six years later, he left office as the most controversial Defense Secretary since Robert McNamara, widely criticized for his management of the Iraq war and for his difficult relationships with Congress, administration colleagues, and military officers. Was he really the arrogant, errant, over-controlling Pentagon leader frequently portrayed--or as his supporters contend, a brilliant, hard-charging visionary caught in a whirl of polarized Washington politics, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, and bad luck?
Bradley Graham, who closely covered Rumsfeld's challenging tenure at the Pentagon, offers an insightful biography of a complex and immensely influential personality. What emerges is a layered and revealing portrait of a man whose impact on U.S. national security affairs will long out-live him.
A Warrior Fighting the Wrong War - Nathaniel Fick, Washington Post.
"The blizzard is over!" Donald Rumsfeld declared in the last of some 20,000 memos -- or "snowflakes" -- that had become a hallmark of his contentious tenure as secretary of defense. During the summer of 2003, a squall of snowflakes and counter-snowflakes blew through the offices of Rumsfeld and Gen. John Abizaid, the newly appointed head of U.S. Central Command, about the definitions of "insurgent" and "guerrilla warfare." Rumsfeld, over Abizaid's objections, resisted acknowledging the enemy in Iraq as an organized force because doing so would have suggested that the U.S. presence there was likely to be long and costly. But his denial merely delayed the inevitable, and, as in a real snowstorm, the cleanup began only after the last flake fell.
Rumsfeld is not a simple man. But the two biggest questions about his tenure at the Pentagon -- why the United States invaded Iraq, and why it so bungled the aftermath of the Hussein regime's fall -- are often answered with only the simplest of explanations: ideology and hubris.
In this meticulously researched and compelling book, veteran Washington Post reporter Bradley Graham acknowledges these contributors to the national-security travails of the Bush years, but he highlights another as well: the secretary of defense's unwavering commitment to military transformation, his vision of a leaner, more lethal Department of Defense. The early phases of the war in Afghanistan apparently vindicated this concept, while the prospect of war in Iraq promised a wider proving ground for it - but the nasty counterinsurgency campaign that followed threatened to undermine it...
More at The Washington Post.
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Our Soldiers Are Not Trained For The Wars They Are In - Cynthia Banham, Sydney Morning Herald.
Many Australians revere the military, and it occupies a sacred place in their consciousness. Soldiers put their lives on the line when we ask them to, in the name of keeping us safe. They are doing so now in Afghanistan, where an 11th soldier lost his life last weekend. But has our Defence Force become complacent about its status?
An adviser to the British and US militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dr Daniel Marston, suggests that some Australian officers have questioned, to him, whether Australia's team training and mentoring Afghan soldiers is as educated on counter-insurgency operations as it should be. His comments hint at a disconnection in the political and military establishment over the nature of the mission, and teaching of Australian soldiers who are fighting there.
Are we fighting terrorists in Afghanistan or are we fighting a counter-insurgency to protect the local population? And if we are fighting a counter-insurgency, are our soldiers properly equipped for it? In the past few months there has been a great strategic shift in the way the war is being fought. The US is now fighting a war more focused on protecting civilians, and less on hunting Taliban. Coalition forces are trying to convince Afghans that - this time round - they will not abandon them to the insurgents.
Where possible, coalition troops are being partnered with Afghan soldiers, and are working across provincial boundaries, having learnt that confining troops to certain areas (all the Canadians in Kandahar, all the British in Helmand) is inflexible and that battalions must be able to move across the country. As one Australian historian recently there observed: "Insurgents pay as little heed to the provincial borders as they do to the Pakistani frontier."
While the Americans, in short, are fighting a counter-insurgency campaign, consider what the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said about Australia's mission this week. The "underpinning reason" for being there, aside from the US alliance, was "acting against the global threat of terrorism"...
Much more at The Sydney Morning Herald. Join the discussion at Small Wars Council.
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Iran’s nuclear program is suddenly receiving a flurry of attention from top Obama administration officials. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Israel today to exchange views on the subject with Ehud Barak, his counterpart. National Security Advisor James Jones will soon arrive in Israel, presumably to discuss the same topic.
Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed a U.S. “defense umbrella” over the entire Middle East should Iran fail to cease work on its nuclear complex. Other officials in the Obama administration soon attempted to repeal Clinton’s remarks, while simultaneously implying that some kind of U.S. security umbrella has always been over the Middle East.
Just as the Truman and Eisenhower administration officials figured out at the beginning of the Cold War, a “defense umbrella” or security guarantee presents itself as a seemingly painless solution to an intractable security challenge. At first glance, issuing a promise to use military force later seems to be a more attractive choice than committing to use military force now. In the case of Iran, sanctions won’t work before Iran has nuclear weapons. And a preventive air campaign is unappealing for a variety of reasons. Thus, a U.S. security guarantee for friends in the region seems like an easy solution.
But anyone who remembers the Cold War should recall that U.S. security guarantees for Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea were not easy, cheap, or simple. A U.S. guarantee for the Middle East against Iranian aggression will be even more problematic than were America’s guarantees during the Cold War.
America’s New Nightmare - Ron Moreau, Newsweek.
Soon after 4,000 U.S. Marines flooded into Afghanistan's Helmand River Valley on July 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar called top Taliban regional commanders together for an urgent briefing. The meeting took place in southwestern Pakistan—not far from the Afghan border but safely out of the Americans' reach. Baradar told the commanders he wanted just one thing: to keep the Taliban's losses to a minimum while maximizing the cost to the enemy. Don't try to hold territory against the Americans' superior firepower by fighting them head-on, he ordered. Rely on guerrilla tactics whenever possible. Plant "flowers"—improvised explosive devices—on trails and dirt roads. Concentrate on small-unit ambushes, with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. He gave his listeners a special warning: he would hold each of them responsible for the lives of their men. "Keep your weapons on your backs and be on your motorcycles," Baradar exhorted them. "America has greater military strength, but we have greater faith and commitment."
In all likelihood, you’ve never heard of Mullah Baradar. The only Taliban leader most people know is Mullah Mohammed Omar, the unworldly, one-eyed village preacher who held the grand title amir-ul-momineen—"leader of the faithful"—when he ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Omar remains a high-value target, with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. But he hasn't been seen in at least three years, even by his most loyal followers, and rarely issues direct orders anymore. In his place, the adversary that American forces are squaring off against in Afghanistan—the man ultimately responsible for the spike in casualties that has made July the deadliest month for Coalition soldiers since the war began in 2001—is Baradar. A cunning, little-known figure, he may be more dangerous than Omar ever was...
Much more at Newsweek.
Back to Basics
By Captain David Blair, US Air Force
Originally posted at Air University's The Wright Stuff.
(Hat tip to Colonel Bob Potter for sending this along to SWJ)
“... That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” That was how it went. There was not an exception for ‘achieving childhood dreams,’ nor an exclusion for ‘as long as leadership has a coherent plan,’ nor a caveat for ‘as long as you’re still doing what you signed up for.’ After serving for the better part of a decade, perhaps I began to take my original oath somewhat for granted; perhaps I lost some of my focus on the reasons that first guided me to military service. I was comfortable, happy and proud serving as an AC-130 pilot, deploying several times a year to keep good guys safe and to take the fight to the enemy. That experience was one of the greatest privileges of my life, but it took a “needs-of-the-Air-Force” move to bring me back to the basics of duty, honor and service. I do not believe that I was alone in that mindset, nor do I believe that my story is unique. It is for exactly that reason that I believe my story may be worth the retelling.
Two years ago, in the middle of my third deployment in the right seat of an AC-130, I felt the world was more or less in order. I loved the Gunship, its mission and the community, I enjoyed the self-satisfaction that I was contributing to the fight; truly, I was living out a childhood dream of flying CAS (close air support) missions in combat as a Special Operations aviator. Like so many of my comrades, I believed in what I was doing and consequently poured my passions into learning the aircraft and the mission. I believed those efforts were finally resulting in a deep understanding of the weapon system. On the home front, I had just finished re-modeling my house, a three-year and $10K project. The West Florida housing market had already crashed, but no matter, because I was very much under the impression that I was going to be in Gunships and at Hurlburt Field for quite some time. I confidently assumed things were stable and secure… perhaps I had forgotten that the one constant in the fog and friction of warfare is that there are no constants...
Six Reasons Counterinsurgencies Lose
A Complementary Perspective
by Captain James Cahill
Six Reasons Counterinsurgencies Lose (Full PDF Article)
Dr. Donald Stoker’s article, Six Reasons Insurgencies Lose: A Contrarian View, provides a welcome paradigm shift to assist U.S. military practitioners analyze the outcome of past insurgencies, and by extension formulate strategies to defeat future insurgencies. Similar to Stoker’s argument that insurgents often fail through their own missteps, counterinsurgents can also be their own worst enemy. Therefore, the following list of reasons why counterinsurgencies lose complements Dr. Stoker’s perspective.
Q & A with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times.
You have said that in Afghanistan protecting the population is the top priority. What does that mean you stop doing?
It means we put as much of our effort as we can to establish security for the population and we stay there so those other critical parts, governance and development, can happen.
Obviously everything comes at a cost. So it means we don't have as many forces to maneuver in the country. So we have to rigorously prioritize and then some things come later.
Read the entire Q & A at The Los Angeles Times.
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
The Phoenix Program and Contemporary Counterinsurgency - William Rosenau, Austin Long, Rand Corporation.
Fresh interest in the history of counterinsurgency has focused renewed attention on the Phoenix Program, the United States' primary effort to improve intelligence coordination and operations aimed at identifying and dismantling the communist underground during the Vietnam War. Modern-day advocates of the program argue that it was devastatingly effective, but detractors condemn it as a merciless assassination campaign. Without a clearer understanding of the truth about Phoenix and its overall effectiveness, analysts risk drawing flawed conclusions about the program's applicability to contemporary conflicts.
The authors explore the Viet Cong underground (the target of Phoenix operations) and the early US and South Vietnamese operations designed to dismantle it. Tracing the provenance and evolution of the Phoenix Program from these early operations, they identify the program's three elements and assess its overall success. They conclude that the truth about Phoenix and its effectiveness lies somewhere between the extremes of today's competing claims: The program made positive contributions to counterinsurgency in South Vietnam, but its political costs to the United States were substantial. The authors note that the Phoenix Program highlights the continuing importance of intelligence coordination and anti-infrastructure operations in contemporary counterinsurgency.
Full document at Rand.
Continue reading "The Phoenix Program and Contemporary Counterinsurgency" »
Counterinsurgency Leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond
23 September 2009
National Press Club
Washington, D.C.
On 23 September 2009, the U.S. Marine Corps University and Marine Corps University Foundation will host a one-day symposium entitled Counterinsurgency Leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond. The event will take place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and registration for a limited number of seats is now open to the public. Confirmed speakers include General David Petraeus, Brigadier General (select) H.R. McMaster, Dr. Peter Mansoor, Thomas E. Ricks, Dr. Eliot Cohen, Sarah Chayes, and many other distinguished practitioners and scholars.
In addressing the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, symposium speakers will examine how leadership - indigenous and foreign - has often meant the difference between success and failure. They will identify best practices in counterinsurgency leadership and explore methods for leadership improvement. In addition, the symposium will delve into the current debate over the prioritization of counterinsurgency in the development of America’s national security organizations and strategy. While much of that debate has focused on the allocation of funding for military equipment or on international politics, this symposium will focus on the formidable leadership requirements for counterinsurgency and other future challenges.
The complete symposium agenda is available on the registration website. Because space is limited, you are encouraged to register as soon as possible.
Point of contact:
Paul Trapp
paul@nationalconference.com
Continue reading "Counterinsurgency Leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond" »
How We’ll Win in Afghanistan - Bing West, Wall Street Journal opinon.
... Strangely, our military leaders rarely talk about the battles here. They urge shooting less and drinking more cups of tea with village elders. This is the new face of war - counterinsurgency defined as nation-building, an idealistic blend of development aid and John Locke philosophy. Our generals say that the war is “80% non-kinetic.”
Although they welcome the largess provided by coalition forces, the village elders with whom our soldiers drink tea are intimidated by an enemy that prowls at night when our forces return to their bases. The Taliban is a highly mobile, amorphous force, with little popular support. But it is very willing to fight. Firefights are infrequent during the harvest seasons for poppy, corn and wheat, indicating that most local guerrillas are poor kids raised in a culture of tribal feuds, brigandage and AK rifles. The enemy leaders, more sinister and gangster-like, slip back and forth across the 1,500-mile border with Pakistan.
While our Special Operations Forces launch raids that disrupt the Taliban, our conventional soldiers carry out the less-adventurous “framework” operations—mainly presence patrols. With 80 pounds on their back, day after day they slog through the heat, dust and mud, waiting for the enemy to initiate contact.
Overall, too few of the enemy are being killed or captured to sap their morale. It’s like fighting Apaches in the 19th century. The hidden guerillas shoot from tree lines or mountainsides, making accurate return fire impossible. And we rarely bomb a compound, despite press headlines to the contrary...
Much more at The Wall Street Journal.
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Troubled Waters
by Will Rogers, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed
Troubled Waters (Full PDF Article)
The success of our military campaign in Afghanistan may rest squarely on what happens in Pakistan. And though it may not be the obvious lynchpin for America’s military strategy in Afghanistan, turning the tide there may involve the nexus of natural resources and national security in Pakistan.
Climate change is having a devastating impact on the region’s water security. Scientists project that by 2035 the Himalayan glaciers may completely disappear, taking away the water source that supports the Indus River and its tributaries, leaving millions of Pakistanis – already suffering from severe drought – parched.
Water has been an undergirding issue for Pakistan’s long-term stability. Competition over already scarce water resources has factionalized the society. Severe droughts have incited riots in its major cities like Karachi, while drought-induced grain shortages have shaped election outcomes. With Pakistan hinging on the verge of further destabilization, an irreversible water crisis that threatens the livelihoods of millions of Pakistanis may be the last straw.
Good stuff at World Politics Review. Judah Grunstein interviews Andrew Exum concerning Ex's recent time in Afghanistan.
Andrew Exum is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and author of the influential counterinsurgency blog Abu Muqawama. He just returned from a month in Afghanistan, where he took part in recently appointed U.S. and Coalition commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's 60-day review of strategy and operations. He graciously agreed to talk with WPR Managing Editor Judah Grunstein about his impressions from his trip...
The full audio file is available as a WPR podcast here.
... what makes you feel optimistic about the possibility of a successful outcome?
... the U.S. Army's officer corps has undergone a tremendously difficult but ultimately rewarding learning process over the past few years, and there is a keen understanding of the operating environment in Afghanistan. Whether or not we're going to be able to translate our operational prowess into strategic success is very much a question that is yet to be answered. But there was reason for being encouraged.
... what isolated snapshot would make you feel pessimistic about the outcome?
One word: Kandahar... Our intelligence and the way that we gather intelligence continues to be focused on the enemy....
Read the entire interview at World Politics Review.
Update:
More US Troops May Be Needed in Afghanistan, says Pentagon Advisor
By Al Pessin
Voice of America
Washington
29 July 2009
A member of the strategic assessment team working with the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says the U.S. government and its allies need to be more realistic about what is needed to win the Afghan war, and he says that may include more troops.
Senior Washington analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the United States and its allies need to take the Afghanistan war more seriously. He says they need to be honest about the security and development problems they have allowed to fester in recent years, and about the resources that will be needed to reverse the situation.
"This war has been fought without resources, but above all without realism," he said.
Cordesman is recently back from Afghanistan, where he joined other experts on a team advising the new U.S. commander, General Stanley McChrystal, on how to move forward. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Cordesman declined to speak directly about the strategic assessment team's deliberations, but he suggested he believes more U.S. troops are needed.
"If you don't provide those resources and additional brigade combat teams, if you do not, I think, effectively move the Afghan security forces toward doubling them. I think unless we're prepared to commit those resources. If we somehow believe that a civilian surge of 700 people and tailoring our force posture to the views of a completely different set of strategic priorities, this is going to win, the answer is no, it's going to lose," he said...
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
After several years of confusion and cultural resistance, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy are now laying out plans to rapidly expand and integrate unmanned systems into their doctrines, force structures, and procurement plans. These plans, especially the Air Force’s, will have significant implications for U.S. ground forces. U.S. Army and Marine Corps leaders would do well to pay attention to the Air Force and Navy’s plans for unmanned systems and to participate in the formulation of these plans to the extent they can. Getting involved will help ensure that the Air Force and Navy plans integrate effectively with ground force requirements.