Armed Forces Journal

Several items from the latest edition of Armed Forces Journal:

Eating Soup with a Spoon – Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile

The Army’s new manual on counterinsurgency operations (COIN), in many respects, is a superb piece of doctrinal writing. The manual, FM 3-24 “Counterinsurgency,” is comparable in breadth, clarity and importance to the 1986 FM 100-5 version of “Operations” which came to be known as “AirLand Battle.”

The new manual’s middle chapters that pertain to the conduct of counterinsurgency operations are especially helpful and relevant to senior commanders in Iraq. But a set of nine paradoxes in the first chapter of the manual removes a piece of reality of counterinsurgency warfare that is crucial for those trying to understand how to operate within it…

Flashpoint: No Bungle in the Jungle – Peter Brookes

Whether you agree with it or not, it’s likely there will be some changes to the current size and shape of U.S. forces in Iraq over the next year. For reasons from the political to the practical, the current troop surge in Iraq isn’t going to last forever.

So, as the politicians and policymakers search for a future strategy in Iraq that would be amenable to the American people, Congress, the Pentagon and the White House, it makes sense to open the intellectual aperture pretty wide in the search for good ideas.

In some corners of defense intelligentsia, the U.S.-backed effort in the southern Philippines against the al-Qaida-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group (“Bearer of the Sword”) is being touted as the most successful counterterrorism campaign of the post-Sept. 11 period. Indeed, some are promoting Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines (OEF-P) as a model counterterrorism (CT) and counterinsurgency (COIN) operation. Although not everyone would agree with that characterization, it’s worthwhile to take a look at OEF-P to see whether the strategy and policy might be applied to the ongoing challenges in Iraq — or elsewhere…

Picking up the Pieces – Christopher Griffin

Over recent years, the blogosphere has been its own theater in a propaganda war that has centered on the significance of such individuals as “Jesse Macbeth,” “Aidan Hajj” and “Jamil Hussein.” These people, and the veracity of their stories, have served as proxies in the fight between bloggers who support U.S. efforts in Iraq and the Middle East and those who oppose them. In July, this fight leapt into the mainstream media when The New Republic published what was purported to be a soldier’s firsthand account of his deployment in Iraq.

The article, “Shock Troops,” was written by “Scott Thomas,” a pseudonym for a soldier who The New Republic said was serving in Iraq at Forward Operating Base Falcon and who described scenes of callous brutality. According to Thomas, he and his cohorts publicly mocked a female IED victim on a crowded day at their base’s chow hall; wore a child’s skull found in a mass grave as a hat for more than a day; and used a Bradley fighting vehicle to run down dogs in the streets of Baghdad, killing three in one day. The piece is worth quoting at some length to give a sense of both its style and substance…

When Muslim Armies Won – Ralph Peters

When terrorists or insurgents in Iraq detonate a roadside bomb to draw out our forces in response, or when they stage a small ambush to lure us into a larger one, they’re pursuing a Middle Eastern way of war more than two millennia old, with roots in the techniques of tribes from the steppes. What’s surprising isn’t that the old lure-and-ambush technique is still in use, but that, after many centuries of Western experience with this particular hook, we remain prone to taking the bait.

While doing research for a history project, I was struck both by the enduring characteristics of jihadi warfare — even though yesteryear’s triumphant Muslim armies have been replaced by terrorist cells and irregular bands — as well as the specific military lore the Islamic world lost. Much of what Arab, Seljuk or Ottoman armies did in bygone campaigns to annihilate their enemies is now the intellectual inheritance of Western commanders — although cultural flaws that led medieval Christian armies to defeat remain with us, as well…

Culture Battle – Colonel Henry Foresman Jr.

The Army, like all military organizations, is defined by its culture, and the culture is defined by the history. Its culture has been defined by its overwhelming success in World War II and shaped by a perceived history of fighting grand wars. Although the culture is consistent with the perceived history, the reality is the Army has been involved in stability and support operations, not grand wars, for almost 80 percent of its existence.

Grand wars, as I define them, are those military engagements that pit army against army. I define stability and support operations as those in which the military is not fighting an army but is opposed either by those resistant to its occupation, passively or aggressively, or is opposed by an organized force executing disperse, nonconnected and localized operations designed to defeat the will of the occupiers to achieve victory.

For the Army, it is World War II that has shaped its thinking, culture and ethos. Fighting the grand war has become the Army’s be-all-and-end-all mantra…

Building Resilience – Frank Hoffman

A pair of books build on Jared Diamond’s warning in “Collapse” that rigid social structures and environmental mismanagement combined to destroy a society from within. Both share Diamond’s chilling warning of economic and ecosystem disruption. Both authors realize that our increasingly technologically sophisticated civilization is built upon the fragile fault line of many pending environmental disasters and unsustainable patterns.

“The Upside of Down” lays out a theory about social life cycles, capturing the growth, demise and renewal of societies. The convergence of today’s pressing economic, energy and environmental stresses could produce a global breakdown or just merely a national crisis. The author, Thomas Homer-Dixon, brilliantly mixes the history of Rome’s development and its impressive architectural accomplishments with speculations on how societies rise and fall. This includes his theory of social catastrophe based on a concept called energy return on investment (EROI). Based on some historical sleuthing in the Coliseum, our author contends that societies can die off when their energy consumption patterns outpace the total effort required to acquire the energy. Having to search farther, dig deeper and expend more effort to extract every unit of energy we need to support our fast-paced and inefficient societies can put a strain on EROI. As we approach peak oil in the coming decades, this theory will become apparent…

Our second book, “The Edge of Disaster,” is more direct and very much reflects the blunt and relentless personality of its author. Stephen Flynn is a retired Coast Guard officer who has established himself as the nation’s leading homeland security expert. One of the very few analysts who could define vulnerabilities with chilling predictions before Sept. 11, he has been aggressively challenging policymakers in both the executive and legislative branches about the growing dangers the nation faces from an aging infrastructure, misplaced investment priorities and highly interdependent but brittle systems that undergird our daily lives…

Much more at AFJ.