The linked Rand paper is worth the read. Great doctrinal historical run down.

I have to take slight exception to the wording of this paragraph (page 28) below. It is not that we (in Army Special Forces) consider Foreign Internal Defense (FID) to be a core mission, it is by law a core Special Operations Force (SOF) mission but by doctrine all services are required to provide forces trained and ready to conduct FID. It is not an exclusive mission to any one service or force.

Note that the variation in observed COIN practice in Iraq likely stems from differences in military organizations. Army Special Forces have always considered FID to be part of their core mission and have developed patterns of thinking appropriate to that mission. These patterns are often highly at odds with the larger Army. The Marine Corps falls somewhere between the Special Forces and the larger Army in terms of patterns of thinking. Of course, the Special Forces are not expected to win a high-intensity conflict alone and, despite the occasional exuberant Marine rhetoric, neither is the Marine Corps.

And I would also a caveat to the above. Just as Special Forces and the Marine Corps are not expected to win high-intensity conflicts alone, Special Forces an/ or the Marine Corps, and General Purpose Forces in general do not "win" FID or COIN alone. It takes an integrated whole of government effort not to win the FID/COIN fight but to support friends, partners, and allies in their fight against an insurgency (or lawlessness, or terrorism or ungoverned spaces and sanctuaries, whatever internal or transnational threat exists the country or region). But again, I hate to beat a dead horse, one of the fundamental problems I think we have with FID/COIN is that we approach it from the perspective of the US winning the FID/COIN fight. While our past doctrine has alluded to it and you can read it in the attached paper when it discusses the paramount requirement for the local government to win (or win back) the support of the population, we tend to pay lip service to that fact and a consistent theme in all our operations in post WWII has been about the US winning in FID/COIN. For example we place great emphasis about "living with the people." While I absolutely believe that is critically important (see CIDG, CAP, and CORDS discussions in the paper on pages 14-15) , it is not so much about us (as in big US) living with the indigenous people - it should be us living with the indigenous security forces - but with us in the background advising those indigenous security forces to live among their people. We have to get out of the mindset that we have to be the victors in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can only be the external support to help the Iraqi and Afghan people be the victors by helping those governments and their security forces to be successful. In the long run, it is counterproductive to try to win these fights ourselves, because we cannot. The only COIN fight we can win is one directed against the United States.

And one last editorial comment. We have to get over the "we-they" in our own military and our own government. What we have learned in the era of jointness is that no one service or one capability (e.g., SOF vs GPF) can be successful in any campaign. It takes the proper application of the right joint capabilities and resources to be successful. And the we-they problem is not just within the military -- we have a "we-they" problem within our whole of government particularly as evidenced when we say "the military and the interagency." We seem to forget that DOD is part of the interagency when we tend to talk like it is something separate. We need to get over our parochialism and get on with accomplishing the mission and getting the job done as a joint and interagency team.

- Schmedlap

- SWC Thread Saving their Souls in Fallujah?

In recent days, many "war of words" op-ed essays and newspaper editorials have been linked to by Small Wars Journal -- and appropriately so, for the issues they raise must surely be resolved in a far more adequate way than is now the case.

Most of these postings have been written by well-intentioned but, I think, mistaken authors who are angrily objecting to recent advisories -- not mandates but preliminary advisories -- by the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that we begin avoiding the very familiar "Jihad" (Holy War) and "mujahideen" (holy warriors) labels in the ongoing War on al Qaeda-style Terrorism.

For my own part, when I first saw these two documents long before they became public, I gave one of them a C- and the other a C+ at best -- but for reasons entirely different from those of the critics who are now attacking them in their entirety. At this point, I agree with only about half of their dozen or more specific recommendations of words to use and not to use.

Unfortunately, both of these advisories are insufficient to the situation and are, therefore, vulnerable to charges that they let both the terrorists and the despotic perversions of Islam which sponsor them "off the hook" -- and leave us with an unclear idea of exactly who and how very dangerous the "Jihadi" (but no longer to be called that) enemy really is.

This essay will attempt to describe the truth-in-language path which the NCTC, DHS, Department of State, Department of Defense and National Security Council experts should now follow in correctly and adequately defining what I have long called "The al Qaeda Apostasy" -- and doing so in several of the Islamic religious words they say should be avoided. In other words, I am a critic, too -- but in a largely constructive and supportive way rather than an angry and confrontational one.

Rather than trying to deal with each of these commentaries individually, I have selected a representative one -- a May 1, 2008 New York Post editorial, entitled "Jihad Newspeak" -- and will attempt to respond not only to its rationale and particulars but also to many of the individual columnists' worries, objections and understandable confusion.

Part # 1: Who Is at War With Whom?

As the acting NCTC Director Michael Leiter said recently to a distinguished audience at the DC-based Washington Institute on Near East Policy, we must somehow "show that it is al Qaeda, not the West, that is at war with Islam."

This strategy and practice of attacking terrorism but not Islam itself has been US doctrine from the beginning, but it is good to see this clearly and publicly reaffirmed by a senior anti-terrorism official at a time when others seem to consider Islam of the Qur'an to be the real enemy -- and view the AQ-style Terrorists as an accurate and faithful reflection of that religion, rather than a radical deviancy from it.

To make a medical analogy, we seek to kill the AQ and similar cancers without attacking the host per se -- so as not to unite the two and so as to inspire so-called "moderate" and civilized Muslims to become our allies in killing the cancer. But others are angrily blaming the host (Islam, in context of their insistence that there is only "One Islam") as being a —and inherently complicit and guilty sponsor of the terrorists rather than as a besieged and conflicted victim itself.

For his part, Osama bin Laden tries daily to paint the same "war of religions" picture as some of the hard-line critics do, albeit for very different reasons. He pontificates that this is "America's War Against Islam" and that it is, therefore, the "holy-war" and the "Will-of-Allah" obligation of every Muslim to fight back in every way imaginable.

In this vein, bin Laden's and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri's every appeal to their new recruits and their existing followers alike stresses the urgent need for a most holy and Godly "Jihad by faithful mujahideen and self-sacrificing young shahideen destined for Paradise -- as a proper reward for killing us infidels and destroying The Great Satan."

That's their story and they're sticking with it. The question now is whether we should accept and continue to parrot that self-serving Salafi-Wahhabi-Muslim Brotherhood-AQ mantra or "narrative" -- or should we challenge and defeat it

(1) by the sufficient condemnatory words which make it eternally evil and bound for Hellfire, rather than a matter of "holy war martyrs " bound for Paradise,

(2) by the proper religious, as opposed to politico-Islamist, frames of reference (see Part 4 below) which paint the same satanic picture of these suicide mass murderers, and

(3) by the tough counterinsurgency (COIN) strategies, operations and tactics which are founded (more on this in Part 4) upon an optimum counter-narrative?

Author's Note: For a more detailed (10,000 words) discussion of what follows -- and more --- please check my August 2007 entry in the USMA/CTC Essay Contest on National Security Strategy.

American Doctrine versus the Osaman Doctrine

One of the ways to differentiate the American doctrine from the Osaman doctrine is by carefully changing some of the incorrect words and labels we have been using in defining and discussing who is who and what is going on in in this most "irregular" of wars.

This is a language by which we have been classifying our deadly enemies as "holy warriors" and "martyrs" (because that is who they SAY they are, n'est-ce pas?) -- and which also seems to concede the Terrorists' patently false charges that we are all "infidels" and that America is "the Great Satan."

In the so-called War of Ideas, such branding of the genocidal and hyena-like terrorists by exactly the glorifying names they want to be called does not seem like a very bright idea. Truth be known, as long as two years ago but to deaf ears at the time, a distinguished former NCTC Director, John Brennan, appealed for much-needed change in an excellent Washington Post essay as follows:

"Bin Laden has also insidiously convinced us to use terminology that lends legitimacy to his activities. He has hijacked the term "jihad" to such an extent that US and other Western officials regularly use the terms "jihadist" and "terrorist" interchangeably. In doing so, they unwittingly transfer the religious legitimacy inherent in the concept of jihad to murderous acts that are anything but holy."

Despite this concern, there have been no significant changes in the last two years. And even the current recommendations which are so hotly disputed barely scratch the surface -- by recommending three or four words not be used but failing to recommend in adequate detail what other more appropriate terms (including several listed and defined below) should be used in their place. Conclusion: This is advice well intended but still quite insufficient.

An indication that it might be further refined and strengthened can be found in the fact that National Security Advisor Juan Zarate has recently observed that the AQ leadership is quite "sensitive to the perceived legitimacy of both their actions and their ideology. They care about their image because it has real-world effects on recruitment, donations, and support in Muslim and religious communities."

In addition, a well-regarded analysis of these several USG advisories by scholars Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson at the Counterterrorism Blog concludes that:

"Although the 'struggle of ideas in the Islamic world' section of the State Department report still focuses on the US Government's attempts to explain its policies and values, its message has undergone a serious overhaul. The initial U.S. approach in the wake of the September 11 attacks was to try and sell the United States to overseas audiences, an approach widely regarded as ineffective in stemming the tide of radicalization. Efforts will now concentrate on discrediting the terrorists."

HOORAY for that!! Better six years late than never! Such assertive discrediting -- and even such demonization -- of the AQ Terrorists and their like-minded radicals is an urgently needed tactic which is fully explained in two late-2006 TrueSpeak.org essays of mine - Urgent Need For Truth-In-Language In US Public Diplomacy and Is it Holy "Jihad" or Unholy "Irhabi Murderdom"???

HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC

General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868

I. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.

We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.

If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.

Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.

II. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.

III. Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.

By order of

JOHN A. LOGAN,

Commander-in-Chief

N.P. CHIPMAN,

Adjutant General

Official:

WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.

Bush Pays Tribute to Troops on Memorial Day - Associated Press

Bush Urges Americans to Honor Holiday's Meaning - John Kruzel, AFPS

This Memorial Day - Washington Times

Honoring life on Memorial Day - Mike Mullen, Washington Times

Fallen But Never Forgotten - Blackfive, Blackfive

Reflections by Frontier 6 - Frontier 6, CAC Blog

Promises to Keep - COB6, Blackfive

Reflections by Frontier 6 - Jack, DoD Live

Memorial Day 2008 - CJ, A Solider's Perspective

Missing - Jules Crittenden, Forward Movement

The 173rd Airborne in Vietnam - Blackfive, Blackfive

Thank You From Those Left Behind - Blackfive, Blackfive

Roundtables: Memorial Day Edition - Grim, Blackfive

Memorial Day: Remembering the Fallen - Laughing Wolf, Blackfive

Memorial Day and Dog Tags - Phillip Carter, Intel Dump

Mullen Cites Importance of Remembrance in Memorial Day Message - AFPS

To Live with Honor - Joseph Morrison, National Review

Saluting Those Who Serve - Ed Feulne, Washington Times

Memorial Day - Baltimore Sun

The Dead We Honor - New York Post

The Fallen Live On - Boston Globe

Memorial Day 2008 - Austin Bay, Washington Times

How We Can Really Honor Our Veterans - Joe Galloway, McClachy News Service

Forgotten Heroes - Ed Sherwood, Washington Times

Mystic Chords of Memory - Mackubin Thomas Owens, National Review

The Gates of Heaven - Blackfive, Blackfive

A Weekend to Remember Them - Joseph Rehyansky, Human Events

Returning Meaning to Memorial Day - Bret Schulte, US News & World Report

Burial at Arlington - Douglas Stone, Human Events

Let Us Remember Them - Colbert King, Washington Post

Protesting the Antiwar Protestors - Kevin Ferris, Wall Street Journal

The Last Doughboy - George Will, New York Post

On Memorial Day - Los Angeles Times

His Family Chose to Serve - Mac Thornberry, Washington Times

Ross McGinnis: Medal of Honor - Chuck Simmins, America's North Shore Journal

Where They've Been, What They've Done - Cannoneer No. 4, CIIDG

Memorial Day - Herschel Smith, The Captain's Journal

Memorial Day - Eagle1, EagleSpeak

Memorial Day - Maj Pain, One Marine's View

Why Didn't We Listen to Their War Stories? - Edward Lengel, Washington Post

Washington Set to be 'Thunder'-Struck - Jennifer Harper, Washington Times

Memorial Day Book Suggestion - COB6, Blackfive

Funeral Duty - William Troy, Washington Post

Remember to Remember - William Kristol, New York Times

Arlington Burial: Fanfare, Precision - Karen Goldberg Goff, Washington Times

Five Best Works of War Poetry - Wall Street Journal

Vietnam Wall: Personal, Searchable - Washington Times

First up -- setting it straight -- defining vs. ignoring the problem.

The fix-the-military argument was recently made at greater length by the New York Times. On May 18, the paper's editorialists noted that the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a serious toll on the Army and Marine Corps, wearing down not only people but equipment "at an unprecedented rate." Well, the loss rates would not have been surprising to the defenders of Bastogne, the armies at Antietam, or the servicemen and women in any other major war, but it is true that US land forces have been asked to do too much with too little for too long.

The question is how we should respond to this fact. The Times and its anti-war allies argue that the remedy is not to expand the force to meet the wartime mission, but to reduce the mission to what a small force can handle, consistent with a decent family life, defense budgets constrained to historic lows and peacetime recruitment and promotion "standards."

In other words, let's not fix the problem. Let's give up.

And second up, the solution.

The Army and the Marines are indeed under great stress, but, as service leaders, officers, and sergeants-major take great pains to explain, they are far from broken. If anything, the tactical performance and discipline of US forces in the field has improved significantly in recent years. The Iraq surge is a case study of counterinsurgency warfare planned and executed brilliantly. Broken forces do not conduct such operations. From the level of team and squad to supreme command, US forces have adapted themselves remarkably to a war they were not at first ready to fight. In retrospect what is remarkable is how resilient and flexible the all-volunteer, professional force has proven to be.

The compelling reason to reinvest in America's Army and Marine Corps is not to withdraw and prepare for the "next war," but to build land forces capable of sustaining and prevailing in the so-called "Long War," the effort to secure more legitimate governments, and thus a more durable stability, in vital regions like the Persian Gulf.

So what does a Long War land force look like?

To begin with, it's bigger. Much bigger...

Read the rest here.

Where would one find the U.S.'s greatest weapon? Try traveling to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the home of the Army's War College.

You will enjoy the trip. The College's stunningly beautiful campus hosts historic buildings that reflect the service's proud warfighting history in a dignified yet refreshingly unapologetic manner. Just being there makes you stand straighter and -- importantly -- think clearer about serious subjects.

Clear thinking about serious subjects is what marked the Army's XIX Strategy Conference convened there in early April. The premier convocation of its type, the meeting displayed an often misunderstood aspect of how the U.S. military improves itself: by welcoming critiques from the widest variety of sources, and encouraging opposing ideas to collide with great force.

The ability to think, learn, and adapt is what makes America's military the finest in the world. Though it does not use these words, the Army exploits conferences like that at Carlisle to, in effect, tap into a concept from the Nation's powerful engine of change, its free enterprise system.

Free enterprise triumphs as an economic system because it respects and empowers competition. Competition breeds efficiency and innovation. Unfortunately, the competitiveness outsiders may see in military debates can be misread as mere parochial squabbling. Sometimes that's true, but more often the rivalry reflects honestly-held but differing beliefs as to how to use the military instrument most effectively in today's very complex environments.

The good news is that those differences can make the U.S. military a devilishly difficult problem for our adversaries. Increasingly Iraqi insurgents are finding themselves watched and targeted by the Air Force's unmanned drones linked to high-flying bombers. The satellite-guided weapon that lands precisely in their lair could come from aircraft they never saw or heard.

There is really no escape. Just when the insurgents think they've somehow outsmarted the Air Force's high-tech surveillance capabilities, a young Army captain could show up on their doorstep with a platoon of no-nonsense U.S. and Iraqi troops. How? Today's captains carefully cultivate information sources among the locals as the Army's new counterinsurgency manual teaches them to do. Schooled in the manual, such captains deliver offers the insurgents can't refuse: be captured or be killed.

These are exactly the kinds of dilemmas the U.S. military loves to impose upon our enemies.

To get to the point where differing approaches are meshed to produce battlefield success requires passing through a crucible where white hot exchanges of ideas are forged into joint and interdependent "steel". The process is not always "pretty", and certainly not for the timid, but is one that -- regardless -- works.

The Army's conference is central to this eminently "American" way of strategizing for war. Panels convened to wrestle with such questions as how can the interagency process work more effectively? What is the right balance of military forces? What is the role of civilian specialists? How can the armed forces optimize themselves for the future?

Moreover, the attendees, who represented a myriad of organizations in and out of government, showed no hesitation in challenging panelists with the toughest questions.

If you were hoping that at the end everyone stood and sang "Kumbaya" you will be disappointed. Disagreements still exist -- and may (should?) always exist -- but views do evolve. Military professionals know that being challenged intellectually forces them to re-examine their thinking. In some instances it will simply make views even firmer; in other instances, fresh information produces new insights. Both results are valued.

The finest military leaders want, indeed, demand, that differing ideas be ruthlessly explored. They expect and encourage vigorous debates. Can that process go awry? Sure. When it devolves into personal attacks and gets mired in finger-pointing, progress ceases. Accountability for the past may have its place, but it is vastly more important to look to the future. The stakes are too just too high.

Looking to the future is what took place at Carlisle. The American way of war is renewing itself. Our most powerful weapon - the competitive analysis of security issues by America's military - is taking the field. Our enemies ought to beware. And update their wills.

Lt Col Nagl was one of the principal authors of FM 3-24, the Army/Marine Corps' new counterinsurgency manual; Maj Gen Dunlap is the author of "Shortchanging the Joint Fight?" a critique of that same manual. These are their personal views.

In a May 15 memo to the armed services, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, the combatant commanders and other defense officials, England says an irregular warfare study uncovered steady-state shortfalls in the general-purpose forces' capability and capacity to handle counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense missions.

Inside the Pentagon, which obtained a copy of the memo, quotes England as identifying deficiencies in doctrine, training and institutions before general-purpose forces can train, equip and advise large numbers of foreign security forces in key irregular warfare missions.

DOD's roles and missions review will seek to find the right division of responsibilities for special operations troops and general-purpose forces across the spectrum of irregular warfare, including for counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense, according to a draft terms of reference that ITP reviewed.

Based on the study's results and recommendations, England directs specific follow-up actions. Transforming the Pentagon's institutions for irregular warfare requires "concerted effort and continued attention by all DOD components," he writes.

SWJ has more at a 6 May post - IW on Roles and Missions Task List

On a related issue, Inside the Pentagon also reports that Outgoing Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody has rejected plans for a new breed of units that would spearhead the training of foreign armies, asking instead that the service's Training and Doctrine Command reassess the idea, according to service sources.

Harvey Perritt, a TRADOC spokesman, said Cody gave officials at the Ft. Belvoir, VA-based command until Aug. 31 to present a revised concept to Army leaders. Service officials will know by the end of July whether they will field a previously planned pilot TMAAG unit, he added. "By that point, the review will be far enough along," he told InsideDefense.com.

One Army official, who requested anonymity, said service leaders still believe the goals behind the TMAAG -- an expeditionary cadre of trainers fostering military relations around the globe -- have merit.

SWJ has more at The Army's TMAAG.