9 February SWJ Roundup
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Training Afghan forces in Kandahar
Washington Post: At Forward Operating Base Ramrod in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, the U.S. Army's Legion Academy provides a two-week training course for Afghan security forces. (Joshua Partlow, edited by Francine Uenuma - The Washington Post)
COIN Metrics: What Not to Measure
Kilcullen (I): Here’s What Not to Measure in a COIN Campaign - Tom Ricks at FP's Best Defense.
When David Kilcullen is at his best, he is unexcelled at discussing how to wage a counterinsurgency campaign. And I think the Australian infantry officer turned political anthropologist/COIN guru is at his best when he gathers field observations, boils them down to distilled principles, and then describes those rules in a clear, practical manner.
So I want to take some time to go through a paper he wrote recently in Afghanistan. (I didn't get it from him, by the way.) While it ostensibly is about metrics in COIN campaigning, it amounts to a thorough discussion of what works in such warfare, what doesn't, and -- especially -- how to tell the difference. It is written about the current campaign in Afghanistan, but clearly has broader applications. ...
After some initial throat-clearing (one of my rules when I was an editor was to see if I could cut the first three pages of any long article), Kilcullen's first major section is about metrics to be avoided...
Continue on for "what not to measure in a COIN Campaign" at Best Defense.
8 February SWJ Roundup
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A Well-Written War
A Well-Written War, Told in the First Person - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times.
... Soldier-writers have long produced American literature, from Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs about the Civil War to Norman Mailer’s World War II novel, “The Naked and the Dead,” to Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” about Vietnam.
The current group is different. As part of a modern all-volunteer force, they explore the timeless theme of the futility of war - but wars that they for the most part support. The books, many written as rites of passage by members of a highly educated young officer corps, are filled with gore, inept commanders and anguish over men lost in combat, but not questions about the conflicts themselves. “They look at war as an aspect of glory, of finding honor,” said Mr. O’Brien, who was drafted for Vietnam in 1968 out of Macalester College in St. Paul. “It’s almost an old-fashioned, Victorian way of looking at war.”
The writers say one goal is to explain the complexities of the wars - Afghan and Iraqi politics, technology, the counterinsurgency doctrine of protecting local populations rather than just killing bad guys - to a wider audience. Their efforts, embraced by top commanders, have even bled into military reports that stand out for their accessible prose...
More at The New York Times.
A Test Case for Counterinsurgency Theory
Unrest in Iran:
A Test Case for Counterinsurgency Theory
by Dr. Dan G. Cox
Download the full article: A Test Case for Counterinsurgency Theory
Recent events in Iran involving the questionable election results that placed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into his second term as president have raised the levels of public outcry and consternation both inside Iran and internationally. The political pundits and policymakers are speculating on what this means for the future of Iran and how this situation will end. The debate is premature and largely facile at this point, but what is interesting is that the initial Iranian government reaction to the potential insurgency bubbling up from disgruntled Moussavi supporters provides a well-suited test case for some of the commonly accepted counterinsurgency (COIN) tenants. An embryonic insurgent movement borne of deep resentment against the Iranian government and the de facto rulers of Iran, the Supreme Council, coupled with an extremely harsh COIN reaction creates an experimental situation which allows scholars, practitioners, and policymakers a rare opportunity to analyze, in real time, COIN theory.
Download the full article: A Test Case for Counterinsurgency Theory
Dr. Dan G. Cox is an Associate Professor of Political Science, U.S. Army, Command and General Staff College, School of Advanced Military Studies. His most recent book is Terrorism, Instability, and Democracy in Asia and Africa published in July 2009 by the University Press of New England.
Continue reading "A Test Case for Counterinsurgency Theory" »
Tribal Engagement: The Way Forward in Afghanistan
Tribal Engagement:
The Way Forward in Afghanistan
by Steffen Merten
Download the full article: Tribal Engagement: The Way Forward in Afghanistan
Following the cooption of the powerful Shinwari tribe of eastern Afghanistan last week, it seems defense planners have finally realized the unsophisticated reality that tribes form the fabric of Afghan society. The compounded impotence of the Karzai regime and the recent successes of direct tribal engagement have highlighted the potential of empowering tribal institutions, but years after the success of the Anbar Awakening in Iraq, why are we only now choosing to tap the power centers that have driven the history of Afghanistan for centuries? Perhaps it is Afghanistan’s imperial legacy, which speaks to the “ungovernable” nature of tribes that have devoured armies whole, or perhaps naive political hopes for a robust central government, a situation more or less unknown in Afghan history. A third possibility may lie in the popular myth that the “backward and anarchic” habits of tribes preclude their integration within the institutions of a modern nation-state, lest their inherently belligerent and barbaric nature lead to its ruin. Whether stalled by daydreams of a different political reality in Afghanistan or by recalcitrant Afghan elites in Kabul, recent developments suggest that warfighters and scholars like Major Jim Gant, author of “One Tribe at a Time” and an outspoken advocate of tribal engagement, seem to be gaining traction within the defense establishment. But the question remains: what will a tribal strategy spell for the future of Afghanistan?
Download the full article: Tribal Engagement: The Way Forward in Afghanistan
Steffen Merten is a Human Terrain researcher specializing in Middle Eastern tribal systems and a former social network analysis researcher at the Naval Postgraduate School Core Lab. Merten served in Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2003-2004 and is currently developing an integrated methodology for modeling tribal systems.
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7 February SWJ Roundup
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Fault Found in Outpost's Fall
The military's invigorated focus on accountability also seems driven by commanders' experience in war zones. Many of today's senior commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan are on their second or third combat tours and are more willing to judge their field subordinates. Meanwhile, the military is showing a greater willingness to study and learn from its mistakes, senior military officials said. The change is particularly evident in the Army's response to ambushes on U.S. troops in the villages of Wanat and Kamdesh, both in eastern Afghanistan.
U.S. Military Faults Leaders in Attack on Base - New York Times
U.S. Outpost in Afghanistan Left Vulnerable to Attack - Washington Post
Fault Found in Outpost's Fall - Wall Street Journal
U.S. Command Errors Preceded Taliban Attack - Los Angeles Times
Camp Keating Blunders Revealed - The Times
Protection, Intelligence Problems Led to Base Attack - CNN
U.S. Faults Command Over Afghan Ambush - Associated Press
Officers to Face Action for Taliban Attack - United Press International
Delay in Afghan Base Closure Led to 8 U.S. Deaths - Reuters
U.S. Army Admits String of Failures - Agence France-Presse
Army Releases Report on Battle at COP Keating - Long War Journal
Maybe, Finally, Some Accountability? - Registan
U.S. Commanders Face Tougher Discipline - Washington Post
Planned Offensive in Southern Afghanistan
NATO Ministers, Commanders Advertise Planned Offensive in Southern Afghanistan - Craig Whitlock, Washington Post.
For the upcoming Battle of Marja, the element of surprise has already gone by the wayside. NATO ministers and commanders, gathering Thursday and Friday in Istanbul, could barely contain themselves about a major military offensive set to launch 2,000 miles away in southern Afghanistan. Ignoring the usual dictums about keeping battle preparations secret, officials were keen to talk about what they touted as their biggest joint operation since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
"In the coming days, you will see a demonstration of our capability in a series of operations, led by the Afghans and supported by NATO, in southern Helmand," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen volunteered to reporters. Although Rasmussen said he could not go into details "for security reasons," other NATO officials said an allied force, led by U.S. Marines, was preparing for an assault on the town of Marja, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province. Senior military officials began touting the offensive, the first operation since a U.S. troop increase in Afghanistan, even before President Obama announced in early December that he would be sending more forces to the country...
More at The Washington Post.
U.S. Announces Helmand Offensive - Michael M. Phillips, Wall Street Journal.
In a rare break from traditional military secrecy, the U.S. and its allies are announcing the precise target of their first big offensive of the Afghanistan surge in an apparent bid to intimidate the Taliban. Coalition officers have been hinting aloud for months that they plan to send an overwhelming Afghan, British and U.S. force to clear insurgents from the town of Marjah and surrounding areas in Helmand province, and this week the allies took the unusual step of issuing a press release saying the attack was "due to commence." Senior Afghan officials went so far as to hold a news conference Tuesday to discuss the offensive, although the allies have been careful not to publicize the specific date or details of the attack.
"If we went in there one night and all the insurgents were gone and we didn't have to fire a shot, that would be a success," a coalition spokesman, Col. Wayne Shanks, said before the announcement. "I don't think there has been a mistake in letting people know we're planning on coming in." ...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Why are U.S., Allies Telling Taliban About Coming Offensive? - Jonathan S. Landay and Saeed Shah, McClatchy Newspapers at Stars and Stripes.
Thousands of U.S., British and Afghan troops are poised to launch the biggest offensive of the war in Afghanistan in a test of the Obama administration's new counterinsurgency strategy. Military operations usually are intended to catch the enemy off guard, but for weeks U.S. and allied officials have been telling reporters about their forthcoming assault on Marjah, a Taliban-held town of 80,000 and drug-trafficking hub in southern poppy-growing Helmand province. Senior NATO commanders and top Afghan officials have openly discussed the approximate time of Operation Moshtarak - the Dari language word for "together" - the size of the force and their objectives in news conferences, interviews and news releases that have been disseminated around the world and posted on government Web sites. Leaflets have been airdropped on the town.
Though the exact time of the kickoff hasn't been disclosed, a "news article" posted Thursday on the British Ministry of Defense's site announced that operations involving "elements of the Royal Welsh, Grenadier Guards and Scots Guards" and Afghan forces "in preparation" for the Marjah attack had been under way for 36 hours. The unusual approach, according to U.S. and British commanders, is intended to persuade Marjah's civilian population to leave or turn against the Taliban, while pressuring the estimated 2,000 insurgents to flee the town or switch sides...
More at Stars and Stripes.
Rage, Boredom, Misplaced Offensives - Joshua Foust, Registan.
The old saying that war is boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror is very much relevant to the fight in Helmand. Over the summer, when the Marines were advertising their latest “surge” into Helmand (at least the third Marine Surge and at least the fifth misfocused ISAF surge into the province), many expressed surprise at the Taliban’s propensity to “melt away” from a fight - that, rather than facing certain death with the Marines, they’ll just slink away to cause trouble elsewhere.
This isn’t a new thing - the Taliban have been doing it since, oh, let’s go with 2001 - but the Marine Corps nevertheless seemed surprised by it. And it is indeed a bizarre, frustrating thing to deal with an enemy that generally won’t fight “fairly,” choosing instead to rely on roadside bombs and mortars (the unfairness of such an idea - as if the American reliance on overwhelming air power was any less terrifying to the Taliban - is probably best left for another post). It would be understandable, even easy to find the Marines are running out of patience trying to fight a counterinsurgency while their opponents are not...More at Registan.
Announcing the Marja Offensive - Herschel Smith, The Captain's Journal.
Let’s not overdo the surprise and offer too many superlatives at announcing the Marja offensive. A similar strategy was taken for Operations al Fajr and Alljah, both in Fallujah. The U.S. Marines have a rich history of using intimidation as one of the many tools in their bag. My problem isn’t with announcing the offensive. It comes at a more basic level than that...
I have also spoken strongly against targeting the poppies. I cannot speak directly to whether the Marines are targeting poppy in Helmand at the moment, but my objections to the handling of the Marja offensive are much more basic and foundational. If there is no one in charge who can explain why we are in Helmand, let me do it (sigh) once again...
More at The Captain's Journal.
Continue reading "Planned Offensive in Southern Afghanistan" »
Thinking COIN, Practicing FID
OEF Philippines: Thinking COIN, Practicing FID - Lieutenant Colonel Brian Petit, Special Warfare.
Counterinsurgency is the formative mission of today’s military. The dominant missions of the past seven years - Iraq and Afghanistan - have inexorably shaped a new force. Our leaders, equipment, tactics, logistics, and doctrine all bear the traumatic discoveries learned from the Iraq and Afghanistan counterinsurgency campaigns. Reasonably, the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts will continue as the primary shaping experience for U.S. forces in counterinsurgency (COIN) and for the practice and theory of stability operations. Given the dominant hold of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan (OEF-A) on our military culture, what then, does Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines (OEF-P) contribute to the expanding aperture of U.S. military counterinsurgency study?
OEF-P is more relevant to the broader COIN conversation now than ever before. The OEF-P operating environment is characterized by strict - yet prudent - constraints executed by a strikingly small U.S. Task Force. Similar constraints are now in place in Iraq and Afghanistan. Legal prohibitions, strict operational directives, host-nation caveats, and reduced U.S. forces are all constraints that force a revision of operational thinking, a reconsideration of tactics, and increasingly disciplined force application. The existing and forthcoming constraints in Iraq are similar in nature to the constraints imposed upon U.S. forces deployed to Southern Philippines since 2001. Under such constraints, U.S. Special Operations Forces in the Philippines apply an operational approach and tactical methodology that has applicability to current and future U.S. counterinsurgency and stability endeavors. The U.S. involvement in the Philippines (2001 – 2009) can be examined as a preview of the way U.S. counterinsurgency and stability strategies and tactics might look in other theaters as governments stabilize and security responsibility shifts primarily to the host nation. This article presents three tactical vignettes illustrative of the way U.S. forces in the Southern Philippines operate effectively within confined parameters...
Much more at Special Warfare.
Small Wars Journal - Volume 6, No. 1
We are bringing back Small Wars Journal in proper multi-article journal style in a formatted-to-print PDF, just like we did in the old days. We will continue to put out good articles as quickly as we can online, and we will regularly assemble select content into issues.
Read on for the line-up of Small Wars Journal Volume 6, No. 1 including the winners of Question #2 from our writing competition. Look for Question #1 winners in the next issue very soon.
Tribal Engagement: A Silver Bullet?
The Way Ahead in Afghanistan: Does a Silver Bullet Exist? An Analysis of Giving Power Over to the Tribes to Achieve Victory – Major Nathan Springer, U.S. Army/ U.S. Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center.
MAJ Jim Gant has initiated healthy discussion and analysis concerning the way ahead in Afghanistan by publishing his bold paper "One Tribe At A Time." the level of interest and dialogue it has stimulated within the COIN community is extremely positive, whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions.
I agreed with many of MAJ Gant’s points, particularly his thesis. "The answer to the problems that face the Afghan people, as well as other future threats to US security in the region, will be found in understanding and then helping the tribal system of Afghanistan to flourish." I couldn’t agree more. At this point in the game, it seems to me that leaders understand this war will be won at the local, village, and tribal level up, rather than from the central/government level down. Like MAJ Gant, I am one soldier sharing one hard-earned perspective on the Afghanistan puzzle. Please understand that I do not wish to imply that my time in Afghanistan gave me all the answers. Truly, it left me with more questions than answers. But the pivotal piece of MAJ Gant’s proposed solution to Afghani empowerment runs so counter to the realities I grappled with there, I feel I must add my voice, in a formal way, to this discourse.
I strongly disagree with MAJ Gant’s ideas on how to go about empowering the tribal system in Afghanistan. Even referring to that nation’s labyrinth of tribes as "the" system over-simplifies the situation on the ground. A complicated web of Afghani tribes, sects, sub-tribes, and clans have existed there for hundreds of years, inextricably bound to that nation’s history, culture, and families...
More at The COIN Center Blog.
3 February SWJ Roundup
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Revenge on the Taliban, from 10,000 Feet
Revenge on the Taliban, from 10,000 Feet - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
In their joint operations against Taliban militants hiding in the tribal areas, the United States and Pakistan seem to have embraced a classic bit of battlefield advice: Don't get mad, get even.
Since the beginning of 2010, the United States has stepped up the pace of its Predator strikes, with strong Pakistani support. These attacks appear to have killed Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, top lieutenant Qarimullah Hussain, who trained Taliban suicide bombers, and other key members of the insurgency, a senior administration official said Tuesday.
Though the Predators launch their Hellfire missiles from the lofty altitude of 10,000 feet, make no mistake: This is an intense and unrelenting campaign of assassination. U.S. officials hope that top al-Qaeda leaders will soon fall prey to the stepped-up drone attacks, as well...
More at The Washington Post.
Continue reading "Revenge on the Taliban, from 10,000 Feet" »
al-Qaeda U.S. Attack Within 6 Months?
Senators Warned of Terrorist Attack on U.S. by July - Mark Mazzetti, New York Times.
America’s top intelligence official told lawmakers on Tuesday that Al Qaeda and its affiliates had made it a high priority to attempt a large-scale attack on American soil within the next six months.
The assessment by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, was much starker than his view last year, when he emphasized the considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda and said that the global economic meltdown, rather than the prospect of a major terrorist attack, was the “primary near-term security concern of the United States.” ...
More at The New York Times.
Intelligence Officials Say al-Qaeda will Try to Attack U.S. in Next 6 Months - Joby Warrick, Washington Post.
The Obama administration's top intelligence officials on Tuesday described it as "certain" that al-Qaeda or its allies will try to attack the United States in the next six months, and they called for new flexibility in how U.S. officials detain and question terrorist suspects.
The officials, testifying before the Senate intelligence committee, also warned of increased risk of cyber-attacks in the coming months, saying that the recent China-based hacking of Google's computers was both a "wake-up call" and a forerunner to future strikes aimed at businesses or intended to cause economic disruption...
More at The Washington Post.
Terrorist Attempt 'Certain' in Months - Eli Lake, Washington Times.
The five senior leaders of the U.S. intelligence community told a Senate panel Tuesday they are "certain" that terrorists will attempt another attack on the United States in the next three to six months.
The warning came during the annual threat briefing to Congress in response to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who asked, "What is the likelihood of another terrorist-attempted attack on the U.S. homeland in the next three to six months? High or low?"
"An attempted attack, the priority is certain, I would say," Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, a retired admiral, said in response. Four other intelligence agency leaders who appeared at the hearing with Mr. Blair said they agreed with the assessment...
More at The Washington Times.
2 February SWJ Roundup
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Cartel v. Cartel: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency
Cartel v. Cartel:
Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency
by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus
Download the full article: Cartel v. Cartel: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency
As the decade ends, Mexico’s criminal insurgency continues. Yet the narco-war in 2010 is not identical to the violence that began three years ago. Mexico’s criminal insurgency at the beginning of 2010 is distinguished by three main trends: continuing (though increasingly diffused) violence against the state, increasing militarization of the Mexican state’s response, and a growing feeling of defeat among some within Mexican policy circles. Additionally, the conflict has assumed broader transnational dimensions.
On the surface, the conflict has entered into a period of seeming stasis. But it is a bloody stalemate—and the war promises to continue simmering well into this year and beyond. According to the Mexican press, 2009 may have been the bloodiest year of the war, with 7,600 Mexicans perishing in the drug war. Whatever the nature of the conflict, the danger still remains to American interests. As we have noted before, loose talk of a Mexican “failed state” obscures the real problem of a subtler breakdown of government authority and bolstering of the parallel authorities that cartels have already created.
Download the full article: Cartel v. Cartel: Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency
John P. Sullivan is a career police officer. He currently serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST). His research focuses on counterinsurgency, intelligence, terrorism, urban operations, and post-conflict policing. He is co-editor of Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-Terrorism Network (Routledge, 2006) and Global Biosecurity: Threats and Responses (Routledge, 2010).
Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security. He is currently Associate Editor at Red Team Journal. His articles have been published in West Point CTC Sentinel, Small Wars Journal, and other publications. He blogs at Rethinking Security and The Huffington Post. He is currently a contributor to the Center for Threat Awareness’ ThreatsWatch project.
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1 February SWJ Roundup
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The al Qaeda Franchise Model: An Alternative
The al Qaeda Franchise Model
An Alternative
by Captain Joshua McLaughlin
Download the full article: The al Qaeda Franchise Model: An Alternative
This article stems from a series of posts I recently wrote at al Sahwa, and is intended to offer an alternative to the commonly accepted “franchise” model that is frequently discussed in reference to al Qaeda (AQ) on a global scale. Just a few examples of the widespread use of the word “franchise” are available here, here, here and here. My intent is not to provide an operational framework or design for AQ subordinates at the operational or tactical levels; instead, my aim is to supplant “franchise” with “conglomerate” as the most representative business model for the relationship between AQ and its affiliate groups.
Download the full article: The al Qaeda Franchise Model: An Alternative
Captain Joshua McLaughlin is a recent graduate of the Field Artillery Captains Career Course. His most recent operational assignment was with 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry in Mosul, Iraq as the Task Force Fire Support Officer. He also blogs at al Sahwa.
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QDR: Gates Submits 'Wartime' Defense Blueprint
Gates Submits 'Wartime' Defense Blueprint - National Journal.
Defense Secretary Gates has submitted a "wartime" Quadrennial Defense Review of military capabilities and requirements, balancing near-term priorities with the future needs of the force, according to a copy of the document obtained by Congress Daily.
"This is truly a wartime QDR," Gates wrote in an introductory letter accompanying the review, slated to be released Monday...
To prepare the military for a range of conflicts, Gates wrote that the QDR "directs more focus in investment in a new air-sea battle concept, long-range strike, space and cyberspace, among other conventional and strategic modernization programs."
The 105-page planning document will be released along with the FY11 budget submission.
More at The National Journal.
Click here to read the QDR dated 1 February 2010 at National Journal or read it here (H/T Abu Muqawama):
Continue reading "QDR: Gates Submits 'Wartime' Defense Blueprint" »
31 January SWJ Roundup
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America’s New Hope: The Afghan Tribes
A Look at America’s New Hope: The Afghan Tribes - Ruhullah Khapalwak and David Rohde, New York Times
For three decades now, Communism, civil war and Islamic fundamentalism have laid siege to Afghanistan’s tribes. In many ways, Afghanistan’s tribal structure is arguably the weakest it has been in the country’s history. Nonetheless, American civilian and military leaders are turning to some of these tribes as potentially their best hope for success against the resurgent Taliban after being frustrated by the weak central leadership of President Hamid Karzai.
Tribes have existed for millennia in the area that is present-day Afghanistan. They emerged over centuries in various sections of the country, taking form along extended kinship lines. Led by councils of elders, tribes provided their members with protection, financial support, a means to resolve disputes, and punishment of those who had committed crimes or broken tribal codes of conduct. For Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group and the Taliban’s primary source of support, tribes are particularly important. Successfully turning Pashtun tribes against the Taliban - or perhaps families or sub-tribes if they deal with the government on their own - could deliver a serious blow to the insurgency and potentially create a means of stabilizing the long-suffering country...More at The New York Times.
Why is it Important to Talk to the Taliban?
Why is it Important to Talk to the Taliban?
by Major Ali Iqbal
Download the full article: Why is it Important to Talk to the Taliban?
As an international military student in Fort Leavenworth, I am constantly exposed to public, US Government and international opinion on how to succeed/just stay afloat and not sink in the quagmire of that perilous place called “Afghanistan”. Ranging from complex solutions like rebuilding the entire state on the western paradigm, to the irresponsible suggestion of adapting the “It is what it is” policy by creating “Chaositan” - they are all out there on the table. However, as already concluded by many intellectuals, the permanent solution to Afghanistan will be the solution which the Afghans want, not what we sitting many a mile away keep conjecturing about. The harsh reality is that the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated as the Taliban are continuously spreading their influence and cashing in on the frustrations of the people - an ideal force multiplier for the insurgents to leverage for furthering their designs. The main reason why the situation has become so precarious is that the bulk of the country, more precisely east and south east consisting of Pashtuns, is convinced that the Taliban are their real saviors and not the apathetic government in Kabul or ISAF forces. Let us consider why these poor, religiously inclined and simple people favor the “Dark Side” rather than us “Knights in Shining Armor”.
Download the full article: Why is it Important to Talk to the Taliban?
Major Ali Iqbal, Pakistan Army, is currently a student at the US Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has served as an instructor in School of Armor and Pakistan Military Academy and has twice served as brigade operations officer in an infantry and armor brigade. He has also served as United Nations Military Observer in Sierra Leone. He is a graduate of Command and Staff College, Pakistan and has a master’s degree in Arts and Science of Warfare.
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30 January SWJ Roundup
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Marines Invest in Local Afghan Projects
Marines Invest in Local Afghan Projects - C. J. Chivers, New York Times.
... Following the emphasis on a more assertive counterinsurgency approach mandated last year by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, here on some of the country’s most dangerous ground, infantry units are using this winter to try a soft touch.
In the province’s lower Nawa District, many conventional missions for now are a low priority. Airstrikes and high-explosive artillery fire are in disfavor. Even mortar fire is rare. Instead, in places where it is able, the infantry is sending patrols to enter into development contracts with local men. The ambition is to use local labor to build bridges over canals, shore up irrigation systems, repair water gates or small dams and, in the most determined contest of influence against the Taliban, renovate mosques.
The effort rests on a simple premise: to fight the Taliban, money may be more effective than guns. “We’re trying to buy a little peace,” said Capt. Paul D. Stubbs, commanding officer of Company W, First Battalion, Third Marines, which operates in this area...
More at The New York Times.
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Bringing National Security into the 21st Century
Bringing National Security into the 21st Century - Daniel Langberg, World Politics Review.
Two weeks ago, while discussing last November's tragic events at Fort Hood, Defense Secretary Robert Gates proclaimed that the Pentagon "is burdened by 20th century processes and attitudes mostly rooted in the Cold War." This acknowledgement by a wartime defense secretary is yet another stark reminder that the broader U.S. national security system was also designed for a much different era, and stands in need of a holistic review and systemic modernization...
Prior to the financial meltdown, it was post-invasion Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and the events of Sept. 11, 2001, that spotlighted the mismatch between our outdated system of governance and its foremost mission of preserving the viability and vitality of the nation. Perhaps the 9/11 Commission (.pdf) said it best when it called the specific problems revealed by 9/11 "symptoms of the government's broader inability to adapt how it manages problems to the new challenges of the 21st century." ...More at World Politics Review.
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29 January SWJ Roundup
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American Forces in the Philippines
American Forces in the Philippines: Drawing Lessons From a Rare Success - The Economist (H/T Max).
... This is part of an American mission that started in 2002, not long after the Taliban fell in Kabul. A force of up to 600 American soldiers, many of them counter-insurgency specialists, has been training elite Filipino troops to fight militant groups ever since. American gadgets, tactics and intelligence seem to be helping. Fifteen of the 24 names on a Philippine most-wanted poster have been crossed out, either captured or killed. Foreign troops are forbidden to fight, so combat duties fall to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The Americans keep busy with aid projects designed to woo locals in areas thick with militants. These days, there are fewer of them. The AFP estimates that Abu Sayyaf, a group notorious for bombings and beheadings, has fewer than 400 fighters on Jolo and Basilan islands. General Benjamin Dolorfino of the AFP boasts the group can no longer stage attacks on Mindanao itself.
American military thinkers wonder if there are lessons for other parts of the world where al-Qaeda lurks. With a modest outlay here, the Pentagon has dealt a blow to Islamist radicals and sharpened the skills of an ally. American troops are overstretched, expensive and make attractive targets for jihadists, so it makes sense to train other forces to fight where they can.
America, however, is unlikely to find other partners as perfect as the AFP, which is modelled on America’s armed forces. Filipino officers speak English, know and admire America, once the colonial power, and can bond with their comrades over beer and karaoke. Try that in Yemen...
More at The Economist.
QDR Draft Out of the Closet?
Via Abu Muqawama - draft QDR leaked via Inside Defense... Big news in defense policy circles. A draft of the QDR has been leaked to Inside Defense...
The Challenges of Reconstruction, Marine Progress
The Challenges of Reconstruction in Afghanistan - Judah Grunstein, World Politics Review.
With all eyes on London and the high-profile Afghanistan Conference, a quieter gathering that took place this week in Prague might have shed more light on the opportunities, challenges and uncertainty that lie ahead for the war-torn country.
The conference, co-sponsored by the Prague Security Studies Institute and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, brought together military and civilian practitioners of reconstruction and development work in Afghanistan, ostensibly to discuss the future of Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan. But the wide-ranging panel discussions also addressed the broader challenges of reconstruction, as well as the urgent need for overcoming them, if the effort to stabilize Afghanistan is to be successful.
PRTs emerged in Afghanistan in 2003 as an ad hoc response to the inherent security challenges presented by reconstruction work in an ongoing conflict zone. Made up of personnel from both civilian development agencies and the military, they represented the first efforts at interagency, whole-of-government stability operations upon which a counterinsurgency approach depends. Their ability to respond quickly to local needs by bypassing bureaucratic and chain-of-command bottlenecks soon led to wider applications. Now, as Mark Ward, special adviser on development to the chief of the U.N.'s Afghanistan mission, observed, with $1 billion in funding and roughly 30 teams operating in the country, the PRTs are collectively one of the biggest international aid donors to Afghanistan...
More at World Politics Review.
U.S. Marines Make Fragile Progress in Helmand - Balint Szlanko, World Politics Review.
Marine Capt. Scott Cuomo of Fox company, 2nd battalion, 2nd Marine regiment, must have felt very confident. How else to explain his climbing into an armorless Afghan army truck -- a coffin on four wheels -- next to Haji Abdullah Jan, the Afghan district governor, with only a few Afghan army soldiers for protection, to speed down empty dirt roads almost certainly mined by the Taliban?
But Cuomo's confidence is not misplaced. The men make it safely to their destination: a destroyed compound beside which the barren, twisted remains of three dead trees point grotesquely to the sky. The district governor, clearly moved, walks to the building. It is his house, which he is visiting for the first time in four years because of the war. Cuomo grins excitedly. The governor is home.
"This is a big success," Cuomo says. "It may be harder to quantify than counting the number of bad guys we have killed, but it is success."
Garmsir district lies in the southern-central part of Helmand, Afghanistan's most war-torn province and home to a massive, opium-fed insurgency. Since 2006, most of the district had been Taliban country. Forays by the British army, until recently the NATO nation in charge of Helmand, had never quite managed to dislodge the insurgents, in part because the British never had enough troops to hold and build the areas that they had cleared of insurgents...
More at World Politics Review.
Continue reading "The Challenges of Reconstruction, Marine Progress" »
28 January SWJ Roundup
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Military Partnerships May Be Best Path to Peace
Military Partnerships May Be the Nation's Best Path to Peace - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal this week expressed a truth that military commanders know better than anyone: "A political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome," he told the Financial Times. The problem is getting to that political settlement in a way that the combatants find acceptable. This can take years, even decades. The United States is now in its ninth year of fighting Muslim extremists around the world. People sometimes wonder whether America has learned anything during this painful time, or whether we are condemned to keep digging deeper holes for ourselves. Certainly, we're still digging in Afghanistan, where McChrystal, the U.S. commander there, believes that an acceptable political settlement won't be possible unless we squeeze the Taliban harder. I think he's right about that.
But I sense there's a growing recognition, especially within the U.S. military, that America has to get out of the business of fighting expeditionary wars every time a new flash point erupts with al-Qaeda. The Pentagon has adopted this proxy strategy of training "friendly" countries (meaning ones that share with us the enemy of Islamic extremism) from North Africa to the Philippines. This "partnership" approach hasn't been articulated by the Obama administration as a formal strategy, and it doesn't get much media coverage. But it's worth a careful look, because it may offer the best path toward a world where the United States isn't always operating as an anti-terrorist Robocop...
More at The Washington Post.
Continue reading "Military Partnerships May Be Best Path to Peace" »
Afghan Tribe Vows to Fight Taliban in Return for U.S. Aid
Afghan Tribe Vows to Fight Taliban in Return for U.S. Aid - Dexter Filkens, New York Times.
The leaders of one of the largest Pashtun tribes in a Taliban stronghold said Wednesday that they had agreed to support the American-backed government, battle insurgents and burn down the home of any Afghan who harbored Taliban guerrillas. Elders from the Shinwari tribe, which represents about 400,000 people in eastern Afghanistan, also pledged to send at least one military-age male in each family to the Afghan Army or the police in the event of a Taliban attack.
In exchange for their support, American commanders agreed to channel $1 million in development projects directly to the tribal leaders and bypass the local Afghan government, which is widely seen as corrupt. “The Taliban have been trying to destroy our tribe, and they are taking money from us, and they are taking our sons to fight,” said Malik Niaz, a Shinwari elder. “If they defy us now, we will defeat them.” The pact appears to be the first in which an entire Pashtun tribe has declared war on Taliban insurgents...
More at The New York Times.
Continue reading "Afghan Tribe Vows to Fight Taliban in Return for U.S. Aid" »
Haiti: Boots on the Ground Perspective
Haiti: Boots on the Ground Perspective
by Colonel Buck Elton
Download the full article: Haiti: Boots on the Ground Perspective
Buck Elton is the Commander of Joint Special Operations Air Component-Haiti. Small Wars Journal inadvertently received an e-mail update from Buck to his family and friends. SWJ asked if we could publish his insightful account and he most graciously agreed. What follows addresses many issues now appearing in the press – here is a boots on the ground perspective.
Download the full article: Haiti: Boots on the Ground Perspective
More:
Airfield Support in Haiti - Department of State DipNote
Teleconference Briefing on Relief Efforts in Haiti - DoS Telecon with Col. Buck Elton
2010 Earthquake in Haiti - DoS Information Portal
British Embassy: Reintegration, Reconciliation in Afghanistan
Reintegration, Reconciliation: What Do We Mean? - Simon Shercliff, UK's First Secretary of Foreign Security and Policy, Washington, DC
After comments by Secretary Gates on his recent India/Pakistan trip, and by General McChrystal in the FT, the topic of the moment here in DC is reconciliation/reintegration. Regular readers will know that I have highlighted this issue often in the past. Discussion of reintegration and reconciliation, and indeed simple definition of the terms themselves, is fraught with sensitivity. But given that this discussion will clearly take up much of the London conference, it is important that we are as precise as we can be with the language.
This is my take on what we mean - and crucially what we don't mean - when we talk about these issues.
Some excerpts follow:
Reconciliation is the end game, and it needs the right conditions...
Which can be reached by a combination of military and civilian means – pressure and incentives...
... one of which is reintegration...
And none of which is striking a power-sharing deal with the Taliban, or anyone who follows their practices...
Which means that reintegration, leading to reconciliation, will not catch everyone...
More at The UK in the USA.
Continue reading "British Embassy: Reintegration, Reconciliation in Afghanistan" »
Do Ideas Matter?
Do Ideas Matter?
A Clausewitzian Case Study
by Adam Elkus
Download the full article: Do Ideas Matter?
“Ideas matter,” the new Army Capstone Concept declares. Ideas certainly do matter, and doctrine can be the key to victory or defeat. But it is immensely difficult to predict the form that ideas will eventually take. The reception and dilution of Clausewitzian theory in American military doctrine suggests that influence is contingent--and the end product of counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine’s continuing evolution in American strategy is unlikely to conform to the predictions of either COIN’s most fervent admirers or detractors.
Download the full article: Do Ideas Matter?
Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security. He is currently Associate Editor at Red Team Journal. His articles have been published in West Point CTC Sentinel, Small Wars Journal, and other publications. He blogs at Rethinking Security and The Huffington Post. He is currently a contributor to the Center for Threat Awareness’ ThreatsWatch project.
27 January SWJ Roundup
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26 January SWJ Roundup
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War Plans, Taliban Reintegration
U.S. Envoy’s Cables Show Concerns on Afghan War Plans - Eric Schmitt, New York Times.
The United States ambassador in Kabul warned his superiors here in November that President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan “is not an adequate strategic partner” and “continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden,” according to a classified cable that offers a much bleaker accounting of the risks of sending additional American troops to Afghanistan than was previously known.
The broad outlines of two cables from the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, became public within days after he sent them, and they were portrayed as having been the source of significant discussion in the White House, heightening tensions between diplomats and senior military officers, who supported an increase of 30,000 American troops.
But the full cables, obtained by The New York Times, show for the first time just how strongly the current ambassador felt about the leadership of the Afghan government, the state of its military and the chances that a troop buildup would actually hurt the war effort by making the Karzai government too dependent on the United States...
More at The New York Times.
Britain, Japan to Help Reintegrate Taliban Foot Soldiers - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post.
Britain and Japan have agreed to head an international fund, expected to total up to $500 million over the next five years, as part of a broad plan to help lure Taliban fighters away from the insurgency with the promise of jobs, protection against retaliation, and the removal of their names from lists of U.S. and NATO targets.
Establishment of the fund will be announced Thursday at a high-level international conference on Afghanistan in London, according to U.S. and British officials. Representatives from nearly 70 nations, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, will attend.
The fund will help support a proposal by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, to be announced at the conference, to begin the reintegration of low-level fighters. Karzai will also outline his strategy for reconciliation with amenable insurgent leaders...
More at The Washington Post.
PRT Afghan Conference to be Live Streamed
On Tuesday and Wednesday (Jan. 26-27), Radio Free Europe / Radio LIberty (RFE/RL) will provide live video streaming of the international conference, "Provincial Reconstruction Teams: Challenges of Reconstruction in Afghanistan." To view the live webstream, go to this link.
The conference will run for two days, with Tuesday's proceedings being broadcast from 9:00 to 17:45 Central European Time (CET), and Wednesday’s from 9:00 to 13:00 CET. The full conference program and participants list is available here.
PRT conference participants from RFE/RL include: Jeffrey Gedmin, President; John O’Sullivan, Chief Editor; Akbar Ayazi, Director of Radio Free Afghanistan (Radio Azadi) and Mohammed Amin Mudaquiq, RFE/RL's Kabul Bureau Chief. RFE/RL’s Afghan service, known locally as Radio Azadi, is the most popular radio station in Afghanistan, with a weekly audience of 7.9 million people and a market share of about 50%.
Conference organizers say their goals are to contribute to a coherent Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) strategy in Afghanistan based on an assessment of their operations to date and to identify the challenges PRTs face. The conference also aims to increase awareness among policymakers, the media, and the broader public of the challenges and the critical importance of reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
Continue reading "PRT Afghan Conference to be Live Streamed" »
Contested Commons
Contested Commons: The Future of American Power in a Multipolar World - Abraham M. Denmark, Dr. James Mulvenon, Frank Hoffman, Lt Col Kelly Martin, USAF, Oliver Fritz, Eric Sterner, Dr. Greg Rattray, Chris Evans, Jason Healey, and Robert D. Kaplan; Center for a New American Security Report.
The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released today a major report on American power in the sea, air, space and cyberspace: Contested Commons: The Future of American Power in a Multipolar World. The report, authored by CNAS Fellow Abraham M. Denmark and nine additional experts, advocates that the United States renew its commitment to the global commons by pursuing three mutually supporting objectives: build global regimes that preserve the openness of the commons; engage pivotal actors that have the will and ability to protect and sustain them; and develop the hard-power tools and capabilities necessary for the United States to defend the global commons.
Read the full report at CNAS.
25 January SWJ Roundup
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The Post-COIN Era is Here
The Post-COIN Era is Here - Mark Safranski, Zenpundit
There has been, for years, an ongoing debate in the defense and national security community over the proper place of COIN doctrine in the repertoire of the United States military and in our national strategy. While a sizable number of serious scholars, strategists, journalists and officers have been deeply involved, the bitter discussion characterized as “COINdinista vs. Big War crowd” debate is epitomized by the exchanges between two antagonists, both lieutenant colonels with PhD’s, John Nagl, a leading figure behind the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual and now president of the powerhouse think tank CNAS , and Gian Gentile, professor of history at West Point and COIN’s most infamous arch-critic.
In terms of policy and influence, the COINdinistas ultimately carried the day. COIN advocates moved from a marginalized mafia of military intellectuals who in 2004 were just trying to get a hearing from an indifferent Rumsfeld Pentagon, to policy conquerors as the public’s perceptions of the ”Surge” in Iraq (masterminded by General David Petraeus, Dr. Frederick Kagan, General Jack Keane and a small number of collaborators) allowed the evolution of a COIN-centric, operationally oriented, ”Kilcullen Doctrine” to emerge across two very different administrations. Critics like Colonel Gentile and Andrew Bacevich began to warn, along with dovish liberal pundits - and with some exaggeration - that COIN theory was acheiving a “cult” status that was usurping the time, money, talent and attention that the military should be devoting to traditional near peer rival threats. And furthermore, ominously, COIN fixation was threatening to cause the U.S. political class (especially Democrats) to be inclined to embark upon a host of half-baked, interventionist “crusades“in Third world quagmires...
More at Zenpundit.
Human Terrain Trailer
From the MIME-NET information section on YouTube:
'Human Terrain' is two stories in one. The first exposes the U.S. effort to enlist the best and the brightest of American universities in a struggle for the hearts and minds of its enemies. Facing long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military adopts a controversial new program, 'Human Terrain Systems', to make cultural awareness a key element of its counterinsurgency strategy. Designed to embed social scientists with combat troops, the program swiftly comes under attack by academic critics who consider it misguided and unethical to gather intelligence and target potential enemies for the military. Gaining rare access to wargames in the Mojave Desert and training exercises at Quantico and Fort Leavenworth, 'Human Terrain' takes the viewer into the heart of the war machine and the shadowy collaboration between American academics and the armed services.
The other story is about a brilliant young scholar who leaves the university to join a Human Terrain team. After working as a humanitarian activist and winning a Marshall Scholarship to study at Oxford, Michael Bhatia returned to Brown University to conduct research on military cultural awareness. A year later, he left to embed as a Human Terrain member with the 82nd Airborne in Afghanistan. On May 7, 2008, en route to mediate an intertribal dispute, his humvee hit a roadside bomb and Bhatia was killed along with two other soldiers.
Asking what happens when war becomes academic and academics go to war, the two stories merge in tragedy.
24 January News Items of Interest
Afghanistan / Pakistan
Karzai Urges West to Buy Off the Taliban - The Times
Afghan Parliamentary Elections Postponed - The Times
Afghanistan Delays Parliamentary Elections - Associated Press
Foot on Bomb, Marine Defies a Taliban Trap - New York Times
Two U.S. Soldiers Are Among 17 Afghan Deaths - New York Times
Roadside Bomb Kills Two U.S. Troops - Associated Press
Australian Weekend Warriors Facing Front Line in Afghanistan - The Australian
Gates Sees Fallout From Troubled Ties With Pakistan - New York Times
Militant Ambush Sparks Pakistan Gunfight - Associated Press
Militants Kill Six Pakistanis for Alleged Spying - Associated Press
More Guile Needed in the Afghan Game - The Times opinion
Iraq
Biden: U.S. Will Appeal Blackwater Case Dismissal - New York Times
Justice Department to Appeal Blackwater Dismissal - Washington Post
British Man Held for Fraud in Iraq Bomb Detectors - New York Times
Road back to Baghdad - Washington Post opinion
Haiti
More Than 150,000 Have Been Buried, Haiti Says - New York Times
Death Toll Growing at Port-au-Prince's Hotel Montana - Washington Post
With Plastic and Cardboard, Haitians Build - Christian Science Monitor
Haitians Tackle Aftermath Alone - The Times
What To Do About Haiti - Los Angeles Times editorial
American Capabilities and Vulnerabilities - Washington Times opinion
The Long War
Indian Hijack Plot Caused New U.K. Terror Alert - The Times
Bin Laden Takes Responsibility for Christmas Bomb Attempt - Los Angeles Times
'Bin Laden' Claims Christmas Day Bomb Plot - The Times
Details Emerge in Arrest of Christmas Day Bomb Suspect - Associated Press
Terrorists Take a Calculated Risk - Los Angeles Times opinion
Terror Warning: From Daft to Perplexing - The Times opinion
Islam's War Against Others - Washington Times opinion
Africa
Somali Pirates Will Die Before Releasing U.K. Couple - The Times
Americas
Venezuela: Tens of Thousands Protest Chavez's Rule - Associated Press
Venezuelan Cable Television Channel Taken Off Air - The Times
Cable Providers Dump Anti-Chávez TV Channel - Associated Press
Asia Pacific
In Japan, U.S. Losing Diplomatic Ground to China - New York Times
Future of Okinawa Base Strains Alliance - Washington Post
N. Korea Accuses Seoul of 'Open Declaration of War' - The Times
Middle East
Israel Poised to Challenge a U.N. Report on Gaza - New York Times
No roundup today...
... but here are some items of interest.
Afghanistan and Pakistan
To Gates, Taliban a 'Cancer' but Part of Afghan 'Political Fabric' - Washington Post
U.S. Delays Setting Up More Anti-Taliban Militias - New York Times
CIA Deaths Prompt Surge in U.S. Drone Strikes - New York Times
Comradeship Key for British Army in Sangin - The Times
Gates Confronts Pakistani Reports - Wall Street Journal
Gates Defends Arms Sales to India, Pakistan - Los Angeles Times
Pakistan Hesitates, Again - New York Times editorial
Terrorism
India Sees Terrorism Threats - Wall Street Journal
Turkey Arrests 120 With Suspected Qaeda Ties - New York Times
Britain Raises Terror Level Threat to 'Severe' - Associated Press
Blown Opportunity In Flight 253 Case? - Washington Post editorial
Iraq
Iraq to Ban More Candidates - Associated Press
Biden Arrives in Iraq in Move to Prevent Election Crisis - Washington Post
Biden to Meet Iraq Leaders Amid Candidate Dispute - New York Times
Middle East
With Peace Talks Stalled, New Intifada Feared - Christian Science Monitor
Haiti
Haiti Calls Off Search for Survivors - Washington Post
Port-au-Prince Faces Next Question: How to Rebuild - Wall Street Journal
U.S. Troops to Help Oversee Haiti Ports, Roads - Washington Post
War and DoD
War Deaths Often Overestimated - Christian Science Monitor
Simulators Prepare Soldiers for Explosive Attacks in War - New York Times
Support Swells for 3 Accused SEALs - Washington Times
22 January SWJ Roundup
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Winning the Ground Battles but Losing the Information War
Winning the Ground Battles but Losing the Information War
by Captain Gina Cairns-McFeeters, Captain John Shapiro, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Nettleton, Lieutenant Colonel Sonya Finely and Lieutenant Commander Daryk Zirkle
Download the full article: Winning the Ground Battles but Losing the Information War
In this era of persistent conflict, the US faces a myriad of challenges—conventional and irregular, with adversaries who increasingly take advantage of the information environment. Fundamentally, we must change our mindset and incorporate the human terrain—and the effects of information warfare—into our operational analysis and planning. While al Qaeda and its adherents try to frame current conflicts as a “clash of civilizations,” in reality there is a struggle within Islam to determine the way ahead in the 21st century. Ambassador Holbrooke stated it best: “defining what this war is really about in the minds of the 1 billion Muslims in the world will be of decisive and historic importance.” In order to achieve success, we must fully understand the power of information and the requirements for intelligence and influence—both being conducted in competition with the adversary’s information campaign that complements their dynamic and flat networked organizations. The information components of counter-insurgency (COIN) strategies are the underlying foundation for all other COIN activities.
Download the full article: Winning the Ground Battles but Losing the Information War
Captain Gina Cairns-McFeeters, U.S. Navy, was the Chief, Multinational Force-Iraq IO Cell and led Strategic IO efforts for Iraq. Captain John Shapiro, U.S. Navy, was Multinational-West IO Liaison Officer to the MNF-I IO Cell. Lieutenant Colonel Steve Nettleton, U.S. Army, was the Officer in Charge, Cyber Support Element – Iraq and provided computer network operations support to MNF-I. Lieutenant Colonel Sonya Finely, U.S. Army, was the Deputy Director, Commander's Initiative Group, MNF-I and assisted the director of the Commanding General's personal staff. Lieutenant Commander Daryk Zirkle, U.S. Navy, was the Information Operations Planner, MNF-I IO and provided planning and staff support to Strategic IO efforts.
Continue reading "Winning the Ground Battles but Losing the Information War" »
Targeted Assassinations in the War Against Al Qaeda
There's a very nice piece in today's Diane Rehm Show on Targeted Assassinations in the War Against Al Qaeda. Discussion includes the application of the law of war to the CIA's use of drones and the "trust us, it's good" response to requests for disclosure of the legal analysis behind the policy decision and quality assurances in targeting & approval processes. James Kitfield, one of the guests, has written a two-part story for the National Journal called Predators. Wanted: Dead and Are Drone Strikes Murder? are available to subscribers only; I am currently struggling with their cumbersome free trial. Hina Shamsi and Paul Pillar are the other two guests.
Continue reading "Targeted Assassinations in the War Against Al Qaeda" »
21 January SWJ Roundup
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Retaining Talent
Towards a U.S. Army Officer Corps Strategy for Success: Retaining Talent - Colonel Casey Wardynski, Major David S. Lyle, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret) Michael J. Colarusso, U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.
Over the last 3 decades, dramatic labor market changes and well-intentioned but uninformed policies have created significant officer talent flight. Poor retention engenders substantial risk for the Army as it directly affects accessions, development, and employment of talent. The Army cannot make thoughtful policy decisions if its officer talent pipeline continues to leak at current rates. Since the Army cannot insulate itself from labor market forces as it tries to retain talent, the retention component of its officer strategy must rest upon sound market principles. It must be continuously resourced, executed, measured, and adjusted across time and budget cycles. Absent these steps, systemic policy, and decisionmaking failures will continue to confound Army efforts to create a talent-focused officer corps strategy.
More at the Strategic Studies Institute.
20 January SWJ Roundup
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Reconciliation Critical; Few Trained Aid Partners; New Wave of Warlords
Gates: Afghan Reconciliation Efforts Critical - Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal.
The Obama administration offered cautious support for the Afghan government's new outreach effort to the Taliban, expressing hope that lower level militants would reconcile with Kabul even if senior leaders continued fighting. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, at the start of an official visit to India, told reporters that the U.S. welcomed Afghan President Hamid Karzai's new efforts to persuade Taliban militants to lay down their weapons in exchange for jobs, education and security guarantees for themselves and their families. Mr. Gates said that he believed such reconciliation efforts would ultimately be "critical" to ending the long and increasingly bloody Afghan war.
But the defense chief cautioned that top Taliban leaders like Mullah Omar would be unlikely to participate in peace talks with the Afghan central government unless the U.S. and its allies reclaimed the battlefield momentum in Afghanistan. "I'd be very surprised to see a reconciliation with Mullah Omar," Mr. Gates told reporters during the flight here. "It's our view that until the Taliban leadership sees a change in the momentum and begins to see that they are not going to win, the likelihood of reconciliation at senior levels is not terribly great." The comments came just two days after the Karzai government said it was finalizing a major new initiative aimed at convincing large numbers of Taliban fighters to renounce violence and agree to work with - or at least tolerate - the Afghan central government...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
U.S. Aid Workers Find Few Trained Afghan Partners - Keith B. Richburg. Washington Post.
Alongside the thousands of additional U.S. troops, civilian aid workers are surging into Afghanistan to help refurbish schools, open rural health clinics, build irrigation systems, vaccinate livestock and provide fertilizer to farmers. But like their military counterparts, the civilian technicians are finding the lack of trained Afghan partners their most difficult challenge. The problem is particularly acute in the remote rural areas, where the Afghan government's presence is virtually nonexistent. "We're trying to create a centralized government where there's no history of it," said Lindy Cameron, the British head of the multinational provincial reconstruction team in Helmand. "The biggest challenge is the capacity of the Afghan government."
The point was illustrated during a recent day trip to Helmand by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who was in Afghanistan to see how USDA expertise and technical assistance could help farmers boost production in the country's leading agricultural province. Vilsack learned how U.S. aid and agricultural officials had vaccinated more than a million animals, provided seed and fertilizer to 10,000 farmers and distributed thousands of tons of feed for livestock. But when he traveled to Nawa, bringing along Helmand's governor and the agriculture minister from Kabul, he also came face to face with the Afghan government's limitations. Only two Agriculture Ministry officials were working here, and neither lived in the district. They had no office, no equipment, no cellphone - not even a bicycle...
More at The Washington Post.
New Wave of Warlords Bedevils U.S. - Matthew Rosenberg, Wall Street Journal.
In his teen years, Sirajuddin Haqqani was known among friends as a dandy. He cared more about the look of his thick black hair than the battles his father, a mujahideen warlord in the 1980s, was waging with Russia for control of Afghanistan. The younger Mr. Haqqani is still a stylish sort, say those who know him. But now, approaching middle age and ensconced as the battlefield leader of his father's militant army, he has become ruthless in his own pursuit of an Afghanistan free from foreign influence. This time the enemy is the U.S. and its allies.
From outposts along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, his Haqqani network is waging a campaign that has made the Afghan insurgency deadlier. He has widened the use of suicide attacks, which became a Taliban mainstay only in the past few years. U.S. officials believe his forces carried out the dramatic Monday gun, grenade and suicide-bomb attack in Kabul on Afghan government ministries and a luxury hotel. The assault claimed five victims plus seven attackers. Mr. Haqqani also aided the Dec. 30 attack by an al Qaeda operative that killed seven Central Intelligence Agency agents and contractors at a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan, say militant commanders. And he orchestrated last year's assault on a United Nations guesthouse that killed five U.N. staffers, along with other attacks in the capital...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading "Reconciliation Critical; Few Trained Aid Partners; New Wave of Warlords" »
19 January SWJ Roundup
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18 January SWJ Roundup
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A Certain Trumpet
A Certain Trumpet - Major General Ed Scholes, USA (Ret.), Veterans of Special Forces
... If anyone or any organization/agency conducts an objective critique of this nation’s military strategy, advice, influence and actions/inactions over the past five decades, this recommendation by General Taylor reference the Joint Chiefs of Staff might assume significant relevance. Let there be no confusion; in this paper I am discussing actions and organizational structure at the highest levels and not the actions of those in the field. Our troops, unit leaders, and our military families have responded, and continue to respond, to our nation’s requirements with such courage, stamina, and professional abilities that have exceeded all historical standards of selfless service to this nation. Their assigned mission(s) have been accomplished beyond any measure that could reasonably be expected during this past decade of fighting a somewhat different type of warfare with difficult limitations, and against forces without nation state affiliation. Readers are advised also that the points raised and the questions poised are not done so to attack personally those in position of authority at the time but to bring to the surface issues that could possibly provide better and safer operations for the future, for the benefit of those in the field.
The operational relationships between the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and our growing organization of combatant commands, deemed necessary to carry out the operational aspects of our national strategy, needs serious study. In the implementation of our national strategy this past decade, one must ask what was the advice of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and the responsible combatant commander when it was decided to only use Special Forces and CIA teams with the warlords and tribal leaders in Afghanistan to defeat the Al Qaeda and Taliban, without the support of conventional forces to at least block the egress routes, to kill or capture the enemy irregular forces, and prevent their escape to Pakistan. The Special Forces, CIA and Afghanistan forces accomplished their missions extremely well, but one of the first principles taught irregular forces is, “when victory is not possible – live to fight another day”. They did and they are! ...
More at Veterans of Special Forces.
17 January SWJ Roundup
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The Green Beret Who Could Win the War in Afghanistan
Jim Gant, the Green Beret Who Could Win the War in Afghanistan - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post opinion.
It was the spring of 2003, and Capt. Jim Gant and his Special Forces team had just fought their way out of an insurgent ambush in Afghanistan's Konar province when they heard there was trouble in the nearby village of Mangwel. There, Gant had a conversation with a tribal chief - a chance encounter that would redefine his mission in Afghanistan and that, more than six years later, could help salvage the faltering U.S. war effort...
... In recent months, Gant, now a major, has won praise at the highest levels for his effort to radically deepen the U.S. military's involvement with Afghan tribes -- and is being sent back to Afghanistan to do just that. His 45-page paper, "One Tribe at a Time," published online last fall and circulating widely within the U.S. military, the Pentagon and Congress, lays out a strategy focused on empowering Afghanistan's ancient tribal system. Gant believes that with the central government still weak and corrupt, the tribes are the only enduring source of local authority and security in the country.
"We will be totally unable to protect the 'civilians' in the rural areas of Afghanistan until we partner with the tribes for the long haul," Gant wrote. A decorated war veteran and Pashto speaker with multiple tours in Afghanistan, Gant had been assigned by the Army to deploy to Iraq in November. But with senior military and civilian leaders - including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; and Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command - expressing support for Gant's views, he was ordered instead to return to Afghanistan later this year to work on tribal issues...
More at The Washington Post.
Continue reading "The Green Beret Who Could Win the War in Afghanistan" »
Poor Schooling Slows Anti-terrorism Effort in Pakistan
Poor Schooling Slows Anti-terrorism Effort in Pakistan - Griff Witte, Washington Post.
With a curriculum that glorifies violence in the name of Islam and ignores basic history, science and math, Pakistan's public education system has become a major barrier to U.S. efforts to defeat extremist groups here, U.S. and Pakistani officials say. Western officials tend to blame Islamic schools, known as madrassas, for their role as feeders to militant groups, but Pakistani education experts say the root of the problem is the public schools in a nation in which half of adults cannot sign their own name. The United States is hoping an infusion of cash - part of a $7.5 billion civilian aid package - will begin to change that, and in the process alter the widespread perception that Washington's only interest in Pakistan is in bolstering its military.
But according to education reform advocates here, any effort to improve the system faces the reality of intense institutional pressure to keep the schools exactly the way they are. They say that for different reasons, the most powerful forces in Pakistan, including the army, the religious establishment and the feudal landlords who dominate civilian politics, have worked against improving an education system that for decades has been in marked decline...
More at The Washington Post.
Continue reading "Poor Schooling Slows Anti-terrorism Effort in Pakistan" »
16 January SWJ Roundup
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Haiti: What We’re Getting Into
Haiti: What We’re Getting Into - Tim Sullivan, AEI's Center for Defense Studies (CDS).
In the weeks ahead, the Center for Defense Studies will be producing a series of backgrounders on the U.S. military’s relief mission in Haiti. To view the first of these ”Issue Alerts,” which outlines the U.S. forces deployed the Haiti and the unexpected challenges they may face there, click here.
More at CDS.
Host Nation Information Requirements
Host Nation Information Requirements
Achieving Unity of Understanding in Counterinsurgency
by Colonel George Franz, Lieutenant Colonel David Pendall and Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Steffen
Download the full article: Host Nation Information Requirements
Understanding the complex operational environment in Afghanistan means seeing the local conditions and activities and how they affect people’s lives. If the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are truly focused on gaining the support of the people, we must better understand the lens through which the people are watching our efforts play out and we must know what may drive them away from supporting the government. This means understanding not only the nature of the threats to security posed by negative influences, insurgents, and terrorists but also the aspects of Governance and Development that most impact their daily lives. Host Nation Information Requirements (HNIR) is a category of reporting on these critical factors affecting the people in Afghanistan.
More important than the structure of government, the people are most concerned about the extension of governmental services and the ability for their national and local officials to deliver basic necessities and support for a functioning community—to include security. But the operating environment in Afghanistan is much more complex, nuanced and dynamic than answering the question of satisfactory governance- rendering a basic collection of facts, polling data, anecdotal references and statistics insufficient for true understanding within the partnered commands.
The NATO International Security Force- Afghanistan (ISAF) Joint Command (IJC) is instituting a bottom up, inclusive information system to answer key information gaps and assist ISAF and Afghan Partner Commander Critical Information Requirements (CCIR). More than just asking the right questions, the ISAF and Afghan operating forces along with civilian partners in the field, must understand what the answers are that will drive resources and prioritization, providing better insight into the real issues and perceptions at local levels. The IJC has created a reporting system and fusion process to bring this information to the command in a timely, accurate and comprehensive way.
Download the full article: Host Nation Information Requirements
Colonel George Franz is the Chief, Combined Joint Analysis and Control Element for the ISAF Joint Command, Kabul, Afghanistan. Lieutenant Colonel David Pendall is the Chief CJ2 Planner for the ISAF Joint Command Future Operations Planning Team in Kabul, Afghanistan. Lieutenant Colonel Jeffery Steffen is Senior Analytic Fusion Chief, within the Combined Joint Analysis and Control Element, in Kabul, Afghanistan.
15 January SWJ Roundup
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U.S. Approves Training to Expand Afghan Army
U.S. Approves Training to Expand Afghan Army - Rod Nordland, New York Times.
The Pentagon has authorized a substantial increase in the number of Afghan security forces it plans to train by next year, in time for President Obama’s deadline for United States combat forces to begin withdrawing from the country, military officials said Thursday. Meanwhile, a suicide bomber struck a marketplace in southern Afghanistan and killed 20 people, including children, and NATO officials reported that 23 soldiers had died so far this year. The new training goals would increase the size of the Afghan Army from its present 102,400 personnel to 171,600 by October 2011, according to Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the American officer who leads NATO’s training mission in Afghanistan.
Addressing a group of Afghan National Army cadets on Thursday, General Caldwell said the Pentagon had made the decision to increase its training commitments at a meeting the night before in Washington. “The coalition forces want to grow the Afghan forces,” General Caldwell told the cadets, in response to a question from one about whether the coalition should not give more responsibility to Afghan forces. “We want to do just what you’re saying,” he answered. “We are here as guests of Afghanistan. We want to support your army to take control.” ...
More at The New York Times.
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From Deterrence to Deferrence in the War on Terror
Waiting to Win
From Deterrence to Deferrence in the War on Terror
by Dr. Anthony Vinci
Download the full article: From Deterrence to Deferrence in the War on Terror
Since the War on Terror began with the attacks of on 9/11, there has been a great amount of speculation about how to approach this war and what sort of strategy to use. The problem has been that Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups are so different from conventional enemies that it is difficult to know exactly how to defeat them in the traditional sense of the word. Al Qaeda and its highly dispersed, networked and franchised organization make concepts like unconditional surrender, destruction of command and control and deterrence hard to conceptualize, much less practically carry out.
Deterrence in particular was a strategic approach that the US had grown comfortable with during the Cold War and which some have tried to apply to the War on Terror. Indeed, Al Qaeda has also thought about strategy against the US in terms of deterrence. While there is some value in a deterrent approach to terrorist organizations, ultimately, it appears that it does not provide an effective defense and does not illustrate an effective offense against terrorist groups.
This article suggests an alternative strategic approach to combating Al Qaeda and in general pursuing the War on Terror. The approach might be called deferrence, as in to defer (not to be confused with deference). The central tenet of deferrence is Clausewitz’s observation that time is on the side of the defender. The idea is to defer attacks by Al Qaeda and the strengthening of the Al Qaeda organization, by keeping up ongoing attacks against the organization, which then becomes forced to spend its time reacting, rather than acting offensively. Since Al Qaeda is an essentially military organization, it must continually be on the offense in order to exist. By keeping the busy trying to survive, at an acceptable level of cost and violence, the US will be provided with the time necessary to implement long-term strategies meant to undermine the group, such as ideological arguments, which will lead to the eventual fading away of the group.
Download the full article: From Deterrence to Deferrence in the War on Terror
Anthony Vinci, PhD, International Relations, The London School of Economics, is the author of ‘Armed Groups and the Balance of Power: The International Relations of Terrorists, Warlords and Insurgents’ (Routledge 2008) as well as articles in the Journal of Strategic Studies, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Small Wars and Insurgencies and author journals. He currently consults on national security issues.
Continue reading "From Deterrence to Deferrence in the War on Terror" »
An Asymmetric Approach to Yemen
An Asymmetric Approach to Yemen
by Vegetius
Download the full article: An Asymmetric Approach to Yemen
We are in a war of containment against radical Jihadist Islam, and Yemen is the next campaign in that conflict. How we conduct that campaign may be the critical turning point in that extended war. There are more tinderboxes for potential Jihadist outbreaks on the horizon; Somalia and several other places in Africa are among the leading candidates. We are running out of American troops to intervene in these hotspots, but we can ill afford to ignore them. Perhaps it is time to consider some asymmetric approaches to this very wicked problem.
The bad news is that Yemen is a tough nut. It is running out of oil, it has two civil war/insurgency situations, and an exponentially growing number of unemployed young men. The government only controls about a third of the country. In other words, it is a perfect breeding ground for radical Jihadists, and foreign fighters are flocking there in droves.
The good news is that Yemen is not yet a failed state. It has a functioning, if very imperfect, government. We have been able to deal with this kind of situation before. El Salvador is a good example. In that case, we were even able to take a bad government and help it become much better. The government of Yemen will not become a functioning Jeffersonian democracy in the near future, and we do not necessarily need it to become one to achieve and acceptable strategic outcome. What we do need is to have Yemen become a hostile place for radical Jihadists, and do so without committing large numbers of American troops in the process. This is where an asymmetrical approach comes in into play.
Download the full article: An Asymmetric Approach to Yemen
Vegetius is a government employee and former infantryman; he has experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
14 January SWJ Roundup
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The State of State
The State of State: A Proposal for Reorganization at Foggy Bottom - Matt Armstrong, Progressive Fix.
The past decade has seen the U.S. government expand its activities around the globe in response to complex and stateless threats. In the face of these challenges, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, and members of Congress have all called for increasing the resources and capabilities of the State Department to roll back what Gates has termed the “creeping militarization” of foreign policy. But efforts at reform are hindered by an institutional structure rooted in a 19th-century view of the world.
The days of traditional diplomacy conducted behind closed doors are over. The democratization of information and means of destruction makes a kid with a keyboard potentially more dangerous than an F-22. Addressing poverty, pandemics, resource security, and terrorism requires multilateral and dynamic partnerships with governments and publics. But the State Department has yet to adapt to the new context of global engagement. The diverse threats that confront the U.S. and our allies cannot be managed through a country-centric approach. For State to be effective and relevant, it needs to evolve and become both a Department of State and Non-State.
Currently, State’s structure impedes its efforts to develop coherent responses to pressing threats. The vesting of authority in U.S. embassies too often complicates interagency and pan-regional coordination and inhibits the effective request for and distribution of resources. No less significant, the structure also implicitly empowers the Defense Department’s regionally focused combatant commands, like Central Command, as alternatives to the State Department. Compounded by years of managerial neglect, and a lack of long-term vision, strategic planning, and budgeting, the State Department requires high-level patches and workarounds to do its job adequately.
State’s ineffectiveness has created voids filled by other agencies, notably the Pentagon. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has also sought to move in on the space left by State. USDA in late 2009 asked that funds be transferred from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and State Department for projects in Afghanistan. Such a move would further dilute State’s efficacy, sow confusion, and widen gaps between requirements and actions in foreign policy...
Much more at Progressive Fix.
13 January SWJ Roundup
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Generals Should be Guided by Truth, Not Politics
Generals Should be Guided by Truth, Not Politics - Lawrence J. Korb, Washington Post opinion.
In his Dec. 27 column, ["An admiral who found the center," op-ed], David Ignatius distorts the proper role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He glosses over Adm. Mike Mullen's professional failures, particularly on Afghanistan and his handling of the firing of Gen. David McKiernan. Ignatius is wrong to argue that any military officer, especially a member of the Joint Chiefs, is supposed to find the center of the political spectrum. An officer has a responsibility to give the president and Congress his or her best military advice, whether that is embraced by the right or the left, whether it is popular or unpopular...
What about Mullen? In late 2007, when Congress asked him about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, Mullen shrugged it off. "In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must," he told the House Armed Services Committee. Was that his professional opinion, or was it the policy of President George W. Bush, who gave short shrift to Afghanistan because of his obsession with Iraq? Is that what the combatant commanders were telling him? The answer is no...
More at The Washington Post.
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12 January SWJ Roundup
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What Can Robert Gates Achieve in Extra Year at Pentagon?
What Can Robert Gates Achieve in Extra Year at Pentagon? - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s decision to stay on another year allows him to cement many of the policy and budgetary moves that have been the hallmarks of his tenure. Mr. Gates, the only holdover from the Bush administration and an acknowledged Republican, has emerged in the Obama White House as one of the most respected senior advisers. He has long portrayed himself as a reluctant leader willing to serve only as long as the president wishes it. But he has also been eager to make a lasting mark on defense policy. Now, having announced that he will stay on for “at least” another year, he may be in a position to secure his reputation as a reformer. “His influence will continue to grow,” says Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank. “A lot of the programs and initiatives that he has been pushing will take some time to implement, and the longer he stays around, the better his chances are for them to take hold.”
Gates will also be able to oversee the new strategy in Afghanistan of which he was a chief architect, as well the drawdown of forces in Iraq. But his tenure is having a broader reach. Gates has attempted to steer the Pentagon away from expensive programs that are less relevant to today’s wars. He was largely successful in canceling or slowing programs that he deemed irrelevant, most notably the F-22 Raptor stealth jet fighter, which was cast as an outdated technology more suitable for a conventional war than for tracking terrorists. The question is whether Gates will simply steward the reforms he put in place last year or seek to expand them. Mr. Harrison believes he will go further...
More at The Christian Science Monitor.
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Can Intelligence Be Intelligent?
Can Intelligence Be Intelligent? - Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal opinion.
'Intelligence," Daniel Patrick Moynihan once observed, "is not to be confused with intelligence." To read two recent analyses of U.S. intelligence failures is to be reminded of the truth of that statement, albeit in very different ways. Exhibit A is last week's unclassified White House memo on the attempted bombing of Flight 253 over the skies of Detroit. Though billed by National Security Adviser Jim Jones as a bombshell in its own right, the memo reads more like the bureaucratic equivalent of the old doctor joke about the operation succeeding and the patient dying. The counterterrorism system, it tells us, works extremely well and the people who staff it are top-notch. No doubt. It just happens that in this one case, this same terrific system failed comprehensively at the most elementary levels.
For contrast - and intellectual relief - turn to an unsparing new report on the U.S. military's intelligence operations in Afghanistan. "Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy," it begins. "U.S. intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis, and information they need to wage successful counterinsurgency." That's not happy talk, particularly given that it comes from the man who now runs the Army's intelligence efforts in the country, Major General Michael T. Flynn. But Gen. Flynn, along with co-authors Paul Batchelor of the Defense Intelligence Agency and Marine Captain (and former Journal reporter) Matt Pottinger, are just getting warmed up. Current intel products, they write, "tell ground units little they do not already know." The intelligence community is "strangely oblivious of how little its analytical products, as they now exist, actually influence commanders." There is little by way of personal accountability: "Except in rare cases, ineffective intel officers are allowed to stick around...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Israeli Robots Remake Battlefield
Israeli Robots Remake Battlefield - Charles Levinson, Wall Street Journal.
Israel is developing an army of robotic fighting machines that offers a window onto the potential future of warfare. Sixty years of near-constant war, a low tolerance for enduring casualties in conflict, and its high-tech industry have long made Israel one of the world's leading innovators of military robotics. "We're trying to get to unmanned vehicles everywhere on the battlefield for each platoon in the field," says Lt. Col. Oren Berebbi, head of the Israel Defense Forces' technology branch. "We can do more and more missions without putting a soldier at risk."
In 10 to 15 years, one-third of Israel's military machines will be unmanned, predicts Giora Katz, vice president of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., one of Israel's leading weapons manufacturers. "We are moving into the robotic era," says Mr. Katz. Over 40 countries have military-robotics programs today. The U.S. and much of the rest of the world is betting big on the role of aerial drones: Even Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shiite guerrilla force in Lebanon, flew four Iranian-made drones against Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
11 January SWJ Roundup
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No Exit
No Exit: America has an impressive record of starting wars but a dismal one of ending them well. - Andrew J. Bacevich, The American Conservative.
President Obama’s decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan earned him at most two muted cheers from Washington’s warrior-pundits. Sure, the president had acceded to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops. Already in its ninth year, Operation Enduring Freedom was therefore guaranteed to endure for years to come. The Long War begun on George W. Bush’s watch with expectations of transforming the Greater Middle East gained a new lease on life, its purpose reduced to the generic one of “keeping America safe.”
Yet the Long War’s most ardent supporters found fault with Obama’s words and demeanor. The president had failed to convey the requisite enthusiasm for sending young Americans to fight and die on the far side of the world while simultaneously increasing by several hundred billion dollars the debt imposed on future generations here at home. “Has there ever been a call to arms more dispiriting, a trumpet more uncertain?” asked a querulous Charles Krauthammer. Obama ought to have demonstrated some of the old “bring ’em on” spirit that served the previous administration so well. “We cannot prevail without a commander in chief committed to success,” wrote Krauthammer.
Other observers made it clear that merely prevailing was nowhere near good enough. They took Obama to task for failing to use the V-word. Where was the explicit call for victory? “‘Win’ is a word that Obama avoided,” noted Max Boot with disapproval. The president “spoke of wanting to ‘end this war successfully’ but said nothing of winning the war.” Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard read off the same talking points. “The personal commitment of the president to pursue the war against the Taliban and al Qaeda until they are defeated was not there,” he lamented. “…To have rallied the country and the world, Obama needed to indicate he would lead a fight to win in Afghanistan, with the help of allies if possible, but with the armed forces of the U.S. alone if necessary. He didn’t say anything like that. He didn’t come close.” ...
More at The American Conservative.
10 January SWJ Roundup
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How the CIA Can Improve its Operations in Afghanistan
How the CIA Can Improve its Operations in Afghanistan - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
In terms of loss of life, the bombing of the CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, may be the most costly mistake in the agency's history. So it's important to look carefully for clues about how it happened and lessons for the future. CIA veterans cite a series of warning signs that the agency wasn't paying enough attention to the counterintelligence threat posed by al-Qaeda. These danger signals weren't addressed because the agency underestimated its adversary and overestimated its own skills and those of its allies. The time to fix these problems is now - not with a spasm of second-guessing that will further weaken the CIA but through the agency's own adaptation to this war zone. As the Khost attack made painfully clear, the CIA needs better tradecraft for this conflict.
By getting a suicide bomber inside a CIA base, the al-Qaeda network showed that it remains a sophisticated adversary, despite intense pressure from CIA Predator attacks. "They didn't get lucky, they got good and we got sloppy all over Afghanistan," says one agency counterterrorism veteran. This shouldn't have been a surprise: CIA sources say that over the past year, two al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan - the Haqqani and Hekmatyar networks - have run double-agent operations...
More at The Washington Post.
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Obama Needs a New Strategy
Al-Qaeda Has a New Strategy. Obama Needs One, Too. - Bruce Hoffman, Washington Post opinion.
In the wake of the failed Christmas Day airplane bombing and the killing a few days later of seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan, Washington is, as it was after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, obsessed with "dots" - and our inability to connect them. "The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack, but our intelligence community failed to connect those dots," the president said Tuesday. But for all the talk, two key dots have yet to be connected: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged Northwest Airlines Flight 253 attacker, and Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the trusted CIA informant turned assassin. Although a 23-year-old Nigerian engineering student and a 36-year-old Jordanian physician would seem to have little in common, they both exemplify a new grand strategy that al-Qaeda has been successfully pursuing for at least a year.
Throughout 2008 and 2009, U.S. officials repeatedly trumpeted al-Qaeda's demise. In a May 2008 interview with The Washington Post, then-CIA Director Michael Hayden heralded the group's "near strategic defeat." And the intensified aerial drone attacks that President Obama authorized against al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan last year were widely celebrated for having killed over half of its remaining senior leadership. Yet, oddly enough for a terrorist movement supposedly on its last legs, al-Qaeda late last month launched two separate attacks less than a week apart - one failed and one successful - triggering the most extensive review of U.S. national security policies since 2001...
More at The Washington Post.
Economics: The Better Bullet for Grey War
Economics: The Better Bullet for Grey War
by Colonel Gregory A. Grimes
Download the full article: Economics: The Better Bullet for Grey War
What do quantum physics and American foreign policy have in common? Both are still searching for a unifying theory. Albert Einstein spent the latter decades of his life searching for a theory that unifies all the forces of nature. The United States lacks a unifying theme for its foreign engagement efforts in combating terrorism and insurgency. Mischaracterization of the problems, competition among implementing agencies and a reluctance to jettison entrenched legacy programs are all obstacles to developing a single, unifying underpinning to American foreign engagement policy in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency. The U.S. needs a theme that underlies and unifies our efforts at winning over susceptible populations.
America finds herself embroiled in a tar baby of a war unlike any previously fought. This “grey war,” likely to be the definitive style of warfare for this and the next military generation, will simmer as a low-grade, continuous engagement alternating between diplomacy and violence. The United States and assorted extremist groups will jockey for position in a war the U.S. can neither definitively win (a la World War II) nor disengage from. Like the tar baby, grey war will be a sticky mess we cannot easily rid ourselves of. Commonly thought to be a concerted global effort the various terror groups, even those operating under the banner of Islamic jihad, are in reality a hundred different groups with a hundred different grievances. Many of these grievances are catastrophic, some are legitimate and all are meaningful to the people suffering them...
Download the full article: Economics: The Better Bullet for Grey War
Colonel Gregory Grimes, US Army, is a Civil Affairs officer currently assigned to the Standing Joint Force Headquarters at US Africa Command.
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Cracks in the Jihad
Cracks in the Jihad - Thomas Rid, The Wilson Quarterly.
... One hundred and seventy years later, jihad is again a major threat—and Decker’s dire analysis more relevant than ever. War, in Clausewitz’s eminent theory, was a clash of collective wills, “a continuation of politics by other means.” When states went to war, the adversary was a political entity with the ability to act as one body, able to end hostilities by declaring victory or admitting defeat. Even Abd el-Kader eventually capitulated. But jihad in the 21st century, especially during the past few years, has fundamentally changed its anatomy: Al Qaeda is no longer a collective political actor. It is no longer an adversary that can articulate a will, capitulate, and be defeated. But the jihad’s new weakness is also its new strength: Because of its transformation, Islamist militancy is politically impaired yet fitter to survive its present crisis.
In the years since late 2001, when U.S. and coalition forces toppled the Taliban regime and all but destroyed Al Qaeda’s core organization in Afghanistan, the bin Laden brand has been bleeding popularity across the Muslim world. The global jihad, as a result, has been torn by mounting internal tensions. Today, the holy war is set to slip into three distinct ideological and organizational niches. The U.S. surge in Afghanistan, whether successful or not, is likely to affect this development only marginally...
Much more at The Wilson Quarterly.
9 January SWJ Roundup
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How CNAS Published a General’s Brutal Intel Critique (Updated)
How a Plugged-In DC Think Tank Published a General’s Brutal Intel Critique - Nathan Hodge, Danger Room.
In military circles, the talk all week has been about how and why the top intelligence officer in Afghanistan wound up publishing a scathing critique through a small-but-influential think tank. Now, we’ve got the answers.
When Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn published his tough assessment of the military’s spy agencies in Afghanistan, it caught Pentagon officials by surprise — not least because Flynn distributed it through Center for a New American Security. While Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said through his press secretary that he thought Flynn’s findings were “spot on,” he made it clear he was a bit uncomfortable with the conduit Flynn used to distribute the report. Reuters, quoting Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, said Gates had “real reservations about the general’s choice of venue for publication.”
So how, exactly, did the think tank get picked to publish the report? According to Nathaniel Fick, the chief executive officer of CNAS, the whole thing was a “bolt from the blue.”
In a conversation yesterday with Danger Room, Fick and CNAS President John Nagl acknowledged that the move was unusual, but said the decision to go through CNAS was based on Flynn’s desire to get the report out rapidly, reach the widest possible audience and provoke much-needed debate...
More at Danger Room.
The Flynn report (III): A Spy Generation Gap? - Tom Ricks, Best Defense.
There seems to be a generation gap in the intel community, judging by the sharply different reactions of younger and older spooks to the controversial new CNAS report on how to change intelligence in Afghanistan, written by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn and a couple of members of his entourage. The young folks (battalion S-2s and below) seem to be saying they like the assessment and don't mind the venue. The old folks (especially back here in the DC area) dislike the assessment and are appalled at the fact that Maj. Gen. Flynn released the report through a think tank...
More at Best Defense.
The Flynn Report (IV): Cordesman's Take - Tom Ricks, Best Defense.
On the other hand, Anthony Cordesman of CSIS is one old school intel guy who likes the Flynn report...
More at Best Defense.
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I Built an African Army
I Built an African Army - Sean McFate, Foreign Policy.
In May 2004, I was hired for an unusual job: The U.S. State Department contracted DynCorp International, a private military company, to build Liberia's army. I was tapped as an architect of this new force. Previously I had worked for both the U.S. military and Amnesty International. I was a rare bird -- an ex-paratrooper and human rights defender -- and thus a good fit for this unprecedented task. When I arrived in Liberia in 2004, the country's army was, at best, a mess. After decades of civil war, soldiers' hands were as bloodied as any rebels'. The troops were undisciplined, unpaid, and undertrained. They were a motley crew that protected no one in a country where pretty much everyone was vulnerable to violence. And it was our job to turn them into a professional military.
Today, just five years later, Liberia's soldiers are among the best in the region. They have been vetted, trained, paid, and readied for action. The difference was the impact of that little-known U.S. initiative -- the first of its kind -- that literally rebuilt the Liberian army from scratch. Our goal was for the Liberian army to fill the role of U.N. peacekeepers as the latter were slowly phased out, and it worked astonishingly well. Now that model might be of use again...
Much more at Foreign Policy.
Marines in Afghanistan Take 'The Village' to Heart
Marines in Afghanistan Take 'The Village' to Heart - Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times.
In political terms, any rhetoric linking the Afghan conflict and the Vietnam War is usually meant to be poisonous - like the charge that Afghanistan has become President Obama's Vietnam. But for the Marines in this former Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, a book about the war in Vietnam has become a guide for how to wage a counterinsurgency campaign on a small scale. Though the overall U.S. effort in Southeast Asia ultimately failed, the Marines believe that lessons learned there could help in Afghanistan.
"The Village," by Bing West, first published in 1972, is the story of 15 Marines who spend two years in the remote hamlet of Binh Nghia, protecting villagers and joining with local security forces in trying to thwart a violent insurgency. Seven of the 15 were killed in action. Although the geopolitical ramifications may be widely different, the missions given those long-ago Marines and the Marines assigned here are roughly similar: Live amid the populace, partner with local forces and together drive a wedge between the populace and the enemy.
Marine Gen. James Mattis, who led Marines into Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 and now heads the U.S. Joint Forces Command, says "The Village" is a must-read for troops "to understand the role of the small unit in the sort of war we're fighting in Afghanistan." ...
More at The Los Angeles Times.
The Village - Bing West. "This is the way Vietnam should have been fought - by tough volunteers who lived alongside the Vietnamese.... It will take the sternest ideologue to remain unmoved by West's perceptive and human treatment of the men who fought it."
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8 January SWJ Roundup
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Gates Endorses Critique of Military Intelligence in Afghanistan
Gates Endorses Critique of Military Intelligence in Afghanistan - Al Pessin, Voice of America.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has endorsed a stinging critique of military intelligence efforts in Afghanistan written by the top U.S. and NATO military intelligence officer in the country. In a paper published this week, Major General Michael Flynn orders major changes to the way his operation works.
The 26-page publication called Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan says military intelligence efforts in the country over the past eight years have been "token and ineffectual," and have not provided commanders or senior leaders the information they need. It says the current intelligence gathering and analysis processes "fail to advance the war strategy and, as a result, expose more troops to danger over the long run."
The paper's authors, led by Major General Michael Flynn, the chief of U.S. and NATO military intelligence in Afghanistan, say it should be considered a directive to his subordinates on how they should reform their operations. Among the orders - send more analysts into the field and gather more information about the Afghan people, rather than focusing almost exclusively on insurgent groups. The paper says until now, many military intelligence units have been "deaf" to the population-centered approach the new Afghanistan commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has ordered...
More at Voice of America.
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Beyond the “Hybrid” Threat: Asserting the Essential Unity of Warfare
Beyond the “Hybrid” Threat:
Asserting the Essential Unity of Warfare
by David Sadowski and Jeff Becker
Download the full article: Beyond the "Hybrid" Threat
Foreword: Idea papers are key inputs in the Joint Futures Group's development of the Joint Operating Environment (JOE). One of our recent projects involved a multi-national effort to describe the "hybrid" threat. In the process of writing the paper, we developed something that took in more than just the "hybrid" threat. Although we received many favorable comments on the paper, we felt our audience was a bit limited. We are publishing in the Small Wars Journal in order to generate a wider debate on this important topic prior to including any of these ideas in the next JOE.
Excerpt:
If we are to get the future “right” we should return to first principles and arrive at a better understanding of the context within which wars are understood, and how adversaries will work within that context to arrange capabilities in time and space to address their own strategic requirements. Ultimately, the ideas in this paper must support the Secretary of Defense’s intent of re-shaping the culture of the U.S. Armed Forces into one that is highly adaptive in its organizational structures, in how it employs the capabilities at its disposal, and in how it conducts operational campaign design, planning and execution. Through refining the description of the future threat, we hope to create the correct context that helps force planners design the future joint force. This imperative applies across all activities of the Department from relatively small wars to large interstate conflicts, which will be discussed later in this paper.
So what is a “hybrid” threat? A definition that is too narrow may miss important features of our emerging future, while a definition that is too wide defines nothing at all. In the case of the “hybrid” threat though, attempts to define “hybridity” has led to a “confusion of concepts.” Instead of defining the threat, we propose a description of the threat that is relevant across the entire range of military operations. That is, any actors’ approach to warfare can be described by the mix of material and cognitive capabilities it brings to bear in conflict and war. “Hybridity" then, should be seen as a reflection of this underlying unity of warfare, based on an understanding of the necessity of applying a mix of cognitive and material elements to succeed. In fact, the ability to shift among material and cognitive approaches with agility and speed is both the essence of the future threat, as well as of Secretary Gates’ vision of U.S. Armed Forces that are adaptive in organizational design, capabilities development, and campaign design and execution. In short, the future threat should not be conceived of as a category of future warfare that is distinct from other forms of warfare but is instead the very essence of future warfare itself, and are just as applicable to friendly forces as to our competitors and adversaries. We propose the following as a starting point for this description: Future threats will be entities or movements that continually scan the environment for opportunities, and threaten to or apply violence to affect the will and psyche of others to achieve their political objectives.
Download the full article: Beyond the "Hybrid" Threat
David Sadowski is a senior civil servant with USJCOM’s Joint Futures Group. He has an extensive background in air operations, strategic and operational planning, information operations and joint concept development and experimentation. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in the grade of Lieutenant Colonel in 2004, having served as a Weapon Systems Officer in the F-4E and F-111F, a NATO Staff Officer at RHQ AFNORTH, Brunssum, The Netherlands, and numerous staff tours within Air Combat Command.
Jeff Becker is a contracted futures analyst for with USJCOM’s Joint Futures Group, and supports a number of military, strategic and futures studies, including three editions of the Joint Operating Environment and other concept development and experimentation efforts in USJFCOM and throughout the Department of Defense. Mr. Becker has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Iowa, and completed his doctoral coursework (ABD) in International Studies at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
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7 January SWJ Roundup
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Hybrid Threats and Challenges: Describe… Don’t Define
Hybrid Threats and Challenges
Describe… Don’t Define
by Nathan Freier
Download the full article: Hybrid Threats and Challenges: Describe… Don’t Define
The emerging concept of “hybrid warfare” is one of many attempts to clarify the contemporary defense operating environment for senior Washington decisionmakers and warfighters in the field. The more intense debates occurring on the margins of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) center on hybrid threats and their impact on defense strategy and plans. Like post-QDR ’06 debates on “irregular warfare” (IW), there is a great deal of buzz around hybrid warfare and challenges. In the end, how DoD leaders choose to characterize, respond to, and use outcomes of the hybrid debate will determine corporately what the defense enterprise means by “balance” and how it operationalizes “balance” in the future.
There is a cautionary tale for DoD in the post-QDR ’06 quest to define IW. Those familiar with that process know that it ended with a definition few — if any — fully accept to this day. Amazingly, DoD’s IW work succeeded in saying too much, too little, or nothing at all depending on one’s particular point of view.
Look closely at the definition of IW and it appears to be just another description of insurgency and counterinsurgency. The torrent of “presentism” characterizing contemporary defense discussions about IW is responsible for this. Defense strategists and concept developers tend to project current “irregular” challenges — classical insurgency and terrorism in and around the Middle East and Muslim world — as DoD’s dominant IW demands into an uncertain and indefinite future. This may prove grossly insufficient. However, the current defense era’s sensational start (9/11) makes it quite difficult to break free from conventional wisdom long enough to explore IW more broadly.
Download the full article: Hybrid Threats and Challenges: Describe… Don’t Define
Nathan Freier is a senior fellow in the International Security Program at CSIS and a visiting research professor at the U.S. Army War College's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. Freier joined CSIS in 2008, after a 20 year army career as a field artillery officer and strategist. During his last eight years of military service, Freier was a key player in numerous strategy development and strategic planning efforts at Headquarters, Department of the Army; the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and on two senior-level military staffs in Iraq.
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Changing the Culture of Military Intelligence
More on military intelligence in this 27 November 2009 post at AEI's Center for Defense Studies - Changing the Culture of Military Intelligence by Philipp Tomio.
Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the U.S. intelligence chief in Afghanistan, said the American intelligence effort in Afghanistan is under-resourced and requires more UAVs, intelligence analysts, and surveillance satellites to defeat the Taliban insurgency. According to a recent article in The Los Angeles Times, Flynn, who was sent to Afghanistan to improve the quality of U.S. intelligence gathering there, is said to be frustrated that other senior officers at home do not view the issue with the same degree of urgency. Originally ordered by Gen. McChrystal to lead an overhaul of how U.S. intelligence is gathered, analyzed, distributed, and employed by American troops in the field, Flynn joined McChrystal’s inner circle from the Joint Staff at the Pentagon where he was the J-2 responsible for military intelligence. Flynn firmly believes in the military’s need for a radically different approach to collecting intelligence on insurgent networks, their resources, movements, and whereabouts. To build a complete picture of the enemy, Flynn believes, the U.S. needs to do a better job at collecting and exploiting information on insurgents when they move, regroup, and communicate after an American or allied attack. In the past, the military primarily employed intelligence to plan and prepare for military operations, and to adjust its course of action during a campaign. Today, according to Flynn, “we do the opposite. We do the [operations] to get the [intelligence].” ...
More at CDS.
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Predicting Insurgencies Is Easy
Physicist: Predicting Insurgencies Is Easy. As Long as You Dumb Down Your Wars - Katie Drummond, Danger Room.
Insurgencies are easy to predict - no matter where they occur, or why they begin. You just have to assume that all militants care about is appearing on CNN. And that everything there is to know about an insurgency can be found in your local newspaper or in military press releases.
That’s the assertion, at least, of New Zealand-based physicist Sean Gourley. The last time we met him, Gourley ... had come up with a tidy-looking equation to explain the chaos of war. Unfortunately, that formula didn’t actually work. Last summer, Gourley admitted that he failed to accurately predict the outcome of the 2007 military surge in Iraq - and that his predictions sprang from some rather dubious data. Gourley’s formula relied solely on famously sketchy media accounts of insurgent attacks.
Turns out, Gourley was just getting warmed up. Last month, he and his research team published a new paper, “Common ecology quantifies human insurgency,” that made it onto the cover of Nature, one of the world’s leading science journals. It features an expanded version of Gourley’s original formula, and is founded on the idea that insurgencies are “an ecology of dynamically evolving, self-organized groups following common decision-making processes.” But strangely, Gourley is repeating - and, in some cases, amplifying - the same missteps he made before. He’s still basing his models on press reports and other transparently incomplete data. Now, to make matters worse, he’s claiming that militants are fighting just to get that media spotlight...
More at Danger Room.
6 January SWJ Roundup
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Two Attacks Highlight Bureaucratic Bog
Two Attacks Highlight Counterterrorism's Bureaucratic Bog - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
The Central Intelligence Agency should be asking some painful questions this week about its performance: How could a suicide bomber have flown to Detroit despite a strong warning to a CIA station that he might be a terrorist? How could a Jordanian double agent have penetrated a CIA base in Afghanistan and killed seven agency employees? Talking to veteran counterterrorism officers, I hear a common theme that unites these two disastrous lapses: The CIA has adopted bureaucratic procedures that, while intended to avoid mistakes, may actually heighten the risks. In the words of one CIA veteran, "You have a system that is overwhelmed."
The two cases are very different. Yet they both illustrate what can happen when intelligence managers are eager for results but worried about risks. The consequence is a breakdown in tradecraft that can have fatal consequences. Meanwhile, an intelligence reorganization that was supposed to improve efficiency has made the bureaucracy problem worse...
More at The Washington Post.
Slow Start for Military Corps in Afghanistan
Slow Start for Military Corps in Afghanistan - Eric Schmitt, New York Times.
The military’s effort to build a seasoned corps of expert officers for the Afghan war, one of the highest priorities of top commanders, is off to a slow start, with too few volunteers and a high-level warning to the armed services to steer better candidates into the program, according to some senior officers and participants. The groundbreaking program is meant to address concerns that the fight in Afghanistan has been hampered by a lack of continuity and expertise in the region among military personnel. But some officers have been reluctant to sign up for an unconventional career path because they fear it will hurt their advancement - a perception that top military leaders are trying to dispel as they tailor new policies for the complex task of taking on resilient insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Each military branch has established career paths, and the type of focus envisioned by the program would take people off those routes.
The difficulties with the program came to light when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, in an unusual rebuke within the Pentagon’s uppermost circle, chided the chiefs of the four armed services three weeks ago for not always providing the best people. The program - which is expected to create a 912-member corps of mostly officers and enlisted service members who will work on Afghanistan and Pakistan issues for up to five years - was announced with much fanfare last fall. So far, 172 have signed up, and Admiral Mullen has questioned whether all of them are right for such a critical job...
More at The New York Times.
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More on Intelligence Changes Needed in Afghanistan
More below on Top Intelligence Official in Afghanistan Urges Changes to Intelligence Mission by Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul Batchelor; Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
Overhauling Intelligence Ops in the Afghan War - Tom Ricks, Best Defense
Pentagon Slams Publication of General's Think-Tank Report - Blake Hounshell, FP Passport
The Most Important Thing You'll Read on Afghanistan This Month - Andrew Exum, Abu Muqawama
Coalition Urged to Revamp Intelligence Gathering, Distribution in Afghanistan - Walter Pincus, Washington Post
U.S. Retools Military Intelligence - Jay Solomon and Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal
Military Intelligence Chief Orders Reorganization - Anna Mulrine, US News & World Report
Intelligence Overhaul Ordered for Afghanistan - Julian E. Barnes and Laura King, Los Angeles Times
Pentagon Calls Spy Critique "Irregular" - Reuters
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ISAF Intro to COIN Video Series
CSM Michael Hall, the ISAF Command Sergeant Major, has created a series of Intro to COIN videos that are being featured on the ISAF Channel at You Tube and are worth a look. He is one of the point people for helping to educate audiences from average folks on the street to political leaders to the force in theater about the challenges of COIN in general and Afghanistan in particular.
The featured blurb here is the 6th and last in this series, "Nobody's an Afghan Expert" and subtitled "Counterinsurgency Can't Be Looked At Through Western Eyes."
The other five are:
- ISAF Vision for Counterinsurgency
- ISAF Message
- What is "Hearts & Minds?"
- Partnering
- Protecting the People
This is a nice, simple, applied blocking and tackling reiteration of the challenges well treated in works from Galula to Kilcullen.
See also CSM Hall's blog entry How to Win in Afghanistan and How to Lose, where three other would-be bombers create an interesting foil to the donkey-equipped bomber trio in the first video of the series.
5 January SWJ Roundup
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Building a Sustainable, Legitimate, Effective Afghanistan Security Force
NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan/Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan
Building a Sustainable, Legitimate, Effective Afghanistan Security Force
A Holistic Perspective
by Colonel Cindy Jebb and Colonel Richard Lacquement
Download the full article: Building a Sustainable, Legitimate, Effective Afghanistan Security Force
The purpose of this paper is to provide our observations and preliminary thoughts concerning the way ahead for NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan/Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (NTM-A/CSTC-A) based on our work as part of the Quick-Look Assessment team from 3-19 December 2009. We both had the pleasure to work closely with members of the command whose professionalism and enthusiasm were deeply inspiring. The command confronts great challenges as it pursues a mission vital to coalition success. We are qualified optimists about the potential success of the mission. The most important source of our optimism for eventual mission success comes from our observations of the tremendous talent and dedication of the individuals assigned to this command. We were also heartened by our interaction with individuals from other commands and with many impressive Afghan partners.
COL Jebb primarily worked with the Afghan National Army (ANA) Development office while COL Lacquement primarily worked with the CJ5. Both offices are comprised of selfless, dedicated, and smart professionals. Of particular note, COL Jebb had the terrific experience to interact with senior advisors to the Ministers/General Staff (COLs Mike Barbee, Jim Campbell, Fred Manzo, Tom Donovan, and Kevin Cotten, as well as the senior advisor for ANA development, COL David Henley); COL Lacquement benefitted immensely from the support and collaboration of many CJ5 officers, particularly, COL Don Bigger, COL E.G. Clayburn, LtCol Steve Tilbrook and LTC Norm Fuss and from JAG, COL Tom Umberg.
While here, we both sought to understand the needs of NTM-A/CSTC-A on behalf of our home institutions, the U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Army War College (USMA and USAWC), so that we can best match faculty skill sets, interest, and availability to provide future support if requested. At the very least, this experience will facilitate reach-back efforts for the future. We were able to learn a great deal due to the open command climate and everyone’s generosity with his/her thoughts and time. Finally, we offer our sincere gratitude to LTG Caldwell, Dr. Kem, and CAPT Mark Hagerott for enabling this fascinating experience and to MAJ Jon Klug for coordinating the visit and support.
Download the full article: Building a Sustainable, Legitimate, Effective Afghanistan Security Force
Colonel Cindy Jebb is a Professor and Deputy Head in the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy. Colonel Richard Lacquement is Director of the Military History and Strategy Department of National Security and Strategy at the United States Army War College.
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
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USA/USMC Counterinsurgency Center SITREP
Linked is the latest USA/USMC Counterinsurgency Center / U.S. Army Stability Operations Proponent / U.S. Army Security Force Assistance Proponent SITREP dated 4 January 2010. Here are the Director's opening remarks:
As the counterinsurgency community continues to prepare leaders and units to confront and defeat irregular threats, it is clear that in spite of much progress, there is much yet to be done. All of our efforts should focus on enabling leaders, teams, and units to be better prepared for this challenge than our adversaries. Counterinsurgency at its core is a competitive and lethal environment in which those who learn faster and better win. Rapidly assessing, understanding, and adapting are essential to counter the nexus of criminality, corruption, instability, and narcotics that fuel ongoing insurgencies. Only in this manner can we generate and sustain the momentum – physical, social, political, and psychological – necessary to protect the population and prevail in enduring conflicts amongst the people.
The President’s recent decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan helps bring into focus the complexity of the challenge to U.S. strategic objectives. A key initiative to address this challenge is the establishment of a 3-star NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan which will seek to improve Afghanistan security force training, leadership, and sustainability. Much of its expertise is derived from lessons and experience in Iraq where a key component of the U.S. efforts continues to be spear-headed by the work of Brigade Combat Teams operating as Advise and Assist Brigades. It is imperative that COIN, Stability Ops and SFA initiatives (to include policy, doctrine, training, and leader development) are coordinated fully with joint, interagency, and multinational partners. COIN Center has been providing COIN instruction to US civil-military training held at Camp Atterbury, Indiana to prepare PRT members for deployment to Afghanistan. We will continue to look for these kinds of opportunities to support the mission in Afghanistan and Iraq and are exploring additional areas where we can collaborate with our civilian interagency partners.
In accordance with our mandate to “help connect the dots” across multiple joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational partners, the COIN Center and SO & SFA proponent offices are redoubling efforts to increase presence and activity on the COIN webpage [link here], COIN blog [link here], COIN Center Facebook fan page [link here] and Battle Command Knowledge System (for CAC holders) [link here]. A summary of additional ongoing initiatives is in the December 2009 Army Magazine article entitled: “COIN Center: Preparing the Force for Counterinsurgency, Stability Operations, and Security Force Assistance” (see here, reprinted with permission of ARMY Magazine, December 2009).
Thanks for your efforts in support of our troops,
Colonel Dan Roper
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Changes to Intelligence Mission in Afghanistan Urged
Top Intelligence Official in Afghanistan Urges Changes to Intelligence Mission - Major General Michael T. Flynn, Captain Matt Pottinger, and Paul Batchelor; Center for a New American Security (CNAS)
CNAS released today a report that critically examines the relevance of the U.S. intelligence community to the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan titled Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan. The authors - Major General Michael T. Flynn, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence in Afghanistan; his advisor Captain Matt Pottinger; and Paul Batchelor, Senior Advisor for Civilian/Military Integrations at ISAF - argue that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate in and the people they are trying to protect and persuade.
Quoting General Stanley McChrystal, the authors write: "Our senior leaders - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, Congress, the President of the United States - are not getting the right information to make decisions with ... The media is driving the issues. We need to build a process from the sensor all the way to the political decision makers."
Fixing Intel is the blueprint for that process. It describes the problem, details the changes, and illuminates examples of units that are "getting it right." It is aimed at commanders as well as intelligence professionals in Afghanistan, the United States and Europe.
Among the initiatives Major General Flynn directs:
- Empower select teams of analysts to move between field elements, much like journalists, to visit collectors of information at the grassroots level and carry that information back to the regional command level.
- Integrate information collected by civil affairs officers, PRTs, atmospherics teams, Afghan liaison officers, female engagement teams, willing non-governmental organizations and development organizations, United Nations officials, psychological operations teams, human terrain teams, and infantry battalions, to name a few.
- Divide work along geographic lines, instead of functional lines, and write comprehensive district assessments covering governance, development, and stability.
- Provide all data to teams of "information brokers" at the regional command level, who will organize and disseminate all reports and data gathered from the grassroots level.
- The analysts and information brokers will work in what the authors call "Stability Operations Information Centers," which will be placed under and in cooperation with the State Department's senior civilian representatives administering governance, development and stability efforts in Regional Command East and South.
- Invest time and energy into selecting the best, most extroverted, and hungriest analysts to serve in the Stability Operations Information Centers.
Read the entire report at CNAS.
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COIN Toss
COIN Toss: The Cult of Counterinsurgency - Michael Crowley, The New Republic.
On the night of December 1, shortly after Barack Obama announced plans to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, retired Lt. Colonel John Nagl appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Maddow was dismayed by Obama’s new plan, which she called “massive escalation,” but, when she introduced Nagl, a counterinsurgency expert who has long called for a greater U.S. commitment to Afghanistan--even if it means raising taxes and expanding the military--she was surprisingly friendly. And, after Nagl spent the segment praising Obama’s plan, which he said would throw back the Taliban and enable more civil and economic development, Maddow may have remained skeptical--but she was also admiring. “It’s a real pleasure to have you on the show, John,” she said.
Had someone like Bill Kristol given that same assessment of Obama’s speech, Maddow might have tarred him as a bloodthirsty proponent of endless war. Which is why Nagl is one of the administration’s most important allies as it tries to sell the United States on a renewed commitment to Afghanistan. A former tank commander in Iraq and co-author of the Army’s landmark 2006 counterinsurgency manual, Nagl has become a fixture on television and in news articles about Afghanistan; he’s even made an appearance on “The Daily Show.” With the authority of a man who has worn a uniform in combat, and the intellectual heft of a Rhodes Scholar, he has helped to persuade many liberals that pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is the only viable path to success...
Much more at The New Republic.
4 January SWJ Roundup
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Afghanistan, Now and Then
Afghanistan, Now and Then - Eric T. Olson, Los Angeles Times opinion.
As the new year begins, the Afghanistan surge is underway. Army brigades and Marine regiments have been alerted to deploy, and their lead elements are on the move. Even in these early stages, it is not too soon to begin to think about how this year will end in Afghanistan. Key military and civilian national security officials have said that this December, they will give President Obama an assessment of the surge and make recommendations about how it should proceed. Those of us who were in Iraq for the surge of 2007 and who have fought in Afghanistan can pretty much predict how the war in the latter nation will unfold. First, given the challenge of deploying and sustaining our troops in an incredibly difficult and underdeveloped region, the troop buildup probably will take most of the year to complete.
Initially, as new units fan out into areas where no coalition forces have operated before -- especially in the largely Pashtun provinces in the south and east -- the stark prediction of senior U.S. military commanders will no doubt be fulfilled: U.S. casualties will spike until soldiers and their leaders become accustomed to the new terrain and the enemy that has operated at will there. But as our forces adapt, they will fight with increasing effectiveness, and more and more the insurgents probably will choose not to accept battle, deciding instead to move to new havens as they are able to identify them, or simply to go to ground - that is, melt into the masses of their Pashtun countrymen. Contacts with the enemy are likely to decline, which means U.S. and coalition casualties will decrease...
More at The Los Angeles Times.
Why are Empires Buried in Afghanistan?
First Anglo-Afghan War
Why are Empires Buried in Afghanistan?
by Major Mehar Omar Khan
Download the full article: Why are Empires Buried in Afghanistan?
Hubris hates history and the latter keeps thus getting an opportunity to repeat itself. Nowhere is this as true as the killing fields of Afghanistan. The sad saga of First Anglo-Afghan War shows how lives of so many were lost in the merciless gorges and blood-thirsty passes between Kabul and Jalalabad, mainly because of the strategic blunders, outright dishonesty and unforgivable chicanery of a few. The story of this war also reveals that, more than the fierce Afghan or his treacherous terrain, the inept and indecisive leadership of the empire was to blame for getting buried in Afghanistan and helping that land become the ‘graveyard of empires’.
Some trivia to start with. The war lasted from 1839 to 1842. Amir Dost Muhammad Khan, a Durrani Pashtun, was the legitimate King of Afghanistan before being ousted by the Anglo-Indian army of occupation. The name of the puppet installed by the British was Shah Shuja – a man expelled in disgrace years before the war and someone who could never hope to step beyond Khyber Pass without foreign assistance.
As seemingly ear-less wise men continue to blunder in that unfortunate land, here are some echoes from the past. Instead of counting the trees, I have focused on the big picture to see how a war that happened 170 years ago could shed some light on the one being fought today.
Download the full article: Why are Empires Buried in Afghanistan?
Major Mehar Omar Khan, Pakistan Army, is currently a student at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He has served as a peacekeeper in Sierra Leone, a Brigade GSO-III, an instructor at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, and as Chief of Staff (Brigade Major) of an infantry brigade. He has also completed the Command and Staff Course at Pakistan’s Command and Staff College in Quetta.
War Comes to Long An: Back Story to the Writing of a Military Classic
War Comes to Long An
Back Story to the Writing of a Military Classic
by Jeffrey Race
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Now being reprinted in an updated and expanded edition, War Comes to Long An was first published in 1972 and was the book I longed to buy in 1965 as the most junior lieutenant in Vietnam—but could nowhere find. Thereby hangs this tale of my adventures then in Vietnam and since elsewhere—a tale with implications for the creative process in academic writing, for the study of institutional change and of the learning disabilities of military institutions, and for priorities in public policy-making in America and elsewhere.
Birthing War Comes to Long An changed my life. I had no inkling when I began the project with trepidation in mid-1967 at the age of 24—using my own funds to satisfy my private curiosity—how it would change both my life and the lives of so many others. Perhaps these notes on the creation of that work may inspire others so inclined to dare the same creative act that summoned me, while at the same time illuminating some issues of public policy.
Between the covers of War Comes to Long An, I kept myself out. In these pages I beg to convey the private side of that public act, inseparable from the process of creation and from what came next. Some readers may find what follows entertaining or amusing; a few may find it helpful or even stimulating. You are my real target.
Download the full article: Back Story to the Writing of a Military Classic
Jeffrey Race is author of War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province. This landmark study of the Vietnamese conflict, examined through the lens of the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements in the rural province of Long An up until American intervention in the area, offers a human, balanced, penetrating account of war. Two new forewords by Robert K. Brigham of Vassar College and Jeffrey Record of the Air War College explore the book's enduring influence. A new end chapter offers previously unpublished scholarship on the conflict. The new version is to be published soon by University of California Press.
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True Transformation: A Response
In the most recent Armed Forces Journal Gregory Foster, a professor at the National Defense University, writes that America’s military is overdue for a dramatic overhaul.
The U.S. military, if it is to measure up to its future responsibilities as an effective instrument of statecraft and a trusted institution of society, must embark on the path of thoroughgoing transformation. This means truly sweeping overhaul, not the marginal incremental change that has characterized the self-justifying, self-deluding rhetoric of “defense transformation” to date.
The international environment the U.S. faces and is destined to continue facing in the years ahead requires a military significantly different from the one we now have. What we have, arguably and at best, is a militarily effective military: an instrument of force, designed and able only to wage war — usually disproportionately, often indiscriminately — on its own preferred terms on behalf of those in power...
That there would be widespread strategic and civic illiteracy in the military should come as no surprise to anyone truly familiar with the institution and its deeply entrenched tradition of anti-intellectualism. In a society that is itself anti-intellectual, the military — a demonstrably action-oriented, physical culture — stands out as being especially so. Notwithstanding the fact that the military has an extensive professional schooling system and also underwrites civilian graduate schooling for many of its officers, it remains institutionally indifferent at best, hostile at worst, to intellectual pursuits. Education, with its focus on intellectual development, invariably takes a distant back seat in the military to training, with its focus on skill development, subject-matter familiarization and topical immediacy. The constant tension that exists in military schools between military and academic priorities consistently favors the former. Academic job assignments, for students and faculty alike, at military or civilian schools, are widely eschewed as a low-priority, unproductive, career-diverting cost (rather than a worthy investment) that comes at the expense of higher priority, more productive, more career-enhancing, institutionally more essential operational assignments. The handful of individuals in uniform who actually seek to write for publication must, even today, submit their work to internal clearance review — always, ostensibly, for security reasons — before public release. Doctrine, long a defining hallmark of military praxis, imposes a suffocatingly pervasive overlay of forced standardization and routinization on virtually every facet of military life. And political ideology (predominantly conservative) is an ever-present, if latent, intellectual crutch for the many in uniform who seek nothing more than reaffirmation and reinforcement of their pre-established core beliefs.
Collectively, these things severely retard free thought and free expression throughout the institution. Nothing so angers those in uniform and puts them on the defensive as the suggestion that they are representative — or captive — of the so-called military mind. Such defensiveness owes to the painfulness of truth. If the military is to extricate itself from the fact that its members are afflicted by a self-imposed common mindset that is unimaginative, reactive, ossified, even pedestrian, it must create a central space for intellectuals and intellectualization. Intellectual stagnation, in fact, threatens to be the military’s undoing in a future where success will be determined far more by brains than by brawn...
On an e-mail discussion group David Gurney; Editor, Joint Force Quarterly; takes exception and granted SWJ permission to publish his response:
It seems to be a rite of passage for former military personnel pursuing a second career in academia to establish their bona fides by endorsing the threadbare stereotype of anti-intellectualism in the armed forces. That Greg Foster extends this malady to the general population generously confirms the heroism of academics from coast-to-coast. More now than ever before (thanks to technology), I see Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, & Marines engaged in distance learning and seminar studies in the minimal time available in the face of duties where incompetence can precipitate death and organizational failure. Our self-styled intellectuals exhibit a remarkable failure of imagination (and in Greg's case, amnesia) when they diagnose military hostility to intellectual development. It is laughable in general, yet occasional artifacts are eagerly marshaled to reinforce the charge, not least because of its rhetorical utility in university and think tank circles.
To my mind, Greg's greatest error--in an essay chock full of them--concerns doctrine. For Professor Foster to characterize doctrine as a "suffocatingly pervasive overlay of forced standardization and routinization on virtually every facet of military life" is as specious a flight of fancy as anything I have read of late. I reply with conviction that ignorance of doctrine (especially joint doctrine) is endemic in the armed forces and easily eclipses "anti-intellectualism" as a problem. Doctrine is not prescriptive; only dilettantes regard it so.
Allow me to conclude my objections (confined to a single one of Greg's "ten deeply rooted features of established military culture") with his misapprehension of writers in the armed forces. When Greg asserts that there are only a "handful of individuals in uniform who actually seek to write for publication" he reveals surprising ignorance of the facts. I receive more than a hundred manuscripts each month from military authors and my Book Review Editor has to beat military petitioners off with a stick! When one considers the plethora of military publications (many dozens!), whether technical, tactical, functional, or broadly military, the lie is given to such an uninformed claim. Similarly, Greg is out of his depth when he implies that security reviews are tailored to impede communication with the public. Security & classification problems are frequent and sometimes dangerous; these reviews are one of my greatest burdens as editor of JFQ, but they are essential and those who deny it lack either imagination or experience.
3 January SWJ Roundup
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Yemen’s Strategic Boxes
Yemen’s Strategic Boxes
by Dr. Lawrence E. Cline
Download the full article: Yemen’s Strategic Boxes
As happens episodically, Yemen is once more in the news. The December 2009 raids on al Qaida with some level of US support – together with Saudi intervention in the north of Yemen and the abortive Delta flight bombing claimed by al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen – have re-emphasized Yemen’s importance in regional and international security.
One problem with much of the analysis of Yemen is that it tends to emphasize the country’s impact on external security. Particularly within the US, the stress has been on al Qaida’s operations in and from Yemen. Although perhaps justified in terms of overall US strategy, this limited view of issues within Yemen that affect its internal security can create strategic myopia. Ultimately, these broader internal issues are crucial in how well and how willing the government of Yemen will cooperate with other countries.
From Sana’a’s perspective, there are three critical ongoing threats to internal security. Al Qaida certainly is one, but the other two – the Houthi uprising in the north and political unrest in the south around Aden – probably are viewed with considerably more concern by the Yemen government. Although each threat is significant in its own right, the possibility of overlap among them in the future is even more worrisome. These specific threats are even further exacerbated by a long list of broader social, economic, and political stressors, all of which impact on Yemen’s capability to respond adequately.
Download the full article: Yemen’s Strategic Boxes
Lawrence E. Cline, PhD, is an associate professor with American Military University, and a contract instructor with the Counterterrorism Fellowship Program, Center for Civil-Military Relations, Naval Postgraduate School. He has worked in over 25 countries with this program in national counterterrorism strategy development. He is a retired Military Intelligence officer and Middle East Foreign Area Officer, with service in Lebanon, El Salvador, Desert Storm, Somalia, and OIF.
Hybrid Threats Require a Hybrid Government
Hybrid Threats Require a Hybrid Government - Matt Armstrong, Budget Insight, Stimson Center
Nine years ago we went to war with the enemy we had, not the enemy we wanted. For several years after 9/11 we struggled to comprehend how military superiority failed to translate into strategic victory. We created labels like “irregular” and “hybrid” to describe adversaries that did not conform to our structured view of international affairs shaped by the second half of the Cold War. Today, conflict is democratized, not in the sense of bicameral legislatures but strategic influence in the hands of non-state actors empowered by falling barriers to information acquisition, packaging and dissemination as well as easy access to the means of destruction and disruption, physical and virtual.
This new “democracy” is messy and yet we continue to formulate, plan, and execute engagement using “regular” and “homogeneous” bureaucracies and budgets. Today’s threats are increasingly complex, often stateless, and rarely conforming to neat lines of authorities and responsibilities across, or within, government agencies, most of which were designed in and for previous eras.
Calls for “smart power” and a “whole of government” approach has resulted in countless articles, memos, and reports on updating the State Department, the Defense Department, and other agencies to confront the challenges of today and tomorrow. A few more reports – each significant – will come from the Administration over the next several weeks, including the Defense Department’s so-called “1055 Report” (named after the section in the Congressional report requiring it), a new strategy on public diplomacy from the office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, and a strategic direction from the National Security Council. Each report is likely to call for the blending of planning and execution across executive branch agencies. The focus on improving the operational elements of national power, while necessary, ignores a critical national security actor that has received little to no attention or pressure to adapt to the new and emerging requirements: Congress...
More at Budget Insight.
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2 January SWJ Roundup
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Ceremony Formally Marks End of Coalition Effort in Iraq
Ceremony Formally Marks End of Coalition Effort in Iraq - Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times.
December was the first month since the Iraq war began in which there were no American combat deaths, a milestone hailed by military officials Friday as they inaugurated a new name for the U.S. force at the start of the year that will see the war wind down in earnest. Henceforth, the Multinational Force-Iraq will officially be called the United States Force-Iraq, in belated recognition of the fact that for some time there have been no other nations serving alongside U.S. troops in the nearly 7-year-old conflict. British, Australian and Romanian soldiers pulled out in July, leaving Americans as the last surviving members of what President George W. Bush once called "the coalition of the willing." A small number of foreigners are serving with a NATO training mission, but they were not part of the multinational force.
At its peak, the coalition included 32 nations, but the term often drew snickers because many of the members, such as Estonia and Tonga, were among America's smallest allies and contributed fewer than 100 troops. And now the U.S. is preparing to pull out too, adding an end-of-era feel to the renaming ceremony held at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces on the sprawling Camp Victory complex outside Baghdad. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, told the troops and diplomats assembled in the palace's marble foyer that the new name signaled a new phase for the military as it prepares to halt all combat operations and scale back from the current 110,000 troops to fewer than 50,000 by August. The remaining troops, who will provide support and training,are scheduled to leave by the end of 2011...
More at The Los Angeles Times.
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The Loss of Strategic Legitimacy
The Loss of Strategic Legitimacy
by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Weimann
Download the full article: The Loss of Strategic Legitimacy
“War leads to war crimes, and the only sure way to avoid that seems to be to avoid war. Good example, discipline and control (good leadership) can only reduce the problem.”
- - Comment on Small Wars Journal discussion board thread titled “The Kill Company” dated 15 July 2009 concerning The New Yorker Article, “The Kill Company” by Kaffi Khatchadourian, July 6 2009
Looking at the latest edition of the DOD Joint Operations Manual (Joint Operations JP 3.0), you noticed, under the “Summary of Changes Section”, the addition of three new Principles of Joint Operations (Principle of War). There, in the change section, it states that the publication:
“Establishes 12 “principles of joint operations” by adding three “other principles” — restraint, perseverance, and legitimacy — to the traditional nine “principles of war”
The Department of Defense use to have only nine “principles of war’ that included Mass, Objective, Offensive, Security, Economy of Force, Maneuver, Unity of Command, Surprise and Simplicity. These principles were burned into the minds of entry level lieutenants with the permanency of a branding iron during their initial officer training using the acronym “MOOSE MUSS”. Ahhh yes, good old MOOSE MUSS; because of it most officers will never forget those nine strategic principles of war. The change also raises a question; why, after more than forty years of military institutionalization, did the Department of Defense changed the “Principles of War” with three additions.
Because the original nine principles are based on Clausewitz’s work “On War”, they represented a young officer’s initial introduction to military strategy. Of course, strategy is the realm of generals and junior officers need to know only the basics. Back then, most officers fully agreed to that unwritten rule because they recognized that the basic operation and function of an M-60 machine gun would be much more valuable working at that “eyeball-to-eyeball” level of war. Junior officers and NCOs trusted that the generals had their backs on that strategy thing.
Download the full article: The Loss of Strategic Legitimacy
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Weimann’s career spans 24 years as an US Marine Infantry Officer including participating in Desert Shield and Storm with the 2nd Marine Division. He retired in 1996, and lives with his family to Raleigh, NC where he works as an information technology program and project manager. He is also a contributing editor of the Defend Our Marines Web site (www.defendourmarines.com).
21st Century Counterinsurgency Intelligence
21st Century Counterinsurgency Intelligence - Seth Milstein, AFCEA Intelligence - Intelligence Essay Contest Winner.
Insurgency and counterinsurgency are radically different sides of the same coin - a truly asymmetric conflict. The intelligence demands for both sides are equally dissimilar. Effective intelligence for counterinsurgency has historically been a great challenge for those schooled in traditional military intelligence with its emphasis on fighting peer enemies in a symmetric conflict. Even with the modern gamut of collection and analytic capabilities, successful intelligence against insurgents remains difficult. History has good examples of effective counterinsurgency intelligence, notably the British experience in Malaya and more recently in Northern Ireland. British success owes more to effective organization and information management than to technology. Integrating their proven methods with contemporary technology offers the possibility of an intelligence system possessing far greater speed and flexibility, and requiring relatively low investment in equipment and training. Employing such a system is expected to drastically skew the battlefield in favor of the counterinsurgency effort, offering faster conflict resolution.
21st Century Counterinsurgency Intelligence.
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1 January SWJ Roundup
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Developing Foreign Security Force Capabilities
Developing Foreign Security Force Capabilities as a “Strategic Way”by Major Rob Thornton
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Developing the capabilities and capacities of FSFs (foreign security forces) has become a significant tenet of U.S. strategic dialogue on how to safeguard its interests at home and abroad from terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda, criminal organizations with global reach or third party states which sponsor non state organizations. The United States recognizes that the destabilization of, and security threats to other states and political bodies are relative to its own interests as they may involve mutual enemies, or give rise to conditions in which its enemies may find beneficial. As such the U.S. may promote a cooperative “venture” where interests are identified as beneficial to both the U.S. and another entity, but which may be limited in nature and may not signify and enduring partnership.
It is important to understand that these cooperative ventures may be pursued for different reasons to support different ends; ends which may not always align with the long term goals of the U.S., but may support limited cooperation. These mutual interests may not always be apparent while in the making, and may only come forward as objectives and conditions change; for example when another state or organizations realizes that its previous policies no longer promote, but may in fact inhibit or work against the realization of its own objectives. The term venture itself implies a certain level of existing risk where one’s membership is based more on conditions than certainty and long term commitment.
Ventures that involve the provision of security may require the U.S. to support the development of the capabilities of foreign security forces of other venture members. This concept of developing capability and capacity assumes that, based on mutual interests, the capabilities developed in a FSF will be employed in such a manner that they will support member objectives in the venture. However, it should not assume that those capabilities will not be employed otherwise at the conclusion of the venture. Capabilities once they are developed may have a life that extends beyond the original purpose. Understanding the nature of the venture is important for its members as it defines how much equity and effort a given member may assume relative to the expectations of the outcomes.
Download the full article: Developing Foreign Security Force Capabilities
Major Rob Thornton is assigned to the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance (JCISFA) as an Army FA 59 Strategic Plans and Policy officer. The opinions and thoughts expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of JCISFA. Major Thornton was a contributing writer to the recently published the JCISFA SFA (Security Force Assistance) Planner’s Guide to FSF (Foreign Security Force) Force Development.
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One Week with Task Force Buffalo
One Week with Task Force Buffalo
Changing the Face of the Arghandab
by Captain Jonathan Pan
Download the full article: One Week with Task Force Buffalo
A rebuttal to Sean Naylor’s Army Times Article, “Stryker soldiers say commanders failed them.”
ARGHANDAB RIVER VALLEY, Afghanistan – Sitting on the banks of the Arghandab River is the Baba Sahib Shrine. It provides a great view to the verdant Arghandab Valley, which is in stark contrast to the rest of the dusty province.
One can see the magnificent Baba Sahib shrine from the Arghandab District Center, which is where Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment (Task Force Buffalo), 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) centered their counterinsurgency efforts. While one can enjoy a lush view of the Arghandab River Valley and its beautiful sites from the district center- that is probably the last thing on the unit’s mind.
Task Force Buffalo has suffered a lot of casualties and has therefore been the subject of over a dozen articles over the past few months. Through the fog of war and the emotional loss of comrades, it is difficult to see the good being done. Yet, facts show that Task Force Buffalo has helped many Arghandab residents who braved staying in the district while the Taliban campaigned to infiltrate Kandahar City from the north. However, it is discouraging to not see any articles in relation to their stability and development efforts. Here is a one-week snapshot at the activities of Task Force Buffalo in Arghandab.
Download the full article: One Week with Task Force Buffalo
Captain Jonathan Pan is the Economics Development Officer, Task Force Stryker (5/2 ID SBCT) in Afghanistan.
31 December SWJ Roundup
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Army History Finds Early Missteps in Afghanistan
Army History Finds Early Missteps in Afghanistan - James Dao, New York Times.
In the fall of 2003, the new commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, decided on a new strategy. Known as counterinsurgency, the approach required coalition forces to work closely with Afghan leaders to stabilize entire regions, rather than simply attacking insurgent cells. But there was a major drawback, a new unpublished Army history of the war concludes. Because the Pentagon insisted on maintaining a “small footprint” in Afghanistan and because Iraq was drawing away resources, General Barno commanded fewer than 20,000 troops.
As a result, battalions with 800 soldiers were trying to secure provinces the size of Vermont. “Coalition forces remained thinly spread across Afghanistan,” the historians write. “Much of the country remained vulnerable to enemy forces increasingly willing to reassert their power.” That early and undermanned effort to use counterinsurgency is one of several examples of how American forces, hamstrung by inadequate resources, missed opportunities to stabilize Afghanistan during the early years of the war, according to the history, “A Different Kind of War.” ...
More at The New York Times.
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A Short Response to AF-PAK and South Asia Hands
A Short Response to AF-PAK and South Asia Hands
by Colonel David S. Maxwell
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In his article, Should AF/PAK Hands be South Asia Hands?, Lieutenant Munson makes some very good points. I offer a few observations and comments to build his discussion.
First, it has taken us this long to develop the AF-PAK Hands program after we have been at war for 8 plus years. We are clearly learning and adapting but what about anticipating (as Cohen and Gooch remind us in Military Misfortune)? Clearly we have to win the war we are in and I think AF-PAK Hands can make an important long term contribution (long term because it takes years to develop the language and cultural expertise to have the kind of understanding of the politics and culture necessary to be able to effectively advise military leaders and policy makers). I think we should also adapt the SOF truth for a broader understanding – “Competent SOF cannot be created after emergencies occur.” The same holds true for area expertise – you cannot wait for the crisis to occur to begin developing the area expertise necessary to deal with the emergency or the war. One of the important lessons that has been learned since 9-11 is how important cultural, political, and economic understanding and expertise is to political-military operations in the Era of Persistent Conflict.
Given the above, while we applaud and support the AF-PAK hands program (I agree it is the right thing to do – but better late than never), we should be asking ourselves what other “hands” program should there be? Should we have a “Korea Hands” as the outcome to the “Korea Problem” is going to bring challenges as complex as we have ever seen and understanding North Korean culture is going to be critical to dealing with the challenges there. Should we have a “China Hands” program (though perhaps a little different than the China Hands we had in the pre-WWII Marines and in the State Department) anticipating China’s rise to a near peer competitor and at least a regional hegemon? Should we have an “Africa Hands” program as we anticipate the future challenges on that continent? Of course we could go on and call for “Hands” programs around the world.
Download the full article: A Short Response to AF-PAK and South Asia Hands
Colonel David S. Maxwell, U.S. Army, is a Special Forces officer with command and staff assignments in Korea, Japan, Germany, the Philippines, and the Continental U.S., and is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth and the National War College of the National Defense University. The opinions he expresses in this paper are his own and do not represent any U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or U.S. Army Special Operations Command positions.
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60 Minutes: Out Of The Shadows
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Ex-CIA Operative Comes Out of the Shadows - CBS News.
You don't hear from people like Henry Crumpton very often. That's because "Hank," as he's known, spent most of his adult life as a spy for the CIA. Now he has stepped out of the shadows to tell how just after 9/11, at age 44, he masterminded the downfall of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
He did it with just a handful of CIA officers, military special operations teams and an army of Afghan tribal warriors. Crumpton probably knows more about the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban than almost anyone else.
And now that he is out of the CIA, he makes no secret anymore about what he did to defeat them in 2001...
More at CBS News.
29 December SWJ Roundup
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A Year of War, and Progress
A Year of War, and Progress - Michael O'Hanlon, Los Angeles Times opinion.
The United States spent 2009 at war again - with its own troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and as a major, indirect supporter of Pakistan in its internal counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism campaign as well. On balance, I would judge it a moderately successful year in all three places to varying degrees. But that is admittedly a subjective judgment and also obviously requires a great deal more discussion.
First, the basics: The year was one of gradual drawdown in Iraq together with intensification of operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet it was still Iraq that occupied the most American troops and cost the most for the year. The American uniformed presence there started the year at about 142,000 troops and will end it at around 115,000, with total budgetary costs of more than $100 billion in 2009. But Afghanistan became the clearly deadlier war; more than 300 Americans died there in the year, compared with 150 in Iraq. And of the three countries, it was Pakistan that probably constituted the greatest potential long-term threat to the United States, with its nuclear weapons arsenal the ultimate desired prize for Al Qaeda and other extremists in the region. Accordingly, U.S. expenditures there rose a good deal, to $3.3 billion or so in the form of economic and security aid - though this is obviously a far cry from the 12-figure costs of Iraq and the expected 12-figure costs of Afghanistan in 2010 as U.S. troop totals there rise to nearly 100,000.
What about life in each of these places for the local citizens? Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, civilian fatalities attributable to war violence were roughly comparable in each place...
More at The Los Angeles Times.
Afghanistan Strategy Should Also Focus on Improving Quality of Life
Afghanistan Strategy Should Also Focus on Improving Quality of Life - Stanley A. Weiss, Los Angeles Times opinion.
The Obama administration has outlined a three-pronged strategy in Afghanistan, focusing on security, governance and economic development. But the implementation of those elements has been woefully lopsided. Since 2002, 93% of the $170 billion the United States has committed to Afghanistan has gone to military operations. As the country prepares to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, we also need to focus on providing a surge in the quality of life for the Afghan people. U.S. Agency for International Development workers are tremendously dedicated, but there are not nearly enough of them, which means the agency is heavily dependent on private contractors. There have been some commendable achievements, such as helping reduce Afghanistan's infant mortality rate and rehabilitating nearly 1,000 miles of roads. Still, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton lamented in March, the lack of results for the Afghan people is "heartbreaking."
The Obama administration has pledged a new, improved approach to development aid. Yet USAID has been without an administrator for 10 months, and the president's nominee, Rajiv Shah, has yet to be confirmed. It's now time, with the president's commitment in his West Point speech to "focus our assistance in areas, such as agriculture, that can make an immediate impact in the lives of the Afghan people," to heed the experience of successful social entrepreneurs who, with far fewer resources at their disposal, have achieved impressive progress on the ground...
More at The Los Angeles Times.
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Should AF/PAK Hands be South Asia Hands?
Should AF/PAK Hands be South Asia Hands?
How the India-Pakistan Relationship Shapes the War in Afghanistan
by Lieutenant Mark Munson
Download the full article: Should AF/PAK Hands be South Asia Hands?
Seeking to develop a community of regional experts in local languages and cultures, and with the intent to sustain the deployment of those experts to the Afghanistan/Pakistan theater, the Department of Defense recently announced the creation of the “AF/PAK Hands” program. While this program demonstrates a laudable commitment by DoD towards building the intellectual capacity within the military to win the fight in Afghanistan, the focus of AF/PAK Hands on the languages and culture of Afghanistan and Pakistan (in particular the Pashtun border region) demonstrates a lack of strategic awareness of the decisive role that larger South Asian relationships (particularly that between India and Pakistan) play in the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Most importantly, while Pakistani cooperation is necessary for the defeat of al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistani attitudes towards India may prevent that full cooperation in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan cannot be won if Pakistan does not shift its national security efforts from deterrence of India towards defeating its own internal Islamist insurgency. As currently proposed, the Pashtu, Dari, and Urdu speakers trained as part of AF/PAK Hands will not be able to provide commanders with critical insights into the strategic aspects of the India-Pakistan dynamic.
The Navy’s announcement of its participation in the new Afghanistan Pakistan Hands (APH) Program in September 2009 stated that "the objective of the APH program is to identify, select, train, and manage a cohort of experts in order to bring greater unity and cohesion to the fight in Afghanistan." Selected from "a mix of designators and ratings" and "specifically selected to capitalize on, or further develop, proficiencies in counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, regional languages, and culture," the program is designed to place personnel with tailored regional expertise "in positions of strategic influence to ensure progress towards achieving U.S. government objectives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region."
This essay will not address whether devoting U.S. military manpower (or encouraging and rewarding participation in this program) to fight a war in the hinterlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan is wise. It seems reasonable to assume that the expertise and real-world operational experience gleaned by all DoD personnel, even those in the sea services, participating in this war will be directly applicable to their jobs when they return to their respective branches of service and will enhance the U.S. military’s overall war-fighting capacity.
Download the full article: Should AF/PAK Hands be South Asia Hands?
Lieutenant Mark Munson currently serves as the Intelligence Officer for Naval Special Warfare Group FOUR. He has previously served onboard U.S.S ESSEX (LHD 2) and at the Office of Naval Intelligence.
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28 December SWJ Roundup
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27 December SWJ Roundup
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Book Review: 'The Fourth Star' by David Cloud and Greg Jaffe
Book Review: 'The Fourth Star' by David Cloud and Greg Jaffe - John Whiteclay Chambers II, Washington Post.
Four Generals and The Epic Struggle For the Future of The United States Army
What makes an effective wartime general? Hardly an academic question when the United States is ramping up its military efforts in Afghanistan. In The Fourth Star, David Cloud, former Pentagon correspondent for the New York Times, and Greg Jaffe, who covers the Pentagon for The Washington Post, probe this question through the eyes and careers of four distinguished officers who joined the army as second lieutenants after Vietnam and rose to the highest rank - four-star general - during the Iraq insurgency.
This insider's view of officership and the operation of the U.S. Army is based primarily upon interviews with the four generals - John Abizaid, George Casey, Jr., Peter Chiarelli and David Petraeus - and their families, subordinates and others. Cloud and Jaffe are gifted writers, who use their access to these senior commanders to good effect. They provide a lively, personalized account of the successes and setbacks of the four highly able and ambitious servicemen as they climb the military career ladder...
More at The Washington Post.
The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army - Amazon.com
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Pentagon Reviewing Strategic Information Operations
Pentagon Reviewing Strategic Information Operations - Walter Pincus, Washington Post.
Trying to counter information-savvy enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has rapidly spent nearly $1 billion in the past three years on strategic communications. Paid-for news articles, billboards, radio and television programs, and even polls and focus groups have been sponsored by the U.S. Central Command, which has raised its spending for information operations programs from $40 million in 2008 to $110 million in 2009 to a requested $244 million in 2010.
But when Congress asked this year what the Defense Department across the services and commands proposed spending for strategic communications -- or information operations as it is often called -- in the fiscal 2010 budget, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates found that no one could say because there was no central coordination. The first answer came back at $1 billion, but that was later changed to $626 million. As a result, Gates has multiple studies underway to get a firmer grip over the individual military services' plans for strategic communications next year, according to Pentagon officials...
More at The Washington Post.
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26 December SWJ Roundup
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The Quiet Wisdom of Apolitical Adm. Mike Mullen
The Quiet Wisdom of Apolitical Adm. Mike Mullen - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
This was another year of the vanishing center in America. Despite the election of a president who promised to govern across party and racial lines, partisan division seemed to engulf nearly every important institution and topic - with one notable exception, and that was the U.S. military. So at year's end, I want to examine the person who came to symbolize the military's apolitical unity, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A year from now, I'd love to be able to say there are more Mullens in our national life and fewer Rush Limbaughs.
Mullen managed the military's transition from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, from surging in Iraq to withdrawing U.S. troops. He worked with the new president while Obama painstakingly made the decision to escalate in Afghanistan. Through it all, Mullen managed to remain out of the limelight most of the time, which is where a military leader ought to be. Mullen isn't a flashy operator. He botches his syntax, and he doesn't always finish his sentences. A friend of Mullen's likens him to the actor Walter Matthau - a big man with a meaty face; fit, but slightly rumpled; at once wry and grandfatherly...
More at The Washington Post.
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Civilian, Military Planners Have Different Views on New Approach to Afghanistan
Civilian, Military Planners Have Different Views on New Approach to Afghanistan - Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post.
Two days before announcing the deployment of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, President Obama informed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal that he was not granting McChrystal's request to double the size of the Afghan army and police. Cost was a factor, as were questions about whether the capacity exists to train 400,000 personnel. The president told McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, to focus for now on fielding a little more than half that number by next October. Ten days after Obama's speech, the U.S. command responsible for training the Afghans circulated a chart detailing the combined personnel targets for the army and police. McChrystal's goal of 400,000 remained unchanged. "It's an open issue," a senior Pentagon official said last week.
Nearly a month after Obama unveiled his revised Afghanistan strategy, military and civilian leaders have come away with differing views of several fundamental aspects of the president's new approach, according to more than a dozen senior administration and military officials involved in Afghanistan policy, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Members of Obama's war cabinet disagree over the meaning of his pledge to begin drawing down forces in July 2011 and whether the mission has been narrowed from a proposal advanced by McChrystal in his August assessment of the war. The disagreements have opened a fault line between a desire for an early exit among several senior officials at the White House and a conviction among military commanders that victory is still achievable on their terms...
Much more at The Washington Post.
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NTM-A/CSTC-A Update
Holiday best wishes to the SWJ community of interest along with a NTM-A/CSTC-A update via e-mail from LTG William B. Caldwell, IV (Frontier 6); Commander, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan and CG, CSTC-A. Here is an excerpt concerning the European Gendarmerie Force:
... On 24 December 2009, NTM-A/CSTC-A hosted a European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) Reflagging Ceremony to officially mark the activation and participation of the EGF mission within Afghanistan. Honored guests and speakers were: Afghan Minister of Interior Haneef Atmar, the Chief of the French Gendarmerie Force, General Roland Gilles, and the EGF Commander Colonel Jorge Esteves. The ceremony also included 24 members representing all of the EGF members in Afghanistan were reflagged by changing their national headdress for the EGF blue beret and under the NTM-A umbrella, expected to exceed 330 personnel in 2010.
General Gilles led the ceremony stating that the EGF is ready now and he expects more contributions from the EGF participating countries. The main priority is ANCOP training and mentoring of the Afghan Uniformed Police. Minister Atmar followed emphasizing the importance of using trained Afghan Gendarmerie type forces (ANCOP) in high threat areas, and that the EGF under NTM-A will play a critical role in training these ANCOP personnel. We then described the importance of this ceremony to be on par with the activation of NTM-A last month, and emphasized the importance of NATO, the EU and Coalition forces working as a team with the Afghan MoD and MoI to create transparent and trustworthy institutions for the Afghan people. Over 200 personnel witnessed this memorable event.
... the EGF is a rapidly deployable, multinational police force with military status. This organization was established by five European Union Member States - France, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. On 17 December 2008, the Romanian Gendarmerie joined EGF as a full member. The Polish Military Gendarmerie and Lithuanian Public Security Service are contributing partners while the Turkish Jandarma has an observer status.
Currently, 190 Dutch Royal Marechaussee members, French Gendarmes, Italian Carabinieri and Spanish civil guards are deployed in Afghanistan under the EGF flag. Additionally, over 80 members are supporting the Afghan National Police training at Adraskan and Mazar e Sharif, and one of its major contributions will be its committal of nine Police Operational Mentorship Liaison Teams (POMLTs) to bolster the ANP mission...
SWJ note: On 8 December 2009, EGF officially started its operational commintment within the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan. The mission in Afghanistan is a new operational commitment for EGF assets, already engaged in the EUFOR integrated Police Unit within the framework of the EU Operation Althea in Bosnia Herzegovina. The EGF mission in Afghanistan inlcudes:
- Delivering experts to the NTM-A HQ/CTAG-P command structure;
- Delivering mentors and training advisers to the Afghan National Civil Order Police;
- Providing Police Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams (POMLTs);
- Contributing to the develpment of pre-deployment training requirements and standards for the POMLTs.
NTM-A/CSTC-A - Official Website
European Gendarmerie Force - Official Website
25 December SWJ Roundup
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A Survey of the Afghan People
Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People - The Asia Foundation.
On October 27, 2009, The Asia Foundation released findings from its fifth public opinion poll in Afghanistan, Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People, which covers all 34 provinces in the country. The Asia Foundation has conducted five surveys, dating back to 2004, which collectively establish an accurate, long-term barometer of public opinion across the country to help assess the direction in which Afghanistan is moving in the post-Taliban era. The 2009 survey captures the Afghan public's perceptions of reconstruction, security, governance, and attitudes towards government and informal institutions, as well as the 2009 national elections, the status of women, the role of Islam, and the impact of media. The fieldwork for the survey was conducted prior to the August 20 elections, from June 17 – July 6, 2009, when 648 Afghan men and women conducted in-person interviews with a multi-stage random sample of 6,406 Afghan citizens 18 years of age and older from different social, economic, and ethnic communities in rural and urban across all provinces in Afghanistan.
Read our press release about the survey or download the full report, Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People. Key findings, FAQ, and Dari and Pashto translations of the key findings and press release are also available.
All four previous surveys, conducted in 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008, in Afghanistan are available on our website.
Read the full report at The Asia Foundation.
24 December SWJ Roundup
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Obama, Pakistan and Mullah Omar
Obama, Pakistan and Mullah Omar - Wall Street Journal editorial.
... If Pakistan truly has given up on its old double game of claiming to back America while allowing a Taliban sanctuary within its borders, now would be a good time to show it's serious. If not, the U.S. has leverage with Islamabad through foreign aid, as well as various military options. U.S. drone strikes can be expanded, including for the first time to Baluchistan, and special forces might be deployed across the porous border.
Both carry diplomatic risks. Though drone strikes have killed about two dozen civilians according to one Pakistani government estimate, the country's press loves to exaggerate the toll to embarrass the government and stoke anti-Americanism. The presence of U.S. troops in Pakistan, if publicized, could also undermine a Zardari government that's taken brave risks to help Washington.
This is where Mr. Obama's decision to announce a July 2011 deadline for beginning to withdraw from Afghanistan has been damaging. Various Administration officials have tried to walk back that deadline, but it has played inside Pakistan as further evidence that the Americans will eventually bug out of the region. Pakistan's military and intelligence services have long hedged their bets by supporting Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban in case the U.S. leaves and for fear that India will try to fill any power vacuum in Kabul. Now they have another excuse not to change...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Gates Proposes $2 Billion in Funds to Aid Unstable Countries
Gates Proposes $2 Billion in Funds to Aid Unstable Countries - Mary Beth Sheridan and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has proposed a major overhaul of the way the Pentagon and State Department do nation-building, seeking to end friction between the bureaucracies by putting them jointly in charge of three huge new funds aimed at stabilizing strife-ridden countries. The proposal is aimed at addressing problems that have dogged the U.S. effort in Iraq and Afghanistan - particularly, disputes over whether civilians or the better-funded military should be in charge of stabilization.
But Gates' proposal goes beyond those conflicts to address what the military increasingly sees as the greatest threat to the United States - failing states such as Yemen and Somalia that could provide a haven for terrorist groups. The proposal would concentrate existing and new money in three long-term funds totaling as much as $2 billion. They would be dedicated to training security forces, preventing conflicts and stabilizing violence-torn societies around the world. The funds would exist separately from the war budgets, and allow for quicker and better-coordinated response to looming or actual conflicts, officials said. In a memo to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gates noted that the huge increase in Pentagon funding for stabilization efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has prompted complaints about the militarization of U.S. foreign policy...
More at The Washington Post.
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RIP Colonel Robert L. Howard (Updated)
America’s Most-Decorated Soldier Dies In Waco - KWTX
Retired Army Col. Robert L. Howard, 70, who died Wednesday in Waco, was a Medal of Honor winner who at the time of his death was believed to be the most-decorated living American soldier. Howard will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery...
Howard, who grew up in Opelika, Ala., enlisted in the Army in 1956 at the age of 17 and retired as a full colonel in 1992.
In Vietnam, he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces and spent most of his five tours in the secret Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observation Group, or MACV-SOG, which was an unconventional force whose members were assigned to deep-penetration reconnaissance and interdiction missions. He was nominated three times for the Medal of Honor, which he was awarded in 1971 for the rescue of a seriously wounded platoon leader who was under enemy fire...
COL Robert L. Howard - Tribute Website
COL Robert L. Howard - Wikipedia
COL Robert Howard’s Medal Of Honor Citation - KWTX
Medal of Honor Series Video: COL Robert Howard - Pritzker Military Library
Obituary and Online Guest Book - OakCrest Funeral Home, Waco, Texas
Can U.S. Troops Run McChrystal’s ‘Soft Power’ Playbook?
Can U.S. Troops Run McChrystal’s ‘Soft Power’ Playbook? - Noah Shachtman, Danger Room.
... For commanders fighting in some of Afghanistan’s most hotly-contested areas, the struggle has been even more intense. How much restraint do you show, before you jeopardize your troops? How do you protect the population, if the Taliban have the freedom to roam and attack at will? When is it time to go “kinetic,” and drop the softer approach? There are no easy answers, as I saw this summer with Echo company of the 2/8 Marines. Captain Eric Meador, the company’s commander, wanted to spend more time holding shuras and swaying village elders to his cause. But there were too many Taliban in the vicinity, he felt, to allow those peaceful talks to take place. So instead, he sent the majority of his marines out on patrols that were almost certain to turn into firefights. “I call it the eye gouge,” Meador told me. “To keep the good areas here relatively calm, you have to go to the enemy and punch him in the chest, punch him in the face.”
The conundrum has become even more perplexing in Afghanistan’s Arghandab river valley. One battalion of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division has been locked in a vicious struggle there that’s not only killed 21 U.S. soldiers and more than 50 insurgents in just a few months, Army Times’ Sean Naylor reports. “It’s led to a popular company commander’s controversial replacement and… caused the soldiers at the tip of the spear… to accuse their battalion and brigade commanders of not following the guidance of senior coalition commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal to adopt a ‘population-centric’ counterinsurgency approach.” ...
More at Danger Room.
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23 December SWJ Roundup
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When The Going Gets Weird
When The Going Gets Weird - nice roundup via Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement - Vegetius, Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham, Herschel Smith, Mark Moyar, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, several op-eds, Thunder Run and Mudville...
War is about Killing and Destruction
War is about Killing and Destruction, It is Not Armed Social Science
A Short Response to Andrew Mackay and Steve Tatham
by Colonel Gian P. Gentile
Download the full article: War is about Killing and Destruction
I feel sorry for the British Army for they seem to have been taken in by the American Army’s consumption with Counterinsurgency and its theoretical premise that military force can “change entire societies” for the better. Of course this quote is attributed to one of America’s leading Counterinsurgency experts retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl.
The irony is that the American Coin experts in their own campaign to transform the American Army to a Counterinsurgency force from 2005 to 2007 used the British Army as an example of the proper way to do “classic” Coin: e.g., Malaya, and Sir Robert Thompson’s recommendations for the United States in Vietnam. Yet as the Iraq Triumph Narrative is now written, the British Army lost their way and failed in Iraq where the Americans succeeded. Now, just as with the American Army, the British Army based on this essay by Mackay and Tatham have succumbed to the flawed theories and notions promoted by General Rupert Smith in his hugely influential but deeply flawed book The Utility of Force.
Download the full article: War is about Killing and Destruction
Gian Gentile is a serving American Army Colonel and teaches military history at West Point. He commanded a Cavalry Squadron in West Baghdad in 2006.
22 December SWJ Roundup
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End States vs. Strategies
End States vs. Strategies
by Vegetius
Download the full article: End States vs. Strategies
I don’t know who came up with the term “exit strategy”, but if he (or she) is still alive he should be taken out and shot. An exit is not a strategy; it is a retreat. There is nothing wrong with cutting losses and running if the situation dictates, but let’s call it what it is. However, let’s also make sure that the war is lost before we resort to that. In Iraq and Afghanistan we have stated exit strategies, but no clear stated vision of what we want either nation to look like when we are done.
If getting out of these two wars is our only objective, we need to fire the entire national security apparatus and replace its personnel with divorce lawyers; they are the true exit strategists.
The great strategists in history have always had clear end states of what they had in mind for the strategic landscape that they were dealing with and knew how to match those ends to available means. Perhaps the greatest practitioner of this approach in modern times was Otto Von Bismarck. The Iron Chancellor had a clear vision of a greater Germany united under Prussian leadership. He moved carefully to make this happen with three limited objective wars in which he diplomatically outmaneuvered his opponents, isolating his intended victims from military and political outside support. In doing so, he always ensured that the Prussian military did not stray outside his intended use for armed force in achieving the desired end state.
Our strategic situation is obviously different. Today, we are engaged in a war against radical Islamic expansionism rather than the kind of voluntary wars of dynastic expansion that Bismarck engineered. Our situation is more similar to that of the Byzantine Empire, and we have the same enemy, albeit in a new incarnation; that being expansionist radical Islamic Jihad. The Byzantine grand strategy of containing radical Jihadist Islam succeeded for approximately seven centuries. The Eastern Roman Empire had a comprehensible strategic framework for dealing with this Jihadist threat. Thus far, we do not.
Download the full article: End States vs. Strategies
The author is a government employee and a former infantryman.
Complexity, Adaptation and Influence
Behavioural Conflict
From General to Strategic Corporal: Complexity, Adaptation and Influence
by Major General Andrew Mackay and Commander Steve Tatham
Republished with permission of the authors.
Download the full article: Complexity, Adaptation and Influence
This paper represents nearly two years of work and active consideration – both in the academic domain and in the field of conflict – of the problems confronting the British military in contemporary and future conflict. At its heart is the belief that future campaigns will need to focus on altering the behaviours of others, either in advance – and therefore deterring conflict – or as a coupled component in the process of combat and post combat operations. It takes the deployment of 52 Brigade to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, as its principal case study and examines the thought processes – falling outside more conventional military wisdom and training – that lay behind the Commander’s decisions to mount an influence-led deployment, one that specifically sought to reduce hard kinetic engagement and place the consent of the population at the centre of the operational design. Indeed the paper argues that success in battle will demand as much understanding of social psychology, culture and economics as it does military art and science. It examines the corporate structures available within the MoD to support that decision and, finding them lacking, suggests not only how a new strategic communication structure might evolve to meet future demands but also how the provision of education, learning, unlearning and relearning at every level, from Commander to strategic Corporal, is likely to be the pre-eminent factor in success in future conflict.
Download the full article: Complexity, Adaptation and Influence
In a 29-year career, Major General Andrew Mackay has seen operational service in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan. In 2008 he was awarded the CBE for his command of 52 Brigade in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Promoted Major General in 2009 his last appointment in the British Army was as General Officer Commanding Scotland and Northern England.
Steve Tatham is a Commander in the Royal Navy and has experience from operations in Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. He holds an M Phil from Cambridge University, and is the author of ‘Losing Arab Hearts & Minds: The Coalition, Al-Jazeera and Muslim Public Opinion’ and ‘Strategic Communication: A Primer’. He is just completing his PhD in Strategic Communication in Future Conflict.
21 December SWJ Roundup
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In Afghan war, officer flourishes outside the box
In Afghan war, officer flourishes outside the box - Denis D. Gray, Associated Press via The Taiwan News.
You may wonder how Thomas Gukeisen made it to lieutenant colonel, and by age 39 at that. He breaks Army rules and operates by his own rendition of counterinsurgency warfare whose arsenal includes Afghan poetry, chaos theory and the thoughts of a 17th-century English philosopher. A towering, rough-and-ready 205-pounder (man weighing 92-kilograms), the officer from Carthage, New York, peppers his sentences with unprintables and reads Karl von Clausewitz's classic on war in the original German. The high-ups seem to like what they see. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who commands U.S. forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, has visited his sector, as have Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry. Substantial resources have flowed into Gukeisen's hands, including $850,000 in small bills for such jobs as building schools and putting carpets in the mosques of Afghans who turn against the Taliban.
Col. David B. Haight, Gukeisen's superior, calls him one of the brightest officers he has met. Gukeisen wages his war across 620 restive, rugged square miles (1,000 kilometers) of Logar, a strategically important province bordering Kabul where he has implemented what he calls an "extreme makeover." Rather than rigidly applying the current mantra "Clear, Hold, Build" he has held back from trying to clear large, Taliban-influenced swaths of territory, focusing instead on areas he believes are ripe for change, and then injecting aid where it counts most. Combat, he says, is driven by reliable intelligence and limited to eradicating Taliban fighters...
More at The Taiwan News.
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20 December SWJ Roundup
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An officer and a creative man
An officer and a creative man - Mark Moyar, New York Times opinion.
As President Obama and his advisers planned their new approach to the Afghan war, the quality of Afghanistan’s security forces received unprecedented scrutiny, and rightly so. Far less attention, however, has been paid to the quality of American troops there. Of course, American forces don’t demand bribes from civilians at gunpoint or go absent for days, as Afghans have often done. But they face serious issues of their own, demanding prompt action. The American corporals and privates who traverse the Afghan countryside today are not at issue. They risk life and limb every day, with little self-pity. Despite the strains of successive combat deployments, they keep re-enlisting at high rates. The problems lie, rather, in the leadership ranks.
Although many Army and Marine officers in Afghanistan are performing well, a significant portion are not demonstrating the vital leadership attributes of creativity, flexibility and initiative. In 2008, to better pinpoint these deficits, I surveyed 131 Army and Marine officers who had served in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan or both, asking them each 42 questions about leadership in their services. The results were striking. Many respondents said that field commanders relied too much on methods that worked in another place at another time but often did not work well now. Officers at higher levels are stifling the initiative of junior officers through micromanagement and policies to reduce risk...
More at The New York Times.
The race against Obama's deadline in Afghanistan
The race against Obama's deadline in Afghanistan - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the personification of American military power, is walking the streets of this dusty village in Paktika province when the deferential deputy governor, Qadir Gul Zadran, tells him: "We hope you stay here forever." Sorry, responds the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but that's not going to happen. America is sending more troops to help boost security in places such as this Pashtun village south of Kabul, but they will begin leaving in 18 months. Asked later whether he had any worries about the new Afghanistan strategy, Mullen answers: "It's just the clock. Can we move as fast as we need to move?"
That ticking clock was Mullen's consistent companion as he traveled across Afghanistan last week to review implementation of President Obama's decision to send 30,000 more troops. He visited a half-dozen military outposts and at each stop repeated the same message: The new strategy can work, but the challenge is huge and the time is short. Traveling with Mullen, I had a chance to see up close the opportunities and pitfalls of Obama's decision for a short-term escalation. The strongest impression was that the administration's plan to begin transferring responsibility to the Afghan army and police in July 2011 is overly optimistic. If all goes well, the Afghan security forces will be stronger by then, but they will still need a lot of American help...
More at The Washington Post.
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19 December SWJ Roundup
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Al-Anbar Awakening
Via the Marine Corps University Press - Al-Anbar Awakening Volume I: American Perspectives (U.S. Marine Corps and Counterinsurgency in Iraq) and Al-Anbar Awakening Volume II: Iraqi Perspectives (From Insurgency to Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2004 - 2009).
Volume I - American Perspectives, edited by Chief Warrant Officer-4 Timothy S. McWilliams and Lieutenant Colonel Kurtis P. Wheeler.
Volume II: Iraqi Perspectives, edited by Colonel Gary W. Montgomery and Chief Warrant Officer-4 Timothy S. McWilliams.
Leadership Targeting and the Helicopter as a Strategic Strike Asset in Small Wars
Precision Approaches: Leadership Targeting and the Helicopter as a Strategic Strike Asset in Small Wars - Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Armstrong, U.S. Navy.
Our many thanks to Routledge’s Taylor and Francis Group for providing free access to our Small Wars Journal community of interest and practice.
Lieutenant Commander Benjamin “BJ” Armstrong, a dear SWJ friend, is a Naval Aviator who has served as an Amphibious Search and Rescue and Special Warfare Pilot and an Advanced Helicopter Flight Instructor. He holds a MA in Military History from Norwich University and has written on air power and naval history. His articles and reviews have appeared in numerous journals including The Journal of Military History, Strategic Insights, Small Wars Journal and Air and Space Power Journal’s Chronicles Online.
Here is an excerpt:
Over the past century, the strategic implications of aviation have played an important role in themodernization ofmilitary strategy.Development of strategic air planning has accelerated with the constant improvement in technology and weapon systems. However, the majority of that development has been in search of the best way to fight the next big war, a conflict between nation-states, each having a certain level of technological capability. As Western militaries continue to search for old and new ways of countering insurgent forces and conducting small war operations, all aspects of the armed forces are being addressed. There has been a great deal of debate in military aviation over the proper role that air power can play in small wars and counter-terrorist operations.These debates have generally centered on the role of high technology, fixedwing aircraft in an attempt to use the bombers and fighters designed to fight the “big war” to help win “small wars”.
This focus loses sight of an aircraft type that has served as a central player in the conduct of small wars and counter-insurgency since nearly its first flight – the helicopter. Using modern technology and adaptive tactics, the helicopter provides a platform able to conduct strategic strike missions on the smaller scale that is required in small wars.After the success of the GulfWar air campaign, the principles of “effectsbased targeting” began to be applied beyond the realm of high-performance bomber and ground attack aircraft. Leadership targeting developed as an outgrowth of these ideas. Such missions required several key elements to be successful. These include: proper intelligence, proper strategic planning and the use of the proper weapon system. The helicopter can fulfill two of the three pillars required for successful engagement of strategic targets from the air by providing organic, real-time intelligence and targeting information and a precision strike capability. All this is achieved with a smaller infrastructure footprint than strategic bombers and reduced chances of collateral damage...
Strengthening our nation's front line of defense
Strengthening our nation's front line of defense - Dennis C. Blair, Washington Post opinion.
The legislation authorizing post-Sept. 11 intelligence reform -- the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 -- was signed into law five years ago this week. We are often asked whether the new organizations, authorities and additional resources have made a difference. The answer is yes.
To be clear, the task of reinventing our intelligence structure and integrating the capabilities, cultures and information technologies of 16 diverse intelligence agencies is massive, and it is incomplete. Problems persist in our technologies, business practices and mind-sets. I have no illusions about how challenging they will be to overcome. But there is an ocean of difference between difficult and impossible.
While many successes must remain classified, there are things the public can and should know about changes that have been made and how we are directing our efforts and America's resources...
More at The Washington Post.
Dennis C. Blair is the third and current Director of National Intelligence and a retired United States Navy four-star admiral.
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CNAS Twofer on the Future of the Force
CNAS Releases Two Working Papers on the Future of the Force (CNAS Press Release - 17 December 2009).
The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released today