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Vice Admiral John C. Harvey, Jr. took his first plunge into the blogosphere at the USNI blog where he commented:

... With respect to your comment concerning participation in the blogosphere and the upcoming milbloggers conference, let me speak pretty plainly - most of the blogs I’ve dropped in on and read on a regular basis leave me pretty cold. Too many seem to be interested in scoring cheap, and anonymous, hits vice engaging in meaningful and professional exchanges. There is also a general lack of reverence for facts and an excess of emotion that, for me, really reduces the value of the blog. Incorrect/inaccurate data and lots of hype may be entertaining for some, but just doesn’t work for me.

My best example of a truly worthwhile blog, worthy of our time and intellectual engagement, is the Small Wars Journal. The tone is always professional, the subject matter is compelling and the benefit from participating is significant.

All that said, here I am - I recognize the reality of the blogosphere and the potential that exists for worthwhile exchanges that enhance our professional knowledge and overall awareness. My intent is to continue to participate when I can and where I see I can make a contribution to a professional exchange, but my view today is that the bloggers generally see their activity as far more meaningful than I do right now. I do, however, remain hopeful...

Since then, and still finding time to drop in here for a comment or two, Admiral Harvey has been blogging at USNI and most recently, and most importantly, put up his own stake at the US Fleet Forces Command Blog.

First, thank you for your encouragement and your patience as I continue to learn the best way to run this Blog so that we can have an honest and robust dialogue...

Welcome aboard Admiral - fair winds and following seas...

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Going Tribal: Enlisting Afghanistan’s Tribes
by Dan Green

Going Tribal: Enlisting Afghanistan’s Tribes (Full PDF Article)

As United States policy-makers undertake a series of exhaustive reviews of U.S. policies in Afghanistan, they are taking a closer look at Afghan tribes as part of a new strategy for confronting increasing violence.

Much of this newfound interest stems from the very successful turnaround of Anbar Province, Iraq, where Arab tribes played a key part in changing the province from a hotbed of the Sunni Arab insurgency to a place where security has improved to the point that U.S. troops are beginning to be withdrawn.

The tribes are also receiving increased attention because the U.S. does not have enough troops available to undertake a proper counterinsurgency campaign, because of existing requirements in Iraq and the dwell time required between deployments.

But as tribes assume a more central role in our Afghanistan strategy, it is essential that we approach the challenge informed by our experiences in Iraq, not dominated by them, and that we craft a pragmatic strategy that will achieve enduring security effects for the Afghan population.

Afghanistan’s tribes must forcefully confront the insurgency and not be overwhelmed by it, while maintaining the active support of the people and reducing the tendency of the tribes to fight among themselves.

All of this must be done while building the capacity of the Afghan state without creating a parallel tribal system. Though this would seem to be an almost insurmountable challenge, it is not impossible, and to quote General David Petraeus’s view about creating security in Iraq: “Hard is not hopeless.”

Going Tribal: Enlisting Afghanistan’s Tribes (Full PDF Article)

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Bloomberg’s Pentagon reporter reports that the Pentagon’s comptroller has made an urgent request to Congress to authorize reprogramming current-year funds in order to accelerate the delivery of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), a 30,000 pound bunker-busting bomb.

Why the sudden request, apparently from CENTCOM and PACOM, to get this capability by next summer? Who prompted an update of the war plans? And why?

Continue reading "It’s a mess – hurry and get a MOP" »

Officials Identify Gulf War Pilot’s Remains
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2, 2009 – Remains found last month in Iraq’s Anbar province are those of Navy Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, who was shot down flying a combat mission in an F/A-18 Hornet on Jan. 17, 1991, and whose fate until now had been uncertain, Defense Department officials reported today.

Acting on information provided by Iraqi civilians, Marines stationed in Anbar province went to a desert location believed to be the crash site of Speicher’s jet, and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology positively identified remains recovered there Speicher’s.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Captain Speicher's family for the ultimate sacrifice he made for his country," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said. "I am also extremely grateful to all those who have worked so tirelessly over the last 18 years to bring Captain Speicher home."

The Navy’s top uniformed officer also praised the effort to determine Speicher’s fate and expressed gratitude for the fallen aviator’s sacrifice. “Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be,” said Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations. “We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Captain Speicher and his family for the sacrifice they have made for our nation and the example of strength they have set for all of us.”

In early July, an Iraqi civilian told Marines he knew two people who recalled an American jet crashing and the remains of the pilot being buried. One of those people said he was present when Bedouins found Speicher dead and buried his remains. The Iraqis led Marines to the site, and the Marines searched the area. Remains were recovered over several days during the past week and were flown to Dover Air Force Base, Del., for scientific identification by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology’s Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner.

The recovered remains include bones and skeletal fragments. Positive identification was made by comparing Speicher’s dental records with the jawbone recovered at the site. The teeth are a match, both visually and radiographically, officials said.

While dental records have confirmed the remains to be Speicher’s, officials said, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology DNA Lab in Rockville, Md., is running DNA tests on the remains and comparing them to DNA reference samples previously provided by his family. Results are expected tomorrow.

Links:

Michael Scott Speicher - Wikipedia

US Pilot's Remains Found in Iraq After 18 Years - Voice of America

After 18 Years, Remains of Pilot Shot Down in Iraq Found - Washington Post

US Pilot’s Remains Found in Iraq After 18 Years - New York Times

US Identifies Remains of Pilot Missing in Persian Gulf War - Los Angeles Times

Speicher Remains Found in Iraq, Identified - Washington Times

Sands Hid Fate of Gulf War Pilot Lost Since '91 - Associated Press

Remains of First US Gulf War Casualty Found - Reuters

Remains of First US Gulf War Casualty Solve 18 Year Mystery - Christian Science Monitor

Continue reading "Captain Michael Scott Speicher" »

Think cultural awareness is important? Most of us here do, that's fairly non-controversial. The operative issue is how at hand is how do you get more of what we (almost) all agree is needed?

Calling all testers for the Virtual Cultural Awareness Trainer. Info on the VCAT here. Opportunity to weigh in on it here: review the thread (anyone can do that) and, if interested, send a Private Messagee to SWC member Nichols (must be registered and logged in to SWC to do that) to get a crack at influencing this effort while it is still at the ground floor. The effort will be conducted outside of SWJ, we're just a conduit for connecting up folks with something to say about the subject.

Reviewers should have ~4 hours to dive in to the web-based trainer sometime in the next ~10 days..

This is an opportunity to get off the sidelines.

Continue reading "More cultural awareness a click away?" »

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Is Foggy Bottom Ready for Irregular Warfare? - Robert Haddick, The American

This decade the U.S. military, led by its mid-ranking and junior leaders, has adapted to the demands of irregular warfare. It has thus renewed centuries of American tradition. Now American statesmen must show similar powers of adaptation.

Why has the United States had so much trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan? When U.S. statesmen look at a map, they see national borders and think about their political counterparts in other nation-states. When today’s American soldiers look at a map, they see an abstract watercolor of tribal territories, which often run over political boundaries long ignored by the tribal combatants.

After years of trial and error, U.S. soldiers in the field now know how to cooperate on common goals with tribes and local leaders—the pacification of Iraq’s Anbar Province through the tribal Awakening movement is the most notable recent example of this. But the United States has encountered hostility when it has attempted to enforce a top-down nation-state model on unwilling tribes and local leaders—the growing insurgency in Afghanistan is evidence of this. In fact, traditional resistance to central national authority is what has caused the chaotic regions the United States has found itself in to be chaotic in the first place.

Top-level U.S. statesmen are loath to give up on the nation-state system, which is the foundation for so much of international law and diplomacy, and the basis by which U.S. statesmen do their work. Yet American soldiers have learned from hard experience how to succeed in the parts of the world that continue to function on a tribal basis. U.S. statesmen need to catch up in their thinking to where U.S. soldiers already are. Once they do, the United States will have an easier time achieving its national security objectives...

Much more at The American. Robert Haddick is managing editor of Small Wars Journal, writes SWJ's weekly column at Foreign Policy, and is a former U.S. Marine Corps officer.

Continue reading "Is Foggy Bottom Ready for Irregular Warfare?" »

Commentary: More troops Needed for Afghan War - Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, CNN.

CNN's Barbara Starr reported last week that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan, is expected to ask the Obama administration for additional troops and equipment for conducting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as more military resources to deal with roadside bombs and explosives.

This impending request appears to conflict with a report earlier in July by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward who wrote that on a trip to Afghanistan, James L. Jones, national security adviser, personally told US military commanders in the country that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels flat for now.

But given the relatively small size of the Afghan army and police - numbering some 170,000 men - and with the total number of US/NATO troops numbering around 100,000, McChrystal's impending request makes a great deal of military sense. While the combined forces total 270,000, classic counterinsurgency doctrine indicates that Afghanistan needs as many as 600,000 soldiers and cops to protect its population of some 30 million.

An additional reason why more boots on the ground makes military sense is the large geographic scope of the Taliban insurgency. Estimates of the number of full-time fighters generally do not go above 20,000 men. But according to our analysis of an unpublished threat assessment map provided by the Afghan National Security Forces to the United Nations in April, 40 percent of Afghanistan was either under direct Taliban control or a high-risk area for insurgent attacks...

Much more at CNN.

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See Cartoons by Cartoon by Cameron Cardow - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Pat Bagley - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

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Small Wars Journal / Small Wars Council’s Dave Dilegge, Robert Haddick and Dr. Marc Tyrrell will be attending the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Senior Leaders Conference, 18 – 20 August. All three will be live-blogging here on SWJ Blog and posting in this forum at SWC concerning issues raised and discussed by TRADOC leadership. We will entertain your questions and comments and pass those along to conference attendees. Stay tuned for more background information on the conference.

Continue reading "Warning Order: TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference " »

Pentagon Weighs Social Networking Benefits, Vulnerabilities

By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 4, 2009 – A Defense Department review is weighing the benefits of social networking and other Web 2.0 platforms against potential security vulnerabilities they create.

In a memo issued last week, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III directed a study of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in hopes of establishing a policy by October, Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters today.

“We’re addressing the challenges from a security standpoint, but also the impact and the value that they have to the department to be able to communicate in a 21st century environment,” Whitman said.

Per his deputy’s memo, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is slated to receive a report on the threats and benefits of Web 2.0 tools before the end of the month. Both Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have embraced the new technologies.

The Pentagon’s chief information officer is taking the lead on the review, which was catalyzed by concerns raised at U.S. Strategic Command, Whitman said. Stratcom is responsible for overseeing the use of the “dot-mil” network.

In the meantime, there are no department-wide orders banning the use of social networking and other Web 2.0 applications, Whitman said, adding that standard local restrictions to such sites may occur due to bandwidth or security concerns.

“But as a department, we recognize the importance of taking a look at this issue because there are legitimate security concerns,” he said.

In an interview with a blog site yesterday, Price Floyd, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, emphasized the importance of maintaining operational security, or Opsec, in an era of Web-based social networking.

“Opsec is paramount. We will have procedures in place to deal with that,” Floyd told Wired’s “Danger Room.” “The [Defense Department] is, in that sense, no different than any big company in America. What we can't do is let security concerns trump doing business. We have to do business. ... Companies in the private sector that have policies like us don't dare shut down their Web sites. They have to sell their products and ideas -- and this is how it's done.

“Opsec needs to catch up with this stuff. This is the modern equivalent of sending a letter home from the front lines,” he added. “Opsec needs to be considered on this stuff, but the more our troops do this stuff, the better off we are.”

More:

What's on the Pentagon's Mind? Facebook - Los Angeles Times
Marines Ban Facebook and MySpace, Pentagon Considers It - Wall Street Journal
Pentagon Studying Social-networking Sites - United Press International
Military is Anything but Uniform - Stars and Stripes
Southcom Embraces Two-Way Impact of Social Media - AFPS
Pentagon Social Media Czar Pushes Web 2.0, Despite Ban Threat - Danger Room
Pentagon Wrestles with Possible Twitter, Facebook Ban (Updated) - Danger Room
Marines Ban Twitter, MySpace, Facebook - Danger Room

Continue reading "Pentagon Weighs Social Networking Benefits, Vulnerabilities (Updated)" »

Organizing Counterinsurgency Operations in Afghanistan
by Colonel Donald C. Bolduc

Organizing Counterinsurgency Operations in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

The collapse of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001 led to the challenges of creating and then maintaining a stable, safe, and secure environment for the people of that nation. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) and the International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) failure to organize and establish the unity of command, unity of purpose, and unity of understanding needed to implement under an effective counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy has resulted in the ISAFs inability to assist the Afghan government to gain and maintain security, prevent a resurgence of the Taliban, and develop an effective infrastructure development plan. This paper uses key counterinsurgency principles to suggest a way to organize NATO and ISAFs political and military effort in order to succeed in Afghanistan.

NATO and ISAF can facilitate the Afghan’s efforts, but the Afghans must win the counterinsurgency war. In 2009 the Afghan government clearly does not have the capability and capacity to effectively govern and provide security, stability, and safety to the Afghan people. NATO must build this Afghan capability and capacity so NATO can relinquish the role of leading the nation-building effort and assume an advisory or supporting role to the country’s new central government. NATO has organized its current forces to conduct combat operations in Afghanistan instead of leading counterinsurgency operations in support of the Afghan government. To lead the counterinsurgency, NATO must develop a balanced COIN strategy, reorganize their COIN force, and consider relocating their bases to conduct internal defense and development (IDAD). President Karzai has informed NATO that more than anything else the Afghans need to rebuild their human capital and their institutions, their army, police force, administrative structure, and judiciary. When this comprehensive rebuilding process is successful, NATO can relinquish the role of leader and then serve as Afghan advisors and supporters.

Organizing Counterinsurgency Operations in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

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The 800-Pound Gorilla
The Interrelationship of Culture, Economics, and Security in Afghanistan
by Major Bradley Boetig

The Interrelationship of Culture, Economics, and Security in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

On October 7th, 2001 the United States military embarked on a quest to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations. Before 2001, antiterrorism efforts were generally limited to direct-action efforts against terrorist camps and interests. After 9/11, however, it was determined that the United States has both a strategic and a moral interest in a prosperous and peaceful, democratic Afghanistan. It was thought that ad-hoc efforts to disrupt terrorist operations in one area would simply lead to terrorist activity moving into other areas, and that a lasting peace could only be attained through a comprehensive effort to eliminate the conditions that allow violent, extremist ideologies to flourish. Over the past eight years the international community has made tremendous effort to bring security and economic development to Afghanistan, but it has barely lifted a finger to help modernize the culture. It’s now well understood by U.S. strategists that we’ll never have lasting security in Afghanistan without economic development, but we haven’t yet learned that there won’t be sustainable economic development without cultural change. We must recognize that culture, economics, and security represent the three legs of a stool that is Afghanistan – ignore one and it will never stand on its own.

Establishing democracy was presumed to be the solution to the Afghanistan problem. We quickly learned, however, that the Afghans are far more concerned with security and economic necessities such as food, shelter, clean water, and jobs – concerns much lower down on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. This was made astoundingly clear in 2004 when the people voted overwhelmingly for a constitution that established the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as a representative democracy, yet the breadth and strength of the Taliban has only been growing.

The Afghanistan conflict is now fully recognized as a counterinsurgency operation. Insurgencies gain the critical support they need from the population by exploiting grievances often unrelated to their cause. In rural Afghanistan, for example, the Taliban are often the only option the people have for security and jobs. Coalition forces are working furiously to counter these deficits by training the Afghan Army and Police, and by financing the building of roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and a wide variety of public works projects. This insurgent-counterinsurgent tug-of-war appears to have become a stalemated contest of wills and endurance. And unfortunately, if there’s one thing that insurgencies in Afghanistan are good at it is outlasting their foreign opponents.

The Interrelationship of Culture, Economics, and Security in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

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The War We Can’t Win: Afghanistan & the Limits of American Power - Andrew J. Bacevich, Commonweal

... What is it about Afghanistan, possessing next to nothing that the United States requires, that justifies such lavish attention? In Washington, this question goes not only unanswered but unasked. Among Democrats and Republicans alike, with few exceptions, Afghanistan’s importance is simply assumed—much the way fifty years ago otherwise intelligent people simply assumed that the United States had a vital interest in ensuring the survival of South Vietnam. As then, so today, the assumption does not stand up to even casual scrutiny.

Tune in to the Sunday talk shows or consult the op-ed pages and you might conclude otherwise. Those who profess to be in the know insist that the fight in Afghanistan is essential to keeping America safe. The events of September 11, 2001, ostensibly occurred because we ignored Afghanistan. Preventing the recurrence of those events, therefore, requires that we fix the place...

Fixing Afghanistan is not only unnecessary, it’s also likely to prove impossible. Not for nothing has the place acquired the nickname Graveyard of Empires. Of course, Americans, insistent that the dominion over which they preside does not meet the definition of empire, evince little interest in how Brits, Russians, or other foreigners have fared in attempting to impose their will on the Afghans. As General David McKiernan, until just recently the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, put it, “There’s always an inclination to relate what we’re doing with previous nations,” adding, “I think that’s a very unhealthy comparison.” McKiernan was expressing a view common among the ranks of the political and military elite: We’re Americans. We’re different. Therefore, the experience of others does not apply.

Of course, Americans like McKiernan who reject as irrelevant the experience of others might at least be willing to contemplate the experience of the United States itself. Take the case of Iraq, now bizarrely trumpeted in some quarters as a “success” and even more bizarrely seen as offering a template for how to turn Afghanistan around...

For those who, despite all this, still hanker to have a go at nation building, why start with Afghanistan? Why not first fix, say, Mexico? In terms of its importance to the United States, our southern neighbor—a major supplier of oil and drugs among other commodities deemed vital to the American way of life—outranks Afghanistan by several orders of magnitude...

Much more at Commonweal.

Continue reading "The War We Can’t Win" »

Mark Safranski has plenty of recommended reading - here - and here - at Zenpundit. (H/T)

Continue reading "Recommended Reading" »

Official Explains Process After Afghanistan Assessment
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5, 2009 – If more resources are required after the commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan completes his assessment of the situation there, a separate process would follow, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said today.

The Afghanistan review and reports about Russian submarines patrolling off the East Coast of the United States were among topics Morrell discussed at a news conference.

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s assessment will not contain any requests for resources, Morrell said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates directed McChrystal to conduct an operations assessment to ascertain what is needed to implement President Barack Obama’s new policy for Afghanistan. Gates likely will receive the report late this month or in early September, Morrell said.

The Afghanistan assessment will focus on the situation on the ground and the way ahead, Morrell said. But, he added, “it will not offer specific resource requests or recommendations.”

If the review determines that additional resources are required to complete the Afghanistan mission, requests would then go through the normal chain-of-command process, Morrell said, to be validated and forwarded to Gates. Gates then would decide whether to recommend to the president that he commit additional resources for the Afghanistan mission.

Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew to Belgium over the weekend to meet with senior U.S. commanders and NATO officials to discuss the situation in Afghanistan. The secretary was impressed after viewing a briefing detailing the progress of the Afghanistan review thus far, Morrell said.

Turning to other news, Morrell said the U.S. military was not worried about news reports that Russian submarines were traveling in international waters a few hundred miles off the U.S. eastern seaboard. The U.S. military was aware of the approach and presence of the Russian underwater vessels, he said.

“So long as they’re operating in international waters -- as, frankly, we do around the world -- and are behaving in a responsible way, they are certainly free to do so,” Morrell said, “and it doesn’t cause any alarm in this building.”

Related AFPS Articles:

Mullen Calls for Progress in Afghanistan
Commander Briefs Gates, Mullen on Strategy
Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Shares Strategy

Continue reading "The Process After the Assessment" »

Obama's Battle Against Terrorism To Go Beyond Bombs and Bullets - Spencer S. Hsu and Joby Warrick, Washington Post

The US government must fundamentally redefine the struggle against terrorism, replacing the "war on terror" with a campaign combining all facets of national power to defeat the enemy, John O. Brennan, President Obama's senior counterterrorism adviser, said Wednesday.

Previewing what aides said will be the administration's most comprehensive statement to date on its long-term strategy to defeat al-Qaeda and other violent extremists worldwide, Brennan said in an interview that the United States will maintain "unrelenting" pressure on terrorist havens, including those near the Afghan-Pakistani border, in Yemen and in Somalia.

However, Washington must couple the military strikes that have depleted al-Qaeda's middle ranks with more sustained use of economic, diplomatic and cultural levers to diminish Islamist radicalization, he said, exercising "soft power" in ways that President George W. Bush came to embrace but had trouble carrying out.

"It needs to be much more than a kinetic effort, an intelligence, law enforcement effort. It has to be much more comprehensive," said Brennan, who will address the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday. "This is not a 'war on terror.' ... We cannot let the terror prism guide how we're going to interact and be involved in different parts of the world."

More at The Washington Post.

Continue reading "Obama's Battle Against Terrorism" »

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Via TED - This demo by Pattie Maes of the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group, spearheaded by Pranav Mistry, was the buzz of TED. Sixth Sense is a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment.

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US Looks to Vietnam for Afghan Tips - Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press via Mercury News

Top US officials have reached out to a leading Vietnam war scholar to discuss the similarities of that conflict 40 years ago with American involvement in Afghanistan, where the US is seeking ways to isolate an elusive guerrilla force and win over a skeptical local population. The overture to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stanley Karnow, who opposes the Afghan war, comes as the US is evaluating its strategy there.

President Barack Obama has doubled the size of the US force to curb a burgeoning Taliban insurgency and bolster the Afghan government. He has tasked Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander, to conduct a strategic review of the fight against Taliban guerrillas and draft a detailed proposal for victory.

McChrystal and Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to the country, telephoned Karnow on July 27 in an apparent effort to apply the lessons of Vietnam to the Afghan war, which started in 2001 when US-led forces ousted the Taliban regime in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Among the concerns voiced by historians is the credibility of President Hamid Karzai's government, which is widely perceived as being plagued by graft and corruption. They draw a parallel between Afghanistan's presidential election on Aug. 20 and the failed effort in Vietnam to legitimize a military regime lacking broad popular support through an imposed presidential election in 1967...

More at Mercury News.

Also see:

SWJ's Vietnam Section in our Reference Library.

Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow

Continue reading "US Looks to Vietnam for Afghan Tips" »

White House Struggles to Gauge Afghan Success - David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, New York Times.

As the American military comes to full strength in the Afghan buildup, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with a long-promised plan to measure whether the war is being won. Those “metrics” of success, demanded by Congress and eagerly awaited by the military, are seen as crucial if the president is to convince Capitol Hill and the country that his revamped strategy is working. Without concrete signs of progress, Mr. Obama may lack the political stock - especially among Democrats and his liberal base - to make the case for continuing the military effort or enlarging the American presence.

That problem will become particularly acute if American commanders in Afghanistan seek even more troops for a mission that many of Mr. Obama’s most ardent supporters say remains ill defined and open-ended. Senior administration officials said that the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, approved a classified policy document on July 17 setting out nine broad objectives for metrics to guide the administration’s policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another month or two is still needed to flesh out the details, according to officials engaged in the work...

More at The New York Times.

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Censoring the Voice of America - Matt Armstrong, Foreign Policy.

Why is it OK to broadcast terrorist propaganda but not taxpayer-funded media reports?

Earlier this year, a community radio station in Minneapolis asked Voice of America (VOA) for permission to retransmit its news coverage on the increasingly volatile situation in Somalia. The VOA audio files it requested were freely available online without copyright or any licensing requirements. The radio station's intentions were simple enough: Producers hoped to offer an informative, Somali-language alternative to the terrorist propaganda that is streaming into Minneapolis, where the United States' largest Somali community resides. Over the last year or more, al-Shabab, an al Qaeda linked Somali militia, has successfully recruited two dozen or more Somali-Americans to return home and fight. The radio station was grasping for a remedy.

It all seemed straightforward enough until VOA turned down the request for the Somali-language programming. In the United States, airing a program produced by a U.S. public diplomacy radio or television station such as VOA is illegal. Oddly, though, airing similar programs produced by foreign governments -- or even terrorist groups -- is not. As a result, the same professional journalists, editors, and public diplomacy officers whom we trust to inform and engage the world are considered more threatening to Americans than terrorist propaganda -- like the stuff pouring into Minneapolis...

More at Foreign Policy.

Continue reading "Censoring the Voice of America" »

Our friends at the USA and USMC COIN Center have made locating recent COIN doctrine easy. FM 3-24 is even available in Dari and Arabic for those needing to work with host nation counterparts. Follow the links below for direct download or browse their Knowledge Center for additional information.

• FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (English)
• FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (Arabic)
• FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (English and Arabic)
• FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (English and Dari)
• FM 3-24.2 Tactics in Counterinsurgency
• FM 3-07 Stability Operations
• FM 3-07.1 Security Force Assistance

Continue reading "Get Your Small Wars Doctrine Fix!" »

Germany's Combat Revival - Elizabeth Pond, Christian Science Monitor opinion.

Today's Germans have not yet fully reconciled their post-Hitler conscience with the use of military force for anything beyond narrow homeland defense. But Berlin has just tiptoed over another red line, in the Hindu Kush mountains.

To be sure, Germany's recent first use of heavy weapons and tank-like vehicles in a two-week offensive against insurgents will hardly satisfy the American hope for more German combat action in southern Afghanistan. Yet the new German assertiveness does augur a certain convergence. Just as Berlin is getting drawn into easing national restrictions and letting its troops engage in American-style firefights to repulse Taliban intimidation of Afghan villagers, so is the Obama administration shifting American priorities toward German-style emphasis on local civilian development...

... Yet at heart, as the new US counterinsurgency doctrine of last December stresses, US-style war fighting and German-style development are both essential. Mobile infantry sweeps can never win the war if Afghan teenagers with no future prospects constantly replace killed insurgents. And young Afghans can never imagine a peaceful future for themselves if the Taliban are not blocked from repeatedly blowing up those new schools and bridges.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

Continue reading "The Germans: Too Timid, Too Bold, Or Just Right?" »

Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:

Topics include:

1) Gates tries to get a grip on McChrystal,

2) Shrinking Arctic sea ice will stretch a shrinking U.S. Navy

Continue reading "This Week at War: Gates's preemptive damage control" »

Déjà Vue All Over Again in Afghanistan? - Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, Weekly Standard opinion.

Throughout the debate about the "surge" in Iraq at the end of 2006 and the start of 2007, Bush administration spokesmen consistently underplayed the military requirements, and some people within the administration and the military tried to constrain the resources available to the commanders. These efforts were mistaken. They undermined support for the effort rather than building it, they distracted the commanders in the field from fighting the war to fighting for the troops they needed, and they continually put in question the administration's determination to see a very hard problem through to a successful conclusion. Is the Obama administration making similar mistakes regarding policy in Afghanistan? Judging by Wednesday's press conference with Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell, it seems that the answer might well be yes.

Morrell began oddly by downplaying the significance of the review currently being conducted by General Stanley McChrystal. (Full disclosure: we were members of the civilian team that worked from late June to late July drafting products to support that review--but this article reflects our opinions only; not necessarily General McChrystal's or the conclusions of the review itself). Morrell said, "This is not akin to the much-anticipated General Petraeus assessments that we got in 2006 [sic], 2007." He added, "The assessment will not be, despite some erroneous reporting that I've seen, a work product that includes specific resource requests, if indeed there will be additional resource requests . . . that assessment will focus . . . on the situation on the ground and the way ahead, but it will not offer specific resource requests or recommendations." ...

... Why would the Pentagon spokesman describe the commander's review process in such a dismissive and meaningless way? Why is the Pentagon spokesman talking down an assessment by that commander that is underway and incomplete but clearly marks a critical inflection point in the war? Why does the Pentagon wish to "lower expectations just a bit about what it is that's coming" out of General McChrystal's assessment? Unless, of course, the rumors are true that the administration is highly resistant to the idea of providing any additional forces that might be necessary to conduct the new strategy designed by their chosen commander to fight the war that the president said was the most important national security challenge we face...

More at The Weekly Standard.

Continue reading "Déjà Vue All Over Again in Afghanistan?" »

Going Local: The Key to Afghanistan - Seth G. Jones, Wall Street Journal opinion.

The rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan is now President Barack Obama’s war, one he pledged to win during his election campaign, promising to “reverse course” and defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda. One of the biggest problems, however, is that since late 2001, the United States has crafted its Afghanistan strategy on a fatally flawed assumption: The recipe for stability is building a strong central government capable of establishing law and order in rural areas. This notion reflects a failure to grasp the local nature of Afghan politics.

In many countries where the United States has engaged in state-building, such as Germany and Japan after World War II, US policy makers inherited a strong central government that allowed them to rebuild from the top down. Even in Iraq, Saddam Hussein amassed a powerful military and intelligence apparatus that brutally suppressed dissent from the center. But Afghanistan is different. Power has often come from the bottom up in Pashtun areas of the country, the focus of today’s insurgency.

It is striking that most Americans who try to learn lessons from Afghanistan’s recent history turn to the failed military exploits of the British or Soviet Union. Just look at the list of books that many newly deployed soldiers are urged to read, such as Lester Grau’s “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” and Mohammed Yousaf and Mark Adkin’s “The Bear Trap,” which document some of the searing battlefield lessons that contributed to the Soviet defeat. Yet, outside of some anthropologists, few people have bothered to examine Afghanistan’s stable periods. The lessons are revealing...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

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Seems like a decent thing to do around this one-horse town... It's been a hard day's night...

... and some twist and shout at Shea - 1965...

... and of course, Saturday night is alright for fighting...

... especially with one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer...

... and not to forget you Eileen... I said too-ra-loo-ra-too-ra-loo-rye-aye...

Continue reading "Open Thread for a Saturday Night... and a Few Tunes" »

Is Somalia the New Afghanistan? - Jon Swain and Michael Gillard, The Times.

... The slick video showing the last moments of a suicide bomber, entitled “Message to those who stay behind”, is part of the latest recruitment propaganda to emerge on English-language websites directed at young wannabe jihadis. Its origins were not, however, in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan, the usual bases of jihadi recruiters, but Somalia, the war-torn east African state.

The site has been traced to Al-Shabaab, a radicalised Islamist militia group led by Somalis trained in Afghanistan and aligned with Al-Qaeda. The group is fighting against Somalia’s fragile transitional government, which is backed by the West and the United Nations. It is seeking to impose sharia (Islamic law) in Somalia with brutal tactics including public beheadings. Amnesty International has condemned it for cruel punishments including sentencing robbers, without trial, to have their right hand and left foot cut off.

What concerns western security officials is that the movement has built an international recruiting network in Somali expatriate communities in the West. It has arranged for impressionable young Somali men to go to a country they scarcely know, to fight for its cause.

Now there are signs that these fighters are returning to their home countries to spread terror there...

More at The Times.

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More Troops, Fewer Caveats. Let’s Get Serious - Anthony Cordesman, The Times opinion.

In Afghanistan Nato/ISAF faces challenges that go far beyond the normal limits of counter-insurgency and military strategy. It must carry out the equivalent of armed nation building, and simultaneously defeat the Taleban and al-Qaeda. It must change its strategy and tactics after years in which member countries, particularly the United States, failed to react to the seriousness of the emerging insurgency. The nations of the alliance lacked a unity of purpose, failed to provide enough troops and placed serious national caveats and limits on their use. They let the enemy take the initiative for more than half a decade.

The result is that the Taleban have been winning the war for control of Afghanistan’s territory and population while Nato/ISAF has focused on the tactical and combat aspects. The insurgents may have lost virtually every military clash, but they have expanded their areas of influence from 30 of Afghanistan’s 364 districts in 2003 to some 160 districts by the end of 2008, while insurgent attacks increased by 60 per cent between October 2008 and April 2009 alone...

First, it must change its strategy to continue to defeat the insurgency in tactical terms, but also eliminate Taleban, Hekmatyar and Haqqani control and influence...

Second, to be effective, it must eliminate as many national caveats and restrictions on troops as possible, and add a substantial number of additional US combat brigades...

More at The Times.

Continue reading "Let’s Get Serious" »

Report Sees Recipe for Civil War in Iraq - Eli Lake, Washington Times.

A report to be published this month by the US government's prestigious National Defense University warns that the Iraqi army and police are becoming pawns of sectarian political parties - a trend that it calls "a recipe for civil war."

The report by Najim Abed al-Jabouri, a former Iraqi mayor and police chief who helped run the first successful counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq after the US invasion, also concludes that US forces have failed to use their remaining leverage as trainers to insulate the Iraqi army and police from the influence of powerful Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim and Kurdish parties.

"US efforts to rebuild the [Iraqi security forces] have focused on much needed training and equipment, but have neglected the greatest challenge facing the forces' ability to maintain security upon US withdrawal: an ISF politicized by ethno-sectarian parties," he wrote...

More at The Washington Times.

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In March President Obama stated the goal of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan: “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” “Disrupting, dismantling and defeating” al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan is a means to an end, not an end in itself, at least as it pertains to protecting the U.S. homeland. Since al Qaeda does not possess intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), al Qaeda members in “Af-Pak” who wish to attack the U.S. homeland must either get on an airplane and attempt to get onto U.S. territory or they must attempt to communicate electronically, by old-fashioned mail, or by courier with co-conspirators already inside the U.S. Since 2001, the thing that has most probably prevented al Qaeda or its affiliates from achieving another significant success inside the U.S. is The Database. When pondering how to best protect the U.S. homeland from terrorism, the first question policymakers should ask is: “What does the proposed course of action do to improve The Database?” Thus, what is the Afghan war doing, if anything, for The Database?

Continue reading "What’s the Afghan war doing for The Database?" »

Via the New America Foundation - Starting today, Foreign Policy magazine and the New America Foundation are launching The AfPak Channel, a special project taking readers inside the war for South Asia. The site features daily news reports, original features, blogging, and analysis from prominent journalists and experts from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and around the world. It's available at www.foreignpolicy.com/afpak.

As the regional crisis heats up and the U.S. administration pours additional resources into the most dangerous and complex challenge facing American foreign policy, the AfPak Channel will become a daily repository of sharp thinking, information, and debate helping shape the conversation. Regular features include: the AfPak Daily Brief, a sharp morning compendium of the most important news coverage coming out of the region, available on the site or by e-mail to your inbox and a daily blog moderated by New America senior fellow Peter Bergen, the journalist and author of The Osama Bin Laden I Know. Contributors include some of the world's leading authorities on South Asia.

With Afghan presidential elections approaching on Aug. 20, the AfPak Channel will be a go-to place for election coverage, starting with a guide to the candidates by Jean MacKenzie of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in Afghanistan. New America's extensive - and regularly updated - research presenting a portrait of the unfolding conflict will also be featured in the site's Jihadistan section. And every day on the AfPak Channel, look for original articles and blog posts from ForeignPolicy.com's acclaimed stable of writers.

Readers can sign up for RSS feeds for the site, follow the AfPak Channel on Twitter, and participate in the conversation by commenting.

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This is a one minute video that illustrates the nature of the fighting in the flatlands / villages of the '"Green Zone". This is typical of the fighting I observed day after day. We have the firepower. Body armor and gear weigh about 70 pounds per man on patrol. The Taliban gangs have the mobility and concealment. They initiate most firefights. We cannot locate their firing positions with sufficient precision to apply accurate killing fires. This is a serious operational-level issue, not a tactical hurdle. If we cannot fix and finish them, they can choose when to fight and extend the war.

Continue reading "Not a Tactical Hurdle..." »

David Wood is back in Afghanistan, this time for Politics Daily, you can read his reports from the field here. Highly recommended reading!

Continue reading "David Wood Back in Afghanistan" »

Air Force Training More Pilots for Drones Than for Manned Planes - Walter Pincus, Washington Post.

The Air Force will train more pilots to fly unmanned aerial systems from ground operations centers this year than pilots to fly fighter or bomber aircraft, Gen. Stephen R. Lorenz, the commander of Air Education and Training Command, told an audience Friday.

Lorentz's remark illustrates the major transformation occurring within that service. In a Pentagon session last month, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Will Fraser told reporters that the unmanned systems are "delivering game-changing capabilities today, and ones that I'm confident will continue to be invaluable in the future."

At that July 23 briefing, Air Force officers spelled out the growth of what they call the "ISR [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] transformation" of their service...

More at The Washington Post.

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ICRC Calls for Greater Compliance with Geneva Conventions

By Lisa Schlein
Voice of America

The International Committee of the Red Cross is calling for greater compliance with the rules of war by states and armed groups around the world. As the ICRC marks the 60th anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions on August 12, the Swiss humanitarian agency warns that many of the laws enacted in 1949 to protect civilians and other vulnerable people caught in war are not being respected. The Conventions set out rules governing the conduct of international wars. But since 1949, these wars have increasingly given way to civil conflicts and few of the rules in the Conventions apply to them.

International Committee of the Red Cross President Jakob Kellenberger, says the Geneva Conventions are still relevant. But he agrees that far too many of the laws of war are being violated.

Although Kellenberger says Red Cross delegates in the field regularly witness violations ranging from the mass displacement of civilians to indiscriminate attacks and ill treatment of civilians, he notes it is not the norm...

Continue reading "ICRC Calls for Greater Compliance with Geneva Conventions" »

Okay, everyone who’s anyone - and many who think they’re someone – inside and outside the beltway - has chimed in - did I miss anyone? Speak now or forever hold your peace.

The Afghanistan affair is quite complicated; we know that, we also can study it to death and comment until the cows come home.

How about a novel approach at this particular point in time - give the Commander in Chief, the National Command Authority, State... and most importantly, the Commanding General and his staff in Afghanistan some efing breathing room to sort this out? The guys on the ground - get it?

How much is too much?

For the all the hype about the benefits of instantaneous global communications and Web 2.0 - of which we most certainly are a part - we’ve never really examined the tipping point - the place where we become part of the problem, rather than the solution.

My two cents - and while it may come across as way, way too simplistic to many of the 2K-pound brainiacs I run into around town - you can take it to the bank that a general backing off of the noise level would be most beneficial right now.

Thoughts?

Update: A reader e-mailed that not everyone will get my reference to General Jack Keane and suggested ...just like Jack Keane became the insider for President Bush with the answer to Iraq in 2007 now everybody who is anybody today with regard to Astan want to play the role of a Jack Keane.

Continue reading "Back Off Jack Keane Wannabees" »

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Taking inspiration from Dave’s “Back Off” post, I was disturbed to read this Huffington Post commentary highlighted at the always readable Abu Muqawama. The assessment comes from a human rights researcher in Kabul asserting the Taliban effectively control Kandahar outside the gates of our bases. It would be presumptuous to rule on the accuracy of the claim, but the assessment (echoed elsewhere) sparks an interesting set of questions about our potential courses of action in Afghanistan.

Noted classical counterinsurgency author and Vietnam War veteran Jack McCuen argued in his excellent book The Art of Counter-Revolutionary War that chasing guerrillas around the countryside while leaving the critical provincial and national population centers uncovered played into the hands of the insurgent. McCuen argued allowing the insurgent to establish networks, shadow governments, recruitment cells, and support networks in the cities created a far greater risk than the loss of rural hamlets. Motivated by McCuen’s book and some other reads, I suggested consideration of a city based approach in a Small Wars Council thread about a year ago. COIN savant David Kilcullen suggested the same strategy in a New Yorker interview not long thereafter. Kilcullen articulated the problem far better than I:

“Meanwhile, the population in major towns and villages is vulnerable because we are off elsewhere chasing the enemy main-force guerrillas, allowing terrorist and insurgent cells based in the populated areas to intimidate people where they live. As an example, eighty per cent of people in the southern half of Afghanistan live in one of two places: Kandahar city, or Lashkar Gah city. If we were to focus on living amongst these people and protecting them, on an intimate basis 24/7, just in those two areas, we would not need markedly more ground troops than we have now (in fact, we could probably do it with current force levels). We could use Afghan National Army and police, with mentors and support from us, as well as Special Forces teams, to secure the other major population centers. That, rather than chasing the enemy, is the key.”

Although some have disputed his eighty percent figure, the question remains – should the bulk of our forces conducting “clear, hold, build” efforts be spread among outposts in the Korengal Valley and Helmand province, or focused on securing the cities while conducting precision raids on the outside?

The disruption of security in the capital and major cities is a major information narrative victory for those who oppose the government. After all, if a government cannot secure its own provincial capitals and government officials, can it reasonably be expected to gain the allegiance and confidence of its citizens? We saw a major confidence setback in the infamous daylight Kandahar prison break last year, which shook the confidence of the entire nation. The Taliban have increasingly mounted multiple suicide attacks in the major cities to undermine confidence in the government. When combined with the rampant corruption alleged in Kandahar, is it any wonder the Taliban are gaining ground?

On the flip side, one can argue that a defensive orientation doesn’t win wars. Such a discussion is beyond this blog post, but I was impressed with the statement from Lieutenant Colonel Chris Cavoli in Chapter 2 of the Accidental Guerrilla that “defensive” COIN operations were the best way of seizing the initiative from the enemy. (p. 96) Would we better off with a “cities first” COIN strategy, or does the rural character of Afghanistan demand our main effort focus in the rural areas? Sound off in the comments or at the Council.

Image credit and background - U.S. Army Sgt. Robert Newman, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army Europe, watches the sunrise after a dismounted patrol mission near Forward Operating Base Baylough, Zabul, Afghanistan, March 19, 2009. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Adam Mancini/Released)

Continue reading "Secure the cities first?" »

In the past two months, the United States and India have had encounters with North Korean cargo ships suspected of transporting missile or WMD components banned by UN Security Council resolutions. In one of these encounters, the suspect North Korean vessel was allowed to wander through the ocean for weeks until it reversed course and returned home. In the second case, a coast guard ship chased and seized the North Korean vessel and brought it into port, whereupon the crew was detained for interrogation and the vessel thoroughly inspected.

Continue reading "India shows the U.S. how to inspect a ship" »

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Torture at The Library of Congress

By Morris Davis

Lynndie England will discuss her biography Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs That Shocked the World at the Library of Congress Veterans Forum on Friday August 14 at noon in room 139 on the first floor of the James Madison building.

She is a convicted criminal who was dishonorably discharged, but she’s out of prison and on stage at the Library of Congress. You may recall many of the memorable pictures of the glowing Private England during her tour in Iraq, including the one of her standing next to an Iraqi prisoner, a cigarette dangling from her lip, as she points at the Iraqi prisoner’s genitals as he stands there naked with a sack over his head as he’s forced to masturbate in the presence of GI England and several other nude men. It sure looked like she was enjoying some good times in the picture, so maybe she’ll give more behind the scenes details during her lecture on Friday as she expounds on how she’s a victim who is deprived of veteran’s benefits because of her dishonorable discharge. As she said in an interview published in the West Virginia Metro News on Monday: “Yeah, I was in some pictures, but that’s all it was … I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” That has to be comforting to those who died because of the wave of anger her snapshots ignited in the Middle East, like the family of Nick Berg who was slaughtered in front of a video camera in retaliation for Abu Ghraib, according to his murderers. America as a whole still pays the price for Private England’s “wrong place – wrong time” misadventure, but that won’t stop the Library of Congress from opening its doors and handing her the mike.

The event is sponsored by the Library of Congress Professional Association’s Veterans Forum and its leader LOC employee and Vietnam Veteran Bob Moore. Veteran Moore has weathered a wave of criticism in recent days, but he remains steadfast in his hatred for Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and his admiration for Lynndie England’s “guts.”

I am a Library of Congress employee and a veteran.* I retired with an honorable discharge after serving for 25 years in the Air Force. I was the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay for more than two years and I resigned in 2007 in large part because I believe waterboarding is torture and my superiors, Tom Hartmann and Jim Haynes, did not. I believe my views on torture have been clearly expressed, so it should come as no surprised that I am more than a little disappointed that the library that belongs to the United States Congress is hosting one of the most infamous torturers in modern time so she can promote her book. I’m even more disappointed that the event is sponsored by a veterans group. Perhaps I should start a rival group within the LOC called Veterans with Values and our motto will be “we don’t honor the dishonorable.” It doesn’t appear that we’d overlap in any way with Mr. Moore’s group.

Thousands and thousands of honorable men and women have and are serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. They don’t get book deals and invited to lecture at the Library of Congress. Most of them would be happy with a thank you and a chance at an education or a decent job when the mission is over. It’s a disgrace that the dishonorable profit and that we use government property and resources to glorify the gutless. If you attend the lecture on Friday, don’t save me a seat.

-- Moe Davis

*The views expressed herein are my personal views published in my personal capacity.

Continue reading "Torture at The Library of Congress" »

The latest edition of Outside The Beltway Blog Talk Radio program, hosted by James Joyner, can be heard here.

James Joiner and Dave Schuler were joined by special guest Dave Dilegge of Small Wars Journal to talk about the renewed debate on Afghanistan. See “Afghanistan Debate Intensifies,” “Back Off Jack Keane Wannabees,” and “What Are Our Strategic Objectives in Afghanistan?” for background.

Continue reading "Dilegge on OTB Radio" »

Bil Janoob: Multi-National Division-South Security Force Assistance
By Brigadier General Jeff Buchanan & Major Todd Clark

Read the Full Article as a PDF.

Task Force Mountain assumed responsibility for Coalition Forces (CF) in Multi-National Division-Center in June, 2008. Upon the completion of its tour, the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) – now as Multi-National Division-South – oversaw nine provinces encompassing the entire southern portion of Iraq. Within these provinces, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) included nine Provincial Directorates of Police (PDoP) of the Iraqi Police Service (IPS), three Iraqi Army (IA) divisions, three National Police (NP) brigades, and three regional Directorates of Border Enforcement along both the Saudi Arabian and Iranian borders.

Through this collection of observations regarding teaching / coaching / mentoring the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), we intend to provide a holistic view of ISF professionalization endeavors in MND-S. We do not focus on a specific ISF component, but rather generalize to cover the IA, the NP, the IPS, and the Department of Border Enforcement.

Coalition Forces (CF) operations in the sovereign Republic of Iraq changed significantly with the implementation of the Security Agreement. The primacy of CF for both operations and national decision making yielded to elected Iraqi officials and ISF leaders regarding both political and operational decisions. The significant transformation from having CF “in the lead” with a token attempt to “put an Iraqi face” on operations has developed into fully Iraqi-led and inspired endeavors. In effect, CF now serve in a “supporting” instead of “supported” role.

The change to the operational environment required aggressive endeavors by CF leaders to set the conditions for Iraqi partners’ success. This does not mean that the CF must acquiesce to every Iraqi concept. It does require that the CF both understands and appreciates the nuances of the Iraq operational environment. The key to assisting the goals of the Republic of Iraq – particularly the ISF – lies in developing influence with ISF partners.

We believe that the key operational demand in Iraq is developing cultural intelligence within CF partnership units. Cultural intelligence is a broad term that denotes gaining the ability to work in different cultures with a minimum of friction. The friction – often caused by cultural ignorance – threatens both relationships and force protection. This is primarily because the two are largely intertwined. BCTs may improve their capabilities by developing intellectual capacities, honing social skills, and through regular exposure to the local populace and environment. In addition, it is critical to understand the limitations of western culture. Many “best practices” are counter to the “American Way.” It is important to be cognizant of such things as pride and vanity – and the different views of these traits in differing societies.

Read the Full Article as a PDF.

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New Army Handbook Teaches Afghanistan Lessons - Thom Shanker, New York Times.

More than a year has passed since an Afghan police commander turned on coalition forces and helped insurgents carry out a surprise attack that killed nine Americans, wounded more than 30 United States and Afghan troops and nearly resulted in the loss of an allied outpost in one of the deadliest engagements of the war. Within days of the attack, Army historians and tactical analysts arrived in eastern Afghanistan to review the debacle near Wanat, interviewing soldiers who survived the intense battle, in which outnumbered Americans exchanged gunfire for more than four hours with insurgents, often at distances closer than 50 feet.

Now, that effort to harvest lessons from the firefight of July 13, 2008, has contributed to a new battlefield manual that will be delivered over coming days to Army units joining the fight in Afghanistan with the troop increase ordered by President Obama. The handbook, “Small-Unit Operations in Afghanistan,” strikes a tone of respect for the Taliban and other insurgent groups, which are acknowledged to be extremely experienced fighters; even more, American soldiers are warned that the insurgents rapidly adapt to shifts in tactics...

More at The New York Times.

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Inception and Early Evolution of a Partnership Doctrine
Building Afghan Army Capacity While Fighting a Counterinsurgency
by Lieutenant Colonel Edward C. Ledford

Building Afghan Army Capacity (Full PDF Article)

During a 20 June 2007 press conference in Afghanistan, 82d Airborne Division’s Colonel Marty Schweitzer described the approach to which he and the Soldiers of his 4th Brigade Combat Team had committed themselves during their rotation in the war-weary nation: “The 4th Brigade of the 82d is a subordinate formation to Colonel [sic] Khaliq and the 203rd Corps … [Khaliq] developed this plan that we're currently executing.”

Schweitzer added, “We’ve been fortunate . . . to be partnered with General Khaliq.” Incidentally, General Khaliq sits to Colonel Schweitzer’s left - in fact leading the press conference.

That press conference was over two years ago, so it was bitter irony to read Joe Giordono’s Stars and Stripes article in February titled Afghans Will Help Plan, Execute Joint Missions. For fifteen months, from about January 2007 to April 2008, Soldiers of the 82d Airborne had set aside stereotypes, preconceptions, pride, fear and their more conventional and familiar tactics, techniques, and procedures in order to grow a significant and productive degree of trust between our Soldiers and the troopers in the Afghan National Army. They planned missions together, briefed missions together and executed missions together – that was partnering. The idea Giordono’s article headlines as a novelty or innovation was really old news…

That is, it should have been old news. At that point, we should have been well beyond thinking that Afghans will help our efforts; at that point, every coalition leader in Afghanistan should have understood that the Afghans must do much more than help.

The perspective we must adopt if we are ever to move forward is that we are there to help and support the Afghans succeed, and partnership is a big part of what will be that success. But we must understand what effective, embedded partnership means, and we must take it to its logical conclusion to achieve the greatest effects.

Building Afghan Army Capacity (Full PDF Article)

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I first want to thank you for the opportunity to discuss the important issues facing us and to gain your perspectives and insights on the critical task of adapting our institution to more effectively support the nation’s national security interests. I view Small Wars Journal as an important gathering place for strategic thought, and I appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with some of the most thoughtful minds in our country.

The upcoming TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference (TSLC) in Gettysburg comes at an important time for Training and Doctrine Command and for our Army. We continue to transform TRADOC while simultaneously supporting transitions in both OIF and OEF. Let me offer some thoughts and considerations as we put our shoulders behind these challenges and opportunities over the next 2 years.

If our experience over the last eight years has taught us anything, it’s that war and conflict will continue to increase in complexity. We know that conflict will be waged among the population and for influence on the population, and we know our leaders and their soldiers will operate among a diverse set of actors along blurred military, political, economic, religious and ethnic lines with the potential for escalation and spillover in a variety of unpredictable ways.

Hybrid threats--combinations of regular military forces and irregular threats often in collaboration with criminal and terrorist elements--will migrate among operational themes to seek advantage. The operating environment will become more competitive as our adversaries decentralize, network, and gain technological capabilities formerly found only in the hands of nation states.

The challenge confronting us is building balance and versatility into the force by developing our leaders, by designing our organizations, and by adapting the institution. The outcomes we seek are flexibility and resilience to hedge against future uncertainty. Three imperatives are guiding our efforts to align the operational and institutional Army to meet demands and support the Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) model:

• Develop our military and civilian leaders
• Provide trained and ready forces to support current operations
• Integrate current and emerging capabilities

These imperatives will remain in tension for the foreseeable future, but there are things we can do to bring them into better balance. The TRADOC Campaign Plan (TCP) describes how we’ll achieve balance across our priority lines of operation: Human Capital, Initial Military Training, Leader Development, and Capabilities Integration.

The focus of our discussions during the TSLC will be on the TRADOC Campaign Plan (TCP). We will also examine how TRADOC’s TCP aligns with and complements the Human Capital Enterprise. We'll demonstrate how the Central Training Database will become the “Training Brain” for TRADOC and provide us the opportunity to enhance training in the institutional schoolhouse.

As you may know, we've asked ourselves how we can replicate the complexity our leaders experience while they are deployed, and we will discuss some emerging opportunities to do just that. I'd like this to generate discussion about how TRADOC can lead innovation in training and education to account for the speed of change in the contemporary operating environment.

I look forward in the coming weeks to a lively, thoughtful discussion with the Small Wars Journal community.

-----

SWJ Editors' note - We will be live blogging from the TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference next week. A discussion forum has been set up at the Small Wars Council. Please feel free to post your questions, thoughts and opinions - engage!

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Welcome to our world Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D. - We at SWJ and those on our left side-bar (blog roll) wish you the best of luck. We'll be watching you;-)

Here's Loren's "beach-side" e-mail press release:

Greetings from New England. Yes, I too am at the beach. But I'm still working, and the purpose of this brief is to tell you about a new project that the Lexington Institute has launched while you were away. It is a defense blog. Yes, yes, I know -- there are already hundreds of defense blogs, and many of them are pretty awful. But that's why we launched our own blog on the Lexington homepage, called Early Warning. It isn't awful. In fact, I'm betting that if you read a few entries, at some point you'll say -- "Gee, I didn't know that."

We all recognize what the main problem is with blogs. The barriers to entry are so low that almost anyone with a laptop can start one, and it's hard to sort out the good ones from tendentious nonsense. For every interesting, competent effort like DoD Buzz, there are dozens of ill-mannered rants masquerading as insight. To say that blogs have lowered the standards of public discourse on policy matters is an under-statement -- there are no standards. Anybody can say anything, with extra points for verbosity.

We are trying a different approach. First, we intend to keep our postings brief. It will be a rare day indeed that a posting on Early Warning runs as long as this brief, and the typical posting will run to two or three paragraphs. Second, we plan to be long on facts -- especially little known, useful facts -- and short on opinions. I mean really, why should you care what I think about the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle or V-22 tiltrotor unless I have inside information to impart? And third, we intend to write about national security in a somewhat more expansive manner than most military analysts. We will frequently look beyond the realm of strategy and tactics, to dissect economic trends, political developments and technology breakthroughs that have a material bearing on national security.

Obviously, we do not expect this vision of a world-class web-log to spring spontaneously from the collective consciousness of the Lexington braintrust onto the Internet. It will take some time to get the blog right, including all the material that surrounds it at www.lexingtoninstitute.org. The blog has actually been up and running for over two weeks, and we are still tweaking features such as how the postings display and are written. But we think we're off to a good start, and are already getting indications that people in the defense community have noticed.

We want Early Warning to be an island of sanity in the chaos of the Worldwide Web. With so many traditional news outlets declining and no new hierarchy of credible sources yet emerged, we'd like to offer a site that is both sensible and engaging. We will never match the resources of the New York Times or the reach of the Associated Press. But we hope that when you read something on the Lexington blog and say, "Gee, I didn't know that," it will be because the information is new and not because it is wrong.

Update:

Defense Industry Consultant Launches Blog, Insults Bloggers - War is Boring

Phib, why did you start blogg'n? - CDR Salamander

Who died and made you king? - USNI Blog

Early Warning—The Pretend Blog - ELP Defense Blog

Continue reading "Lexington Institute is the New Sheriff in Town?" »

US Boots On Congo Ground - Michael O'Hanlon, Washington Post opinion.

... Yet how can the US military, so overstretched in strategically crucial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, spare any troops for this type of primarily humanitarian venture? The dilemma is similar to that faced in recent years in Darfur, where we wanted to do something but did not have the forces.

Admittedly, there may not be a solution tomorrow. But by tapping into President Obama's call for a new spirit of volunteerism and national service, there may be a way to make a difference sometime in 2010. The idea involves a new type of military unit that the Pentagon should propose during its ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review.

For crises like those in Congo and Darfur, the United States should consider a radical innovation in recruiting policy. We should create a peace operations division in the Army with individuals enlisting specifically for this purpose. There would be risks in such a venture, to be sure. But they are manageable and tolerable risks, especially since most such deployments would be legitimated by the United Nations, carried out with partners such as key allies, and backstopped by the US armed forces in worst-case scenarios...

More at The Washington Post.

Continue reading "US Boots On Congo Ground" »

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

Continue reading "14 August SWJ Roundup" »

A very good read by Mark Safranski at Zenpundit - On Afghanistan and Strategy.

Continue reading "On Afghanistan and Strategy" »

Social Media Allows the Public to Participate in TRADOC Senior Leader Talks - Stand-To!

What is it?

During the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) semi-annual Senior Leaders Conference (TSLC) TRADOC leaders discuss emerging issues and chart the way ahead. Now for the first time, TRADOC will make the conference transparent and seek public interaction by allowing anyone to follow the conversation, contribute comments and ask questions via a Small Wars Journal (SWJ) discussion board. At the August 18 to 20 conference, two editors and a moderator from SWJ will blog live, providing readers observations and ongoing commentary about the proceedings.

What has the Army done?

TRADOC conducts these conferences to facilitate seminal discussion among senior Army leaders, but now you don't have to be general officer to get a front-row seat. The inclusion of social media in this year's TSLC provides a near real-time interactive public dialogue that offers an opportunity for the outside community to understand and even participate in the conversation by reading and writing on the SWJ discussion board. Also, TRADOC Public Affairs will guide followers through the many planned conference events using Twitter, Facebook, blog posts via TRADOC Live, and web updates.

The "Next Battles" conference theme emphasizes the future as our Army returns to a 1:2 BOG/DWELL (Boots on the Ground dwell time in unit rotations out of theater to home-station). This TSLC will address institutional adaptation; synchronizing and aligning the TRADOC Campaign Plan (TCP), merging the TCP with the Army Enterprise effort, and replicating the complexities of combat in Army training.

What continued efforts does the Army have planned for the future?

TRADOC envisions far more interaction between everyday people and senior Army leaders; and social networking tools make this possible. Public feedback from this TSLC will help drive the discussion forward and shape future TSLC events that will include more military bloggers, an expansion of TRADOC Live active-duty contributors, and a Facebook fan page devoted to TSLC issues. Soon, the Army will implement a new social networking policy, formally opening the door to even greater transparency and interaction between the Army and the public.

Why is this important to the Army?

The participation and interaction with the social media community allows the Army and TRADOC the opportunity to tell its story in a transparent, thoughtful manner, while offering the public community a stake in the future of their Army.

Resources:

Training and Doctrine Command Web site

Small Wars Journal discussion board

TRADOC Live

Continue reading "Social Media Allows the Public to Participate in TRADOC Senior Leader Talks" »

Via e-mail from our long time and dear friend Jack Holt, now we know what he has been up to during his long silence;-)

The Department of Defense (DoD) Web 2.0 Guidance Forum is a new initiative to solicit input from the public that has been undertaken in the spirit of President Obama’s Open Government Directive. President Obama issued a memorandum on 21 January 2009 entitled, “Transparency and Open Government,” which emphasized the need to ensure public trust and to establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. We are using this blog as an approach to engage the public in Department of Defense (DoD) considerations of web 2.0 capabilities, and are excited to participate in this new facet to the President’s openness and transparency efforts.

The blog posts will be written by a number of different DoD participants. The primary moderators will be Noel Dickover, a contractor supporting the DoD CIO, and Jack Holt, Senior Strategist for Emerging Media. In some cases, we may post blog entries for other participants. This will be annotated by the author’s name listed at the bottom of the blog post.

Continue reading "DoD Web 2.0 Guidance Forum" »

Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:

Topics include:

1) Drones are taking over the Air Force,

2) Maybe the state is the problem, not the solution.

Continue reading "This Week at War: The Drones Take Over" »

As reported by the Associated Press. I really should respond - but why bother - or should I?

A lecture by the woman who became the public face of the Abu Ghraib scandal was canceled Friday at the Library of Congress after threats caused concerns about staff safety...

David Moore, a Vietnam War veteran and German acquisitions specialist at the library who organized the event, said he had received several e-mails threatening violence and that he shared them with police and the library's inspector general...

He said he was disappointed by the cancellation but supports the decision because of safety concerns. "We can't have an event here that's going to develop into a brawl like a town hall meeting," he said.

He added, "Free speech in America is pretty well dead."

He blamed an essay decrying the event [link added] on the Small Wars Journal blog for stirring up much of the opposition. The site focuses on war politics and strategy...

Nah, he said it all and opened himself up to severe criticism by those better versed than I. Moore is quoted as saying - "I'm just fed up" - welcome to the club Mr. Moore - you are in select company.

He never contacted us - nor did any officials concerning the so-called threats - and obviously he has some sort of agenda. Might as well preach to a wall than try to reason with the unreasonable - you can quote me here - I'm just fed up.

Continue reading "Lynndie England DC lecture canceled after threats..." »

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

Continue reading "15 August SWJ Roundup" »

Lynddie England and Free Speech

Originally posted at In Harmonium

Yesterday, Friday August 14th, was to have seen a talk given by Lynndie England at the Library of Congress on her new biography Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs That Shocked the World. The talk, however, sparked a very strong reaction from Morris Davis, a veteran and employee of the Library of Congress that was posted at the SWJ Blog here.

The post itself is in the genre of “Shocked and Appalled” style, letter to the Editor. Davis notes that:

Continue reading "Lynndie England and Free Speech" »

I came back from my latest month in the field in Afghanistan disquieted about our basic military mission. Is the military mission to engage, push back and dismantle the Talbian networks, with population protection being a tactic to gain tips and local militia, or is the military mission to build a nation by US soldiers protecting the widespread population, with engagements against the Taliban as a byproduct?

It appears our strategy is nation-building, with fighting and dismantling of the Taliban a secondary consideration. Thus, the number of enemy killed will not be counted, let alone used as a metric. This non-kinetic theory of counterinsurgency has persuaded the liberal community in America to support or at least not to vociferously oppose the war. But we have to maintain a balance between messages that gain domestic support and messages that direct battlefield operations...

Continue reading "Tactics or Strategy?" »

GI Jane Breaks the Combat Barrier as War Evolves - Lizette Alvarez, New York Times.

... Before 2001, America’s military women had rarely seen ground combat. Their jobs kept them mostly away from enemy lines, as military policy dictates.

But the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, often fought in marketplaces and alleyways, have changed that. In both countries, women have repeatedly proved their mettle in combat. The number of high-ranking women and women who command all-male units has climbed considerably along with their status in the military.

“Iraq has advanced the cause of full integration for women in the Army by leaps and bounds,” said Peter R. Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as executive officer to Gen. David H. Petraeus while he was the top American commander in Iraq. “They have earned the confidence and respect of male colleagues.”

Their success, widely known in the military, remains largely hidden from public view. In part, this is because their most challenging work is often the result of a quiet circumvention of military policy....

More at The New York Times.

Continue reading "GI Jane Breaks the Combat Barrier as War Evolves" »

US Plans a Mission Against Taliban’s Propaganda - Thom Shanker, New York Times.

The Obama administration is establishing a new unit within the State Department for countering militant propaganda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, engaging more fully than ever in a war of words and ideas that it acknowledges the United States has been losing.

Proposals are being considered to give the team up to $150 million a year to spend on local FM radio stations, to counter illegal militant broadcasting, and on expanded cellphone service across Afghanistan and Pakistan. The project would step up the training of local journalists and help produce audio and video programming, as well as pamphlets, posters and CDs denigrating militants and their messages.

Senior officials say they consider the counterpropaganda mission to be vital to the war...

More at The New York Times.

Continue reading "US Plans a Mission Against Taliban’s Propaganda" »

Why We Need More Troops in Afghanistan - Frederick W. Kagan, Washington Post opinion.

... I recently returned from second trip to Afghanistan. Having studied the demographics and potential effects of a surge in Iraq as well as here, I think those who resist sending more troops must answer a question: Why would counterinsurgency in Afghanistan be easier? It seems pretty hard. Afghanistan is significantly larger and more populous than Iraq, for example. Its compartmentalized terrain hinders the movement of forces and resources. The fragmented nature of Afghan society keeps "ink spots" of security success from spreading. The enemy's attacks are not as spectacular as they were in Iraq, but its operations are sophisticated and effective.

US Army doctrine calls for one counterinsurgent for every 50 people. The Afghan insurgency is confined to the Pashtun and some mixed areas of the country - perhaps 16 million people requiring about 320,000 counterinsurgent troops. US, international and Afghan forces will total around 275,000 by the end of this year, or roughly 45,000 below the doctrinal norm. In reality, most of the Afghan police are ineffective at best, and several thousand coalition forces are legally prevented from fighting. The actual gap between the forces we have in Afghanistan and what doctrine recommends is significantly higher...

More at The Washington Post.

How Many Troops for Afghanistan? - Washington Post opinions. Ed Rogers, Scott Keeter, Dennis Kucinich, Meghan O'Sullivan and Andrew Natsios debate the politics of sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Continue reading "More Troops in Afghanistan?" »

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

Continue reading "16 August SWJ Roundup" »

The Land of 10,000 Wars - Ganesh Sitaraman, New York Times opinion.

As General Stanley McChrystal’s 60-day strategic assessment is wrapping up, he poised to recommend a new approach for Afghanistan, one grounded in counterinsurgency’s strategy of protecting the population.

This is an important step, but for the new strategy to succeed, it must recognize that there isn’t just one Afghan war - there are thousands of Afghan wars, each differing in motivations, organization, regional strength and possibilities for resolution...

The challenge for General McChrystal is creating a comprehensive and integrated strategy for Afghanistan out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of peoples, identities, and conflicts in the country...

More at The New York Times.

Continue reading "The Land of 10,000 Wars" »

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

Continue reading "17 August SWJ Roundup" »

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Deconstruction of Information Operations
by Colonel Randolph Rosin

The Deconstruction of Information Operations (Full PDF Article)

With the publishing of FM 3-0 in February 2008, the Army ushered in a new information doctrine. Based on the premise of an operational environment of increasing informational complexity, the Army made the determination that the current concept of information operations (IO) was too limiting in scope and necessitated a paradigm shift. The problem set, as defined by the Combined Arms Center (CAC), was “an inadequate capability to communicate effectively and coherently;” “no single cyber/cyberspace theory;” and “a perception that IO has somehow failed to deliver the goods.”

To address this problem set, CAC created a conceptual framework based on five information tasks consisting of information engagement (IE), Command and Control Warfare (C2W), information protection, Operations Security (OPSEC) and military deception (MILDEC). IE is intended to address the first problem of an inadequate capability to communicate effectively and coherently while C2W and information protection intend to address the cyber/cyberspace issue. Organized along functional lines, former IO capabilities disaggregate and reapportion to different staff sections. Consisting of a blend of public affairs, Functional Area (FA) 30 and PSYOP personnel, IE is the staff responsibility of the G7. Electronic warfare (EW) and computer network operations (CNO) form the C2W cell under the fires support coordinator (FSCOORD). Information protection, formerly information assurance, remains with the G6; OPSEC belongs to G3 Protect, and MILDEC, to G3 plans. Effectively, the new Army doctrine deconstructs the IO concept.

In deconstructing IO, the Army is pursuing an independent path that diverges significantly from the rest of the Department of Defense (DoD) and, in so doing, begs the question whether or not it is heading down the right path. Because the information domain cuts across traditional military distinctions of land, air and sea domains, a common joint understanding of concepts becomes an imperative to ensure unity of effort.

The Deconstruction of Information Operations (Full PDF Article)

Continue reading "The Deconstruction of Information Operations" »

Social Media Allows the Public to Participate in TRADOC Senior Leader Talks - Stand-To!

What is it?

During the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) semi-annual Senior Leaders Conference (TSLC) TRADOC leaders discuss emerging issues and chart the way ahead. Now for the first time, TRADOC will make the conference transparent and seek public interaction by allowing anyone to follow the conversation, contribute comments and ask questions via a Small Wars Journal (SWJ) discussion board. At the August 18 to 20 conference, two editors and a moderator from SWJ will blog live, providing readers observations and ongoing commentary about the proceedings.

What has the Army done?

TRADOC conducts these conferences to facilitate seminal discussion among senior Army leaders, but now you don't have to be general officer to get a front-row seat. The inclusion of social media in this year's TSLC provides a near real-time interactive public dialogue that offers an opportunity for the outside community to understand and even participate in the conversation by reading and writing on the SWJ discussion board. Also, TRADOC Public Affairs will guide followers through the many planned conference events using Twitter, Facebook, blog posts via TRADOC Live, and web updates.

The "Next Battles" conference theme emphasizes the future as our Army returns to a 1:2 BOG/DWELL (Boots on the Ground dwell time in unit rotations out of theater to home-station). This TSLC will address institutional adaptation; synchronizing and aligning the TRADOC Campaign Plan (TCP), merging the TCP with the Army Enterprise effort, and replicating the complexities of combat in Army training.

What continued efforts does the Army have planned for the future?

TRADOC envisions far more interaction between everyday people and senior Army leaders; and social networking tools make this possible. Public feedback from this TSLC will help drive the discussion forward and shape future TSLC events that will include more military bloggers, an expansion of TRADOC Live active-duty contributors, and a Facebook fan page devoted to TSLC issues. Soon, the Army will implement a new social networking policy, formally opening the door to even greater transparency and interaction between the Army and the public.

Why is this important to the Army?

The participation and interaction with the social media community allows the Army and TRADOC the opportunity to tell its story in a transparent, thoughtful manner, while offering the public community a stake in the future of their Army.

Resources / Background:

TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference - General Martin Dempsey

Training and Doctrine Command Web site

SWJ's Small Wars Council - TRADOC SLC forum

TRADOC Live

Continue reading "Reminder: SWJ at TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference This Week" »

Last Friday, the Los Angeles Times covered a crackdown by U.S. authorities on a Mexican drug cartel’s cell that operated in the suburbs of San Diego. San Diego County prosecutors have charged 17 people, some of them U.S. citizens, with a wide variety of crimes, including nine murders.

Mexico’s drug war is another example of an irregular war showing no regard for a formal nation-state boundary. At first, the U.S.-Mexican border suited the purposes of several interests. It sheltered much of the U.S. population from Mexico’s problems. And some of Mexico’s cartel members used U.S. territory for a sanctuary.

But such protection could not last long. Where cartel members move, criminal commerce and violent competition have followed. And that has brought Mexico’s drug wars into America’s suburbs.

Continue reading "Mexico’s war bleeds into San Diego" »

Continue reading "SWC Non-virtual, TRADOC SLC, Gettysburg" »

The Afghanistan Strategy Dialogue: My Thoughts - Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama.

When I started the rather grandly titled Afghanistan Strategy Dialogue a week ago, I decided that after listening to and reading the thoughts and opinions of the readership, I would then weigh in with a few thoughts of my own to close out the exercise. Some of the readership was a bit impatient for me to offer my own thoughts, but if you get one thing out of this exercise, remember this: the war in Afghanistan is complex, as are the consequences of any policy choice, and anyone who wades into this discussion full of confidence in his or her own assumptions is not to be trusted. I wanted to hear the thoughts of my readership before I offered my own. The people who have contributed to this debate thus far have advanced propositions for discussion -- and that is how it should be. I would hope that you would all take what follows to be in the same vein...

Much more at Abu Muqawama - to include seven days of the Afghanistan Strategy Dialogue.

Continue reading "Ex Speaks on Afghanistan" »

Obama Defends New Tack in Afghanistan - Michael D. Shear, Washington Post.

President Obama on Monday defended his administration's new approach to the fierce fighting that rages in Afghanistan, calling it "not only a war worth fighting" but also one that "is fundamental to the defense of our people."

Speaking to the annual gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Obama praised the American troops in Afghanistan who are helping to secure the country ahead of elections there this week.

"As I said when I announced this strategy, there will be more difficult days ahead," Obama said. "The insurgency in Afghanistan didn't just happen overnight. And we won't defeat it overnight. This will not be quick. This will not be easy."

The president said that he would continue to increase the size of the military to confront problems around the globe, but he added that he rejects wasteful spending on technology that commanders insist they no longer need...

More at The Washington Post. Bolded emphasis ours.

Continue reading "Obama Defends New Tack in Afghanistan" »

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

Continue reading "18 August SWJ Roundup" »

As Afghanistan Votes, Will the Taliban Win? - New York Times opinions. With Afghanistan’s second-ever presidential election coming on Thursday, the Op-Ed editors asked four Afghans to report on the moods of voters in their communities.

Apathy Among the Educated - Hassina Sherjan

A “fair and transparent election,” even if one were possible, would not be enough to set Afghanistan on a path toward stability. Only when democracy is combined with a legitimate process of truth and justice will we achieve peace.

Phantoms at the Polls - Atif B.

Demoralization and despair have reached such a level in my city, Kandahar, this summer that most people tell me they will not participate in Thursday’s presidential election. They doubt the transparency of the vote, disbelieving that President Hamid Karzai’s corrupt administration will allow another candidate to win.

Waking Up to Terror - Mirwais Ahmaddzai

The “night letters” have been coming for a while now. I saw my first one last week, posted on a door in Kunar Province, on the Pakistani border. But its message was no different than the ones that, according to press reports, have been popping up overnight in most of the eastern provinces of Afghanistan, whether posted on mosques or government buildings, or at busy road intersections, or simply scattered onto streets: do not vote on Thursday, or we will punish you. Signed, the Taliban.

Hopeful in Panjshir - Ahmad Wali Arian

Last Friday I was in the Panjshir Valley, about 50 miles north of Kabul, talking with a dozen of my relatives about their perceptions and expectations of the presidential election. Our discussion was all about the candidates’ platforms, promises, teams and abilities. This was a huge change from the last vote, in 2004, when nobody was talking about ideas. That election consisted mostly of ethnic groups and political parties trying to show their strength.

As Afghanistan Votes, Will the Taliban Win? - New York Times

Continue reading "Taliban Election Victory?" »

While Woodstock Rocked, GIs Died - Richard K. Kolb, Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine - an excerpt follows:

With the 40th anniversary of the ‘60s cherished rock concert, the so-called “Sixties Generation” remembers fondly those four days in August 1969. Instead, VFW magazine commemorates the 109 Americans killed in Vietnam then.

Newsweek described them as “a youthful, long-haired army, almost as large as the U.S. force in Vietnam.” One of the promoters saw what happened near Bethel (nearly 40 miles from Woodstock), N.Y., as an opportunity to “showcase” the drug culture as a “beautiful phenomenon.”

The newsmagazine wrote of “wounded hippies” sent to impromptu hospital tents. Some 400,000 of the “nation’s affluent white young” attended the “electric pot dream.” One sympathetic chronicler recently described them as “a veritable army of hippies and freaks.”

Time gushed with admiration for the tribal gathering, declaring: “It may well rank as one of the significant political and sociological events of the age.” It deplored the three deaths there—“one from an overdose of drugs [heroin], and hundreds of youths freaked out on bad trips caused by low-grade LSD.” Yet attendees exhibited a “mystical feeling for themselves as a special group,” according to the magazine’s glowing essay.

That same tribute mentioned the “meaningless war in the jungles of Southeast Asia” and quoted a commentator who said the young need “more opportunities for authentic service.”

Meanwhile, 8,429 miles around the other side of the world, 514,000 mostly young Americans were authentically serving the country that had raised them to place society over self. The casualties they sustained over those four days were genuine, yet none of the elite media outlets were praising their selflessness.

So 40 years later, let’s finally look at those 109 Americans who sacrificed their lives in Vietnam on Aug. 15, 16, 17 and 18, 1969...

... So when you hear talk of the glories of Woodstock—the so-called “defining event of a generation”—keep in mind those 109 GIs who served nobly yet are never lauded by the illustrious spokesmen for the “Sixties Generation.”

Continue reading "While Woodstock Rocked, GIs Died" »

I am attending the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Senior Leaders Conference in Gettysburg, PA.

Today I went on a “staff ride” of the Gettysburg battlefield with a group of about 20 generals, sergeants major, and Senior Executive Service employees of TRADOC. Leading the staff ride was an Army historian who is also a retired Army officer.

Why would the Army waste the time of the senior leaders of its training and doctrine command with a guided tour of a 19th century battlefield? What does Gettysburg have to do with Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other conflicts the Army is likely to face?

The answer is “quite a bit,” if you prepare the staff ride properly. And this the TRADOC staff and the Army historians did.

First, the historian used the events of the 1863 battle to illustrate military problems common to all campaigns regardless of era or variety. These included discussions of such matters as national grand strategy; an assessment of ends, ways, and means; adaptation to unforeseen circumstances; decision-making under conditions of uncertainty; assessing the strengths and weaknesses of subordinates; command styles; collegiality among commanders and staff; and many other such universal factors.

Second, the TRADOC leaders were not passive students – they were tasked to make presentations during the day, discussing their functional expertise as it related to the Gettysburg battle and what lessons from that experience were relevant to today’s problems. While standing in the woods on the 20th Maine’s position on Little Round Top, a question about the Army’s transition from a small force geared to irregular warfare on the frontier in 1861 to a very large force focused on major combat operations sparked an energized discussion among the generals about how TRADOC can improve the matching of its resources to its priorities.

At the end of the day, while looking over the ground of Pickett’s Charge, a lieutenant general led his commanders and staff in an after-action review that again focused on lessons for the Army’s future.

History is not dead, when you can get it to work for you.

Continue reading "Making Gettysburg relevant" »

There is a curious quality that overcomes the mind during a visit to sacred space. Today, I rode along on the staff ride at Gettysburg and saw that quality of mind slowly come into being as we moved from site to site on the battlefield. The manifestation that arose was not one of what lessons can we learn from the battle and campaign but, rather, one of what questions should we ask.

Continue reading "In illo tempore..." »

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

Continue reading "19 August SWJ Roundup" »

The briefing on the TRADOC Campaign Plan, centering around Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN), has created the most discussion to date. Listening to the questions and comments, I was struck by several observations. One early point that was made was that the principles underlying ARFORGEN were not clearly communicated while the model was. There are, to my mind, several observations that can be drawn both from that process – communicate the model but not the principles – and from the questions / comments.

First off, ARFORGEN is a radical change from previous forms of force generation. In many ways, from what I can see of it, it is moving towards, although certainly not reaching, an Information Age style of force generation (e.g. the right person in the right place at the right time), at least in principle. The model, however, appears to have been presented more in the genre and forms of an Industrial Age style of force generation (office based, standardized training). This form and genre is not surprising given the hierarchical organizational form of the US Army. In fact, it is organizationally imperative that that form and genre be used in order to tie it in with the political and economic resources (i.e. sell it in DC).

Continue reading "ARFORGEN: adaptation, communication and culture change" »

Just a quick reminder that the SWJ team, in Gettysburg, is providing live coverage of the TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference in this forum at the Small Wars Council.

Continue reading "TRADOC SLC AT SWC" »

As you peruse the posts in this SWC forum on the issues being discussed at the TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference we would appreciate any and all reading recommendations. We will consolidate the list and publish it on Small Wars Journal - please provide the title (book, article, study), author, and a short blurb on why that particular item is relevant to the discourse on this thread.

If your recommendation is an article, essay, or study and is available online a link would be most appreciated. If you'd like your recommendation, when published, to be tied to your real name you can either provide it on the SWC thread or send it along via SWC PM or e-mail to me - SWJED - Dave Dilegge. Otherwise we will go with your Council ID.

We've already had one suggestion today, by Council member Anlaochfhile, The American Culture of War: The History of U.S. Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom, by Dr. Adrian Lewis, as a resource that addresses the role that American culture plays in how our forces organize, equip, and fight.

Thanks much.

--Dave Dilegge

Continue reading "SWJ / SWC TRADOC SLC Reading List" »

I knew this coming into this conference and will count on it going into the next we might be invited to - a lot of the meat – the “reality show” - of what needs to be done and almost all of the passion many of TRADOC’s leaders possess as agents of change is lost via PowerPoint; cold, just the facts ma’am press releases; and our short synopsis of the issues discussed at the conference and presented here at SWJ and SWC.

The issues on the magnitude TRADOC Leadership is grappling with right now can seem daunting. Many of which were conveyed via PowerPoint (and to General Dempsey’s credit he tactfully utilized his authority and leadership qualities to generate discussion vs. the slide reading ritual). We've discussed this many times here at SWJ and SWC - justice to the “message” and to the “real intent” is often lost - completely and brutally via such venues.

I’ll keep this short and it is addressed to the naysayers – walk one mile in their shoes with an open-minded perspective. We have conveyed many SLC discussion points today - the military power of our nation will be measured by our ability to adapt – and – the right soldier, at the right place, at the right time - are but two examples. They come across as “sound bites” – bumper sticker slogans - until you look the conveyer of such messages directly in the eye and gauge if they actually mean it or it is just another dog and pony show.

I’m coming away from this week with a sense that there is meat behind the PowerPoint bones.

I don’t have a dog in this fight – excepting that we get this right – this time – right now. As Editor in Chief of Small Wars Journal, as a retired Marine who keeps track of how the Corps’ is handling many of the same issues, and most importantly as a chronic cynic, I’m encouraged by what I’ve heard so far.

My gut-feeling concerning this conference – I looked them in the eye – literally – is that they are very serious and very concerned about what the Army has to do. For my Army brothers in arms – if you happenchance upon General Dempsey and his “Lee’s Lieutenants” – engage. You may walk away with a few feathers ruffled – but you will gain from that engagement - as a better leader, student and practitioner of what our nation requires during these “interesting times”.

--Dave Dilegge

Continue reading "Walk a Mile in Their Shoes " »

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Continue reading "20 August SWJ Roundup" »

The Incoherence of COIN Advocates: Stephen Biddle Edition - Bernard Finel, ASP Flashpoint.

Stephen Biddle is the single best defense analyst working today. His arguments are usually carefully considered and well supported empirically. For a generation of younger defense intellectuals, he is very much the gold standard, the model to emulate.

His recent essay in the American Interest (Is It Worth It? The Difficult Case for War in Afghanistan) has been widely cited as the best defense for expanding the American commitment there. The problem is that while Biddle claims that the decision is a close call, it is only close by virtue of what can only be described as sloppy reasoning.

There are three key problems with Biddle’s essay. First, his definition of American interests in Afghanistan is incoherent. Second, he bolsters his case by arguing against a strawman. Third, he makes the bizarre assumption that being better at counter-insurgency (COIN) is the same as being good enough at it to win. I will deal with all three in turn...

Much more at ASP Flashpoint.

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Continue reading "It's a virtual world (?)" »

The US Army/USMC Counterinsurgency Center is pleased to host SGM Robert Haemmerle at the COIN Center Virtual-Brownbag from 1000 to 1100 CST (1100 - 1200 EST) on Wednesday, 26 August 2009. SGM Haemmerle spent 16 months as the USFOR-A Biometrics Master Gunner, and will present a brief on the tactical application of biometrics, the cultural and IO issues surrounding biometrics, and what effects biometrics can produce for commander’s in a COIN environment.

Those interested in attending may view the meeting on-line at https://adobe.harmonieweb.org/coinvtc/ and participate via Adobe Connect as a guest. Remote attendees will be able to ask questions and view the slides through the software.

Continue reading "COIN Center Brownbag - 26 August" »

Joshua Foust of Registan.net and Michael Cohen of The New America Foundation debate and discuss Afghanistan to include optimism vs. pessimism on Afghanistan, vague goals, uncertain metrics, failing to capitalize on success, mission-creeping into a drug war, which lessons should we take from Iraq; if the Taliban returns to power, will America be cool with that; and can the US still fight wars effectively?

Continue reading "Foust and Cohen on Afghanistan" »

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GEN Dempsey,

Both the subject of your post, and that you posted it here, demonstrate the Army's commitment to the importance of leveraging collaboration, social media and Web 2.0 technologies.

A quick scan of the linked discussion thread at the Small Wars Journal clearly indicated anticipation and appreciation for the ability to observe, and perhaps even participate indirectly through providing questions, the Senior Leader Conference (SLC).

The remainder of my comments are not directly related to the SLC, rather this venue itself and my own personal observations.

I first saw your post a few hours after it was made, commenting to my colleagues that the TRADOC Commander posting on the CAC blogs was yet another indication of the Army's support for and embracement of collaboration. Returning to your post this afternoon, I was slightly surprised that no one else had taken the opportunity to respond and engage you. After all, how often does one get such an opportunity?

Notice I did not say "completely" surprised, but only "slightly" surprised. I attribute that lack of surprise to my experience observing Army Majors over the last eight years at CGSC (1 year as a student, followed by 7 years as an instructor). During that time, I personally noted a prevailing culture of "keep your head down & don't make waves." This is not only an anecdotal observation, but was supported by a custom designed critical thinking exercise I presented on more than a dozen occasions.

My decision to respond to your blog today prompted me to write up and document that exercise and the observed results. By no means is this the first time I shared the exercise, I frequently sent it to faculty members within my own department for their use if they chose to execute it. (Below my remarks I've provided links to the referenced presentation.)

I'm reminded of GEN Casey's remarks in June, via a video message, at the CGSC graduation. He explained how one of his former mentors taught him to carry an index card with one question:

-- When was the last time you allowed a subordinate to change your mind?

Upon hearing him say that, my ears perked up and I wrote it down. For what he said supported my own beliefs and the exercise I've been conducting for years. However, with all due respect to the CSA, I'd postulate that card needs to have a second question on it. And, perhaps, that second question may even be more pertinent and significant than the one he mentioned:

-- When was the last time a subordinate TRIED to change your mind?

I pose that question not as an indictment of any person's leadership style - certainly not that of the person holding the card or answering the question. Rather, I suggest that if the answer to my question is "rarely, if ever", there may be a prevailing cultural barrier preventing them from doing so.

V/R
Bob King

An Exercise in Critical Thinking - Thought Spray

Critical Thinking Exercise - Slideshare

Disclaimer: As I am no longer an Army CGSC instructor, I desire to make it clear that the above words are my own personal opinion, made on my own time and do not represent my current employer or sponsor.

Continue reading "Social Media and Critical Thinking" »

Gen. McChrystal Assessing Afghan Forces - Jessica Weinstein, Washington Times.

As Afghan officials counted ballots from Thursday's key election, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan was making his way through the Jalrez Valley on Friday, conducting an on-the-ground assessment of the troubled nation.

The journey has brought Gen. Stanley McChrystal to the site of the Afghan Public Protection Program (AP3) - a pilot effort begun under his predecessor Gen. David D. McKiernan - in which Green Berets have been recruiting and training local Afghans to police their own neighborhoods since March...

Gen. McChrystal made it clear that one of the main issues that he wants to address is increasing the Afghans' ability to secure themselves.

"We're working to grow the Afghan National Security Forces more quickly," he said, asking the AP3 commander, Sayad Ali Abbas, what he would need to help recruit more AP3 guards.

"We get one meal a day but we are a 24-hour on-call force. If we could improve our food [situation], that would help," answered Mr. Abbas.

"That's what I hear everywhere," nodded Gen. McChrystal.

The general, who was tapped by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gatesin May to take over command in Afghanistan, has been working on a set of recommendations on the strategy to stabilize Afghanistan...

More at The Washington Times.

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We're Not the Soviets in Afghanistan - Frederick W. Kagan, Weekly Standard opinion.

Comparisons between our current efforts in Afghanistan and the Soviet intervention that led to the collapse of the USSR are natural and can be helpful, but only with great care. Below are a number of key points to keep in mind when thinking about the Soviet operations, especially when considering the size of the US or international military footprint.

War did not begin in 1979 when the Soviets invaded. It started in 1978 following the Saur Revolution in which Nur M. Taraki seized power from Mohammad Daoud. Taraki declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and set about bringing real socialism to the country.

Soviet advisors recommended that Taraki proceed slowly with social and economic reforms. They recognized that the socialist party (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan or PDPA) had the support of a tiny minority. They feared that Taraki's plans for aggressive "modernization" would generate an awful backlash. They were right...

More at The Weekly Standard.

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Just a quick note that we will be continuing the dialogue on the Small Wars Council’s TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference forum. The next SLC is just 6 months away and we encourage Council members and other interested parties to discuss the issues examined this week in Gettysburg and to shape the issues that might, or should, be discussed and examined at the next SLC.

SWJ thanks General Martin Dempsey and crew for their kind invitation to attend the SLC this week and for the opportunity to address the conference during the closing remarks on issues concerning SWJ, social networking / Web 2.0 and our impressions from the week. The experience was rewarding and educational…

Continue reading "It Ain't Over Till It's Over " »

To my friends in Scotland; the Scottish National Party, and Scottish Prime Minister, and the Foreign Secretary, I praise their courage for having proved their independence in decision making, despite the unacceptable and unreasonable pressures they faced. Nevertheless, they took this courageously right and humanitarian decision ... my friend Brown, the Prime Minister of Britain, his government, the Queen of Britain, Elizabeth, and Prince Andrew, who all contributed to encouraging the Scottish government to take this historic and courageous decision, despite the obstacles.

--Muammar al-Gaddafi, Dictator of Libya

US Calls Libyan Welcome of Lockerbie Figure Outrageous, Disgusting - David Gollust, Voice of America.

The Obama administration has angrily criticized the warm welcome given by Libya to the convicted bomber of a US jetliner in 1988 who was released from prison by Scottish legal authorities Thursday because of ill health. State Department officials said the jubilant greeting given to Abdel Basset al-Megrahi calls into question Libya's promises in recent years to be a responsible actor in world affairs.

Obama administration officials had warned Libya not to make a hero out of Megrahi, who was freed by Scottish officials because he is said to be near death from prostate cancer.

They are seething over television footage showing the former Libyan intelligence agent being cheered by a flag-waving crowd and showered with flower petals on his late-Thursday arrival in Tripoli.

President Barack Obama, in brief comments to reporters, called the greeting highly objectionable while his spokesman Robert Gibbs was more emphatic, describing the airport scene as outrageous and disgusting.

Senior administration officials had pressed leaders of Britain and the Scottish regional government not to free Megrahi, who had served eight years of a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie Scotland that killed 270 people.

They have said that while they object to the decision to free Megrahi on compassionate grounds, they accept the legitimacy of the court and are contemplating no retaliatory move against key ally Britain.

However they say the treatment of Megrahi by Libya could have consequences for a US-Libyan relationship that has improved markedly since Libya renounced terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly said Friday the images of the welcome given to what he termed a mass murderer were personally offensive, and that he could only imagine how relatives of the Pan Am victims felt. He said they call into question promises Libya has made in recent years to change its ways...

More at Voice of America.

The Brits Are Okay with It - The Corner
Scottish Sympathy & Libyan Perfidy - Blackfive
What a Wonderful World - The Belmont Club
Trade Lockerbie Bomber for Oil Contracts? - Hot Air
Letting Terrorists Go - Powerline
Mercy for a Mass Murderer? - On Faith
Al-Megrahi's Comfortable Retirement Back Home - David Calling
Day of Shame for Scotland - Jawa Report
Anger at Welcome for Mass Murderer in Libya - PrairiePundit
The Problem Is Qaddafi, Not Megrahi - Contentions
Shell Has Been Stalking the Libyans - Royal Dutch Shell

Victims of Pan Am Flight 103 - Victims of Pan Am Flight 103
Boycott Scotland - Boycott Scotland

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Via Mark Safranski at Zenpundit - Disputing Global Dystopia: Phillips on “Our Dark Age Future”.

... I am sympathetic to Col. Phillips’ criticisms of the overly abstract and detached nature of IR in regard to the nature of international law and sovereignty. You can certainly see that “arid” and “imperialistic” attitude in many academics and NGO activists who like to present their novel theories and interpretations as “international law” when they lack any historical basis whatsoever (and are usually gamed to be highly restrictive on the authority of Western sovereign states to use force and permissive/exculpatory of the actions of Marxist/radical/Islamist terrorists or insurgents). Much of Phillips’ condemnation of IR smacking of unreality from a practitioner’s perspective is spot on.

That said, while definitely fuzzy and spottily adhered to in practice international law is not entirely “illusory”, nor is it a byproduct of 20th century Wilsonian American exceptionalism as Phillips argued. Perhaps Hugo Grotius rings a bell? Or Alberico Gentili? Or the long history of admirality courts? Like common law or an unwritten tribal code, international law has evolved over a very long period of time and does exert some constraint upon the behavior of sovereigns. Statesmen and diplomats think about policy in terms of the impression it will make on other sovereigns, and international law is one of the yardsticks they contemplate. Admittedly, at times the constraint of international law is quite feeble but in other contexts it is strong. An American military officer, who can see firsthand the effect of creeping JAG lawyerism on command decisions on the battlefield ( in my view, greatly excessive and harmful ) and in the drafting of byzantine ROE, should know better than to make such a silly statement...

More at Zenpundit and Deconstructing Our Dark Age Future by Lieutenant Colonel P. Michael Phillips at Parameters.

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USAID Challenges Reflect Greater Problems at the State Department

By Matt Armstrong
Cross-posted at MountainRunner

A primary pillar of US engagement with the world in the modern era is foreign assistance. Institutionalized under the Marshall Plan and later the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 that created the US Agency for International Development, development aid was and continues to be a means of denying ideological sanctuary to our adversaries that prey on poverty and despair as well as focusing on developing the capacity for self-governance through economic and other development.

In March 2008, General Anthony Zinni (ret.) and Admiral Leighton Smith (ret.) told Congress:

... the 'enemies' in the world today are actually conditions -- poverty, infectious disease, political turmoil and corruption, environmental and energy challenges.

USAID’s mission today is as important as ever and yet it remains leaderless with declining morale and shrinking funds as increasingly America’s foreign development aid wears combat boots, just like its public diplomacy.

As a valuable resource in the struggle for minds and wills, it is not coincidental that what we call public diplomacy and foreign assistance have led parallel ups and downs. The January 1948 signing of the legislation authorizing America’s international information programs and expanding America’s educational and cultural exchanges was passed in a large part because of the Communist reaction to the declaration of what would become the Marshall Plan six months earlier. The decline (or even the temporary elimination) of foreign assistance in 1972 mirrors the decline in public diplomacy (e.g. Fulbright’s statement that the “Radios should take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics.”). Much like the meddling in the public diplomacy budget (while at $900b, over half supports exchanges and only a fraction of the remainder is discretionary), the foreign assistance budget is subject to Congressional earmarks that limit flexibility and effectiveness...

Continue reading "USAID Challenges Reflect Greater Problems at State" »

US Military Chief: Afghanistan Situation is 'Serious and Deteriorating' - Voice of America.

The US military's top officer says he believes the situation in Afghanistan is "serious and deteriorating."

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said in an interview on US television CNN's State of the Union Sunday that the Taliban insurgency has "gotten better [and] more sophisticated" in its tactics over the past couple of years.

In a separate interview on NBC's Meet the Press, Mullen said the US military is focused on preventing another terrorist attack on US soil and that its current strategy in Afghanistan is intended to disrupt and defeat al-Qaida, the Taliban and its extremist allies.

The Obama administration is expecting an assessment from its commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, in the next two weeks on the current situation there.

Republican Senator John McCain said in an interview on ABC's This Week Sunday that McChrystal's assessment should say exactly how many troops are needed in Afghanistan.

But Mullen said the upcoming assessment will not detail what resources are needed in Afghanistan. He also would not speculate whether more troops are required there.

Both Mullen and McCain said they expect to have a better idea on what, if any, progress is being made in Afghanistan within the next year to year-and-a-half.

More:

US Military Says Force in Afghanistan Insufficient - New York Times.
Mullen Issues Caution on Afghanistan - New York Times
Mullen: Afghan Fight 'Serious and Deteriorating' - Washington Post
Mullen: Afghanistan Is Deteriorating - Wall Street Journal
Mullen: Afghanistan 'Vulnerable' to Taliban - Washington Times.
Hard Choices on Afghanistan War Plans - Associated Press
More Troops Needed in Afghanistan, Allies Tell US Envoy - Los Angeles Times
More Troops? Why Mullen Won't Answer. - Christian Science Monitor
Mullen: Afghan Conflict Serious, 'Deteriorating' - Reuters
Mullen and Eikenberry on "Meet the Press" - Real Clear Politics
McCain Says US Needs More Troops in Afghanistan - Bloomberg
Concern About US Public Support for Afghan War - Voice of America

Continue reading "Afghanistan Situation is 'Serious and Deteriorating' (Updated)" »

A short time ago, I received an e-mail from a female captain currently stationed at a Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Iraq. She writes:

Hello from Iraq!

As some of you may know, I run in the 'Race for the Cure' [5 kilometers/3.1 miles] in Central Park, NYC each year. I do this in remembrance of my grandmother, Grace [redacted], who passed from this disease years before I was born.

Please feel free to donate to the cause. Thank you very much!

Sincerely,

I should also note that during September in Iraq, afternoon temperatures will typically top 100 degres Farenheit (38 degrees Celcius). This particular captain's goal was to raise $500 for research, which she did via a Facebook feed. I have this little theory that I can one-up her, and get another $500 donated for research. (And they say Web 2.0 shouldn't be in the hands of Soldiers...)

How can you help? Just click on this link to sponsor this Soldier who will be running the 5-kilometer "Race for the Cure" in the middle of Iraq. The 5k walk/run takes place on 13 September in Central Park in New York City.

Continue reading "Support the troops AND help cure breast cancer at the same time" »

Petraeus to Open Intel Training Center - Eli Lake, Washington Times.

Gen. David H. Petraeus plans to open an in-house intelligence organization at US Central Command this week that will train military officers, covert agents and analysts who agree to focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan for up to a decade. The organization, to be called the Center for Afghanistan Pakistan Excellence, will be led by Derek Harvey, a retired colonel in the Defense Intelligence Agency who became one of the Gen. Petraeus' most trusted analysts during the 2007-08 counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq.

Mr. Harvey distinguished himself in Iraq by predicting that the Iraqi insurgency would spiral out of control, at a time when it was widely underestimated by the Bush administration, in 2003 and 2004. He later dissented from the emerging consensus in Congress and the CIA, when he said, as early as March 2007, that al Qaeda had been strategically defeated. This was during the early days of the surge, at a time when most of the intelligence community thought the Sunni insurgency was intact.

In an exclusive interview with The Washington Times, Mr. Harvey said the center will build on some of the lessons that he and the military learned in Iraq, not just for counterinsurgency but also in terms of intelligence analysis...

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On Sunday, the Washington Post published a dispatch from Sarajevo that described Bosnia’s simmering discontent and unfinished business. Thankfully, Bosnia has not returned to ethnic violence. But neither has it resolved its political and ethnic problems.

In 1995, NATO forces, led by the U.S. Army, conducted a large-scale armed intervention into Bosnia in order to enforce the Dayton peace accord. The hoped for “end state” was an ethnically and politically-reconciled Bosnia, managing its own affairs. 14 years later the country is still under international supervision.

We should pause for a moment and consider what effect the U.S. experience in Bosnia had on policymaking and war management this decade. The seeming ease with which the U.S. and NATO appeared to pacify Bosnia (after the previous disastrous mismanagement by the UN) led policymakers, analysts, and military officers into complacency and overconfidence when they contemplated armed interventions at the beginning of this decade. Generals may or may not prepare to fight the last war, but policymakers clearly make their decisions based on the last experience, whether relevant or not.

Continue reading "Remembering what we (mis)learned in Bosnia" »

Cultural Awareness or Cultural Apperception
Is There a Difference?
by Colonel Victor M. Rosello

Cultural Awareness or Cultural Apperception (Full PDF Article)

One of the more favorable byproducts of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom is the US Army’s rediscovered interest in the importance of foreign cultures. Of course this statement goes above and beyond the traditional elements of the US Army that have been educated and trained in foreign cultures and languages, such as Foreign Area Officers and Special Forces soldiers. It speaks to the heart of a matter that has created initiatives such as the TRADOC Culture Center at Ft. Huachuca, AZ or the mandatory Arab language training and enculturation of US Army majors at the US Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, KS. It is ironic to note that the efforts to immerse soldiers in a foreign culture came only as a result of the bogging down of conventional US Army armor and mechanized units in Baghdad following the invasion in 2003. If the Abrams’ and Bradley’s had been met by cheering and American flag waving Iraqis in downtown Baghdad, this interest in Arab culture may have never surfaced; anymore than it surfaced following Operation Desert Storm in 1991. But this is a moot point and should be left for historians to ponder. What is important is that the enculturation has occurred and has given the US Army a more multidimensional quality, leading to an enhancement and effectiveness of its efforts in theater. But has it really?

Cultural Awareness or Cultural Apperception (Full PDF Article)

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As you sort through this morning's news and opinion items concerning former CIA Inspector General John Helgerson’s 2004 report at the SWJ Daily Roundup you might want to take some time to read the full report. Spencer Ackerman has the entire document posted at The Washington Independent and it is embedded below (H/T to Spencer):

Continue reading "The 2004 CIA Inspector General Report on Torture" »

See Cartoons by Cartoon by Nate Beeler - Courtesy of Politicalcartoons.com - Email this Cartoon

Three months or eight, it does not matter Megrahi, meet your new "cell-mates" in hell. No need to save a space for Mohmmar Qadaffi - or however they spell this evil buffoon's name these days - his Hell Frequent Aficionado program points has him a guaranteed express check-in - a suite with a fire-side view - hottest place in town.

Continue reading "Fast Forward: The Final "Homecoming"" »

The Combat Studies Institute is holding its annual symposium - Tuesday, 25 August through Thursday, 27 August. This year the subject is The U.S. Army and the Media in Wartime: Historical Perspectives and is being live blogged at this link. A copy of the agenda can be found here. CSI is taking questions via the blog for guest speakers and panel members.

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H/T Ex at Abu Muqawama.

The counterinsurgency guidance issued by Gen. Stan McChrystal to his units in the field has been finalized and released -- and it's very good. I would say it incorporates most of what the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have learned about counterinsurgency warfare over the past eight years and gives a good hint as to how Gen. McChrystal expects his subordinate units -- U.S. and allied -- to fight over the next 12-24 months.

In full below:

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Diggers Assassinate Taliban Leader Mullah Karim - Mark Dodd, The Australian.

Australian special forces have killed a senior Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Karim, an officially sanctioned assassination designed to rid Oruzgan province of hardcore militants. The operation took place on Monday August 10 but was only announced today by Chief of Joint Operations, Lieutenant-General Mark Evans.

Karim's death brings the number of senior insurgent leaders killed in top secret operations targeting Taliban militants responsible for attacks on coalition soldiers to more than half a dozen. “Mullah Karim was killed during an operation directed against the insurgent network of improvised explosive device operators in Oruzgan province,” General Evans said.

In keeping with past targeted killings, few details were released although it's understood from defence sources that personnel from the elite Special Operations Task Group (SOTG), which includes members of the Special Air Service Regiment, were responsible...

More at The Australian.

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An article in this morning’s New York Times discussed what is shaping up to be a strange ending to Mohamed ElBaradei’s career as director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to the article, ElBaradei has in his possession a file containing disturbing evidence of Iran’s efforts to fabricate nuclear weapons. ElBaradei is under pressure from the U.S. and Europe to release the evidence and allow an open debate on its implications. ElBaradei has resisted, fearing accusations of pro-Western “bias.”

ElBaradei will leave the IAEA on November 30th. Between now and then, he will get a last chance to restore his legacy as the world’s nuclear proliferation enforcer. ElBaradei’s refusal to energetically confront Iran over its violations of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty has resulted in self-inflicted damage to his reputation. Should he leave it to his successor, Yukiya Amano, to open the Iran file to the public, we will be left wondering how ElBaradei viewed his mission at the IAEA. Was it to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation? Or was it to assist the developing world in containing Western power?

This week, advocates of the death penalty for murder received the greatest possible boost to their argument when Scotland’s justice minister released Abdel Basset al-Megrahi from prison. Similarly, ElBaradei’s tenure at the IAEA has provided no comfort for those who attempt to defend the usefulness of international institutions and international treaty law. Advocates of treaties such as the NPT, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, the Missile Technology Control Regime, and others have a responsibility to support the toughest possible enforcers of these agreements. ElBaradei’s refusal to be a tough enforcer has damaged the case for international treaty law as a means of conflict prevention. Yukiya Amano will come to work in December finding much damage to repair.

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Dealing with the Crisis in Zimbabwe
The Role of Economics, Diplomacy, and Regionalism
by Logan Cox and Dr. David A. Anderson

Dealing with the Crisis in Zimbabwe (Full PDF Article)

Once, one of the better run economies in Africa, Zimbabwe has descended into one of the worst, above only Somalia and Sudan. Zimbabwe’s history is one common to most of Africa: European colonization, minority rule followed by a war for independence, and subsequent autocratic rule by a leader from the independence struggle. Despite sanctions to oust the white-minority rule, the economy of Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), was able to grow and to develop import substitution products. After transfer to majority rule, particularly after chaotic land reforms in 2000, the economy of Zimbabwe has been in steep decline, with foreign investment vanishing and a willful dismantling of the commercial agricultural base of the economy. The Southern Africa Development Community was formed to improve the conditions of its member states but has been ineffective in positively affecting the situation in Zimbabwe. The member countries are inwardly focused due to inherent economic weaknesses, and the leaders of the SADC and member countries are institutionally unwilling to criticize a revolutionary leader from one of the independence movements of the 1970s. Since the SADC finally was able to push a unity government in Zimbabwe, the SADC must assume its declared role as a forum for regional stability and economic progress. The United States and other western countries and international institutions must be willing to assist in the rebuilding of Zimbabwe through focused and closely monitored aid, while insisting on political and economic reforms. There may be an enduring role for U.S. AFRICOM to play in the region as well.

Dealing with the Crisis in Zimbabwe (Full PDF Article)

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