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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Continue reading "This Week at War: Heading for a Bad Breakup" »

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.

Continue reading "Major Hasan reintroduces 'Terror and Consent'" »

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?

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

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.”

Continue reading "No wonder the Afghan review is taking so long" »

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:

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

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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Continue reading "This Week at War: Why Don't Stryker Brigades Work in Afghanistan?" »

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.

Continue reading "Security assistance in latest defense authorization bill" »

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

Topic include:

1) Why would ‘American officials’ expose their own intelligence source?

2) U.S.–India military cooperation: some rare good news in Asia.

Why would ‘American officials’ expose their own intelligence source?

On Oct. 27 the New York Times reported that Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of President Hamid Karzai and a major power broker in Kandahar, was a paid intelligence asset of the Central Intelligence Agency. The Times’s sources for this allegation included “current and former American officials” including a former CIA officer and perhaps a senior U.S. military officer in Kabul. Ahmed Wali Karzai acknowledged aiding U.S. efforts but denied receiving any payments from the CIA.

The piece asserted that Karzai’s alleged connections to Afghanistan’s drug trade created deep frustrations with senior political and military officials in both the Obama and Bush administrations.

Did frustration and moral outrage with Karzai’s illicit activities lead U.S. officials to expose him as a paid CIA asset? It would certainly be understandable, for these officials may have a low opinion of him and perhaps by association his brother the president. But this collective outburst is folly and will make a nearly impossible task for the Americans in Afghanistan only that much harder to achieve.

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Continue reading "This Week at War: You Can't Always Pick Your Afghan Friends" »

Yesterday, Dave cited this op-ed from the New York Times written by a historian who chronicled the collapse of the Soviet Union. He opened with this excerpt:

THE highly decorated general sat opposite his commander in chief and explained the problems his army faced fighting in the hills around Kabul: “There is no piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by one of our soldiers at some time or another,” he said. “Nevertheless much of the territory stays in the hands of the terrorists. We control the provincial centers, but we cannot maintain political control over the territory we seize.

“Our soldiers are not to blame. They’ve fought incredibly bravely in adverse conditions. But to occupy towns and villages temporarily has little value in such a vast land where the insurgents can just disappear into the hills.” He went on to request extra troops and equipment. “Without them, without a lot more men, this war will continue for a very, very long time,” he said.

These sound as if they could be the words of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, to President Obama in recent days or weeks. In fact, they were spoken by Sergei Akhromeyev, the commander of the Soviet armed forces, to the Soviet Union’s Politburo on Nov. 13, 1986.

The op-ed, a quick summary of top-level Soviet policy in Afghanistan, concludes with this:

In 1988, Robert Gates, then the deputy director of the C.I.A., made a wager with Michael Armacost, then undersecretary of state. He bet $25 that the Soviet Army wouldn’t leave Afghanistan. The Soviets retreated in humiliation soon after. Mr. Gates, we can assume, paid up.

I am sure Robert Gates never imagined that 20 years later he would find himself flying into Bagram for exasperated conferences with his generals.

Soviet tactics in Afghanistan were brutal in the extreme and the slaughter and refugee crisis that ensued in the 1980s in no way compares to the current experience.

But although the U.S. has used a much gentler hand than the Soviets, the results (or lack thereof) seem the same. Perhaps those Afghans who choose to fight don’t care what tactics, techniques, and procedures their enemies use. Now the hope is that one final addition of troops and reconstruction spending will isolate those Afghan recalcitrants and achieve a recognizable improvement in stability.

Success requires commitment. But commitment makes failure much more painful. Military historians have many examples in both categories. Committing to success means taking a risk on great pain, a dilemma President Obama and his advisers must now understand.

Continue reading "Déjà vu from the Soviet archives" »

Todd Harrison, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, wonders whether the U.S. Department of Defense will need a financial bailout, for many of the same reasons General Motors needed one.

His essay (also posted at the Stimson Center’s excellent blog on national security spending) lists the similarities. Like GM, the DoD has personnel costs, including generous fringe benefits, that are weighing down the budget and making it more difficult for the Pentagon to adapt to changing circumstances. Second, like GM, the Pentagon’s lengthy and turf-protecting decision-making process has resulted in acquisition programs that have not adjusted to changing times. Third, the slump in the economy is going to limit the Pentagon’s “revenues” just like it is limiting GM’s.

Harrison recommends weapons acquisition policies that are less technologically ambitious. More controversially, he recommends less generous fringe benefits for servicemen, especially retirement pay.

Rather than cutting compensation, those looking for savings, flexibility, and a more nimble military should examine the option of rolling back the headcount increases since 2003 in the Army and Marine Corps. According to a Congressional Budget Office study (see page 7), reducing the Army’s headcount by 65,000 active and 9,200 reserve would save over $90 billion over 10 years. F-22s and DDG-1000s are not the only things that cost a lot of money.

With unresolved commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, this sounds like a ridiculous idea. But the next leadership team at the Pentagon will face a very stressful budget challenge. The U.S. is facing asymmetric challenges on the high end (space systems, cyber, air and naval anti-access) and on the low end (terrorism, political subversion, global non-state challengers). Pentagon leaders will find themselves in the world after Iraq and Afghanistan, sooner I expect rather than later. What utility will the large general purpose ground forces built up for those wars have in the world after those wars?

Continue reading "Does the Pentagon resemble General Motors?" »

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

Topics include:

1) Afghanistan and some unmentioned strategic risks,

2) Gates finds frustration in Tokyo.

Afghanistan and some unmentioned strategic risks

Left unmentioned in all the discussion of America’s interests in Afghanistan are several risks that Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for 40,000 additional soldiers, if implemented, would create. McChrystal is asking for a permanent escalation in Afghanistan which would commit U.S. ground forces to a larger open-ended effort. Gen. George Casey, the Army Chief of Staff, fears that the size and duration of this commitment could eventually break the all-volunteer Army. One strategic risk is that the United States would not have enough ready ground forces for another sustained contingency elsewhere. Finally, the funding that is diverted to sustaining ground-force intensive operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could be creating risks in the space, air, and naval dimensions that will unpleasantly appear in the next decade and beyond.

The Bush administration’s “surge” in Iraq was a strategic gamble. The increase from 15 to 20 brigades in Iraq tapped out the last of America’s ground combat power. In addition, the required deployment schedule -- 15 months in combat followed by 12 months back home -- was considered a temporary, emergency measure. It was for this reason that the Iraq “surge” was a temporary measure -- it was not feasible to indefinitely sustain 20 brigades in Iraq.

In these terms, McChrystal’s troop request is not a “surge” but an escalation. McChrystal’s initial assessment does not define a discrete time period during which he would need the additional troops -- the request is open-ended.

In May, prior to the Obama administration’s latest review of Afghan policy and McChrystal’s report, Casey declared the current deployment practice of “12 months deployed, 12 months home” unsustainable. The Army now considers a routine of 12 months deployed, 24 months home sustainable in the long run. The Army believes it can implement this routine if it limits its commitment to Afghanistan and Iraq to no more than 10 brigades.

But according to this open-source estimate of the current U.S. order of battle in Afghanistan, one Marine and six Army brigades are currently serving in Afghanistan. These seven brigades are part of the 68,000 U.S. troops in the country. McChrystal’s 40,000-soldier increase would bring the U.S. brigade count in Afghanistan to at least 11 and probably more.

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Continue reading "This Week at War: General Casey's Doubts" »

On September 17th, President Obama scrapped the Bush administration’s plans for missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. That day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman General James Cartwright gave a briefing on the Obama administration’s “stronger, smarter, and swifter” European missile defense program.

On September 17th I had both praise and some doubts for the new plan. I liked the shift to a distributed, flexible, and more mobile system. On the other hand, the plan seemed vague and incomplete and not very reassuring to allies in eastern Europe. In particular, I wondered where the X-band radar, previously slated for the Czech Republic and highly praised for its capabilities by General Cartwright, was going to end up. Without a convincing plan for missile defense sensors in Europe, it is hard to claim that there really is a missile defense plan for Europe.

It seems as if vagueness on the X-band radar and other sensors has turned into confusion and perhaps paralysis. In the end, Russian objections to high-powered missile defense radars, and the Obama administration’s acquiescence to those objections, is for now gutting the administration’s credibility on European missile defense. The Bush administration found out that its missile defense sensors would annoy the Russians but that annoyance would not stop the U.S. from having a missile defense system in Europe. The Obama team does not seem willing to reach this same conclusion. Until it does, it does not really have a European missile defense plan.

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Continue reading "So where is that European missile defense radar?" »

Small Wars Journal has featured the U.S. Army’s new Capstone Concept, the Army’s top-level doctrine for how it will prepare for conflict over the next two decades. The Army Capstone Concept calls for full-spectrum capability. But it also emphasizes the need for “high touch” skills, the language, cultural, historical, population, and personal skills required to be effective in low-intensity and irregular warfare environments.

It seems as if Russia’s military doctrine is going in exactly the opposite direction, if a recent article from Defense News is any indication. Some excerpts:

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the powerful security council, said the conditions under which Russia could resort to atomic weapons are being reworked in the main strategy document and will be reviewed by President Dmitry Medvedev by the end of the year.

"The conditions have been revised for the use of nuclear weapons to rebuff an aggression with the use of conventional weapons, not only on a massive-scale but on a regional and even local level," Patrushev told the Izvestia newspaper.

"Variants are under considerations for the use of nuclear weapons depending on the situation and potential of a would-be aggressor," he said.

"In a critical situation for national security, a preventative nuclear strike on an aggressor is not ruled out."

One could call “a preventative nuclear strike on an aggressor” the Bush Doctrine on Steroids.

Russia is finding itself resorting to a nuclear-centered military doctrine because it is finding it more and more difficult to maintain adequate conventional military capabilities. 20 years ago Soviet conventional forces were massive and frightening – it was the U.S. and NATO that required a large inventory of tactical nuclear weapons to deter the Soviet armored behemoth in eastern Europe. Today, the situation is reversed – it is Russia that needs its remaining nuclear weapons to compensate for its conventional weakness.

Naturally, any country that has a declared or undeclared “no first use” policy can instantly drop that policy during a stressful moment. The problem with Russia’s doctrine is that it is doctrine – it is what Russia will plan for, prepare for, train for, and as a result, make more likely to occur.

President Obama (as did President Reagan) dreams of a world free of nuclear weapons. Strategically, no country would benefit more from this dream, at least at this moment in history, than the United States. That is the single most powerful reason why this dream will not come true.

Continue reading "Russia adopts the Bush Doctrine on Steroids" »

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

Topics include:

1) Learning to share the oceans with China

2) Pakistan under siege

Learning to share the oceans with China

On Sept. 22, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a new report, titled, China’s Arrival: A Strategic Framework for a Global Relationship. Journalist and CNAS senior fellow Robert Kaplan, wrote a chapter in the report, called “China’s Two-Ocean Strategy” (see page 45).

Kaplan asserts that “China is in the midst of a shipbuilding and acquisition craze that will result in the People’s Liberation Army Navy having more ships than the U.S. Navy sometime in the next decade.” Since 1945 U.S. diplomatic and political strategies in Asia have been predicated on U.S. naval domination in the western Pacific and Indian oceans. The U.S. Navy’s control of sea-going lines of commerce from the Middle East to all points in Asia has been a major component of America’s alliance system in the region and its relations with potential adversaries. Kaplan’s essay reminds us that over the next decade or so, the rise of China’s naval power will scrap the assumptions underlying America’s Asian diplomacy.

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Continue reading "This Week at War: China Rules the Waves" »

Last week the Washington Post revealed that a group of Indian nuclear scientists is concerned that India’s nuclear deterrent lacks credibility. Why? They claim that India’s 1998 test of a two-stage thermonuclear device was a dud. Thus, they say, India had better fix its thermonuclear bomb designs and verify them with a test, before the government agrees to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Some excerpts from the article:

One of the scientists, K. Santhanam, who coordinated India's nuclear weapons program when the country conducted five nuclear tests 11 years ago, has said that the original thermonuclear device test was a dud … Santhanam said that the hydrogen bomb tested in 1998 "completely failed to ignite" and that the shaft, the frame and the winches were found to be intact even after the tests. No crater was formed in the fusion test.

"If the second H-bomb stage of the composite device had worked, the shaft would have been blown to smithereens," he told reporters.

[…]

Last week, the former chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission, P.K. Iyengar, also joined the chorus advocating more tests and said "nobody makes a weapon out of a single test."

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Continue reading "When will India again test a nuke?" »

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

Topics include:

1) Blame James Jones for fraying civil-military relations,

2) A Pakistani officer recommends an archipelago for Afghanistan.

Blame James Jones for fraying civil-military relations

A series of articles in the Washington Post this past week has revealed more than just a contentious White House debate over Afghanistan strategy. These reports have also exposed confusion and misunderstandings among top policymakers which have led to fraying relations between civilian and military officials. These misunderstandings, confusion, and fraying relationships are symptoms of inadequate staff work within the White House. And that staff work is the responsibility of James Jones, the national security adviser.

Writing in the Oct. 8 edition of the Washington Post, Rajiv Chandrasekaran chronicled the history of the Obama team’s deliberations on Afghan strategy, starting from last winter. According to Chandrasekaran, Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s call for up to 40,000 additional U.S. soldiers inflicted “sticker shock” on some at the White House. This quote from Chandrasekaran’s piece sums up the feeling:

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Continue reading "This Week at War: Where is Jones?" »

Two articles in today’s newspapers, sourced by anonymous U.S. administration officials, appear designed to promote an alternative to the beefed-up counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan that General Stanley McChrystal has recommended. These anonymous officials are attempting to make the case that intelligence-driven assassinations of al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan, combined with lawful domestic surveillance techniques, will be enough to effectively protect the U.S. from terror attacks. Promoters of this reasoning likely believe that the acceptance of this approach will undermine the argument for a costly counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan. But the counter-terror/law enforcement approach comes with its own costs and risks, which promoters have an obligation to explain.

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Continue reading "‘Administration officials’ promote an alternative to COIN" »

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

Topics include:

1) The CIA finds job security in Afghanistan,

2) Can Israel get MAD with Iran?

The CIA finds job security in Afghanistan

On Sept. 30, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell made it clear that the objective of President Obama’s Afghanistan policy – “to disrupt, dismantle and destroy al Qaeda” – remains unchanged. According to Morrell, what is currently open for discussion among Obama senior advisers is “whether or not counterinsurgency is still the preferred means of achieving that end.”

As I discussed last week, Gen. Stanley McChrystal thinks counterinsurgency is the right course and has asked for at least 40,000 additional U.S. soldiers to implement this approach. It is now up to Obama to assess the risk of McChrystal’s strategy and weigh whether the costs measure up to the promised benefits.

While Obama and his team deliberate, other developments are underway that will either support McChrystal’s request or perhaps create alternatives. On Sept. 20, the Los Angeles Times reported on another “surge” into Afghanistan, this one by the Central Intelligence Agency. According to the article, the Central Intelligence Agency’s headcount in Afghanistan will increase to 700, led by increases in paramilitary officers, intelligence analysts, and operatives tracking the behavior of Afghan government officials.

The piece discussed how McChrystal, while in charge of special operating forces in Iraq, formed teams composed of CIA paramilitary officers and special operations personnel from the U.S. military. This fusion of capabilities is credited with improving intelligence collection and direct action operations against insurgent networks. McChrystal may now be using this same technique in Afghanistan.

But raising the CIA’s presence in Afghanistan to a higher plateau may set the stage for alternative approaches to U.S. strategy.

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Continue reading "This Week at War: Send in the Spies" »

On September 16th, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a speech to the Air Force Association convention. During the speech he expressed his concern that the U.S. might suffer a shortfall in long range strike capability, a shortfall that could result in a strategic setback for the U.S. and its allies. What remains for others to examine is whether Gates himself should have done more over the past three years to straighten out his department’s drifting long range strike program.

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Continue reading "Who’s responsible for mismanaging the long range strike program?" »

The biggest news from last week’s United Nations and G-20 meetings was the revelation of a second gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility under construction on a military base near Qom, Iran. Although the Iranian government denies that its failure to disclose the construction of this facility to the IAEA constitutes a breach of Iran’s obligations under the NPT, the U.S., British, and French governments disagree.

President Obama and his advisers hope that last week’s dramatic disclosure will finally create the diplomatic leverage over Iran the West has heretofore lacked. They are hoping that one more case of Iran’s cheating will be enough to convince Russia and China to support tougher economic and financial sanctions against Iran, sanctions that will be stern enough to change Iranian behavior. This is very unlikely to happen.

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Continue reading "Iran nuke revelation won’t change anything" »

Remember readers, your homework assignment is to download the current draft of the U.S. Army's Capstone Concept, read it, and provide comments. BG H.R. McMaster and his staff at TRADOC will read those comments and use them to improve this important doctrinal publication.

You will find complete instructions for your homework assignment at this link.

This is your chance to influence U.S. Army doctrine. Time is running out and woe unto those who fail to complete this assignment ... ;)

Continue reading "Remember your weekend homework" »

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

Topics include:

1) McChrystal report unwittingly slays counterinsurgency doctrine,

2) The Obama team doesn’t understand irregular warfare.

McChrystal report unwittingly slays counterinsurgency doctrine

This summer the U.S. government has faced a deteriorating crisis in Afghanistan. Such crises tend to force policymakers to face up to the facile assumptions they have previously made. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s report to his civilian masters on the faltering counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan has caused President Barack Obama and his advisers to face up to their basic assumptions about U.S. objectives and strategies for perhaps the first time. Obama and his team seem very likely to conclude from this long overdue examination of first principles that it will be impractical for the U.S. to successfully implement a counterinsurgency campaign plan in Afghanistan. McChrystal’s assessment has unwittingly tossed the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency field manual into the shredder.

McChrystal’s report is brutally honest about the troubles in Afghanistan. He describes a long list of problems in his own organization, how the United States and allied forces are failing to implement essential counterinsurgency tasks, and why the Afghan government’s corruption and ineffectiveness are so crippling. McChrystal declares the need for more resources and the need to quickly seize the initiative over the insurgents. By stating these problems, McChrystal has fulfilled his duty to his civilian masters. But he has also properly shifted responsibility for the most fundamental decisions about war policy to where they belong, namely the Oval Office.

So why will it be impractical for the U.S. to successfully implement a counterinsurgency campaign plan in Afghanistan?

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Continue reading "This Week at War: America's Last Counterinsurgent?" »

Brigadier General H.R. McMaster has sent to Small Wars Journal the latest draft of Army Capstone Concept version 2.7. McMaster leads a team at TRADOC that is charged with revising the Capstone Concept, which provides fundamental guidance to the Army’s doctrine and training efforts.

By December, McMaster and his team will complete their work on the Capstone Concept. Between now and then, he wants to hear from you. So please open this file, read it, and provide your comments, either here or at the Capstone Concept comment thread at Small Wars Council. McMaster and his team will read these comments and use them to improve this important document.

(You will note that the Capstone Concept draft we received is marked “For Official Use Only.” I assure you that we received this document openly from the Army and for the purposes explained above. McMaster and his colleagues at TRADOC want Small Wars Journal’s readers to help them improve the Capstone Concept.)

UPDATE (1515 EST 24 Sept 09): TRADOC sent me a version of the file without the "For Official Use Only" notation, which I have inserted.

Continue reading "The Army wants your comments on its new Capstone Concept" »

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

Topics include:

1) Obama’s Afghan strategy - a blank page,

2) America’s spies adjust to the post-al Qaeda era.

Obama’s Afghan strategy - a blank page

According to a Sept. 17 Washington Post article, President Barack Obama stated he is waiting on making a decision about sending more soldiers to Afghanistan until he has “absolute clarity about what the strategy is going to be."

This declaration will come as a surprise to those who thought he had decided on his strategy for Afghanistan on March 27th. Are Obama and his advisers preparing to rip up the March strategy and delete this link from the White House Website?

The answer is yes. In his remarks on Sept. 16 to the American Enterprise Institute, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen said that the administration was reviewing its strategy for Afghanistan, starting from “first principles.” Why would the Obama team feel the need to do that? Mullen had an answer for that – if Hamid Karzai’s reelection to the Afghan presidency is not accepted as legitimate, “hard questions” about the viability of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan would follow.

Obama has undoubtedly concluded that he has little chance of sustaining political support in the United States for the Afghan effort if there is little acceptance of Karzai as the legitimate winner of the election. The best case scenario is a second-round runoff, which would at least give the Afghan election process a chance to redeem its legitimacy. But a final, well-scrubbed result to the first round may be a month away; a hypothetical second could stretch into 2010. Obama will see no point in making a decision on a new strategy, and the resources such a strategy will require, until a basic premise -- the legitimacy of the Afghan government -- is established.

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Continue reading "This Week at War: A work in progress" »

Today President Obama scrapped the Bush administration’s plan to install 10 ground-based interceptor (GBI) missiles and a high-powered radar in Poland and the Czech Republic. Instead, Obama proposed a distributed four-phase build-up of missile defense capability in Europe, focusing at first on the shorter range missile threats from Iran and later on potential intermediate (IRBM) and intercontinental (ICBM) range threats. Progressively improved versions of the U.S. Navy’s Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) will be the centerpiece of the new architecture.

The Obama announcement (followed up by a press conference with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General James Cartwright, USMC) is essentially a redefinition of the U.S. response to the broad Iranian ballistic missile threat. The Bush plan was focused on hedging against an Iranian IRBM/ICBM threat, thought to be possible around 2015. The Iranian short and medium range missile threat was always a known problem but in the Bush era was managed separately. The Obama team has redefined the “Europe missile defense” issue by encompassing the entire Iranian ballistic missile threat, which in the short run won’t involve Europe at all (unless you count Turkey in Europe).

In any case, here, lifted from the White House website, is the four-phase plan:

Click through to read more ...

Continue reading "Obama’s Europe missile defense plan – the good and the bad" »

Three stories in today’s news connect directly to themes discussed here at the Small Wars Journal blog. These three themes are central and unresolved questions about how the U.S. and the West should protect themselves from global terror threats.

Somalia strike and offshore balancing

A helicopter-borne U.S. special operations group, apparently operating from a U.S. warship in the Indian Ocean, attacked and killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan along with several of his associates along a road in southern Somalia. According to the cited New York Times article, the U.S. special operations soldiers recovered the bodies and presumably other interesting intelligence products from the site.

This strike will boost the argument for “offshore balancing,” a subject of intense discussion after an email by General Charles Krulak, USMC (ret) in support of offshore balancing for Afghanistan found its way to Small Wars Journal blog.

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Continue reading "Recent Small Wars Journal themes are in today's news" »

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

Topics include:

1. A U.S.-Gulf alliance against Iran?

2. Karzai has some thinking to do.

Continue reading "This Week at War: Gates fishes for friends in the Persian Gulf" »

Here is a collection of recent essays on China:

Evan Medeiros of RAND wrote a book-length report on China’s international behavior. Medeiros concludes that China is a status quo power. According to Medeiros, China’s leaders are focused on China’s internal problems and development and are using China’s increasing economic and diplomatic presence in the global community to improve China’s domestic situation. Medeiros asserts that China does not seek to push the U.S. out of east Asia and that China does not foresee a conflict with a major power within a 15-20 year planning horizon. However, he believes China will resist actions the U.S. might take which would constrain China’s options, especially in the Asian region.

Click through for more ...

Continue reading "China potpourri" »

What is the greatest threat to U.S. security? The greatest threat to U.S. security is something that would upset the usefulness of the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), the consolidated U.S. government database of terrorist suspects around the world. The government uses that database to establish watch lists, no-fly lists, screen visa applicants at U.S. consulates, conduct surveillance, coordinate investigations with foreign and local partners, etc. It was the lack of such a database and its applications that permitted 9/11 to happen. Today, the TIDE database and the activities it supports is the U.S. government’s most important counterterrorism tool.

According to a story in Sunday’s Washington Post, TIDE information, in theory at least, is currently available to the public through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The intelligence community wants to end that possibility through legislation that will exempt TIDE information from FOIA disclosure. According to the story, several privacy interest groups are lobbying against passage of such an exemption.

What’s the problem? An excerpt from the article:

Continue reading "The greatest threat" »

Who better to ask than Ryan Crocker for advice on what to do about Afghanistan?

Crocker is a 37-year veteran of the Foreign Service and spent virtually his whole career in the Middle East and South Asia. He was U.S. Chief of Mission to six countries: Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. He is a Career Ambassador and was awarded the Medal of Freedom.

Does Crocker have the answer to Afghanistan? Well, no easy answer. In this essay for Newsweek, in which he recaps his career, Crocker says:

1) Don't expect what worked in Iraq to work in Afghanistan,

2) The Taliban and al Qaeda have strategic patience; the U.S. better get some, too.

3) The world, and the bad guys, won't allow the U.S. to walk away.

So no simple answer, even from Ryan Crocker. But his Newsweek essay is still worth reading.

Continue reading "Ryan Crocker's advice on Afghanistan" »

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

Topics include:

1. Afghanistan and civil-military relations,

2. Communication breakdown.

Continue reading "This Week at War: McChrystal plays defense" »

The Stimson Center has published an essay I wrote for it on the future of security force assistance.

Theme: In the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, U.S. policymakers will look for new approaches to implement U.S. national security strategy. Security force assistance will attract a lot of attention and is likely to be a "growth business." But security force assistance is no panacea. Top U.S. policymakers will have to give their attention to some significant reforms if security forces assistance is to achieve its promise and avoid some of its perils.

Read the whole essay here.

Continue reading "The promise and perils of security force assistance" »

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

Topics include:

1. Are Saudi Arabia and Iran at war in Yemen?

2. The autumn of Afghan discontent.

Continue reading "This Week at War: The Middle East's Cold War Heats Up" »

At last week’s TRADOC Senior Leaders Conference, I heard BG H.R. McMaster deliver a presentation on the U.S. Army’s forthcoming Capstone Concept. Here is a news article from TRADOC and the U.S. Army that describes what the Army’s Capstone Concept is and what it will mean to the Army in the years ahead. A few excerpts from the article:

The new Capstone Concept, McMaster said, examines how the Army operates under conditions of complexity and uncertainty in an era of persistent conflict. The concept's purpose is to put into operational terms Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey's vision of balancing the Army to win today's wars while describing how the future Army will fight the wars of tomorrow.

[…]

The primary purpose of the capstone concept is to lead force development and employment by establishing a common framework to think about future Army operations; place modernization decisions in a broader context of future armed conflict; establish a conceptual foundation for subordinate concepts; guide experimentation in Army operations and capabilities; and guide capability development.

"We looked at how the Army intends to operate and face the challenges in the future operating environment against what we're calling hybrid threats," said McMaster. "By looking at the current operating environment and the hybrid threats we face and could face in the future, this helps the Army make a grounded projection into the near future and understand what challenges our Army will face as part of a Joint, interdepartmental and multinational force, and then develop the capability our Army will need to fight the future battle."

BG McMaster is leading a team that will complete work on the Capstone Concept by the end of this year. The new Capstone Concept is then supposed to guide the development of subordinate Army doctrine. The Capstone Concept effort thus represents important guidance for Army training, leader development, and combat unit organization.

During his presentation last week, BG McMaster emphasized the differences between the doctrine his team is completing and the doctrine the Army operated under a decade ago. Small Wars Journal hopes to provide further discussion of the Army Capstone Concept as it nears completion. For now, I recommend reading the article linked to above.

Continue reading "Capstone Concept will change Army doctrine" »

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

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

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

Continue reading "Who is inspecting the inspectors?" »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading "Making Gettysburg relevant" »

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

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

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

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

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

Topics include:

1) Drones are taking over the Air Force,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topics include:

1) Gates tries to get a grip on McChrystal,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topics include:

1) Iraq's army thinks about life after the insurgency,

2) Does Afghanistan need the Phoenix Program?

Continue reading "This Week at War: Life after the insurgency" »

After several years of confusion and cultural resistance, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy are now laying out plans to rapidly expand and integrate unmanned systems into their doctrines, force structures, and procurement plans. These plans, especially the Air Force’s, will have significant implications for U.S. ground forces. U.S. Army and Marine Corps leaders would do well to pay attention to the Air Force and Navy’s plans for unmanned systems and to participate in the formulation of these plans to the extent they can. Getting involved will help ensure that the Air Force and Navy plans integrate effectively with ground force requirements.

Continue reading "The unmanned systems tsunami" »

Iran’s nuclear program is suddenly receiving a flurry of attention from top Obama administration officials. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Israel today to exchange views on the subject with Ehud Barak, his counterpart. National Security Advisor James Jones will soon arrive in Israel, presumably to discuss the same topic.

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed a U.S. “defense umbrella” over the entire Middle East should Iran fail to cease work on its nuclear complex. Other officials in the Obama administration soon attempted to repeal Clinton’s remarks, while simultaneously implying that some kind of U.S. security umbrella has always been over the Middle East.

Just as the Truman and Eisenhower administration officials figured out at the beginning of the Cold War, a “defense umbrella” or security guarantee presents itself as a seemingly painless solution to an intractable security challenge. At first glance, issuing a promise to use military force later seems to be a more attractive choice than committing to use military force now. In the case of Iran, sanctions won’t work before Iran has nuclear weapons. And a preventive air campaign is unappealing for a variety of reasons. Thus, a U.S. security guarantee for friends in the region seems like an easy solution.

But anyone who remembers the Cold War should recall that U.S. security guarantees for Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea were not easy, cheap, or simple. A U.S. guarantee for the Middle East against Iranian aggression will be even more problematic than were America’s guarantees during the Cold War.

Continue reading "Clinton’s leaky ‘defense umbrella’" »

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

Topics include:

1) The Domino Theory returns,

2) Thank you, Rafael Correa.

Continue reading "This Week at War: The Domino Theory returns" »

Five weeks after Iran’s presidential elections it is now clear that Iran’s ruling elite has split into two factions. The question now is whether Iran’s security forces will split.

Former presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami have now publicly questioned the legitimacy of President Ahmadinejad’s reelection. In doing so, they have questioned the legitimacy of Supreme Ruler Khamenei’s authority (see NYT, Economist). This is a dramatic development and almost guarantees a deep political crisis inside Iran.

Continue reading "Will Iran’s security forces split?" »

Last week I attended a seminar on China at the Brookings Institution. At the seminar David Finkelstein gave a must-read presentation on China’s grand strategy. Finkelstein is a retired U.S. Army officer and director of CNA China Studies at CNA Corporation.

Some key points from the presentation:

Continue reading "China’s grand strategy – past, present and future" »

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

Topics include:

1. Why the Taliban are watching the polls in Britain,

2. Adaptation means learning how to learn.

Continue reading "This Week at War, No. 25" »

After suffering another humiliating defeat in local elections in Tokyo, Prime Minister Taro Aso has called for a general election for Japan’s lower house of parliament to be held on August 30. Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party has, except for a quirky two-year period in the mid-1990s, basically ruled Japanese politics since the country regained its sovereignty after World War II. Yet the LDP is predicted to lose power to the Democratic Party, an event which would be a watershed in Japanese political history.

Will it also be a watershed for the U.S.-Japan strategic alliance?

Continue reading "A storm ahead for the U.S.-Japan alliance?" »

Last Saturday, Mexico’s federal police and army paid the price for arresting Arnold Rueda Medina, a lieutenant in Mexico’s La Familia drug cartel.

The urgent question is whether Mexico’s institutions will be able to enforce the rule of law through accepted civil procedures. If not, will Mexico be forced to attack its drug cartels the same way Colombia brought down Pablo Escobar?

Continue reading "Will Mexico need ‘Los Pepes’?" »

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

Topics include:

1. Is Obama channeling Bush in Afghanistan?

2. Why insurgencies lose.

Continue reading "This Week at War, No. 24" »

Has Israel received a “green light” from both the U.S. and Saudi governments to execute an air raid on Iran’s nuclear complex? Those were stories that came out over the weekend, one from a television interview of Vice President Biden and the second from The Times that reported that the Saudi government had given permission to the Israeli air force to overfly Saudi Arabia en route to Iran.

Since Monday, the Obama administration has made a somewhat confusing attempt to walk back Mr. Biden’s statements. As for the alleged Saudi “green light,” I will say more in a moment.

Destroying the Iranian nuclear complex will require not an “air raid” but a prolonged air campaign. Those who have in mind Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s reactor at Tuwaitha and the 2007 strike against Syria’s reactor at Dayr az-Zawr do not appreciate the scope and dispersion of Iran’s nuclear complex.

Continue reading "‘Green light’ for an ‘air raid’ is not enough" »

I applaud the editors of Foreign Affairs for featuring Andrew Krepinevich’s essay (“The Pentagon’s Wasting Assets”) in its latest issue. Better late than never. The issues raised by Krepinevich may seem new to the staff at Foreign Affairs, but they are not; Pentagon planners discussed these topics in the 2006 QDR and in annual editions of its reports on Chinese military power. Most notably, the latest issue of Proceedings contains an essay written by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy and Shawn Brimley, one of Flournoy’s main strategists, that discusses almost point-for-point Krepinevich’s issues.

Flournoy is in charge of the latest QDR; we can be sure that the report will once again discuss Krepinevich’s issues. But will Secretary Gates and his staff actually recommend any effective policies in response to these threats? It is one thing to discuss the issues. It is another to implement policies that will be highly disruptive and controversial.

Continue reading "Krepinevich’s essay implies disruptive change" »

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

Topics include:

1. U.S. soldiers won't be back to Iraq,

2. Who in the government is "expeditionary" and who is irrelevant?

Continue reading "This Week at War, No. 23" »

Those who have followed the pleadings of General James Conway, USMC know that the commandant of the Marine Corps wants his Marines out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. But there is also the matter of the Marine Corps’s future after Afghanistan. Planners at Headquarters Marine Corps have placed a bet on a routine of persistent irregular conflict, security force assistance, and foreign internal defense and are arranging the Marine Corps’s training and deployment plans for that scenario.

I will discuss those plans more in a moment. But in order to execute a plan that envisions a focus on SFA and FID, Marines will need language and cultural skills to match. A story from today’s Marine Corps Times discusses a new language academy that the Marine Corps is establishing at Camp Lejeune

Continue reading "The U.S. Marine Corps talks security force assistance" »

In the last edition of my column at Foreign Policy I discussed how Israel’s messy campaign against Hezbollah in 2006 has become the focus of the Pentagon’s policy shop. The accepted wisdom inside OSD, Joint Forces Command, and elsewhere is that Hezbollah’s use of “hybrid warfare” should now be the prototype for which U.S. forces should prepare.

I suggest that the U.S. government’s abortive dealings with Somalia since 1992 merit equally intense study.

Continue reading "Pentagon planners should study Somalia, not just Hezbollah" »

Click here to see the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy.

Topics include:

1) Will protecting part of Afghanistan's population mean losing the rest?

2) Hezbollah captures the Pentagon's war-planning process.

Continue reading "This Week at War # 22" »

This week U.S. Central Command hosted its second annual Gulf States Chiefs of Defense Conference, this time at the Fairfax Hotel in Washington, DC. Centcom organizers hoped the conference would “examine current challenges to maintaining and strengthening security and stability in the Gulf states region” to include “methods to enhance interoperability and military modernization, combating transnational terrorism and regional cooperative measures to enhance security.”

Although U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s keynote address touched on piracy and Afghanistan and included a plea to support Iraq, his remarks left little doubt about the U.S. government’s goal for this forum. The U.S. is preparing a containment strategy against Iran and it needs to organize the front line of that containment cordon. The Gulf states will obviously be that front line.

Continue reading "Organizing Iran’s containment" »

Last week I discussed the possible financial sources of Iran’s political unrest. I concluded that post by wondering whether foreign investors would now deem it too risky to invest in Iran’s energy sector. An article published yesterday by the Associated Press discussed renewed worries some foreign investors now have about political risk in Iran. Without large-scale foreign investment in its energy sector Iran’s energy exports, and thus the vast majority of its foreign exchange and government revenue, will soon waste away.

Continue reading "Will foreign investors avoid Iran’s energy sector?" »

After a Japanese newspaper reported last week that the North Korean government is planning a July 4th launch of a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile at Hawaii, the U.S. government was then pressed to explain its response to this possibility. At a Pentagon news conference, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the ground-based mid-course interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska stand ready, a mobile THAAD battery has deployed to Hawaii, and the sea-based X-band radar platform has sailed. For his part, President Obama assured a reporter that “the T’s are crossed and the I’s are dotted in terms of what might happen.”

The Wall Street Journal sent an intrepid reporter to a beach on Kauai to get some thoughts from the locals about the prospect of ICBM bombardment.

President Obama and his national security staff will have to ponder more than just their defensive preparations. Should North Korea make even a failed attempt to strike a Hawaiian island, what practical and political pressures will the President face to retaliate against North Korea?

Continue reading "Maybe North Korea wants to get bombed" »

Click here to see the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy.

Topics include:

1) Is counterinsurgency a woman's job?

2) Mexico is struggling with more than just drug cartels.

I welcome your feedback in the comments and at Small Wars Council.

Continue reading "This Week at War #21" »

To what extent is Iran’s current political upheaval catalyzed, or even instigated, by sharply deteriorating economic and financial conditions inside the country? I pose the question but have no way of answering it.

Some observers believe the two earth-shaking political upheavals that occurred two decades ago – the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Tiananmen Square revolt in China – were closely tied to financial crises. Yegor Gaidar, who was Russia’s economics minister and acting prime minister in the immediate post-Soviet period, asserted in an essay he wrote for the American Enterprise Institute that Soviet financial mismanagement related to grain purchases and fluctuating global oil prices led to the Soviet Union’s (literal) bankruptcy. In China, some analysts have linked the countrywide uprising in the spring of 1989 to rapidly accelerating consumer price inflation.

What about Iran today?

Continue reading "Does Iran’s political crisis stem from a financial crisis?" »

The Pentagon’s public affairs office has a new monthly report: a tally of the Army’s suicides.

This new report, issued on June 11, listed Army suicides (confirmed and potential) by soldiers on active duty and reservists not on active duty for May, April, and for 2008 and 2009 year-to-date. By implication, the Army intends to release monthly updates of its suicide statistics, joining other regular statistical releases such recruiting and retention and mobilized reservists.

The Army’s leadership appears to have succumbed to pressure to “do something” about its suicide “problem.” All of the military services should vigorously fund and implement suicide prevention programs. Commanders at all levels should give sincere attention to the issue. And as a general matter, the Congress should fully fund Secretary Gates’s priorities to improve the welfare of the troops and their families. Gates is right to express his concern about the potential fragility of the all-volunteer force and the imperative of preserving it. Attention to suicide, its causes and prevention, is part of this.

The Army’s response is typical for any bureaucracy: collect the statistics, slice them up, and tabulate them in a recurring report. Regrettably, on the matter of suicides the Army’s bureaucratic response is misguided.

Continue reading "Army’s ‘suicide watch’ report is spineless" »

Near the end of his presentation last Thursday at the annual CNAS conference, General David Petraeus contrasted the 2008 battle for Sadr City with the 2004 battles for Fallujah. General Petraeus left the impression that if a U.S. commander is given a sufficient quantity of “enablers,” especially in the form of overhead surveillance assets, the U.S. will dominate urban terrain nearly as easily as it dominates open terrain.

Small Wars Journal grew out of work Dave and Bill did early this decade on the problems posed by military operations in urban terrain (MOUT). A decade ago U.S. ground forces realized that they could no longer ignore urban terrain as had been doctrine during the Cold War – irregular adversaries had displaced to cities for concealment.

But is General Petraeus’s implied assertion correct? Has the U.S. solved the urban combat problem, thus denying irregular adversaries perhaps their best redoubt? If so, how will these adversaries adjust?

Readers, please give your views in the comments.

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This Week at War is now posted at Foreign Policy. Topics include Is the U.S. Army the Slowest Student in Afghanistan? and How to Recover from Failure.

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