Lots going on (expect no less) over at Abu Muqawama; the COIN doctrine debate, a French COIN reading list, the Lebanon narrative and US Army doctrine, a bit about Robert Fisk (The Independent) and his disdain for our new COIN doctrine, and finally (something we linked to earlier) a little about the history of that COIN doctrine.
U.S. Tongue-Ties Self In Talking To World by MountainRunner blogger Matt Armstrong over at Democracy Project.
...we must accept that the romantic days of the United States Information Agency are gone. So many confuse the USIA and the other information services, such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, of recent decades with the USIA that was engaged in the active psychological struggle that largely ended with détente and the finalizing of the European partition.
Unlike half a century ago, the U.S. military has a clear voice and is arguably our dominant public diplomat. Therefore, simply resurrecting "USIA" without reorganizing our national information capabilities across civilian and military lines would turn it into just another voice struggling to be heard over America's military commanders, spokespersons, and warfighters.
The candidates must look deeper than re-creating an agency and or re-establishing old outreach programs. They must show strong leadership and have a bold vision to rally the government and country to adapt to a world that requires understanding the information effect of action, agile response capabilities, and above all, credibility and trust...
Herschel Smith, at The Captain's Journal, has two posts on COIN issues.
Center of Gravity versus Lines of Effort in COIN.
... No astute observer of the campaign in Iraq - especially in Anbar and subsequently in and around Baghdad during the security plan - seeing the high number of intelligence driven raids, heavy use of air power, and kinetic operations against foreign terrorists and indigenous insurgents, can claim that kinetic operations have taken on a secondary or tertiary role to anything. In other words,when the successful practice in the field doesn't comport with the theory in the books, only the disconnected theoreticians can continue the mantras. It was time to update doctrine to recognize the nature of the gains in Iraq. By so robustly enveloping lines of operations and lines of effort within its pages, FM 3-0 may represent a significant advancement in military doctrine over FM 3-24.
Discussions in Counterinsurgency
... Counterinsurgency doctrine, that is, lines of effort, transnational movements, the trust of the population, robust kinetic operations against the enemy, and logically sequential actions such as take, hold and rebuild, far from being dry doctrine on the pages of a book, is critically important to the present and future campaigns in which the U.S. is engaged and will engage.
In the information overload will get the best of you (especially if you blog first, detail read later) category - this story begins with a fine article posted here at the SWJ Magazine by Jonathan Morgenstein and Eric Vickland titled The Global Counter Insurgency. From the intro:
Sixty years ago, George Kennan penned his landmark Foreign Affairs article that defined American foreign policy for the next half century. Seminal security policy decisions such as the creation of NATO, the blockade of Cuba and the Berlin airlift were all components of the policy of Containment. Today, a radical Islamic ideology seeks our destruction, yet we lack a unifying doctrine on which to base our foreign policy. Al Qaida and its ideological compatriots represent a worldwide insurgency based on religious extremism. At its core it is a political struggle with political aims and in order to defeat it, we need adapt our means to the nature of the struggle. We are not fighting a war on terrorism. We are fighting a global insurgency against an extremist brand of Islam.
To achieve victory in this conflict, we require a comprehensive paradigm that will address global asymmetric threats. We propose that doctrine be based upon a Global Counterinsurgency and that it become the guidepost for all major US Foreign Policy, in much the same way that George Kennan's anonymous proposal became the focal point for US foreign policy during the Cold War.
In the normal course of my duties here at SWJ I send out a 'heads up' e-mail alerting members of an elite Small Wars Community of Interest list (e-mail me to be included) concerning new additions by our esteemed bloggers and magazine authors. I normally include a 'teaser' such as the article excerpt above. Tom Barnett is on that list and he has been a kind soul in directing his readership to SWJ. Tom apparently - in his words - skimmed this piece too quickly and let 'er rip in the post - which led to this posting:
Expect to read a lot of this sort of article that suggests global counter-insurgency is the equivalent of a grand strategy. In our premature excitement over aspects of the surge's success in Iraq, we now see analysts extrapolating wildly, with the same consequences: we view the world through violence, we see states as bulwarks against such violence, the USG is the biggest, inside the USG the Pentagon is the most competent, therefore the U.S. military can spearhead a global counter-insurgency strategy that manages the world.
The long war addresses friction, which is minor compared to the force of globalization's continued expansion. A grand strategy harnessing the latter to address the former, and does not pretend that addressing the friction constitutes addressing the universe of change going on. We don't have the capacity any more to determine an era, just to tilt its trajectory somewhat.
We don't want to go overboard on COIN thinking. It has its place, but it's not the sum total of anything. It is operational and tactical, but extrapolated to the global strategic realm, it simply loses coherence.
Jonathan Morgenstein took exception, as he should, commenting on Tom's post that:
Actually, in our article, we specifically indicate it is NOT the military that should be the lead component in defeating this Global Insurgency. We emphasize time and again USAID, State, a renewed USIA, the CIA, Law Enforcement mechanisms and the Dept of Justice to strengthened rule of law mechanisms around the world. I'm sorry you read into this that "inside the USG the Pentagon is the most competent, therefore the U.S. military can spearhead a global counter-insurgency strategy". Moreover, we wrote the pre-cursor to this article in January 2006 which was published in the Boston Globe around then, so this really reflects nothing of your dismissive "premature excitement over aspects of the surge's success in Iraq".
To Tom's credit he posted a mea culpa in my mistake on offering criticism of COIN piece
Definitely my bad. I've been reading a lot of expansive stuff lately on global COIN being the answer and I skimmed this piece too quickly and let 'er rip in the post. This is a mistake I am vulnerable to when I scan too much on my phone and after I spot a pattern in a bunch of stuff people send me, I light into one to make my point.
Here, I just picked the wrong one to light into, and I apologize for the mistake...
Thanks Tom - though I wonder what e-mail pattern I might have been identified with. Here at SWJ we have been labeled COIN-hugging peaceniks by one set and neocon war-mongers by another. I figure we are doing something right - more like a 'big tent' where all reasonable views are considered and debated.
For more on Tom on another issue see Mark Safranski's Zenpundit posting A Barnett in a China Shop - all the intriguing elements here - Tom and Tom (Ricks), Admiral Fallon, Iran and, by extension, civilian control of the military...
Turning to the 'real world' Westhawk gives his take on the brewing troubles down south in Uribe intensifies his conflict with Chavez...
...And if Colombia had to risk open warfare against its neighbors, better to do it now rather than a year or two or five years from now. In the medium term, FARC will still be active, Venezuela will likely be richer, and Venezuela's military forces will very likely be better equipped and better trained, perhaps with the assistance of Iranian, Hezbollah, and Chinese advisors. And a change of administration in Washington might mean much less U.S. technical and advisor support for the Colombian military.
If open warfare breaks out today pitting Colombia against Ecuador and Venezuela, Colombia would certainly have the advantage. Colombia's general purpose and special forces units have received years of mentoring from U.S. and U.K. advisors. These forces also have much more field combat experience than any other army in Latin America...
From a position of strength and with quite a bit of justification, USA Today offers up an analogy:
What if the United States had actionable intelligence that a senior al-Qaeda commander was holed up in a terrorist camp just on the other side of the Mexican border? Would it be defensible to strike the location if Mexico had failed repeatedly to remove such camps?
Works for me. Meanwhile, in more from the real world, Westhawk offers up his take on US COIN ops in Pakistan.
Under a plan awaiting final approval by Admiral William Fallon at U.S. Central Command, up to 100 U.S. military trainers and advisors will deploy to Pakistan to train and advise the Frontier Corps, a Pakistani paramilitary organization in the border tribal region. This development, in the works for many months, will prove to be a momentous event in the effort to pacify the Afghan-Pakistan theater...
To Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the Taliban leadership, this must be a highly disturbing development...
Over at Kings of War, Dr. David Betz alerts of the latest release on Iraq by the Congressional Research Service in his posting CRS Report OIF: Strategies, Approaches, Results, and Issues for Congress.
It's a good report; I've high regard for the CRS which on the whole does very solid work--readable, thorough, generally neutral. Most readers will probably skip the first two thirds or more which focus on pre-Surge events (though if you've not already read Packer, Ricks, Gordon and Trainor, Bremer, Diamond, Chandrasekaran , etc and so on, it's not a bad primer) and go straight to the Surge, the probable aftermath, and the discussion of what next?
Here's a direct link to the report.
More on Info Ops concerning 24 and its impact on the U.S. military's view of torture, and the implications for the fight against terrorism from our own (well okay, the Army and CNAS have a claim too) soon to be retired LTC John Nagl in this Foreign Policy video:
The Belmont Club's Richard Fernandez has Rescues in Afghanistan, sitting out elections and border troubles in Colombia, James Robbins at National Review's The Tank points to an audio of LTG Ray Odierno's great briefing on the surge strategy in Iraq at the Heritage Foundation. It's definitely worth a listen.
And finally, in the somewhat breaking news while I was putting this post together category, the Washington Post is reporting that the Latin American crisis is resolved and Ambasador Crocker is leaving Iraq soon after the departure of General Petraeus.
All for tonight...