I've recently joined Small Wars Journal and I want to express my thanks for the terrific debate on my recent 'generalship' piece.

I thought I would share some common questions/comments about the piece, as well as my responses.

Most of the response has been very positive, and some of it has been intensely personal. I've received some very disturbing emails from Soldiers and family members describing how bad leadership has impacted their lives. To be honest, I was not prepared for that response and I'm very troubled by what I've heard.

The most common criticism of the piece is that I did not address the role of civilian authorities more explicitly. While I don't think a serving officer should publicly criticize civil authorities, there is a more substantive question here. Who does society hold responsible for the application of non-military instruments of power to achieve the aims of policy? That's a much larger question than the one I took on regarding the responsibilities of general officers. However, it's a fair question that I would like to take a stab at eventually. Any thoughts on this topic are very much appreciated.

Many people have asked me what impact this piece will have on my career. I don't know the answer to that question, and I don't mean to be dismissive or overly stoic, but I don't think it's a very important issue. There are Soldiers and Marines and family members who have risked and sacrificed much more than promotion to full colonel over the last six years.

What I hope will happen: increased Congressional oversight of the systems that produce our senior leaders. Also, that junior leaders believe that our system of governance is capable of self-correction on even the most important issues.

What I fear might happen: inaction by political and senior military authorities, coupled with growing resentment and disillusionment by our junior leaders. I'm very worried about the communication gap between stars and bars, and I hope that my article does not make matters worse. As I said, I've been surprised by the emotional intensity of some of the responses I've received.

An interesting observation. The Vietnam generation did not fully assimilate their experiences until after the war was over. In units and service schools, the captains, majors and lieutenant colonels discussed their experiences, drew conclusions and argued for reform. In the information age, this dialogue happens in real time. Junior leaders are able to compare what senior leaders say with what's happening on the ground in a matter of minutes. I don't think our organizational models and leadership theories have caught up with the impacts of the information age. That's probably a statement of the obvious to most, but came as a revelation to a Luddite like me.

I welcome your questions and comments and am very honored to be part of SWJ.

V/R

Paul

While I spoke with senior officers -- General Petraeus, LtGen Odierno and MajGen Gaskin run an open organization that goes out of its way to let a journalist accompany any unit -- they were happy to have me go out and take a look for myself. Appended is a list of those who so generously shared their views.

Below are some observations, with my conclusions under point #18. In a nutshell, for the US to achieve the goal of relative stability in Iraq, by the end of 2007 three battlefield conditions must be met. First, Iraq's predominantly Shiite army must demonstrate a strategy and a momentum against a resumption of Shiite ethnic cleansing in and around Baghdad. Second, in Anbar the Iraqi army and the predominantly Sunni police must sustain the momentum for eradicating al Qaeda in Iraq. Third, in the rest of the Sunni Triangle, the Iraqi Army must prevent al Qaeda from developing sanctuaries.

Background. Iraq's 26 million traumatized inhabitants have few leaders, are rent by religious and ethnic antagonisms, and are slaughtered and terrified by the Grendel-like monster called al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The reasonable timeline for counterinsurgency and nation-building under such conditions is ten to twenty years. The administration and the Pentagon attempted to complete "full-spectrum counterinsurgency" - i.e., clear, hold and rebuild the key cities - in 2005, transition to Iraqi forces in 2006, and begin leaving in 2007. If accomplished, that would have been the fastest turnaround in history.

In 2006, US troops did indeed fall back into Forward Operating Bases in order to reduce the visibility of Americans. Soldiers on patrol drove to and from the capital in armored humvees, a tactic one colonel said was equivalent "to observing the shoreline through the periscope of a submarine". The murderous AQI bombing campaign against Shiites, though, provoked ethnic cleansing in and around Baghdad by the Jesh al Mahdi (JAM) militia. Baghdad was slowly falling apart as the violence increased and the American soldiers stood on the sidelines.

In response, President Bush, supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, surged five brigades into and around Baghdad, and a new commander, General David Petraeus, implemented a Surge Strategy based on classic counterinsurgency principles. The key was deploying American companies throughout the city in concert with Iraqi police and soldiers. It was back to "clear and hold" again.

The surge is off to a good start. It is, however, based on borrowed forces. The US troops were "borrowed" by a (final?) withdrawal upon the good will of the American electorate, and the Iraqi troops were borrowed from the Kurds and from Anbar, both of which will reclaim them. Thus, at the end of the surge, Baghdad has to maintain stability with fewer American and Iraqi forces.

Observations.

1. Dynamism in April. Iraq is a low-level war with scarcely any firefights above a squad level. In this war, the moral/psychological is to the physical as 20 is to 1. The new American military team has infused the effort with energy and strategic clarity, and seized the initiative. The two primary battlefields - Anbar and Baghdad - share a common characteristic: momentum at the battalion level favors the Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).

In Anbar, the unknown is whether the government in Baghdad, especially the Ministry of Interior, will provide the resources to reinforce the unexpected success. In Baghdad, the unknown is whether Jesh al Mahdi (JAM) leaders will resume attacks. On both battle fronts, American rifle companies are the steel rods in concrete that is just beginning to harden.

2. Energy at the local level. In February, Petraeus divided the city into sectors and immediately set up "combat outposts" and "joint coordinating centers". These are analogous to beefed-up police precinct stations, from which American and Iraqi soldiers and local Iraqi police patrol the neighborhoods - hopefully together. The intent is to bring security to the population at the local level.

American soldiers take to this more readily than do the Iraqi forces. There's tremendous variance from station to station among the size, composition and frequency of patrols. Police in the US are more uniform in their coverage and patrol rates because they've had centuries to develop the system, while only in the past few years has the American military accepted that the mission in Iraq is more a policing than a military task.

Nonetheless, where I accompanied patrols in four different districts in Baghdad, the population did manifest trust in the American soldiers. Their industry and good will had not escaped the notice of the residents. There was less of the sullen hostility that I had encountered in prior visits to Ghazilia and Rusafa, although Adamiah remained the toughest nut. Similarly, in the JAM bastions of Khadamiah and Sadr City, there were not the mannerisms and gestures of instinctive anti-Americanism, perhaps because many top JAM leaders have left for safer locales.

3. What's next at the local level in 2007? Money and a shift in responsibility. When American companies embed in an area for months, they get to know the local civilian, military and police leaders. They see the friction and hear the complaints. Company commanders have some money they can spend on local projects, but the procedures are cumbersome. It would be much preferable to give each combat outpost or joint center a line of credit of, say, $20,000 a month. That way, every month the Iraqi security leaders, local leaders and Americans could meet to allocate something specific, opening a dialogue.

For the Americans to move out, competent non-sectarian Iraqi security leaders must replace them. The police in Baghdad use most of their manpower at checkpoints and lack the training to respond to persistent attacks. They rarely patrol on foot, are mistrusted with good reason by the Sunnis and viewed skeptically by many of the Shiites.

It is not clear if the Iraqi security forces will be substantially improved in quality within the next year. Time, though, does alter conditions. A habit takes about twelve weeks to develop. Better military habits can be transferred over time from the American to the Iraqi units, and the Ministry of Defense is the least sectarian agency and preaches that its soldiers are Iraqis, not Sunni or Shiite.

The police cannot be entirely discounted, but the army is the more credible defense against a resurgent JAM offensive. The local effectiveness of the army is critically dependent upon the battalion commander and one or two aggressive company commanders.

The Americans on-scene will be able to judge that. They know who the bad apples are that must be replaced. At least one three-star Iraqi general, two division commanders and several battalion commanders have been relieved due to pressure, including giving the details to the press. That must continue. The goal in every district has to be an acceptable level of trust between the community and the local Iraqi security commander.

4. 2008: How can success be reinforced while numbers decrease? By enhancing the role of the adviser. In Baghdad, The Surge has generated momentum and optimism. Excepting monstrous car bombings, it is likely violence will decrease. What carries beyond The Surge into 2008 is less clear.

In Baghdad, the police, primarily manning checkpoints, will remain distinctly secondary to the Iraqi Army as a stabilizing force. Among Iraqi and US army units, there is wide variation in the number and jointness of the patrols that are the basic tool for securing the population. One advisory team daily leaves the wire, motivating its Iraqi battalion to conduct ten patrols a day. Another team focuses upon staff improvements, and its battalion conducts four patrols a day. One US unit patrols on foot with the Iraqis; another rides in humvees without Iraqis, etc.

The American military stresses decentralized execution, although force protection measures - such as insisting that three or more humvees travel together at all times - are instituted from the top down. Battalion and company commanders decide how they will operate in their own areas, and operating concepts differ markedly. Some commanders prefer night raids; some stress mounted patrols; others insist on foot patrols. There is not a standardized template for providing security from one neighborhood to the next.

Because the mission of urban policing is foreign to the military, the result is a variation of methods and operational styles that one would not see, say, among police departments in the US. Lacking are generally accepted quantitative standards or criteria, like arrests or clearance rates, by which to measure achievement. Even the definition of "patrol" is highly elastic. There is, though, the trustworthy judgment of American company and battalion commanders - the "I know it when I see it" factor in evaluating the degree of security in a neighborhood. So what you have in Baghdad is training by example - the offensive tempo set by American units is being copied by Iraqi units.

This variation does not gainsay a likely diminution in violence; increased numbers of armed forces do reduce criminal activity. That brings us to 2008. Assuming security does improve, how is it sustained as US units leave? The burden shifts to an advisory corps that must sustain by example a non-sectarian, offensive attitude in Iraqi battalions, without the comforting presence of a "partnered" American battalion. The adviser is the coach. He is also the one who receives the best information whether the unit is doing its job. He's in a tough spot, but a highly rewarding one if done with the right attitude. (I urge all advisers to read Once a Warrior King, because that is what they are, for probably the only time in their military careers.)

The implication for 2008 seems obvious: the advisers will be glue holding stability gains together. The adviser team leaders will be chosen this summer. To entice the best, the US Army and Marine Corps must offer commensurate incentives. To do so is an old and sore point that will provoke debate inside both services.

5. The national level - not the local level - is the critical impediment. The heart of the problem is that Iraqi society is extraordinarily hierarchical, and the top level is failing. Under the current circumstances, what occurred in Anbar is likely to repeat in Baghdad: security will improve as the Iraqi security forces turn to the Americans as their natural security partner, rather than turning to their own government.

How they can be extracted is the challenge that looms in 2008. It may sound like I'm getting ahead of myself. But we all do that with the stock market. That is, we absorb and discount the present value as we try to anticipate the future. The Petraeus strategy makes sense. While he will not report until September, it's not too early to ask: what happens if there is more stability by summer's end? What then?

The Iraqi army at the battalion level - and many police units - is advancing at an acceptable pace; it is the performance at the national level that is unacceptable. The Shiites govern defensively and reactively, as if they expected to be stripped of their huge majority. Yes, the ministries lack competence due to the dismissal of the Baathists and the flight of the educated class from Iraq. Lack of capacity, however, can be compensated by the activism of advisers and American logistic skills. Currently, for instance, many advisers pick up and supervise the payrolls of Iraqi battalions and police, fuel is routinely provided when it technically shouldn't be, etc.

As distinct from a lack of capacity, however, there is no means of compensating for determined sectarianism or corrosive obduracy. Iraqi Army officers who do not hesitate to arrest Shiite militia are too frequently relieved of command and shifted to other duties. It is no secret which ministries and personalities have failed and obstructed too often to be tolerated. Some senior people have to be removed from power. This is the key challenge facing the State Department, requiring remarkable skill, cunning and, above all, a sense of urgency.

The American tendency to try to prevail while tolerating malfeasance within the Iraqi senior ranks - viz. MoI or the Oil Ministry - is defended as realpolitik. But we cannot excuse inaction by blaming the political system we imposed. Nor should we compare, as General Abizaid was fond of doing, the Iraqi cabinet to our Founding Fathers, who risked their lives, families and fortunes, led in battle and endured all privations alongside the common soldiers - without the refuge of the Green Zone, without gangs of bodyguards with murky backgrounds, and without mortgage-free flats in fashionable London as an escape hatch.

History offers scant solace: Countering an insurgency without the ability to promote the competent and fire the disloyal and the disastrous is an uphill battle.

6. Peeling-the-onion strategy. The Surge Strategy appears to have four components. First, bring security to the population on a local level. Second, infuse local projects so the residents see some economic gains. This is lagging. Most glaring is the failure - due to connivance among corrupt officials, criminals and insurgents - to deliver propane and fuel so that the population can move about and commerce can circulate. Third, peel away the irreconcilables - prominently al Qaeda and JAM death squads - by shooting or imprisoning them. Fourth, reconcile the majority of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia through government reforms, legislation and compromise.

Based on the talent, candor and experience of our military leaders and strategic staff now assembled, flaws in that strategy should not be a major concern.

As for the house-cleaning necessary for unity of effort on the Iraqi side, it is not clear whether the State Department will dispatch to Ambassador Crocker a team of tough diplomats with the mission of driving into exile those Iraqi officials who are working against their nation's interests. Of the top 150 Iraqi political, ministerial and military leaders down to battalion commanders, perhaps 25% should be dismissed and ten percent must be fired.

And while national-level legislation such as the hydrocarbon law is necessary to provide assurances of national unity and acceptable proportionality of resources, it is not clear legislation will motivate many insurgents and militia to desist. Local deals will still be necessary, and they are more likely among the Shiite militia than among the Sunni insurgent groups that are more mobile and lack a defined home base. To date, the thousands of Sunnis who claim to be "the honorable resistance" have laid out absurd conditions, suggesting that productive negotiations reflect results on the battlefield. If other insurgencies is a guide, guerrillas accept political terms only when losing.

So while the strategy is clear and logical, the challenges are immense.

7. Imprison the irreconcilables. At the same time, the irreconcilable Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia must be killed or captured. There's a big problem here. The number of insurgents killed is quite low. Iraq, especially Baghdad, is not a shooting war; it's a police war, and police keep order by arrests, not by shootings. But since the scandal of Abu Ghraib, the American military has sought to get out of the arrest business and turn all prisoners over to an Iraqi judicial system that does not exist.

By most historical measures, Iraq - if on the path to prevailing over the Sunni insurgency and the Shiite militias - should be holding 50,000 to 75,000 or more. The current numbers are far less: Americans are holding roughly 19,000 and the Iraqis are holding around 20,000.

A major debate is raging about the rights of the individual arrested versus the rights of a society at war. Since 2003, the American military has released about 43,000 prisoners. Many of those released should never have been locked up, particularly not alongside hard-core extremists. Advocates of more releases point to a re-arrest rate of 11% as evidence of very low recidivism. Opponents claim that recidivism is likely to be above the US rate of 60%, and that the few re-arrests point to the prevalence of intimidation, leading to the passive support of the population wherever the insurgency or JAM puts down roots.

In the midst of a war, lip service is given to the phrase "rule of law", meaning that Iraq should abide by the strictures of a Western liberal society. A new prison for 6,000 is being built in Baghdad, to be staffed with live-in judges. There are multiple levels of review of the evidence for holding a detainee. Most detainees are released prior to appearing before a judge.

In reality, the American system judges whether a detainee should be incarcerated for the long term. If the answer is yes, it asks an Iraqi judge to confirm the decision. Iraqi judges still release 45%, despite the evidence against the accused that persuaded the Americans. Opponents of release therefore argue that the more insurgents brought before the judges, the more will be released, resulting in more attacks against Americans.

Some Iraqi and US officials favor another mass release of several thousand, while other officials are adamantly opposed. Since the Surge Strategy began, both US and Iraqi forces have been imprisoning more detainees. As a result, the American and Iraqi prisons are stuffed full, and there are no plans to build more immediate capacity proportionate to the scale of the war. This issue is unresolved and will not fade away. If mishandled, it will gravely imperil the war effort. It makes no sense to release those who will kill you.

8. Concrete barriers are imperative. The suicide bomber is a long-term terror. Americans tolerate millions of hours of inconvenience daily at airport security checkpoints. Barriers to reduce the bloodshed from murderous bombers should have been erected years ago in Baghdad. That such protection has been limned as an offense to civil rights reflects poorly on the instincts of too many in the press.

9. Tracking the battle lines. Surprisingly, I saw no citywide photo map that showed the forward lines - Sunni houses in one color, Shiite in another and abandoned in a third. Yet at every outpost, the watch officers pointed out the lines on their local photomaps. In northern Ghazilia, ethnic cleansing had oozed forward a bit - a few more Sunnis evicted and Shiite families had moved in since my last visit; in Rastamiah, families had returned. It would be relatively simple to aggregate these battle lines once a week.

10. Anbar has improved due to years of persistent effort in fighting, an increase in forces and the swing of the tribes. A year ago, the Sunnis in Anbar were in denial, fearing al Qaeda in Iraq, yet hoping to regain the power they had enjoyed under Saddam. For years, I watched American regimental commanders warn the sheiks and local councils that one day the Americans would be gone and al Qaeda would rule, unless they stood up. Now some of the tribes are doing so, and Sunni recruits for the police are standing in line.

11. Neuter the Ministry of Interior. The Ministry of Interior, with adequate money, will not release the funds to hire more police in Anbar and to reinforce success on the ground. Senior Iraqi leaders are aware of the situation, yet tolerate the inaction. The MoI's prejudice against Sunni Anbar hurts the war effort.

MoI is so dysfunctional that many officers told me it should be neutered as an organization, becoming the paymaster for the provincial governors who would raise and direct the police outside Baghdad, while inside the capital the police would gradually be placed under military supervision.

12. Greatly increase the Iraqi forces in Anbar. Terror coexists with progress in Anbar. For instance, in Habbineah, I watched a father refused treatment for his son, saying he would be killed if he accepted medical help from the Americans or the Iraqi soldiers. In Haditha, residents who are now secure insisted to me that the irahibin (al Qaeda in Iraq) would return to rout the police, if the Marines left. In Fallujah, city leaders are routinely assassinated and Iraqi forces have stopped patrolling the Pizza Slice/Blackwater Bridge in the trouble-plagued Jolan western end of the city. What is called the Murder and Intimidation (M&I) strategy of AQI is flourishing.

One reason is that Iraqi forces are instinctive raiders who prefer defensive strong points from which they sally forth in large numbers, especially when they have a fixed target. Patrolling in small numbers to hold those neighborhoods where they have no relatives - in other words, securing the population - does not come naturally.

A second reason is that the US has never designed and implemented a police strategy to identify the population and take away the insurgent's ability to move by car from locale to locale, murdering and escaping. This defect is addressed at point #12 below.

In addition, the American emphasis upon force protection has affected risk-taking by Iraqi forces. Four armored humvees are required for each US patrol; every soldier and Marine wears layers of protective armor, etc. This has conveyed a message to the Iraqi forces: casualties are to be avoided. When human life is held equally dear but one ally invests ten times the capital, then the ally with less resources adapts more conservative tactics to balance the scales; e.g., not patrolling in areas where there are snipers.

They cannot fight the war the way we do. Yet the more we patrol together, the more they become accustomed to our style, our constraints and our supporting logistics. The solution is not to believe that the ISF will, on their own, patrol like Americans if given another year. Instead, add recruits to the ISF and associates like the tribal forces and let them do what comes naturally: prevail by hugely greater numbers at the point of attack.

In Anbar, for instance, today there are about 18,000 Iraqi and 33,000 Coalition forces. Given the vast distances and an insurgency that numbers over 10,000, several officers suggested a goal of 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and police by the end of 2008. The Marines have so developed their linkages with the tribes that such numbers are credible. Lacking such numbers, these officers implied a need for some highly mobile US battalions launching company-sized operations for years to come.

13. An insurgency cannot be won if the insurgents cannot be identified. The lack of an identification system and census tied to individual houses remains the single greatest technical failure of the war. After four years, the Pentagon is distributing handheld devices to take fingerprint and iris scans. There remain two basic technical flaws. First, the devices called HIDE are not tied directly into a large common database. Unlike the devices used by the US border patrol and Chicago police, a squad on patrol cannot send a print over the radio and get an immediate response Instead, the squad has to bring the suspect back to its combat outpost for further identification, if his fingerprint is not already resident in the small database inside the handheld device.

Second, thousands of man-hours have been wasted by hundreds of rifle companies taking separate census without a common framework to pull the efforts together and pass the data from one company to the next. In the US, Google can be queried re criminal offenders, and maps of every city will reveal the locations of the offenders and their past history. Nothing similar has been instituted in Iraq. Yet photomaps exist that detail every house in Baghdad and all other cities in Iraq. To replace the current random catch-as-catch-can effort requires a concept of operations that concentrates the HIDE devices in specific districts to conduct a full census whose data can be displayed on a geographic map.

14. Iran's influence is malign. Probably in reaction to accepting in 2002 intelligence assessments about Iraq that proved false, the press has bent over backward not to link the central government of Iran with explosive devices, money transfers and Iranian agents active inside Iraq. I was surprised how frequently both Iraqi officials and American officers told me that Iran was in essence waging a proxy war against the US. Whatever the extent of its actual influence over and through the Shiite militias, Iran is widely perceived as a malign influence and the US has found no strategy to compel Iran to desist.

15. Beware the Thieu syndrome. Congressional expressions that the war is lost are unhelpful, and not just because they encourage the enemy. From 1973 on, the Thieu government lost faith in American support and clammed up. Without American knowledge, Thieu ordered a pullback from the central highlands. This precipitated panic and disaster.

It seems obvious that Mr. Maliki's confidants are bruiting scenarios that consolidate Shiite power and territory, unchallenged by an American rebuttal that explicates the folly of foolish thinking. (Indeed, an explicit narrative in Arabic detailing how and why blood would continue to be shed ought to be circulated widely throughout the Assembly.) By the end of 2007, the United Nations must pass another Security Council resolution approving the Coalition's actions in Iraq. This requires prior negotiations that could be touchy if, like Thieu, Mr. Maliki privately believes he must gain the authority to rearrange sectors to hedge against American withdrawal. There may, for instance, be a temptation to retrench in Anbar. The danger lies in unintended consequences that ignite a cascade of emotions such as occurred in the first week of April, 2004, when catastrophe was narrowly avoided.

The Americans didn't see it coming with Thieu. It would be prudent to examine now Thieu-type precipitate actions by the GoI.

16. Citizenship deserved. The US could not achieve a satisfactory end state in Iraq without the courage of the Iraqi translators who live with every American battalion and risk their lives every day. Many of them are men without a country. Because they have been so loyal to us Americans, they are distrusted by many in the Iraqi police and army. They remain alive by hiding their identities. Their numbers are few, perhaps 4,000. Surely DoD and the State Department can persuade the Congress to pass legislation enabling citizenship, if so desired, for all translators who are recommended by their battalion commanders.

17. Dedication. I've read about our army being "broken", and certainly much more time at home for the units is deserved. I'm not Pollyannaish; I heard the complaints about the extension, etc. But I was out with enough different units to attest to the energy and mission focus of our soldiers and marines. These are good guys and they understand the strategy Petraeus has laid out. The core of our strength lies in our battalions and at that level it has positively infected the performance of the Iraqi battalions and the local police.

AQI are mean bastards, but they can be broken. That means they have to be put away permanently when caught, or put in the earth.

18. Standing back. From this trip, five variables struck me.

1. The sense of momentum that the surge strategy and leadership have infused into the effort.

2. The biggest challenge is at the top level of the Iraqi government, to include the National Assembly. It is very uncertain whether the higher ranks of the Iraqis can rise above the concept that seniority means privilege and can compromise with the Sunnis, when past oppression has been so real and pervasive. If the top persists in passive or active anti-Sunni manifestations, the effort is doomed.

3. The persistence of the murder and intimidation campaign. An increase in the number and the certainty of imprisonments is needed. More broadly, given that in Fallujah and elsewhere the numbers of Iraqi forces have not been enough in themselves, a police-based strategy is needed for rooting out the assassins. The root of the dilemma is the American insistence upon strict rules of law that are foreign to the Iraqi culture and have not been supplemented by American detective methods as a substitute for the old Iraqi way of doing business.

4. The vast distances versus the modest mobility and sustainability of Iraqi forces favor the mobile insurgent. An identification system - not episodic gestures - is imperative. That way, the mobility and anonymity of the insurgents are limited. Identification, though, also means trust in the ministries of government - a problematic assumption.

5. AQI must be beaten psychologically. Both JAM and AQI prey on the weak. They don't fight each other or the Iraqi army. The Iraqis in Special Forces units scorn the AQI and literally chase them down during night raids. The jundi don't express any particular fear of them. Yet AQI has a mystique of ferocity among the people, too many of whom believe AQI zealotry will overwhelm the Iraqi security forces.

The Iraqi Army must break that mystique by picking fights, by venturing into areas like the Zidon, by publicly mocking and humiliating the AQI and by smashing it.

In appreciation for their guidance and insights, I wish to acknowledge:

Maj Doug Dudgeon

LtCol Brian Alexander

Maj Richard Wallwork, UK

Maj Tom Ziegler

LtCol Jeff Smitherman

Mr Jim Soriano

Alex al Bayaa

MajGen Murthi

MajGen Rick Olson, (ret)

MajGen Tariq

Maj Jeff Sutherland

MajGen Fastabend

Capt Jeremy Anzevino

SSgt John Wear

Col Jeff Witksken

Lt Newton

Maj Abdul Farouk

Col Mark Martins

Maj Sly Sylvester

Mayor Abdul Hakim

LtCol Howard Feng

Capt Scott Gilman

LtCol James Bierman

SgtFC Christine Thompson

Capt Bo Dennis

Gunny Johnson

MajGen Bill Caldwell

Maj Bruce Vitor

Cpl Randy Ortiz

"Matthew"

Col Steve Boylan

"Joseph" from Jordan

LtCol Bob Peller

Lt Roger Hollenbeck

LCpl Alex Bartoli

Col H.R. McMaster

SSgt Kevin Buckley

LCpl Luke Kern

Col Lockey

LtCol Muhamed Nashmi

Namk Nuri Kaleb

Col Phil Sternhagen

MajGen Walt Gaskin

Capt Mike Armsted

LtCol Kenneth Beebe

LtGen Raymond Odierno

SSgt Robert Hays

LtCol Brian Durant

MajGen Mark Gurganus

Lt Andrew Duncan

Col Mary Ellen Jaddick

MajGen Abdul Salam

Capt Ty Barger

BG Assam

LtCol Doug Mason

Sheik Hamid al-mhana

"Mario" al Sadria

Deputy Police Chief Kareem

Maj Mike Manning

Sgt Jason Fabrizi

MajGen Hamad Showka

Col H.S. Clardy

Capt Fahed Zoher

BG John Allen

Maj Zappa

Maj Brian Ellis

Gen David Petraeus

Col Khalid

BG Hussein Wahed

Andy from Beirut

LtCol Bill Jurney

Capt Jay Stewart

Sammy Basam Khazivya

Salam Kiasvbien

David "Slim"

LtCol John Reeves

Lt Jared Towles

Allah Alarki

Mayor Sa'ad Awad

Lt Michael Stempfad

Capt Casey Moes

Dan (spec ops)

Capt Kyle Sloan

SSgt Dale Dukes

Joe (spec ops)

Spec. Gene Matson

SSgt Stuart Toney

Police Chief Faisal

Capt Jody White

Maj Eric Stetson

Sheik Abdul Ikthar

Lt William Patrick

SSgt Vincent Clinard

Cpl Weiser Tyler

LtCol Salam Abbas

Sgt Robin Johnson

Maj Todd Sermarini

LtCol Rafea Alawani

LtCol Josslyn Aberle

Shiek Mishen

Capt Ahmed Sharki

Maj Dan Rouse

Maj Lippo

Maj David Zappa

Capt Cecil Strickland

LtCol Joe L'Etoile

Amar Dahan Nael

Capt. Nathaniel Waggoner

Maj Jeff Pool

MasterGuns Luis Hernandez

1stSgt Kenneth Hendrix

Lt Barry Edwards

Abdel Abouhana

SSgt Nicholas Pelter

Capt Wallace

SSgt Jeff Harilson

Sgt Ryan Wood

Capt Jonathan Riggs

Col Peter Mansoor

Gunny Tim Ybay

SgtMaj Michael Barrett

Mr David Kilcullen

Capt Scott Gilman

Sgt Brian Johnson

Maj Joel Rayburn

ILPO Jim Riley

Capt George Hassetine

Maj Pat Proctor

Hassan Benkato

ColJohn Pollock

Maj Robert Hunter

SSgt Marquis Franklin

Lt Sam Cartee

Capt Eric Peterson

"Walid"

Sgt James Moore

Sheik Hamid Aymen

Sgt Robert Thompson

Lt Clint Gebke

Spec Joshua Simpson

Pvt Cody Stewart

Pfc Michael Moses

LCdr Buzz Mason

LtCol Brian Alexander

What follows are several examples (many more can be found in the SWJ Reference Library) recently received by the SWJ to include papers written by students at the Marine Corps University, Naval Post Graduate School and Kings College in London. The last paper was submitted by a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel now working irregular warfare issues for the US Department of Defense.

Other works posted or linked to in the SWJ library include papers by students and faculty at the National Defense University, Army War College, Marine Corps War College, Air War College, Army Command and General Staff College, Army School of Advanced Military Studies and the Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfare.

At the SWJ there is a standing 'call for papers' -- especially from students at our Professional Military Education institutions.

Enough said, on to our recent acquisitions...

Combined Action Counterinsurgency Concept (CACC): A Proposed Framework for Future Counterinsurgency Operations -- US Marine Corps Command and Staff College Master of Military Studies thesis by Major Daniel Greenwood, USMC.

As recent events in Iraq portend, the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) will increasingly diverge from conventional warfare. Terrorists dispersed throughout the world will continue refining and employing guerilla tactics using civilian populations as their base of operations. This transnational enemy, maximizing modern technology, weaponry, and media, is highly indiscernible, imbedded in the local culture from which it operates. It is proficient at undermining the interests and credibility of the United States on all levels. It is questionable that conventional military doctrine, tactics, and weaponry can achieve decisive results against this evolving threat. This problem requires a new operational concept of counterinsurgency designed to connect tactical level success with the achievement of strategic objectives. Several historical precedents including the Combined Action Program (CAP) and Civil Operation and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) of Vietnam, the recent CAP application in Iraq, and Provisional Reconstruction Teams (PRT) in Afghanistan, provide a starting point for innovative adaptation to an insurgent enemy threat. However, they do not reflect the holistic approach required of such a complex operating environment. This study analyzes the characteristics of modern insurgency and historical counterinsurgency methods to propose an adaptable Combined Action Counterinsurgency Concept (CACC) to provide a conceptual framework for the problem of insurgency. This concept is designed to generate thought, development, experimentation, and training on the execution of COIN operations...

Reexamining the Operational Relevance of Chapter IV -- Small Wars Manual 1940 - US Marine Corps Command and Staff College Master of Military Studies thesis by Major Adam Strickland, USMC.

The purpose of this document is to expand upon the basic tenets of small wars training as originally detailed in Chapter IV of the Small Wars Manual, in order to provide an additional and updated guide to the current conduct and design of small wars training. Above all, this document seeks to provide Marines with a new way of thinking about preparing for and executing irregular warfare, and a framework for clear and rapid analysis that will generate tempo and temporal advantage. All training for small wars must begin with a solid understanding of maneuver warfare as articulated in MCDP 1- Warfighting. Small wars demand that we infuse subordinates with the ability to rapidly maneuver temporally by enabling them to use initiative to make decisions faster than adversaries. Due to our continued emphasis on temporal maneuver, influence operations, and ability to achieve asymmetric effects, we must include psychological training as an essential component of small wars instruction. Cultural training and planning should attempt to identify ways to use the three most common forces of popular influence in a culturally specific context: nationalism and national policies, religion and customs, and material well-being and progress. All training evolutions should begin with a review or discussion of the commander's intent, followed by an operational center of gravity analysis. In small wars, intelligence gathering, analysis, and dissemination are arguably the most essential tasks...

Progressive Reconstruction: A Methodology for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations -- Naval Postgraduate School thesis by Major Karl Rohr, USMC.

The intent of the author is to establish a methodology for future forcible interventions in the affairs of failed, failing or rogue and terrorist sponsoring states in order to stabilize and democratize these nations in accordance with stated United States goals. The argument follows closely current and developing United States military doctrine on stabilization, reconstruction, and counterinsurgency operations. Further the author reviews several past interventions from 1844 to the present. Conducting a survey of colonial, imperialist as well as pre and post WWII, Cold War, post Cold War and post September 11th interventions to determine the techniques and procedures that proved most successful, the author proposes a program of intervention and reconstruction called Progressive Reconstruction that incorporates many of the successful activities of these past and present doctrines. The cornerstone of the methodology is the combination of rapid decisive combat and stabilization operations leading to a series of governmental transitions from foreign direct and indirect to indigenous independent rule...

Countering Insurgents through Distributed Operations: Insights from Malaya 1948-1960 -- Journal of Strategic Studies (link) by David Ucko, Department of War Studies, King's College London.

This article examines the emerging US Marine Corps concept of 'Distributed Operations' (DO) and its applicability to counter-insurgency. DO involves dispersing the force and empowering decentralized units so as to create a network of mobile, agile and adaptable cells, each operating with a significant degree of autonomy yet in line with the commander's overall intent. This concept's applicability to irregular campaigns is assessed with reference to the Malayan Emergency, in which the British and Commonwealth forces employed dispersed and decentralized small-unit formations to great effect. The article teases out the conditions that allowed DO to succeed in Malaya, and comments on the requirements and implications for the use of DO today in the prosecution of the 'Long War'...

The Basics of Counterinsurgency -- Lieutenant Colonel Scott Moore, USMC (ret.).

This study examines the basic characteristics of insurgencies and counterinsurgency campaigns conducted over the past century, striping away many of the prevailing assumptions. Based on detailed analysis of nearly sixty counterinsurgency campaigns, successful and unsuccessful, as well as the lessons learned by American and Coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, the conclusions offer a historically grounded framework for thinking about counterinsurgency. While every conflict exhibited its own unique causes and conditions requiring tailored solutions, as a whole the many counterinsurgency campaigns exhibited fundamental characteristics that remained constant. If there were no immutable laws or empirical formulas for counterinsurgency, there existed certain basic principles and traits that marked and will continue to mark successful, and unsuccessful, outcomes...

From Wired:

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging," said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. "No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- it's most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced."

Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

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Army Lawyer reviews AR 530-1 OPSEC at MILBLOGS:

By its terms, the new OPSEC regulation does not require approval of all communications beforehand, rather, the obligation is to consult. But as Noah's article points out, the proponent doesn't envision all communications to be monitored nor would it be practical to do so. When a regulation's proponent gives you that kind of guidance, you hang your hat on it.

But even without that, the guidelines still place the authority (or burden) on the commander. Commanders are as varied as snowflakes. Will some lean too far forward and say "no blogs"? Yes. but they could have done that before. While a commander may technically say "No Myspace" "No Ebay" and "No AKO forum posting" they are not obligated to do so under the regulation and, truth be told, commanders that ARE so lacking in common sense probably have other concerns within their units.

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From the Small Wars Council:

I have not had the chance to wade through all 79 pages of the document I'm not supposed to know about, but I hope there is more to the plan than wiping the sticky booger of enforcement and "responsibility" on the shirt of commanders who, having more important things to spend their excruciatingly limited time on but still hoping to pick up MAJ before they retire, will just lock up all the key boards and unceremoniously crucify a few "examples."

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This sounds... like a Super FOB IO strategy. We'll build these walls around us and communicate only on approved internal lines of communication with internal approval of approved internal discussions so that we can ensure we are discussing approved questions with approved solutions which we will then dissiminate at approved CTC and publications. The latency will be huge! The timeliness of useful information which can be placed in the correct context so that it can be applied will be largely neutralized. But we will be safe.

OK - this may not have been the intent - but that may not matter if someone does not clarify the directive - remember perceptions are reality.

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I've had this conversation with friends who are military before: there are security implications and security violators, I get it. Well, way to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In this war, for the first time, service members have been able to offer virtually real time critique of the press coverage of the war from the combat zone. It is impossible to measure what impact or influence that has had, but the military keeps saying it believes this is an information war, and keeps acting as if information is completely irrelevant to the conduct of the war or to the ability to sustain support for the war.

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This new policy reminds me much of Soviet attempts to keep the truth from the people. It's such a shame with all the good that our Marines/Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen are doing on the ground that we're resorting to something like this. If this policy rules the day, "strategic" corporal will forever be a defensive term only. Instead of going in this direction, I'd like the policy to encourage our warriors to photograph, videotape and transmit their actions to the world on the internet. Train them, teach them about war among the people, why the people are the center of gravity, why the will of the American people is so important, why the American people need to see more than IEDs and firefights and then let them run. We can win the IO component of this fight if we train our warriors and then let them speak. As a very wise Middle East and Terrorism expert said the other day, "We'd better tell our story at the tactical, operational and strategic levels because if we don't our enemy will, and we won't like what he has to say."

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I am curious as to what blog post prompted this reaction. If it was not a dozy then this reaction measure is certainly pretty dizzy to us uninformed who want to support the war effort.

On its face this appears to be a unilateral surrender in the media battle space where our enemy has been kicking our butt for some time. What seems inarguable at this point is the authors of this order have not explained themselves and until they do the lack of apparent wisdom of this idea will be all that is seen.

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I have to say, even from my civilian perspective, the genius behind this new regulation is one sorry, out of touch, a-hole.

The primary effect of this idiocy will be to corrupt our own feedback loops by suppressing *truthful* information from guys observing conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan or the Horn of Africa. The sorts of CYA things the brass in any war likes to keep from their superiors, the Congress, the media and the folks back home ( I note the American media is on a PPT diagram with drug kingpins, al Qaida and Warlords - that juxtaposition pretty much says it all in terms of the reigning Army IO philosophy). It is my expectation that such an effect was the primary purpose behind these regs as the international Islamist movement is not going to be inconvenienced in the slightest.

The proper move would have been OPSEC education - milbloggers aren't stupid. Hermetically sealing the military off from the world ( which won't succeed anyway) is the sign of siege mentality in the officer corps and a harbinger of decline.

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The Blogosphere reacts:

Dadmanly - The End of MILBLOGS?

Black Five - The End of Military Blogging

Captain's Quarters - Army To Milbloggers: About Face

MilBlogs - The End of MilBlogs?

InstaPundit - Bullet, Meet Foot

PrairiePundit - Military Bloggers Confused by New Regulation

Secrecy News - Army Clamps Down with New OPSEC Policy

OPFOR - Aw, Hell

ROFASIX - Silence of the Warrior

My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy - Army Surrenders in the Information War

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Update via Captain's Quarters - Milbloggers Safe?

UPDATE AND BUMP: The Army has issued a clarification on this order:

- In no way will every blog post/update a Soldier makes on his or her blog need to be monitored or first approved by an immediate supervisor and Operations Security (OPSEC) officer. After receiving guidance and awareness training from the appointed OPSEC officer, that Soldier blogger is entrusted to practice OPSEC when posting in a public forum.

- Army Regulation 350-1, "Operations Security," was updated April 17, 2007 -- but the wording and policies on blogging remain the same from the July 2005 guidance first put out by the U.S. Army in Iraq for battlefield blogging. Since not every post/update in a public forum can be monitored, this regulation places trust in the Soldier, Civilian Employee, Family Member and contractor that they will use proper judgment to ensure OPSEC.

- Much of the information contained in the 2007 version of AR 530-1 already was included in the 2005 version of AR 530-1. For example, Soldiers have been required since 2005 to report to their immediate supervisor and OPSEC officer about their wishes to publish military-related content in public forums.

- Army Regulation 530-1 simply lays out measures to help ensure operations security issues are not published in public forums (i.e., blogs) by Army personnel.

- Soldiers do not have to seek permission from a supervisor to send personal E-mails. Personal E-mails are considered private communication. However, AR 530-1 does mention if someone later posts an E-mail in a public forum containing information sensitive to OPSEC considerations, an issue may then arise.

What does this mean? It means that bloggers will get trained in OpSec rules and regulations, and then allowed to police their own conduct. The key word here is "trust". The Army got this right today.

Now, the question is whether Wired got it wrong in the first place.

Update 2 - A SWJ Hat Tip to Blackfive and Danger Room for posting a link to Muddy Boots IO: The Rise of Soldier Blogs by Major Elizabeth Robins.

Gangs and Iraqi insurgents, militias, and other non-state groups share common origins based on tribalism, and therefore, it is expected that they will exhibit similar structures and behaviors. It is our belief that further insight into Iraq's present situation and future prospects may be derived from a perspective utilizing 3rd generation gang (3 GEN Gangs) studies which present lessons learned from the emergence and spread of gangs within the United States, and other parts of the world, over roughly the last four decades. (1) Basically, from a 3 GEN Gangs perspective, three generations of gangs have been found to exist: turf based, drug based, and mercenary based. The first generation gangs, comprising the vast majority, focus on protecting their turf. These gangs, the least developed of the three generational forms, provide both protection and identity to their members and little more. While some drug dealing is evident, it tends with these gangs to be a sideline activity.

The more evolved second and third generation gangs provide more tangible economic- and, later, political- based rewards to their members. Far fewer second generation gangs exist in relation to first generation gangs and, in turn, an even smaller number of third generation gangs exist in relation to second generation gangs—at least with regard to gangs found in the Americas. Second generation gangs focus on drug market development and exploitation and are far more sophisticated than turf based gangs. Third generation gangs are the most politicized, international in reach, and sophisticated of the gang generational forms. They will readily engage in mercenary endeavors and actively seek political power and financial gain from their activities. Certain terrorist groups (such as the Red Brigades in Italy), drug cartels, and local warlords all have attributes and organizational structures akin to third generation gangs. (2)

From a 3 GEN Gangs perspective, Iraq has been essentially overrun by 3rd generation gangs and their criminal-soldier equivalents. This is reminiscent of the nightmare scenario for the US already starting to develop in Central and South America (and, to a lesser extent, within the US) with the emergence, growth, and expansion of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and other Maras. In many ways, the 'Gangs of Iraq' are a prelude to the 'Gangs of the Americas' that we will be increasingly facing in the Western Hemisphere.

Gangs emerge, prosper, and solidify their position as a viable social organizational form in housing projects, neighborhoods, prisons, slums, cities, urban regions, and even entire countries that have undergone (or are undergoing) varying forms of societal failure. The rise of newer forms of tribalism leading to gang emergence may be derived from combinations that include lack of jobs, high levels of poverty and drug abuse, low educational levels, an absence of functional families, along with high levels of crime and lawlessness, including that generated by domestic internal strife, which result in a daily threat of bodily injury. Further, newer forms of tribalism may readily mingle with older pre-existing forms of tribalism based on kinship, clan, and other extended family groupings.

Iraq's current situation, at least for the middle and southern sections, is far from hopeful. Currently some where between 1,000 and 5,000 people are now being killed throughout Iraq each month because of sectarian violence, gang wars, and rampant criminal activity. Total post-invasion deaths in Iraq taking place during the American and allied stability and support operations (SASO) period ranges anywhere from 50,000 to +100,000. (3) Societal strife generated by ethnic and religious intolerance— derived from older forms of Middle Eastern tribalism— has resulted in neighborhood ethnic cleansing and the emergence of fortified enclaves. Extra-judicial killings and torture (i.e. street justice) have become the norm as have home invasion robberies, carjackings, petty theft, assaults, and kidnappings for ransom. Shifting coalitions of former regime loyalists, foreign Jihadi fighters linked to al Qaeda, Shia and Sunni militiamen tied to local clerics, criminal gangs of numerous types, competing Iraqi ministries and even active military and police units, along with foreign operatives promoting the interests of Iran, Hizballah, and Syria make for a chaotic and ever-changing threat landscape.

Americans, once universally hailed as liberators except by the most hardened former regime loyalists, are now viewed by many Iraqis at best as unwanted foreigners that will hopefully leave soon and at worst as hated crusaders that should be actively singled out, tortured, and killed. The northern Kurd-dominated region of the country is far more stable and supportive of American forces than the two other sections of Iraq but still is not free of sectarian violence in the urban centers and sabotage, improvised explosive device (IED) attacks, suicide bombings, and assassinations occur throughout the region.

Insight can be gained by juxtaposing strife ridden Iraq with the US and other regions of the world, specifically Central and South America, with their high levels of gang emergence and activity. Gangs are very much a social cancer within American society and are a by-product of the new form of tribalism that has emerged nationally—possibly as a partial result of the demise of the older melting pot culture and an overemphasis on cultural relativism and heterogeneity.

As a consequence, gangs have spread at an alarming rate throughout American society. In the US, about 58 cities had gangs in 1960. By 1992, the number of cities with gangs had jumped to 769. (4) Luckily, the vast majority of gangs in the US are composed of the relatively less-evolved Turf gangs—though second generation drug gangs have been common for decades now and third generation mercenary gangs, in the current form of the Maras, have just recently started to appear within our borders.

Still, even though most gangs in the US are Turf-based gangs, gang-related homicides in our country have probably totaled about 100,000 over the last 20 years. This is an educated guess based on an extrapolation of Los Angeles county gang homicide data as no national gang homicide statistics exist. (5) The daily attrition rate on America's streets due to gang violence has either gone unrecognized or is not yet viewed as a national security threat by our federal government. To its credit, however, FBI led national task forces to contend with the criminal activities and atrocities (e.g. torture and machete attacks) committed by MS-13 and other violent gang members have now been put in place. (6)

In Central and South America, gangs are now nothing less than out of control. Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala are all being directly threatened by the Maras. (7) In addition, Brazilian society was recently brought to its knees by a powerful prison gang that instigated a limited duration state wide insurgency that resulted in numerous civilian and law enforcement deaths and temporarily paralyzed the national economy. (8) Mexico, furthermore, is seeing a fusion of its powerful drug cartels and gangs with an ensuing drug war that is resulting in numerous killings and decapitations—much like the ritual Jihadi beheadings witnessed in Iraq. (9) No statistics or even estimates for the number of gang-related homicides that have taken place in Central and South America exist but they must surely be on par, if not far greater, than those that are estimated to have taken place in America over the last twenty years. If this is the case, gang killings for all of the Americas would now number, at the very least, in the low hundreds of thousands for that time span.

Of direct interest is the continuum of environmental modification represented by gang activities in the US at one extreme and in parts of the Americas and Iraq at the other. Even the most basic level US gangs will attempt to culturally influence and modify their surroundings with drive-by shootings, the use of gang graffiti to mark their territory, and the take over of selected public spaces. Iraqi gangs and groups, on the other hand, are engaging in full out ethnic cleansing, neighborhood takeovers, and direct political control of those individuals living within their sphere of influence. Early intervention can prevent gangs from taking over a neighborhood, city, urban region and other environments. However, if allowed to evolve and engage in unchecked activities for too long they promise to replace legitimate political authority. As such, 3 GEN Gangs readily fill the vacuum left by the absence of legitimate authority.

Iraq's future prospects, given this scenario are bleak. The domination of Iraq by 3 GEN Gangs and other non-state entities (e.g. insurgent and terrorist groups, the militias of the clerics, and renegade police, military, and private security forces) has destroyed any chance of a free and democratically unified country emerging anytime soon, or possibly even for decades to come. The Iraqi operational environment has now seen the total blurring of crime and war. Perhaps, it is now even too far gone to salvage from a traditional policing or military perspective—only time will tell in this regard. (10)

This brings us some measure of concern with regard to the future prospects vis-í -vis the gang situation in the Americas. As more and more 3 GEN Gangs begin to emerge, thrive, and expands their networks in the Western Hemisphere the long term prospects for large regions of the Americas may very well, at some point, also come into question. Currently, 3 GEN Gangs have already take control in slums and other urban no-go zones, prisons, and some provinces and territories of various states including Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico. That such gangs are now starting to emerge within the United States should also give pause for concern. These developments in global context may ultimately cause us to re-examine our policies in the Americas and elevate our concerns over the "Gangs of the Americas" to the same level as that currently afforded the "Gangs of Iraq."

Notes

1. For an overview and literature survey of this topic see John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, "Third Generation Gang Studies: An Introduction", Journal of Gang Research. Forthcoming.

2. A perspective on the Red Brigades as a 3 GEN Gang can be found in Max G. Manwaring, "Gangs and Coups D' Streets in the New World Disorder: Protean Insurgents in Post-Modern War", Robert J. Bunker, ed., Criminal-States and Criminal-Soldiers, special double issue of Global Crime, Vol. 7. No. 3-4. August/November 2006; for drug cartel and warlord similarities to 3 GEN Gangs see John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, "Drug Cartels, Street Gangs, and Warlords", Robert J. Bunker, ed., Non-State Threats and Future Wars, special issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies, Vol. 13. No. 2. Summer 2002, pp. 40-53.

3. Actual numbers of Iraqis killed each month and total figures are unknown. Sources are unreliable and typically inflated or deflated in order to benefit the policies or agenda of the group providing the statistics. We can safely say that 1,000 to 2,000 people are being killed each month but the upper limit of 5,000 people is no longer out of the range of possibility given the high levels of violence now generated by the simultaneous insurgency and civil war taking place. Iraqi casualty reports and tracking websites offer total numbers killed upwards from 50,000.

4. Malcolm W. Klein, The American Street Gang, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, pp. 92-95.

5. Los Angeles County gang homicide information provided by Sgt. Wes McBride, Los Angeles Sheriffs Department, Retired, Safe Streets Bureau.

6. Statement of Chris Swecker, Assistant Director, Criminal Investigative Division Federal Bureau of Investigation Before the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere House International Relations Committee April 20, 2005.

7. See Ana Arana, "How the Street Gangs Took Central America," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 3. May/June 2005, pp. 98-110.

8. See Andrew Downie, "Police Are Targeted in Deadly Attacks, Prison Riots in Brazil", Los Angeles Times, Sunday, May 14, 2006, p. A25; Marcelo Soares and Patrick J. McDonnell, "Inmates Unleash a Torrent of Violence on Brazilian City", Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, May 16, 2006, pp. A1, A16; and Marcelo Soares and Patrick J. McDonnell, "Death Toll in Sao Paulo Rise to 133; City is Calm", Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, May 17, 2006, p. A16.

9. See Lisa J. Campbell, "The Use of Beheadings by Fundamentalist Islam", Robert J. Bunker, ed., Criminal-States and Criminal-Soldiers, special double issue of Global Crime, Vol. 7. No. 3-4. August/November 2006.

10. The US military seems to think that temporarily raising troop levels in order to neutralize Muqtada al-Sadr's 'Mahdi Army' (Shia militia) and possibly launching an offensive into the Sunni stronghold of Al Anbar province in support of the Iraqi government offer the best hopes for victory. This plan is being debated within the government and already criticized in some quarters. See Julian E. Barnes, "Larger U.S. effort in Iraq is proposed", Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, December 13, 2006, pp. A1, A16; and Maura Reynolds, "Majority support pullout timeline", Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, December 13, 2006, pp. A17.

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Dr. Robert J. Bunker is CEO of the Counter-OPFOR Corporation. John P. Sullivan is senior research fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism and a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.

This cycle typically involves extremists infiltrating a Sunni neighborhood, intimidating the population, setting up a base (often in derelict houses), then using that base to launch attacks on the Shi'a community in surrounding districts. Shi'a militias then retaliate, striking out at the Sunni neighborhood, killing innocent people, provoking blood feuds and further retaliation. The pall of fear, and the external threat, cements the extremists' hold over the local population. It allows them to pose as defenders of the people -- albeit defending against a threat they themselves cynically created to manipulate the people.

If we cannot break this cycle, then we cannot reverse the deteriorating security situation, and whatever else we do at the political or strategic level, the war on the streets will be lost. Thus, this cycle represents a life-threatening hemorrhage that has to be staunched, even at the cost of short-term political pain.

The "gated community" stops the cycle of sectarian violence in three ways.

First, it makes it much harder for terrorists to infiltrate a community. We only establish perimeter security (checkpoints, T-walls, etc.) once the area has been cleared and secured, close relations are established with the population, and we have troops on the ground securing the district in conjunction with the people. Once the gated community goes in, this makes it much harder for extremists to re-enter.

Second, the perimeter controls make it much harder for terrorists to launch attacks from within that district, because they have to smuggle a car bomb or suicide vest out, through a limited number of controlled access points. This reduces extremists' ability to use gated districts as a base to attack neighboring areas.

Third, if the terrorists do manage to mount an attack, the security controls protect the gated community against retaliation by "death squads". This reduces fear within the community, alienates extremists from the population (since they can no longer pose as defenders) and emboldens people, who would otherwise be too intimidated, to tip off the security forces to enemy presence.

Adhimiya is a case in point. This is the last remaining majority-Sunni district East of the Tigris. It has suffered a hemorrhage of refugees and a huge amount of social and humanitarian damage in the past 12 months. AQI had established a safe haven there, creating bomb factories and raiding bases from which to attack neighboring Shi'a areas in New Baghdad and Sadr City. Many of the most serious spectacular attacks on the Shi'a population originated from Adhimiya, and some extremely bloody revenge attacks were mounted in retaliation. Hundreds have been killed by car bombs emanating from Adhimiya, and hundreds of innocent Adhimiya residents have been killed in retaliation. A gated community in this district could thus save thousands of lives over the next few months.

We had to stop this hemorrhage, not only to protect the population of East Baghdad but to prevent the "cleansing" of Adhimiya and the murder or eviction of the innocent population. The gated community approach was therefore decided on -- in conjunction with the community and the Iraqi security forces -- as an emergency measure to break the cycle. The recent protest against the project originated as a coordinated AQI information operation (more on this in a moment).

Two other gated communities have already been established (in Ameriya and Ghazaliya districts) with no public protest, indeed with great support from the population. I was out on the ground in Ghazaliya a few weeks ago, and several locals thanked me for the security the gated community had brought to their district. Other patrols and interactions with the population tell the same story. And people from Shi'a districts that have been "gated" or provided with protective barriers have expressed the same appreciation to me in meetings over the past week.

Why the protest, then, in the case of Adhimiya? Principally because, if the gated community succeeds, AQI's ability to strike at Shi'a communities, and thus its ability to provoke sectarian violence, will be dramatically curtailed as it loses its base in East Baghdad. Hence AQI appears to have initiated the local protests, organized using cellphone text messages and mass-produced paper flyers in the district. This is classic AQI info ops -- stirring up the population through a combination of manipulation, intimidation and fear of other groups. The level of coordination and media manipulation applied in this case is also a hallmark of AQI info ops.

Incidentally, this was probably also the motivation behind the attack on the Sarafiya bridge (Iron Bridge) two weeks ago, around the time the gated community project started. This bridge is the only access from West Baghdad into Adhimiya, and thus bombing it may have been an attempt by AQI to remain un-molested in their base of operations.

The claims raised by the protesters were all false or exaggerated. The security controls are not permanent, and can be readily removed when the situation improves. They do not create a ghetto, since security forces will live inside the area alongside the population, and access (though controlled through authorized points) remains free-flowing. Thus this project does not represent oppression of the population, but rather protects them from insurgent intimidation.

Of course, there is a political downside, one that we are well aware of. But, on balance, given the extremely serious current situation, we believe this approach is valid -- as a temporary, emergency measure. Just like a tourniquet, this is a necessary technique but it has side-effects that have to be taken into account, and it can only be temporary. The gated community helps break the cycle of sectarian violence. Once it is stopped, other things become possible. And short-term political and media opposition, whipped up by coordinated AQI information ops, may be the price we have to pay in order to "stabilize the patient".

David Kilcullen is Senior Counter-Insurgency Advisor, Multi-National Force -- Iraq. These are his personal opinions, have not been vetted or screened, and do not represent the views of any government or organization.

Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures':

An active-duty Army officer is publishing a blistering attack on U.S. generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled Congress about the situation there.

"America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "The intellectual and moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals."...

The article, "General Failure," is to be published today in Armed Forces Journal. Its appearance signals the public emergence of a split inside the military between younger, mid-career officers and the top brass.

Many majors and lieutenant colonels have privately expressed anger and frustration with the performance of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and other top commanders in the war, calling them slow to grasp the realities of the war and overly optimistic in their assessments...

Armed Forces Journal - A Failure in Generalship by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling:

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress...

The Responsibilities of Generalship:

... To prepare forces for war, the general must visualize the conditions of future combat. To raise military forces properly, the general must visualize the quality and quantity of forces needed in the next war. To arm and equip military forces properly, the general must visualize the materiel requirements of future engagements. To train military forces properly, the general must visualize the human demands on future battlefields, and replicate those conditions in peacetime exercises. Of course, not even the most skilled general can visualize precisely how future wars will be fought. According to British military historian and soldier Sir Michael Howard, "In structuring and preparing an army for war, you can be clear that you will not get it precisely right, but the important thing is not to be too far wrong, so that you can put it right quickly."...

Failures of Generalship in Vietnam:

... America's generals not only failed to develop a strategy for victory in Vietnam, but also remained largely silent while the strategy developed by civilian politicians led to defeat. As H.R. McMaster noted in "Dereliction of Duty," the Joint Chiefs of Staff were divided by service parochialism and failed to develop a unified and coherent recommendation to the president for prosecuting the war to a successful conclusion. Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson estimated in 1965 that victory would require as many as 700,000 troops for up to five years. Commandant of the Marine Corps Wallace Greene made a similar estimate on troop levels. As President Johnson incrementally escalated the war, neither man made his views known to the president or Congress. President Johnson made a concerted effort to conceal the costs and consequences of Vietnam from the public, but such duplicity required the passive consent of America's generals...

Failures of Generalship in Iraq:

America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. First, throughout the 1990s our generals failed to envision the conditions of future combat and prepare their forces accordingly. Second, America's generals failed to estimate correctly both the means and the ways necessary to achieve the aims of policy prior to beginning the war in Iraq. Finally, America's generals did not provide Congress and the public with an accurate assessment of the conflict in Iraq...

The Generals We Need:

... If America desires creative intelligence and moral courage in its general officer corps, it must create a system that rewards these qualities. Congress can create such incentives by exercising its proper oversight function in three areas. First, Congress must change the system for selecting general officers. Second, oversight committees must apply increased scrutiny over generating the necessary means and pursuing appropriate ways for applying America's military power. Third, the Senate must hold accountable through its confirmation powers those officers who fail to achieve the aims of policy at an acceptable cost in blood and treasure...

Read the whole AFJ article.

More:

Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam by H.R. McMasters

The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by T.X. Hammes

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas Ricks

Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor

Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam by John Nagl

Update: Small Wars Council discussion on A Failure in Generalship

There are a number of things that are quite striking in her article. For one, the problem is seen purely in terms of building a better mousetrap--er--database and processing capability. Army officials are quoted as saying the Pentagon needs an "unprecedented data enterprise" that would be accessed to "test hypotheses" so that commanders could make better decisions. The article ends with a warning that analysts need to "enlighten" decisionmakers on the need to gather such data and create such a capability before our adversaries do.

Even if we were to invest in such databases and capabilities, I doubt whether this could keep up with adversarial adaptability if the idea is to pre-empt their "unrestricted warfare" tactics. Our bureaucratic OODA loop will not keep up with those of nonstate "unrestricted warfare" adversaries. So it's hard to see how such an investment would pay off in this regard. It's also difficult to see which adversaries would want to make a similar investment and why. Applying "unrestricted warfare" techniques in the real world is so much cheaper.

Note that I'm not even addressing whether or not M&S can be used in a predictive sense. One must tread carefully here, for while there are success stories of tools being used in this way in other venues to solve other problems, for every one of those there are scores--if not hundreds--of failures. Godel's number theory has something to say about the ability of M&S to predictably model "unrestricted warfare" as practiced in the real world....

That said, there is still room for modeling "unrestricted warfare" at the operational and tactical level in such a way that will help educate minds to think more flexibly and rapidly. Seminar wargames work best to help create the environments where this can take place, but these are difficult to set up and run without devolving into a BOGSATT (Bunch Of Guys Sitting Around the Table Talking).

There have been some efforts in applying M&S to unrestricted warfare, but these are just initial, tentative efforts from what I can see. Interestingly enough, the commercial wargaming world hasn't done a whole lot on this front, either. Not a lot of excitement for the teen-aged males who like to blow things up on their PLAYSTATION 3 or X-BOX 360. Most attempts in the commercial world have been in simulating non-lethal means of coercion at the strategic level (e.g., diplomatic carrots and sticks, economic levers, etc.). But nothing really stands out in simulating the operational and tactical level problems "unrestricted warfare" poses for a state military force.

--Eric

But to overlook the lessons of Algeria, Vietnam, and various Middle East conflicts is remarkably selective use of history. Now that's malpractice in my book.

As Dr. Kilcullen noted, the field manual recognizes the increased requirement for discriminate force to remove irreconcilable extremists. What is does not do is justify the need to "out terrorize the terrorist" because we recognized that such an approach is utterly incongruous with modern environmental conditions, in particular, a global media presence and an enemy that is facile enough to exploit even the perception of excessive violence to its twisted ends.

There is much in the manual to discuss, while extremely useful is it not without shortcomings. Here I will part with David and argue that one issue that the manual does not satisfactorily address is the influence and impact of religion in today's global insurgency. No one argues that religion is something entirely new as a factor in war. But present day Western societies seem to have lost any understanding of its influence on their own history, or how it may affect the behavior of other communities. I suspect that some of us too breezily see it as a proxy for a political ideology, while others are uncomfortable with the subject and ignore it. Others simply dismiss the theological or spiritual beliefs of others as an irrational element that cannot be accounted for.

But its rather difficult to over look religious influences today. Certainly, Islamic fundamentalism and an ongoing schism within Islam makes religion a relevant factor today. In fact, some feel like Col Mike Morris of the Marine Corps University faculty believe that "the rise of Islamic fascism, championed by groups such as al-Qa'ida, is the central strategic problem of the age." Vali Nasr's brilliant book The Shia Revival focuses useful light on the issue. Of course, authors and terrorism experts including Bruce Hoffman, Jessica Stern and Mark Juergensmeyer have been studying this issue for some time.

A number of studies at RAND and at Harvard have attempted to come to grips with what appears to be an important cause or influence in human conflict. The literature on terrorism clearly documented a dramatic rise in the religious affiliation of terrorist organizations. A generation ago none of the eleven international terrorist organizations was religiously oriented. By 2004, nearly half of the world's identifiable and active terrorist groups are classified as religious. Today, the vast majority of terrorist groups using suicide attacks are Islamic, displacing secular groups like the Tamil Tigers. Furthermore, religiously-oriented organizations account for a disproportionately high percentage of attacks and casualties.

History suggests that religious influences can escalate the forms, levels, and types of violence. Religion lowers inhibitions and reduces moral barriers to violence, including suicide terrorism. This results in more frequent attacks, greater and longer battles, and more casualties. Religious-based conflicts tend to made it difficult to attain any political compromise or settlements. Not surprisingly, according to a detailed analysis by Dr. Monica Duffy Toft at Harvard, religious civil wars last longer (roughly two years longer) than the average intrastate conflict, and produce four times as many total casualties.

But for all the discussion about religion today, the new manual misses out on the influence of the subject. The introductory chapter mentions religious identity and "religious extremism" as a modern day complication. But the manual offers few indications that our Classical approach, the product of the anti-colonial Revolutionary War ere remains just as valid without any change. The manual alters its emphasis on non-kinetic factors and its numerous admonitions about violence with the admission that "killing extremists will be necessary." This does not satisfy the blood lust of Dr. Luttwak apparently. But I am concerned that our fundamental approach, based on Western rationalism and material or economic considerations, is not as universal as we think and may have to be altered in some way when we are competing for perceptions, legitimacy and populations against religious-based groups or among a population that is significantly represented by and identifies with a specific religion.

The new manual's operational approach never deviates from the classical era. Galula, Templar, Thompson and Kitson would be right at home. It never acknowledges that these guidelines blithely assume a population whose value systems are like ours, whose fundamental concepts about political order are consistent with representative democracy, universal individual rights and free market economies. But if the population's belief system is opposed to our approach, or longs for a return to the 7th century, is Galula still relevant or do we need to listen to Dr. Luttwak with more than a curt dismissal?

Religiously inspired or influenced conflicts may alter our usual prescriptions for counterinsurgency. Economic inducements and marginal material gains may not overcome someone's sacred faith, grasp of life's meaning, or strong sense of identity. School houses, soccer balls and smiles are not enough. Far too much of our theory is based within a Western mindset and assumes the existence of some cost-benefit calculation of self-interest that may not transcend all civilizations and cultures. Indeed, unconventional warfare theorists like Steve Metz of the Army's Strategic Studies Institute have noted that traditional "hearts and minds" approach may pertain only to national insurgents, and could be irrelevant or even counter-productive to postmodern global insurgents.

Whatever we chose to call it, the Long War has a religious element that is powerful. We need to better understand when and under what circumstances our comprehensive approach works and where it does not. The new Field Manual is a long series of strides forward, but it does not address this contemporary element satisfactorily in my opinion. I look forward to this forum's commentary to see if additional light can be shed on this issue.

Within this context, what follows are observations from collective experience: the distilled essence of what those who went before learned. They are expressed as commandments, for clarity, but are really more like folklore. Apply them judiciously and skeptically.

David Kilcullen intended his Twenty-Eight Articles, Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency as a guide for the company commander facing a COIN operation. Since the article first circulated, hundreds of officers have served as company commanders and in other positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this article some of those officers comment on how Kilcullen's thinking applied to their mission in theater. Other former or retired Soldiers measure Kilcullen's points against their own experiences in other countries, conflicts, and years. All -- including David Kilcullen -- are members of the community of interest at the Small Wars Journal and Council.

Part IV (Articles 21 -- 28).

21. Exploit a "single narrative". Since counterinsurgency is a competition to mobilize popular support, it pays to know how people are mobilized. In most societies there are opinion-makers: local leaders, pillars of the community, religious figures, media personalities, and others who set trends and influence public perceptions.

CPT Kranc on troop command: This goes right into the information operations (IO) plan. It must be tailored to fit your specific area. Again, this is something we don't train regularly and we learn by doing.

CPT Holzbach on platoon leadership: A good S-2 section will be producing a steady stream of "talking points" for the guys on patrol. Be a team player, even if you disagree with it. Hit the talking points.

MAJ Custis on battle captains: Although you won't have a narrative to worry about, you will be expected to be in the know, based on your proximity to the unit's planners. Provide context on ops to your peers when appropriate, but if you simply don't know anything more that what you heard in the operations order. Don't embellish.

MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: Not all IO common themes are directly aimed at the populace. I spent a significant amount of time mobilizing opinion in favor of our IA battalion commander. At one time the 2nd IA Division had a commander who was not remotely in line with CF goals. The 1/2/2 IA Battalion Commander was pretty much in line with our goals. The 2nd IA Division Commander had relationships with some of the provincial sheiks that were counterproductive to achieving security. Progress achieved when the battalion detained or killed certain relatives or associates of the sheiks was reversed by external pressure from the division commander.

Since the battalion commander was in line with our goals I made sure everyone knew the risks (both professional and personal) the battalion commander was taking in doing in supporting CF goals. I also pointed out that we--the MiTTs and CFs commanders and staffs--should hold this man and his battalion up as an example of cooperation. We needed other IA leaders to know whom we considered a friend. This set off a running gun battle internally over the IO "fight". Our brigade MiTT chief backed me and mobilized CF support as well. Eventually it paid off; we had followed through on our promise to take care of those who support our goals. And others knew it: the division commander was fired and a new one with a strong allegiance to Iraq replaced him. This was a sustained effort. The point is that you need to understand that not all of the opinions you have to influence are external to the ISF and CF.

MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: This single narrative as an advisor is your FSF Commander. Whether you are on a battalion, brigade or division MiTT, you support that FSF Commander's intent, message and mission. You are not in charge of that unit, he is. As an advisor, you can try to influence his decisions and make recommendations. However, the ultimate decision lies with him. Do not publicly criticize or contradict the commander. Talk to him behind doors if you have an issue with a decision or action of his.

MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: To me, the IO campaign although often subtle is really the main effort. IO is not a single event. It is the sum total of the unit's culture. Our actions are our message. They must signal what we want them to signal. You must also constantly evaluate that message using input from your local sources, sector tempo and attitude, and cultural norms. Again, IO theme has to reflect your metrics and your "knowing your neighborhood".

LTC Odom on country teams: The Rwandan Genocide was the most lethal information operation since World War II. 800,000 died in less than 100 days directed through a single radio station and word-of-mouth communications. And the Rwandan Refugee Exodus was similarly a massive IO; an entire ethnic group numbering in the millions picked up in mass and walked out of the country, again based on a single radio station and word-of-mouth communications. In establishing the U.S-Rwandan Demining Office, we played close attention to the role of press, radio, and word-of-mouth communications in devising the mine and unexploded ordnance awareness program. We also pushed the UN to move on funding UN radio stations to counter extremist IO from and inside the refugee camps.

MAJ McDermott on company command: You have to translate often flowery thematic speeches into language that every soldier can understand. If you do this, you can help develop a narrative that soldiers not only understand, but also buy into. Once you do this, then you have a chance to begin to win some of the "war of ideas". This is more involved than just providing a 3X5 card with talking points on it.

MAJ McDermott on MiTTs: You have to try and find the common ground between what the USG themes and narratives are, and what your unit's government's themes are. As an advisor help your unit develop their talking points and be the sanity check.

22. Local forces should mirror enemy, not ourselves. By this stage, you will be working closely with local forces, training or supporting them, and building indigenous capability. The natural tendency is to build forces in our own image, with the aim of eventually handing our role over to them. This is a mistake.

CPT Kranc on troop command: Further, they should mirror local operational requirements. What the use in providing the village doctor with an endocrinology lab that he doesn't know how to use? I don't know either, but some division surgeon thought it was a good idea. Additionally, just because we have bells and whistles for equipment doesn't mean our partnering Iraqi unit does to. We need to remember that. Often we don't.

CPT Holzbach on platoon leadership: The local forces will always be far better at catching the bad guys then we will ever be. Their intelligence will be better, they know the language, people, and terrain better. Let them execute.

MAJ Custis on battle captains: If you don't know what coalition partners are doing within your AO or in adjacent battle space, you've violated Article 16. Fire yourself and seek a position monitoring the clearing barrel at the entry control point.

MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: There are certain considerations you must take into account when assisting a host nation develop its security forces. First they may already know what they need to win their fight, especially if they have been in the fight for several years. And their ideas in this regard may be better than yours. Second is not to assume they have the same strengths and weaknesses you do.

For example, the IA have it over us when it comes to HUMINT potential. If they develop that capability, it will allow them to infiltrate terrorist networks and play psychological havoc with the enemy and his trusted networks. We cannot do this very well. We can, however encourage and assist the Iraqis efforts on HUMINT.

On the other hand, we must guard against our own enthusiasm becoming over bearing and disruptive. Imagine trying to give an Iraqi patrol directions from a CF unmanned aircraft system using an analyst who sits in a CF brigade tactical operations center (TOC) talking to a brigade radio telephone operator (RTO), talking to CF task force RTO, talking to a MiTT advisor, talking to an interpreter, talking to the IA TOC who is talking to the patrol is ludicrous.

Partners also need to understand capabilities -- the CF one night got miffed that their helicopters could not see the IA patrol at the 10-digit grid the CF TOC provided for an IED. I had to explain to them that the IA patrol had no ground positioning system (GPS) in their truck, first generation night vision (if they were lucky and had batteries), no electronic countermeasures in their trucks to protect them, and only Level II armor on their vehicles. Moreover, as I pointed out, the IA were well aware of these shortcomings and were not so stupid as to drive up on top of an IED. They would in fact stop a couple of hundred meters short, and patrol up to it to investigate.

MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: You have to dance with the one that brought you. Your ability to influence how a FSF battalion or BDE is structures is probably outside your reach and not worth of a fight. There are some small changes you and your team can influence, however. Encourage your counterparts to train their units on COIN operations. However, do NOT teach classes yourself. Its their war, and advisors are there to help, not take the lead in teaching classes, instituting TO&E changes, etc.

Former Captain Bill Meara on the role of military advisor in Central America: We need to be aware of the institutional biases and shortcomings that make it difficult for us to deal with foreign insurgencies. We need to realize that our big, high-tech military machine—our big catapult—might not be much use against an insurgency built around people like Miguel Castellanos. I saw so many signs of our weaknesses in this area: the tank traps we were building in the "Choluteca gap," our big bucks, high-tech approach to support for the Salvadoran Armed Forces... I came to the conclusion that our powerful military is a blunt instrument, very capable of performing its primary mission (destroying enemy military forces), but poorly suited for cross-cultural battles for foreign hearts and minds. From "Contra Cross --- Insurgency and Tyranny in Central America, 1979-1989" by William R. Meara Published by Naval Institute Press, 2006

MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors- What works for us is not always the best course of action for others. We have to concede that sometimes ISF know how to deal with Iraqi business in the Iraqi way (or whatever country we are in). A different way of doing business does not necessarily mean it is the wrong way of doing business. We could and should learn a lot from our counterparts and host nation populace on cultivation of informants, social and economic projects, IO themes, as well as a few tactical tasks such as vehicle searches, and cache exploitation. They are after all (in this case) Iraqis and know where Iraqis hide stuff.

LTC Odom on country teams: In looking at assisting the Rwandan military, I always began by asking them for their assessed needs. They did not as is often the case look immediately for complex, high dollar systems; they first sought training and then logistics and communications. In contrast, the French and to a lesser degree Belgian build up of the former Rwandan military added light armor and other complex equipment that did little to halt the rebels. Sadly the most effective training and arming effort in the Rwandan tragedy were the massive importation of machetes and training of the killer militias to use them in the genocide.

MAJ McDermott on company command: Figure out how your unit can integrate with the locals. Plan on being proactive in dealing with them. You provide a mobile and lethal force that can provide the "muscle" to their intelligence feeds.

MAJ McDermott on MiTTs: You might not have a whole lot of input in what your unit is ging to look like, that might be decided by higher. However, you can be decisive in enaging with your counterpart and the unit's leaders in focusing their efforts on training the unit, and not getting wrapped up in technology wants. If the unit leadership understands the basics of shoot, move, and communicate then you are succeeding. If they get wrapped up in "where is our computer?", then you have to adjust the focus.

23: Practice armed civil affairs. Counterinsurgency is armed social work; an attempt to redress basic social and political problems while being shot at. This makes civil affairs a central counterinsurgency activity, not an afterthought.

CPT Kranc on troop command: CMO can be a decisive operation depending on where you are. You must be able to transition from CA to combat operations quickly. Additionally, the CA bubba isn't the only one doing CA work; your 19D1O is probably doing more CA in a day than the Civil Affairs officer will do in 3 days.

CPT Holzbach on platoon leadership: I used to like to work the hell out of my medics. It was standard for me to offer clean drinking water and a quick check up if anyone was having medical problems in a house. I pressed the medics to carry as much medication as they were qualified to use and the BN medical platoon was —to give. Dysentery and dehydration were common examples. Having our medic explain to them how to get better, and then providing the clean water that would make it possible, really put a lot of smiles on people's faces. Especially if it was a kid who was sick.

MAJ Custis on battle captains: Even if your unit doesn't have a supporting CA (Civil Affairs) element, or the one you do have is over-tasked, work the interagency theme and appreciate what the CA folks like to know. Try to glean relevant information during debriefs and make sure it gets to the people who can act on it. If you aren't sure if that's within your lane, clear it with the S-3, but don't sit on your thumbs and expect it to occur by magic.

MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: The IA has no civil affairs (CA) assets at the battalion level. They were attempting to establish a CA officer at the brigade level towards the end, but have no real resources to apply. The MITTs have no dedicated CA officer at the battalion brigade, or division level; you (or someone on your team) picked it up as an additional duty. To facilitate a better CA effort, we established ties to the closest provincial reconstruction team (PRT).

What the IA could do better than CF was offer CA insights of use to all; IA patrols were better at "atmospherics" or SWEAT-MS assessments than CF patrols. Discuss this with the various IA leaders and staff and report what they are saying. They can be a very effective weather vane for how the populace feels, what their concerns are, and where influence is needed. Discuss with your IA counterparts the possibility of getting to know local leaders and if possible addressing their problems. We made some money by obtaining supplies like water tanks and other resources then getting them in the hands of the IA so it became an IA effort. It did not matter to the people that it may have had US stamped on it, it came from the IA, and as such was Iraqi.

MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Every soldier is a CA officer. The ability to make a mature decision to go from non-lethal ops to lethal ops and then back to non-lethal ops -- all in the course of a single patrol-- are what we deal with in COIN. Lethal force is not always the answer and shouldn't be the first response to every situation. Rather a decision has to be made often in a very short period of time. That is why everyone must understand the IO theme depends on unit culture, use of rules of engagement, and considered escalation of force.

LTC Odom on country teams: You -- the individual soldier -- are a walking, talking CMO and IO, all wrapped into one. As such your actions or your inactions can have far reaching effects. In September 1994 I was on a road reconnaissance with a fellow embassy officer and a visitor to look at the influx of former Tutsi refugees back into Rwanda. I was driving and as we crested a hill, we ran up on a serious truck accident. We stopped, surveyed the casualties, and I drove back to the closest military checkpoint to get help. To make a long story short, we spent several hours doing our best to get the victims to the closest medical care. Several weeks later, I was meeting the Health Minister for the first time and I raised this incident proof for the need for better heath care. As it turned out members of the Health Minister's extended family had been in that truck accident and survived because we stopped and helped.

MAJ McDermott on company command: Best case, plan on allocating combat power to securing CA projects/initiatives. Worst Case plan on being the element that does both. Make sure the local CA leaders know who you are, and where you are located. Insist that they not make any local agreements without you being present at the negotiation because the CA team will obligate you to tasks without your input.

MAJ McDermott on MiTTs: You have to help your unit understand the important of providing a local solution to local problems. COIN is all about host nation government legitimacy. If your unit can help provide the local interface for the CA/developmental assistance, the people develop more faith in their government.

24. Small is beautiful. Another natural tendency is to go for large-scale, mass programs. In particular, we have a tendency to template ideas that succeed in one area and transplant them into another, and we tend to take small programs that work and try to replicate them on a larger scale.

CPT Kranc on troop command: Iraqis want to see results. The proliferation of small programs that work does wonders. Also, small is recoverable and cheap. They don't need to know that.

CPT Holzbach on platoon leadership: Like I said in article 23: it's the little things that count.

MAJ Custis on battle captains: For the battle captain, small details are beautiful. Be the duty expert at conducting a good debrief.

MAJ Thornton on MiTTs -- Understand that allot of small dents still have mass. If you make a big dent, be glad, but don't shoot for it on a regular basis at the sacrifice of the small dents you know you can make.

MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: Small victories, small changes, shifting the direction a FSF unit is heading on 5 degrees pays big dividends later on. Do not expect to transform your FSF unit into the 75th Ranger Regiment in the year you are there. Look for those small victories, maintain some influence with your counterpart, and keep your unit improving steadily over time. Again, the marathon concept is very apropos in this case. Encourage small unit tactics, enhance the legitimacy of the FSF NCO corps and continue to move your FSF unit forward.

MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Small projects are easier and sow immediate results as well as long term "ammo" for those on patrol engaging the populace. As CPT Kranc stated, Iraqis want immediate results. We can keep our grand plan and massive, long term program. At the same time we need a few highly visible, well-placed projects that the community or sector we support actually wants (not what we think they need or want). Make it a media event and exploit it in our IO effort.

LTC Odom on country teams: As the Ambassador's military advisor and representative, I pushed establishing the U.S-Rwandan Demining Office as an achievable first step. It worked and it cemented relations between the U.S. and the new Rwandan government.

MAJ McDermott on company command: It comes down to managing expectations of the local populace. Execute what you know you can deliver. It is better to show many small successfully completed projects, then one massive partially completed project. It shows the locals that you can deliver, and that scope dictates time.

MAJ McDermott on MiTTs: See comment above but insert unit for local populace. Also MAJ Sullivan's comments hit the nail on the head.

25. Fight the enemy's strategy, not his forces. At this stage, if things are proceeding well, the insurgents will go over to the offensive. Yes, the offensive-- because you have created a situation so dangerous to the insurgents, by threatening to displace them from the environment, that they have to attack you and the population to get back into the game.

CPT Kranc on troop command: The strategy is the iceberg and his forces are the tip. Ask Capt Smith from the Titanic what was more important. We often look for the 10-meter target and forget what's downrange.

CPT Holzbach on platoon leadership: Don't go outside the wire looking to find, fix, and finish anybody. Go out looking to win the support of the people.

MAJ Custis on battle captains: The enemy's strategy is to wear you down. If you can implement elements of the points listed above, you will help the companies to get inside of his loop.

MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: You have to help you counterpart understand the enemy's strategy, then array the resources to match. This might be difficult in previous role of the indigenous was something along the line of mobility guarantor for CF. One of our biggest successes was convincing the IA it was alright to do what they knew needed to be done: they then moved out of the COPs that overlooked CF MSRs. They shifted into the neighborhoods and patrolled to contest the AIF's influence and deny them freedom of movement. This also goes back to points 1 and 2; you must understand the problem you have, not the one you want to have. The next step to this is to move past the security fight and linking security with stability. Then you can apply the other types of influence and debunk the AIF's claims of weak, ineffective government as you demonstrate the value of good government to the people.

MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: Keep an offensive mindset and do not let your unit settle into a FOB mentality. The strength of the FSF units are their ability to interact with the population, gather intelligence and identify the sheep from the wolves. In order to capitalize on these strengths, maintain an offensive spirit and influence your counterpart to do the same. Rather than take a hit from the bad guys, go out and hit'em first. As the desk sergeant from Hillstreet Blues use to say, "Let's do it to them before they do it to us!"

LTC Odom on country teams: We knew that the former Rwandan government, military, and associated killer militias would indeed mount a sustained insurgency against the new Rwandan government. Our challenge as a country team was to push for international action to close the camps or at least control them even as we cautioned the new government against acting unilaterally. We ultimately failed. The new government cleared the camps and then took down the neighboring country of the Congo to break the hardliner threat from the camps. But the new government did not win until it convinced the Hutu majority that the hardliners could not win inside Rwanda. The key to that victory was that small victory in late 1994 in integrating former military officers into the new Army. Those former military officers were highly effective in COIN operations against their former comrades.

MAJ McDermott on company command: You have ensure that your unit and your unit's leaders understand what the enemy strategy is and who they "win". Then focus your unit's actions on not feeding his strategy. I.e. don't reinforce enemy talking points by actions you take.

MAJ McDermott on MiTTs: Your indigenous unit is going to have better idea of what resonates with the population and what doesn't. You have to engage with your counterpart and determine what is going to work, and what doesn't work. Help them reach that level of understanding.

26. Build your own solution, attack only when he gets in the way. Try not to be distracted, or forced into a series of reactive moves, by a desire to kill or capture the insurgents. Your aim should be to implement your own solution -- the "game plan" you developed early in the campaign, and then refined through interaction with local partners.

CPT Kranc on troop command: For a company, since combat operations are what we've trained for, they're our comfort zone. Civil-military operations), IO, economic development, and the sustainment of security forces are all bigger moneymakers in COIN than combat operations. It's tough to get to work, but more productive once you do.

MAJ Custis on battle captains: I agree with CPT Kranc. If you don't understand some of the finer points of non-kinetic ops, you may actually be a hindrance to the guys outside the wire. This should be part of your continuous professional military education), and actually long before you stepped in country.

MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: If you are doing this right the enemy will become disrupted and reactionary to your strategy. Your counterparts will seize and maintain the initiative. This causes the enemy to reallocate resources to try and counter your work. This is good: he must focus on deterring a better armed, trained, and equipped opponent instead of terrorizing civilians. In gunfights where both parties meet by chance, the IA wins 99% of the time. As an advisor one of the key things you can do is facilitate mutual IA and CF understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. This allows the two to augment each other towards building a holistically better force rather than detracting from each other through ignorance.

MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: This goes for working with your FSF units as well. Do not focus on problems or on what equipment you do not have. Remember, you are not in a U.S. unit so a lot of the "gee-whiz", high-tech stuff isn't going to be available (or necessarily beneficial) to your FSF unit. Work with your counterpart to utilize their strengths (HUMINT, dismounted patrolling) and harness your CF partner unit to build up weaknesses (Logistics, artillery, air support).

MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Killing the enemy once he has engaged or we have acquired him is easy and we can usually do that when necessary. Destruction in COIN is not the main effort. Separating the enemy from the populace and his support is harder and gets more results in the long run than killing one or two here and there. Projects and improving the way of life, as well as the quality of life, gets the same results. Although such efforts may not put the populace on our side, they may move the population away from the insurgents. That is the same effect as killing the insurgents but risks no collateral damage and makes fewer insurgents in the process. We have to be prepared to conduct combat operations at the drop of a hat. But all operations are in fact combat operations, just with a method of engagement than we have traditionally used.

LTC Odom on country teams: The senior Rwandan military commanders learned from the massacre at Kibeho; the original objective of that operation was to clear the camps. When it changed to catching extremists, the operation turned bloody. When the new Rwandan military cleared the camps in the Congo in 1996, they did not bother with catching the extremists. Instead they made sure that the refugees went home and that no new camps sprung up as extremist enclaves inside Rwanda.

MAJ McDermott on company command: CPT Kranc summed it up. Just remember that sometimes your subordinate leaders will have very good ideas. Make sure look for ideas from your subordinates as well as your leaders.

MAJ McDermott on MiTTs: MAJ Sullivan said it all; I can't reiterate enough the truth of his comments.

27. Keep extraction plan secret. The temptation to talk about home becomes almost unbearable toward the end of a tour.

CPT Kranc on troop command: Everyone has a farewell tour with the sheiks, tribal leaders, political leaders, and others in the AO they've worked with over the year. That gets back to the insurgents. We need to watch it, but I was guilty of this too. It's where human instinct and developed relationships interfere with what is doctrinally right.

MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Insurgents know when the "new guy" is coming in town and will test them. There is usually a spike in attacks or their efforts in exploiting the seam between the populace and us. Making this as "seamless" as possible is key.

MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: Even though you may be going back home to safety and family, your counterparts will remain in the fight until either they are killed or peace springs forth. Talk to home should stay within your own team, not around your counterparts. You will want to bid farewell to the men you have just spend a year in the mud with, spilling blood, tears and sweat. The bond you will most likely build with these "foreign" security forces will be stronger than most others you have experienced. As much as you will want to go home, a part of you will always stay with that unit. As far as your extraction plan goes, keep the details to a minimum and within your own team.

LTC Odom on country teams: The temptation to "leave" mentally before you leave physically is not only unbearably tempting, it is dangerous. You are not home before you get there. Stay focused and help your replacement dial in properly. Your sincerity in that process will reinforce your counterparts' faith in your assistance.

MAJ McDermott on company command: Always prepare your men for the worst case, emphasize that you are deploying for a conditions based redeployment, not a timeline. Also stress OPSEC so as not tip your hand to the enemy. You have to reach a careful balance against the need and requirement for soldiers to notify their families when they are returning home.

MAJ McDermott on MiTTs: Your unit is at home. Do not be vocal in when you are redeploying, if asked, be honest, but remember your client unit is fighting for their home. They do not have the luxury of leaving theater. Be sensitive to how the security situation is impacting them.

28. Whatever else you do, keep the initiative. In counterinsurgency, the initiative is everything. If the enemy is reacting to you, you control the environment. Provided you mobilize the population, you will win.

CPT Kranc on troop command: Insurgents are used to the initiative; our battle drills are all named "react to contact or small arms or whatever. But with good intelligence and planning, you can kick an insurgent in the teeth by making him react. Insurgents handle "initiate ambush" much better than "react to contact". In the latter game, they usually die in place.

CPT Holzbach on platoon leadership: Keep patrolling, keep talking, keep listening, and keep making allies out there. If your living amongst them, that will go a long way to keeping the insurgents from erasing your gains. It's like a hearts and minds OODA loop.

MAJ Custis on battle captains: Collaborate with your counterparts, battle NCOs, and the Ops Chief to get better every day. If you think you've developed the smoothest COC going, remember that the day may come where all previous watch rotations pale in comparison to the hell that breaks loose. Do your best to be prepared for it.

MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: Help your partners recognize change and opportunity. Often windows of opportunity have a distinct time limit. Do your best to understand how long the window will remain open, where it applies, and what effects it may offer.

MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: Keep the initiative and MAINTAIN INFLUENCE!!!! This is what advisors do, the influence their counterparts. You cannot command the unit; therefore maintaining influence is your key to not only bettering your FSF unit, but your own successful completion of your tour as well. Be there with your FSF unit, embed with them, develop rapport with as many soldiers as you can.

MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Keeping the initiative is impossible without a finger on the "pulse of your sector" or good intelligence. All this comes from your rapport with the locals and goes back to cultural awareness and fostering relationships. Lose the initiative and we are back to "reactive policing".

LTC Odom on country teams: I found that when I started to assume that I knew what was going on, I had already lost the initiative and risked surprise. This also played out in the information dominance struggle with Washington DC. In fast breaking situations like Goma, it was better to have the consuming agencies waiting for my call than to have them calling me. I was one and they were in a word, many. My solution was to set a pattern of routine updates via voice and message--and to offer no "off the cuff" updates in between. The same thing happened in the Kibeho massacre aftermath when after 30 hours on the road gathering information I tried to grab some sleep only to have an analyst call me demanding an update. I refused for two reasons: first and foremost I was too tired to give a coherent report and did not want to offer that classic "bad first report". Second, I did not want to surrender the initiative on when or what I reported to someone riding a desk thousands of miles away. "Wait out" is often the best response when dealing with higher.

MAJ McDermott on company command: Keep the initiative in order to keep the enemy reacting to you. Your activities can keep him off cycle and make him more vulnerable and less effective. A good offense is the best defense.

MAJ McDermott on MiTTs: Like MAJ Sullivan stated, don't lose your influence with your unit. Other than that, see above comment.