The Real Afghan Strategy - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinon.

Hikmatullah, a tall Pashtun farmer dressed in turban and white cloak, looks slightly bewildered as a US Army officer offers him tea and bread and questions him about what he wants from life. A crowd has gathered around them on the steps of the local bakery, young boys and old tribesmen gawking to see what the fuss is about. Hikmatullah says that he's a happy man with five children and that what he wants most is security. From the quizzical look on the farmer's face, perhaps he's wondering: Can these pleasant, tea-drinking American soldiers really be the same people who are assaulting Taliban fighters in this region of eastern Afghanistan?

The answer is yes. Even as US forces show a gentler side with their new stress on people-friendly counterinsurgency, they continue to conduct devastating attacks on the enemy. It's this mix of hard and soft that's the essence of the US battle plan here, but this reality is not well understood back in America. The Washington debate about the Afghanistan war -- pitting advocates of a broad counterinsurgency strategy against those who favor a narrower counterterrorism approach - has sometimes been misleading, at least in terms of what actually goes on here. The fact is that US forces are doing both missions every day and night - and indeed are becoming increasingly effective at each one...

More at The Washington Post.

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McChrystal Lite - Tom Donnelly and Tim Sullivan, Weekly Standard opinion.

In its continuing search for an alternative to General Stanley McChrystal's comprehensive counterinsurgency approach to the war in Afghanistan, and with President Obama having eliminated the minimalist counterterrorism plan of Vice President Joe Biden, the White House has lately been floating a split-the-difference trial balloon: "McChrystal Lite" or, to give the veep his due, "McChrystal for the cities, Biden for the countryside."

Last week the New York Times was allowed a sneak-peak of what this half-pregnant approach might look like. It reported that White House advisers are aiming to defend "about 10 top population centers." A number of press accounts indicate that the number of additional troops would be capped at around 20,000 - half the 40,000 recommended by McChrystal - no more than four brigade-sized units and the needed support. The Times also indicated that McChrystal had briefed the White House on how he would employ any reinforcements: "The first two additional brigades would be sent to the south, including one to Kandahar, while a third would be sent to eastern Afghanistan and a fourth would be used flexibly across the nation."

To the Washington punditocracy, half a loaf sounds about right; even if they don't think it's the right strategy, they think it's what Obama will do as a matter of domestic politics. But does it make any military sense? ...

More at The Weekly Standard.

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The Generals' Revolt - Robert Dreyfuss, Rolling Stone.

In early October, as President Obama huddled with top administration officials in the White House situation room to rethink America's failing strategy in Afghanistan, the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the president an offer he couldn't refuse. They wanted the president to escalate the war - go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire - or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals.

Obama knew that if he rebuffed the military's pressure, several senior officers - including Gen. David Petraeus, the ambitious head of US Central Command, who is rumored to be eyeing a presidential bid of his own in 2012 - could break ranks and join forces with hawks in the Republican Party. GOP leaders and conservative media outlets wasted no time in warning Obama that if he refused to back the troop escalation being demanded by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander overseeing the eight-year-old war, he'd be putting U.S. soldiers' lives at risk and inviting Al Qaeda to launch new assaults on the homeland. The president, it seems, is battling two insurgencies: one in Afghanistan and one cooked up by his own generals...

More at Rolling Stone.

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Afghanistan Trip Report
by Bing West

Download the full article: Afghanistan Trip Report

Having recently returned from Afghanistan – thanks to the hospitality of Generals Petraeus and McChrystal - I’d like to share a few thoughts. By way of context, let me state my frame of reference. As a former assistant secretary of defense for international security, I am familiar with Washington dynamics; but I believe COIN is decided at the small unit level, not in national capitals. I was 18 months in Vietnam, have written five books on COIN and made 20 trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. This was my third Afghanistan visit in quick succession (April-May, June-July and October). My observations are based on forty to fifty shuras and patrols – several on extended missions – that included numerous small-arms engagements and fire missions. I talked with about 500 Marines and Afghan security forces of all ranks. The observations here are derived from that sample.

Download the full article: Afghanistan Trip Report

Francis J. 'Bing' West is a Correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan administration. In Vietnam, he was a member of the Marine Force Recon team that initiated Operation Stingray - sustained attacks behind enemy lines. He also saw action in the villages with a Combined Action Platoon and wrote The Village , a narrative of a Marine squad that lived for 485 days in a Vietnamese village. During the Vietnam time period, he wrote a series of monographs for The Rand Corporation on counterinsurgency and the nature of small unit combat. West is also the author of Small Unit Action in Vietnam, Naval Forces and National Security, The Pepperdogs: A Novel, The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah and The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq.

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On Leadership: A Question of Command - Paula Broadwell, Kings of War

In an earlier blog regarding the U.S. Army Officer Shortage, I highlighted a few problems with officer talent management that link to leadership development. In the interest of improving leadership development for our officer corps, I have been reading an great book by Dr. Mark Moyar of the U.S. Marine Corps University, A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq from Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2009.

As evidenced by the over-registered Marine Corps University’s conference on “COIN Leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond,” where GEN Petraeus gave the keynote address to the “COIN Nation,” there is a thirst for understanding the role of individual leadership in the COIN arena.

Readers from all ranks will be interested in Moyar’s succint identification of what it takes to succeed in the contemporary operating environment. Anyone who understands that effective leadership in a counterinsurgency setting - or the conventional battlefield - often does come down to the behavior of one individual will find that this book resonates with important themes...

More at Kings of War.

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Military Refines a 'Constant Stare Against Our Enemy' - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times.

The Pentagon plans to dramatically increase the surveillance capabilities of its most advanced unmanned aircraft next year, adding so many video feeds that a drone which now stares down at a single house or vehicle could keep constant watch on nearly everything that moves within an area of 1.5 square miles. The year after that, the capability will double to 3 square miles. Military officials predict that the impact on counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan will be impressive. "Predators and other unmanned aircraft have just revolutionized our ability to provide a constant stare against our enemy," said a senior military official. "The next sensors, mark my words, are going to be equally revolutionary."

Unmanned MQ-9 Reaper aircraft now produce a single video feed as they fly continuously over surveillance routes, and the area they can cover largely depends on altitude. The new technology initially will increase the number of video feeds to 12 and eventually to 65. Like the Reaper and its earlier counterpart, the Predator, the newest technology program has been given a fearsome name: the Gorgon Stare, named for the mythological creature whose gaze turns victims to stone. Unmanned aircraft, used both for surveillance and for offensive strikes, are considered the most significant advance in military technology in a generation. They not only have altered the conduct of warfare, but have also changed the nature of the current policy debate in Washington...

More at The Los Angeles Times.

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Our Man in Kabul - David Wood, Politics Daily

... He is our man indeed. And Hamid Karzai's casual assumption this morning of another five-year term as Afghanistan's president, after the election runoff was canceled when his only opponent pulled out of the race, saddles the Obama administration with a king-size migraine.

The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has rested on a central goal: building public trust in a strong, democratic central government. Sixty-eight thousand American troops are deployed there in service of that goal. The election process, beginning with a nationwide vote in August, was seen as crucial in demonstrating that democracy works and is worth the hard work and risk-taking required to support it.

Today that idea is a shambles. Now the U.S. strategy rests on an undemocratic, corrupt and weak central government, a president who cheated his way into office in an election held under American supervision, an election that even the government of Afghanistan concedes was stolen. The script couldn't have been improved if Taliban chieftain Mullah Omar had put himself to the task....

More at Politics Daily.

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U.S. Options and the Karzai Brothers - The Editors, Room for Debate, The New York Times.

Hamid Karzai was declared winner of the presidential vote in Afghanistan on Monday after his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from the runoff. But questions concerning the Karzai government’s legitimacy and corruption remain as unresolved as before.

The case of Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Karzai’s brother, shows how difficult it is to deal with the government now in place. The Times reported last week that Ahmed Karzai is paid by the CIA to help recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the agency’s direction. He has been linked to Afghanistan’s narcotics trade and is the most powerful figure in the swath of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban’s insurgency is strongest.

What should be done, if anything, about Ahmed Wali Karzai? Does his suspected connection to the opium trade make it impossible to achieve American goals in Afghanistan, particularly in Kandahar, where he is based? What does his political prominence say about the prospects for reforming the government?

Robert D. Kaplan, Center for a New American Security
Frederick W. Kagan, American Enterprise Institute
Vanda Felbab-Brown, Brookings Institution
Stephen Biddle, Council on Foreign Relations

More at The New York Times.

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DC Cabbies on Afghanistan - Lydia Khalil, Washington Post opinion.

... And herein lies the lesson for the Obama administration: decide already. No matter how many more opinions you seek, they will be contrasting and conflicting. There is no hidden oracle within the Beltway or beyond that will provide the answer. No doubt, this is a difficult decision, and its effects are far-reaching. The ultimate strategy for Afghanistan has ramifications beyond our diplomatic and military strategy for the region. The decision whether or not to go forward with Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recommendations will cement whether or not counterinsurgency will be the prevailing military doctrine for years to come. How much the US focuses on institutional reform, governance and infrastructure as part of any new strategy will answer once and for all whether the United States has the stomach or the capability to engage in modern-day nation building.

The outcome in Afghanistan will also affect Washington's standing vis a vis its international rival, Iran, just as it presents some unsettling implications for nuclear conflict between Pakistan and India. And once the United States commits itself to a cause and backs away from that commitment, as some have suggested we do in Afghanistan by scaling back our presence and constricting our goals, it is jeopardizing its ability to intervene in future conflicts should the need arise. Just take a look at Somalia...

More at The Washington Post.

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For aficionados of security assistance programs, the Stimson Center’s blog on national security budget issues has a quick summary of what security assistance funding is in the FY10 National Defense Authorization Act, which President Obama recently signed into law.

The Stimson post discusses:

Section 1206 (Global Train and Equip)

Section 1207 (Security and Stabilization)

Section 1208 (Support to Foreign Forces)

CERP

Pakistan COIN Fund

Iraq and Afghanistan Security Forces Fund

Coalition Support Funds

Combatant Commander Initiative Fund

Cooperative Threat Reduction

Some counter-drug programs

And more

Click the Stimson Center link above to see the details.

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Confronting the Hydra: Big Problems with Small Wars - Lieutenant Colonel Mark O'Neill, Lowy Institute.

Australia’s current role in Afghanistan is the latest experience in a long history of involvement in counterinsurgency conflicts or ‘small wars’. Such commitments may begin as wars of choice, but history suggests they can turn into wars of necessity, and their costs and political impact can be large. In this Lowy Institute Paper, Mark O’Neill charts the enduring nature of Australia’s problems with such wars. He concludes that, as a democratic middle power that chooses to wage counterinsurgency conflicts, Australia needs improved strategic policy approaches and capabilities to overcome a complex and many-headed threat.

Full monograph at the Lowy Institute.

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Crime and Terrorism
by Colonel Robert Killebrew

Download the full article: Crime and Terrorism

The U.S. has been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan now for eight years, and a great deal of our best thinking and most focused military development has quite rightly gone into fighting those two conflicts. We have built an effective counterinsurgency doctrine, we have re-equipped and re-re-equipped our forces, and we have perforce built huge bases of experience in dealing with Islamic insurgent and terror organizations. This is as it should be – Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ admonition to “win the war you’re in” is right on target.

In those eight years, though, as we have focused on the wars we’re in, there have been some profound changes in the structure of global terrorism, particularly with regard to the relationship between terrorist movements and international crime. According to a panel of experts at a recent conference sponsored by the Center for a New American Security, terrorism and crime have now merged, to such an extent that all terrorist movements – all of them -- have become partly criminal organizations to fund their operations, expand their reach – and incidentally make the people on top extremely rich, while lower-level zealots continue to be recruited for suicide missions.

Download the full article: Crime and Terrorism

Robert B. Killebrew is a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Killebrew is a retired Army colonel who served 30 years in a variety of assignments that included Special Forces, tours in the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, XVIII Airborne Corps, high-level war planning assignments and instructor duty at the Army War College.

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In response to e-mails referencing the fighting cited in my Afghanistan trip report at SWJ and Westwrite, here is a video of three firefights. They illustrate why adding more US troops is separate from imposing more casualties and lowering Taliban morale.

This video shows why coalition and Afghan battalions inflict few Taliban casualties. Causes include terrain, Taliban maneuver, heavy coalition armor and risk aversion to minimize casualties, while doing a professional job and returning in one piece.

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Should Obama Order Afghan War Troop Surge? Troops Say Maybe Not. - Tom A. Peter, Christian Science Monitor.

As President Obama and his top advisers make their final decisions on whether to send 40,000 or more troops to Afghanistan, it comes on the heels of the bloodiest month for US forces in the history of the eight-year conflict. In October, 55 troops were killed in action in Afghanistan. If there is a surge, US Army Capt. Micah Chapman says there will likely be more months like this ahead. "The more troops you have on the ground, the more chances there are for casualties," says the Fort Drum, N.Y., resident. "But I think you'll see a marked decrease in violence across the board once you get past the initial flood stage." But for many of the soldiers at Combat Outpost Penich, top commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's stark warning - to send more troops or risk failure - sounds too dire. At least in the eastern Kunar River Valley, where their company-sized force (about 100 soldiers) is posted, they say the challenges aren't quite so insurmountable. Yes, they say, major results may take time, and soldiers here face difficult living and working conditions, but they say they can get the job done...

In this vast country with much of the population spread across remote villages, US forces must be strategic about where they project strength, trying to block central arteries of enemy movement and disrupt strongholds. McCrystal recently ordered the closure of many remote outposts in an effort to focus on protecting key population centers – such as the cities of Kabul and Kandahar - and winning over residents. In this company, US soldiers say they don't need a surge. But they agree that with more boots on the ground, they would have the resources to extend their presence farther from the base into areas where the Taliban remain popular. Like combat units elsewhere, this one is stretched thin by the requirements of simply protecting their base. A surge "would make it easier because there would be more people to pull guard [duty] and the infantry can go out and do its job," says Pfc. Daniel Robbins of Iowa City, Iowa. The company's missions include hunting the Taliban with Afghan security forces as well as building roads with local Afghan leaders. Robbins says that when his unit is busy with operations it places stress on soldiers who alternate between guard duty and missions, leaving little time for rest. If there was a surge, says Spc. Nick Armstrong of Chesapeake, Va., "then we could work more in terms of pushing out [into the countryside]." He adds that he can imagine the push happening either with more platoon-sized bases (about 40 to 60 soldiers) or increasing personnel levels on larger bases to allow for more patrols...

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

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Going Tribal in Afghanistan - James Dao, New York Times.

In Washington, the debate over Afghanistan seems to center around two broad ideas: counterinsurgency versus counterterrorism. Should the United States add troops for a more population-centric strategy, as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal advocates? Or should it use a less ground-heavy approach, disrupting Al Qaeda with Special Operation Forces and unmanned drones, as Vice President Joseph Biden argues? There is, of course, no shortage of other ideas, many of them afloat in the blogosphere. Among the more provocative ones has been posted on Steven Pressfield’s blog, It’s the Tribes, Stupid, and it comes from an Army Special Forces major who has spent much time in both Afghanistan and Iraq training indigenous fighters.

The 45-page paper, “One Tribe at a Time” by Maj. Jim Gant, argues that one way to undermine the insurgency is to return, in part, to the strategy that ousted the Taliban to begin with: Embed small, highly skilled and almost completely autonomous units with tribes across Afghanistan. Much like the Green Berets who worked with the Northern Alliance to drive out the Taliban in 2001 and 2002, the units, which Major Gant calls Tribal Engagement Teams, would wear Afghan garb and live in Afghan villages for extended periods, training, equipping and fighting alongside tribal militias.

The goal would be to encourage what Major Gant sees as a natural antipathy between many tribes toward some of the more ideological, anti-American segments of the insurgency. Just as the Sunni tribesmen dubbed the Sons of Iraq turned against foreign al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq, Major Gant argues that Tribal Engagement Teams can counter al-Qaeda networks in Afghanistan by creating or strengthening indigenous fighting forces built upon local militias. That kind of strategy has been discussed in Afghanistan, where critics argue that it would undermine the central government in Kabul and encourage warlordism...

More at The New York Times.

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The Horror, the Horror: Afghanistan Edition

By Judah Grunstein

Cross-posted at World Politics Review

A paper by Maj. Jim Gant, titled, "One Tribe at a Time" (.pdf), has been getting all sorts of attention since it ran on Steven Pressman's site a few weeks back. I finally got down to reading it last night after Andrew Exum flagged it as an alternative to COIN in Afghanistan.

Where to begin? The paper is a collection of nativist mythologies that have run as a theme throughout the West's imperial age. Last of the Mohicans? Lawrence of Arabia? Dances with Wolves? They're in there. So is an element of Stockholm Syndrome, for that matter. The problem arises not with Lawrence, of course, but with his evil twin, Kurtz, who has already served as a symbol of colonial-era (Heart of Darkness) and modern American (Apocalypse Now) hubris.

Click through to read more ...

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Afghanistan: Connecting Assumptions and Strategy - Colonel T. X. Hammes, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), Major William S. McCallister, U.S. Army (Retired), and Colonel John M. Collins, U.S. Army (Retired), Proceedings.

Three well-known military thinkers re-evaluate what we've assumed to know—that just wasn't so—about a country where we've been fighting for eight years. The 19th-century humorist Josh Billings once wrote that "It ain't the things you don't know what gets you in deep trouble; it's the things you knows for sure what ain't so." The fictional Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, who captained the ill-fated minesweeper USS Caine in Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny, claimed, "You can't assume nothin' in this man's Navy." He was wrong, of course, because military planners frequently must substitute assumptions for absent facts. Those who did so in preparation for Operation Iraqi Freedom erred so outrageously that key suppositions began to clash with reality before the war was one week old, because what they knew for sure wasn't so. (For elaboration, see John M. Collins, "You Can't Assume Nothin'," Proceedings, May 2003, p. 50.)

The Defense Department's Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms clearly states that assumptions concerning current and future events must precede sound estimates of the situation and decisions regarding sensible courses of action. Connections between assumptions and strategy for Afghanistan accordingly are inseparable, but the architects of U.S. military involvement cling tenaciously to presumptions that simply aren't so. Armed combat consequently continues to escalate eight years after early victory seemed assured.

President Barack Obama and his advisers will find it difficult (perhaps impossible) to craft sound policies, plans, force postures, and operations without first determining which underlying assumptions to retain, which to discard, and which blank spots to fill, then revise their list accordingly. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, recently announced that "we in Congress have our own assignment: to test all of the underlying assumptions in Afghanistan and make sure they are the right ones before embarking on a new strategy." No official compendium is publicly accessible (if indeed one exists), but several perceived assumptions based on observable behavior seem worthy of reconsideration...

Much more at Proceedings.

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

Topics include:

1) Was it a mistake to send a Stryker brigade to Afghanistan?

2) U.S. troop morale may be slipping in Afghanistan.

Was it a mistake to send a Stryker brigade to Afghanistan?

On July 5, the U.S. Army’s 5th Stryker Brigade arrived in Kandahar province for a year-long tour of duty. The brigade was equipped with 350 Stryker combat vehicles, an eight-wheeled armored infantry carrier that has proven successful in Iraq and is popular with soldiers. It was the first time the Army had deployed Strykers to Afghanistan, but the country has proven unforgiving to the brigade. Thus far they have lost 21 of their Strykers to improvised explosive devices (IEDs), at a cost of two dozen killed and over 70 wounded. On Oct. 27, seven soldiers died during the bombing of a single Stryker vehicle.

Why are Strykers seemingly more vulnerable to improvised explosive attack in Afghanistan than they were in Iraq?

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New Afghan War Headache: Not Enough Troops Available? - David Wood, Politics Daily.

Beneath Washington's political squabbling over a new war strategy for Afghanistan is a deeper concern, this one among the Pentagon's war planners: not enough troops to go around. It's easy to overlook in Washington, but the Army still has almost 100,000 soldiers deployed in Iraq, and it's becoming less clear when they're coming home. With the growing demands of the Afghanistan war and other global commitments, the Army currently has more soldiers deployed overseas than it had at the height of the Iraq "surge'' in 2007.

At that time, it was widely predicted that the strain on soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen and their families was so severe that the military would simply "shatter.'' That was nonsense, of course. The troops, wives, mothers, kids, simply sucked it up and kept on driving. Why? The grunts I've lived with in Afghanistan and Iraq love what they're doing (you gotta ignore the usual and constant griping), they know they're good at it, and their families honor that service. But there has been a cost, and they are paying it.

Here's what worries the planners: The Army has 44 brigade combat teams (BCTs), its basic deploying unit of between 3,500 and 4,500 soldiers. Of those, 19 brigade combat teams are already committed, including 11 in Iraq and five in Afghanistan. One BCT is stationed in Korea, one trains deploying soldiers at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., and one BCT is on strategic alert for potential crises...

More at Politics Daily.

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Bumped to the top - weekend surge anyone?

We really, really, try to avoid inter-service rivalries but will make an exception in this one case – because it is for a really good and noble cause, we were asked to help out Team Navy and we like underdogs. Via e-mail from Project Valour-IT shipmate Maggie:

... Every year, just before Veteran’s Day, the Milblog world breaks up into service related teams to raise funds. The funds we raise purchase assistive technology for wounded service members. It started with voice activated laptops and has expanded to include WII units (which help with physical therapy) and GPS (which helps brain injured patients stay on track). Because the parent charity – Soldiers’ Angels, covers overhead, 100% of donations to Project Valour-IT go directly into purchasing technology.

This is our 5th year and Navy normally makes a very good showing. This year, inexplicably, we are getting creamed. So I write for two reasons – one, this is pretty much our one big event and we need to do well in order to meet the needs of the wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines. There is a waiting list as I write.

Secondly (and much less important), Navy is getting creamed and it’s killing Mary and I!

Here is some additonal information, how to help out Team Navy and contribute to a very important cause:

Project Valour-IT Main Page

Contribute to Team Navy's Efforts

The History of Project Valour-It

Editors' Note: Forgive us Chesty for we have sinned.

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The Good - Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement

The Bad - Michael Moss at The New York Times

The Ugly - Andrew Bast at Newsweek

And the Hero - Rich Shapiro at The New York Daily News

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The War of New Words - William F. Owen, Armed Forces Journal.

War isn’t just transforming - it’s ushering in a whole new language to describe conflict, and this language is used in a way that pays little attention to logic or military history. Thus the forces we used to call guerrillas are now “hybrid threats.” Insurgencies are now “complex” and require “complex and adaptive” solutions. Jungles and cities are now “complex terrain.” Put simply, the discussion about future conflict is being conducted using buzzwords and bumper stickers.

The evidence that the threats of the 21st century are going to be that much different from the threats of the 20th is lacking. Likewise, there is no evidence that a “new way of war” is evolving or that we somehow had a previously flawed understanding. In fact, the use of the new words strongly indicates that those using them do not wish to be encumbered by a generally useful and coherent set of terms that military history had previously used. As war and warfare are not changing in ways that demand new words, it is odd that people keep inventing them.

Hybrid threats have always existed, but previously we called them “irregulars” or “guerrillas”; both words, in this context, are more than 180 years old. The definition of hybrid threats as “a combination of traditional warfare mixed with terrorism and insurgency” accurately describes irregulars and guerrillas, both of which can be part of either an insurgency or a wider conflict. Yes, guerrillas have changed over time. So have regular forces. Armies of 1825 looked very different from those of 1925 or 1975, yet all were regular forces. Do we need a new word for regular or “conventional” forces? “Hermaphrodite” perhaps?

The most common attempt to redefine the activities of irregular forces and guerrillas has been the using the word “asymmetric,” predicated on trying to describe a dissimilar employment of ways and means that was apparently new. Yet history does not support this thesis, nor does it usefully inform thinking about the future...

More at Armed Forces Journal.

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The Taliban’s Political Program - Dan Green, Armed Forces Journal.

At their core, insurgencies are about political power struggles, usually between a central government and those who reject its authority, where the objective of the conflict is the population itself and the political right to lead it.

Thus, the center of gravity in this type of warfare is not the enemy’s forces per se, but the population. The centrality of politics to this type of warfare means that counterinsurgent forces must craft a political strategy that is sensitive to the needs of the population, seeks to secure its loyalty to the government, mobilizes the community to identify, expel or fight the insurgent, and extends the authority and reach of the central government. To achieve these goals, a government must have a political strategy that separates the insurgents from popular support so they can be killed or imprisoned. If a political plan is implemented poorly, or not at all, insurgent forces will capitalize on the grievances and frustrated hopes of the community to entice it away from the government. The community may then assist the insurgent with a safe haven to rest, re-arm, re-equip, recuperate and redeploy to fight another day.

In the long run, because this conflict is not about how many casualties counterinsurgent forces impose on the insurgents but about the will to stay in the fight, foreign counterinsurgents tend to grow weary of the amount of blood and treasure they must expend. The insurgent could lose every military engagement, but still win the war if the government does not win the population over to its program, policies and plans...

More at Armed Forces Journal.

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Obama Leaning Toward 34,000 More Troops for Afghanistan - Jonathan S. Landay, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers.

President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan next year, but he may not announce it until after he consults with key allies and completes a trip to Asia later this month, administration and military officials have told McClatchy. As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, NY and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops. Another 7,000 troops would man and support a new division headquarters for the international force's Regional Command (RC) South in Kandahar, the Taliban birthplace where the US is due to take command in 2010. Some 4,000 additional US trainers are likely to be sent as well, the officials said.

The first additional combat brigade probably would arrive in Afghanistan next March, the officials said, with the other three following at roughly three-month intervals, meaning that all the additional US troops probably wouldn't be deployed until the end of next year. Army brigades number 3,500 to 5,000 soldiers; a Marine brigade has about 8,000 troops. The plan would fall well short of the 80,000 troops that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, suggested as a "low-risk option" that would offer the best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan...

More at McClatchy.

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Over at Foreign Policy's AfPak Channel - AfPak Experts Advise Obama.

As the Obama administration ponders the way forward in Afghanistan, the AfPak Channel reached out to experts who have lived in Afghanistan or researched and reported from the region for extended periods of time to ask, in about what a senior National Security Council staffer might have time to say to him in one of the meetings that is now going on in the White House, what they would tell Obama as he considers his options. These are their answers.

More Talking, Not More Troops - Graeme Smith

Prioritize in Afghanistan - J Alexander Thier

Nearly Anywhere Terrorists Operate - Michael Innes

It's Not About the Number of Troops - Gretchen Peters

An Articulate Plan for Security - Asma Nemati

Time for the Heavy Lifting - Peter Bergen

Continue reading "AfPak Experts Advise Obama" »

A Better Understanding of the Vietnam War
by Colonel Gian Gentile

Download the full article: A Better Understanding of the Vietnam War

Thanks to Senator Kerry for his excellent and very accurate article in Newsweek, “Beware the Revisionists,” on the serious flaws of a certain strain of Vietnam War history. This flawed history coalesces around a number of highly problematic assumptions like the war could have been won if the United States had not lost its political will because by 1972 pacification was working, or that more troops could have done the trick, or that better tactics and methods earlier applied in 1965 could have won the war. Senator Kerry’s points concerning this flawed Vietnam history is actually supported by a general consensus of scholarly historians that still is in line with one of the most well known and respected of them all, Professor George Herring of the University of Kentucky, who states in his book The Longest War that for the United States:

…the war could [not] have been ‘won’ in any meaningful sense at a moral or material cost most Americans deemed acceptable.

Herring’s clear and profound observation of the Vietnam War is still correct and supported by a consensus of historians. Yet there has been this incorrect interpretation of the history of Vietnam that argues that when the wrong General (Westmoreland) was removed after the Tet Offensive in 1968 and the right General was put in place (Abrams) things then turned around on a dime, the American Army started doing classic Coin and had actually pacified the South—had essentially won the war through better Coin tactics—but the American people and their political leaders lost their will and therefore the war. No, this interpretation is dubious.

Download the full article: A Better Understanding of the Vietnam War

The author is a serving Army Colonel. He commanded a Cavalry Squadron in West Baghdad in 2006.

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Afghans React To Possible U.S. Troop Surge
By Sean Maroney, Voice of America
Kabul
09 November 2009

As U.S. President Barack Obama debates with his advisers on whether to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan, Afghans have their own opinions.

This year has been the deadliest for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban government eight years ago.

For several weeks in Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama has been hearing counsel from his advisers about the best course to take with the war-torn country. But half-a-world away, ordinary Afghans have their own advice for the U.S. president.

"Sending the troops to Afghanistan will not solve the problem. If the United States or Afghanistan start talks with the Taliban, it will be better," said Akhter Tutakhil, a medical student from Khost, a city in eastern Afghanistan.

Zainudin Wehadet is unemployed, living in the Afghan capital of Kabul. He says history has shown that no force can occupy Afghanistan. He says that no matter how many troops are sent, it will not end the fighting. He believes his government should start talks with the Taliban.

Ahmed Wali Mohmand is a student from Paktika province, next to the border with Pakistan. He says foreign governments should use their resources for something other than troops. "They should help with all our people and make universities and schools and other things which our people and society need," he said.

Daud Sultanzoi is a member of Afghanistan's parliament. He says he believes more foreign troops are needed and that the U.S. and Afghan governments have not done a good job of communicating the real reason for troops being sent to Afghanistan. "How can you build schools if you don't have security? How can you build schools if you cannot go to the districts to build them? You cannot build schools in a barrack and then transport it somewhere. You have to go to each district and secure those districts," he said.

Shenkai Karkhail also is a member of the Afghan parliament. She says she does not understand why weeks of meetings are needed in order for the U.S. government to make a decision. "They should be very much clear what they should do. Definitely they should send more troops here because the national army of Afghanistan is not in a position to really defend [from] this insurgency in this country," she said.

The United States has nearly 68,000 troops in Afghanistan and there are about 40,000 from NATO and other allied countries.

The top NATO and American commander in the country, General Stanley McChrystal, has warned the coalition could lose the conflict if additional military forces are not deployed.

Continue reading "Afghans React To Possible US Troop Surge" »

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Afghanistan: Seven Fundamental Questions
by Major Mehar Omar Khan

Download the full article: Afghanistan: Seven Fundamental Questions

I know we live in a world that is real and is moved by minds – thinking, manipulating, conniving, conspiring, calculating and masquerading minds. Our world therefore seldom has a place for ‘sentiments’ – pure, sincere, honest and spontaneous as sentiments are. But when it comes to war in Afghanistan, I am not deterred by the tyranny of the trend. I like, in fact I am forced, to think through my heart. What else can you do when you see images of your countrymen; innocent and unsuspecting men, women and children; ripped apart by other human beings exploding in their midst almost on a daily basis? How can I not worry about my daughter when I see a pale and empty face of a mother in Kabul or Peshawar, bent like a broken branch of an old, dried up tree; over the dead body of her child? How can I not cry when the soul of my nation is hit and hurt by violence that is so inextricably linked with bloodshed beyond the snaky Khyber Pass? For us in Pakistan, the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan and astride Durand Line is the most seminal endeavor of our history. If this war is won, the entire world stands to benefit. But if it is lost, one country that will be hurt the most is Pakistan – my daughter’s home and her future. War astride the Durand Line is therefore so personal to so many of us.

This war is also extremely personal for thousands of American mothers who await and pray for the safe return of their sons and daughters: bright young men and women who deserve to live and who must never be wasted just because someone considers it politically expedient to continue to muddle along and because setting the course right needs some statesmanship and may also involve some political cost.

Download the full article: Afghanistan: Seven Fundamental Questions

Major Mehar Omar Khan, Pakistan Army, is currently a student at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He has served as a peacekeeper in Sierra Leone, a Brigade GSO-III, an instructor at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, and as Chief of Staff (Brigade Major) of an infantry brigade. He has also completed the Command and Staff Course at Pakistan’s Command and Staff College in Quetta.

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Will vigilantes in Mexico succeed where the police and army have failed? Will it take a Mexican “Los Pepes” movement to effectively battle Mexico’s drug cartels? Two recent stories from Mexico hint that Mexico’s “Los Pepes” may have arrived.

The “Los Pepes” I refer to was the shadowy vigilante group that in the early 1990s methodically reduced Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar from a Latin American emperor to a cornered animal. As described in Mark Bowden’s brilliant Killing Pablo, Los Pepes, obviously enjoying access to the full intelligence file on Escobar’s vast organization, systematically murdered or chased into exile the concentric rings of Escobar’s supporting infrastructure. When he was finally gunned down, the former drug emperor was on the run in a Medellin slum with one bodyguard and two pistols. It is not an exaggeration to say that the murderous Los Pepes saved Colombia, where the police, army, and courts – all thoroughly suborned by Escobar – could not.

Will a new generation of Los Pepes be Mexico’s salvation? Some Mexicans, including one city mayor, seem to think so, as described in this recent Wall Street Journal article:

Click through to read more ...

Continue reading "Have ‘Los Pepes’ touched down in Mexico?" »

H/T Captain Crispin Burke.

Continue reading "Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game" »

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

In November 1919, President Wilson proclaimed November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words: "To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…"

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Standing Tall in Harm's Way - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.

In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings, some commentaries have examined the damage to the US Army from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A few have spoken about the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, as an extreme version of what can happen with an overstressed force. This picture of a traumatized military is misleading. Certainly, the Army and the other services are stressed by the demands of combat. But what's striking to me this Veterans Day is how healthy the military is, given all the weight it has been carrying for the country these past eight years. Facing a new and disorienting kind of warfare, the military has learned and adapted. Rather than complain about their problems, soldiers have figured out ways to solve them.

In truth, the US military may be the most resilient part of American society right now. The soldiers are clearly in better shape than the political class that sent them to war and the economic leadership that has mismanaged the economy. (I'd give the same high marks to young civilians who are serving and sacrificing in hard places -- the Peace Corps and medical volunteers I've met abroad and the teachers in tough inner-city schools.) Through all its difficulties, the military has kept its stride. That sense of balance comes partly from the fact that soldiers are anchored to the American bedrock. This includes the stereotypical small towns in the South and Midwest that have military service in their DNA. But it also counts plenty of hardworking, upwardly mobile Hispanic and African American families in urban America that produce some of the best soldiers I know...

More at The Washington Post.

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Obama Receives New Afghan Option - Peter Spiegel and Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday will consider a new compromise plan for adding troops to Afghanistan that would deploy 30,000 to 35,000 new forces, including as many as 10,000 military trainers, over the next year or more. The new scenario combines reinforcements for fighting Taliban insurgents with trainers aimed at rapidly increasing the size and capabilities of Afghan troops to take on more operations themselves. It wouldn't aim to eliminate the Taliban, but weaken it until Afghan forces can secure major population centers themselves.

A senior military official said this hybrid option is now drawing the most attention at the Pentagon. It will be considered along with options already proposed by the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, when President Obama meets Wednesday with his war council at the White House. Officials said Mr. Obama is now expected to unveil his new Afghanistan strategy shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia on Nov. 19. The issue of troop levels has put Mr. Obama in a difficult position. Gen. McChrystal has argued that tens of thousands of additional troops are needed to successfully curb the Taliban's resurgence. But many Democratic lawmakers have signaled they don't support such a buildup, and the American public's support for the war has waned...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

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I wrote this essay a little more than five years ago, back in April 2004. The story, however, is not dated. Like most soldiers, I've lost some of those I was connected to in these wars we have been fighting. Double digits now, and who knows how many WIA. This is what happens after a decade of combat. Some losses, however, strike closer to home. On this day, we shall remember. This is about one of those whom I will remember.

Continue on for A Soldier's Soldier...

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US Envoy Resists Increase in Troops - Greg Jaffe, Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post.

The US ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more US troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, senior US officials said. Karl W. Eikenberry's memos, sent as President Obama enters the final stages of his deliberations over a new Afghanistan strategy, illustrated both the difficulty of the decision and the deepening divisions within the administration's national security team. After a top-level meeting on the issue Wednesday afternoon - Obama's eighth since early last month - the White House issued a statement that appeared to reflect Eikenberry's concerns.

"The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended," the statement said. "After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time." On the eve of his nine-day trip to Asia, Obama was given a series of options laid out laid out by military planners with differing numbers of new US deployments, ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 troops. None of the scenarios calls for scaling back the US presence in Afghanistan or delaying the dispatch of additional troops...

More at The Washington Post.

Doubts on Karzai Complicate Troop Plan - Peter Spiegel, Wall Street Journal.

President Barack Obama expressed fresh doubts about the credibility of Afghanistan's government in high-level discussions Wednesday over what troops to send there, after his ambassador to Kabul warned against any reinforcements until the Afghan regime cracks down on corruption. US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry sent two classified cables to Washington in recent days raising serious concerns about the military's recommendation to increase troop levels, according to three US officials. Mr. Eikenberry criticized Afghan President Hamid Karzai's recent behavior as well as corruption in the top ranks of his administration, according to an official who saw the memos. Mr. Karzai has in recent interviews lashed out at the US and blamed corruption on international organizations working in his country.

In Wednesday's meeting, which Mr. Eikenberry attended via videoconference, Mr. Obama discussed options for adding troops for nearly 2½ hours. Two of the options were previously proposed by his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. A new "hybrid" option has recently gained momentum at the Pentagon, combining significant numbers of troops with trainers to improve Afghan forces' capability to secure the country themselves. A White House official said Mr. Obama made requests that could lead to significantly altering any or all of the choices, changing the number of troops involved and the length of their deployment. The official said Mr. Obama asked for specific timelines in each scenario for when US troops would turn over security to Afghan forces. In the past, senior military officials have resisted such timelines...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

US Afghan Envoy Urges Caution on Troop Increase - Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler, New York Times.

The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday. The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops.

General Eikenberry sent his reservations to Washington in a cable last week, the officials said. In that same period, President Obama and his national security advisers have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces. This low-end option was one of four alternatives under consideration by Mr. Obama and his war council at a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday afternoon. The other three options call for troop levels of around 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000, the three officials said...

More at The New York Times.

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While on his way today to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates revealed to reporters (in the course of blasting anonymous leakers) a few snippets from the Obama administration’s review of Afghan policy. According to the AFPS article, Gates said “Obama appears to be leaning toward [a policy option] that combines parts of various alternatives presented so far.”

Gates went on to say:

The question, [Gates] said, comes down to "How do we signal resolve, and at the same time, signal to the Afghans and the American people that this is not open-ended?"

If President Obama and his team are waiting until they come up with an answer to that dilemma, it is no longer a mystery why the review is taking so long. Sorry, you can’t commit to both the long road and the exit ramp at the same time – you have to pick one or the other.

The very fact that the administration is still trying to figure out an elegant solution to this insoluble dilemma sends a strong signal, a signal that explains and motivates the behavior of various actors in ways unpleasant to the administration. Examples include:

1. Pakistan hedging its bets by continuing to protect the Afghan Taliban,
2. Providing the Afghan Taliban with an excellent recruiting and motivational tool, and guidance on how to adjust the tempo of their operations,
3. President Hamid Karzai hedging his bets by cutting side deals with Afghanistan’s power players,
4. Local Afghans accepting U.S. assistance but also hedging by not resisting the Taliban (as reported by Bing West in his trip report),
5. U.S. conventional combat units doing their own form of hedging by getting passive and increasingly just going through the motions (also reported by West),
6. Anonymous leakers inside the administration attempting to preemptively cripple policy options they don’t like.

When Gates said, “signal to the Afghans and the American people that this is not open-ended,” I assume the Afghans he had in mind were Karzai, other top officials in the Afghan government, and officers in the army and police. He apparently wants to motivate those particular Afghans to make a better effort defending their country.

I doubt he was referring to the Taliban and the broad civilian population. They too are Afghans and have very likely received the message that “this is not open-ended.”

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Losing Kilcullen - Greg Grant, DoD Buzz

Forget the Vietnam analogies. Influential Australian counterinsurgency adviser, David Kilcullen, says the Obama administration risks a Suez style disaster if it fails to deploy the troop numbers requested by Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

The deep divisions within the administration that have burst into the open in recent weeks along with the long delay in answering McChrystal’s plea for more troops has created deep concerns among NATO allies and has presented an exploitable opportunity for the Taliban, Kilcullen tells Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Kilcullen, who is an adviser to the State Department, says it would be irresponsible for the administration to opt for any kind of middle ground option that sends less than the 40,000 troops requested by McChrystal. “Time is running out for us to make a decision. We can either put in enough troops to control the environment or we can credibly communicate our intention to leave. Either could work. Splitting the difference is not the way to go,” he is quoted as saying...

More at DoD Buzz.

Barack Obama 'Risks Suez-like Disaster' in Afghanistan, Says Key Adviser - Ewen MacAskill, Guardian.

A key adviser to Nato forces warned today that Barack Obama risks a Suez-style debacle in Afghanistan if he fails to deploy enough extra troops and opts instead for a messy compromise. David Kilcullen, one of the world's leading authorities on counter-insurgency and an adviser to the British government as well as the US state department, said Obama's delay in reaching a decision over extra troops had been "messy". He said it not only worried US allies but created uncertainty the Taliban could exploit. Speaking in an interview with the Guardian, he compared the president to someone "pontificating" over whether to send enough firefighters into a burning building to put a fire out.

He was speaking as Obama left Washington for a nine-day trip to Asia without announcing a decision on troop numbers. The options being considered by the US have been narrowed down to four: sending 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000, the latter the figure requested by the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. These would be on top of 68,000 US troops already deployed. The deep divisions with the Obama administration were exposed yesterday by leaked diplomatic cables from the US ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, who urged Obama to ignore McChrystal's request unless the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, cleaned up his corrupt government...

More at The Guardian.

Continue reading "Losing Kilcullen" »

ABC News has procured Taliban video of the 2008 attack on COP Wanat.

For background, see here, here, and here.

Continue reading "New Video of Wanat Attack from Taliban Perspective" »

Hearts and minds? Overrated. If you want to run a successful counterinsurgency, it all starts with the person at the top.

On Thursday, December 3rd, Mark Moyar will appear at the Pritzker Military Library to discuss his new book, A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq. This event is free and open to the public. The presentation will begin at 6 p.m., preceded by a reception for Library members at 5 p.m. It will be webcast live on pritzkermilitarylibrary.org and recorded for later broadcast on WYCC-TV/Channel 20.

Moyar takes issue with much of the current U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which guided the “surge” in Iraq. Though its creation was overseen by Gen. David Petraeus, whose leadership he considers a near-perfect model for counterinsurgency, Moyar finds the general’s most important qualities de-valued in the manual, which suffers from what he calls a “population-centric” emphasis toward defeating an insurgency by depriving it of public support. Using case studies from the Philippines, Vietnam, and other conflicts over the last 150 years, Moyar argues instead that counterinsurgencies succeed or fail based on the leaders involved: their ability to inspire subordinates, adapt to complex situations, unify civilian and military efforts, and identify capable sub-commanders, both from their own ranks and the target population.

Though A Question of Command describes historical insurgencies around the world, Moyar posits that the American South, after the Civil War, may have been the best model for the situation in Iraq. Whereas Grant and Sherman had led major victories on the battlefield, it was lesser-known leaders like Brig. Gen. Robert F. Catterson and Maj. Lewis Merrill who had the most success against insurgent forces such as the Ku Klux Klan. A Question of Command attempts to capture the qualities and decisions that set those leaders apart, making their successors easier to find.

Mark Moyar is Professor of National Security Affairs at the Marine Corps University. He is also the author of Triumph Forsaken: the Vietnam War, 1954-1965 and Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism in Vietnam. Moyar’s writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He received a B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Cambridge.

Seating for this event is limited, so reservations are recommended. Call 312.587.0234 or email events@pritzkermilitarylibrary.net.

Education professionals in Illinois may earn 1.5 Continuing Professional Development Units (CPDUs) for attending this event.

About the Pritzker Military Library

The Pritzker Military Library is a non-partisan, non-profit research institution located at 610 North Fairbanks Court in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, near the Magnificent Mile. Admission is free and open to the public, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and also for scheduled evening events.

Since opening in October 2003, the Pritzker Military Library has produced over 250 programs including events with award-winning authors, interviews with Medal of Honor recipients, and Emmy-nominated panel discussions on military issues. All programs are presented free of charge in front of a live audience, webcast live on the Internet, and recorded for later broadcast on WYCC-TV/Channel 20, a PBS affiliate. Programs are also available for download as audio podcasts.

The mission of the Pritzker Military Library is to acquire and maintain an accessible collection of materials and develop appropriate programs focusing on the Citizen Soldier in the preservation of democracy. The 5,000 sq. ft. facility features a collection of books and films on subjects covering the full spectrum of American military history, along with vintage posters, photographs, medals, uniforms, and other artifacts from private donors and the collection of the Library’s founder, COL (IL) James N. Pritzker, ARNG (Ret.).

To learn more, visit pritzkermilitarylibrary.org.

Continue reading "An Evening of COIN" »

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

Topics include:

1. The Saudi-Iranian proxy war escalates: good news for the U.S.,

2. Sri Lanka’s civil war is not really over.

The Saudi-Iranian proxy war escalates: good news for the U.S.

A sectarian rebellion in northern Yemen has now become an open contest between Saudi Arabia and Iran for influence over Yemen and the Gulf of Aden region. This week the Saudis brought their air and naval power to bear against Yemen’s Houthi rebels -- Shiite insurgents very likely supported by Iran – after a Houthi incursion into Saudi territory. Iran responded by warning Saudi Arabia to stay out of the conflict. What remains to be seen is whether this conflict will create and harden a Sunni-Arab alliance that might someday effectively contain Iran.

According to the New York Times, the Houthis captured a strategic mountain near the Yemen-Saudi Arabia border and clashed with a Saudi border patrol on Nov. 3. The Saudi response was a sustained air and artillery campaign against Houthi positions inside Yemen. On Nov 10 Saudi naval forces began a blockade of Yemen’s coast in order to cut the Houthis off from resupply. The Saudi and Yemeni governments believe that Iran is supplying the rebels with weapons, though Tehran denies it.

Why has Saudi Arabia felt the need to overtly intervene in what was previously an internal Yemeni dispute?

Click through to read more ...

Continue reading "This Week at War: The Upside of the Proxy War in Yemen" »

Mr. President, Take Your Time on Afghanistan - Joseph L. Galloway, McClatchy Newspapers.

President Barack Obama has yet to decide where we're going and what we're doing in Afghanistan, but if the flood of leaks this week is any indicator, he at least has decided what he isn't going to do. He isn't going to be rushed into making such an important decision.

He seemingly is unwilling to buy a pig in a poke from any of the players - not from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, who wants another 40,000 to 80,000 American troops; not from his own national security wizards who've proffered four different pigs in four different pokes; not from Vice President Joe Biden, who wants to leave the fight to Special Forces and unmanned Predators. The word is that none of the options contains what the president wants to see - an estimate of how many more years beyond the eight already invested would be needed and an exit strategy...

More at McClatchy Newspapers.

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The View From Man Bear Pig - Bing West, Westwrite.

... It was my third visit since April to rifle companies in northern and southern Afghanistan. In all, those visits included 40 to 50 shuras (meetings with village elders) and patrols. Some of those patrols stayed on the move for several days, and there were numerous small-arms engagements. In the field, I talked with about 500 American, British, and Afghan troops of all ranks.

Kightlinger’s squad was typical. They were manning one of two dozen outposts nestled among 75,000 residents in a remote district called Nawa. In June, many observers had doubted the wisdom of inserting a Marine brigade into Helmand, which is the center of the world’s heroin supply. All summer, the district market had stood empty; by October thousands of farmers were gathering to trade produce.

But five months has not erased years of distrust and turbulence. After the district governor met with the elders in a key village, the Taliban called their own meeting, which was attended by several of the same elders. The population, though thankful for the security, was hedging its bets. They know the Marines will not stay forever. Billions of dollars already have been spent in development projects to make Americans feel good about our generosity, but nation-building is an endless task. The tribes expect everything but give nothing in return.

It is not obvious that winning the hearts and minds of village elders, or linking villages to Kabul, wins the war. Our soldiers note that the Afghans are happy to accept what we give them but do not reciprocate by turning against the Taliban. The elders don’t raise militias or secure recruits for the army, and they don’t fight; there has been no replay of that scene from The Magnificent Seven in which the terrorized villagers finally rise up against their oppressors. Instead, fearful locals plead with migratory Taliban gangs to move on. A rural population, no matter how content with its government, cannot stand up to such a tough enemy...

Much more at Westwrite.

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The Gnome Society has been added to the SWJ blogroll. Described by the host as "... my own little think tank of Marines dedicated to candid and critical thought regarding the future of our beloved institution. Though our current projects are not posted publicly this blog occasionally hosts interesting articles for discussion."

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The Hasan Slide Presentation
A Preliminary Commentary
by Charles Cameron

Download the full article: The Hasan Slide Presentation

There is no place as private as the interior of a human skull: the mind remains inviolate.

Words can reveal some of what goes on inside us, actions can speak some of our intents and passions forcefully, at times explosively. And yet there is no place more secret -- and what a hint, a phrase, a gesture, a speech or an explosion cannot reveal, what even the best forensic examination can only label a probability, is the complex interweaving of thoughts half thought, doubts entertained, emotions pushing on through, and clashing, building at times to a perfect storm perhaps, with all doubts and constraints cast aside and the emotions unleashed in a blind and defining moment.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan MD MPH, a psychiatrist in the U.S. Army, has now been charged with multiple specifications of premeditated murder in the mass shooting at Fort Hood, under Article 188 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Assuming that Major Hasan was in fact the shooter at Fort Hood and that, as alleged, he shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the event, the main question of fact and interpretation now would be whether Hasan was more an introvert under pressure whose "break" took the jihadist cry "Allahu Akbar" as its outlet, or a patient and long-standing lone wolf jihadist of the sort abu Musab al-Suri calls for (Jim Lacey, A Terrorist's Call to Global Jihad, p. 19), or a wannabe with failed or actual al Qaeda connections, or an al Qaeda or related "soldier" under orders.

This analysis attempts to provide some leads in that inquiry, by a careful reading of the only substantial documentation we have from Major Hasan himself, which may throw light on his trajectory.

Download the full article: The Hasan Slide Presentation

Charles Cameron is an independent scholar and writer, and was at one time a Principal Researcher with the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. He would like to thank Stephen O'Leary, Richard Landes and David Cook for their encouragement and support over the years, the members of the NRM mailing list and particularly Jean Rosenfeld, Jayne Seminaire Docherty, Phil Arnold and John R Hall for their thoughts on this subject, David Ronfeldt, Ibn Siqilli and Leah Farrall among others for recent interactions, Mark Safranski for graciously allowing him to guest-blog on Zenpundit, and Howard Rheingold and the Brainstorms community, the folks at TMN, and Jaen Martens and Kevin Murphy for various other forms of hospitality.

Continue reading "The Hasan Slide Presentation" »

Enough Afghan Debate - David S. Broder, Washington Post opinion.

The more President Obama examines our options in Afghanistan, the less he likes the choices he sees. But, as the old saying goes, to govern is to choose - and he has stretched the internal debate to the breaking point. It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision - whether or not it is right.

The cost of indecision is growing every day. Americans, our allies who have contributed their own troops to the struggle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and the Afghans and their government are waiting impatiently, while the challenge is getting worse. When Obama became commander in chief, his course of action seemed clear. He was bent on early withdrawal from Iraq and an increase in resources and emphasis on winning in Afghanistan - the struggle he repeatedly called "a war of necessity." ...

More at The Washington Post.

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A Blue Line in Afghanistan - Michael O'Hanlon, Washington Post opinion.

As President Obama wrestles with whether to send more troops to Afghanistan despite widespread corruption in the government of Hamid Karzai, little attention is being paid to a promising dimension of our efforts to foster reform - a much better approach to building the Afghan police force. This anticorruption agenda does not reduce the need to battle kleptocratic trends in Kabul, but it is a big reason for hopefulness. Although the Afghan police force has shown pockets of promise, and many officers risk their lives daily in defense of their nation, the force has long been a major disappointment. Corruption and drug abuse are rampant. Many citizens prefer to encounter roadblocks and checkpoints run by the Taliban rather than the police because of the latter's penchant for extortion. (On a recent visit to Kandahar and Helmand provinces, I heard about an informal survey of truck drivers in the south that suggested they must pay an average of five or six bribes to the police per journey. More encouragingly, the same poll reported few, if any, extortion demands at army-maintained checkpoints.) Training has been shoddy: In years past, only 20 to 25 percent of police officers received any training before starting the job. Those who join the force frequently quit, sometimes to join the resistance, which often pays better.

But much of this is changing. While there is still a long way to go, new efforts at police reform point to a more encouraging paradigm for improving the competence and integrity of key Afghan institutions. A bill before parliament is likely to soon increase police pay and benefits for the survivors of officers killed in the line of duty. This is expected to help reduce the tendency of police to demand bribes from fellow citizens...

More at The Washington Post.

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A Strategy of Exhaustion
by Vegetius

Download the full article: A Strategy of Exhaustion

Most Jihads do not die with a bang; they have historically gone out with a whimper. The first great wave of Islamic holy war effectively petered out within a century of the death of the Prophet Mohammed and Arabs were no longer actively leaders in the expansion of the Muslim faith after the tenth century A.D. when the peoples of the Turk branch of the Eurasian peoples picked up the banner of Islam. The last of a succession of waves of pre-industrial Jihad petered out at the walls of Vienna in 1683. As we deal with post-industrial Jihad, we may be able to learn something about Islamic holy wars of expansion that have been dealt with in the past.

Jihad was a powerful enough force that it was impossible to permanently defeat by purely military means. Unlike their Christian foes, the Muslim holy warriors were generally content to stop killing when their enemies surrendered and decided to convert to Islam. Jihads died because they reached a point of exhaustion. The most fervent warriors who sought martyrdom in battle could get it easily. This eventually left the Jihad bereft of its most enthusiastic fighters. Those less fanatic or more skillful collected enough slaves and riches in the holy wars to feel that God had rewarded them on earth for their fervor, and settled down to enjoy the good life that successful Jihad made possible. A final element in the death of successive waves of Jihad was internal dissention and struggles for power among the Jihadist leadership. The contest for control for leadership of the first Caliphate began almost immediately with the death of the Prophet Mohammed and culminated in the great Sunni-Shiite schism.

As Edward Luttwak points out in his new book, The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, the Byzantines studied this new enemy closely and came to realize that their only hope of survival against the lethal threat of expansionist Jihadism was a strategy of exhaustion. Luttwak’s work is the first really comprehensive modern study of how the Eastern Roman empire survived and largely thrived in the face of expansionist Islam for eight centuries.

Download the full article: A Strategy of Exhaustion

The author is a government employee and a former infantryman.

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1st Battalion, 5th Marines PowerPoint AAR - COIN in Helmand: After the Clear, Thoughts and Tips on Non Kinetic Actions - most certainly worth a thousand words.

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Army Tells its Soldiers to 'Bribe' the Taleban - Michael Evans, The Times.

British forces should buy off potential Taleban recruits with “bags of gold”, according to a new army field manual published yesterday. Army commanders should also talk to insurgent leaders with “blood on their hands” in order to hasten the end of the conflict in Afghanistan. The edicts, which are contained in rewritten counter-insurgency guidelines, will be taught to all new army officers.

They mark a strategic rethink after three years in which British and NATO forces have failed to defeat the Taleban. The manual is also a recognition that the Army’s previous doctrine for success against insurgents, which was based on the experience in Northern Ireland, is now out of date. The new instructions came on the day that Gordon Brown went farther than before in setting out Britain’s exit strategy from Afghanistan. The Prime Minister stated explicitly last night that he wanted troops to begin handing over districts to Afghan authorities during next year - a general election year in Britain...

More at The Times.

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The latest U.S. Army / Marine Corps COIN Center SITREP - Includes Counterinsurgency, Stability Operations, and Security Forces Assistance updates.

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Afghan Corruption Concerns US Policy Planners - Gary Thomas, Voice of America.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has been roundly criticized in the international community for presiding over a corrupt government. A new report reinforces the perception of widespread corruption in Afghanistan, naming it the second most corrupt country of all those surveyed. That worries American policy makers as they deliberate on the future US strategy in Afghanistan. In Transparency International's just-released 2009 survey of world corruption, Afghanistan was only one step above the bottom rung, ranking 179th out of 180 countries surveyed. According to the group's report, only another war-ravaged state, Somalia, is perceived as being more corrupt.

President Barack Obama is considering whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban. Dispatching more troops would further commit the US to a strategy of counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. The central premise of counterinsurgency is to win hearts and minds and weaken popular support for the insurgents. Georgetown University Security Studies Professor Christine Fair points out corruption concerns policy makers because it undercuts Afghans' support for their government and support among Western nations for the enterprise in Afghanistan...

More at Voice of America.

Afghan Minister Accused of Taking Bribe - Joshua Partlow, Washington Post.

The Afghan minister of mines accepted a roughly $30 million bribe to award the country's largest development project to a Chinese mining firm, according to a US official who is familiar with military intelligence reports. The allegation, if proved true, would mark one of the most brazen examples of corruption yet disclosed in a country where the problem has become so pervasive that it is now at the heart of Obama administration doubts over Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reliability as a partner. The question of whether Karzai can address his government's graft and cronyism looms large as he prepares for his inauguration Thursday for a new term, and as President Obama completes a months-long strategy review that will define the future of US involvement in Afghanistan after eight years of war.

Karzai is coming under intense international pressure to clear his cabinet of ministers who have reaped huge profits through bribery and kickback schemes. Although he announced a new anti-corruption unit this week, the president has been reluctant to fire scandal-tainted ministers in the past, and it is unclear whether he is ready to do so now. Meanwhile, Afghans' perceptions that they are ruled by a thieving class have weakened support for the government and bolstered sympathy for the Taliban insurgency...

More at The Washington Post.

Ridding Afghanistan of Corruption Will Be No Easy Task - Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times.

Afghans have a name for the huge, gaudy mansions that have sprung up in Kabul's wealthy Sherpur neighborhood since 2001. They call them "poppy palaces." The cost of building one of these homes, which are adorned with sweeping terraces and ornate columns, can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many are owned by government officials whose formal salaries are a few hundred dollars a month. To the capital's jaded residents, there are few more potent symbols of the corruption that permeates every level of Afghan society, from the traffic policemen who shake down motorists to top government officials and their relatives who are implicated in the opium trade.

Cronyism, graft and the flourishing drug trade have destroyed public confidence in the government of President Hamid Karzai and contributed to the resurgence of the Taliban by driving disaffected Afghans to side with insurgents and protecting an important source of their funding. With casualties mounting and a decision on military strategy looming, President Obama and other Western leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to justify sending troops to fight for a government rife with corruption...

More at The Los Angeles Times.

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The Surge: the Untold Story is a 34 minute documentary produced by the Institute for the Study of War. This video documents the Iraq Surge as part of a population-centric counterinsurgency approach and features many of the top commanders and others responsible for its implementation - including GEN Jack Keane (Ret.), GEN David Petraeus, Amb. Ryan Crocker, GEN Raymond Odierno, GEN Nasier Abadi (Iraq), COL Peter Mansoor (Ret.), COL J.B. Burton, COL Ricky Gibbs, COL Bryan Roberts, COL Sean MacFarland, COL James Hickey, COL David Sutherland, COL Steven Townsend, LTC James Crider, and LT James Danly (Ret.).

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Mr. Obama’s Task - New York Times editorial.

There is no doubt that the prospects for success in Afghanistan are so bleak right now because former President George W. Bush failed for seven long years to invest the necessary troops, resources or attention to the war. But it is now President Obama’s war, and the American people are waiting for him to explain his goals and his strategy. Mr. Obama was right to conduct a sober, systematic review of his options. We all know what happens when a president sends tens of thousands of Americans to war based on flawed information, gut reactions and gauzy notions of success. But the political reality is that the longer Mr. Obama waits, the more indecisive he seems and the more constrained his options appear.

It has been more than eight months since Mr. Obama first announced his strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, warning Americans that, for them, the border between the two - where Taliban and Qaeda forces have found safe haven - is “the most dangerous place in the world.” And it has been more than a month since his top general in Afghanistan asked for 40,000 more troops, warning that “failure to gain the initiative” over the next year could make it impossible to defeat the Taliban. Americans are deeply anxious about the war. As the debate among his advisers has dragged on, and became increasingly public, many are asking whether the conflict is necessary or already a lost cause. Democratic leaders are among the loudest questioners.

It has become a cliché in Washington that there are only bad choices in Afghanistan. But it seems clear that this is not the time for a precipitous withdrawal, nor can the United States cling to the status quo while the Taliban gains ever more territory and more power. To move forward, Mr. Obama needs to explain the stakes for this country, the extent of the military commitment, the likely cost in lives and treasure and his definition of success...

Much more at The New York Times.

Debate Shifts to Afghan Exit Plan - Peter Spiegel and Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown have turned the focus of Afghan war planning toward an exit strategy, publicly declaring that the US and its allies can't send additional troops without a plan for getting them out. The shift has unnerved some US and foreign officials, who say that planning a pullout now - with or without a specific timetable - encourages the Taliban to wait out foreign forces and exacerbates fears in the region that the US isn't fully committed to their security. "It's not a good idea," said Rep. Ike Skelton (D., Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "When the area has been stabilized...then it's time to go home. But to set up a timetable for people in that neck of the woods, they'll just wait us out," said Rep. Skelton, a prominent supporter of proposals by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Kabul, to send more troops for a counterinsurgency campaign.

Mr. Obama isn't asking for the firm, publicly declared handover dates in Afghanistan that were the feature of early Iraq war plans, according to senior administration and military officials. Instead, the officials said, the administration wants the Pentagon to identify key milestones for Afghanistan to meet, in its governance and the capability of its security forces, and then give a rough sense of when each objective is likely to be achieved. Reaching these goals would allow the US role to shift away from direct combat, allowing troop levels to decline...

Much more at The Wall Street Journal.

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Counterinsurgency: The Challenge for NATO Strategy and Operations (250 pages - pdf). Produced by the NATO Defense College and edited by Dr. Christopher Schnaubelt, this document includes an introduction and 11 chapters covering NATO’s COIN challenges and implications, lessons from Afghanistan, hybrid adversaries, balancing civil-military operations, measures of effectiveness, local security forces in Afghanistan, NATO special forces in Afghanistan, police training in Afghanistan, and COIN foreign assistance.

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The massacre at Fort Hood is a reminder that the War on Terror is not fought just in south Afghanistan or Mosul. It is a global war also fought in an office building inside a military base in Texas. Many counter-terror analysts focus on the Pakistan connection and preventing The Big One that could top 9/11. But the real problem may well be the self-motivated “small ball” players like Major Hasan or a future disciple of DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad. “Small ball” terrorism won’t have the economic, political, or strategic impact that 9/11 did. But if there is enough of it, the public will eventually find political leadership that will provide an adequate response to the problem.

What should be that response? How should Western societies respond to the generalized problem of terrorism, especially the domestic variety? Constitutional law professor and former National Security Council staffer Philip Bobbitt attempted to provide a comprehensive answer in his grandly ambitious book Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century. In a message that ruffled feathers on every point on the political spectrum, Bobbitt argued that in order to defend Western values of liberty and the rule of law, both domestic and international law would need to become more muscular. Bobbitt rejected that there is a trade-off between civil liberties and government power. In a future world of “market-state terrorism” he fears we are headed to, Bobbitt argued that more law authorizing more surveillance and more foreign intervention would be the only way to protect basic liberties.

After an initial flurry of attention, Terror and Consent seems to have been shelved to collect dust. Without another 9/11 or even any small ball terrorism inside the U.S., no one has had any need for Bobbitt’s theories.

Major Hasan’s case may reintroduce us to Terror and Consent. Many want to know why the electronic surveillance over Hasan was not used to stop him in advance of his rampage. A fair question. Are there other Major Hasans who have similarly self-radicalized and are preparing to strike? Or about to self-radicalize even if they don’t know it yet? Is there a government agency responsible for monitoring and preventing this? If so, what should be an acceptable level of false positive identifications and apprehensions?

Bobbitt attempted to address these and other questions in a dense and theoretical way. But maybe it won’t be just theory for much longer.

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Positive Petraeus Lessons - Mary Claire Kendall, Washington Times opinion.

The essence of counterinsurgency strategy (COIN), integral to defeating Sept. 11, 2001-type extremists infecting various Middle East countries, is building confidence among the population. The key is working hand-in-glove with the respective military and civilian authorities to help stabilize their combustible nations so they might be free of the specter of extremist violence, thereby enabling the buildup of family, community and nation, according to each culture's unique and beautiful character. This new, irregular warfare is fought largely on human terrain, about which Gen. David H. Petraeus has written in the COIN bible, aka "FM 3-24" - Field Manual 3-24.

He recently affirmed for me during the American Veterans Center conference that official Washington - far from bloviating when asserting what they would do to win these wars - "gets it" on the fundamentals of COIN and that it is reflected in Situation Room deliberations on Afghanistan. Fortunately, given the high stakes, especially vis-a-vis nuclear Pakistan, when it comes to executing COIN - not just bloviating, er, talking about it - Gen. Petraeus is an impresario...

More at The Washington Times.

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U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Workshop Videos - Watch the presentations from the COIN Center's COIN Leaders Workshop held 27 - 29 October 2009. Includes a COIN Center overview, COIN doctrine, urban simulation, COIN lessons learned from OIF and OEF, the Soviet approach to COIN and border operations in Afghanistan, security architecture and COIN in Pakistan's tribal belt, why Pakistan is secure, Air Force Special Operations Command overview and an address by General Jim Mattis, Commander, U.S. Joint Forces Command.

West Point's Combating Terrorism Center's CTC Sentinel - The November 2009 issue includes the following articles: Lashkar-i-Tayyiba: One Year After Mumbai, Success of the Meta-Narrative: How Jihadists Maintain Legitimacy, AQIM and the Growth of International Investment in North Africa, Allah’s Domestic Containment and Regional Expansion Strategies, Jihadist Radicalization and the 2004 Madrid Bombing Network, The Past and Future of Deobandi Islam, Maintaining the Message: How Jihadists Have Adapted to Web Disruptions, and Recent Highlights in Terrorist Activity.

On the Knife’s Edge: Yemen’s Instability and the Threat to American Interests - Read this new Center for a New American Security policy brief by Andrew Exum and Richard Fontaine. This brief addresses the deteriorating situation in Yemen, which includes a growing al-Qaeda presence, a separatist movement in the South, and an active insurgency in the North, and the authors' opinion that the situation demands immediate U.S. attention.

New DoD Social Media Hub - Right now mostly feel good stuff and warnings - "How to Avoid Internet Coal in Your Stocking" is an example. That said and possibly of good use is the site's registry of DoD social media sites. RUMINT has it that the new DoD social media policy may make its debut here in the near future – or not. Will check back and file a full report.

David Petraeus For D.C. Metro Police Chief - On the lighter side, or maybe not - might be a "progressive" and great idea - Spencer Ackerman spins off a Washington Times op-ed "lavishing praise on the greatest Army officer of his generation for his farsightedness in demonstrating how a thorough security presence/posture combined with bolstered support for a host nation’s institutions of governance and rigorous subsidization of the tools for economic prosperity leads to a situation where a community comes “together to oppose and to confront the extremists.”" Salinas, CA, seems to think this type of approach has merit.

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

Topics include:

1) What happens when the U.S. and Pakistan split up?

2) America’s Asian allies examine their options.

What happens when the U.S. and Pakistan split up?

How close is the U.S.-Pakistan security relationship to a break-up? Self-interest, not affection, seems to keep the partnership going. That’s fine until a better arrangement for one side comes along or emotion overrides logic. An even larger U.S. military expedition in Afghanistan will be at the mercy of this fragile bond.

The reasons for cooperation are well known. The United States could not prosecute its war in Afghanistan without access through Pakistan. Washington hopes the Pakistani government will deliver up more al Qaeda terror suspects to join Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The U.S. engages Pakistan on a variety of levels to keep Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile under control. Indeed, notable U.S. analysts such as Stephen Biddle and Steve Coll believe that stabilizing Pakistan is the best justification for continuing the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan.

For its part, Pakistan counts on the United States to moderate its friction with India. More recently Pakistan has exploited its intelligence and military connection to the U.S. to target the Islamists at war with Pakistan’s government. But Pakistan’s enduring interest in America seems mostly to be about money.

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