Recent Articles

Recruiting, Development, and Retention of Cyber Warriors Despite an Inhospitable Culture

by Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Conti and Lieutenant Colonel Jen Easterly

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Make no mistake, our nation faces persistent, widespread and growing threats in cyberspace. Across the array of dangerous actors and their capabilities, we’ve witnessed an evolution from data compromise and loss, to the disruption of information networks to the physical destruction of information systems. Our military forces, in particular, depend heavily on classified and unclassified networks for command and control, intelligence, operations and logistics. These networks – over 15,000 of them – represent a very tempting target, and the number of attacks against them has increased dramatically over the past several years.  The United States Government recognized the clear and present danger posed by this increasingly perilous threat environment and created United States Cyber Command. 

We are at a unique cusp in history, as we have the first-ever opportunity to create a large-scale organization to fight and win wars in cyber space.   This isn’t a trivial undertaking; there are myriad details that must be addressed.  In this article, we focus on what is arguably the most important – the human dimension, specifically how we attract, develop, and retain a world-class cadre of cyber warriors.  By building the best possible team and creating an environment that attracts more, we can lay the foundation upon which we can successfully build Cyber Command.  However, while the Defense Department has endorsed Cyber Command, the kinetic warfighting culture generally has not. Positive strides have been made recently to include the development of the Navy’s Information Dominance Corps and planned establishment of the Army’s Cyber Brigade.

However, building the most effective Cyber Command will require fundamentally changing military culture – specifically how we think about networks and how we manage the talent that we need to leverage these networks for warfighting effects.   Uncomfortable, but necessary change will be required, else we risk creating a large bureaucracy, staffed with marginally effective individuals, a “Cyber Command” in name only.  This article presents a viable way ahead and suggests actionable solutions for building, developing and retaining a world-class team.

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LTC Gregory Conti is an Academy Professor and Director of West Point's Cyber Security Research Center. He holds a BS from West Point, an MS from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology, all in Computer Science.   He is the author of Security Data Visualization (No Starch Press) and Googling Security (Addison-Wesley) as well as over 40 articles covering computer security, online privacy, and cyber warfare.  He is a frequent speaker at leading security conferences including Defcon, Black Hat, RSA, and Shmoocon.  He recently returned from a deployment as Officer in Charge of Cyber Command’s Expeditionary Cyber Support Element in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

LTC Jen Easterly is a member of the US Cyber Command Commander's Action Group (CAG). She served as the first Commander of the Army Network Warfare Battalion from July 08 - July 2010.  She holds a BS in International Relations from the United States Military Academy and an MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.

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No, Really: Is the US Military Cut Out For Courageous Restraint?

by Jason Lemieux

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General (GEN) Stanley McChrystal’s recent dismissal has spurred a host of articles that quote US troops complaining about his controversial rules of engagement (ROEs) directives in Afghanistan. The reasoning underlying these complaints usually shows a lack of understanding of counterinsurgency doctrine, an unwillingness to accept its logic, or both.  The stubborn refusal of many servicemembers to accept McChrystal’s “courageous restraint” directive calls into question our military’s suitability for population-centric counterinsurgency.

By now, the reasoning behind the restrictive ROEs is well known: Insurgents depend on support from the civilian inhabitants (whether the distinction between insurgents and “civilian inhabitants” is always meaningful is another question) of their theater of operations. GEN McChrystal termed it “Insurgent Math”: Every time you kill an innocent person, you create ten new insurgents. GEN McChrystal further elaborated that, "Destroying a home or property jeopardizes the livelihood of an entire family and creates more insurgents."

In a June 23, 2010 radio bit titled, “Troops Surprised About Gen. McChrystal's Ouster,” NPR correspondent Tom Bowman told his colleague that, “Now, clearly, you know, [the troops] don't want to kill innocent civilians, but they believe their hands are tied in going after the Taliban.”  It’s certainly true that a portion of the troops, perhaps the majority, have no desire to kill innocent civilians.  What America is not being honest with itself about, however, is that a significant minority don’t really care how many civilians are killed as long as they are allowed to do what they imagine to be their jobs:

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Jason Lemieux served in the US Marine Corps infantry from 2001-2006. After serving his third tour in Iraq under a voluntary ten-month contract extension, Lemieux was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant. In December 2010, Lemieux will receive his B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University. He is currently a research intern for the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. The views expressed here are his own.

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Gun Control in Counterinsurgency
A Game Theory Analysis
by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Chad Machiela

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Throughout 2006, Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) coalition forces and the farmers of the al Jazeera Desert of Iraq struggled to cooperate while pursuing separate goals. Consistently, the desire by MNC-I to impose populace and resource control measures to limit use of the area by insurgents clashed with the needs of the populace to survive and care for their families. One issue in particular resulted in the repeated arrest of farmers who intended no crime but to protect their families and left the farmers with no choice but to support the insurgents—the coalition’s policy for gun control. Game theory provides commanders and policy officials a methodology to analyze the options available to disparate actors within a competitive situation or conflict, to predict likely adversary and population reaction to plans or policy, and to help develop courses of action beneficial to all.

The al Jazeera Desert is a sparsely populated region, bordered by Lake Thar Thar to the west and Main Supply Route (MSR) Tampa between Samarra and Tikrit to the east. Because of the coalition’s top-down method of controlling Iraq, this rural area hosted no coalition forces. Coalition patrols instead focused on protecting MSR Tampa and the pipeline between the population centers of Samarra and Tikrit. Because the area was without cell coverage, residents could not call on security forces for assistance when threatened by insurgents or criminals, providing insurgent forces an ideal area for hiding, training, and reconstituting before traveling back into the larger population centers to resume direct conflict. Criminals flocked into the desert to remain out of the reach of government forces and prey upon the isolated farms.

In 2006 the coalition’s populace and resources control measure for management of privately owned weapons was to allow each Iraqi household to maintain one AK-47 or AK-74, with two magazines with 60 rounds of ammunition. Ostensibly, this would allow the family to protect itself against local criminals and insurgents, while limiting the number of armed individuals who might oppose the forces of the coalition and the Government of Iraq. Instead this policy ensured that local residents were left helpless to resist the insurgents, who cared little about limits on gun ownership and generally travelled in armed groups of four to twenty.

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CW3 Chad Machiela is a Special Forces warrant officer assigned to 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), Joint Base Lewis McChord. He holds a M.S. in Defense Analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School and a B.A. in Public Law from Western Michigan University. The opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

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COIN in Absurdistan
Saving the COIN Baby from the Afghan Bathwater (and Vice-Versa)
by Dr. Tony Corn

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When General Petraeus guided the elaboration of the new counterinsurgency field manual FM-3-24 in 2006, the main theater of operations happened to be Iraq, and the main operational priority was to analytically discriminate between global and local grievances in order to strategically disaggregate the transnational Jihadist from the “accidental guerrilla” whose space happens to be invaded. Given the urgency of the situation, there was no time to reflect on the “Grievance vs. Greed” debate that had been at the center of the civilian literature on civil wars in the previous decade. As a result, the COIN doctrine enshrined in FM 3-24 is as long on Grievance as it is short on Greed.

But while the Grievance paradigm was by and large adequate to understand the situation in Iraq five years ago, the Greed paradigm is more relevant in the case of Afghanistan - a country that has had a war economy since 1979, where warlordism and poppy cultivation play a central role, and which has achieved the dubious distinction of being the second most corrupt country in the world.

Add to that the “resource curse” represented by the massive U.S presence: beginning with Bush’s quiet surge of September 2008, a series of military surges increasing the number of troops by more than 50,000 (plus an equal number of contractors) has been partly responsible for a fifty percent increase of corruption in the past two years.

Today, a good case could be made that the political divergences (Grievance) that once existed between the main protagonists (Kabul officials, regional warlords, Taliban of all stripes, not to mention Pakistani officials) have taken a backseat, and that a convergence of sorts has begun to emerge on a shared economic objective (Greed): milking the American cow for all it’s worth, and for as long as possible.

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Dr. Tony Corn is on leave from the State Department and currently writing a book on the Long War. This essay is a follow-up to two previous articles: “The Art of Declaring Victory and Going Home: Strategic Communication and the Management of Expectations,” Small Wars Journal, September 2009, and “Toward a Kilcullen-Biden Plan?: Bounding Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan,” Small Wars Journal, October 2009. The opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of the U.S. State Department or the U.S. Government.

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Afghanistan: The Importance of Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency Operations
by Captain John A. Kendall

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Any commander operating in a counterinsurgency (COIN) environment is besieged by the constant need to make numerous and varied decisions critical to the successful execution of a COIN campaign. While all military and political campaigns are challenging due to the “fog of war”, COIN campaigns can prove particularly difficult for military personnel due to a military culture that does not understand how to politically maneuver in semi to non-permissive environments. This paper demonstrates the need for military organizations to gain a better understanding of their operational environment before executing political maneuver in a full spectrum COIN campaign.

Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 7311 did not originally intend to conduct a full spectrum counterinsurgency(COIN) operation; instead it originally chose to expand Ghazni’s Foreign Internal Defense (FID) efforts as part of a larger joint COIN campaign. The Detachment inherited the Afghan National Police Special Response Team (ANP SRT); a small yet well trained platoon of 19 ethnic Hazarans. While seeking to expand the ANP SRT’s size and capabilities, the Detachment planned to simultaneously execute surgical strike operations against high ranking and mid level Taliban commanders as a means of validating the ANP SRT’s capabilities. An emphasis on Foreign Internal Defense combined with Direct Action was a typical Detachment strategy during 2008 that has gradually shifted to FID and population security with the advent of Village Stability Operations (VSO).

The Detachment’s elation over the successful capture of Taliban commander Mullah Faizoni in late July would transition to frustration over its inability to capture/kill Taliban Intelligence Chief Sher Agha. To reacquire the target, the Detachment conducted limited engagement of Espandi Village in order to generate additional atmospherics. It assessed that a larger COIN operation should be left to the conventional forces and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) as the battle space owner was the final approving authority for all kinetic operations. Yet, when its limited engagement produced no results, the Detachment realized that in order to obtain long term effects as codified by the SOF imperatives, it needed to conduct a combined political maneuver.

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About the Detachment: ODA 7311 has deployed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedoms VIII, XII, XIV and is set to return for OEF XVI. It was my privilege to have served with them during OEF XII as their Detachment Commander. This article was written in their honor and is especially dedicated to SFC Bradley S. Bohle, SFC Shawn P. McCloskey and SSG Joshua M. Mills who were KIA on 15 September, 2009 while conducting combat operations in Nimruz Province, Afghanistan.

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MIA in QDR: A Unifying Vision for Land Forces
by Nathan Freier

This paper is being published simultaneously in Small Wars Journal and the PKSOI Bulletin, an on-line publication of the United States Army’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute.

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The post-9/11 period has witnessed a marked improvement in corporate defense perceptions about the utility of U.S. land forces. Although they have sacrificed a great deal in the field, the Iraq and Afghan wars have been good to the Army, Marine Corps (USMC), and Special Operations Forces (SOF) from a defense policy perspective. With counterinsurgency (COIN), counterterrorism (CT), stability operations (SO), and security force assistance (SFA) currently dominating the defense agenda, even passive observers recognize the near-term value of land power. Today, land forces are central to solving the United States’ most pressing near-term national security challenges. Consequently, the land combat function has benefited from steadily rising stock prices within the Department of Defense (DoD).

The current era of land force ascendancy has witnessed significant changes in mission. For example, land force competency in irregular warfighting has risen substantially while service competency for high-intensity traditional conflict has atrophied. The Army, USMC, and, to some extent, SOF, have radically adjusted their operational worldview to account for previously under-valued “irregular” missions like CT, COIN, SO, etc. The army now openly acknowledges in its capstone doctrine that stability and civil support are core army missions, alongside more conventional offensive and defensive operations. For its part, the USMC — while often decrying the loss of some of its expeditionary capability — has become increasingly comfortable operating in force ashore for extended periods. Both the Army and USMC have also accepted new responsibilities in SFA.

SOF, too, has witnessed significant change in focus and operating principles. “Direct action” (DA) SOF forces — long accustomed to operating autonomously — have learned to operate in close proximity to and in close coordination with large conventional ground forces sharing the same battlespace. Army SOF specifically — an organization whose pre-9/11 sine qua non was largely foreign internal defense (FID) and SFA — now, by necessity, is more accustomed to serial employment in DA. And, in recent years, the scale of DA and SFA requirements necessitated that Army SOF cede many of its traditional FID and SFA responsibilities to general purpose ground forces (GPF). This has resulted in a number of “in stride” GPF innovations like the Army’s new Advisory and Assistance Brigades (AAB) and the Marine Corps’ Security Cooperation Marine Air Ground Task Forces (SCMAGTF).

Whether or not any of this amounts to a bellwether for the future of land operations remains a hotly debated issue across defense-interested communities. Some traditionalists see unacceptably high-risk in these trends; whereas less traditional military thinkers argue that contemporary strategic conditions necessitate a new, more unconventional focus for land forces, leaving many aspects of the next generation traditional warfight to the Air Force and Navy.

Some influential thought leaders see recent irregular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as concrete demonstrations of the utility of robust (if not less traditionally-oriented) land forces. Still others see the uneven history and raw cost of Iraq and Afghanistan as data points militating against future large-scale U.S. interventions. The author argues that future land interventions are unavoidable. But, the circumstances under which they occur, the operating concepts employed in their execution, and the objectives pursued throughout their course may be substantially different than those that shape current warfights.

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Nathan Freier joined the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute as a Visiting Research Professor in August 2008. He is also a Senior Fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He joined CSIS in April of 2008 after a 20-year career as a field artillery officer and strategist in the United States Army.

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Afghan Governance Considerations
by William S. McCallister

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President Karzai appears to follow an imperial-confederacy form of governance which assumes that disparate Afghan territories are controlled by autonomous groups and where quid-pro-quo and patronage relationships assist in imposing order and stability. The system of government in Afghanistan is therefore an ad hoc combination of political expediency and private enterprise. It is efficient in its own way, but can also lead to flagrant abuses and corruption. The following are a number of considerations that might shed light on the Karzai government’s approach to counterinsurgency.

I start with a two assumptions. First, the tension between the Karzai government and the various groups competing for influence and resources is an expression of power. Second, competition takes place within an established power-sharing system that includes urban and rural, sectarian, political, economic and tribal/qawm groupings.

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William S. "Mac" McCallister is a retired military officer. He has worked extensively in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. While on active duty, McCallister served in numerous infantry and special operations assignments specializing in civil-military, psychological and information operations.

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A Third COIN Course of Action
A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq
SWJ Book Review by Lieutenant Colonel Adam Strickland

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A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq by Mark Moyar, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2009, 368 pp., $30.

Years from now, local economists and civic leaders may well curse the name Dr. Mark Moyar for the irreparable harm he did to the local Washington, DC economy in 2009-2010, and blame him for creating the conditions necessary to finally inhibit the unfettered flow of government money to local defense corporations asserting special skills or knowledge applicable to counterinsurgency. Over the past decade, thousands of retired and former military professionals have created new-identities for themselves as counterinsurgency or counterterrorism experts around the Metro DC area regardless of their lack of experience, training, or education in those fields. This re-branding created financial and professional opportunities that were only possible due to the absence of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism knowledge within the Department of Defense and individual military branches in the period immediately before and after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001; thus, we in the military have no one to blame but ourselves. Thankfully, after hundreds of books and thousands of articles produced by self-proclaimed counterinsurgency experts, that were truly more akin to travel monologues detailing individual lessons learned during extensive periods in-theater ranging from 10 days in Kabul or Baghdad to a 12 months combat deployment in which the author was fortunate if he ever left the immediate 5 miles around his Forward-Operating-Base, we finally have a book worthy of careful examination and an all-important second-read.

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Lieutenant Colonel Adam Strickland is a Marine Infantry Officer with previous combat tours in Iraq. During his last tour, he engaged daily with former insurgents, members of the former regime, and civic leaders as part of Marine counterinsurgency efforts in Anbar Province, Iraq. He is a graduate of USMC Command and Staff College, the School of Advanced Warfighting, and MIT’s National Security Studies Seminar XXI Program. He is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in 2011 in support of continuing USMC counterinsurgency efforts.

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Explosive Escalation?
Reflections on the Car Bombing in Ciudad Juarez
by John P. Sullivan

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In an apparently significant acceleration of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP), Mexican cartel violence embraced the car bomb in an attack on Federal police in embattled Ciudad Juárez last Thursday, 15 July 2010. Not only did the attack employ a car bomb (apparently a primitive improvised explosive secreted inside a car not the fully-integrated variant found in Iraq, and the AfPak theatres known as a VBIED), but it also was an ambush that directly targeted police. This TTP is a classic insurgent attack method that promises to be part of Mexico’s future engagements in its on-going criminal insurgencies.

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John P. Sullivan is a regular contributor to Small Wars Journal. He is a career police officer and currently serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST). He is co-editor of Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-Terrorism Network (Routledge, 2006) and Global Biosecurity: Threats and Responses (Routledge, 2010). His current research focus is the impact of transnational organized crime on sovereignty, intelligence, terrorism, and criminal insurgencies.

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A Way to Accomplish Interviews for Commanders and Staff
by Colonel Steven Boylan

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The path to successful interviews and media relations is an art, not science. It is a combination of building blocks based upon common sense, relationship building with the media (and individual reporters), practice, rehearsals and a degree of confidence and desire to engage.

There are a number of ways to conduct interviews. Nobody has the market cornered on good ideas and what works for one person will not work for another. The key is to be flexible, understand the environment in which you are about to enter and get experienced Public Affairs Officers in the mix early. Above all, common sense must prevail. The golden rule, if you do not want to see it in print; do not say it. I have told many over the years, if you are okay seeing what you said on the six o’clock news in your home town or on the front page of the paper for your family to see, then you are probably okay. That is not a guarantee, but for the most part you will be fine.

For the inexperienced individual being interviewed, always consider everything you say to be on-the-record. That is advice we as public affairs officers give to those we interact with, especially if we are not there to assist and if they have never talked with the reporter prior to the interview. That is the safest approach to take. In addition, keep it simple, do not use jargon and stay in your lane are all part of the mantra you hear.

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Colonel Steven Boylan, who will be retiring this fall is currently an Assistant Professor in the Command & General Staff College, Department of Command & Leadership. He has more than 15 years of public affairs experience at two - four star commands in the Army and Combined and Joint assignments. He has been the principal PAO for senior leaders since 1999 to include General David Petraeus for approximately three years. His last public affairs assignment was as the Battle Command Training Program senior public affairs observer/trainer and PAO.

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