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A Pentagon Trailblazer, Rethinking U.S. Defense - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times.
Michèle A. Flournoy, one of the highest ranking women in the history of the Pentagon, did not have a childhood that would immediately suggest a future as a defense policy intellectual who is rethinking how America fights its wars.
Her mother was an actress and singer who performed at the Copacabana, the legendary New York nightclub, and was the understudy to Vivian Blaine in “Oklahoma” on Broadway. Her father was a cinematography director in television at Paramount Studios. She herself is a 1979 graduate of Beverly Hills High School who spent her summers playing, she said, “a lot of beach volleyball.”
But Ms. Flournoy, who went on to Harvard and then Balliol College at Oxford (“I majored in rowing”), has spent her entire professional life immersed in the theory and practice of war, from the arms control debate of the 1980s to the counterinsurgency doctrine of today...
More at The New York Times.
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By Brig. Gen. Larry D. Nicholson, USMC
Today, nearly 4,000 U.S. Marines and Sailors of Task Force Leatherneck, partnered with Afghan National Security Forces and supported by Task Force Pegasus, the Combat Aviation Brigade of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, conducted a near-simultaneous heliborne and surface insert into the central and southern Helmand River valley. These efforts, combined with closely coordinated UK and Danish operations to our immediate north, will dramatically change and positively impact the security of the Afghan people living in this long-held Taliban heartland.
Our focus is now and will remain the Afghan people. We have worked closely with local Helmand government officials and many tribal and local leaders in the detailed planning of this major offensive. While the initial focus will be on security, the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) working with Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and Coalition Forces will rapidly move to introduce the initial essential aspects of governance and economic development into these newly secured areas. These efforts will be focused upon providing immediate assistance to the population, and in setting the conditions for successful elections in August. Today’s operation is designed to separate and isolate the Taliban from the population who has long suffered the effects of their presence.
This large scale operation is not without risk to the many thousands of brave and dedicated Afghan and coalition troops participating. This operation is designed to boldly demonstrate to the Afghan people the determination and dedication of the Government and Coalition Forces in ridding the area of Taliban insurgents who prey upon the people. The Taliban offer no future, no hope, and we will work to provide immediate security gains to the local citizens of the Helmand River valley. What makes Operation Kanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert, and the fact that where we go, we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build, and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces.
Semper Fidelis,
Larry D. Nicholson
Commanding General, Task Force Leatherneck
Beginning with a Charge: Doug Stanton and the “Horse Soldiers” of Afghanistan
Thursday, 9 July 2009
6:00 PM CST (Presentation and Live Webcast)
Pritzker Military Library
Chicago, Illinois
Their mission was secret, and time was short. So in order to cross the steep mountain trails of Afghanistan, the U.S. Special Forces turned to some top-of-the-line military technology – from the 19th century.
On Thursday, July 9th, Doug Stanton will appear at the Pritzker Military Library to discuss his new book Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan. This event is free and open to the public. The presentation and live webcast will begin at 6:00 p.m., preceded by a reception for Library members at 5:00 p.m. It will also be recorded for later broadcast on WYCC-TV/Channel 20...
Enhancing the Security Cooperation Marine Air Ground Task Force to Satisfy the Needs of the Uncertain Global Security Environment
by Major Vincent A. Ciuccoli and Dr. David A. Anderson, Small Wars Journal
Enhancing the Security Cooperation MAGTF (Full PDF Article)
The United States Marine Corps (USMC) has developed the Security Cooperation Marine Air Ground Task Force (SC MAGTF) concept of force employment that will enable partner nations to foster stability in their respective regions. The USMC is prepared to be the solitary architect of this force; however the proposed employment of the SC MAGTF is a bold unilateral endeavor. A regionally focused security cooperation force is the ideal employment construct for the Department of Defense (DOD) but it must sufficiently integrate United States government agency capabilities and incorporate joint force multipliers. This paper analyzes the potential requirement for a specialized DOD security cooperation force and determines whether a joint and interagency venture will further enhance and legitimize the US Marine Corps’ current employment concept. The aim of this paper is to develop a significant contribution to the format of the SC MAGTF in order to ensure its success and permanent establishment within the regional civil-military arsenal.
Enhancing the Security Cooperation MAGTF (Full PDF Article)
Continue reading "Enhancing the Security Cooperation MAGTF" »
Not So Fast, Amigas y Amigos
by Colonel Robert Killebrew, Small Wars Journal
Not So Fast, Amigas y Amigos (Full PDF Article)
The United States has always had mixed feelings about our relationship with Central America, so when the Honduran Army sent President Manuel Zelaya packing last week, we joined with a chorus of regional leaders, including Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, in condemning the soldier’s putsch.
But now that we’ve exercised our moral indignation, we ought to step back and take a deep breath. As reports continue to come in, it appears that it was Zelaya, not the army, that was most egregiously breaking the law. The president was apparently involved in his own takeover, against the courts and Honduran Congress, and was about to stage a Chavez-style “referendum” on ballots printed in Venezuela and looted from an army warehouse where they were being safeguarded. The army’s move was legitimized by the Honduran Supreme Court and applauded by the Congress, which has appointed a stand-in president until regular elections this November.
Certainly we deplore military coups, just as we deplore sin. But in the tangled web of Central American politics, Honduras has long been the U.S.’ most staunch ally. Among the four states from Nicaragua north, it has tried hardest to convert from a military-run banana republic to a constitutional democracy and, until just the other day, with some success. It supported U.S. trainers in the Salvadoran civil war. It houses an American military joint task force. At our request, Honduran soldiers fought in Iraq. So while the verdict must be that military takeovers are bad, surely in this case there are extenuating circumstances for a faithful ally, particularly since the bottom-line issue seems to have been the survival of its constitutional form of government.
Via e-mail from David Sobyra, Acting Director, Center for Complex Operations (CCO) - the latest issue of the CCO Newsletter.
... There are two items in particular that I would like to bring to your attention. First, the CCO is launching a new journal of complex operations, called PRISM. You can find more information about it, along with a call for papers, on the front page of the newsletter. If you would like to subscribe to PRISM, please sign up here: (Select "CCO Prism Journal Distribution List" in the first box). The second item is our call for proposals for the second round of our Complex Operations Case Study Series, as we are currently finishing up our very successful first round in this series. These are just two of the many exciting initiatives we are working on at the CCO.
This edition of the newsletter also includes an announcement from LTG William Caldwell, Commanding General of the US Army's Combined Arms Center on the release of FM 3-07.1 Security Force Assistance, an update on recent events sponsored by the CCO, and interview with former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and a "Save the Date" announcement for our 2nd Annual Conference, to be held the afternoon of 28 July at Lincoln Hall Auditorium at the National Defense University. The invitation and agenda for this event will be forthcoming, and we expect to have a number of interesting speakers.
Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your colleagues who may not have heard of the CCO and who might be interested in our activities and, as always, we appreciate any feedback...
Continue reading "Center for Complex Operations (CCO) June Newsletter" »
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US Marines Launch Major Operation in Afghanistan - Rajiv Chandrasekaran Washington Post. Thousands of US Marines descended upon the volatile Helmand River valley in helicopters and armored convoys early Thursday morning, mounting an operation that represents the first large-scale test of the US military's new counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan. The operation will involve about 4,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which was dispatched to Afghanistan earlier this year by President Obama to combat a growing Taliban insurgency in Helmand and other southern provinces. The Marines, along with an Army brigade that is scheduled to arrive later this summer, plan to push into pockets of the country where NATO forces have not had a presence. In many of those areas, the Taliban have evicted local police and government officials, and taken power. Once Marine units arrive in their designated towns and villages, they have been instructed to build and live in small outposts among the local population. The brigade's commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, said his Marines will focus their efforts on protecting civilians from the Taliban, and on restoring Afghan government services, instead of a series of hunt-and-kill missions against the insurgents.
US Marines Try to Retake Afghan Valley From Taliban - Richard A. Oppel, Jr., New York Times. Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan early Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban fighters whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency. The Marine Expeditionary Brigade leading the operation represents a large number of the 21,000 additional troops that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year amid rising violence and the Taliban’s increasing domination in much of the country. The operation is described as the first major push in southern Afghanistan by the newly bolstered American force. Helmand is one of the deadliest provinces in Afghanistan, where Taliban fighters have practiced sleek, hit-and-run guerrilla warfare against the British forces based there.
US Launches South Afghan Offensive - Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal. The US military launched a major operation in southern Afghanistan, an early test of the Obama administration's new strategy for beating back the resurgent Taliban and stabilizing the country in advance of this summer's presidential elections. Operation Khanjar, or "strike of the sword," began shortly after 1 a.m. local time when close to 4,000 Marines, backed by about 700 Afghan security personnel, moved by air and ground into villages in the Helmand River Valley, a major opium-producing region and Taliban stronghold. US commanders said the forces would build an array of small patrol bases designed to forge closer ties with local people and better protect them from militants, borrowing an approach used in Iraq that is central to the administration's new counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan. The troops hope to root out pockets of Taliban fighters and find and destroy insurgent weapons caches, a US officer in Kabul said. The troops will also seek to interdict opium shipments and persuade local farmers to plant alternative crops, such as wheat, he said.
US Launches Major Offensive Against Taliban - The Times. Thousands of U.S. Marines stormed into an Afghan river valley by helicopter and land early today, launching the biggest military offensive of Barack Obama's presidency with an assault deep into Taliban territory. Operation Khanjar, which the Marines call simply "the decisive op", is intended to seize virtually the entire lower Helmand River valley, heartland of the Taliban insurgency and the world's biggest heroin producing region. In swiftly seizing the valley, commanders hope to accomplish within hours what NATO troops had failed to achieve over several years, and by doing so turn the tide of a stale-mated war in time for an Afghan presidential election on August 20. "Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brigadier General Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marines in southern Afghanistan said in a statement.
US Marines Launch Assault in Afghanistan - Reuters. US Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley in southern Afghanistan, spokesman Capt. Bill Pelletier said. A Reuters correspondent in the valley saw flares in the sky over the town of Nawa, south of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. The valley of irrigated wheat and opium fields along the Helmand river is largely in the hands of Taliban fighters who have resisted British-led NATO forces for years. The United States has sent 8,500 Marines to Helmand province in the last two months, the largest wave of a massive buildup of forces that will see the number of US troops in Afghanistan rise from 32,000 at the beginning of this year to 68,000 by year's end. President Barack Obama has declared the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan to be the main security threat facing the United States.
Major Military Operation Under Way in Afghanistan - Fisnik Abrashi and Lara Jakes, Associated Press. Thousands of US Marines and hundreds of Afghan troops moved into Taliban-infested villages with armor and helicopters Wednesday evening in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's revamped strategy to stabilize Afghanistan. The offensive in the once-forgotten war was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold in the southern part of the country. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested Helmand River Valley before the nation's Aug. 20 presidential election. Dubbed Operation Khanjar, or "Strike of the Sword," the military push was described by officials as the largest and fastest-moving of the war's new phase. British forces last week led similar missions to fight and clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar provinces. "Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces," Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement. Southern Afghanistan is a Taliban stronghold but also a region where Afghan President Hamid Karzai is seeking votes from fellow Pashtun tribesmen. The Pentagon is deploying 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in time for the elections and expects the total number of US forces there to reach 68,000 by year's end. That is double the number of troops in Afghanistan in 2008, but still half of much as are now in Iraq.
US Opens 'Major Afghan Offensive' - BBC News. The United States army says it has launched a major offensive against the Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand. The US military says about 4,000 marines as well as 650 Afghan troops are involved, supported by Nato planes. Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said the operation was different from previous ones because of the "massive size of the force" and its speed. Officers on the ground said it was the largest Marine offensive since Vietnam. The operation began when units moved into the Helmand river valley in the early hours of Thursday. Helicopters and heavy transport vehicles carried out the advance, with NATO planes providing air cover.
US Launches 'Major Operation' in Afghanistan - CNN News. US troops have launched a "major operation" against Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan, US military officials announced in Afghanistan early Thursday. About 4,000 Americans, mostly from the Marines, and 650 Afghan soldiers and police launched Operation Khanjar - "strike of the sword" - in the Helmand River valley, the US command in Kabul announced. The push is the largest since the Pentagon began moving additional troops into the conflict this year, and it follows a British-led operation launched last week in the same region, the Marines said. It is also the first big move since US Gen. Stanley McChrystal took over as the allied commander in Afghanistan in mid-June. In Washington, a senior defense official said the size and scope of the new operation are "very significant." "It's not common for forces to operate at the brigade level," the official said. "In fact, they often only conduct missions at the platoon level. And they're going into the most troubled area of Afghanistan." Helmand Province, where much of the fighting is taking place, has been a hotbed of Taliban violence in recent months. At least 25 US and British troops have been killed there in 2009. The defense official said the operation is a "tangible indication" of the new approach that McChrystal - a former chief of the Pentagon's special operations command - is bringing to the nearly eight-year war.
US Marines Storm South in Major Afghan Offensive - Ben Sheppard, Agence France-Presse. US Marines launched a massive offensive into the Taliban heartlands of southern Afghanistan early on Thursday as President Barack Obama's new war plan swung into action. Operation Khanjar (Strike of the Sword) involved nearly 4,000 US forces as well as 650 Afghan police and soldiers, the Marine Expeditionary Brigade said, announcing the pre-dawn launch of the drive in southern Helmand province. Deploying about 50 aircraft, the air and land assault was to push troops into insurgent strongholds in what officers said was the biggest offensive airlift by the Marines since Vietnam. "What makes Operation Khanjar different from those that have occurred before is the massive size of the force introduced, the speed at which it will insert," MEB commander Brigadier General Larry Nicholson said in a statement. Troops would hold areas they take until they could transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces, said Nicholson. It was the Marines' first major operation since they deployed over the past few months to reinforce the international effort against the Taliban, leading an insurgency that has seen record attacks this year and controlling several areas.
Marine General Takes Fight To The Taliban - Tom Bowman, National Public Radio. The leader of some 4,000 Marines who descended early Thursday morning on the Helmand River valley in southern Afghanistan is Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, a veteran of Iraq who was seriously wounded there five years ago. Commanding general of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Nicholson has one of those lived-in faces - creased and craggy, like a boxer's or a veteran beat cop. And he has the scars of a Marine who survived battle. It was Sept. 14, 2004, a day Nicholson remembers clearly in Iraq's Anbar province. The war was not going well.
Q&A: The New US Strategy in Afghanistan - Jonathon Burch, Reuters. Concrete signs of Washington's new strategy for Afghanistan are taking shape with the final elements of some 8,500 US Marines arriving in southern Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold, to bolster over-stretched British forces. The Marines launched a helicopter assault early on Thursday in the lower Helmand river valley, with nearly 4,000 Marines and US sailors and about 650 Afghan troops and police involved. The Marines are the biggest single wave of an additional 17,000 extra US troops and 4,000 more to train Afghan forces ordered by President Barack Obama. US forces will reach 68,000 by year-end, more than double the 32,000 at the end of 2008. Former special operations chief General Stanley McChrystal has meanwhile taken command of the present 90,000 US and NATO troops with the Pentagon saying it is time for "fresh thinking." Following are questions and answers about the new strategy and the main areas McChrystal wants to address.
Continue reading "US Marines Launch Major Operation in Afghanistan - "Largest Since Vietnam"" »
DoD Announces New Defense Policy Board Members
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates today announced the following new members to the Defense Policy Board: Gen. (Ret) Larry Welch, former Air Force chief of staff ; Stephen Biddle, Council on Foreign Relations; Richard Danzig, former secretary of the Navy; Robert Gallucci, former assistant secretary of state; Chuck Hagel, former senator from Nebraska; Robert D. Kaplan, Center for a New American Security; Andrew Krepinevich, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; Rudy deLeon, former deputy secretary of defense; John Nagl, Center for a New American Security; Sarah Sewall, Harvard University; Wendy Sherman, former special advisor to the President.
These members join the following returning members: John Hamre, chairman; Harold Brown; Adm. (Ret) Vern Clark; J.D. Crouch; Fred Ikle; Gen. (Ret) Jack Keane; Henry Kissinger; Dave McCurdy; Frank Miller; William Perry; James Schlesinger; Marin Strmecki; Vin Weber; Gen. (Ret) Pete Pace.
The Defense Policy Board provides the secretary, deputy secretary and under secretary for policy with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning matters of defense policy.
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Call in the Cavalry! - Patrick Devenny, Foreign Policy.
As American troops in Afghanistan seek to rebuild a flagging campaign, they might do well to read up on the lessons of another troubled Afghan project, the Anglo-Afghan Wars -- and specifically, the lessons of one Captain Charles Trower, a British cavalry officer who deployed to India in the 1830s. His 1845 memoir, Hints on Irregular Cavalry, says pretty much all there is to say about one of the most complicated problems in Afghanistan today: the training and oversight of local defense forces.
Last October, the Los Angeles Times reported that Pentagon leaders had authorized American commanders in Afghanistan to aggressively mobilize and mentor village-based self-defense forces. Made up largely of Pashtun tribesmen and recruited through tribal leaders, such units are expected to provide security in areas where Afghan government forces have failed to stem Taliban encroachment. This shift in strategy is not surprising given the success of similar initiatives in Iraq and the growth of the insurgency across southern Afghanistan. Results of the late 2008 decision are now seeping into the press: American reporters recently covered the graduation and deployment of 80 members of the Afghan Public Protection force, otherwise known as "Guardians." But the fielding of these units entails great risks: lack of government oversight and empowerment of warlords, just to state the obvious...
Much more at Foreign Policy.
It’s not often when a SWJ friend lands a starring role in a network news series – so we were quite excited when we learned that Roger Carstens will be co-starring in NBC News’ The Wanted. Congratulations Roger and best of luck with the show! Continue on for the NBC News press release…
From War Managers to Soldier Diplomats
The Coming Revolution in Civil Military Relations
by Dr. Tony Corn
From War Managers to Soldier Diplomats (Full PDF Article)
The irrelevance of International Relations theory to the conduct of foreign policy has received renewed attention since 9/11. Though lamented by a few, this state of affairs has been on the whole lauded by a profession by now unreflexively committed to evaluating the degree of “originality” of any academic research on one criteria only: its degree of policy irrelevance.
Much less has been written on the irrelevance of civil-military relations theory for the conduct of military policy – and for a good reason: outside of military circles, few people are even aware of the existence of this obscure sub-field which has been an intellectual backwater for the past generation. If you like the proverbial insularity of IR theory, you have to love the intellectual in-breeding permeating a field cultivated by two dozen practitioners mono-maniacally obsessed with the “civilian control of the military,” and who keep plowing their ever-shrinking plot seemingly unaware of the law of diminishing returns.
In the academic pecking order, specialists of civil-military relations rank toward the bottom - somewhere between sports sciences and gender studies; yet, over the years, this little-known academic tribe has managed to yield a disproportionate influence on military culture through its role in the equally little-known domain of professional military education (PME).
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Election Security Planning in Afghanistan
The US Army/USMC Counterinsurgency Center is pleased to host Mr. Nick Maroukis at the COIN Center Virtual-Brownbag from 1200 to 1300 CST (1300 - 1400 EST) on Wednesday, 1 July 2009. Mr. Nick Maroukis, security advisor to the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan (IEC), will be discussing Election Security Planning in preparation for 2009 Afghan Presidential and Provincial Council Elections which will take place on 20 Aug 09.
The IEC has the authority and responsibility to administrate and supervise all kind of elections; as well as refer to general public opinion of the people, in accordance the provision of the law. The IEC consists of nine members, including a chairperson and a deputy chairperson, appointed by Presidential Decree No.21, dated 19 Jan 2005.
Those interested in attending may view the meeting on-line at https://adobe.harmonieweb.org/coinvtc/ and participate via Adobe Connect as a guest. Remote attendees will be able to ask questions and view the slides through the software.
The Navy’s Gators
An Endangered Species?
by Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Armstrong, Small Wars Journal
The Navy’s Gators: An Endangered Species? (Full PDF Article)
For over five decades the nuclear powered Aircraft Carrier has been the center of naval strategy and policy for the United States of America. In the 1950’s the big guns of the gray-hull battleships had been America’s capital ships since the Spanish American War. In the six decades that the battleships ruled the seas they brought the United States from a regional power to a global leader in the bipolar world of the Cold War. The Carrier and its embarked air-wing have dominated the oceans, littorals, and near-shore, taking the United States to its current position as the world’s lone Superpower. In the post-Cold War world, filled with asymmetric threats, a global war on terrorism, and the prospect of mounting regional stability operations, it is time for the Sea Services to re-evaluate what they consider their capital ship. In the 21st century the busiest and most important naval vessels, and therefore our capital ships, are the Amphibious Assault Ships, known affectionately by their Sailors and Marines as The Gators.
Throughout the United States Navy’s 233 year history strategy and policy have dictated what vessel was the focus of our nation’s shipbuilding plans. The early Navy was based around the strategic concept of guerre de course, and its missions of commerce protection and commerce raiding. The result was an American Navy based around Humphrey’s Fast Frigates as the capital ship. As the nation left the age of sail and the littoral warfare of the Civil War behind us, and began to move toward the world’s stage, it became clear that a blue water fleet was required. Visionaries like CAPT A.T. Mahan helped lead to a fleet dominated by battleships and the battlefleet. After years of struggle against the “battleship mafia” by men like ADM Moffet, World War II dramatically demonstrated the importance of the Aircraft Carrier. The struggle against the Soviets placed it and the Air Wing as the central vessel of the time. American naval strength throughout history has been ensured by the ability to recognize when new strategic challenges present themselves. It is time to consider what asset best accomplishes the strategic missions of the new century as a guide to identify today’s capital ship and shipbuilding priority.
The Navy’s Gators: An Endangered Species? (Full PDF Article)
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Hat tip to Zenpundit Mark Safranski for the lead on Steven Pressfield's blog It's the Tribes, Stupid. Added to our blogroll...
This five-part series is about war in Afghanistan, ancient and modern. I'm not doing this for money or politics. I'm a Marine and I don't want young Marines and soldiers going into harm's way without the full arsenal of history and context.
What's my thesis? That the key to understanding Afghanistan today is not Islamism or jihadism. It's tribalism. The tribal mind-set (warrior pride, hostility to outsiders, codes of honor and resistance to change) permeates everything. Think of these videos as a mini-course in tribalism. I invite discussion. Tell me I'm crazy, tell me I'm wrong. If you agree, tell me too.
Visit It's the Tribes, Stupid.
The People in Arms
A Practitioner’s Guide to Understanding Insurgency and Dealing with it Effectively
by Colonel G. L. Lamborn, Small Wars Journal
The People in Arms (Full PDF Article)
Since Clausewitz’s day, many thinkers, military and civilian, have written about the problem of insurgency or, as Clausewitz put it, “the people in arms.” Unfortunately, on the one hand, many of these works were written at the level of the political scientist or sociologist, and were therefore largely theoretical, and thus of little interest to the tactician. On the other hand, many works were purely tactical in nature – useful to the man at squad or platoon level, but lacking any broader theoretical context to explain why what is observed exists. These tactical manuals thus became “formulaic” – “in such and such a circumstance, do this.” But explanations of why a particular insurgency came to be, or its specific dynamics or vulnerabilities, have generally been given short shrift or ignored entirely. Thus, many tactical books are long on how to conduct “kinetic” activities, but woefully short on what really matters about dealing effectively with insurgencies. The theoretical books are long on what ought to be done, but often lack an operational perspective that would provide some idea as to how to go about doing what is recommended.
Clausewitz himself admits (Chapter 26) that his understanding of “the people in arms” was limited, though he states that the importance of this form of conflict would grow with the passage of years. Clausewitz evidently did not understand that “the people in arms” was to become far more than merely a useful adjunct of conventional operations, such as the partisan or resistance movements in Napoleon’s day or in Nazi-occupied Europe. From peasant uprisings and relatively unfocused tribal warfare in remote areas of the globe during the nineteenth century, irregular warfare has evolved into a distinct species of conflict with its own “rules” and dynamic. Unfortunately, many senior Western military officers, trained in the strategy and tactics of conventional warfare, are slowly (sometimes very painfully) learning that the “rules” of conventional warfare as taught at Sandhurst, West Point, or Saint-Cyr do not necessarily apply to insurgency.
The author has been a student and observer, and sometimes a participant, in various insurgencies since his “initiation” in Vietnam in 1969. What is presented in this work is a distillation of those experiences and studies gathered over approximately forty years on four continents, to include some firsthand experience with the contemporary American struggles in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as some experience in working with insurgent movements in the 1980s. This short work is intended to give the reader an understanding of the true nature of insurgency and a glimpse at the reasons why we have not always dealt with it effectively. If the reader gains some insight into insurgency, and can apply his knowledge intelligently, Jimmy Doolittle’s wish will come true: we will start fighting more from the neckline up – and less from the neckline down.
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Pakistan Army Operation Hinders Taliban Efforts in Afghanistan, US Says - Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times.
Pakistan's military offensive against the Taliban has slowed the flow of arms and fighters into Afghanistan, US officials say, and has prompted intelligence analysts to issue cautiously upbeat new assessments of Islamabad's ability to contain the threat of violent extremists.
US intelligence and military officials said the revised outlook reflected a series of developments over the last few months, including not only the Pakistani military campaign in the country's Swat Valley, but shifting political currents that have prompted many Pakistanis to turn against extremist groups and back their government's anti-insurgency efforts.
"All of a sudden military operations [against militants] are being imbued with a kind of legitimacy, popular support and political support they have never had before," said a senior US intelligence official who oversees analysis of the region, describing the evolving view on condition of anonymity...
More at The Los Angeles Times.
Continue reading "Pakistan Army Operation Hinders Taliban Efforts in Afghanistan" »
Sometimes we get so focused here at SWJ on what others are saying we miss the very good stuff in our own backyard - so implies Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette. Council members get down and dirty concerning the ROE change in Afghanistan specifically and during COIN generally. Great discussion and worth a look - and for you lurkers - worth signing up and chiming in.
One Army or Two? - asks Greg Grant at DoD Buzz.
... Does that ability of troops to shift back and forth seamlessly between different types of operations hold across the board? I would argue that it’s not always the case. For example: there was a clear difference in competence between Sallee’s soldiers doing a cordon and knock operation and an artillery company temporarily converted into a motorized rifle company doing the same task. The 11 Bravos, the infantry, were just much better at basic infantryman skills, which stands to reason. Special operators, who relentlessly train to take down a house or roomful of enemy, are much better than the 11 Bravos, although that gap has narrowed considerably in recent years as the rank-and-file ground pounder has accumulated a mass of experience doing cordon and knock operations during combat tours in Iraq.
Speaking earlier this month at a CNAS conference in Washington, Gen. David Petraeus weighed in on the issue. “Our troopers can still very much fight,” he said, but instead of preparing just for the big battles, current and future wars require troops prepare for a constantly shifting mix of conflict, across the low and high intensity scale, he said. “We’re not doing the big tank armies colliding in the central corridor anymore, we’re doing continuous complex counterinsurgency which sometimes requires very significant kinetic ops, often requires very significant stability and support, all integrated.” Readying units for a major force on force fight might mean a couple of weeks spent brushing up on shooting big metal targets at the NTC, he said.
The Army is wrestling with the issue. Trainers at the Army’s premier training center are mindful of a potential atrophy of high-intensity skills and try to include some training in those tasks for units preparing for Iraq and Afghanistan, said Maj. Michael Burgoyne, co-author of an excellent book on adapting to counterinsurgency: The Defense of Jisr Al-Dorea. “It’s about finding a balance… somewhere in between counterinsurgency and high-intensity conflict, some kind of mix of capabilities where we can do a lot,” he told me...
Much more at DoD Buzz.
Ed. Note - the following comment was received via email and is posted in its entirety.
As the Army's senior leader on suicide prevention, I would like to add a few comments regarding Robert Haddick’s Small Wars Journal post Army's ‘suicide watch’ report is spineless (SWJ 16 June 2009).
I am glad that we agree on certain points. Congress and the Army should aggressively implement and fund suicide prevention programs. Commanders at all levels must give sincere attention to the issue. We need to prioritize improvements to the welfare of Soldiers and their Families. Attention to suicide, its causes and prevention, are part of force preservation. All of these points appear in the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention (ACPHP), which the Army published on April 16, 2009.
The Army's collection and dissemination of suicide data is intended to be helpful in not only understanding the issue, but also in keeping awareness of the issue at the forefront of our leaders' minds. It is in no way disrespectful or depersonalizing to Soldiers. It is meant to save lives. You may not realize that senior Army leadership receives a briefing, in painful detail, about every Army suicide so that we can learn lessons on what might be done to prevent future suicides. Those briefings occur on a monthly basis, and I attend every one of them. Let me assure you, each suicide represents an anguishing, heartbreaking tragedy. The details of those briefings include personal information about the deceased Soldier that is subject to privacy laws and considerations for next of kin, and so are not released to the public. But they absolutely reinforce the necessity of being transparent in our discussions about suicide and learning from the cases in order to prevent further suicides.
Also, gauging the scope and nature of the suicide problem absolutely requires data collection, including counting the number of suicides. In October, the Army entered into a memorandum of understanding with the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct a longitudinal study to ascertain the factors involved in suicide and to identify effective suicide intervention techniques. Any statistical or epidemiological analysis to assess causation and remedies involves data collection.
I should also mention that the number of suicides is public information that the Army provides to Congress on a monthly basis. Simultaneous press briefings on the subject foster transparency in the Army's approach to the suicide problem and relay lessons learned that may actually help society as it wrestles with the same problem.
The statistical summary never purported to be more than just that – a summary. We have frequently cited the Army's suicide rate as you suggested and compared it to the like civilian population. The Army's rate for 2008 was 20 per 100,000; however, the latest suicide rate for the demographically adjusted civilian population from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) - 19 per 100,000 - dates from 2006, as their statistics lag by two years. It marked the first time the Army's rate was above the CDC rate. After 2006, no comparison data is yet available from the CDC. It may be that the civilian suicide rate also spiked from 2007 to date. In any case, however one measures the rate, it is unacceptable, and we are committed to bringing it down.
I appreciate your interest about the suicides within the Army, and hope that these comments help address your concerns.
General Peter W. Chiarelli is the Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
Continue reading "General Chiarelli on Army Suicide Prevention" »
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Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
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Pentagon to Outline Shift in War Planning Strategy - Thom Shanker, New York Times.
The Pentagon will adopt a new strategy that for the first time orders the military to anticipate that future conflicts will include a complex mix of conventional, set-piece battles and campaigns against shadowy insurgents and terrorists, according to senior officials.
The shift is intended to assure that the military is prepared to deal with a spectrum of possible threats, including computer network attacks, attempts to blind satellite positioning systems, strikes by precision missiles and roadside bombs, and propaganda campaigns waged on television and the Internet. The new strategy has broad implications for training, troop deployment, weapons procurement and other aspects of military planning.
In officially embracing hybrid warfare, the Pentagon would be replacing a second pillar of long-term planning. Senior officials disclosed in March that the review was likely to reject a historic premise of American strategy- that the nation need only to prepare to fight two major wars at a time...
More at The New York Times.
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Funding the U.S. Counterinsurgency Wars - Stephen Biddle, Council on Foreign Relations.
As Congress turns to the defense budget, battles over constituency politics and cost overruns will mask a deeper story. Defense budgets represent the nation's effort to meet the demands of warfare, and this one in particular reflects an underlying debate over the future of war.
A younger generation of officers and civilian analysts shaped by Iraq and Afghanistan sees the future of war in low-intensity conflicts with non-state actors. Conventional wars between states are a thing of the past, they argue, so high-tech major weapon programs and heavy military formations are dinosaurs in a world of guerilla warfare and terrorism. The military (and the defense budget) should get on with it and transform to emphasize the low-tech weapons, cultural skills, and boots on the ground needed for a future of counterinsurgency and nation-building...
Much more at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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One-Sided COIN - Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, The American Conservative.
... In Counterinsurgency 2.0, the Democrats and their military partners now emphasize a “population-centric” over an “enemy-centric” approach, rebooting the old “clear, hold, and build” by adding a “civilian surge” and a ramped-up humanitarian mission. The goal for Afghanistan is to flood the country with Foreign Service officers, diplomats, and aid workers to fight corruption and rebuild institutions. The military serves to protect populations, “open up space” for democracy, and eventually marginalize the enemy.
So far it’s not happening that way. The Pentagon has maintained a lead on operations, and according to reports, there just aren’t enough State Department officials to make a dent in Kabul, so DoD is planning to take up the slack by directing capable Reserve officers (and probably private contractors) toward the civilian component.
Many have been left wondering what happened to Obama’s promise to re-orient foreign policy so that it is not so military-centric and whether he will end up authorizing new forces beyond the 68,000 U.S. troops expected in Afghanistan by the end of the year.
“We’ve basically turned our foreign policy over to the military,” fumed one national-security analyst from a competing Washington think tank who did not want to be named. “Every problem has a military solution. Every problem is a nail because we have a hammer. I think you’re starting to see that at CNAS.”
Open criticism of CNAS is rare because the COINdinistas are so snug in the Beltway bosom. While Republican warhawks love that CNAS speaks their language, antiwar liberals and others who chafe against the Long War find themselves derided...
Much more at The American Conservative.
Also, in the latest issue of Joint Force Quarterly, John Nagl and Gian Gentile continue the COIN debate with letters to the editor.
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As the Iranian opposition takes its case to the country's religious leader, Joshua Keating at Foreign Policy lists - and provides background on - five hard-line mullahs who could stand in the way.
Also at Foreign Policy, an exclusive interview with Mir Hossein Mousavi's external spokesman describing this week's protests in Iran as another revolution - and Mousavi as Iran's Obama.
But wait, there's more at FP, Blake Hounshell describes war on the streets of Tehran, Daniel Drezner thinks it's pretty clear that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not going to retrench, Evgeny Morozov discusses the repercussions of a Twitter revolution, Stephen Walt says we shouldn't succumb to the illusion that Ahmadinejad's defeat and Mousavi's triumph would produce a dramatic shift in Iran’s foreign policy, and Laura Rozen provides Iran news links.
And in the not at FP category - The New York Time's The Lede blog has "blow by blow" coverage with extensive links to the situation in Iran to include Twitter, Facebook, etc…
Of course, these links are by no means an exhaustive listing of the mainstream and new media reports streaming out of and about Iran - please post your top sources in comments below - thanks much!
Continue reading "Iran's Worst Clerics and What the Opposition Wants" »
The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars
By David H. Ucko
SWJ friend and colleague David Ucko’s latest contribution to our community of interest – to be released in August – you can pre-order a copy at Amazon. Considering David’s previous work – this should be very good and quite an informative read.
Book Description
Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has recognized the need to "re-learn" counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures?
In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality. Ucko also suggests how the military can better prepare for the unique challenges of modern warfare, where it is charged with everything from providing security to supporting reconstruction to establishing basic governance--all while stabilizing conquered territory and engaging with local populations. After briefly surveying the history of American counterinsurgency operations, Ucko focuses on measures the military has taken since 2001 to relearn old lessons about counterinsurgency, to improve its ability to conduct stability operations, to change the institutional bias against counterinsurgency, and to account for successes gained from the learning process.
Given the effectiveness of insurgent tactics, the frequency of operations aimed at building local capacity, and the danger of ungoverned spaces acting as havens for hostile groups, the military must acquire new skills to confront irregular threats in future wars. Ucko clearly shows that the opportunity to come to grips with counterinsurgency is matched in magnitude only by the cost of failing to do so.
About the Author
David Ucko is a transatlantic fellow at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, Germany and an adjunct fellow at the RAND Corporation, specializing in counterinsurgency, stability operations, and conflict analysis. He has previously worked as a research fellow at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, and as a deputy defense analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Early Reviews
This is an important book for anyone interested in the U.S. military's effort to learn from contemporary conflict and adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq. Ucko's thorough research and incisive analysis have produced one of the most valuable books on military affairs to appear in recent years.
--H. R. McMaster, Brigadier General select, U.S. Army and author of Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam
This is hot-off-the-press history, an essential look at how the Pentagon has--and has not--changed in response to the Iraq war.
--Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco and The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-08
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Army Faces Biggest Cuts Since Crimea - Michael Smith, The Times.
The Ministry of Defence intends to cut army manpower to its lowest level since the Crimean war.
Plans to axe three infantry battalions - a total of 1,800 men - are being discussed despite the overstretch caused by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This would see the size of the army drop below 100,000 for the first time since the 1850s.
The army is so desperate to protect funding for Afghanistan that it could offer cuts only in infantry units to meet demands for savings.
General Sir David Richards, the incoming head of the army, offered to sacrifice The Green Howards, the regiment of General Sir Richard Dannatt, the current head of the army.
The plan was discussed at a high-level meeting of the army, the navy and the RAF in Whitehall last Tuesday. The defence ministry said this weekend it could not discuss the proposed cuts because next year’s planning round was “ongoing”.
The RAF proposed the scrapping of Harrier jump jets while the navy proposed axing Type42 destroyers early, and putting back the replacement for its frigates for 20 years...
More at The Times.
Institutionalizing Stability Operations Lessons
by Dr. Nadia Schadlow
I like William Easterly because he’s usually right on the money. The respected economist took on the aid-industrial complex in his trenchant analysis of the persistent dysfunctions of the development community, White Man’s Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. In that book, which is very much worth reading, Easterly carefully documents how decades of aid failed to produce desired outcomes because it ignored local realities, tended to apply “utopian” plans, lacked approaches to measure and evaluate actual outcomes (as opposed to money spent), and ultimately, failed to impose any accountability for failure. Thus, literally billions of dollars have been wasted, with few material benefits for the individuals on the ground such aid sought to help.
Nonetheless, on his NYU post, in which Easterly takes on the Army’s new Stability Operations manual (FM 3-07) for being too utopian and exemplifying a tendency toward “social engineering” gone awry, I think his analysis is mistaken. Easterly is conflating the need for preparation under fire, with the desire to build a colonial Army that would go out and change the world. He argues that “The danger is that, if put into practice, such delusions create excessive ambition, which creates excessive use of military force, which kills real human beings, Afghans and Iraqis.”
The Army has learned the hard way that the failure to prepare for the intensely political machinations of war can cost both military and civilian lives...
Continue reading "Institutionalizing Stability Operations Lessons" »
Commander
Headquarters
International Security Assistance Force
Kabul Afghanistan
APO AE 09356
Commander's Initial Guidance As of: 13 June 09
To the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Civilians of ISAF,
The situation in Afghanistan is serious. The outcome is important--and not yet decided. Our actions this year will be critical. We must, and will, succeed.
Success will be defined by the Afghan people's freedom to choose their future--freedom from coercion, extremists, malign foreign influence, or abusive government actions.
The outcome will be determined by our ability to understand and act with precision, the values we display, our unity of purpose, and our resolve.
The challenges to Afghanistan are complex and interrelated. Solutions will not be simple. The ongoing insurgency must be met with a counterinsurgency campaign adapted to the unique conditions in each area
that:
- Protects the Afghan people--allowing them to choose a future they can be proud of
- Provides a secure environment allowing good government and economic development to undercut the causes and advocates of insurgency
This effort will be long and difficult--there is no single secret for success. As imperatives we must:
1. Protect and Partner with the People. We are fighting for the Afghan people--not against them. Our focus on their welfare will build the trust and support necessary for success.
2. Conduct a comprehensive Counterinsurgency Campaign. Insurgencies fail when root causes disappear. Security is essential; but I believe our ultimate success lies in partnering with the Afghan Government, partner nations, NGO's, and other to build the foundations of good government and economic development.
3. Understand the Environment. We must understand in detail the situation, however complex, and be able to explain it to others. Our ability to act effectively demands a real appreciation for the positive and negative impact of everything we do--or fail to do. Understanding is a prerequisite for success.
4. Ensure Values Underpin our Effort. We must demonstrate thru our words and actions our commitment to fair play, our respect and sensitivity for the cultures and traditions of others, and an understanding that rule of law and humanity don't end when fighting starts. Both our goals and conduct must be admired.
5. Listen Closely--Speak Clearly. We must listen to understand--and speak clearly to be understood. Communicating our intentions and accurately reflecting our actions to all audiences is a critical responsibility--and necessity.
6. Act as One Team. We are an alliance of nations with different histories, cultures, and national objectives--united in our support for Afghanistan.
We must be unified in purpose, forthright in communication, and committed to each other.
7. Constantly Adapt. This war is unique, and our ability to respond to even subtle changes in conditions will be decisive. I ask you to challenge conventional wisdom and abandon practices that are ingrained into many military cultures. And I ask you to push me to do the same.
8. Act with Courage and Resolve. Hard fighting, difficult decisions, and inevitable losses will mark the days ahead. Each of us, from our most junior personnel to our senior leaders, must display physical, mental, and moral courage. Our partners must trust our commitment; enemies must not question our resolve.
You have my thanks for all that you have done, and will do. I promise to be the best partner I am able to be.
//Original Signed//
STANLEY A. McCHRYSTAL
General, U.S. Army
Commander,
U.S. Forces-Afghanistan /
International Security Assistance
Force, Afghanistan
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
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We Don’t Need the F-22 - New York Times editorial.
You would think that with all the legitimate and expensive claims on the government pocketbook - including two wars, an economic crisis and desperately needed health care reform - Congress would be extra judicious about how it spends the taxpayers’ money. But no, at least not when it comes to the House Armed Services Committee and lucrative defense contracts.
The panel has proved again how the insatiable drive to keep fancy weapons systems alive can trump all good sense. With Representative Rob Bishop of Utah and other Republicans leading the charge, and with the support of six Democrats, the committee this week narrowly voted to keep producing the Air Force’s F-22 stealth fighter jet.
We adamantly opposed Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s proposal to buy four more F-22s in next year’s budget. But at least he wanted to cap the fleet at 187 planes. The House committee has voted to approve a $369 million down payment on 12 more. If all of those are bought, the total price tag would be about $2.8 billion...
More at The New York Times.
A New Afghanistan Commander Rethinks How to Measure Success - Thom Shanker, New York Times.
The new American commander in Afghanistan has ordered a 60-day review of the entire military mission to identify better ways to separate the population from insurgents, an assessment that is expected to lead to new economic and military steps to carve fighters off from the Taliban.
Over the next week, the commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is scheduled to crisscross Afghanistan to meet provincial leaders, villagers and American and allied officials, while counterinsurgency experts from inside and outside the government assist in the top-to-bottom review.
Although the review is in its preliminary stages, General McChrystal is already pledging to expand the fight beyond the purely military campaign to defeat the insurgents...
More at The New York Times.
Continue reading "A New Afghanistan Commander Rethinks How to Measure Success" »
Iran Protesters Pour Onto Ahmadinejad's Home Turf - Borzou Daragahi, Ramin Mostaghim and Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times. The fourth day of demonstrations came as Iranians anticipated an address to the nation today by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at Friday prayers. Despite his status, analysts said, Khamenei has little room to maneuver: There appears to be no constitutional mechanism to end Iran's biggest political challenge in 30 years, and the nation's factional politics have become a blood sport. Dressed in black to mourn those killed in the clashes and green to mark their allegiance to rival candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the protesters moved into traditionally conservative south Tehran, pouring out of a subway station into the vast Imam Khomeini Square.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei Backs Disputed Election Result - The Times. Iran’s Supreme Leader has appealed for calm and attacked “enemies” questioning the result of the presidential vote that has sparked the biggest street protests in the Islamic Republic’s history. “Today the Iranian nation needs calm,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in his first address to the nation since the upheaval began. He said Iran’s enemies were targeting the legitimacy of the Islamic establishment by disputing the outcome of the election. Tens of thousands of Iranians had gathered in and around Tehran University to hear the Friday prayer sermon.
As Standoff Deepens, Iran’s Leader Urges Return to Faith - Nazila Fathi and Michael Slackman, New York Times. As another day of defiance and uncertainty loomed in Iran’s capital, many Iranians looked to an appearance by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who led the national prayer service from Tehran University on Friday. Political analysts said they hoped that the leader would reveal his ultimate intent, indicating a willingness to either appease the opposition or demand an end to protests that followed presidential elections a week ago. He blamed “media belonging to Zionists, evil media” for seeking to show divisions between those who supported the Iranian state and those who did not.
Opposition March Mourns Iranians Killed in Protests - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. A huge throng of opposition supporters, many clad in black, took to the streets of Tehran on Thursday to mourn protesters killed by a pro-government militia and back a challenge to the proclaimed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In response to a call by the leading opposition candidate in the presidential election last Friday, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the massive procession streamed toward Imam Khomeini Square largely in silence, then broke into chants against Ahmadinejad and alleged electoral fraud, witnesses said.
Shadowy Iranian Vigilantes Vow Bolder Action - Neil McFarquhar, New York Times. The daytime protests across the Islamic republic have been largely peaceful. But Iranians shudder at the violence unleashed in their cities at night, with the shadowy vigilantes known as Basijis beating, looting and sometimes gunning down protesters they tracked during the day. The vigilantes plan to take their fight into the daylight on Friday, with the public relations department of Ansar Hezbollah, the most public face of the Basij, announcing that they planned a public demonstration to expose the “seditious conspiracy” being carried out by “agitating hooligans.”
Several Scenarios, Not All Bright, Could Result From Iran's Tumult - Gerald F. Seib, Wall Street Journal. It's nothing if not exhilarating to watch young people in Tehran's streets trying to change the nature of the Iranian regime, and to imagine that they are forcing deep and positive changes in the nation that has been America's most implacable foe for a generation. Yet it also would be a mistake to ignore this darker reality: In the short run, the turmoil there could just as easily make Iran more dangerous and harder for the West to deal with. The fact that it's possible to envision such starkly different outcomes illustrates just how remarkable the story unfolding in Iran really is, and how much it is pulling the country and the watching world off into uncharted territory.
Can Iran's Top Clerics Defuse the Crisis? - Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor. Iran's top clerical leadership is taking steps to defuse six days of crisis and violence, as Iranians challenging the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the streets again on Thursday. Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei is due to lead Friday prayers in Tehran - at which conservative factions have vowed a large turnout - and he is expected to deliver a message of unity. The powerful Guardian Council is to meet on Saturday with all three defeated candidates. The council is examining 646 opposition complaints, and has said it will consider a partial recount. But the 12 clerics on the Council have all but ruled out a full recount, never mind a re-run of the election, as demanded by defeated top contender Mir Hossein Mousavi- and the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have rallied for him on the streets this week.
Iranian Leaders to Meet With Challengers - Farnaz Fassihi and Roshanak Taghavi, Wall Street Journal. One of Iran's top oversight bodies said Thursday it will invite the country's three unsuccessful presidential challengers to a meeting to discuss the contested elections, while as many as hundreds of thousands of protesters marched mostly peacefully through the capital's streets. Many protesters wore black and carried candles in mourning for people killed in recent clashes. The move by the Guardian Council was the latest in a series of unprecedented concessions to the losers in disputed June 12 elections that, Iran state media has said, were won in a landslide by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mir Hossein Mousavi and two other presidential challengers have alleged vote rigging, a charge Mr. Ahmadinejad has denied.
Iran Leader's Top Aide Warns US on Meddling - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's top political aide said Thursday that the United States will regret its "interference" in Iran's disputed election. The aide, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, said in an interview that President Obama's comments this week about street demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities will "make things harder" if the Obama administration attempts to engage Iran in talks over nuclear and other issues.
'The Fear Is Gone' - Voices from Iran, Wall Street Journal opinion. Editor's note: The following are firsthand accounts that were solicited by Journal assistant editorial features editor Bari Weiss. Some were translated from Farsi. Surnames have been omitted to protect the writers.
This Is for Real - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion. What's happening on the streets of Tehran is a lesson in what makes history: It isn't guns or secret police, in the end, but the willingness of hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives to protest injustice. That is what overthrew the shah of Iran in 1979, and it is now shaking the mullahs. This is politics in the raw -- unarmed people defying soldiers with guns -- and it is the stuff of which revolutions are made. Whether it will succeed in Iran is impossible to predict, but already this movement has put an overconfident regime on the ropes.
Fragile at the Core - David Brooks, New York Times opinion. Most of the time, foreign relations are kind of boring - negotiations, communiqués, soporific speeches. But then there are moments of radical discontinuity - 1789, 1917, 1989 - when the very logic of history flips. At these moments - like the one in Iran right now - change is not generated incrementally from the top. Instead, power is radically dispersed. The real action is out on the streets. The future course of events is maximally uncertain.
How Mir Hossein Mousavi Trapped the Supreme Leader - Shahram Kholdi, The Times opinion. What is clear is that the protests are showing no signs of dying out - and that they have spread beyond Tehran and the middle classes to working-class neighbourhoods that were thought to be unequivocally pro-Ahmadinejad. My elderly grandparents' nurse told me of clashes in her working-class town of Pakdasht, a suburb of Karaj. The dispute over the presidential election has pitted neighbours against each other. So how should we understand what is happening? First, Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters are not seeking regime change, but reform of the Islamic Republic. Second, the protests are also not just about the future of Iran, but a battle over the legacy of the 1979 revolution. And third, is that the protesters are not just drawn from a metropolitan elite.
'No Comment' Is Not an Option - Paul Wolfowitz, Washington Post opinion. President Obama's first response to the protests in Iran was silence, followed by a cautious, almost neutral stance designed to avoid "meddling" in Iranian affairs. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan's initially neutral response to the crisis following the Philippine election of 1986, and of George H.W. Bush's initially neutral response to the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Both Reagan and Bush were able to abandon their mistaken neutrality in time to make a difference. It's not too late for Obama to do the same.
US Pursues a New Way To Rebuild in Afghanistan - Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post.
.. Members of his (President Obama) national security team have concluded that the country requires not just more money and personnel for reconstruction but also a fundamental overhaul of the US approach to development. They want to implement broad-based initiatives aimed at improving the lives of as many Afghans as possible, shifting away from an approach employed during the Bush presidency that focused on generating discrete "success stories" and creating long-term economic sustainability through free-market reform.
Bush administration officials contend that their method was necessary to win financial support from Congress, and to build a degree of self-sufficiency that the country desperately needs, but Obama's advisers maintain it resulted in few tangible improvements for most Afghans, leading many of them to shift allegiance to the Taliban.
The consequences of the Bush approach have been most evident in US efforts to help resuscitate Afghanistan's agricultural economy, which has been severely degraded by years of war, according to internal government documents and interviews with dozens of officials involved in the country's reconstruction. Instead of emphasizing programs to help meet domestic food needs by increasing farm yields, US aid officials focused much of their resources on countering the growth of opium-producing poppies through projects that encouraged other ways to make a living in rural areas. The projects often had little to do with agriculture and did not address the root causes of why farmers became part of the drug trade...
More at The Washington Post.
In Afghanistan, Halting Civilian Deaths in Strikes is a Tough Mission - David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times.
The mounting death toll of Afghan civilians from US airstrikes has unleashed a tide of resentment and fury that threatens to undermine the American counterinsurgency effort. From President Obama to the new US commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, American officials have made the reduction of civilian deaths a top priority as they revamp their strategy.
McChrystal, who took command this week, told Congress that the measure of success in Afghanistan should be the number of civilians protected, not the number of insurgents killed. Reducing civilian casualties is "essential to our credibility," he said.
The US military employs a lengthy set of precautions, including written rules of engagement and multiple levels of approval before bombs can be dropped or missiles launched.
To gauge each mission's risk to civilians, a collateral damage estimate, or CDE, is prepared.
Yet civilian deaths continue to mount. US commanders have not specified how they intend to reduce them, except to continue rigorously reviewing and enforcing existing restrictions. But the nature of the war almost guarantees more accidental deaths.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
Continue reading "US Pursues a New Way To Rebuild in Afghanistan, Lower Civilian Casualties" »
Turkey’s Border Porosity Problem with PKK
by Berfu Kiziltan, Small Wars Journal
Turkey’s Border Porosity Problem with PKK (Full PDF Article)
The porosity of the border between Turkey and Iraq has been a pressing issue in combating PKK terrorism. The fact that the PKK has moved considerable material and personnel support through that border is undisputed, as is the fact that absent such support, the PKK would pose a far less menacing threat to the safety of the Turkish people. Since it took arms in the 1970s, the PKK has used the mountainous border area between the two countries to establish bases of operations from which it has launched attacks. It is estimated that the loss of lives within the Turkish army is higher than 6.000 in fighting with the terrorist group, PKK. In order to decrease casualties and build an effective system of border monitoring utilization of UAVs is a must. While employing UAVs has several limitations as well as disadvantages, their advantages outweigh its drawbacks.
Border porosity could be broadly defined as the high permeability of a land, sea or maritime border to illegal trespassing or hauling of personnel or material as a result of inadequate or inefficient border security and monitoring. UAVs are defined as a powered aerial vehicle that does not carry a human operator, uses aerodynamic forces to provide lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry lethal or nonlethal payloads.
In combating PKK terrorism, border porosity should receive increased attention chiefly because the PKK keeps the bulk of its forces and resources in hideouts in Qandil Mountains, which lie further south of the border. The choice of Qandil Mountains is no coincidence, as it is relatively more secure for the PKK than the immediate vicinity of the border, and because the rugged terrain rarely provides a ground for operations for the Turkish military. In addition, Turkey faces several political challenges both at home and abroad while conducting cross-border military operations against the PKK, and in this regard, the fact that the Qandil Mountains lie south of the border provides the PKK practical as well as tactical advantages. Before we can eliminate the PKK completely, we should first deny the organization’s access to Turkish territory through the border. Once that is accomplished, the raids on Turkish military outposts along the border will dramatically decrease in number, and the majority of the PKK’s resources will be confined to the Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq.
Turkey’s Border Porosity Problem with PKK (Full PDF Article)
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This compilation of articles; Professors in the Trenches: Deployed Soldiers and Social Science Academics, edited by Rob W. Kurz of the Foreign Military Studies Office; originally appeared as a five-part series in Small Wars Journal. Each article was co-authored by one Army soldier / civilian and one university professor / academic as part of a joint research project.
Continue reading "Compilation: Professors in the Trenches" »
Counterinsurgency
Is “Air Control” the Answer?
by Major Angelina M. Maguinness, Small Wars Journal
Counterinsurgency: Is “Air Control” the Answer? (Full PDF Article)
Within the last few years, many airpower theorists advocated for the creation of a more air-centric approach to counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare. They point to modern airpower successes as the central component in military strategies, such as the successes in Bosnia in 1995, in Kosovo in 1998, and in the air policing operations conducted over Iraq from 1991 to 2003. Other airpower proponents decry the lack of “air-mindedness” and the short attention given to airpower in the 2007 United States (US) Army and Marine Corps Field Manual (FM) 3-24 Counterinsurgency. They call for a truly joint COIN doctrine that recognizes and leverages airpower’s combat capabilities instead of relegating its use solely to support for ground forces.
Many of these arguments are reminiscent of the early airpower zealots who believed airpower’s emerging technical capabilities promised less costs in money, lives, and resources with equal or better results than the use of large armies. Airpower, however, is not a cure-all in COIN, as demonstrated by Britain’s foray into colonial policing from 1919 to 1939. These lessons are applicable today, as military leaders continue to explore alternatives and supplements to existing American COIN strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. While there is no doubt airpower plays a prominent role within COIN strategy, airpower’s most prudent use should not be as a primarily offensive weapon but as a component within a restrained combined arms approach.
Counterinsurgency: Is “Air Control” the Answer? (Full PDF Article)
David Kilcullen at the Pritzker Military Library - Video from Tuesday's presentation on his book The Accidental Guerilla and other issues concerning fighting small wars in the midst of a big one. Also see Lexington Green's take on the event at Chicago Boyz.
Continue reading "Video: David Kilcullen at the Pritzker Military Library" »
I'm taking a three day break from posting the Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup. I’m on the road with the day job and need to catch up on Journal submissions and all-around SWJ "stuff". That said, I'll post "wave top" items should they catch my eye. Feel free to post in comments below news and commentary our COI should be reading... Thanks – Dave
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General McChrystal's New Way of War - Max Boot, Wall Street Journal opinion.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal was appointed commander in Afghanistan to shake up a troubled war effort. But one of his first initiatives could wind up changing how the entire military does business.
Gen. McChrystal's decision to set up a Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell means creating a corps of roughly 400 officers who will spend years focused on Afghanistan, shuttling in and out of the country and working on those issues even while they are stateside.
Today, units typically spend six to 12 months in a war zone, and officers typically spend only a couple years in command before getting a new assignment. This undermines the continuity needed to prevail in complex environments like Afghanistan or Iraq. Too often, just when soldiers figure out what's going on they are shipped back home and neophytes arrive to take their place. Units suffer a disproportionate share of casualties when they first arrive because they don't have a grip on local conditions...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Common Analytic Standards
Intelligence Community Directive # 203 and U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence
by Lieutenant Colonel Von H. Pigg, Small Wars Journal
Common Analytic Standards (Full PDF Article)
On 21 June 2007, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), signed and implemented Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) Number 203, “Analytic Standards,” governing the production and evaluation of intelligence analysis and analytical products. ICD 203 articulates the mission and commitment of all analytic elements of the Intelligence Community (IC) to meet the highest standards of integrity and rigorous analytical thinking. The DNI, via ICD 203, established doctrinal requirements designed to improve the quality, relevance of and confidence in the analysis and conclusions of intelligence products produced for policy makers and military commanders. As the Marine Corps’ service component intelligence agency and member of the IC, the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA) at Quantico adopted the promulgated analytic standards, along with a required self-evaluation program. Rigid application of the standards, combined with critical self and other IC evaluations will ensure MCIA and the entire USMC intelligence apparatus consistently produces timely, objective, multi-source based intelligence products resulting from sound analytic tradecraft practices. The purpose of this article is to examine the reasoning and rationale for prescribed IC Analytical Standards and how MCIA is implementing the standards and overcoming implementation challenges for the purpose of improving intelligence support to the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Marine Air Ground Task Force(s) (MAGTFs), USMC supporting establishments as well as the IC at large.
Common Analytic Standards (Full PDF Article)
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The Anatomy of the Long War’s Failings - Frank G. Hoffman, Foreign Policy Research Institute.
What we now sometimes refer to as the Long War began much earlier than the 9/11 attacks on America. But that day was seared into our collective national consciousness and animated our collective response. That sunny morning in Manhattan marked the second most violent day in U.S. history, exceeding Pearl Harbor and even D-Day in fatalities. Only Antietam’s bloody wheat fields have witnessed more carnage in a single day. Since then, our country has mobilized for a global conflict against extremism with a multidimensional approach that has relied heavily on our military forces.
Just what have we accomplished to date in the Long War? Any ledger is going to identify some clear gains. Our campaign in Afghanistan quickly toppled the Taliban, and as a result al Qaeda no longer enjoys any sanctuary in Afghanistan. A major multinational invasion of Iraq led by the United States sliced though the remnants of the Iraqi Army and destroyed Saddam Hussein’s regime. We have generated and exploited a degree of international cooperation and intelligence sharing—much of it very discrete—to foil several plots against ourselves or our partners. We have substantially reduced al Qaeda’s infrastructure around the world, including its leadership, training facilities, and financial networks. And the nation has begun to shore up our home defenses. Notably, no similar attacks have occurred here at home.
But the ledger has both black and red ink. Bin Laden is alive and apparently well, although al Qaeda is a more diffuse organization. The core leadership of al Qaeda itself has probably been weakened, but its cause has been amplified and a generation of Muslims has been mobilized if not radicalized.
Afghanistan remains a key campaign in this war. Our initial campaign was brilliantly conceived by the CIA. An American force of CIA operatives and special forces aided no more than 15,000 Afghan troops to drive out some 50,000 Taliban and foreign fighters in late 2001. But six years later, Afghanistan remains a troubled land. The Taliban, once vanquished, is resurging.
Like the early phases in Afghanistan, the early military operations in Iraq were also conducted in accord with the U.S. military’s preferred style and exploited its overwhelming conventional military superiority. The early successes were ephemeral and temporary. The early occupation of Iraq went well for six months, but then turned sour as political enemies vied for national and local control. What Tom Ricks has called “perhaps the worst war plan in American history” failed to secure victory as defined by our political leaders. The planning shortfalls helped create the conditions for the difficult occupation that followed. For two years, American commanders and diplomats looked for a way out, and tried to nurture along a weak government in Baghdad and shift the fight to the slowly developing Iraqi Army.
The cost for what has been accomplished to date is completely disproportionate to the limited gains. How did we get to this point?
Much more at FPRI.
From Wings Over Iraq - Starbuck finally gets his copy of Rolling Stone's 2009 Hot List...
The Seven Deadly Questions
How to Think about Mexico and Beyond
by Roger Pardo-Maurer, Small Wars Journal
How to Think about Mexico and Beyond (Full PDF Article)
Quick Quiz
By the beginning of the new counterinsurgency strategy and arguably a turning point of the War in Iraq (late 2006 - early 2007), which country after the United States and Great Britain had the next largest combat-related loss of citizens in Operation Iraqi Freedom?
The answer is - Mexico .
Blood is indeed thicker than water, or at least thicker than the Rio Grande. If ever proof were required of how our two peoples have become intertwined in ways we can hardly begin to imagine, one could hardly do better than to point to the fact that Mexico, or rather, the people of Mexico, were in effect an invisible member of the Coalition.
A Country Taken for Granted
Since the Spanish-American War, the grand strategy of the United States has been to rely on stability in the Western Hemisphere in order to pursue its interests in Europe and Asia. If Mexico is not already our most vital strategic relationship, it will become so over the next generation: as a trade partner, as a source of demographic and cultural renewal, and as a pillar of our strategic worldview so taken-for-granted that it is difficult to imagine how things could be otherwise.
Small Wars Journal is very happy and proud to welcome aboard Robert Haddick. Robert joins SWJ as a regular blogger – he already has 20 Small Wars Journal This Week at War posts at Foreign Policy under his belt – and as our managing editor.
From 1988 to 2006 Robert was Director of Research, investment portfolio manager, and later a consultant to The Fremont Group, a large private investment firm and an affiliate of Bechtel Corporation. He established the firm’s global proprietary investment operation; led a research and trading network spanning the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Australia; and was president of one of Fremont’s overseas investment subsidiaries. Robert frequently advised the Board of Directors and other top level committees on geopolitical, macro-economic, and investment market trends.
Robert was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He served in the 3rd Marine Regiment, deployed with a Marine Amphibious Unit, and participated in numerous exercises with host nation military forces in Asia and Africa. He was a staff officer in 1st Battalion, 12th Marines and later commanded a rifle company in the 23rd Marine Regiment.
Robert’s writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The American, New York Post, and TCS Daily. He started the blog Westhawk in 2005. He has been interviewed on CNBC and NPR.
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AFRICOM Building Research Center - John Vandiver, Stars and Stripes.
A social science research center is under development at US Africa Command headquarters, where researchers from the academic world are being recruited to help map the complicated human terrain on the African continent.
The research center, which falls under AFRICOM’s knowledge development division, will be designed to focus on the long-term with an eye toward forecasting potential flashpoints and preventing them from developing into conflicts.
But mixing military and social science has long been a source of controversy, going all the way back to the Vietnam era when information collected by researchers was used for targeting people.
More recently, the Army’s Human Terrain System, used in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been met with resistance from groups such as the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, made up of social scientists opposed to the mingling of academia and the military.
Though defenders of the Human Terrain System argue that social scientists are providing information to commanders that potentially can reduce levels of violence, opponents say human terrain mapping benefits the US military, not local populations...
More at Stars and Stripes.
Thanks to Greg Smith for making available his October, 2008 pre-deployment interview with Brigadier General John Nicholson. BG Nicholson is the Deputy Commander of RC South. Greg is a freelance journalist and research consultant.
From the introduction:
The interview was originally designed to be an emphasis on leadership, actors, and COIN operations. With a very small bit of reengineering what materialized is a candid and up to date snapshot of the intricacy of COIN operations in southern Afghanistan. The intricacy is still very much alive and this interview is now available for public consumption.
Read the full transcript of the interview.
Some recent news interviews quoting BG Nicholson include:
U.S. Military Works to Bring Stability to Remote Afghan Areas at the PBS Online News Hour, June 9, 2009. (BG Nicholson quotes are toward the end of the piece)
Top U.S. General in Southern Afghanistan Optimistic More Forces Will Turn Tide by Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service, May 11, 2009.
Poppy is Not the Most Profitable Crop, It’s the Only Crop
by Allison Brown, Small Wars Journal
Poppy is Not the Most Profitable Crop, It’s the Only Crop (Full PDF Article)
If poppy were really the most profitable crop in Afghanistan, farmers would be growing it year-round. They're not, nor are they growing all that much of it outside 4 provinces in the south. How can this be if poppy is such an economic slam dunk?
It is no lie that poppy has advantages. Poppy fits a special niche in the agriculture calendar, the winter season when very few valuable crops can grow. The harvested opium gum is imperishable and easily transportable and it increases in value with age, serving as a home-grown, interest bearing bank account. And the opium can be used as a pain killer where there are no doctors. The disadvantages of poppy – that it is illegal, haram (forbidden), and a management nightmare – are overshadowed by farmers' need to survive. But the notion that opium is the most profitable crop is a myth.
Poppy is the most profitable crop when there is little else to sell. That is, growing poppy is the most profitable option for farmers who are too far from a marketplace, farmers who have no access to modern technologies and reliable farm supplies, and farmers who live where gangsters rule – a gun at your head is a compelling inducement to do most anything.
Poppy in southern Afghanistan is a winter-season monoculture and farmers are mere contract growers. The gangsters provide a full agriculture extension package – seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, labor management and immediate payment for the product at the farmgate. The rest of the year the Afghan government, with the help of international aid programs, struggles to promote other crops.
Poppy is Not the Most Profitable Crop, It’s the Only Crop (Full PDF Article)
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| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Obama Orders Stephen's Haircut - Ray Odierno | ||||
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More videos clips of Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando at Comedy Central.
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'Mindless' Basic Training Gets Some Smarts - David Wood, Politics Daily.
When seasoned combat soldiers began returning from the war to help train new recruits here, the first thing they did was to stop training for what the Army called "convoy live fire.''
Nobody actually does that in Iraq or Afghanistan, they explained.
In fact, they said, much of what the Army was teaching its new recruits at this premier training center was wrong or irrelevant to actual combat...
That it took five years to get this stopped says something about the Army. It also provides a glimpse into a struggle inside the Army and, indeed, across the entire U.S. military. Let's call it the combat military versus the "garrison'' or "headquarters'' or "always done it this way'' military.
This is the dynamic behind Defense Secretary Robert Gates' effort to refocus the gigantic defense budget on real combat needs for today's wars – and the resistance from the bureaucracies and defense contractors entrenched around lower priority budget programs...
Much more at Politics Daily.
Continue reading "'Mindless' Basic Training Gets Some Smarts" »
Iran Declares Ahmadinejad Victor - Robert F. Worth, New York Times.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won Iran’s presidential election in a landslide, officials of Iran’s election commission said Saturday morning. But his main rival, Mir Hussein Moussavi, had already announced defiantly just two hours after the polls closed on Friday night that he had won and charged that there had been voting “irregularities.”
“I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin,” Mr. Moussavi said during a news conference with reporters just after 11 p.m. Friday, adding: “It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back.”
More at The New York Times.
Iran Election In Dispute as 2 Candidates Claim Victory - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post.
A pivotal presidential election in Iran ended in confusion and confrontation early Saturday as both sides claimed victory and plainclothes officers fired tear gas to disperse a cheering crowd outside the campaign headquarters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
With votes still being counted in many cities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was leading by a 2-1 ratio in early returns, according to Iranian Interior Ministry officials. But Mousavi's supporters dismissed those numbers, saying the ministry was effectively under Ahmadinejad's control.
"I am the winner of these elections," Mousavi declared late Friday, after heavy turnout resulted in a two-hour extension of voting across the Islamic republic. "The people have voted for me."
More at The Washington Post.
Ahmadinejad Takes Big Lead, Opposition Media Wing Shut - Farnaz Fassihi and Roshanak Taghavi, Wall Street Journal.
Iranian state media reported a big lead in election results for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Saturday morning, but by noon hadn't yet released a final, official tally.
Meanwhile, campaign officials for his top challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, said the communications wing of their candidate's election operation had been shut down early Saturday by court order. Eye witnesses reported violence around Mr. Mousavi's campaign headquarters and the interior ministry, saying riot police were beating some people near the buildings. It was unclear how extensive the violence was and who the victims were.
Midmorning Saturday, Iran's interior ministry, responsible for running elections and counting ballots, had announced partial results showing Mr. Ahmadinejad as the projected winner of the race, with a landslide lead.
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Ahmadinejad Poised to Win Reelection in Iran - Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim, Los Angeles Times.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds a decisive lead in his reelection bid, Iran's Interior Ministry said this morning, while his main rival claimed victory and alleged election irregularities.
Ministry officials said that with more than 75% of ballots counted, the incumbent had received nearly two-thirds of the vote. More than 46 million people were eligible to vote, officials said.
Official results are expected today, but news outlets loyal to the president claimed that he had scored a decisive victory over moderate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who had received about a third of the votes counted. This morning, security forces shut down Mousavi's offices, his campaign said.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
By His Own Rules: The Story of Donald Rumsfeld
By Bradley Graham
Book Description
A penetrating political biography of the controversial Defense Secretary, by a longtime military affairs correspondent for the Washington Post.
Once considered among the best and brightest of his generation, Donald Rumsfeld was exceptionally prepared to assume the Pentagon's top job in 2001. Yet six years later, he left office as the most controversial Defense Secretary since Robert McNamara, widely criticized for his management of the Iraq war and for his difficult relationships with Congress, administration colleagues, and military officers. Was he really the arrogant, errant, over-controlling Pentagon leader frequently portrayed--or as his supporters contend, a brilliant, hard-charging visionary caught in a whirl of polarized Washington politics, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, and bad luck?
Bradley Graham, who closely covered Rumsfeld's challenging tenure at the Pentagon, offers an insightful biography of a complex and immensely influential personality. What emerges is a layered and revealing portrait of a man whose impact on U.S. national security affairs will long out-live him.
Decline and Fall
By Bradley Graham, Washington Post
Face time with the president is political gold in Washington, so Donald Rumsfeld moved quickly after taking charge at the Pentagon to secure weekly private meetings with President George W. Bush. Now, nearly six years and many meetings later, the defense secretary arrived in the Oval Office prepared to raise a delicate, and personal, matter.
His opportunity came as the talk that day, in September 2006, turned to Iraq. The conflict there was going badly. Violence had metastasized into a civil war. Plans to begin a major drawdown of U.S. troops had stalled. Iraqi forces still appeared unready to assume charge of security, and the Iraqi government, riven by sectarian strife, was doing little to unite the nation. In Washington, much of the responsibility for the mess in Iraq had fallen on Rumsfeld. He had failed to plan adequately for the occupation, was slow to develop a counterinsurgency campaign and had alienated too many people with his combative, domineering personality...
Much more at The Washington Post.
Bradley Graham will be online Monday, June 15 at 12 noon ET to take your questions and comments about "Decline and Fall," his Washington Post Magazine cover story about the dramatic end of the former defense secretary's tenure. The article is adapted from his book, By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failures of Donald Rumsfeld, published this month by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
Graham served as Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post for more than a decade.
Inside the Surge: One Commander's Lessons in Counterinsurgency - Lieutenant Colonel Jim Crider, USA, and Thomas E. Ricks (Foreword), Center for a New American Security.
When Lieutenant Colonel Jim Crider arrived in the Doura neighborhood of Baghdad in February of 2007 as the commander of 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Riley, Kansas the Sunni neighborhood appeared beyond hope. The streets were largely empty of life and the air was filled with the foul smell of burning trash and open sewage. Improvised explosive devices, small arms fire, hand grenades, and dead bodies were a normal part of every 1-4 CAV patrol in the spring and early summer of 2007. However, through the ruthless implementation of the counterinsurgency principles outlined in Army Field Manual 3-24 and several pragmatic decisions along the way, the neighborhood began to turn in July of 2007. By the end of September, the unit had seen the last attack on its forces. Businesses reopened, the streets were full of people, and there was hope. This paper contains some of the primary lessons learned during their 14 month combat tour. In his foreword to the paper, CNAS Senior Fellow and author of the New York Times best-seller Fiasco Tom Ricks calls Crider’s work “the first in-depth review offered by an American battalion commander about post-invasion operations in Iraq.”
More at CNAS.
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Commander Maps New Course in Afghan War - Peter Spiegel, Wall Street Journal.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in his first interview since being named the US commander in Afghanistan, said his front-row seat for the wars there and in Iraq has altered the view of combat he has held since training as a Green Beret to kill enemies quickly and stealthily.
After watching the US try and fail for years to put down insurgencies in both countries, Gen. McChrystal said he believes that to win in Afghanistan, "You're going to have to convince people, not kill them.
"Since 9/11, I have watched as America tried to first put out this fire with a hammer, and it doesn't work," he said last week at his home at Fort McNair in Washington. "Decapitation strategies don't work."
In the interview, Gen. McChrystal noted he's unsure whether the planned troop levels for the job he envisions will be adequate - despite the Obama administration's commitment to raise the US presence to 68,000 by year's end, to go along with 35,000 allied forces. Iraq surge commanders had more than 170,000 US forces...
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Continue reading "Commander Maps New Course in Afghan War" »
The Tactical Excuse
By Mike Innes (Cross-Post with CT Lab)
Two posts on strategic focus helped crystalize a major criticism I've had of the kind of work done in the puzzle palace... natch, make that the kind of work required of the big thinkers sitting in the puzzle palace, who are ultimately responsible for answering the requirements laid out by the stars and bars who run the place.
Drew Conway, picking up on Robert Haddick's weekly This Week at War report at the Foreign Policy website, writes about stated military interest in developing decentralized, autonomous fighting units. I disagree with some of Drew's observations. "From my experience," he writes, "most terrorist networks are organized as highly clustered layers, with central leadership forming the center, pushing orders downrange to the periphery." OK. "Terrorist foot soldiers are rarely, if ever, allowed to act without explicit consent from agents connect to the leadership." Here I think Drew overgeneralizes, since there are few givens linking intent and implementation - a.k.a. command and control - and outcomes vary considerably.
Drew goes on to make some excellent points in his discussion of network specialization and niche expertise, which makes for a useful basis for comparison of terrorist networks and proposed military networks. A point not made, and that I would add to this, is that deliberately enabling and accepting real tactical unit autonomy is a catch-22. Modern technology enables very senior people to focus on very very granular issues. Many have argued that that's a recipe for nano-management and inhibits strategic thinking - producing a peculiar counterpart to the proverbial strategic corporal: the tactical flag officer.
This is at the heart, I think, of what the other Drew - Andrew Exum - asks at Abu Muqawama. Citing Nir Rosen, Ex asks whether mass casualty events like yesterday's truck bombing in Iraq have any strategic significance. Rosen's analysis is worth revisiting...
Just a quick note - SWJ will be attending the Center for New American Security's Third Annual Conference today. For those who can't attend, the conference will be streamed live on the CNAS website starting at 0830. For a full agenda and more details on the event, please visit WWW.CNAS.ORG/JUNE2009.
Continue reading "CNAS Annual Conference - Live Web Cast Today" »
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Carte Blanche for New US Commander in Afghanistan - Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, New York Times.
The new American commander in Afghanistan has been given carte blanche to hand pick a dream team of subordinates, including many Special Operations veterans, as he moves to carry out an ambitious new strategy that envisions stepped-up attacks on Taliban fighters and narcotics networks.
The extraordinary leeway granted the commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, underscores a view within the administration that the war in Afghanistan has for too long been given low priority, and needs to be the focus of a sustained, high-level effort.
General McChrystal is assembling a corps of 400 officers and soldiers who will rotate between the United States and Afghanistan for a minimum of three years. That kind of commitment to one theater of combat is unknown in the military today outside the Special Operations community, but reflects an approach being imported by General McChrystal, who spent five years in charge of secret commando teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.
With his promotion approved by the Senate late on Wednesday, General McChrystal and senior members of his command team were scheduled to fly from Washington within hours of the vote, stopping in two European capitals to confer with allies before landing in Kabul...
More at The New York Times.
Continue reading "Carte Blanche for New U.S. Commander in Afghanistan" »
Winning Damaged Hearts and Minds: An Irregular Warfare Concept
by By Brigadier General David L. Grange, Scott Swanson, and Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Christian, Small Wars Journal
Winning Damaged Hearts and Minds (Full PDF Article)
In ungoverned and under-governed environments, the local populace is usually the center of gravity. Other centers of gravity within the population may include the will of the people that takes form as support for the governing authority or other political, economic and ideological forces. To win their hearts and minds and wean them off our adversaries’ control requires effective communication using the local “information systems.” Effective communications at the local level earns trust, which, in turn, establishes loyalty to our cause, commitment, and eventually buy-in to the regime we support. It also requires a focus on the local economic ecosystem that delves down to the community level, improves basic prosperity, honors local culture, and reinforces what’s important to the people. It requires a focus on the local political system that respects local codes, social networks, and empowers local leaders that eventually will connect to the state, region, and national political system.
Our goal must be to establish capabilities that support the creation of enduring, safe, and secure environments with local participation and responsibility. We want to develop Community Internal Defense (CID) participation with local, state, and foreign governmental and civilian agencies with, and for, the people with the purpose of protecting its citizens. This community provides a safe and secure environment, economic and social well-being, effective governance, human rights, and rule of law with a capacity to counter lawlessness. This is similar to the end-state of America’s historic “Wild West” communities.
Into the Great Unknown in Afghanistan
by Judah Grunstein (Cross-Post with World Politics Review)
After flagging this very valuable post by Tim Lynch on conditions in the southeast of Afghanistan, Joshua Foust observes, "[T]here is a fundamental disconnect between what we are doing in Afghanistan and what we expect to happen." Lynch's post is a long but essential read, and I second Foust's assessment. The question is, Will the added troops and vaguely hinted-at shift in operational priorities be sufficient to recouple what we're doing with what we expect to happen?
With that question fresh in my mind, I clicked through to the new CNAS report (.pdf) on Afghanistan and Pakistan, which offers proposals for metrics and operational priorities on both sides of the border. In all fairness, the CNAS authors (David Kilcullen, Nathaniel Fick, Andrew Exum and Ahmed Humayan) chose to title the report "Triage," meaning they know that there's more job to do than resources to do it with. And between the principle authors and the analysts they got input from (Joshua Foust, Nicholas Schmidle and Christian Bleuer), it's a high-powered braintrust that is both well-informed and intellectually honest.
But there's something about the report that's vaguely un-nerving, especially after reading Lynch's narrative. Clearly Kilcullen and Exum are advocating for a particular approach to waging the war. They are, after all, proponents of COIN doctrine and tactics. But the report seems to paper over the fact that the very COIN methods they're advocating for do not suffer prioritizing on the cheap. As a result, though they acknowledge that progress is urgently needed, their proposals read as much like a recipe for creating a positive feedback loop for measuring it as they do a recipe for actually achieving it...
On Leadership is a new Washington Post section featuring a weekly video series and panel discussion hosted by former Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee and Pulitzer Prize-winning Post Columnist Steven Pearlstein. The section offers inspiration and practical advice on how to be an effective, successful leader in a political, financial and technological environment. Craig Mullaney, a West Point graduate, Rhodes Scholar, former Army Captain and author talks about the challenging experiences that made him a leader. In the first video. In the first video, Mullaney recalls his time in the dangerous mountains of Afghanistan and learning that true leadership grows out of hardship and a sense of duty. In the second video, he shares stories from his leadership training experiences; including what he calls his Army Ranger "Ph D in endurance."
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Thoughts on Advising Iraqi Security Forces Using an Organized Development Approach
by Major Decker B. Hains, Small Wars Journal
Thoughts on Advising Iraqi Security Forces (Full PDF Article)
We have heard in some form or fashion that our exit strategy for Iraq is putting the Iraqis, more specifically the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), “in the lead”. As a Military/National Police Transition Team Chief, working with both ISF and Coalition Forces (CF), I often contemplate what “in the lead” really means. Do we simply say to our Iraqi counterparts, “you are in the lead, please let me know if you need help and we’ll see what we can do?” Of course not. Our focus cannot be just getting them to take the lead; rather, we must enable them to stay in the lead. We must assist our ISF counterparts as their organizations, i.e. battalions (BN), brigades (BDE), divisions (DIV), etc. continue to develop and grow. The goal is long-term stability and growth and we must focus on the systems within the organizations to affect positive and lasting change. In other words, to more effectively advise and enable our ISF counterparts, we must focus on facilitating their organizational development.
This paper will discuss the application of organizational development principles to advising ISF, suggest areas of emphasis that transition teams and CF should focus on to assist in ISF development, and will recommend the ISF BN as the appropriate lower level for advisory efforts.
Thoughts on Advising Iraqi Security Forces (Full PDF Article)
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The Center for New American Security has released several new reports and working papers that will be presented at its third annual conference, “Striking a Balance: A New American Security" on Thursday, June 11. Topics include Iraq, Afghanistan-Pakistan, Natural Security, and combating violent extremism. Each report offers strong, principled and pragmatic recommendations on how to strike a balance between immediate and long-term national security challenges facing the United States.
After the Fire: Shaping the Future U.S. Relationship with Iraq by John A. Nagl and Brian M. Burton
Since 2003, debates about America’s role in Iraq have focused on how to withdraw U.S. forces. Yet the search for an “end game” emphasizes a short-term objective - getting out of Iraq - and sidesteps the strategic imperative of establishing an enduring relationship with a key country in a region of vital importance to the United States. It is time for America to take the long view. Neither Iraq nor America’s stake in a stable, peaceful, secure Middle East will vanish when the last American combat brigade departs. American policymakers must advance U.S. interests in Iraq and the Middle East through a long-term, low-profile engagement to help resolve Iraq’s internal challenges, strengthen its government and economic institutions, and integrate it as a constructive partner in the region.
Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Andrew M. Exum, Nathaniel C. Fick, Ahmed A. Humayun and David J. Kilcullen
Eight years into the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, the situation is as perilous as ever and continuing to worsen. The campaign has been further complicated by a rapidly deteriorating security situation in Pakistan, where the center of gravity of the insurgency has now shifted. In counterinsurgency campaigns, momentum matters. Over the next 12 months, the United States and its allies must seize the initiative back from the Taliban and other hostile actors. This paper makes four operational recommendations and gives specific metrics by which the administration can gage its progress.
Natural Security by Sharon Burke
In the 21st century, the security of nations will increasingly depend on the security of natural resources, or “natural security.” The modern global economy depends on access to energy, minerals, potable water and arable land to meet the rising expectations of a growing world population, and that access is by no means assured. At the same time, increasing consumption of these resources has consequences, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, which will challenge the security of the United States and nations all over the world. Natural security ultimately means sufficient, reliable, affordable, and sustainable supplies of natural resources for the modern global economy. This will require the United States to both shape and respond to emerging natural resources challenges in a changing global strategic environment. This concept paper outlines a new program of study at the Center for a New American Security that will examine emerging natural resources challenges in six key areas of consumption and consequences – energy, minerals, water, land, climate change, and biodiversity – as well as the ways in which these challenges are linked together. Any solution to the country’s energy insecurity is likely to involve water, non-fuel minerals, and land-use issues; climate change and biodiversity cut across all concerns, with broad effects on resource vulnerability. Without an integrated, national-level approach that links together natural security challenges, the United States runs the risk of trading one dependency for another and exacerbating the consequences.
The Obama Plan for Energy and Climate Security: Conference Proceedings and Final Recommendations by Christine Parthemore
On April 29, 2009, the Center for a New American Security convened a group of scientists, investors, business executives, academics, nonprofit representatives, defense professionals, and federal, state, and local officials to discuss how to implement President Obama’s energy and climate security goals. The conference was the culmination of a year-long CNAS project, called the Big Energy Map, which examined the role the federal government is playing and can play in protecting and promoting the nation’s energy security. This report is a compilation and analysis of the proceedings of the April 29 Big Energy Map conference. Drawing on the discussions and recommendations of the group of experts, CNAS has identified three main recommendations for the Obama Administration: draft a comprehensive national strategy; link that strategy to a major, systems-level demonstration project for a future, low-carbon energy economy; and create a scorecard to track progress and capture lessons learned from the historical level of federal investment in energy and climate security.
Beyond Bullets: Strategies for Countering Violent Extremism by Kristin M. Lord, John A. Nagl, Seth D. Rosen, David Kilcullen, Larry Diamond, Camille Pecastaing, Harvey M. Sapolsky, Daniel Benjamin, and Alice E. Hunt (editor)
To counter the threat from violent Islamist extremism more effectively, the Center for a New American Security launched a strategy development process modeled after President Eisenhower’s Project Solarium. CNAS asked five experts to recast the effort to defeat al-Qaeda in sustainable terms consistent with American values. The result is a series of essays, produced in this report, that recommend a rich array of counterterrorism tools and strategies for the new administration.
Beyond Bullets: A Pragmatic Strategy to Combat Violent Islamist Extremism by Kristin M. Lord, John A. Nagl, and Seth Rosen
This paper, which is part of a larger edited volume, presents a pragmatic and comprehensive strategy to combat violent Islamist extremism, one that engages all appropriate instruments of national power in a cohesive vision for action. As other national security concerns proliferate, the authors argue, America must re-commit to countering violent extremism by employing an approach that is sustainable, properly resourced, grounded in bipartisan political support, and bolstered by a dense network of partnerships that engages actors both inside and outside of government. The authors establish a clear analysis of the threat, a realistic vision of success, and strategic principles to guide U.S. actions. They also offer specific “ways and means” in order to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives.
Inside the Surge: One Commander’s Lessons in Counterinsurgency by Lieutenant Colonel James R. Crider, Foreword: Thomas E. Ricks
When Lieutenant Colonel Jim Crider arrived in the Doura neighborhood of Baghdad in February of 2007 as the commander of 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Riley, Kansas, the Sunni neighborhood appeared beyond hope. The streets were largely empty of life and the air was filled with the foul smell of burning trash and open sewage. Improvised explosive devices, small arms fire, hand grenades, and dead bodies were a normal part of every 1-4 CAV patrol in the spring and early summer of 2007. However, through the ruthless implementation of the counterinsurgency principles outlined in Army Field Manual 3-24 and several pragmatic decisions along the way, the neighborhood began to turn in July of 2007. By the end of September, the unit had seen the last attack on its forces. Businesses reopened, the streets were full of people, and there was hope. This paper contains some of the primary lessons learned during their 14 month combat tour and has been called “the first in-depth review offered by an American battalion commander about post-invasion operations in Iraq.”
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100 Years of COIN: What New Have We Learned? - David Betz, Kings of War.
... Having said all that, 2006 may represent something of a watershed; it’s probably too soon to tell but my hunch is that the stuff which John Mackinlay and David Kilcullen are writing about global insurgency is significant. Kilcullen’s Accidental Guerrilla has garnered a ton of deserved praise. And having seen several chapters of Mackinlay’s book The Insurgent Archipelago which is about to be published, I think he pushes the envelope further still. He reckons that there has been a sea change from Maoist to ‘Post-Maoist’ insurgency: Maoist insurgent objectives were national whereas Post-Maoist objectives are global; the population involved in Maoist insurgency was manageable (albeit with difficulty) whereas the populations (note the plural) involved in Post-Maoist insurgency are dispersed and unmanageable; the centre of gravity in Maoist insurgency was local or national whereas in Post-Maoist insurgency it is multiple and possibly irrelevant; the all important subversion process in Maoist insurgency was top-down whereas in Post-Maoist insurgency it is bottom-up; Maoist insurgent organization was vertical and structured whereas in Post-Maoism it is an unstructured network; and whereas Maoist insurgency took place in a real and territorial context the Post-Maoist variant’s vital operational environment is virtual. My question is whether this is still insurgency or has it evolved into something else sufficiently different as to be actually something else?
Mor at Kings of War.
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Thin Red Line of Heroes - Stuart Koehl, Weekly Standard.
... the British role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is slowly being consigned to the memory hole. To listen to most American commentators on the wars, you would not even know the British are there. Indeed, we only hear about them when one is accidentally killed by US fire, or when they are reducing their troop commitments (which makes it look like they are running away). Even conservative American commentators have had a somewhat condescending attitude towards the British forces, blaming them for the policies of the British government that, e.g., had them passively watch while Iranian Guards took a Zodiac full of British sailors hostage, or when it had them stand by while Shiite militias occupied their former base camp. But soldiers only follow the orders they are given by their civilian masters, and would we really want it any other way?
It is fortunate, therefore, that British veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are finally putting their stories down on paper, and that these books are beginning to make their way into the American market. Two recent releases document with perception, wit, and humanity the unique experiences of two extraordinary British soldiers, which should put to rest any idea that the British army is becoming effete or less capable than it has been since Marlborough's day...
More at The Weekly Standard.
David Kilcullen at the Pritzker Military Library - Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Pritzker Military Library
610 North Fairbanks Court, 2nd Floor
Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: 312.587.0234
RSVP: events@pritzkermilitarylibrary.net
Member Reception - 5:00pm cst
Presentation & Live Webcast - 6:00pm cst
It's not that we haven't fought the war in Iraq before, argues David Kilcullen. We have - the U.S. and its allies have dealt with similar conflicts in post-war Germany, in Vietnam, in the Balkans, and even against the IRA. The difference is that, back then, we weren't fighting all of those wars at the same time, on top of each other, tied together at the wrists and kicking.
Kilcullen has worked as an officer and military advisor on the ground in hotspots ranging from East Africa to the jungles of the Philippines. In 2007, he served as Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to Gen. David Petraeus during the planning and implementation of the Iraq troop "surge". The Accidental Guerilla describes the situation in Iraq as Kilcullen sees it: a hybrid war that combines the insurgency of the Viet Cong, the challenge of nation-building after years of dictatorship in post-war Germany, the sectarian strife in the Balkans, and the domestic terrorism of the IRA.
The "accidental guerillas" of the title are people who fight not because they hate the West or have any desire to see it overthrown, but because their space has been invaded by a large outside force as it tries to deal with a small, extremist element like al Qaeda - which then manipulates and exploits the backlash against the larger force, thereby creating the "accidental guerillas" and turning them into a loosely cooperative group.
Drawing from his experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, and lesser-known conflicts in West Java, East Timor, Pakistan, and southern Thailand, Kilcullen describes a maddening state of affairs where solutions to some problems only deepen others, and the military prowess of the U.S. in high-tech conventional warfare is virtually no help at all. In his final estimation, there are no across-the-board answers to counter-insurgency - only to adapt to the unique challenges of each one, and devote focus to securing the population along with defeating the enemy.
Kilcullen is a contributor to Small Wars Journal and Military Review. He retired from the Australian Army as a lieutenant colonel after twenty years of service. He is currently a counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency advisor to NATO and several governments, including the United States, and a senior fellow at the EastWest Institute.
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Adapting the British Light Infantry Section and Platoon Structure for the Contemporary and Future Operating Environment
by Lieutenant Chris Shaw, Small Wars Journal
Adapting the British Light Infantry Section and Platoon Structure (Full PDF Article)
Regardless of what form or resultant outcome the debate of strategic force structures takes both within the United States and subsequently within the NATO and ABCA nations, there will always be a role on the battlefield for the infantry forces of the developed world. The Contemporary Operating Environment (COE) has seen demand for the west’s infantry formations rise dramatically. ‘COIN operations place a premium’, notes the recently released US doctrinal publication Tactics in Counterinsurgency FM3-24.2, ‘on boots on the ground.’ The necessity to secure and engage a population through sustained and persistent patrolling is most easily fulfilled by a dedicated infantry force. While there no doubt remains a place for supporting arms in the counterinsurgency fight the ease through which an infantry formation can navigate, sustain itself within and persecute offensive, defensive and support operations within the human geography of a foreign culture has made the infantry synonymous with COIN campaigning.
Even if one views future conflict as being characterised by high-intensity, conventional conflict the existence of an infantry arm remains entirely necessary for the conduct of operations across differing types of terrain. The ability of the developed world’s infantry to adapt to and assimilate technological and doctrinal innovation in military campaigning will be important to future battlefield success and minimisation of casualties and tactical failure.
Has the infantry adjusted or adapted to the Contemporary Operating Environment? It is easy to argue ‘yes’. At the tactical level, the majority of the infantry Battalion’s within the developed world are now far better prepared and postured to participate in the ‘3 Block War’ where violence is administered surgically and sparingly. Doctrinally COIN philosophy has taken hold through the vast majority of armies, with ‘non-kinetic’ effects and lines of operation having gained currency in the military’s professional vocabulary. Multi-national exercises such as ‘Co-Operative Spirit’ held between ABCA nations in Germany last year are now based upon the full-spectrum environment necessitated in the fight against an insurgency, whereas a similar exercise a decade ago would have seen the forces facing a conventional, Soviet-influenced foe.
Adapting the British Light Infantry Section and Platoon Structure (Full PDF Article)
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Training the Top Guns of Drone Aircraft - Julian Barnes, Los Angeles Times.
The Pentagon is preparing to graduate its first pilots of unmanned drones from the elite US Air Force Weapons School - a version of the Navy's Top Gun program - in a bid to elevate the skills and status of the officers who fly Predators, one of the military's fastest growing aircraft programs.
The elite flight schools of the Air Force and Navy are most closely associated with smart, tough fighter jocks. But over the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the MQ-1 Predator and more heavily armed MQ-9 Reaper craft have become, to many in the Pentagon, the most important aircraft the US has deployed.
In 2006, the Air Force was able to fly only 12 drones at a time. Today, the service flies 34 regular combat air patrols. As the program has expanded, the job of keeping the best pilots flying drones has proved to be a challenge.
Until recently, pilots would work on the Predators and Reapers, then return to their assigned aircraft. But the Air Force would like officers to make a career out of flying unmanned craft and become experts at operating the drones...
More at The Los Angeles Times.
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The 'It' Think Tank - Carlos Lozada, Washington Post.
It was no accident that former vice president Dick Cheney chose the American Enterprise Institute as the venue for his full-throated defense last month of the Bush administration's national security policies. In the Bush years, AEI wielded significant influence and helped develop major initiatives on national security, including the surge in Iraq.
In the era of Obama, however, the Center for a New American Security may emerge as Washington's go-to think tank on military affairs. Founded in 2007, CNAS has already filled key posts in the new administration (such as former CNAS president Michele Flournoy, who is now undersecretary of defense for policy), and its top people include John Nagl, who helped draft the Army's counterinsurgency manual, and David Kilcullen, a former adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus. Now CNAS has completed a 31-page report on Afghanistan and Pakistan, advising Team Obama on how to best meet its goal to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in its safe haven in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."
More at The Washington Post.
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Sacrifice and the Greatest Generation - Tom Brokaw, Wall Street Journal.
When asked how I came to write The Greatest Generation, I recount a trip to Normandy in 1984. I went there to produce a documentary on the 40th anniversary of D-Day. I had looked forward to a week of stirring stories, evenings of oysters and Calvados, and long runs through the countryside.
Instead, from the moment I stepped onto Omaha Beach with two veterans of the First Division I had an out-of-body experience. Geno Merli, who earned the Medal of Honor, and Harry Garton, who lost both legs in combat, landed in the first wave at Omaha. Working-class products from Pennsylvania, they were soft-spoken and matter-of-fact as they described for me the horrors of that day and all the fighting that was yet to come.
More at The Wall Street Journal.
A nice - short - and to the point perspective by Simon Shercliff, the First Secretary Foreign Security and Policy at the British Embassy in DC - We Promise to Stay, and We Promise to Go:
One small part of President Obama's much-heralded speech in Cairo this week hit squarely the two key planks of both the US and the UK's Afghanistan/Pakistan policy: 1) a promise to bring troops out as soon as we are confident that there is no threat emanating from" violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans [or Brits] as they possibly can"; and 2) a promise to continue building and strengthening our respective relationships with the Afghanistan and Pakistan governments and people, not least through long-term, non-military assistance programmes.
Obama said: "make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there". To the extent that we can work out accurately the motivations of the various parts of the insurgency in Afghanistan, we continually find that straightforward nationalism plays a part (just one part). The stationing of one country's troops on another country's soil has always, and almost universally, generated this characteristic, anywhere in the world. The people of Afghanistan, of whichever ethnic group, are no exception. We need to continue to make clear that we have no designs on any form of long-term, military occupation of these proud people.
But in the same breath, this policy needs to be balanced by another clear message - again President Obama brought it out in his speech. While the US and UK, and all our other allies, want to bring our combat troops home as soon as we can, we also want to emphasize that our governments are setting up a long-term commitment to support Afghanistan and Pakistan, politically and through our respective overseas aid departments. Obama said: "we also know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who have been displaced". The UK has committed $811 million to Afghanistan over the next four years - this is one our biggest overseas aid commitments. We need to reinforce the message at every turn that we are not going to cut and run. We will not leave both coutries to whatever fate befalls them, once we decide that the threat to us has subsided.
A tip of the hat - or tam - some SWJ types are of Scots heritage - to the British Embassy for sharing this with our community. Cheers.
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This week's SWJ contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick is now posted. Topics include - When Organized Crime Meets Terrorism and Does it Take a Network to Beat a Network?
Key take-aways:
Mattis discussed how today's adversaries have adapted to U.S. conventional military superiority by forming disaggregated networks of small irregular teams that hide among indigenous populations. United States military forces, by contrast, have only come under greater central control. According to Mattis, this shift is due to evolutions in intelligence-gathering and communications technologies. Call it the new iron law of military bureaucracies: when commanders gain the technical ability to micromanage, they will micromanage...
Perhaps the most interesting question raised by Mattis's speeech is not whether the youngest soldiers can rise to the new demands that would be placed on them, but whether the colonels and generals -- and their civilian masters above -- will be able to relinquish the tight control technology has given them and to which they have become so accustomed. Will they ever acquire the courage necessary to trust a decentralized and distributed force of independent small units to find its own way of achieving the goals of a campaign? Mattis believes that this is the only path to success against tomorrow's enemies. What general or politician will have the nerve to take it?
As promised previously here's the link to the full document - CNAS has now posted Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Andrew Exum, Nathaniel Fick, Ahmed Humayun and David Kilcullen.
Eight years into the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, the situation is as perilous as ever and continuing to worsen. The campaign has been further complicated by a rapidly deteriorating security situation in Pakistan, where the center of gravity of the insurgency has now shifted. In counterinsurgency campaigns, momentum matters. Over the next 12 months, the United States and its allies must demonstrate they have seized back the initiative from the Taliban and other hostile actors.
Also new at CNAS is Beyond Bullets: A Pragmatic Strategy to Combat Violent Islamist Extremism by Kristin Lord, John Nagl and Seth Rosen.
The paper establishes a clear analysis of the threat, a realistic vision of success, and strategic principles to guide U.S. actions. The authors also offer specific “ways and means” in order to accomplish the objectives they lay out, including developing the intelligence networks and human capital necessary to counter violent extremism, creating “expeditionary” civilian specialists who can embed with military units and provide much-needed assistance in political, economic, and governance missions; optimizing strategic public engagement abroad; investing in the capacities of both U.S. and foreign militaries to counter violent extremism; prioritizing job creation in areas where young people are economically marginalized and susceptible to radicalization; and defending the homeland against terrorist attacks.
And one last note - Ex has moved Abu Muqawama over to the CNAS site. Corporate boy;-)
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Continue on for news and opinion related to President Obama's Cairo Speech. We will be updating this page as additional items are published…
Flawed Doctrine or Flawed Strategy?
by Sergeant First Class Morgan Sheeran, Small Wars Journal
Flawed Doctrine or Flawed Strategy? (Full PDF Article)
The United States and her allies are in trouble in Afghanistan. That’s not hard to see. What seems to be taking up all the bandwidth these days is a conversation about how to go about reversing the backwards slide that Afghanistan is in. The Department of Defense notes in its January, 2009 report on Afghanistan, “The Taliban regrouped after its fall from power and has coalesced into a resilient and evolving insurgency.” It goes on to state, “Shortfalls limit the Allies’ capacity to fulfill all aspects of the COIN strategy.” Meanwhile, the military’s senior leadership is spending its time discussing such things as the appropriateness of the doctrine developed to fight and succeed in such wars. Some are even excusing failure beforehand. Air Force Major General Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. pointed out in the pages of Armed Forces Journal that the United States did not “lose” the Cold War as a result of our failure in Vietnam, thereby implying that failure in Afghanistan would be less than catastrophic and therefore tolerable.
Assessing the acceptability of loss in the central campaign of the Global War on Terror is certainly a diversion from any assessment on how to succeed in a difficult enterprise. It is not the conversation that military leadership should be having at this or any point. While the Army managed to get COIN right just enough to avert a massive failure in Iraq, any self-congratulations are misplaced. The Army has still not wholeheartedly embraced the only doctrine that we possess which is specifically designed for use in counterinsurgency warfare.
Full Text of Barack Obama's Speech to the Muslim World - The Australian.
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Helping Others Help Themselves
by Colonel Bruce Boevers, Small Wars Journal
Helping Others Help Themselves (Full PDF Article)
Recognizing the requirement for the United States to succeed “by, with, and through” our allies, friends and partners, the Department of Defense has taken several actions to improve Department capabilities to conduct Security Force Assistance (SFA) activities. Most recently, DoD has designated U.S. Special Operations Command as joint proponent for SFA and there is an implementing DoD Instruction in the staffing process now. Current emphasis on SFA is critical, if indeed not overdue. Several factors have led us to this point.
Existing and developing threats, as listed above, when coupled with some discernable trends, force the U.S. military to rethink how it will do business in the future in response to these factors. In short, because the Joint Force will not be able to deal with all challenges unilaterally, it will have to act in concert with partners around the world. The ability to do so contains the implied mission to develop the capabilities and capacities of those foreign security forces. Although the United States has been engaged in assisting foreign partners for years, it is now time to develop a broad-based construct that encompasses all components of the Joint Force and that integrates all available “tools” for working with others. The era of niche mission areas and “stovepipes” or “cylinders” of excellence is over.
SWJ has received an advance copy of a new Center for a New American Security (CNAS) report entitled Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Andrew Exum, Nathaniel Fick, Ahmed Humayun and David Kilcullen. As soon as CNAS posts the full report we will provide a link. Until then here is an excerpt from the introduction which serves more as an executive summary:
The United States and its allies are in the eighth year of a war in Afghanistan that has no end in sight. Making matters worse, the security situation in Pakistan—always a safe haven for the insurgents against whom the United States and its allies have fought—has also declined precipitously.
The strategic consequences of the extremist advance are severe… Failure in Afghanistan would mean not only a possible return of pre-9/11 safe havens, but also a sharp blow to the prestige of the United States and its allies… An al Qaeda victory in Pakistan would galvanize global support for the radical Islamist movement, provide a safe haven for al Qaeda, and substantially increase the threat of nuclear terrorism…
The president and his advisers have elected to pursue a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan while encouraging the government in Islamabad to do the same in Pakistan.
To implement this strategy effectively, the United States must rapidly triage in both countries. For the United States, NATO, and the governments involved, winning control over all of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the coming year is not a realistic objective; setting priorities is paramount. But because populations in civil wars tend to side with whichever group exercises control, protecting the population must take precedence over all other considerations. What counts, for now, is controlling what we can with the resources we have. Thus, this paper recommends that the United States and its allies pursue an “ink blot” strategy over the course of the next 12 months on both sides of the Durand Line, securing carefully chosen areas and then building from positions of strength.
This paper is divided into three parts. The first section outlines the current situations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with particular focus on Pakistan since the situation there is both graver and less well understood. These situation assessments highlight two trends that threaten the administration’s stated objectives of promot¬ing a more capable, accountable, and effective government in Afghanistan and enhancing a stable, civilian-led, constitutional government in Pakistan: decreasing government control and increasing civilian casualties. In Afghanistan, Taliban influence has displaced government control in large sections of the country, while the government and the coalition have been unable or unwilling to guarantee security for the people. In Pakistan, extremist control in the northwest has spread with alarming rapidity and now threatens traditionally stable areas in Pakistan’s Punjabi heartland. In both countries, civilian casualties resulting from military opera¬tions have been increasing.
The second section provides two operational recommendations for Afghanistan and two for Pakistan. These four recommendations seek to address the most pressing dangers identified in the situation assessments, and to further progress toward meeting the benchmarks that matter.
In Afghanistan:
Adopt a truly population-centric counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes protecting the population rather than controlling physical terrain or killing the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Use the “civilian surge” to improve governance and decrease corruption in Afghanistan. Place civilian expertise and advisers in the Afghan ministries and—to a lesser degree—the provincial reconstruction teams, rather than in the embassies.
In Pakistan:
Strictly curtail the counterproductive drone strikes on non-al Qaeda targets in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). The expansion of the approved target list for U.S. drone attacks to include non-al Qaeda individuals should be reversed.
Strengthen the Pakistani police, with an emphasis on areas—such as Punjab and Sindh—where the Taliban has not yet exerted control.
The third and final section examines the question of metrics. Since momentum is crucial in counterinsurgencies, accurate metrics are necessary to reinforce what works and to change what does not. Measurement of progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan has focused excessively on inputs, rather than outcomes; when measurement has focused on outcomes, they have often been the wrong ones. We suggest different metrics for tracking, and adjusting, the implementation of the administra¬tion’s new strategy, with particular emphasis on measuring the peoples’ perception of their own security and the government’s ability to exercise legitimate control.
For more see Spencer Ackerman's commentary on Triage at The Washington Independent.
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Continue on for news related to LTG Stanley McChrystal ‘s Senate confirmation testimony today. We will be updating this page with additional items in the morning…
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American Counterinsurgency Strategy During the Moro Rebellion in the Philippines, 1903-1913
by Major Daniel G. Miller, Small Wars Journal
COIN Strategy During the Moro Rebellion (Full PDF Article)
The American military government of the Moro Province from 1903 through 1913 remains a grossly overlooked part of U.S. military history. However, it is a significant episode. The period of military governance in the Moro Province of the Philippines represents the first time the U.S. military conducted a counterinsurgency campaign within an Islamic society. Given that nearly one hundred years later U.S forces returned to the southern Philippines to assist the Philippine government in suppressing Moro insurgents as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, it is important that the U.S. military give more study to that earlier counterinsurgency campaign conducted by the military government of the Moro Province from 1903-1913. The evolution of the military government’s overall strategy in pacifying the Moros is particularly important in light of current U.S. Army counterinsurgency doctrine that focuses on a whole of government approach to dealing with insurgencies.
COIN Strategy During the Moro Rebellion (Full PDF Article)
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Pakistan an Enormous Risk to Global Stability: Kilcullen - Australian Broadcasting Corporation intereview with transcript and extended interview video.
One of the world's top counter-insurgency experts, former Australian soldier David Kilcullen has recently warned in a blistering submission to the United States congress, that Pakistan now represents an enormous risk to global stability. He is urging for a fresh approach from America its dealings with Pakistan.
I think the good thing about it is that we've finally started to see some serious concern within Pakistan itself about the threat of Taliban militancy. If you were looking two or three months ago I don't think people took it as seriously as they do now, and I think the difference is that Pakistan settled areas, around Brunei and Swat which are not really part of tribal areas, have now been threatened by the Taliban and people are starting to take it seriously. That's the good side.
The bad side is I think there's a long way to go in terms of the non-military aspects of this. The military part of it is like a sharp wedge being pushed into the Swat Valley, and essentially that's driving the militants elsewhere and we're going to start to see a spill over of violence, I think, into the rest of Pakistan as that continues...
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US-Philippines Partnership May be Model for Fighting Terrorism Elsewhere - Julian Barnes, Los Angeles Times.
The small US military mission in the Philippines attracts little attention, but Defense Department officials say it has been surprisingly effective at reducing the havens once used by militants here - and that could make the effort a model for other US partnerships with other nations, including Pakistan.
Pakistan has been reluctant to allow more than 70 American trainers into the country, worried about public reaction to a substantive US troop presence. But the low profile and public acceptance of the US military program in the Philippines suggest there could be lessons for American officers eager to step up their efforts with the Pakistan military...
More at The Los Angeles Times.
Command of the Air
Rebooting the Discussion of Air Power and Small Wars
review essay by Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Armstrong
Small Wars Journal
Rebooting the Discussion of Air Power and Small Wars (Full PDF Article)
There has been a great deal of debate over the role of air power in counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns and small wars. This discussion has occurred over a broad range of media, from traditional military journals, to magazines and online hybrids like Small Wars Journal. At times it has been heated and frequently the discussion focuses on the capabilities of today and predictions for tomorrow. However, modern counterinsurgency doctrine and tactics are founded in the many lessons of history. It is time that we reboot the discussion of airpower’s role in COIN by doing some reading and adding a consideration of the history. The following are three books that provide students of military affairs with a solid basis of “preflight planning” in order to restart the discussion.
Rebooting the Discussion of Air Power and Small Wars (Full PDF Article)
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Sam Roggeveen at Lowy Institute's The Interpreter:
Not only has the milblog Small Wars Journal made Rolling Stone's annual hot list, but UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, writing on his blog, has described SWJ alumnus David Kilcullen as his 'favourite Australian analyst'. Fine. FINE. Milliband and Rolling Stone probably just haven't heard of The Interpreter yet.
Sam's right though, excellent stuff at The Interpreter - well worth a regular visit.
Human Terrain
A Strategic Imperative on the 21st Century Battlefield
by Nick Masellis, Small Wars Journal
Human Terrain A Strategic Imperative (Full PDF Article)
Six months into a one-year deployment, my unit was shifting its area of operation from the southeastern Tigris River city of Al-Kut, to one of the main centers of adherents to the Shia sect of Islam – Karbala. The city of Karbala, and particularly the twin mosques that tower over it, is central to the Shia Islamic faith. The significance of these structures is embedded in the culture, economy and faith of the over half a million residents, as well as of the millions of people who pilgrimage every year to visit the sacred, ancient metropolis.
However when I first arrived to the city and noticed the massive golden domes, I knew nothing of their significance; I knew nothing of the story behind the shrines and the history behind them; and I was still ignorant of the general cultural milieu. I was not at all unique – we all were mesmerized by the mosques and the culture around us, but had no clue where to begin in order to understand what they meant in the context of our presence among the people apart from: 1. do not get near the mosques; and 2. do not fire on them if fired upon from its vicinity. But more importantly, the prevailing attitude at the time seemed to be that we didn’t really have to understand anything beyond the latter. That seemed to be a reasonable tenant; after all, why would it be necessary to know such things about any given area, people or buildings? How, if at all, is it pertinent to the mission?
Well, one of the gravest shortfalls in the early years of Iraq “stabilization” was the lack of such understanding. That the tribes and religious sheiks had, in the midst of the political vacuum that developed after the fall of Saddam’s regime, assumed control and influence. The majority of military and civilian leadership in Iraq did not understand these religious and ethnic nuances, which heavily contributed to the sectarian violence and militias that developed in areas like Najaf and Karbala. Moreover, corruption in the country ran rampant, especially through the local police, who had a long history as a force of subversion and brutality. Even the interpreters were at times influenced by their own biases; to include the fear for their own lives and those of their families. As a result, this depreciated the value of effective translation, actionable intelligence and serious engagement with the population – essential components in counterinsurgency operations.
SAS Secret War
Operation Storm in the Middle East
reviewed by Travis Weinger, Small Wars Journal
SAS Secret War (Full PDF Article)
SAS Secret War: Operation Storm in the Middle East. By Major General Tony Jeapes. London: Greenhill Books, first published 1980, this edition published 2005. 253 pages. $22.95. Reviewed by Travis Weinger.
A fanatical group, playing upon political and economic grievances in an isolated province, develops a base of support among the local tribes and launches a full-blown insurgency against the government and foreign power supporting it. The group violently attempts to break the traditional power structures and elites of the tribes and imposes a brutal and foreign ideology in their place. Realizing their mistake, the tribes begin, fitfully, to fight back against the outsiders, slowly reconciling with the counterinsurgents. The counterinsurgents partner with these tribal fighters to great effect, and the back of the insurgency is largely broken.
This could be a description of the course of the modern insurgency in Anbar province. Instead, it is the picture we get of the Dhofar insurgency in Oman in SAS Secret War, written by Major General Tony Jeapes, commander of the first full Special Air Service (SAS) squadron in Oman and SAS Commanding Officer from 1974 until the end of the war in 1975. Republished in 2005 (originally written in 1977), doubtless to cash in on the interest in counterinsurgency generated by the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, General Jeapes’ first-hand account of the successful British campaign in Oman during the 1970s is a fascinating read, both on its own merits as a story of war and in light of present-day discussions and debates about the nature and best practices of COIN.
Future Conflict
Criminal Insurgencies, Gangs and Intelligence
by John P. Sullivan, Small Wars Journal
Future Conflict: Criminal Insurgencies, Gangs and Intelligence (Full PDF Article)
Gangs dominate the intersection between crime and war. Traditionally viewed as criminal enterprises of varying degrees of sophistication and reach, some gangs have evolved into potentially more dangerous and destabilizing actors. In many areas across the world—especially in ‘criminal enclaves’ or ’lawless zones’ where civil governance, traditional security structures, and community or social bonds have eroded—gangs thrive. This essay briefly examines the dynamics of crime and war in these contested regions. Specifically, it provides a framework for understanding ‘criminal insurgencies’ where acute and endemic crime and gang violence challenge the solvency of state political control.
Criminal gangs come in many forms. They challenge the rule of law and employ violence to dominate local communities. In some cases they are expanding their reach and morphing into a new warmaking entities capable of challenging the legitimacy and even the solvency of nation-states. This potential brings life to the prediction made by Martin van Creveld who noted, "In the future, war will not be waged by armies but by groups whom today we call terrorists, guerrillas, bandits and robbers, but who will undoubtedly hit upon more formal titles to describe themselves."
Some advanced gangs—known as ‘third generation gangs’ and/or maras—are waging ‘wars” and changing the dynamics of crime. In some extreme cases they are waging a de facto criminal insurgency. As Adam Elkus and I recently noted: “Criminal insurgency is haunting the police stations and barracks of North America. Powerful criminal networks increasingly challenge the state’s monopoly on force, creating new threats to national security.” Mexico is currently challenged by extreme criminal violence, but it is by no means the only state in the Americas suffering from criminal insurgency. Transnational criminal organizations ranging from the transnational street collective Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) to the powerful Mexican drug cartels are steadily increasing in both power and reach. Even some American street gangs are evolving into ‘third generation’ gangs: large, networked, transnational bodies that may yet develop true political consciousness.
Criminal insurgency presents a challenge to national security analysts used to creating simulations and analytical models for terrorism and conventional military operations. Criminal insurgency is different from “regular” terrorism and insurgency because the criminal insurgents’ sole political motive is to gain autonomy economic control over territory. They do so by hollowing out the state and creating criminal enclaves to maneuver.
Future Conflict: Criminal Insurgencies, Gangs and Intelligence (Full PDF Article)
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Greyhawk over at Mudville Gazette asks: Now that Rolling Stone has included Small Wars Journal on the 2009 Hot List, how long until we see these at the local PX (or grocery store): Link to mag covers;-)
Starbuck at Wings Over Iraq comments: It's better than the initial joke that I had, where the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine would be a boy band consisting of Nagl, Exum, Dave Dilegge, Zenpundit and David Kilcullen called the "Small Wars Boys".
The Kilcullen Doctrine - Mark Safranski, ZenPundit.
While relatively short and designed, naturally, to help promote a book by a friend and CNAS colleague, Dr. Nagl has also taken a significant step toward influencing policy by distilling and reframing Dr. Klicullen’s lengthy and detailed observations into a reified and crystallized COIN “doctrine”. A digestible set of memes sized exactly right for the journalistic and governmental elite whose eyes glaze over at the mention of military jargon and who approach national security from a distinctly civilian and political perspective.
New Doctrines Without Strategic Foundations - Raymond Pritchett, Information Dissemination.
I am not an expert on counterinsurgency, but ever since the surge and getting turned onto the topic by reading the Small Wars Journal, I have studied it enough to understand when COIN is and is not effective. I don't believe that COIN is a subject anyone will truly master without a great deal of regional centric training, education, and experience, although I really appreciate how many concepts of COIN scale in warfare, in particular the complicated discussions of how to operate military forces in populated environments (like the littoral).
Legal Advice From the Taliban - Patrick Devenny, FP's The Argument.
So far, NATO has responded to Taliban expansion by reinforcing its units in the area, boosting its firepower, and combating the poppy economy through interdiction and crop substitution. That's the easy part. The real challenge will come after territory is regained and NATO begins its fight for the population -- not just the land. To get this next phase right, NATO and its Afghan allies would do well to take a lesson from the force that has been managing much of the south for the last two years: the Taliban. Yes, time to take advice from the enemy. What methods of "guerrilla governance" are attracting the support of local populations? And how could NATO and Afghan forces use them to "clear, hold, and build?"
Pakistan on the Brink - Ahmed Rashid, The New York Review of Books (Hat tip to Tom Ricks).
Pakistan is close to the brink, perhaps not to a meltdown of the government, but to a permanent state of anarchy, as the Islamist revolutionaries led by the Taliban and their many allies take more territory, and state power shrinks. There will be no mass revolutionary uprising like in Iran in 1979 or storming of the citadels of power as in Vietnam and Cambodia; rather we can expect a slow, insidious, long-burning fuse of fear, terror, and paralysis that the Taliban have lit and that the state is unable, and partly unwilling, to douse.
Petraeus: Video Shows Strike Aimed At Taliban - Steve Inskeep, NPR interview.
Gen. David Petraeus: I have. In fact, I was in Kabul the other night briefed by the brigadier general who I appointed to carry out an investigation of this particular incident, and there is indeed video from a B-1 Bomber that very clearly shows bombs hitting individuals who are the Taliban who are reacting to the movements of the Afghan and coalition forces on the ground.
What's Up With that "Global Engagement Directive"? - Marc Lynch, FP's Abu Aardvark.
The White House announced the other day that there would be a new desk at the National Security Council called the "Global Engagement Directive" which would take the lead in public diplomacy, international communications, foreign aid and other areas of engagement. This is a good move, which could potentially overcome a number of persistent problems in American public diplomacy and strategic communications.
5 Reasons Why this North Korean Crisis is No Groundhog's Day - Dan Twining, FP's Shadow Government.
North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, new threats of war against its declared enemies, and the predictable results of these developments -- expressions of concern at the UN Security Council, U.S. offers of more unconditional talks, China’s ambivalent response - suggest that we remain in the “Groundhog Day” cycle of crisis and response that has characterized U.S. policy towards Pyongyang since 1994. In fact, new dynamics on the peninsula and in the region, and the fresh opportunity provided by what can now clearly be judged to be years of failed policy on denuclearization and disarmament, present an opportunity for a creative rethink about U.S. policy options. To clarify a way forward, it’s worth considering how the playing field has shifted (I see five ways that it has), and how this may create a different set of possibilities for the United States and our allies vis-à-vis the North Korean regime -- one that breaks decisively from the past and offers real hope for change.
Anything at Abu Muqawama.
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This week's SWJ contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick is now posted. Topics include - Can Counterinsurgency Ever be Used Again? - Social Scientists in the Trenches.
Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Coglianese believes this article still has some utility for SWJ readership. We agree and appreciate him sending it along.
Creating a Supercharged Battalion
By Lieutenant Colonel William David
Creating a Supercharged Battalion (Full PDF Article)
From the Preface:
In late July 1993, the 2nd Battalion 14th Infantry Task Force, 10th Mountain Division, departed Fort Drum for Mogadishu. They were to become the ground element of the 10th Mountain Division Brigade serving as the Quick Reaction Force for the United Nations command in Somalia.
They were the only U.S. maneuver element in country. Over a seventeen hour period on 3 and 4 October, TF 2-14 Infantry--fighting its way from the Mogadishu airfield to downtown--extracted ground elements of Task Force Ranger following the downing of two Task Force Ranger helicopters during an operation that had begun midday on Sunday the 3rd. This battle was marked by fierce fighting.
The 2-14 Infantry accomplished their challenging and dangerous mission. I am one of those who believe that only a really extraordinary infantry battalion could have gotten the Rangers out that night. TF 2-14 Infantry was clearly outstanding. Several of us, therefore, encouraged LTC Bill David to write this story.
Bill's story is simple and complex at the same time. The insights and lessons are, for the most part, timeless and broadly applicable. Bill presents a clear picture of what is required to make an outfit truly first rate.
This is the story of a battalion commander leading his soldiers in combat. LTC David describes how he built on the basic Army training and doctrine formula and added particular emphasis in core areas to develop a winning team.
This is a personal account. It is not history.
Luck was not a factor in 2-14's success. As will become apparent, 2-14's performance was the result of mission/combat-focused training, careful planning, aggressive execution, and an unwavering commitment to the welfare of soldiers….
What do Lady Gaga and Small Wars Journal have in common? One is on the cover of the Rolling Stone and one isn’t – but sure enough both made the Rolling Stone 2009 “Hot List” – go figure.
Stocks may tumble and fortunes may fall, but hotness, it seems, is eternal.
There was some concern about compiling our latest Rolling Stone Hot List during an ice-cold era. But it seems that in these uncertain, gray days, we need what our Managing Editor Will Dana called "the sparkly and the sexy, the perfectly shaped diversions America leads the world in creating."
... Since we launched the Hot List in 1986, we've had our share of hits and misses (check our cover gallery to revisit all out past Hot Issues, from Angelina to Giselle to Britney). In 1988, we profiled "Hot Character Actor" Kevin Spacey, and we're particularly proud that in 1990, we introduced readers to a 23-year-old screenwriter named Jeffrey Abrams (you might know him now as Lost and Star Trek visionary J.J. Abrams). Of course, we've also missed the mark — in 1990, we thought Renny Harlin's hot streak would last, and the same issue that featured Abrams also declared Tevin Campbell "Hot Prodigy."
This time, we're banking on an assortment of movers, shakers and muckrakers that runs the gamut from the warfare digest "Small Wars Journal" to Hot Issue cover girl Lady Gaga…
Rolling Stone’s 2009 Hot List - as soon as we grab a hard copy of RS we'll post the SWJ entry - anyone seen it yet and care to share in comments below? This issue has not hit the news stands as yet.
Update:
Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement:
Yeah, well, anyone with a Y chromosome can see the chick with the Phyllis Diller fright wig and the bubble bikini is hot. Glad to see RS is getting hip to how hot Small Wars can be. Now breathlessly awaiting the print version with the actual RS SWJ review. Hate to get political about it, but seeing as SWJ was the go-to place for understanding the Iraq surge and RS is only just catching up two years later, forgive me for suspecting that the Odoption of the Bush embrace of counterinsurgency tactics has something to do with the new Small Wars fashion craze.
Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette:
Dave Dilegge asks "What do Lady Gaga and Small Wars Journal have in common? One is on the cover of the Rolling Stone and one isn't - but sure enough both made the Rolling Stone 2009 "Hot List" - go figure."
"This time," an anonymous Rolling Stone editor says of the list, "we're banking on an assortment of movers, shakers and muckrakers that runs the gamut from the warfare digest "Small Wars Journal" to Hot Issue cover girl Lady Gaga."
The kewl kidz know where to go for the show.
Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama:
So are we bitter that our boss John Nagl nominated Small Wars Journal to Rolling Stone's "Hot List" instead of us? Naw. I'm pretty sure no one under 40 years of age reads Rolling Stone anymore, so it makes sense that my pleated pants-wearing boss would turn down Frampton Comes Alive! long enough to speak to some geriatric Rolling Stone journalist about the latest "hot" thing.
No, no, in all seriousness, congrats to Dave and the gang at SWJ. We'll be out behind the cafeteria dumpster smoking with the cool kids if anyone needs us.
Starbuck at Wings Over Iraq:
Small Wars Journal is a great site. But you normally wouldn't associate it with Rolling Stone Magazine's "Hot List". Until now.
It looks as if I'm going to have to acquire a copy of Rolling Stone when it gets shipped over here.
Joshua Keating at FP Passport:
Congratulations to everyone at SWJ! The recognition is well deserved. Since FP has teamed up with them to publish Robert Haddick's excellent weekly column "This Week at War," we can't help but feel a little hotter ourselves today.
Rumors that Ricks and Rothkopf are appearing together on the next Tiger Beat cover have yet to be confirmed.
Okay here's the scoop (RS page 85):
Hot Intelligence: 'Small Wars Journal'
The Military's New Must Read
Want to know how Obama is going to fight the war in Afghanistan? Then check out Small Wars Journal, an online magazine that provides a crash course on asymmetric warfare. Get schooled in fighting Somali pirates. Find out what Malcolm Nance, a former Navy interrogation instructor, thinks about waterboarding ("a torture technique, Period"). When David Kilcullen, special adviser to Gen. Petraeus, live-blogged the Iraq surge, he did it for SWJ.
Contributions include who's who of the sharpest minds in uniform, regardless of rank. "You're judged purely on the strength of your intellectual argument," says John Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who helped write the Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Run by two former Marines, the site is a must-read for military insiders. "We must be doing something right," says co-founder Dave Dilegge, "because we get people calling us Attila the Hun warmongers one day and counterinsurgency-loving tree-huggers the next."
Hat tip to JMG1093 at the Council.
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Countering Terrorism from the Second Foreign Fighter Glut
by Clint Watts, Small Wars Journal
Countering Terrorism from the Second Foreign Fighter Glut (Full PDF Article)
Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, which ended in early 1989, created a glut of foreign fighters, who found themselves unwanted by their home/source countries and restless for another Jihadi campaign. This “First Foreign Fighter Glut” spawned al-Qa’ida (AQ) and a decade of increasingly lethal terrorist attacks leading up to September 11, 2001.
Today, Western nations face a smaller, more lethal threat resulting from the “Second Foreign Fighter Glut.” As major conflicts in Iraq and later Afghanistan diminish in scale, a new generation of former foreign fighters will sit idle in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The future success of AQ hinges on its recruitment process in which former foreign fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan guide the recruitment and production of future foreign fighters who will conduct regional and global terrorist attacks. Left unchecked, the Second Foreign Fighter Glut will produce the next generation of terrorist organizations and attacks much as the First Foreign Fighter Glut fueled AQ.
Current Western counterterrorism (CT) strategies, largely overshadowed by counterinsurgencies (COIN) in Iraq and Afghanistan, place great emphasis on eliminating the supply of foreign fighters at their intended targets. These strategies fail to adequately mitigate the demand for jihad by young recruits in foreign fighter source countries.
Countering Terrorism from the Second Foreign Fighter Glut (Full PDF Article)
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Hopefully this won't happen but Starbuck at Wings Over Iraq reports on a recent e-mail he received:
I just received this e-mail from someone involved in an Army-based web forum called "CompanyCommand.com" (whose sister site is "PlatoonLeader.com"). Seems that, with projected budget "cuts", the first thing to go isn't bloated programs like the F-22 Raptor or the Army's Future Combat System, but rather, inexpensive projects which have actually yielded impressive results by spurring innovation from the field...
Again, I don't know how serious the recommendation was to shut down CompanyCommand.com, but should anyone question the power of "The New Media" on combat operations, I merely direct them to this article in Small Wars Journal. (Includes interviews from Zenpundit, David Kilcullen, Thomas Ricks, Abu Muqawama, and, of course, from me).
Starbuck goes on to recommend that if you have an account at CompanyCommand or PlatoonLeader, log in and tell the admins not to shut the site down.
Social Science for Counterterrorism
Putting the Pieces Together
Edited by Paul K. Davis, Kim Cragin.
Contributors: Darcy Noricks, Todd C. Helmus, Christopher Paul, Claude Berrebi, Brian A. Jackson, Gaga Gvineria, Michael Egner, and Benjamin Bahney - Rand.
Social Science for Counterterrorism (Full Monograph)
The authors report on an aggressively interdisciplinary project to survey and integrate the scholarly social-science literature relevant to counterterrorism. They draw on literature from numerous disciplines, both qualitative and quantitative, and then use high-level conceptual models to pull the pieces together. In their monograph, they identify points of agreement and disagreement and point out instances in which disagreements merely reflect difference of research context or perspective. Priorities for further research are suggested and improved ways to frame questions for research and analysis are identified. The questions addressed relate to how terrorism arises, why some individuals become terrorists, how terrorists generate public support, how terrorist organizations make decisions, how terrorism declines, why individuals disengage, and how strategic communications can be more or less effective.
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No Magic Bullet on Iran - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.
When U.S. and Israeli officials say that "all options are on the table" for stopping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, that's usually taken to mean aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and other locations.
But there is another option for impeding the Iranian program -- a covert campaign to disrupt and deceive Iran's nuclear establishment. Despite the secrecy surrounding such efforts, reports about Israeli and U.S. sabotage efforts have surfaced recently in newspaper stories, which undoubtedly have been read with interest in Tehran.
These published reports raise an interesting question: Do secret sabotage programs offer a "magic bullet" for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat -- raising the cost to Iran of pursuing its program, while avoiding the chaotic backlash that would follow a conventional military strike?
More at The Washington Post.
What the Tigers Taught Al-Qaeda - Mia Bloom, Washington Post opinion.
It took a pitched two-hour gun battle with Sri Lankan special forces. Then a rocket launched into his armor-plated ambulance. But last Monday, death finally came to Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Tamil Tigers separatist group.
Also gone are Prabhakaran's son and heir apparent, Charles Anthony, and as many as 300 cadres. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations on the planet, has been essentially wiped out.
But the Tigers' legacy remains intact. Their perfection of suicide bombings, their recruitment of women and children, their innovation in IEDs, have been emulated by other terrorist groups worldwide, from al-Qaeda to Hezbollah. Though they considered themselves superior to jihadi terrorists -- who regularly target civilians -- the Tigers opened the door to terrorism as a strategy of liberation and resistance to an unwanted government or occupying force. And they reached a standard of deadly efficiency envied by U.S. enemies and terrorists around the globe...
More at The Washington Post.
Ending the Neverending War - Reviewed by John Nagl, Azure
The Forever War: Dispatches from the War on Terror
by Dexter Filkins
Knopf, 2008, 368 pages
Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq
by Linda Robinson
Public Affairs, 2008, 416 pages
The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008
by Bob Woodward
Simon & Schuster, 2008, 512 pages
When the insurgency began in Iraq in the late summer of 2003, the United States Army was caught unprepared. Until then, it had been designed, trained, and equipped to win conventional wars, and was without doubt peerless in that arena. But it was not ready for an enemy who understood that it had no hope of defeating the United States on a conventional battlefield, and therefore chose to wage war against it from the shadows.
Yet over the five years that followed, in one of history’s most remarkable examples of adaptation under fire, the United States Army learned to conduct a surprisingly successful counterinsurgency campaign. Three new books, each by a prominent journalist, tell the story of that dramatic change, two from on the ground in Iraq and one from the corridors of Washington. Viewing the conflict from their different perspectives provides important insights into a war that America was losing badly only two years ago, and now looks to have turned around. It also suggests something about how America is likely to fight the war in Afghanistan under President Obama, and offers broader lessons about the nature of warfare in the twenty-first century...
Read more of the reviews at Azure.
The War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor, Azure
I enjoyed reading John Nagl’s excellent review (“Ending the Neverending War,” AZURE 35, Winter 2009) of three books that tell the story of the debacle and re-birth of American strategy in the Iraq war. It is a cautionary tale for any number of nations in the twenty-first century, Israel included. Nagl mentions that the U.S. Army was thoroughly unprepared for counterinsurgency warfare in 2003, but since the reasons for that lapse fell outside the purview of the books he was reviewing, he doesn’t state why. Simply put, the United States military has a love affair with technology and, during the decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, developed concepts that substituted technological prowess for strategic relevance. The future American way of war, according to certain defense intellectuals, was summed up in the phrase “Rapid Decisive Operations,” otherwise known as “shock and awe.” Using sophisticated intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms, American forces would be able to find and distinguish all relevant targets on the battlefield and then, using precision-guided munitions, destroy them. Wars would be quick and relatively bloodless.
What the proponents of this approach failed to realize is that military operations are neither rapid nor decisive unless they lead to a more enduring peace. In this regard, the United States was guilty of trying to replace strategy with tactical and operational concepts that had marginal relevance to the kinds of wars that the nation would face after 9/11. We were guilty of becoming the Germans of the twenty-first century—a nation that used brilliant tactical and operational concepts but lost two world wars on account of strategic incompetence...
More at Azure.
My flight from Kabul to Delhi was at 9:40 am on Indian Airlines, the national carrier of India. I was flying through Delhi on my way to visit some friends in Kathmandu, Nepal. I figured I was in the neighborhood.
I left for the 20 minute drive to the airport early -- 6am -- insurance against unknown delays or issues. Good thing too. One would expect Kabul airport security to be tight. One would hope and expect Indian Airlines security to be extra tight considering the Indian Embassy in Kabul was bombed only two months prior. Correct on both counts. My car had barely reached the outskirts of the airport when we reached the backup for first security checkpoint. The Afghan National Police (ANP) were searching all cars, searching all bags, and doing pat downs on all passengers. After I piled back in the car, we crawled for another quarter mile before reaching the second checkpoint, manned by the Afghan National Border Police (ANBP). This time, passengers and their bags were forced to exit the car, go through a bag and personnel scan/search, and then rejoin their searched car for the final quarter mile drive to a chaotic parking lot where one could catch a bus to the terminal. After a ten minute wait, the bus made the two minute drive to the terminal where all passengers were dumped into an outdoor baggage and personal screening line for the third security check. Successfully passing this check entitled me to enter the airport terminal building and try to figure out how to turn my e-ticket into a boarding pass. Turns out, e-tickets are issued for flights from Kabul but not advised. I lucked out and the Indian airlines agent literally hand wrote my ticket out on a blank piece of white paper. Next came two more security check points inside the terminal (including one where they wrap your baggage in a strap) before finally getting to the gate at 8:55am, only 45 minutes before scheduled departure. The flight was delayed thirty minutes so we finally boarded at about 10am — but not before going through one last bag search and pat down literally right at the door of the plane.
All the waiting in traffic, security lines, and at the gate gave me plenty of time to reflect on the trip and core policy and operational questions about our mission in Afghanistan. At the start of the trip, I intended to learn more about the causes of conflict in Eastern Afghanistan and whether the US strategy and resources were matched and organized effectively to the problem. In particular, I wanted to look at the question of whether the US strategy of expanding governance from Kabul was still realistic or if a more local political engagement approach might make more sense.
I came away from the trip angry at the negligence of the Afghan politicians and the Bush Administration for squandering six years and countless billions of dollars on a politically soft and ineffective version of nation building. Spending money on infrastructure projects and coaching good governance is a grossly insufficient political strategy, particularly in the corrupt and inefficient atmosphere of Afghanistan today. I saw no evidence of a strategic approach to apply pressure and leverage on Afghan politicians, warlords, and tribes in order to build pragmatic support, stamp out corruption and isolate extremist influence. There apparently has been little effort to forge pragmatic political deals with the Pashtun tribes or to devise a more nuanced relationship between tribal authority and participation in the political process. Areas where security is good like Kabul or the West are not nearly the economic success stories one would expect from six years of security and economic development. Organizationally, the US military in has been asked to do the impossible in Afghanistan, burdened with too few troops and unsupported by a US civilian presence so minimal and irregular to render itself strategically meaningless. The net effect has been to falsely raise expectations, effectively lower responsibility and accountability, and turn the US military into an undermanned welfare program.
These critiques do not undercut in any way my admiration for the many tremendous individual leaders like John Spiszer or Steve Erickson who are making a difference despite organizational or resource shortcomings. In my view, Afghanistan’s backslide is the result of weak leadership at the national level, not failures at the operational level.
There are reasons for optimism. The Obama team is leaning hard into AfPak, as evidenced by injection of both new and additional senior leadership, both civilian and military, as well as the surge of military and civilian resources into Afghanistan and the new assistance programs for Pakistan. What is less clear at this point, is how the Holbrooke/Eikenberry/McCrystal team will reenergize the political process in Afghanistan to impose more accountability and pragmatic cooperation from key Afghan leaders in Kabul and across the East. Having been an inside observer of Mr. Holbrooke’s work in the 1990s, I’m confident we’ll see much more political leverage in play in the coming months, in Kabul, Islamabad and in the provinces. Regardless of who wins the fall presidential elections in Afghanistan, the new Afghan President must take a tougher political line with corrupt or tainted warlords and work relentlessly to forge political deals with the Pashtun east at the expense of extremism. He should tell Afghans stop expecting the West to lift them up and call upon them to rebuild the Afghanistan they dream of. Stronger leadership in Kabul and Washington can make secure areas like Kabul shining examples of progress and prosperity to remind people what is possible and offer Afghans a more tangible alternative to conflict or the Taliban.
Having left Kabul, I arrived safely in Nepal, where soaring mountains and ancient Buddhist and Hindu culture now host a fledgling democracy — and a reminder of what is possible. The long time insurgency in Nepal has ended because the Maoist rebels are now part of the political process. Political engagement, process and compromise are the critical ingredients of peace more so than road projects or laser guided bombs. Security and reconstruction operations cannot themselves create political stability, they are only essential tools in pursuit of the political process. In Afghanistan and Pakististan, there is much political work to do. But I am thankful to have seen the beauty and the opportunity of Afghanistan and to meet Afghans who so passionately want peace and prosperity. I look forward to a future visit to Afghanistan that is far closer to that goal.
Thank you to Small Wars Journal for allowing me to share my thoughts on my Afghanistan trip. Readers can contact me at ndowling@idsinternational.net
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This week's SWJ contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick is now posted. Topics include - Losing the media war to the Taliban and Pakistan's hedges are growing wild.
Transforming the National Security Culture
A Report of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Defense Leadership Project
Transforming the National Security Culture (Full PDF Report)
From the Preface
General Edward C. Meyer, former Army Chief of Staff, has compared our best leaders to diamonds. Just as the diamond requires three properties for its formation—carbon, heat, and pressure—successful leaders require the interaction of three properties—character, knowledge, and application. We at the Harvard Kennedy School seek to foster an environment in which our student leaders can develop their character, expand their knowledge, and launch into promising career trajectories through the application of newly polished skills for the benefit of our nation’s security. The Harvard Kennedy School Defense Leadership Project is a proud example of the work that can be produced in this environment.
As we seek to generate and promote more effective leadership in national security policy, we are deeply committed to bridging the gap between leadership theory and practice. Supporting collabora¬tive thinking among experts in the field is critical to this objective. The student-generated Defense Leadership Project aptly sought to address a critical shortfall in national security leadership through its collaborative endeavor. As this report attests, the Defense Leadership Project specifically created unprecedented opportunities for reflection and discovery for students and prominent practitioners from different disciplines, sectors, and cultures to elicit proactive solutions to tomorrow’s challenges.
Well-trained and equipped leaders sharing collaborative mentalities are paramount for successfully preserving our national security. The combined support of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and the Center for Public Leadership speaks to the shared belief in the importance of this initiative, and the associated recommendations. We applaud the students involved in the Defense Leadership Project and the energy this team put into organizing guest speakers and writing this report. We hope our nation’s leaders might draw from their informed and insightful findings.
From the Introduction
In late winter 2007, a small group of veterans attending Harvard University decided to challenge the status quo. Frustrated by their experiences overseas and what they perceived as a lack of innovative leadership within their own organizations, they sought to develop new ideas. They wanted to create something the business world would call a skunk works, an autonomous group of creative thinkers, charged with working on advanced projects. Enlisting the help of three separate research centers at Harvard—the Center for Public Leadership, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (which also had played a role in the publication of the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual), and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs—the students took their proposal to the larger student body.
At a special reception for all Harvard graduate students who had served (or were serving) within the national security community, the students announced open applications for an initiative they called the Defense Leadership Project sponsored by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. The response from the crowd—which had been full of veterans returned from combat tours, homeland security officials, intelligence analysts, private security consultants, and others—was overwhelming. Applications poured in, and after selecting the most talented, experienced, and creative individuals, the panel set to work defining its mission.
The students almost immediately came to realize that most of their frustrations were rooted in leader¬ship and organizational culture. In their eyes, the national security establishment was facing a major crisis: leaders at all levels were routinely ill-equipped to understand, visualize, or respond effectively to the modern security environment. The problem was one of adaptation: decades of Cold War doctrine and thinking had left behind a sense of unassailable institutional inertia. Despite the undeniable rise of asymmetric threats such as insurgents, terrorists, militias, and other nonstate actors, the defense establishment had continued to invest overwhelmingly in preparations for traditional, conventional warfare.
While many blue ribbon panels and study groups have been convened since 9/11 to develop recommendations for the security establishment, few have focused on the role of the individual leader. New organizational models and next-generation technologies may improve our nation’s readiness, but—in the humble opinion of the students—success or failure would be defined by the ability of individual leaders to operate effectively with minimal guidance, adapt, and collaborate across traditional institutional stovepipes. In other words, victory will not be gained by overwhelming our enemies with brute force, but by empowering our leaders to innovate faster than the enemy can respond.
The panel’s methodology would be simple: Invite senior level defense leaders to Harvard for closed door, nonattribution, and brutally honest discussions. Combine the enthusiasm and “on the ground” perspective of the students with the strategic outlook of decision makers and experts. Develop bluesky solutions, record notes for every session, and eventually, write the proposals into a report intended for senior policy makers. This booklet is the end result of our efforts. We respectfully submit these recommendations for your consideration, in the hope that a few of the ideas might prove useful or inspire further inquiry.
From the Foreword
When the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School brings together graduate students and national security students at Harvard—military veterans, homeland security officials, intelligence officers, private security contractors, and others—in a Defense Leadership Project, one expects powerful results as they work with distinguished guest panelists. After all, it’s Harvard, the Kennedy School, David Gergen’s Center for Public Leadership, and our own country’s security leaders. We have great expectations.
Rarely do results of such an intellectual engagement provide the call to action that this report delivers. Not an academic treatise, this is a tough report by people on the ground, across the sectors, examining every aspect of the defense community, and this is the powerful result. And it’s all about leadership, the leaders of the future required right across the national security community, to lead, respond, mobilize, inspire, build the alliances and partnerships an uncertain future demands in the emerging security environment.
The formal recommendations the panel makes in this report are sobering and illuminating and fall into four categories:
• Finding critical talent
• Transforming talent into institutional capability
• Reforming the existing organization to promote balance and interoperability
• Accelerating generational change.
Three powerful messages flow through the recommendations, the rationale, and the call to action in this report:
• A massive need for change in the national security organizations and community to prepare our leaders to meet future threats
• Emerging leaders, the new generation of national security professional workers, will generate the change essential to meet evolving challenges
• The inspiring ideas will come from bright young minds committed to our security establishment who know change is the leadership imperative of our time.
Transforming the National Security Culture (Full PDF Report)
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Secretary Eric Shinseki: Past and Future
By Captain Timothy Hsia
"We are looking at the future of the force mix, examining what it is going to look like in the years ahead, and it’s possible at the end of this process the decision will be made that some of the heavy brigades will become Stryker brigades.” [Secretary of the Army Pete] Geren said, adding that the Stryker concept “has been an extraordinarily successful program."
Since 2003, the Army has fielded seven Stryker brigade combat teams, each equipped with about 300 Stryker wheeled vehicles built on common chassis. Stryker units have spent most of their time in Iraq, but the Pentagon announced in February that the 5th Stryker BCT would deploy to Afghanistan for the first time.
-- Army Brass Hint at More Stryker Brigades by Matthew Cox
Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of the Veteran Affairs, has his work cut out from him. For the next few years, the Veteran Affairs will be handling the cases of thousands of returning veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who return home with physical and psychic wounds as testament to their tours of duty downrange. If the past is any guide to Shinseki’s competence and character, then the future bodes well for the Veteran Affairs, as Shinseki’s reforms of the Army during his tenure as Chief of Staff were absolutely crucial to the Army’s ability to better wage a counterinsurgency campaign...
Continue reading "Secretary Eric Shinseki: Past and Future" »
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Treading on Hallowed Ground
Counterinsurgency in Sacred Places
reviewed by Colonel William T. Anderson, Small Wars Journal
Treading on Hallowed Ground (Full PDF Article)
C. Christine Fair and Sumit Ganguly, eds. Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York: 2008.
A common tactic used by Shi’ite militias and rogue elements during Operation Iraqi Freedom has been the use of holy shrines for sanctuary and logistics. In 2004, for example, the US military fought members of Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia in Najaf, one of Shi’ia Islam holiest cities. On two occasions that year, followers of al-Sadr used the grounds of the most sacred Iman Ali shrine to conduct military operations and terrorist attacks. These operations posed particularly thorny issues for responding forces who were very sensitive to possible repercussions resulting from any damage to the shrine.
Obviously, the use of force against holy sites can antagonize and deeply affect religious communities. Any desecration, whether perceived or real, can generate a back-lash of local sentiment against the counterinsurgency force. The potential for a positive outcome in the eyes of the insurgent forces means that we can expect them in future security environments to continue to use this tactic. Thanks to this book, however, we can now identify some valuable lessons learned that warrant our attention. When responding to insurgents using sacred sites, counterinsurgent forces often failed to achieve desired outcomes due to several critical shortcomings: poor or faulty intelligence, the absence of a “deft public relations strategy” and a lack of restraint on the use of force.
SWJ has been a long time fan of the reporting and analysis of David Wood, most recently of the Baltimore Sun. Via Politico:
Seasoned military writer David Wood, who left the Baltimore Sun during the paper's massive layoffs in April, has joined AOL's new site, Politics Daily...
Previous to working at the Sun, Wood has covered national security and reported extensively overseas for Time Magazine and the Los Angeles Times. A Pulitzer-finalist, Wood won the Headliner Award for his Iraq coverage last year...
Via The Baltimore Sun and The Morning Call:
Wood has accompanied US troops in the field many times, both on domestic and overseas training maneuvers and in Desert Storm, the Persian Gulf tanker war, the operations in Panama, Somalia and Haiti, peacekeeping missions in the Balkans and combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was embedded with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Somalia and the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne Division units for Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. In four trips to Iraq he has embedded with numerous units including the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment's 2nd Squadron in East Baghdad, the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines in al-Anbar and the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing.
With that - here's David's inaugural post at Politics Daily - Moving Target: The Pitfalls Facing US Air Power in Afghanistan.
... In Iraq, the war against insurgents was largely fought on city streets, by infantrymen, and the role of air power was limited. In Afghanistan, there are fewer US troops and a lot more territory to cover -- perfect conditions, it would seem, in which to use America's formidable power to strike from the air. But it is more difficult than it seems.
This is bad news for the US war effort in Afghanistan. It's not something easy to fix, like tweaking strategy, inventing a new target sensor, or selecting a 250-pound bomb instead of the 2,000-pounder. The problem is that the United States doesn't know who, exactly, it is fighting in Afghanistan, and it doesn't know where they are...
Much more at Politics Daily.
Continue reading "Baltimore Sun's Loss, Politics Daily's Gain" »
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Perspective on the Systems Perspective
How Army Special Forces Can Use Existing Systems within the Operational Environment
by Major Michael Longacre, Small Wars Journal
Perspective on the Systems Perspective (Full PDF Article)
The purpose of this article is to articulate how Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) can use existing elements of the Operational Environment (OE) to accomplish desired military endstates. SOF assets gain marked advantages by indentifying and making use of pre-existing structures within the EO and ensuring the roles these systems play within the EO support our objectives. As a military, we would not ignore or destroy a country’s entire road systems and then create a new road network on which to operate our vehicles. Nor would we attempt to conduct a lodgment without using existing sea and air ports. However, as a nation we attempted to support a fledging state in Iraq by disbanding its existing security apparatus and the Ba’ath party that had previously ran the daily functioning of the government. In contrast, preserving, influencing, and strengthening the social, political, and economic infrastructure better allows us to achieve our aims and fully embraces the “by, with, and through” approach that has made ARSOF so successful.
In order to discuss how ARSOF may use these pre-existing components of the OE, this article first discusses the nature of these components, then explores some specific ways in which ARSOF and existing elements of the OE may support each other.
Continue reading "A Conversation About the Obama-Netanyahu Meeting" »
The drive up the Panjshir valley, north of Kabul, offers both spectacle and history. Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir, remains a legend in Afghanistan, particularly among Tajiks. The famed Muj and Northern Alliance leader was assassinated two days before 9/11, but his battle plan to defeat the Taliban was successful in the weeks that followed.
The PRT paved road through the Panjshir valley features gorgeous scenery contrasting with rusted hulks of Russian vehicles -- memorials to the Russian failure to control Massoud’s Panjshir valley. The Taliban learned this lesson and didn’t even challenge Massoud for control of Panjshir. Today, Panjshir is one of the most secure and peaceful provinces in Afghanistan. But the anger and impatience with Kabul is on the rise. Where is Massoud’s successor as the leader of Afghanistan? The joke in Panjshir today is that Massoud died as a warrior but all Massoud’s lieutenants became fat and rich.
Having met with many American officials in the early portion of my trip, the remaining days in Panjshir and Kabul focused on the perspectives of the Afghans themselves, from Governors to senior Karzai advisors to leading Kabul businessmen.
The lack of a political leadership or strategy in Afghanistan was obvious from both US and Afghan sources. The reconstruction effort has essentially created a corrupt welfare effort, with little political responsibility. The leadership on the Afghan side has been negligible. In my meetings, one Afghan governor went on for twenty minutes about how ineffective Karzai had been. Karzai’s doesn’t seem to take a strong position on anything. Meanwhile, US aid has been given out with no more strategy or conditionality than “more the merrier” creating essentially a welfare economy rife with corruption and with no Afghan having much incentive to take responsibility or initiative. One former government official and Kabul businessman told us “you have turned Afghanistan into a nation of conniving beggars.”
Ambassador Holbrooke, so effective in applying leverage to chart a political course in the Bosnia and Kosovo, must apply a similar approach in Afghanistan. This means applying US and international leverage to demand much more from the Karzai government and Afghan political officials in terms of taking responsibility, countering corruption, and countering Taliban influence in eastern tribal areas. We must single out or sideline those Afghans that are content to milk the reconstruction effort and not challenge militant influence in their areas. We must challenge substantive corruption that threatens key political objectives in reconstruction. And we must view the application of force primarily in political terms, not military terms.
None of this is to suggest that the US choose the next President of Afghanistan. When one Afghan politician advised me that the US choose more carefully than they did with Karzai, I firmly noted that it was the responsibility of the Afghans themselves to choose their leadership. No American anointed President can hold credibility or legitimacy in Afghanistan.
The blame for this political ineffectiveness in Afghanistan lays with both Karzai and the Bush team. Both have neglected their responsibilities in Afghanistan over the past six years. Obama’s enhanced focus on Afghanistan is apparent, but it is too early to see effects. State has outlined a broad enhancement to the civilian capacity both in Kabul and in the field. The elevation and/or reshuffling of political and now military US leadership in Afghanistan is the clearest indication of both higher priority and a new direction. A new strategy is in play in broad strokes but the application in the field is not underway substantially.
Others are also thinking strategically about Afghanistan. Perhaps the most stunning and visual construction effort in Panjshir is Massoud’s tomb - a massive undertaking impressively perched on a mid-valley promontory. This project, a worthy memorial for Afghanistan’s fallen hero, is funded by Tehran for pennies compared to the US reconstruction effort.
Nick Dowling is a small wars policy wonk with experience in OSD, the NSC Staff, NDU, and the contracting sector. He has worked on stability operations for 16 years, most prominently on Bosnia and Kosovo as a Clinton Administration appointee and Iraq and Afghanistan as a DoD contractor. He is currently President of IDS International, a leader in interagency and “soft power” types of support to the US military. He is a graduate of Harvard, got his masters at Georgetown, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Although a veteran of print and television media interviews and publications, this is his first foray into SWJ.
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Embedded
A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army
reviewed by Major Niel Smith, Small Wars Journal
Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army by Wesley Gray, Naval Institute Press, 2009, 256 pages.
Embedded presents a tale not often told among the growing collection of memoirs by former company grade officers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Marine Capt. Wesley Gray served as an embedded combat adviser with an Iraqi battalion in Haditha, Iraq, during 2006. Gray deserves great credit for shining the spotlight the critical effort to develop competent Iraqi security forces. For those who have never had the pleasure of closely working as an embed, Gray’s narrative reveals the herculean challenges that most combat advisers face.
Although limited in scope to his location and time in Iraq, the situations he encounters are common to most advisers in Iraq. Gray’s account of his learning curve is the strongest aspect of the book.
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Starbuck at Wings Over Iraq says Curse You, Small Wars Journal! His ire is directed at Frank Hoffman, something to do about hybrid war...
Continue on for today's Small Wars Journal news and opinion roundup...
Death From Above, Outrage Down Below - David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum, New York Times opinion.
In recent days, the Pentagon has made two major changes in its strategy to defeat the Taliban, Al Qaeda and their affiliates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. First came the announcement that Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal would take over as the top United States commander in Afghanistan. Next, Pentagon officials said that the United States was giving Pakistan more information on its drone attacks on terrorist targets, while news reports indicated that Pakistani officers would have significant future control over drone routes, targets and decisions to fire weapons (though the military has denied that).
While we agree with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that “fresh eyes were needed” to review our military strategy in the region, we feel that expanding or even just continuing the drone war is a mistake. In fact, it would be in our best interests, and those of the Pakistani people, to declare a moratorium on drone strikes into Pakistan...
The appeal of drone attacks for policy makers is clear. For one thing, their effects are measurable. Military commanders and intelligence officials point out that drone attacks have disrupted terrorist networks in Pakistan, killing key leaders and hampering operations. Drone attacks create a sense of insecurity among militants and constrain their interactions with suspected informers. And, because they kill remotely, drone strikes avoid American casualties.
But on balance, the costs outweigh these benefits for three reasons...
Much more at The New York Times.
Updates:
Jules Crittenden on Death From Above
Andrew Exum on Killing Civilians Remains Bad
Noah Shachtman on Calls for ‘Moratorium’ Hit New York Times
Spencer Ackerman on Stop The Drones
Andrew Sullivan on The Trouble With Predators
Continue reading "Death From Above, Outrage Down Below (Updated)" »
Winning the Information War in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Greg Bruno, Council on Foreign Relations.
With overwhelming firepower, Western armies rarely lose in combat to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. But in the communications battle, the militants appear to hold the edge. The gap has grown especially wide in the Afghan war zone, analysts say. Using FM transmitters, the Internet, and threatening notes known as "night letters" (TIME), Taliban operating from the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan have proven effective at either cowing citizens or winning them over to their message of jihad. U.S. special representative Richard Holbrooke told journalists in March 2009 that "the information issue--sometimes called psychological operations or strategic communication" has become a "major, major gap to be filled" before U.S.-led forces can regain the upper hand. As part of its new strategy for the Afghan war, the White House has called for an overhaul of "strategic communications" in Afghanistan "to improve the image of the United States and its allies" and "to counter the propaganda that is key to the enemy's terror campaign." But U.S. officials have acknowledged an institutional weakness in coordinating strategic communications across agencies, as well as broader disagreements on definitions and tactics. "A coordinated effort must be made to improve the joint planning and implementation of strategic communications," says the Pentagon's 2008 National Defense Strategy.
Much more at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Continue reading "Winning the Information War in Afghanistan and Pakistan" »
Countering the Military's Latest Fad - Celeste Ward, Washington Post.
When Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced Monday that he was dismissing Gen. David McKiernan as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and replacing him with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, he signaled his support for an intellectual movement that in a few short years has come to dominate military thinking in Washington. Both McChrystal and his new No. 2, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, Gates emphasized, have a "unique skill set in counterinsurgency."
Counterinsurgency is king. Once the province of graduate students and historians of the conflicts in Vietnam and Algeria, this resurgent doctrine of how to wage a type of unconventional war has become the lens through which the American defense establishment analyzes what happened in Iraq, what to do now in Afghanistan, and the very future of warfare.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command and the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, is the inspiration and leading light of this movement. In 2006, he coauthored the Army field manual on how to conduct counterinsurgency operations, stressing the need to provide security for the local population and support the host government, among other imperatives. A vocal cohort of students and adherents of counterinsurgency -- now given the inevitable military acronym "COIN" -- has emerged to advance the cause. New think tanks and blogs propagate and debate counterinsurgency research, and tomes exploring insurgencies past, present and future are on every cognoscente's reading list. Even the State Department has embraced the concept, composing its own counterinsurgency manual for U.S. civilian agencies...
Much more at The Washington Post.
The next stop on our trip of the northeast was to the PRT at Mehterlam in Laghman province.
A Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan operates as a combined military-military-military-military-civilian unit. The idea is that counterinsurgency and stability operations required civilian agency capabilities. In reality, PRTs are almost entirely military, even though many of the officers are air force pilots and ship drivers with little or no experience in reconstruction operations. PRTs are supposed to have a State, USAID, and USDA representative in their command group but often these civilians have not shown up, are on TDY, go on leave or transfer every three months, or don’t work effectively on the PRT.
A strong exception to this stereotype of PRT dysfunction is the Laghman PRT. The PRT Commander, LTC Steve Erickson, USAF, really impressed us with his description of how he and his USAID rep talk through COIN and development principles in their operations. Laghmanis are known as particularly clever and well educated Afghans, particularly the Pashtuns along the southern branches of Alingar and Alishing rivers and the fertile plains around Mehterlam. The more remote parts of the province do offer some pockets of insurgency and Erickson and his team have responded with a popular COIN reconstruction strategy focused on roads. Roads are a popular project because they effectively address multiple issues and needs -- allowing security forces more rapid and secure transit throughout the province, enabling commerce through much faster delivery of goods or customers to market, building government capacity by extending reach of health clinics or schools, and by putting people to work. Although Erickson confessed that he and his USAID rep do not always agree, he described a healthy relationship of communication, dissent and debate, and decision-making that are the hallmarks of good teams.
Why would this military aviator and USAID development worker form such a strong working partnership? When I ask those in the field why a civ-mil partnership works (or doesn’t work), the answer is usually “personality.” While I think that is true, it also illuminates a bigger problem: organizations dependent on personality for effective team work are rolling the dice. Military officers, Foreign Service diplomats, and development professionals are three different tribes each with unique cultures, dialects, and belief systems and not an insubstantial amount of rivalry. We throw members of these tribes into a difficult, cramped, stressful environment and expect them to operate with unity of effort and minimal friction. And then we pin our hopes on personality?
It shouldn’t. Organizations that effectively and consistently address the challenges of teamwork and leadership do not depend on personality as much as they depend on clarity of responsibilities, clarity of process, and clarity of mindset. If all the players clearly understand who is supposed to do what, why each of their roles is critical to the whole, how to make decisions that properly weigh each perspective, and why they must bring a mindset of collaboration and cooperation, personality becomes much less of an issue (although never a non-issue). This type of organizational clarity and mindset requires clear communication and training/mentoring programs. As a trainer of military units and, just recently, PRTs heading to Afghanistan, we are working hard on the clarity of roles, staff processes, and a mindset of collaboration. Building effectively cooperation will be especially important as the civilian surge in Afghanistan increases the civilian presence in PRTs. Hopefully these efforts will improve the civil-military and PRT-maneuver unit cooperation in Afghanistan and make success less dependent on personality.
As for the impressive LTC Erickson, his situation underscores another weakness in our current system. In just a couple more months, he will leave Afghanistan and return to other USAF duties. Will DoD and the USG capture and leverage his knowledge of and relationships in Laghman province and his understanding of how to blend defense, diplomacy, and development in the Afghanistan COIN environment? Almost certainly not. Instead, LTC Erickson’s reward will be a return to his role as an Air Force pilot and have little further to do with the political and economic challenges in Afghanistan. Success in Afghanistan requires that we better leverage the knowledge and talent of human resources with this type of experience and understanding. We can do better.
Nick Dowling is a small wars policy wonk with experience in OSD, the NSC Staff, NDU, and the contracting sector. He has worked on stability operations for 16 years, most prominently on Bosnia and Kosovo as a Clinton Administration appointee and Iraq and Afghanistan as a DoD contractor. He is currently President of IDS International, a leader in interagency and “soft power” types of support to the US military. He is a graduate of Harvard, got his masters at Georgetown, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Although a veteran of print and television media interviews and publications, this is his first foray into SWJ.
