Should President Obama decide to send 40,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan, the most ambitious plan under consideration at the White House, the military would have enormous flexibility to deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the Taliban center of gravity in the south, 5,000 to the critical eastern border with Pakistan and 10,000 as trainers for the Afghan security forces. The rest could be deployed flexibly across the country, including to the NATO headquarters in Kabul, the capital, and in clandestine operations. If Mr. Obama limited any additional American troops to 10,000 to 15,000, the military would deploy them largely as trainers, with some reinforcements likely in the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual home.
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN
Pricing an Afghanistan Troop Buildup is no Simple Calculation - Christi Parsons and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times. As President Obama measures the potential burden of a new war strategy in Afghanistan, his administration is struggling to come up with even the most dispassionate of predictions: the actual price tag for the anticipated buildup of troops. The calculations so far have produced a sweeping range. The Pentagon publicly estimates it will cost $500,000 a year for every additional service member sent to the war zone. Obama's budget experts size it up at twice that much. In coming up with such numbers, the White House and the military have different priorities as well as different methods. The president's advisors don't want to underestimate the cost and then lose the public's faith. The Pentagon worries about sticker shock as commanders push for an increase of as many as 40,000 troops. Both sides emphasize that their figures are estimates and could change - in fact, a Pentagon comptroller assessment this month put the number closer to that of Obama's Office of Management and Budget. Still, budgeting and politics are entwined, and numbers can always support more than one point of view.
In 3 Tacks for Afghan War, a Game of Trade-Offs - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times. Should President Obama decide to send 40,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan, the most ambitious plan under consideration at the White House, the military would have enormous flexibility to deploy as many as 15,000 troops to the Taliban center of gravity in the south, 5,000 to the critical eastern border with Pakistan and 10,000 as trainers for the Afghan security forces. The rest could be deployed flexibly across the country, including to the NATO headquarters in Kabul, the capital, and in clandestine operations. If Mr. Obama limited any additional American troops to 10,000 to 15,000, the military would deploy them largely as trainers, with some reinforcements likely in the southern province of Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual home. The neighboring, and opium-rich, Helmand Province and the eastern border with Pakistan, military analysts say, would receive few if any American troops and would remain largely as they are today. Such trade-offs are part of the discussions under way in the West Wing and at the Pentagon as Mr. Obama and his top advisers debate escalating the eight-year-old war. And they drive home the basic point that while the numbers will dominate the headlines, what is really at stake is how to fight the war.
In Afghanistan, A Drive to Lure Taliban with Jobs, Security - Laura King, Los Angeles Times. The Afghan government and the US military have begun a fledgling drive to lure Taliban foot soldiers away from the battlefield by offering them job opportunities and protection, diplomats and military personnel familiar with the initiative say. Officials hope the plan, which is loosely modeled on the "Sons of Iraq" program that lured Sunni Muslims away from the Iraqi insurgency, could help pave the way for an eventual Western exit from Afghanistan. Envisioned as a potential centerpiece of the new Karzai administration, the re-integration initiative is conceived as a bottom-up, grass-roots effort, similar to the Iraqi program, which was widely credited with reducing the level of violence there. At a time when relations between the West and President Hamid Karzai have been soured by public wrangling over corruption, the new program marks a rare instance of high-level cooperation between the Afghan leader and his foreign patrons. The program is to be Afghan-led, with the broad support of the United States, Britain and NATO's military force, which had been cool to such efforts.
British to Train Local Afghan Militias in New Hearts and Minds Push - Richard Beeston, The Times. British forces in Helmand province will begin training local militias to secure communities against the Taleban. The commander of British Forces in Helmand, Brigadier James Cowan, said that the move was the latest attempt to have Afghans assume responsibility for security and to allow British troops to take a step back from frontline operations. “It is exactly what the Americans did in Iraq [with the Sunni awakening]. That is what we need to do here,” Brigadier Cowan told The Times on a visit to Nad Ali, a notorious town in the central Helmand river valley. “Nobody wants foreign soldiers here. What they want is to be living in peace with their own people protecting them and that is what we shall seek to achieve.” The plan, called the Community Defence Initiative, involves offering young, local men the opportunity to train at the new Helmand Police Training School, due to open on December 5. The British would provide equipment, pay and uniforms. These local officers would then work alongside the British troops and the Afghan Army. The move is fraught with problems, however. Unlike Iraq - where the insurgency was controlled by foreign fighters who became alienated from ordinary Iraqis - most of the Taleban are locals. There is also the risk of arming people whose loyalty is in doubt. Early this month a suspected Taleban sympathiser shot dead five British soldiers just outside Nad Ali.
General Says Canada Fears for Afghans - Ian Austen, New York Times. Canada’s top military officer said Sunday that on more than one occasion, Canada did not turn over Afghan prisoners to the Afghan government, fearing for their safety. The acknowledgment by the officer, Gen. Walter Natynczyk, the chief of the defense staff, appeared inconsistent with Canada’s assertions that such prisoners had not been tortured. The brief remarks by General Natynczyk at a news conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, came amid a vigorous campaign by the Conservative government to discredit the testimony of a senior Canadian diplomat, Richard Colvin, who told a parliamentary committee last week that “the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured” during his time as second in command at the embassy in Kabul in 2006 and 2007. Mr. Colvin detailed his efforts to warn the Canadian government and military about instances in which, he said, prisoners had been sexually abused, beaten, stabbed, shocked, and burned. He said that those warnings were ignored and that he had been ordered not to document the allegations. Canada’s practices regarding Afghan prisoners, Mr. Colvin said, were “un-Canadian, counterproductive and probably illegal.”
Afghans Face Rise in Attacks - Anand Gopal, Wall Street Journal. Taliban-led insurgents marked the first days of President Hamid Karzai's second term with a series of deadly attacks across Afghanistan, including suicide strikes that targeted key government officials and a rocket attack on a Kabul luxury hotel that hosted senior Afghan and Pakistani ministers. On Sunday, the Taliban ambushed Afghan police on the Pakistani border, killing five officers, according to local officials. In the past, militant attacks tended to taper off with the approach of winter, as fighters moved to the warmer climes of Pakistan. This doesn't appear to be the case now. "They are staying through the winter and fighting," said Sayed Ansari, spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's security agency. On Saturday, Afghan militants fired a rocket at the Kabul Serena, the country's only luxury hotel, as a meeting between high-ranking Afghan and Pakistani officials was taking place inside. The missile struck a guard post, killing one official with the National Directorate of Security and wounding three policemen, said Kabul Police Chief Sayed Ghafar Sayebzada.
Pakistani Troops Kill 5 in Taliban Stronghold - Voice of America. Pakistani forces pursuing Taliban fighters near the Afghan border say troops killed five suspected militants in the latest clashes. A military statement published Sunday said troops conducting clearing operations killed the militants in the last 24 hours. The military says its forces also defused 10 improvised bombs, cleared some 14 caves and arrested four suspects. Pakistani forces in South Waziristan are working to clear Taliban fighters from a region that has been a traditional stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud. The military's claims of militant casualties are not confirmed because the offensive is taking place in a remote, dangerous part of the country largely off limits to aid workers and journalists. In a separate development, on Saturday Pakistani authorities unveiled a list of more than 8,000 people, including President Asif Ali Zardari, who two years ago were granted immunity from corruption charges. The country's Minister of State for Law, Afzal Sindhu, released the names of those who were protected by a 2007 amnesty which is set to expire next week. Other top officials who faced corruption charges include Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar, and Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Hussain Haqqani.
Amnesty List Puts Pressure on Pakistan Leader - Sahar Habib Ghazi and Sabrina Tavernese, New York Times. In another blow to Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, the authorities this weekend released the names of politicians, many from his own party, who benefited from an amnesty decree that dismissed past alleged crimes. The decree, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, was issued in 2007 by former President Pervez Musharraf as part of a political deal to allow Mr. Zardari’s wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, to return from years of exile to Pakistan. But it was applied broadly, with thousands of bureaucrats, diplomats and government officials benefiting from the change; on Saturday, the minister of state for law and justice, Mohammad Afzal Sandhu, revealed a list of over 8,000 names. Close to half of the politicians have had cases of corruption, money laundering, misuse of authority and criminal charges dropped against them since 2007. All but a handful were from Sindh Province, home to many in Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party.
The Battle Over ‘Hearts and Minds’ - Newsweek opinions. Two fathers of fallen soldiers weigh in on the war. 'You Can't Fight a War on the Cheap' by David Brostrom and 'The Military Command Is Making Bad Choices' by John Bernard.
A Plan C for Afghanistan - E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post opinion. When there is no good solution to a problem, a president has three options: to avoid the problem, to pick the least bad of the available options, or to mix and match among the proposed solutions and minimize the long-term damage any decision will cause. President Obama is soon likely to settle on something closest to the third approach regarding Afghanistan. This will make no one very happy. Yet it might be the least dangerous choice. No one would choose to start from where we are now in Afghanistan. We shouldn't have put this war on the back burner for so long, and we should have dealt much earlier with the debilitating deficiencies of President Hamid Karzai's government. But Obama can change none of this. And unlike enthusiasts for an all-out counterinsurgency strategy, Obama knows he has to make a decision that's sustainable over the long run, which means taking into account domestic economic and political realities.
IRAQ
Iraqi Lawmakers Fail to Resolve Election Law Deadlock - Voice of America. Iraq's parliament has again failed to resolve a deadlock on a key law that is required before general elections can be held in January. Lawmakers continued negotiations Sunday but failed to make breakthroughs. Parliament's Deputy Speaker Khalid al-Attiya said lawmakers will revisit the issue on Monday. Last week, Sunni Arab Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi vetoed the law that lawmakers had drafted and sent it back to parliament. The vice president wants more representation for Iraqis living abroad, many of whom are Sunni Arabs. After the veto, Iraq's electoral commission halted preparations for the vote. Members of Iraq's electoral commission say the vote will likely be delayed. But the nation's constitution calls for the elections to be held by January 31. Parliament has the option of amending the law to address Hashimi's concerns or sending it back to the three-member presidency council, where it may be vetoed again. Iraqis will be casting ballots to fill 323 parliamentary seats. That number is up from 275 in the current parliament, based on a formula that calls for one representative for every 100,000 Iraqis.
IRAN
Iran Drills Simulate Defense of Nuclear Sites - Elizabeth Arrott, Voice of America. Iran has begun military exercises simulating a defense against any attack on its nuclear facilities. The United States and Israel have not ruled out a military option should negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program fail. A top official in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps downplayed the threat of any Israeli attack. Speaking Sunday on the first day of the drills, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said even if Israeli warplanes evade Iranian defenses, Iran will launch surface-to-surface missiles to destroy Israeli air force bases. The five days of air defense drills are massive - covering more than half a million square kilometers. Officials say the military is trying out new weapons systems and testing whether its communications links can withstand electronic warfare. Iranian media gave prominent coverage of the war games, which the military says are its biggest ever.
Iran Launches Air-Defense Exercise - Chip Cummins, Wall Street Journal. Iran launched a five-day air-defense exercise Sunday, flexing its military might amid Western pressure over its nuclear program, and threatening retaliation against Israel if it were to target Iran. Brig. Gen. Ahmad Mighani, in charge of Iranian air defense, said Sunday the exercise was being conducted with both Iran's conventional armed forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, across a swath of northern, southern and western Iran. Announcing the exercise on Saturday, Gen. Mighani said it was targeted at preventing attacks on Iran's nuclear infrastructure. The drill comes as the West is increasing pressure on Tehran following Iran's refusal thus far to accept a nuclear-energy deal hammered out last month between Iranian negotiators and counterparts from the US, France, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The deal called for Iran to ship out the bulk of its low-enriched uranium, which would be further enriched in Russia and returned for use in a medical-research reactor. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said last week that Iran wouldn't ship its uranium out of the country, but that it was still open to talks about some sort of uranium exchange.
Iran Stages War Games, Sits on West's Nuclear Offer - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. Iran's army and Revolutionary Guard staged large-scale air defense war games on Sunday in an effort to show off the country's deterrence capabilities amid rising pressure from the West over its nuclear program, state television reported. Images broadcast Sunday included warplanes dropping bombs on targets in the desert, rockets being launched and paratroopers boarding Chinook troop helicopters. Iranian leaders had earlier warned that any attempt by Israel to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities would be met with a military response. "If the enemy tries its luck and fires a missile into Iran, our ballistic missiles would zero in on Tel Aviv before the dust settles on the attack," said Mojtaba Zolnour, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, told the government-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Saturday. The display of military muscle Sunday came as Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, insisted Iran needs guarantees it will receive nuclear fuel on time for its research reactor if it is to agree to a swap of uranium proposed by the West, reported semi-official Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA).
Iran’s Death Penalty Is Seen as a Political Tactic - Michael Slackman, New York Times. A flurry of executions and death sentences in Iran has raised concern that the government is using judicially sanctioned killing to intimidate the political opposition and quell pockets of ethnic unrest around the nation, human rights groups and Iran experts said. In Iran, where there is precedent for executions to surge in the wake of a crisis, human rights groups said there was mounting evidence that the trend had emerged in response to the political tumult that followed the June presidential election. This month, a fifth person connected to the protests was sentenced to death. In at least one instance, a Kurdish activist was hanged after the government added a new charge, raising concerns that cases with political overtones were drawing more serious penalties. In the short period between the disputed June election and the inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August, 115 people were executed, according to statistics compiled by human rights groups from Iranian news agencies. Though the executions mostly involved violent criminals and drug dealers, the number and pace of the killings appeared to be sending a message to the opposition, said human rights groups and Iran experts.
Iran Jails Top Reformer for 6 Years - Voice of America. Iran has sentenced a former vice president who protested Iran's disputed presidential election to six years in jail. Those close to reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi said Sunday he was was notified about his sentence on Saturday. Iran's judiciary found him guilty of provoking people to riot against the government. Abtahi was jailed a few days after the June 12 vote. He reportedly expressed regret for taking part in the protests, but family members said his statements were obtained under duress. President Ahmadinejad's re-election in June caused massive protests by Iranians who felt the vote was fraudulent. Many people were reported killed in the government crackdown, and more than 1,000 political activists, journalists and other were detained.
UNITED STATES
Fort Hood Suspect Paralyzed From Chest Down, Lawyer Says - Philip Rucker, Washington Post. Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., is paralyzed from the chest down and doctors believe his paralysis will be permanent, Hasan's lawyer said Sunday. "He has no sensation from the nipple area down," Hasan's civilian attorney, John P. Galligan, said in a telephone interview. During a closed-door hearing in Hasan's hospital room on Saturday that lasted about an hour, a magistrate ruled that Hasan be confined until his military trial, Galligan said.
Major Hasan and Holy War - Reuel Marc Gerecht, Wall Street Journal opinion. For those of us who have tracked Islamic militancy in Europe, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's actions are not extraordinary. Since Muslim militants first tried to blow a French high-speed train off its rails in 1995, European intelligence and internal-security services have increasingly monitored European Muslim radicals. Whether it's anti-Muslim bigotry, the large numbers of immigrant and native-born Muslims in Europe, an appreciation of how hard it is to become European, or just an understanding of how dangerous Islamic radicalism is, most Europeans are far less circumspect and politically correct when discussing their Muslim compatriots than are Americans. A concern for not giving offense to Muslims would never prevent the French internal-security service, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), which deploys a large number of Muslim officers, from aggressively trying to pre-empt terrorism. As Maj. Hasan's case shows, this is not true in the United States. The American military and especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation were in great part inattentive because they were too sensitive. Moreover, President Barack Obama's determined effort not to mention Islam in terrorist discussions - which means that we must not suggest that Maj. Hasan's murderous actions flowed from his faith - will weaken American counterterrorism. Worse, the president's position is an enormous wasted opportunity to advance an all-critical Muslim debate about the nature and legitimacy of jihad.
Old Soldiers Never Cash Out - New York Times editorial. For all the stars of ranking generals and admirals in Washington, it turns out there’s still a higher grade - “senior mentor.” These are retired brass enjoying lucrative compensation as part-time Pentagon advisers, who, in most cases, also draw VIP pay from companies seeking defense contracts. The mentor cohort has quietly grown in recent years from a handful to at least 158 ranking retired officers - 80 percent of whom hire on at the same time with defense contractors. There is nothing illegal about the double-dipping. But few people in Congress or elsewhere knew about it until now because there is no requirement to tell anyone, even the Pentagon. As Pentagon advisers, mentors are paid hundreds of dollars an hour for offering counsel to former colleagues on war games and other specialties. As defense contract consultants, they can make considerably more. It’s time to closely manage the retirees’ good deal, documented in a report by USA Today.
AFRICA
The Ultimate Crop Rotation - Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post. In recent months, the Ethiopian government began marketing abroad one of the hottest commodities in an increasingly crowded and hungry world: farmland. "Why Attractive?" reads one glossy poster with photos of green fields and a map outlining swaths of the country available at bargain-basement prices. "Vast, fertile, irrigable land at low rent. Abundant water resources. Cheap labor. Warmest hospitality." This impoverished and chronically food-insecure Horn of Africa nation is rapidly becoming one of the world's leading destinations for the booming business of land leasing, by which relatively rich countries and investment firms are securing 40-to-99-year contracts to farm vast tracts of land. Governments across Southeast Asia, Latin America and especially Africa are seizing the chance to attract this new breed of investors, wining and dining executives and creating land-leasing agencies and land catalogues to showcase their offerings of earth. In Africa alone, experts estimate that about 50 million acres - roughly the size of Nebraska - have been leased in the past two years. The trend is driven in part by last year's global food crisis. Relatively wealthy countries are shoring up their food supplies by growing staple crops abroad. The desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for instance, is shifting wheat production to Africa. The government of India, where land is crowded and overfarmed, is offering incentives to companies to carve out mega farms across the continent.
AMERICAS
Brazil’s President Elbows US on the Diplomatic Stage - Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times. Brazil’s ambitions to be a more important player on the global diplomatic stage are crashing headlong into the efforts of the United States and other Western powers to rein in Iran’s nuclear arms program. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, is set to receive Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, here on Monday in his first state visit to Brazil. The visit is part of a larger push by Mr. da Silva to wade into the seemingly intractable world of Middle East politics, and follows visits in the last two weeks by Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, and Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. But the visit is drawing criticism from lawmakers and former diplomats here and in the United States, who say it could undercut Western efforts to press Iran on its nuclear program, and consequently chill Brazil’s relations with the United States and damage its growing reputation as a global power. Brazilian officials say the goal of the visit is to strengthen commercial ties between the two countries and help bring peace to the Middle East.
Skeptics Doubt Mexican Data on Military Abuses - William Booth and Steve Fainaru, Washington Post. The Mexican military has convicted just one soldier of a serious human rights violation during a bloody, three-year campaign against drug traffickers, according to Interior Ministry figures that are significantly lower than those reported by the US government. The Mexican military has come under scrutiny because of a surge in complaints against soldiers, including allegations of torture, beatings and illegal raids and arrests. The Mexican army is leading the fight against the powerful drug cartels as part of President Felipe Calderón's US-backed strategy to put 45,000 troops into the streets and employ soldiers as police. In response to inquiries by the group Human Rights Watch, Mexico's Interior Minister, Fernando Gomez-Mont, said that three soldiers have been found guilty of human rights crimes committed during the three years of the Calderón administration. However, one conviction resulted from an automobile accident and another was overturned on appeal, according to the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for security throughout Mexico.
The End of Bolivian Democracy - Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal opinion. A dictatorship that fosters the production and distribution of cocaine is not apt to enjoy a positive international image. But when that same government cloaks itself in the language of social justice, with a special emphasis on the enfranchisement of indigenous people, it wins world-wide acclaim. This is Bolivia, which in two weeks will hold elections for president and both houses of congress. The government of President Evo Morales will spin the event as a great moment in South American democracy. In fact, it will mark the official end of what's left of Bolivian liberty after four years of Morales rule. While the US and the Organization of American States have been obsessing over Honduras's legal removal of an undemocratic president, Mr. Morales has been fortifying his narco-dictatorship. He's also made friends with Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who will make another visit to La Paz tomorrow. Mr. Morales is expected to win re-election easily, in part because in many areas that he controls voters will be escorted into polling booths to make sure they choose correctly. His party, Movement for Socialism (aka MAS for its Spanish initials), is almost certain to retain control of the lower house of congress and is likely to win the senate, which until now has been controlled by the opposition. If this happens, Mr. Morales's rule will be almost impossible to challenge. But this should not be interpreted as a national embrace of his politics. He will pull off his power grab thanks to a policy of terror against his adversaries.
ASIA PACIFIC
21 Filipinos Are Reported Dead in Election Violence - Carlos H. Conde, New York Times. In one of the worst incidents of election-related violence in the Philippines in recent memory, a group of 36 people - including lawyers and journalists - were kidnapped by armed men on Monday, and military officials said that 21 of them had been killed. Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner, a military spokesman in Manila, said 21 bodies had been recovered in Maguindanao, a province in the southern Philippines that has often been wracked by violence during elections. Maj. Gen. Alfredo Cayton, a security official in the province, said in a radio interview that the victims had been shot. But relatives of most of the victims said at least 30 abductees had been killed - many of them beheaded - by a group of about 100 men. The victims were reportedly stopped on their way to an election office to file candidacy papers for Esmael Mangudadatu, the deputy mayor of Buluan. Mr. Mangudadatu said on ABS-CBN television that his wife, his sister and several other female relatives were among the group and that he had received confirmation that they had been killed.
EUROPE
Slipping in Turkey - Washington Post editorial. Recently Tayyip Erdogan has been the protagonist of an epic liberalization of politics in Turkey. The victory of his mildly Islamist AK Party in a 2002 general election was itself a breakthrough; even more so was his government's defeat of repeated attempts by the military and courts to remove it from power. Mr. Erdogan is pushing through historic reforms of Turkey's treatment of its Kurdish minority and recently took a major step toward opening the country's border with Armenia. Yet, as his tenure lengthens, it is becoming evident that Mr. Erdogan's commitment to democratic principles and Western values is far from complete. As Turkey's prospects of joining the European Union have dimmed, the government's foreign policy has taken a nasty turn: Shrill denunciations of Israel have been accompanied by increasing coziness with the criminal rulers of Iran, Syria and Sudan. Mr. Erdogan recently declared that Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who has been indicted for war crimes in Darfur, was welcome in Turkey because "a Muslim can never commit genocide." Even more concerning is Mr. Erdogan's treatment of the Turkish media. Frustrated by hostility toward his government by media conglomerates that formed part of Turkey's traditional secular establishment, the prime minister and his allies have resorted to increasingly heavy-handed measures.
MIDDLE EAST
Jewish Neighborhood Becomes Flashpoint in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Luiz Ramirez, Voice of America. Israel's recent decision to build more homes in Gilo, which Israel says is part of Jerusalem, has ignited more anger among Palestinians who say it's a settlement on land captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and then annexed. The issue is explosive because both Israelis and Palestinians consider Jerusalem their capital. On the surface, it's a quiet suburb. For decades, however, this neighborhood has been on the firing line in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Sara Walter came to Israel 29 years ago from Argentina. This is where the Israeli ministry of housing and absorption put her. Zionist ideology, she says, is not the reason she lives in Gilo. "We came here because here we received an apartment. But it could have been in another place." Gilo sits across a ravine from the West Bank town of Beit Jala. It was from here in the last Palestinian uprising, known as the Second Intifada, that militants fired bullets and rockets at Gilo, aiming to kill Jews.
Palestinians Looking to US-style Suburban Housing, Financing - Howard Schneider, Washington Post. Though Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have stalled, Palestinian officials have put a focus on building the institutions of a future state, including their banking system and economy. Backed by the US Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) and the nonprofit Middle East Investment Initiative, whose board is heavy with Washington insiders, a half-billion-dollar fund is being set up to expand a mortgage market that at present serves mainly the wealthy, or at least those who can afford 13 percent interest and the risk of quarterly rate resets. OPIC is putting up about half the money. The Palestinian Authority, through its Palestine Investment Fund, the International Finance Corp. and two local banks, are contributing the rest. The Middle East Investment Initiative, which has close ties to the Aspen Institute and the DLA Piper law firm from which US peace envoy George J. Mitchell recently retired as chairman, is helping set up a company that will administer the fund.
Israel, Hamas Discuss Swap for Captured Soldier - Agence France-Presse. Israeli President Shimon Peres said Sunday that there has been "progress" in talks to free soldier Gilad Shalit, who has held captive by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip for the past three years. "Everyone knows there is progress, and I hope it will come to something," Mr. Peres said on Channel 2 commercial television on his return from a trip to Egypt to meet President Hosni Mubarak. Mr. Peres, the only political leader to have spoken about the case in recent days, did not elaborate. Israeli military censorship has imposed a blackout on information about indirect negotiations brokered by a German intermediary between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement, which holds the 23-year-old. Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi defended the censorship on the talks, saying that leaks "have already caused damage.
SOUTH ASIA
Indian PM Becomes President Obama's First State Guest - Ravi Khanna, Voice of America. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh becomes US President Barack Obama's first state guest during a three-day visit to Washington beginning November 23. New Delhi will be looking to see if Mr. Obama wants to sustain the deepened relationship forged under former president George Bush. In Washington, observers say Mr. Singh is pushing for broader ties with Western economies. From counterterrorism to the US strategy in Afghanistan, from global warming to nuclear non-proliferation, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama are expected to cover a range of issues, says India's ambassador to Washington, Meera Shankar. "Security, economic, political and development issues. Then there are regional challenges on which both countries have concerns and surely they will exchange perspectives and views," he said. President Obama sees the two countries working together for the betterment of the world, says Undersecretary of State William Burns. "Our scientists solving environmental challenges together, our doctors discovering medicines, our engineers advancing our societies, our entrepreneurs generating prosperity, our educators laying the foundation for future generations, and our governments working together to advance peace, prosperity and stability," he said.
Don't Neglect India - Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post opinion. Barack Obama has been criticized for kowtowing to the Chinese and the Russians over the past few months. So far this is all about atmospherics. The administration has not made any unilateral concession of substance to either country. It is taking a strategic view that developing strong relationships with both countries, particularly China, will yield long-term benefits. Strangely, however, that focus has been lost in dealing with Asia's other rising giant, India. At one level the administration is being extremely friendly. India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, comes to Washington this week for the first official state visit of the Obama presidency. There will be toasts and celebrations and many nice words said about the ties between the two great democracies. But underneath this lies an unease about the state of the relationship. Indian officials worry that the Obama team does not share the same fundamental orientation of the Bush administration regarding India's role in the 21st century. Some Obama officials publicly criticized the nuclear deal championed by George W. Bush, a deal that the Indians regard as basic recognition of their status as a major power. They worry that a Democratic administration could succumb to protectionism. They worry that it is too cozy with China.
EVENTS
An Evening of Counterinsurgency at the Pritzker Military Library. 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.
BOOKS
Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan - Doug Stanton.
Horse Soldiers tells the important story of the Special Forces soldiers who first put American boots on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001. Fighting alongside the Northern Alliance, the troops, often riding on horseback, achieved several important victories against the Taliban.
War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age - Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker.
War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age argues that two intimately connected trends are putting modern armies under huge pressure to adapt: the rise of insurgencies and the rise of the Web. Both in cyberspace and in warfare, the grassroots public has assumed increasing importance in recent years. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Web 2.0 rose from the ashes. This newly interactive and participatory form of the Web promotes and enables offline action. Similarly, after Rumsfeld's attempt to transform the US military into a lean, lethal, computerized force crashed in Iraq in 2003, counterinsurgency rose from the ashes. Counterinsurgency is a social form of war - indeed, the US Army calls it armed social work - in which the local matrix population becomes the center of strategic gravity and public opinion at home the critical vulnerability.
The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the US Military for Modern Wars - David H. Ucko.
Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military has recognized the need to "re-learn" counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures? In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality.
Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda - Thomas P. Odom.
In July 1994, Thomas P. Odom was part of the US Embassy team that responded to the Goma refugee crisis. He witnessed the deaths of 70,000 refugees in a single week. In the previous three months of escalating violence, the Rwandan genocide had claimed 800,000 dead. Now, in this vivid and unsettling new book, Odom offers the first insider look at these devastating events before, during, and after the genocide.
Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage - Donovan Campbell.
Donovan Campbell, first as a Marine and then as a writer, shows us that the dominant emotion in war isn’t hatred or anger or fear. It’s love. His story stands as a poignant tribute to his men–their courage, their dedication, their skill, and their love for one another, even unto death.
The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose - Anthony Zinni and Tony Koltz
The intellectual complement to Zinni and Clancy's bestselling Battle Ready (2004), a narrative memoir salted with specific policy recommendations, this volume provides the former US Central Command chief's analysis of America's current global position. Zinni begins by asserting that America's status as "the most powerful nation in the history of the planet" has created a de facto empire. The US has no choice: if it fails to take the lead, nothing significant happens. At the same time, Americans must recognize that, in a global age, there can be no zero-sum games.
The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education - Craig Mullaney
The Unforgiving Minute is the ultimate's soldier's book - universal in its raw emotion and its understanding of the larger issues of life and death. Mullaney, a master storyteller, plunges the depths of self-doubt, endurance, and courage. The result: a riveting, suspenseful human story, beautifully told. This is a book written under fire - a lyrical, spellbinding tale of war, love, and courage. The Unforgiving Minute is the Three Cups of Tea of soldiering.
Great Powers: America and the World after Bush - Thomas P.M. Barnett
In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping - and important - book of all.
The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - David Kilcullen
A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.
The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks
Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.
Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips
Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.
Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor
This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.
The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West
From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.
Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson
After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.
The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward
Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.
We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway
In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.
In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy
The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.
Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz
Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.
