Journal

19th Century Strategy and its Applicability to Insurgent Warfare

by Dr. Geoffrey Demarest, Small Wars Journal

19th Century Strategy and its Applicability to Insurgent Warfare (Full PDF Article)

Irregular warfare (insurgency, low intensity conflict, etc.) is said to have a generally different character than conventional, maneuver warfare. So be it, but it does not necessarily follow that classic military strategic principles are inapplicable. One of the best statements of classic strategy comes from a British barrister writing before the advent of airpower. His expression reminds us that the important lines in linear warfare are not the fronts, but the lines of communication. This considered, the notion of 'non-linear warfare' can mislead. The line of retreat is especially highlighted, helping us place Mao's teaching more closely to Jomini's.

19th Century Strategy and its Applicability to Insurgent Warfare (Full PDF Article)

Intelligence and Third-Party Intervention in Unconventional Civil/Sectarian Conflicts:

The British in Malaya and American Military in Lebanon

by Augustine Marinelli, Small Wars Journal

Intelligence and Third-Party Intervention (Full PDF Article)

As the Cold War fades into memory, the United States' likelihood of fighting a conventional war fades with it. The United States and other countries must now contend with unconventional warfare in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where third-party intervention in unconventional civil/sectarian conflict is the order of the day. In such conflicts, an effective intelligence apparatus is of paramount importance. The current U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual notes that good intelligence information provides the basis for successful operations against the enemy, which, in turn, provide more solid intelligence, creating a cyclical effect. The Field Manual's assessment will form the theoretical basis upon which this study will examine England's successful 1948-1960 intervention in Malaya and the United States' failed 1982-1984 mission in Lebanon.

In both cases, intervention occurred to support existing governments beset by civil war. In Malaya, the British military sought to defeat an insurgency waged by Communists. In Lebanon, the Americans sought to establish an environment that would permit the Lebanese military to secure to the Beirut area—what President Ronald Reagan called the essential precondition for the Lebanese government to stabilize the country. The British accomplished their objective, due in part to the effectiveness of military operations supported by an excellent intelligence-gathering system in the cities and jungle villages of Malaya. The Americans, hampered by poor intelligence support, were unable to foster a better environment for the Lebanese military to function and were driven from Lebanon by a devastating terrorist attack in 1983.

Intelligence and Third-Party Intervention (Full PDF Article)

Frakin' Cool and Winning Wars (SWJ Book Review)

by Robert L. Goldich

Frakin' Cool and Winning Wars (Full PDF Article)

After Operation Desert Storm in 1991, there was a fusillade of remarks about how American technological superiority was the decisive factor in how we won the war. General H. Norman Schwarzkopf would have none of this. He stated that although our weapons and equipment were indeed technologically superior to those of the Iraqis, we would have won the war if we had had their equipment, and they had had ours. P.W. Singer would have done well to ponder this remark at some point in the researching and writing of Wired for War.

Frakin' Cool and Winning Wars (Full PDF Article)

Winning Today's Hybrid Warfare (SWJ Book Review)

by Frank J. Hoffman

Winning Today's Hybrid Warfare (Full PDF Article)

David Kilcullen's new book is a travelogue of his lengthy intellectual and foreign treks into the bowels of human conflict. These travels have taken him to the jungles of the Solomons to the slums and palaces of Baghdad and Kabul. While this Australian soldier-scholar has already firmly established his status as the age's top strategist and advisor in modern conflict in the field, he owed our community a summative product. The Accidental Guerrilla meets this obligation with first honors. Based upon a lifetime of study, coupled with his advisory work in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past few years, it is a jewel. While David modestly presents many innovative ideas as merely proposals, his composition is in reality ground breaking and comprehensive at all three levels of war...

Winning Today's Hybrid Warfare (Full PDF Article)

On CT vs. COIN

by Andrew Exum, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

On CT vs. COIN (Full PDF Article)

In advance of the Obama Administration's forthcoming review of policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, much of the commentary has focused on whether or not the Obama Administration will adopt a long-term, hugely expensive population-centric counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign or whether the administration will instead opt for a lower-cost counter-terror (CT) strategy. Fred Kaplan, in a typically well-informed piece for Slate, framed the debate as an either/or dichotomy in which the Obama Administration had to choose one or the other vis a vis Afghanistan.

The distinction between COIN and CT, however, is poorly understood. For one, there is no hard and fast dichotomy between the two -- a fact that Kaplan and other longtime defense correspondents largely understand but which policy-makers must understand as well. If what Kaplan writes is true, and policy-makers are stuck thinking of their policy options as either/or propositions, we are in more trouble in Afghanistan than I thought.

On CT vs. COIN (Full PDF Article)

Civil Affairs: Gathering the Reins

by Colonel Gregory Grimes, Small Wars Journal

Civil Affairs: Gathering the Reins (Full PDF Article)

As the extremists are squeezed out of the Middle East the emerging sanctuary for their cadres is Africa, especially the Trans-Sahel across northern Africa. As a result the U.S. government has an increasing interest in preventing their exploitation of the region's poor socio-economic climate to recruit to their cause. For the U.S. to succeed an increase in diplomatic, economic and military resources will have to occur. For the military this means yet more demand for Civil Affairs units. Added to the looming demand certain to result from renewed efforts in Afghanistan, the value of Civil Affairs to the conflict response is undeniable. Yet even as their value is demonstrated by high demand for their low-density skills, Civil Affairs units remain constrained by inefficient mission taskings, competitive encroachment and a few self-inflicted problems. The Civil Affairs community needs to reassert its mission or risk losing its relevance as a prime DoD battlespace multiplier.

Specializing in civil-military operations, Civil Affairs (CA) represent one endpoint on the range of military options, marking the non-kinetic end of the military spectrum. In recent testimony to Congress the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, stated "We can't kill our way to victory... It requires teamwork and cooperation." Mullen further stated that the U.S. urgently needs to improve its nation-building initiatives. Derided in the past by senior military officers as 'work for the Peace Corps,' nation building and associated activities are receiving renewed attention as preferred solutions in the war against terrorism. Note the recognition of stability operations as a core mission in the 2005 Department of Defense Directive 3000.05. President Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton have both stated a preference for renewed efforts at humanitarian assistance, nation building, stabilization and reconstruction, reviving efforts that were previously a priority in American foreign engagement. The question becomes one of how, exactly, to implement such a policy of pre-emptive engagement.

Civil Affairs: Gathering the Reins (Full PDF Article)

Conflict Resolution in Small Wars

A Counterinsurgent's Guide to Controlling the Hearts

by Major Michael Few, Small Wars Journal

Conflict Resolution in Small Wars (Full PDF Article)

Nobel Laureate John Nash's arbitration for non-cooperative games explains how to negotiate a fair settlement of utility in the midst of irreconcilable differences. This compensation helps to balance the minds of the populace, but it does not account for the emotional or hearts aspect. Utility is merely the value placed on a good or service. To achieve ashura, the constant absence of sorrow, a negotiator must arbitrate the emotional grievances. Nash shows us how to control the minds, but the economic models is exhausted in this limitation.

The current rationale is that these types of conflicts cannot be resolved simply by military or rational, economic action. Paradoxically, the truth may be more subtle yet more complex. Is not one's heart collectively intertwined with one's mind? Certainly it is so we must extend past economic theory to offer some resolve. To heal, one must mend both the heart and mind. In the realm of hearts or emotions, sometimes one plus one equals three. Sometimes everything is a paradox.

The purpose of this paper is to explore non-kinetic, non-military indirect methods of conflict resolution for the Iraqi people. To explore these methods, we must turn to the field of psychology. This paper will examine how theories for conflict resolution and substance abuse treatment and recovery methodologies. Collectively, I will merge economic and psychological theory to model the hearts and the minds. In the end, and somewhere in between, this method may allow the United States to transition from the role of occupier to the role of arbitrator, negotiator, and peace-maker. This method allows us to begin redeploying home. Furthermore, this method may serve as instrument of acceptance and healing from our own psychosis derived after the attacks of 9/11.

Conflict Resolution in Small Wars (Full PDF Article)

An Address at the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Museum on 5 March 2009

General Christmas, General Gardner, Fellow Marines. It is an honor to be asked to speak about war-fighting in this magnificent museum. General Christmas, a legend for his fight at Hue City, has accomplished the impossible as president of the Heritage Foundation. This museum soars skyward in testimony to generations of fighting Marines. General Gardner, former Vietnam recon leader par excellence and now President of the Marine Corps University, has built a curriculum that focuses upon war fighting, not upon academic theories. The epitaphs on the walls around us bear witness that every Marine is a rifleman.

Permit me to make six points. Then we'll spend the rest of the evening in Q & A. My first point is that the mistakes -- and corrections -- in Iraq were jointly made by military and civilian officials. To scapegoat the prior administration and excuse the military ignores the record and leads us along a divisive path. In my book, The Strongest Tribe, I quote at length from the semi-annual military assessments. The record shows systemic, excessive optimism on the part to the senior military staffs. One looks in vain for requests for more troops. At every level - including the battalion command chronologies -progress was routinely reported until mid-2006.

That leads to my second point. The greatest defect in the Iraq war was the lack of objective risk assessment. The CentCom commander, General Abizaid, philosophically agreed with his Iraq commander, General Casey, that American soldiers on the streets were an antibody in an Arab culture, as much the cause as the cure of the insurgency. In the fall of 2005, Casey ordered a study by a general officer that confirmed the antibody thesis. This underlay the gradual pull back in the east to the Forward Operating Bases, or FOBs.

In wars, especially irregular conflicts with so many variables, the president requires a military expert who assesses risk independently from the operational commander. In Iraq, the NSC Adviser, Stephen Hadley, emerged as that assessor in 2006 and manipulated a change in strategy while the Pentagon dawdled.

Watch Afghanistan. The assessor can be the Chairman -- (General Pace did not perform that role in 2006) -- or it can be the theater commander. The appointment of General Jim Jones as the NSC Adviser may signal that the assessor is residing inside the White House. It's too soon to tell. But the president would be well advised to make it explicit to one senior general that he is so designated. If risk is assessed by committee, it gets watered down...

A Comprehensive Approach to Improving US Security Force Assistance Efforts

by Lieutenant Colonel Theresa Baginski, Colonel Brian Clark, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Donovan, Ms Karma Job, Lieutenant Colonel John Kolasheski, Colonel Richard Lacquement, Colonel Michael McMahon. Colonel Don Roach. Colonel Sean Swindell and Lieutenant Colonel Curt Van De Walle, Small Wars Journal

A Comprehensive Approach to Improving US SFA Efforts (Full PDF Article)

Current operations, the demands of persistent conflict, and the enduring national security interests of the United States underscore the immediate and continuing need to improve US Security Force Assistance (SFA) efforts. The frequency and importance of such activities throughout US history demonstrate that the current requirements are not anomalies. Since 9/11, the United States has been challenged to accomplish key national security goals due to a lack of capability and capacity to effectively advise, utilize and partner with foreign security forces. To meet this challenge, this paper recommends the creation of a new organization as a means of overcoming current bureaucratic impediments and providing a coherent focus on SFA challenges.

Previous US advisory experience with similar requirements did not result in institutionalized capabilities that would have forestalled major problems. Instead, US SFA efforts have been largely ad hoc ventures. The United States should have had expertise, plans, authorities, and organizational solutions readily at hand to address the full range of partnership activities when the inevitable crises arose. The Department of Defense (DoD) must act now to avoid future SFA difficulties and to ensure that it does not squander the hard-won lessons of recent experience. DoD is long overdue for a comprehensive approach to SFA that supports Geographic Combatant Commander's (GCC) Theater Campaign Plans (TCP) and contingency operations in a manner that integrates US military assistance activities from ministerial through tactical levels, while providing strong links to complementary interagency and multinational activities.

This paper offers recommendations that build upon recent initiatives within DoD to create a comprehensive approach to improve US Security Force Assistance. At the heart of our recommendations is a DoD-level organizational approach to effectively institutionalize SFA activities and facilitate interagency and multinational unity of effort. We intend to adapt current DoD processes that encourage the ad hoc approach and implement a single DoD-level integrating organization. Expertise in key SFA activities, massed and integrated within a DoD-level organization, offers the best opportunity to improve hitherto disjointed efforts. This single integrator can be successful only with simultaneous change to DoD's authorities and policies.

A Comprehensive Approach to Improving US SFA Efforts (Full PDF Article)

Game Theory

Can a Round of Poker Solve Afghanistan's Problems?

by Major Richard J.H. Gash, Small Wars Journal

Can a Round of Poker Solve Afghanistan's Problems? (Full PDF Article)

Analyzing the ill-structured problem that is southern Afghanistan noticeably tests the bounds of traditional military planning doctrine. Identifying and framing the problem, isolating centers of gravity, and even articulating an attainable end-state given the tangle of tribal violence, narco-trafficing, and religious fanaticism can drive otherwise mild mannered planners to the verge of physical violence. Training and Doctrine Command's Pamphlet 525-5-500 goes as far as predicting an expected "lack of professional consensus" when tackling such a "wicked problem"1. Fortunately (or unfortunately), ill-structured problems do not exist solely in the realm of military conflict. Social scientists, political theorists, and economists routinely grapple with their likes. Over the past century they have devoted much scholarly effort toward their mitigation, if not solution. One theory that may particularly apply to southern Afghanistan is that of games. Although one can quickly become bogged down with the mathematics of game theory, a rudimentary understanding of its basic principles can prove quite beneficial to military planners. What follows is a brief primer and simple demonstration of how game theory can be applied to help military planners frame the problem of developing a viable counterinsurgency strategy in southern Afghanistan.

Can a Round of Poker Solve Afghanistan's Problems? (Full PDF Article)

Mexico's Struggle with 'Drugs and Thugs'

 

SWJ Book Review

by John P. Sullivan

Mexico's Struggle with 'Drugs and Thugs' (Full PDF Article)

Mexico is in the thralls of bloody drug wars. Last year these battles for profit and power cost an estimated 6,290 lives. So far this year, over 1,000 people have died as the cartels and their criminal soldiers seek dominance in the lucrative global narco-markets. These narco-conflicts are waged by cartels, gangs, paramilitary militias. The cartels fight at three levels: within their own enterprise for dominance; against other cartel alliances for market control; and against the security forces of the state (police and military) to fend off interference. Collectively this amounts to a virtual civil war fought by criminal netwarriors.

These netwars challenge Mexico and the cross-border region that embraces the frontier between Mexico and the United States with a series of interlocking, networked criminal insurgencies. Communities cower with fear against cartel reprisals and public debate is hampered by a lack of detailed understanding of the conflict and its players. This monograph, Mexico's Struggle with 'Drugs and Thugs', helps fill the knowledge void.

George W. Grayson is the Class of 1938 Professor of Government at the College of William and Mary, is a respected area specialist on Mexico. In addition to his long-standing academic focus, he is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an associate scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Grayson brings over a quarter century of experience to bear in this lean, yet rich account of the social and political dynamics underlying the current cartel conflict.

Mexico's Struggle with 'Drugs and Thugs' (Full PDF Article)

US Army Africa: Smart Power in Action

by Colonel Stephen Mariano and Major Charles O'Brien, Small Wars Journal

US Army Africa: Smart Power in Action (Full PDF Article)

Secretary of State Clinton's use of the term "Smart Power" has stirred the proverbial pundit pot. A surge of talk show commentaries, opinion-editorials, and blog spots have questioned the wisdom of smart power, some going so far as to calling the idea "just plain dumb." Secretary Clinton's evocation of the "full range" of power tools was likely informed by a Center for Strategic and International Studies commission study headed by Richard Armitage and Joseph Nye.

Professors may define and debate smart power but the Nation's civilian and military leaders must develop security policies and employment concepts. The Obama administration, for example, has an objective to "Rebuild the Military for 21st Century Tasks."

Charting a course that implements the administration's notion of smart power will not be easy. The military must conceptualize its role in a smart power policy. Hard power is commonly associated with the military instrument but even hard power can be applied in softer ways to generate smart power. Strengthening a weak foreign military's capability or conducting foreign humanitarian assistance are examples of soft application of hard military power. The Department of Defense must further develop other smart power concepts.

US Army Africa: Smart Power in Action (Full PDF Article)

The U.S. Army General Staff

Where Is It in the Twenty-first Century?

by Lieutenant Colonel Louis A. DiMarco, Small Wars Journal

The U.S. Army General Staff in the 21st Century (Full PDF Article)

A Myriad of problems plagued the U.S. army in the first few years of operations in Iraq. At the eleventh hour General Petraeus led a new counterinsurgency doctrine inspired "surge" campaign that may have saved the entire war effort. However, the question must be asked --why did the war effort of the most sophisticated army in the world come down to a final moment "Hail Mary" pass that was reliant on the genius of an individual commander for victory? The answer is that the U.S. army experienced a crisis of command. Pundits gradually came to the conclusion that the performance of U.S. generalship and senior leadership had been mediocre at best and at worst largely responsible for the problems associated with prosecuting the war in its initial years. Army Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling wrote: "These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps." Yingling's analysis was echoed by military affairs analysts such as Ralph Peters and Douglas McGregor. Even Chief of Staff of the Army, General George Casey allowed that "we don't do as good a job as we need to training our senior leaders to operate at the national level." However, mediocre generalship alone does not account for the initial uninspired reactive prosecution of the war. Also contributing to the inconsistent and ineffectual prosecution of the war was the absence of a professional corps of general staff officers operating in support of the senior leadership.

The U.S. Army General Staff in the 21st Century (Full PDF Article)

On the Aesthetics of Doctrine

by Jason Fritz, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

On the Aesthetics of Doctrine (Full PDF Article)

It will come as no surprise to the readers of the Small Wars Journal that there is a heated and vigorous debate ongoing over the future of the U.S. military -- both in its structure and in the missions it will execute. Much like the counterinsurgency conflict it debates, this discussion has highly-opinionated small minorities at each pole with a large population in the center whose loyalty is yet to be won. This paper focuses on those poles, those groups who have been named many things: Crusaders, Conservatives, COINdinistas, and anti-COIN, as a few examples. Instead of yet another treatise on the merits and detractors for each argument, this paper will attempt to frame the rationale behind these disparate positions by considering the world view of these actors. Put another way, this is a discussion of aesthetics with regard to counterinsurgency doctrine.

Aesthetics might seem an odd concept when contemplating any type of doctrine, but it should come as no surprise. Basic-level military science classes often discuss the balance of science and art in military operations, indicating that the intangibles are often as important as the measurable knowns. Doctrine, in and of itself, provides the science, but it is the master who exercises that doctrine in a maestro-like way who defeats his enemy and earns immortality in historic tomes. By defining military matters in terms of art, then the use of aesthetic ideals should not be entirely foreign as a descriptor for such matters. What student of military history does not see the beauty and sublime (as well was the horror) in the battles of yore?

On the Aesthetics of Doctrine (Full PDF Article)

To Whom Should our Generals Listen?

Or Who Should Control the Debate on the Nature of Future Conflicts

by Colonel David S. Maxwell, Small Wars Journal

To Whom Should our Generals Listen? (Full PDF Article)

Today there is much being written, discussed and even passionately argued over the nature of future conflicts that the US will face. This debate is critically important as the military enters a new QDR period and develops the future operating concepts for the military and (as US leadership has now fortunately come to realize) the whole of government approach to US National Security challenges. One might ask why this important or perhaps more pointedly, is it really that important?

Experts and pundits will say that understanding the nature of future conflict is important because it must be understood so the proper organizations can be designed, manned, trained, and equipped to operate and if necessary fight in these future environments. Multi-billion dollar budgets will be determined by the requests for future force structure. The US Joint Forces Command recently published the Joint Operating Environment (JOE) which provides useful insights into the nature of future conflicts and conditions the US could see; however, that document has by no means put an end to debates and arguments on the nature of war. In addition, the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations should also put to rest the debates for the time being and form the basis for future operating concepts and resourcing the future force. One could rightly ask that is these are the views of the Joint Forces then the Combatant Commands and the Services should take these documents as the foundation for our future joint force and get on with resourcing the force to operate in this environment and support the concepts called for in the documents.

To Whom Should our Generals Listen? (Full PDF Article)

Further Thoughts on Hybrid Threats

by Frank G. Hoffman, Small Wars Journal

Further Thoughts on Hybrid Threats (Full PDF Article)

I commend everyone's attention to Dr. Russ Glenn's belated entry (Small Wars Journal, 2 March 2009) into the hybrid conflict debate. I share with him some concerns about new terminology but such changes in lexicon help distinguish changes or nuances. It's important to professional discourse, and sometimes new thinking requires new terms. The utility of the hybrid construct is not as a new entry into the long and pathetic list of US Joint Forces Command's (JFCOM) Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs). Rather it is critical to current critical debates we have presently having. Taking Dr. Glenn's argument to an extreme, there would be little utility to anyone in our community reading Rupert Smith's The Utility of Force, or T.X. Hammes The Sling and the Stone, or John Robb's Global Guerrillas. All of these scholar/ practitioners have offered useful constructs on top of those like Van Creveld non-trinitarian wars, Arguilla's Netwars and Bunker's Epochal Wars. To ignore them because they posed a new construct, or one not invented at JFCOM where Russ now sits is simply bunk.

Each of these books and essays have tried to help capture new elements (if not entirely new, then different) in the ever evolving character of conflict. I have shamelessly stolen from them. Each of these constructs has had to overcome the narrow if not dead hand of the traditional school in military affairs. Dr. Glenn is not part of that rigid community, having committed a number of years to enhancing our understanding of urban operations. But his stated position suggests he might be —to climb into bed with some traditionalist thinking that too often oversimplifies and underestimates our enemies. That approach has very little to show for it the last decade and is principally responsible for the ghastly cost we've paid since 9/11. Let's not repeat that mistake as we peer into the 21st century and tried to pierce the fog.

Further Thoughts on Hybrid Threats (Full PDF Article)

Thoughts on "Hybrid" Conflict

by Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Small Wars Journal

Thoughts on "Hybrid" Conflict (Full PDF Article)

The last several years have seen the rise of "hybrid warfare" as a term in international and U.S. armed forces literature. Others similarly write of "hybrid conflict," "hybrid war," or "hybrid threat," ...

We can credit Hezbollah for the recent and rapid spike in such interest. That group's success in defending against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) over 34 days spanning July 12 - August 14, 2006 gained worldwide attention. The notice is unsurprising given the success experienced by a non-state actor's military against a national armed forces with an established reputation for excellence. But do "hybrid warfare," "conflict," "war," or "threat" merit this newfound notoriety in light of both the Second Lebanon War and broader analysis? The question is a nontrivial one at a time when challenges in Iraq, Afghanistan, southern Philippines, and elsewhere continue to challenge Western defense thinkers while foes of developed nations demonstrate an ability to share proven techniques. Comments made by Israelis in the aftermath of the July-August 2006 Second Lebanon War add further impetus to questioning the value of adding yet another concept to defense thinking. Among the problems recognized as undermining IDF performance during that conflict was penetration of the country's military doctrine by an "intellectual virus," i.e., the introduction of new and opaque thinking that clouded rather than clarified the guidance provided those committed to Israel's security. U.S. doctrine and thinking are similarly vulnerable to adverse influences. The confusion wreaked by effects-based operations (EBO) ended only after the commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command recently declared it would not become a part of joint doctrine. (Interestingly, EBO was cited by Israelis as one of the imported concepts found unhelpful in 2006.)

The deliberately brief discussion to follow considers the value of a hybrid construct in two contexts. First, we consider none-too-consistent usage of the term in light of its applicability to the security challenges of today and tomorrow. Second, we confront the issue of whether the hybrid concept is sufficiently original to merit addition to military intellectual discourse and -- ultimately -- armed forces doctrine as a separate form of warfare. Another possibility, of course, is that the term may serve to educate even if the concept represents nothing new, much as did Basil Liddell-Hart's "indirect approach" in the aftermath of World War I.

Thoughts on "Hybrid" Conflict (Full PDF Article)

Developing an IO Environmental Assessment in Khost Province

Information Operations at PRT Khost in 2008

by Ensign Robert J. Bebber, PhD, Small Wars Journal

Developing an IO Environmental Assessment in Khost Province (Full PDF Article)

The goal of Information Operations (or "IO") is to "influence, corrupt, disrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own." But how does one know whether the decision process -- either human or automated -- has actually been influenced in some way? We can assume or surmise that, based on the actions of the target of the IO campaign, some desired effect was achieved or not achieved (but how much of that was based on our IO campaign and how much on other factors, perhaps unknown even to us?). We can also, if given the opportunity, ask the target after the fact whether campaign activities influenced their decision making.

Commanders conducting counterinsurgency operations should have two primary IO targets: the insurgents and the local population. John Nagl notes that "persuading the masses of people that the government is capable of providing essential services -- and defeating the insurgents -- is just as important" as enticing the insurgents to surrender and provide information on their comrades.

The Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) is not charged with directly targeting insurgents. Instead, its mission is to build the capacity of the host government to provide governance and development to the local population -- to show the people that the government can indeed provide "essential services" as Nagl notes.

Information Operations traditionally suffer from a lack of available metrics by which planners can assess their environment and measure the effectiveness of their programs. It may be impossible to show direct causation -- or even correlation -- between Information Operations and actual effects (i.e., did my PSYOP program actually have its desired effect?) in all cases. This often places IO practitioners at a distinct disadvantage when attempting to gain the confidence of unit commanders, who are tasked with allocating scarce battlefield resources and who are often skeptical of Information Operations as a whole.

This project developed an Information Operations Environmental Assessment tool that can be utilized and replicated at the unit level (battalion or less) for use by planners in order to establish an initial benchmark (where am I?) and measure progress toward achieving the IO program goals and objectives (where do I want to go?) The Provincial Reconstruction Team in Khost province, Afghanistan, needed a tool by which the leadership could benchmark current conditions and evaluate the information environment under which the population lived. It was hoped that such a tool could help provide clues whether our IO (and overall PRT) efforts were having the intended effect.

Developing an IO Environmental Assessment in Khost Province (Full PDF Article)

Company Level Tactical Intelligence and Targeting

by Major Wayne Hennessy-Barrett, Small Wars Journal

Company Level Tactical Intelligence and Targeting (Full PDF Article)

Infantry rifle companies on operations today are increasingly likely to find themselves operating independently and in isolation from the traditional brigade and battle group context for which they normally prepare. Depending on the role and terrain, this can present significant challenges in terms of resources, mission command and operational design. No 1 Company 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards found itself in such a position during Operation HERRICK 7 in the role of Kabul Patrols Company operating from Camp Souter (STR). With a very different mission and environment from Task Force Helmand (TFH) the Company had the role of ensuring the security of the UK base and all force elements and dependants in the capital. It was also the operations company for the Multinational Regional Command-Capital (RC-C) in the city, with few other International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) elements able to operate in their mandated Areas of Operation (AOs). Tasks ranged from the expected intelligence-led Counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in the city to providing Quick Reaction Force (QRF) and deliberate support to UK and allied specialist agencies and other government departments.

In direct support of these tasks No. 1 Company had an intelligence cell responsible for fusing products from allies and agencies to produce the tactical J2 and situational awareness picture for the city of Kabul and much of the Northern Afghanistan AO on behalf of all UK force elements in the city.

Having prepared rigorously for the Battle Group Centre role in Gereshk we were re-tasked and had three weeks to re-orientate to urban skills and attempt to understand the cultural and contextual differences between Kabul and Helmand. At this point we had no tactical or intelligence picture other than that gleaned from a 2-day theatre reconnaissance. The lessons learned during the deployment drove the development of the tactics, techniques and procedures as well as processes described here. Although shaped by the Kabul patrols role, it is hoped these lessons will be of use to company commanders elsewhere.

Company Level Tactical Intelligence and Targeting (Full PDF Article)

Information Operations on the Counterinsurgency Battlefield

by Azriel Peskowitz, Small Wars Journal

Information Operations on the Counterinsurgency Battlefield (Full PDF Article)

Terrorism has always been an information-based conflict. A terrorist wins or loses by how much he can imprint a perception of lethality (hence the terror in terrorism) upon a population, in order to influence the government. Like anyone else Terrorists can shape their narrative through propaganda, but for few aside from terrorists is that shaping so critical to survival. In the modern era, terror groups have gone beyond the mimeographed missive of relying on the media's easy attraction to bloodshed and spectacle. They have embraced the modern communications technologies that spread their message exponentially more effectively than anything seen previously. Some have created their own media conglomerates to professionally produce original media. This paper is concerned specifically with how terrorist groups use media as a combat multiplier. Propaganda helps terrorists shape their own narratives, a task that is critical to their survival. That task is no longer confined to convincing someone of the righteousness of a cause or the evil of one's enemies. Instead, it has played a role in altering political support for battles as they occur.

To illustrate this, we shall focus on battles against terrorists and insurgencies whose outcomes have been determined in the insurgents' favor due to Information Operations. Using three case studies of military battles against Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the Mujahadeen Shura, and Hizb'allah, this paper will show not just that IO can determine outcomes and even grant victory to terrorists, but explore by what methods it does so and the lessons that can be learned from this.

Information Operations on the Counterinsurgency Battlefield (Full PDF Article)

Beyond Irregular Warfare

A Strategic Concept for Countering Irregular Adversaries and Engagement in Complex Security Environments

by Colonel Joseph E. Osborne, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Beyond Irregular Warfare (Full PDF Article)

Irregular Warfare -- As quickly as I say it, a preconceived notion entered the mind of every person in this room. I can say, based on some 18 months of giving presentations on this topic that none of you are fully correct and none of you are fully mistaken.

So I'd like to open with a brief update on where the evolution of our thinking has taken us in the past 18 months or so since we've established an irregular warfare Directorate at USSOCOM. It is also an undisguised attempt to get us all past the DoD term "Irregular Warfare" and get into the substance of this poorly named, but wholly valid concept.

The term itself often prompts visceral reactions. From the non-DoD side of the Inter-Agency (IA) the hue and cry is along the lines of "we don't do warfare". And I would argue that we need look no further than Iraq and Afghanistan let alone the absence of historical precedent to appreciate that comment. From the Defense side it usually centers on the word "irregular"; prompting a knee-jerk response that generally goes along the lines of "that's what SOF does". A correct assertion, but only if half right is considered correct.

Beyond Irregular Warfare (Full PDF Article)

T.E. Lawrence

A Leadership Vignette for the Successful Counter-Insurgent

by Captain Crispin Burke, Small Wars Journal

A Leadership Vignette for the Successful Counter-Insurgent (Full PDF Article)

In the last few years, the Army has established the leadership ideal of the "pentathlete". Pentathletes are leaders who are not only competent in their core warrior skills, but who are also scholars; men and women who are creative, innovative, strategically-minded, culturally competent, and skilled in all aspects of peace, war, politics, and civil administration. In short, the Army needs the type of leader who excels in what we would like to term "Fourth Generation Warfare". Thomas Edward Lawrence, (1888-1935), known the world over as "Lawrence of Arabia" lived up to all of these leadership attributes. Indeed, his life story is of incredible significance now, especially in light of the US Army's mission in culturally alien environments conducting counterinsurgency. Against the backdrop of the Middle Eastern Theatre of the First World War, we will examine the personality of this most eccentric character and discover that he possessed many of the characteristics required of the successful counter-insurgent of the 21st Century. We will also examine the subtle nuances of his persona which irked the British Army of the early 20th Century as much as they would annoy the American Army nearly a century later.

A Leadership Vignette for the Successful Counter-Insurgent (Full PDF Article)

Interagency Reform

by Major Christopher Smith, Small Wars Journal

Interagency Reform (Full PDF Article)

After many years of in-depth studies and comprehensive proposals on how to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the interagency, the time has come to pass legislation that would direct significant interagency reform in an effort to effectively organize the U.S. government for national security. The model for such reform is found in the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols (G-N) Act which led to significant improvements in an organization that had suffered from poor coordination, communication, and execution of joint operations undertaken in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Similar legislation is necessary to reform various government agencies as was the case with G-N and the military services. It is widely accepted that without that legislation, the military, especially the Navy and Marine Corps, would not have carried out the reforms. Likewise, many experts believe that reforms to the interagency can be carried out only by firm legislation.

Interagency Reform (Full PDF Article)

Postcard from Mumbai

Modern Urban Siege

by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, Small Wars Journal

Postcard from Mumbai (Full PDF Article)

According to many television news reports, the Mumbai terrorist attacks were a "siege." But there were no catapults, cannons, or breaching ladders. Instead, a dozen men with guns paralyzed one of the world's largest cities, killing 173 with barely concealed glee. Sadly, Mumbai heralds a new chapter in the bloody story of war in cities—the siege of the city from within. The polis is fast becoming a war zone where criminals, terrorists, and heavily armed paramilitary forces battle—and all can be targeted. All the while, gardens of steel spring up, constricting popular movement and giving way to an evolving architecture of fear. The "feral city" and the military colony battle each other for dominance in the urban siege.

Defending against the urban siege requires bridging the gap between police and military, building a layered defense, and fighting to preserve the right to the city. Despite the terrifying nature of the threat, the ultimate advantage lies with the vibrant modern city and the police, soldiers, and civilians tasked to defend it. The key to success lies in the construction of resilient physical and moral infrastructure.

Postcard from Mumbai (Full PDF Article)

The Impact of FCS Technologies on Small Unit Performance

by Colonel Victor M. Rosello, Small Wars Journal

The Impact of FCS Technologies (Full PDF Article)

What capabilities will small units require to fight and win our nation's wars in the next 10-20 years? What capabilities should they expect that don't exist today? Recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that improvements can be made in four major areas to enhance the combat effectiveness of small units. These are lethality, survivability, situational awareness, and battle command. Each one plays a significant part in maintaining the US Army at the cutting edge of modernization and technological innovation. The program responsible for this innovation is the Future Combat Systems (FCS). Its goal is to take a holistic approach in designing and producing a family of modern systems that will enhance the nations' precious land power assets and resources. In short, to make Army small units better to more effectively and efficiently accomplish their mission.

The Impact of FCS Technologies (Full PDF Article)

Love and Hate

 

by Captain Michael Few, Small Wars Journal

Love and Hate (Full PDF Article)

One of my best commanders preached a very simple command philosophy. "Mike," he would proclaim, "sometimes you got to give the love, and sometimes you got to give them the hate."

To emphasize his point, he would clench both fists and extend mock punches: one representing the love and one representing the hate. This philosophy served our squadron well both in leading his airborne reconnaissance squadron and clearing Al Qaeda held safe-havens in Northern Iraq.

The premise behind this philosophy reflected many years studying the art of leadership and his straightforward assessment coupled a deep understanding in discretion and discernment tempered in the pragmatism of the complicated realities of real life mutually exclusive to the black and white moral world view preached at the academy.

In 1879, MG John Schofield declared that "the discipline which makes the soldier of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh nor tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army." Conversely, the leadership of coddling and friendship is marked with disrespect and irreverence from one's subordinates.

Simply put, soldiers desire neither a dictator nor buddy in a commander. They demand leadership.

Love and Hate (Full PDF Article)

(This is an edited version of my statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Afghanistan, chaired by Senator John F. Kerry, on 5th February 2009).

Senator Joseph Lieberman made a timely and well-argued call, during his recent speech at the Brookings Institution, for a comprehensive political-military campaign in the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AFPAK) region. Seven years into a long war, we need to be honest with ourselves about the harsh strategic choices we face. And we need to recognize that before we can expect long-term strategic progress, we first have to deal with an immediate, acute crisis that could derail the entire effort this year. Let me first discuss long-term strategic choices, then turn to the immediate crisis, and conclude with some remarks on Pakistan...

Iraqi Intelligence at the Brigade/Division Level

Systemic Deficiencies and Training Solutions

by Nick Padlo, Small Wars Journal

Iraqi Intelligence at the Brigade/Division Level (Full PDF Article)

During 15 months in Iraq, I worked with nearly 100 Iraqi intelligence professionals. Throughout the deployment, I noticed systemic intelligence shortcomings existing consistently at all tactical and operational levels. While some of the shortcomings were due to cultural barriers, others were primarily due to previously embedded misconceptions and a lack of formalized training. In either case, the solutions to the problems are attainable through U.S. training and sustainable after an eventual scale down in U.S. operations.

In order to modernize the role of Iraqi intelligence officers, the Iraqi Army must minimize the intelligence officer's (S2s) role in direct source operations, integrate the intelligence officer with the rest of the battalion/brigade/division staff, understand and employ digital systems to consolidate and organize intelligence, and reinforce the link between the Iraqi Army and the legal system. The intelligence component of U.S. Military Training Teams (MiTT) should focus on these specific shortcomings in order to better equip Iraqi intelligence professionals to fight a modern counterinsurgency.

Iraqi Intelligence at the Brigade/Division Level (Full PDF Article)

A Volatile Brew

by Colonel Robert Killebrew, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

A Volatile Brew (Full PDF Article)

Last June a group of men in police SWAT team uniforms stormed a building in Phoenix, Arizona, and killed a suspected drug dealer. But the gunmen wearing police uniforms and firing police weapons weren't cops -- they were members of a Mexican drug gang evening scores with a troublesome dealer in the United States. When the real police arrived, the gang dug in for a shootout. That's increasingly common south of the border, but fortunately it didn't end well for the criminals this time.

The Phoenix incident is just one symptom of the growing unrest across the United States' southern border, where the Mexican government is waging a deadly war against murderous drug cartels. Even further south, a volatile brew consisting of thousands of demobilized former soldiers and guerrillas, state-sponsored terrorists and criminal-terrorist hybrids such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) and the Salvadoran MS-13 gang is threatening the rule of law in Latin America. More ominously, it's moving north. In fact, some of these thugs are already here.

A Volatile Brew (Full PDF Article)

Ten Questions with Thomas P.M. Barnett

by Mark Safranski

Ten Questions with Thomas P.M. Barnett (Full PDF Article)

Small Wars Journal interview with Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett on a wide range of issues -- our lack of a grand strategy and need for self-awareness, advice for President Obama, globalization and frontier integration, the counterinsurgency debate, foreign policy priorities and much more.

Dr. Barnett is Senior Managing Director at Enterra Solutions and a contributing Editor for Esquire magazine. A former Assistant for Strategic Futures in the OSD Office of Force Transformation and a professor at the Naval War College, Barnett was the author of The Pentagon's New Map and Blueprint for Action, he regularly advises the OSD, State Department, PACOM, CENTCOM and briefs senior members of the armed forces and the intelligence community as well as members of Congress.

Dr. Barnett is the author of the newly released Great Powers: America and the World after Bush.

Ten Questions with Thomas P.M. Barnett (Full PDF Article)

Irregular Warfare and the Vandalia Expedition in Fiji, 1859

by Dr. Timothy L. Francis, Small Wars Journal

Irregular Warfare and the Vandalia Expedition (Full PDF Article)

Irregular operations have a long history in the U.S. Navy. From cutting out expeditions against West Indian privateers in the 1790s, the sailing Navy's version of visit-board-and-search operations off Tripoli in 1801 or skirmishes against rioters or Chinese troops during the Taiping rebellion in 1855, American Sailors were comfortable conducting irregular or ad hoc combat operations ashore. Under the command of skilled officers and experienced chief petty officers, veteran Sailors put the mission first, accomplishing remarkable feats at a then acceptable cost in lives. One of many examples took place in the South Pacific in the 1850s, an area of great interest to American merchants and traders.

It was cold and dark at 0300 on 9 October 1859 when the 40 Sailors and 10 Marines under Lt. Charles Caldwell prepared for battle, arming themselves with minié rifles, swords and a wheeled 12-pounder howitzer. Their ship, the chartered schooner Mechanic lay off Waya, a small, rugged island at the western edge of the Fiji archipelago. The expedition intended to climb the steep hills, pass into the interior and, as put by Lt. Caldwell in his diary, "destroy the town [of Somatti] and bring the natives to an engagement - It was a novel undertaking to assault and destroy a mountain tribe in their stronghold with a party of Seamen."

Irregular Warfare and the Vandalia Expedition (Full PDF Article)

Counterinsurgency in Vietnam

Lessons Learned, Ignored, then Revived

by Rufus Phillips, Small Wars Journal

Counterinsurgency in Vietnam (Full PDF Article)

By the end of 1954, coup plotting was foiled so the army could begin seriously considering its pacification assignment. No one knew whether the Vietminh might reinitiate active resistance with stay-behind cadre in the zones they were evacuating so we had to help prepare the army for possible combat as well as for an active pacification campaign to win the support of the civilian population which had only known communist rule. During the first occupation operation we tried to improve troop behavior mainly through lectures. One such lecture was given to army truck drivers to stop them from running over people and their livestock when they passed through villages. After that lecture, I witnessed these same drivers getting back into their trucks only to go off barreling through villages scattering people and chickens right and left. Obviously a few lectures were not going to do the job. The first occupation was a learn-as-you-go affair. Communist resistance was passive not active and the operation went off without serious adverse consequences but without creating a strongly positive relationship between the army and the population.

Consequently, in preparing for the next occupation of a large zone in Central Vietnam containing about two million people, the army leadership with our help undertook much more intensive training in troop behavior and civic action all the way down to the platoon level with skits illustrating good and bad behavior as well repeated lectures. The army as servant of the people and civic action -- actively helping the population -- was instilled as every soldier's duty down to the lowest private. As a consequence, the entire occupation came off without a single untoward incident between the troops and the population. Towards the end of the operation, people were actually coming out of their houses voluntarily offering drinking water to the soldiers. (It was the dry season when daily temperatures climbed over 100 degrees). The popular response in turn generated real pride down in the ranks. While there was no active combat, had it occurred I believe the positive attitude of the army towards civilians would have prevailed. The population's initial fear and indifference turned into active support as the local people began identifying arms caches left behind by the Vietminh (the existence of these caches clearly indicated they intended to return), as well as fingering active Vietminh stay-behind cadre.

Counterinsurgency in Vietnam (Full PDF Article)

Time to Rethink Our Global Command Structure?

by Ambassador David Passage, Small Wars Journal

Time to Rethink Our Global Command Structure? (Full PDF Article)

The beginning of a new Administration, particularly one which offers the prospect of significant departures from recent policies, offers an opportunity to re-think existing institutional structures and practices. This is particularly so, coming nearly two decades after the end of the Cold War, the Fall of the Wall, the triumph of the Eagle over the Bear, and the incorporation of many former opponents [Warsaw Pact members] into the West's principal security alliance, NATO.

Added to this mix is President Obama's excruciating need to achieve economies clear across the US Government's operating spectrum to finance domestic economic recovery and our ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense spending is the largest single non-entitlement element in the USG budget. It will be under incredible pressure over the next several years. We need to re-equip our armed forces with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of materiel and munitions to replace what has been expended in those two conflicts. Vehicles of all types are worn to the point of barely being worth repatriating to the US; we are flying the wings off our aircraft, the rotors off our helicopters, and are using much of the remainder of our military equipment to within inches of its programmed life. And we have yet to calculate the ultimate cost of restoring our capacity to deal with other contingencies waiting out there in the high grass to rise up and bite us and our friends and allies.

And as every reader of SWJ knows, the way to sensibly wring economies out of existing budgets and institutional structures is not by across-the-board cuts: it's to re-examine and terminate -- ax -- whole programs.

EUCOM, PACOM and CENTCOM have clear, well-defined and unquestioned war-fighting missions as well as robust force structures to support them. SOUTHCOM and the newly-formed AFRICOM do not and should not. Might this not be a good time to take a new look at our existing global military command structure?

Time to Rethink Our Global Command Structure? (Full PDF Article)

Triathletes, Not Pentathletes Yet

A Response to "Sorry, Pentathlete Wasn't on the Syllabus."

by Captain Patrick McKinney, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Triathletes, Not Pentathletes Yet (Full PDF Article)

First, I largely agree with Crispin Burke (SWJ, 24 January 2009) concerning instruction at Captains Career Courses and the requirements of junior Army leaders, however, since his attendance to Aviation Captains Career Course (AVCCC) in early 2007, positive changes in other CCC's have been implemented. CCC graduates are likely not the Pentathletes the Army needs, but are closer to Triathletes than single sport amateurs. I am currently enrolled in the Military Intelligence Captains Career Course (MICCC), and cannot speak for changes in other branches, but will attempt to address issues Burke raised in his piece.

Burke is correct that by and large, "the Pentathlete is getting lip service" but is it unrealistic to expect the CCC to graduate experts in all areas. It is more reasonable, and a better starting point, to graduate Triathletes that are competent in a larger set of skills, with a foundation that will allow them to grow into Army Pentathletes. Due to deployments, garrison OPTEMPO, and personal experiences, Captains entering the various CCC are more experienced than CCC students in previous years, and need the CCC to assist them in their progression as Captains. The CCC curriculum needs to adjust to this reality, and from my experience thus far at the MICCC, those changes are being made.

Triathletes, Not Pentathletes Yet (Full PDF Article)

Sorry, Pentathlete Wasn't on the Syllabus

by Captain Crispin Burke, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Sorry, Pentathlete Wasn't on the Syllabus (Full PDF Article)

In the last few years, the Army has been promoting the "Pentathlete" model of leadership: a leader skilled in his or her tactical field of expertise, as well as skilled in all forms of military as well as diplomatic power. Indeed, it is a reflection of the change that is needed in our officer corps, changing our personnel system and our zeitgeist from an industrial-age model to an information-age model. Unfortunately, the Pentathlete is only getting lip service at the various captains' career courses in the Army.

Sorry, Pentathlete Wasn't on the Syllabus (Full PDF Article)

Soft Power: More than Hearts and Minds

by Lieutenant General Norman R. Seip, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Soft Power: More than Hearts and Minds (Full PDF Article)

Leading up to the Presidential Inauguration, the use of military "Soft Power" has been roundly debated as military policy evolves under the new administration. The conventional thought process on how and why militaries conduct soft power operations, non-traditional missions involving humanitarian assistance, disaster response and infrastructure development in foreign nations, has been to view these missions as a means to increase the 'attractiveness' of American culture. In fact, the Los Angeles Times even likened these missions to getting "what you want through attraction rather than coercion..." (Joseph Nye, Los Angeles Times, Jan 21, 2009).

But to cast Soft Power as simply a ploy to win hearts and minds is to miss the larger goal. When U.S. forces open a clinic to treat patients in remote regions, our nation's image is not the doctor's motivation. When Air Forces exchange ideas on how to work together during natural disasters, influencing trade policy isn't part of the flight plan. And when a soldier sits down with a village elder to discuss assistance in erecting a bridge, whether or not the population finds American culture appealing is not in the blueprints.

Soft Power: More than Hearts and Minds (Full PDF Article)

Aligning a Counterinsurgency Strategy for Afghanistan

by Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Millen, Small Wars Journal

Aligning a Counterinsurgency Strategy for Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

Of all the challenges that beset Afghanistan, the most dramatic is the lack of an integrated counterinsurgency strategy. Objectively, the coalition and the international community have provided admirable assistance to Afghanistan. Without exaggeration, Afghanistan's political, economic, and social situation has improved exponentially. Nevertheless, three interrelated challenges require resolution before Afghanistan can continue on its forward path—the insurgency, warlordism, and the neglect of the local communities.

As implied, an integrated strategy pursues tangible objectives which solve immediate problems, but it also contributes to the resolution of long-term menaces. Realistically, the Afghan insurgency is not a virulent threat to the government. The various insurgent groups have failed to extend their powerbase beyond their local powerbases and certainly cannot be construed as representing a unified front. Yet, Taliban groups, or those who claim to be Taliban for personal gain, do disrupt the necessary reforms essential to Afghanistan's progress. Similarly, endemic warlordism (local powerbrokers, drug lords, politicians, and other opportunists) resists government authority for the pursuit of personal gains. In the long term, warlordism represents a greater threat to the Afghanistan's liberal democracy. As in the past, the local communities (e.g., the thousands of hamlets, villages, towns, and city neighborhoods) suffer the greatest neglect. As long as the insurgency and warlordism exists, local communities will remain on the fringes of international and government beneficence.

As this article reveals, the principle of Subsidiarity forms the underlying approach to a counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan. In essence, Subsidiarity embraces decentralization of governance to the lowest level. Because this form of federalism has a long-standing tradition in Afghanistan (as well as the West), the populace readily accepts the concept. This concept permits the central government to focus on national issues. However, it does not signify neglect. Rather, it permits federal, international, and coalition agencies to empower local communities in a decentralized manner without deleterious intrusion from above. In short, it shifts the counterinsurgency effort to the local communities.

Aligning a Counterinsurgency Strategy for Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Military

by Captain Timothy Hisa, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Military (Full PDF Article)

On Martin Luther King Jr. day many federal employees including military personnel not deployed will enjoy a federal holiday. This year's Martin Luther King Jr. day will be of greater significance given that Barack Obama will be sworn in as the first African-American President and Commander in Chief the following day. In 2007, Barack Obama hailed the Tuskegee Airmen as trailblazers for racial equality, and in a fitting tribute, he has invited the surviving soldiers of this unit to his inauguration.

The Tuskegee Airmen indeed paved the way for African-Americans but it would be a historical oversight to overlook the accomplishments of the many other African-American Soldiers who have distinguished themselves in America's history. From the heroic deeds of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment which captured Fort Wagner from the Confederates and is recalled in the movie Glory, to the Buffalo Soldiers who settled the Western Frontiers.

The Army continues to honor the tradition of the Buffalo Soldiers and the accomplishments of African Americans in the military by ensuring the lineage, history, and tradition of those units live on. For example, the 24th Infantry Regiment which was activated in 1869 specifically for black soldiers continues to serve the nation as an active army unit. The black soldiers of 24th Infantry served with great distinction in numerous wars: Spanish-American War, the Pacific in World War II, and the Korean War. I am especially fond of 1-24 Infantry aka "Deuce-Four" because it was my first unit and the one which I am regimentally affiliated with.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Military (Full PDF Article)

A Proposal for a Unifying Strategic Doctrine for National Security

by Colonel David Maxwell, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

A Proposal for a Unifying Strategic Doctrine for National Security (Full PDF Article)

It is important at this time in history, especially as a new President takes office, to continue the debate on how the United States thinks about its place in the world and its own security. As the U.S. leadership assesses National Security and the complex and globalized world in which it finds itself, three important potential realities should be contemplated.

First, people who are disadvantaged, disenfranchised, downtrodden, or disassociated are vulnerable to ideological and political manipulation by insurgent, terrorist, criminal, or other organizations (which could include alternatives to sovereign government organizations or nation-states seeking influence over the population of a rival nation-state). Such organizations have always and will continue to seek to exploit people for their own ends. These groups sometimes evolve into violent extremist organizations that use politics, economics, or religion to manipulate or exploit people.

Second, the U.S. is has and will likely be exploited as a target to enhance the legitimacy of an organization or even a nation-state in the eyes of its own constituency. I offer the following examples. The dictators of Cuba, Iran, and north Korea use the fact that they are perceived by the U.S. as a threat. They use this perception to enhance their own legitimacy among their people. Bin Laden and Al Qaeda's single most important measure of effectiveness (from their perspective) is that the AQ network still exists despite having had war "declared" (in the figurative vice Constitutional sense) against them. The U.S. as a world superpower, perceived hegemon, and an enemy is a useful paradigm for opposition elements.

Third, there will always be conditions in the world that will lead to people being disadvantaged and disenfranchised and make them vulnerable to exploitation.

A Proposal for a Unifying Strategic Doctrine for National Security (Full PDF Article)

Transition in Iraq

Withdrawing the BCTs

by Colonel Robert Killebrew, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Transition in Iraq: Withdrawing the BCTs (Full PDF Article)

A meeting with the JCS is the first item on President Obama's agenda after he takes office on 20 January. As reported in the national press, he intends to fulfill his campaign promise of withdrawing all remaining Brigade Combat Teams in Iraq within the next 16 months.

Assuming the present state of affairs in Iraq continues, getting the combat brigades out in 16 months should be a doable objective that American military leaders can wholeheartedly support. The reduction in violence, the progress of the Iraqi army, and the shaky but generally positive direction of the Iraqi government all seem to indicate that in a year or more the U.S. and allied contribution can have become mainly -- though not exclusively -- to support Iraqi security forces. This is not, however, "endex" in Iraq, and we can still lose this war if we fail to make a satisfactory transition from warfighters to supporters.

Our basic objectives in Iraq under an Obama Administration will almost surely remain what they have been under President Bush's; a generally democratic and secular Iraq, a U.S. ally at peace with its neighbors, and a bulwark against Iranian aggression at the head of the Persian Gulf. Whether those objectives, all or in part, are achieved depends on how we handle the transition from combat to support of the Iraqi government and its security forces.

Transition in Iraq: Withdrawing the BCTs (Full PDF Article)

IBOLC: Platoon Leader Decision Making for the 21st Century

by Major Michael Fortenberry, Small Wars Journal

IBOLC: Platoon Leader Decision Making for the 21st Century (Full PDF article)

In the Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course (IBOLC), lieutenants train to lead infantry platoons in modern warfare. While much time is spent teaching the students to embrace the Warrior ethos, infantry culture and small unit tactics, critical thinking and decision making skills are the most important leader trait developed during the course. Students are trained and assessed in three critical areas: Intelligence, Character and Tactical Skills and Competencies Development. These individual and leader tasks and skills are essential in leading Soldiers on today's battlefields.

The typical methods of teaching Infantry leadership do not permit lieutenants to fully recognize the intricacies of modern warfare. Thus, IBOLC is an outcomes-based leader development program designed to build the foundation of infantry leadership and prepare lieutenants for the complexities of the operational environment. Using its' long-established framework of embedding the basics of Infantry tactics and doctrine, the curriculum has become more relevant with emphasis on teaching lieutenants how to think.

IBOLC: Platoon Leader Decision Making for the 21st Century (Full PDF article)

The Soft Side of Airpower

by Major John W. Bellflower, Small Wars Journal

The Soft Side of Airpower (Full PDF Article)

We are quite good at killing, we Americans. We have melded technology and the taking of life to such an extent that the process can be, for us, a quite antiseptic experience. This is especially true in the realm of airpower. However, the next, i.e. post-Iraq, phase in the war on terror will more closely resemble humanitarian-style interventions in fragile, failing, and failed (F3) states than Iraq-style invasions. Consequently, operations are likely to call less for the elimination of life than for the preservation and facilitation of life. As we begin to contemplate this next phase in the war on terror, which will likely call for heavy involvement in Africa, we should heed the words of Lieutenant General Stephen Lorenz, who counsels airmen to "challenge accepted paradigms to propose new ways of fighting from air, space, and cyberspace." To that end, we should be mindful of the fact that kinetic effects are not always the most desired effects when intervening in F3 states. Indeed, if the Air Force seeks to play a more meaningful role in any post-Iraq engagement, it must look for novel ways of contributing to the global counterinsurgency fight. It must, as former Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne indicated, "offer the nation a flexible mix of capabilities that allow it to act in a world of growing strategic uncertainty."

The Soft Side of Airpower (Full PDF Article)

Close Air Support and Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

by Lara M. Dadkhah, Small Wars Journal

Close Air Support and Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

American airpower seems to have lost some of its mystique in the war in Afghanistan. American air dominance, including its ability to conduct airstrikes in close air support of coalition troops, has been and continues to be critical to the Afghan war effort. Close air support, in particular, is allowing the United States and NATO to fight an energized insurgency with far fewer troops than it needs. Yet if one follows press reports from the Afghan theatre, what Eliot Cohen once characterized as an "unusually seductive form of military strength," has become a source of consternation for the United States and a ready cudgel with which to beat America's troubled prosecution of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). Tragic news stories of American airstrikes gone wrong and their resultant civilian casualties trump more mundane analyses of the Afghan government's failings or the (by now routine) atrocities committed by Afghan insurgents. American airpower, it seems, has become a victim of its own misunderstood successes in the Persian Gulf War and Kosovo bombing campaign. Its famed precision makes any costly error unacceptable, inflames Afghan and international public opinion, and forces American defense officials and military leaders to observe endless rituals of public apology. The irreconcilable conflict between the immutably violent nature of war and the fiction of a "bloodless" use of force has trapped the United States between the Scylla of military exigency and the Charybdis of public sentiment.

This paper will briefly examine the issue of airstrikes during close air support (CAS) operations in the Afghan theatre. It will give a broad overview of the use of airpower in OEF, then examine the controversy surrounding American airstrikes in Afghanistan. It will take the position that given the existing constraints on the American war effort (troop shortages, the vast and difficult Afghan terrain, limited human intelligence, cross-border insurgent sanctuaries, and increased insurgent activity), CAS is vital to the prosecution of the Afghan war. It will further argue that, even as mounting civilian casualties are alienating the Afghan populace, excessive restraint in the use of airstrikes may be handicapping U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts.

Close Air Support and Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

Random Thoughts on Irregular Warfare and Security Assistance

by Colonel David Maxwell, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

Random Thoughts on Irregular Warfare and Security Assistance (Full PDF Article)

As we continue the debate on how we are going to organize our forces for operations in the Irregular Warfare and we think about enabling other forces would like to think a couple of things before we chase new "shiny things" as in new "designer organizations."

First we need to look at ourselves critically and ask if we have been able to develop effective strategies and campaign plans and then support and execute them, respectively. I think that most all of our challenges can be attributed to our strategies and campaign plans (and I will caveat this and say we need to understand that in this world of irregular warfare, complex operations and hybrid warfare there is no cookie cutter strategy or campaign plan template that will work the first time, every time. We need to be agile and flexible and be able to adapt to constantly morphing conditions). But I would say that this is where we need to focus most of all because our forces at the tactical level from all Services have proven very adept and capable and have demonstrated that they are truly learning organizations.

The second point that no one talks about are authorities and processes. If we are going to truly be effective in the Security Force Assistance, Building Partner Capacity, Train, Advise and Assist, COIN, Foreign Internal Defense areas (or whatever we what to call these types of operations -- what is the flavor of the month right now?? J But I digress with my sarcasm). Our security assistance processes are broken and not supportive of whatever strategies and campaign plans we may develop. We do not have agile processes that allow us to rapidly and effectively support our friends, partners, or allies. We have Congressional constraints and limitations placed on us for political reasons that are sometimes (and perhaps often) counter to objectives or end states we are trying to achieve from a security perspective. But all the talk of an Advisory Corps whether in the military or a combined civilian-military one will be moot if we do not update, simplify, streamline, and make effective our security assistance processes and redesign them so they can support national and regional and Country Team strategies and campaign plans...

Random Thoughts on Irregular Warfare and Security Assistance (Full PDF Article)

Theory to Strategy

How to Defeat al Qaeda in Iraq and around the Globe

by Dr. Paul R. Chabot, Small Wars Journal

Theory to Strategy (Full PDF Article)

The U.S., Coalition and Iraqi forces have made great progress in combating al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Today, AQI is severely damaged and limited in its operational potential. However, despite all best efforts, AQI has adjusted to internal and external pressures and remains a threat to the region and national security.

AQI fits the academic definition of a resilient organization. It's aware of challenges, continues to make sense of its environment, learns from failure, adjusts to difficulties and creates or uses resiliency characteristics to sustain itself in what I describe as a resiliency cycle. If U.S., Coalition and Iraqi pressure where to be released on AQI, it would reconstitute itself with a vengeance and wreak havoc throughout the region, yet again.

What this strategy proposes is to simultaneously attack each of AQI's resiliency characteristics by the asset best suited for that mission. As such, AQI will shrink further, much like applying pressure to all sides of a balloon. Results are measured, evaluated, reassessed and refocused. The process of attacking the resiliency charactertics begins again, thereby further shrinking the organization. This process repeats itself over and over, much like peeling back layers of an onion. Eventually, AQI will be so severely shrunk and damaged, that it is but remnants compared to its previous strength. It is at this stage, in its weakest form, that it most susceptible to organizational failure.

This strategy can be a blue-print for fighting not only al Qaeda, but all terrorist organization including criminal/drug trafficking organizations and sophisticated street and prison gangs, worldwide. Simply, such horrific organizations must either adapt to pressures or collapse upon itself like a dying star. Those organizations able to sustain despite such pressure and survive, exhibit resiliency and therefore contain resiliency characteristics. It is these resiliency characteristics that we must focus our efforts upon to bring about the destruction of such evil organizations. It is a precise, focused strategy requiring leadership, resources and patience.

Theory to Strategy (Full PDF Article)

The Army We Need

by Dr. John Nagl, Small Wars Journal

The Army We Need (Full PDF Article)

It is a huge pleasure for me to be back at Fort Benning. My last visit here was more than 20 years ago, during the hot summer of 1986, when Sergeant Airborne pinned silver wings to my bony chest with a vigor that would today result in a court martial. Something has been lost and something gained since the demise of that particular custom, which was perhaps more important in a peacetime army than it is in one that is at war, as ours is today.

You know that better than do I. Most of you have two tours in Operations Iraqi Freedom and/or Operation Enduring Freedom, as do your instructors. Your story is the story of the United States Army over the past seven years. You have had to adapt units that were designed for a different kind of war to conduct counterinsurgency operations. You succeeded—but, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates noted in a speech at NDU three months ago that I was privileged to attend, your job was harder than it had to be.

The Army We Need (Full PDF Article)

The COIN Graduate Seminar

by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, Small Wars Journal

The COIN Graduate Seminar (Full PDF Article)

Military analysts and pundits have often dubbed counterinsurgency the "graduate level of war." Dissenters protest that full spectrum operations—with their mixture of conventional and irregular warfare—are truly the graduate level of conflict. We do not take a position on this debate, as we honor the contributions of both conventional and unconventional soldiers. However, it is indisputable that irregular warfare--like any form of human conflict--is immensely complex. Approaching it requires a holistic—if not eccentric—approach that defies the simplistic political debates and strategic orthodoxies commonly found in popular discussions of issues such Iraq and Afghanistan. But this begs the question of how we would ideally advance the discussion to something more nuanced. If counterinsurgency is truly the "graduate level" of war, it needs its very own Graduate Seminar.

What readings and films would we assign to students in the Seminar? We've outlined everything bellow under the "Syllabus" heading. The material here, though exhaustive, is by no means comprehensive. We have opted to emphasize the diversity of intellectual approaches involved in conceptualizing war and power as well as more recent military irregular warfare research. Our aim is to engage the entire spectrum of irregular conflict, from counter-terrorism to speculations about the future of war.

Some of our readings and films—drawn from the humanities and popular culture--may strike the reader as odd choices, but our eclecticism is intentional. "Out of the box" thinking is often praised but rarely honored due to institutional, political, and intellectual cultures that police discourses and close minds. Likewise, we have also included military theorists whose ideas have sparked controversy. Even if one violently disagrees with certain theories of war and peace, it is important to engage with their arguments.

Given the sheer amount of material, readings and passages from each book would be selected to provide a comprehensive approach. The first unit, counterterrorism, covers operational, political, legal, and cultural issues associated with CT. The second unit, counterinsurgency, examines both classical and modern counterinsurgency theory. It also examines case studies of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, looking at contemporary successes and failures. The third unit, criminal insurgency, examines insurgencies waged by gangs, cartels, and other criminal actors. Lastly, the fourth unit, future warfare, engages speculation about the future of conflict through study of past and present predictive literature. We offer this list for discussion and debate.

The COIN Graduate Seminar (Full PDF Article)

On the Future and Options

by Jason Fritz, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

On the Future and Options (Full PDF Article)

Andrew Bacevich's defense of COL Gian Gentile in October's Atlantic, while well intentioned, was both flawed and misguided. Concerns about the U.S. military's focus on counterinsurgency and stability operations at the expense of conventional war-fighting abilities are real and warrant a significant discussion on how to strike a balance between the two ends of the spectrum of conflict. However, Gentile's arguments that he defends drive that discussion to the extreme end of the spectrum and would leave the U.S. military few options to defend against the plethora of security challenges that face the nation today and in the future.

Gentile's main arguments are that too much credit has been given GEN David Petraeus for the change in strategy in Iraq, that the decline in violence in Iraq is primarily attributable to the United States buying the allegiance of the Sons of Iraq, and that the U.S. military focuses too much on counterinsurgency doctrine to the detriment of its high intensity warfare skills. A corollary to this last critique is that U.S. forces will likely not -- and really should not -- fight irregular-war conflicts in the future. Bacevich's article not only supported Gentile's ideas but also stated that those who disagreed with him, like LTC (Ret.) John Nagl, were trying to mold the nation's fighting forces in order to continue to fight "one, two, many Iraqs to come."

On the Future and Options (Full PDF Article)

Questioning a Deity

A Contemplation of Maneuver Motivated by the 2008 Israeli Armor Corps Association "Land Maneuver in the 21st Century" Conference

by Dr. Russell W. Glenn, Small Wars Journal

Questioning a Deity (Full PDF Article)

On September 16-17, 2008, the Israeli Armor Corps Association hosted its second annual conference, this entitled "Land Maneuver in the 21st Century. The centerpiece for speaker presentations and related discussions was "maneuver:" what it is, what it should be, and its relevance to security operations in light of the 2006 Second Lebanon War, ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and other recent or continuing conflicts. An international speaker slate proposed a broad spectrum of thinking in that regard, a spectrum ranging from general acceptance of the current definition of maneuver to considerably expanding what the concept encompasses.

This document considers maneuver in light of these speaker presentations and the discussion stimulated by them. First sampling maneuver historically, it follows with an analysis of how theorists, doctrine writers, and military personnel conceive of maneuver in the first decade of the 21st century. These dual foundation stones of history and current thinking serve to underpin presentation of the treatment given the topic during the conference. The closing analysis considers the implications of thinking of maneuver in terms different than is currently the case...or, contrarily, the impact if it instead remains unchanged.

The document will be of interest to individuals in the armed forces, academics, and others desiring to investigate alternative conceptualizations of maneuver in the 21st century.

Questioning a Deity (Full PDF Article)

The UN recently decided to do something about Somali piracy this month. They have not said exactly what that something is. Shipping companies are losing hundreds of millions. Navies don't know how to legally deal with the pirates even if they capture them. Liberals point out that that the Somali pirates are fishermen, merely defending their fishing grounds by asymmetrical means against first and second world fishing fleets that are denuding their offshore harvesting areas. Conservatives claim that the Somali pirates are nothing more than seagoing gangsters who are after quick cash and who find honor and a neat way to get hot chicks by being brigands. Both views have elements of truth. The question is whether this is a national security crisis? It is not. No great American interests are at stake other than international law of the sea and preventing piracy from becoming a trendy thing to do in other places such as the Straits of Malacca which already have a pirate problem. During the recent election, much noise was made about encouraging multilateralism. Eliminating piracy is a problem custom made for a multilateral solution.

We need to avoid becoming entrapped in a "let Uncle Sam do it" situation just because we have the world's largest and most powerful navy which has excess capacity because Iraq and Afghanistan are mostly land wars. This is why we need to avoid those who call for a blockade of Somalia. Blockades are expensive things. The coast of Somalia rivals the size of the American southeastern seaboard, and it took hundreds of Union ships to blockade the Confederacy during our Civil War. We have the only navy in the world that could do such a thing and not one U.S. merchant ship has so far been lost to the Pirates. The Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Turks, Chinese, and other seagoing nations have much more at stake than we do; this problem is ripe for a coalition solution, and it can be solved; they need to create an effective coalition in order to solve the problem.

The best way to stop the Somali pirates is not at sea through convoys and blockades; we are not dealing with the German High Seas Fleet or even the Confederate Navy here. The best way to do it is to seize and occupy their fishing village bases along the northern coast of Somalia, which the UN resolution authorizes, and then give the locals something productive to do with themselves besides brigandage. This does not need to be done by U.S. Marines, but it will take good troops. The Somalis like to fight and they are entrepreneurial; if they are not given something productive to do once a coalition stops piracy, they will make armed resistance to an occupation force pay as they did from 1993 to 1995...