The May -- June 2008 issue of Military Review has been posted to the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center web site.

Since 1922, Military Review has provided a forum for the open exchange of ideas on military affairs. Subsequently, publications have proliferated throughout the Army education system that specialize either in tactical issues associated with particular Branches or on strategic issues at the Senior Service School level. Bridging these two levels of intellectual inquiry, Military Review focuses on research and analysis of the concepts, doctrine and principles of warfighting between the tactical and operational levels of war.

Military Review is a refereed journal that provides a forum for original thought and debate on the art and science of land warfare and other issues of current interest to the US Army and the Department of Defense. Military Review also supports the education, training, doctrine development and integration missions of the Combined Arms Center (CAC), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Addendum: Anbar Awakens by Colonel Sean MacFarland, U.S. Army.

In the March-April issue of Military Review of Military Review, Major Niel Smith and I wrote about the accomplishments of the Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen who fought in Ramadi from June 2006 through February 2007. I would like to elaborate on an important point raised in the article: the Al Anbar campaign was a model of joint operational effectiveness.

Money as a Force Multiplier in COIN by Lieutenant Colonel Leonard J. DeFrancisci, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

Before Operation Al Fajr, the second battle of Fallujah (in November-December 2004), an estimated 4,000 insurgents roamed the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, killing government soldiers and policemen and essentially turning the city into a rebel stronghold. They could do so not just because of their numbers and ruthlessness, but because they derived significant strength from the local population. In essence, the people provided the insurgents with the recruits and support necessary to thrive and move freely within the battlespace.

To attack this strength, the Marine Corps' Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) would use a powerful weapon—money—to drive a wedge between the insurgents and the people and help win the second battle of Fallujah. In particular, the combat team's civil affairs units influenced the people by providing money to alleviate their immediate needs, settle grievances, and reduce frustration arising during the course of the battle. At the same time, the units developed long-term reconstruction efforts to help local Iraqi leaders gain control of the area. In this way, RCT-1 built legitimacy for coalition forces and further increased rifts between insurgents and their much-needed popular support. These actions reduced the enemy's base of operations and ability to maneuver. As this article will show, RCT-1 civil affairs units wielded financial power as a combat multiplier and reduced the enemy's overall combat potential.

Reforming the Madrasah: A Disregarded Dimension in the War on Terrorism by Major Todd Schmidt, U.S. Army.

The Global War on Terror is a war of ideas." We have heard this and similar statements repeatedly over the past five years. We read it in the papers and blogs. We listen to it from our leaders and politicians. It is an accurate statement, but it remains widely underappreciated.

The U.S. government has committed itself to a strong, concerted, and necessary effort to fight in the "war of ideas" using strategic communications, information operations, psychological operations, and civil affairs. In an effort to augment this effort, U.S. troops collect beanie babies, soccer balls, and second-hand clothes to distribute to Afghan and Iraqi children. But Soldiers' well-intentioned actions, like those of their higher-ups in the military and government, have been largely ineffective. Promoting good will via humanitarian assistance and gestures has made little lasting impact, because such actions do not successfully challenge the ideological forces underpinning Middle Eastern cultural perceptions—and these perceptions are at the root of the conflict between Islamic terrorists and the West. To win the war of ideas, the U.S. and its allies must counter the formation of extremist attitudes where they are born and inculcated: in the Islamic madrasah school system.

From Enduring Strife to Enduring Peace in the Philippines by Major Gary J. Morea, U.S. Army.

With the exception of a brief period of American control in the first half of the twentieth century, conflict has persisted in the Mindanao, the southern island group of the Philippines, for 500 years, since the first acts of resistance towards Spanish colonization in the sixteenth century.

In fact, this conflict is the second longest internal conflict in history.

The population of the Philippines is a mosaic of diverse ideologies, religions, and cultures that have coalesced into three distinct regions of the archipelago. At times, these regions have been at odds with each other. While several attempts at conflict resolution have been made over the years through many different forms of government, the conflict has not yet been resolved and groups continue to struggle against the central government for political consideration, concessions, and/or autonomy. Those living in the Mindanao, for whom resistance is central to identity, still writhe against the forces that wish to control them.

Title 10 Domestic Humanitarian Assistance: New Orleans by Major Michael C. Donahue, U.S. Army.

On Thursday, 1 September 2005, the 2d Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, was alerted to deploy to New Orleans to assist in humanitarian relief operations following Hurricane Katrina. Coming out of a year-long deployment in Iraq, the Black Jack Brigade had lost a significant percentage of its officers and enlisted Soldiers to post-deployment reassignments. Consequently, many staff members were new and unfamiliar with the brigade's standardized operating procedures. Moreover, the brigade was undergoing transition to modularity, which involved complete structural reorganization and the realignment of personnel and equipment. Nevertheless, the vanguard element of the brigade—1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry—deployed on 3 September. The remaining brigade elements deployed and closed on the Naval Support Activity, New Orleans, by 6 September 2005.

The brigade operated under the control of the 82d Airborne Division and was assigned the Algiers district of Orleans Parish as its area of responsibility (AOR). Although Algiers had suffered severe wind damage and the loss of essential services, the parish did not experience the flooding that devastated the northern areas of New Orleans.

The Taliban: An Organizational Analysis by Major Shahid Afsar, Pakistan Army; Major Chris Samples, U.S. Army; and Major Thomas Wood, U.S. Army.

The Taliban did not grow out of the dark overnight, nor was it unknown in the Middle East, the region of the world most severely affected after 9/11. Following its emergence in 1994 from madrassas, the Taliban achieved surprising victories over its enemies and assumed rule over much of Afghanistan.2 Simultaneously hailed as saviors and feared as oppressors, the Taliban were an almost mythical phenomenon that seemed to embody the very essence of Afghan cultural beliefs, especially revenge for transgression, hospitality for enemies, and readiness to die for honor. The Taliban knew the Afghan people and their ways and embedded themselves in the complex Afghan web of tribalism, religion, and ethnicity.

Despite their quick overthrow in 2002 by a small coalition of U.S. forces and anti-Taliban groups, the Taliban has not gone away. In fact, today, in the face of thousands of NATO and U.S. troops, a growing Afghan National Army (ANA), and a popularly elected government, the movement's influence in Afghanistan is increasing. It continues to wage an insurgency that has prevented the new government from establishing legitimacy, and it has created massive unrest in Pakistan. Clearly, it behooves us to know something more about this archaic but formidable enemy.

The Al-Qaeda Media Machine by Philip Seib, J.D.

Like an aging rock star who has dropped out of the public eye, Osama bin-Laden occasionally decides to remind people that he's still around. He makes video appearances that first appear on Arabic television channels but which the world quickly sees on television or on multiple Web sites. Bin-Laden's message is "Hey, they haven't caught me yet," which cheers up his fans, but his threats and pronouncements are mostly terrorist boilerplate. For all the parsing of his sentences and scrutinizing of the color of his beard, hardly anything in his videos helps us better understand and combat terrorism.

Meanwhile, significant Al-Qaeda media efforts go largely unnoticed by news organizations and the public. This myopia is characteristic of an approach to antiterrorism that focuses on Bin-Laden as terror-celebrity while ignoring the deep-rooted dynamism of a global enemy. Most jihadist media products make no mention of Bin-Laden, but they deserve attention because they are vital to Al-Qaeda's mission and to its efforts to extend its influence. Al-Qaeda has become a significant player in global politics largely because it has developed a sophisticated media strategy.

Through an Arab Cultural Lens by Helen Altman Klein, Ph.D., and Gilbert Kuperman.

Retired Major General Robert H. Scales has described how in today's world, military victory "will be defined more in terms of capturing the psych-cultural rather than the geographical high ground."1 It is in this spirit that we look at the Arab Middle East.

U.S. military and civilian personnel are increasingly sensitive to customs, social organization, leadership, and religion as aspects of Arab culture. It is clear that, with international events as they are, America and its allies need to appreciate how Arabs think. When we misunderstand the Arab perspective and fail to see events through Arab eyes, we can make costly mistakes. To this end, the U.S. Air Force commissioned a study of the Arab mind to identify key differences between Arab and Western thinking.2 Study members reviewed research literature, religious texts, and even business and travel guides. The United Nation's report on Arab culture proved particularly valuable.3 The group conducted in-depth interviews with 16 Arabs from Egypt, Israel's West Bank, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, and with 6 Westerners with extensive experience in dealing with Arabs from Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Islam and Symbolism by First Sergeant António Rodrigues, Portuguese Army.

Islamic culture is resplendent with symbols containing historical, religious, and mystical elements. Persons working in the Middle East are advised to become familiar with them.

Symbols resonate throughout Islamic cultures, from high art and literature to popular culture. They can be found everywhere in everyday social life. It is fair to say that an understanding of Islamic culture is incomplete without an appreciation for the rich panoply of symbols that tie ancient history and tradition to modern cultures and societies that have embraced or largely embraced Islam.

Islamic symbols come from diverse sources. Most share a common nexus with the life and mission of the Prophet Mohammed and the genesis of Islam, but others are legacies of ancient sources that date from before the emergence of Islam.

Transition Teams: Adapt and Win by Captain William C. Taylor, U.S. Army.

Having served as executive officer and operations officer of a battalion military transition team (MiTT) in Iraq from May 2007 to April 2008, I found that operations varied greatly from team to team. At first this surprised me, since the mission we'd been given before deploying seemed fairly clear-cut: "provide advisory support and direct access to coalition effects to enhance the ability of Iraqi forces to operate independently, advise the Iraqi Army (IA) on tactics, military decision-making process, counterinsurgency (COIN ) warfare, leadership, teamwork, communications, urban combat, and provide knowledge on combat arms management and organizational experience." Some teams had taken this mission statement at its word and adhered strictly to their advisory tasks, disdaining any interaction with the local coalition unit. Other teams focused heavily on liaising between their IA and parent coalition unit, and did minimal advising. Even among the MiTTs that focused on training, there were differences. Few teams, for example, dared to wade into leadership, teamwork, and ethics with their IA unit's leaders. Internal MiTT leadership varied too: some team leaders were democratic, others more traditionally hierarchical. How, I began to wonder, given all these different examples and some obvious differences among Iraqi units, should we operate on our own team?

Constructive Engagement: A Proven Method for Conducting Stability and Support Operations by Sergeant Major Martin Rodriguez, U.S. Army, Retired; Major Andrew Farnsler, U.S. Army; and John Bott.

In the Iraqi Theater of Operations (ITO), successful conduct of stability and support operations (SASO) requires an imaginative combination of lethal and nonlethal methods. For the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, the combination is known as constructive engagement (CE) and is conducted in battalion sectors throughout Baghdad. Constructive engagement combines the full spectrum of military operations with diplomacy at the tactical level, a strategy described by top commanders in Iraq in a 2004 New York Times article as "a mix of military tactics, political maneuvering, media management and a generous dollop of cash for quickly rebuilding war-ravaged cities—a formula that, if it survives the test of time, could become a model for future fighting against the persistent insurrections plaguing Iraq."

During full-spectrum operations in a SASO environment, a commander must balance the application of military (lethal and civil-military) operations with diplomatic engagement to achieve the desired end state. CE describes the methods commanders use to reach this balance, and in Baghdad the goal is the creation of a safe and secure environment in which the seeds of a republic will flourish. The mix of military and diplomatic tactics required very much depends on the environment within each unit sector and the personality of the battalion commander; a commander's skill as a Soldier and diplomat often determine the unit's level of success. Many small-unit leaders and commanders in Baghdad found diplomatic methods are often the most efficient means of reducing the insurgent base.

The Most Important Thing: Legislative Reform of the National Security System by James R. Locher III.

The National Security System that the president uses to manage the instruments of national power, and the manner in which Congress oversees and funds the system, do not permit the agility required to protect the United States and its interests in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world. From 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and emerging threats to the homeland, 21st-century national security challenges demand more effective communication across traditional organizational boundaries. Meeting these challenges requires a common vision and organizational culture and better integration of expertise and capabilities.

The Story Behind the National Security Act of 1947 by Charles A. Stevenson, Ph.D.

Harry Truman was at Washington D.C.'s National Airport on Saturday, 26 July 1947, waiting impatiently to fly home to Missouri to see his dying mother. First, however, he wanted to sign a long-delayed bill reorganizing the government to deal with national security matters. Congress had completed action on the measure, but the printing office had closed, so there was a delay in preparing the bill for Truman's signature.

A little after noon, congressional clerks brought the bill on board the Sacred Cow, the four-engine C-54 presidential plane. Truman promptly signed it, as well as an executive order setting forth roles and missions for the Armed Forces and a paper nominating James Forrestal to be the first Secretary of Defense. An hour later, en route to Missouri, Truman learned that his mother had died. Meanwhile, just before adjourning until November, the Senate quickly approved Forrestal's nomination by voice vote.

Will the Army Ever Learn Good Media Relations Techniques? Walter Reed as a Case Study by Colonel James T. Currie, U.S. Army Reserves, Retired, Ph.D.

If you ever wanted a near-perfect case study of how not to deal with the press, the Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC) controversy would be a great place to start. Of course, the Walter Reed episode also offers lessons in leadership and accountability. Some of those lessons manifest themselves in this article, but the focus here is on the Army's bungled interaction with the news media and on how to avoid a repeat of the nightmarish fiasco.

Here are the links to the English translation versions of the articles:

You'll Have to Learn Not to Cry... by the editors of Air & Space Power Journal

This issue of Air and Space Power Journal addresses the study, understanding, and dissemination of tragic problem of concern not only to military personnel in the battlefield but also to civilian populations around the world: the use of "child soldiers" by armed forces, religious fanatics, and insurgent groups. Specifically, this edition seeks to provide a better understanding of this tragic issue, foster better awareness, and find solutions to the problem.

History confirms that in the past, wars were fought mainly by adults as part of state armies. Today, however, children—some of them younger than 18 years of age—participate in warfare. The warring parties often abduct or force them to fight against their will, disregarding with impunity the international laws applicable to the rights and protection of children.

The New Children of War by Dr. Peter Singer.

The nature of armed conflict, though, has changed greatly in the past few years. Now the presence of children is the new rule of standard behavior in war, rather than the rarity that it used to be. The result is that war in the twenty-first century is not only more tragic but also more dangerous. With children's involvement, generals, warlords, terrorists, and rebel leaders alike are finding that conflicts are easier to start and harder to end.

The practice of using children, defined under international law as under the age of 18, as soldiers is far more widespread and more important than most realize. There are as many as 300,000 children under the age of 18 presently serving as combatants around the globe (making them almost 10 percent of all global combatants). They serve in 40 percent of the world's armed forces, rebel groups, and terrorist organizations and fight in almost 75 percent of the world's conflicts; indeed, in the last five years, children have served as soldiers on every continent but Antarctica. Moreover, an additional half-million children serve in armed forces not presently at war.

Child Soldier as Tactical Innovation by Robert Tynes.

Suppose that you are on patrol in Medellí­n, Colombia. As you pass a house, you hear shouting inside. Two men are pleading not to be killed, and to their cries a stern "Shut up, and tell us!" snaps back. The voice is tough but not booming. The shouting sounds young, not deep enough to be that of an adult. Your patrol decides to enter the house through the front, the side window, and the back. When you break in, you find two men tied up in chairs. You also find two boys, holding guns up to the heads of the hostages. You yell at them to drop their weapons. But they don't. What do you do? If you don't shoot at the boys, the hostages will die. Or you will be shot at. If you fire on the boys, you will probably kill them. They are 13 years old.

This is the dilemma that American soldiers are having to face more and more on the battlefield. Whether it is in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, or Colombia, child soldiers have become an integral part of both insurgencies and government forces. Saddam Hussein's regime recruited child soldiers, an issue that American soldiers had to face when they invaded Iraq in 2003. Many of these young recruits had been trained in military-like boot camps.

Child Soldiers: Despair, Barbarization, and Conflict by John Sullivan.

Contemporary warfare is no longer the sole domain of adults and state forces. Children are increasingly involved in conflicts waged by nonstate actors: guerillas, terrorists, jihadi bands, gangs, criminals, and warlords. These groups utilizing child soldiers operate outside the norms of war and the rule of law, and have abandoned long-held prohibitions against terrorism, attacks on noncombatants, torture, reprisal, and slavery. These actors fight among themselves and against states for turf, profit, and plunder while accelerating the barbarization of warfare. This article examines the use of children in war and armed conflict. Specifically, it reviews the contemporary child-soldier issue and discusses child combatants in three settings: internal conflicts (civil wars and insurgencies), terrorism, and criminal gangs. Finally, it describes how children become child soldiers and looks at ways of responding to the problem.

Child Soldiers: Are US Military Members Prepared to Deal with the Threat? By Lieutenant Colonel Judith Hughes, USAF.

The growing volume of literature on the subject of child soldiers may be the first hint that the problem is getting worse instead of better. The problem is not unique to one particular country or region of the globe. Children may be active soldiers in combat in over 75 percent of the world's conflicts. The actual number of child soldiers is hard to quantify. Amnesty International cites research that estimates 300,000 child soldiers are exploited in over 30 countries but points out that efforts are under way to collect more reliable data on the actual number of children who are soldiering.3 Current Human Rights Watch Web sites also give the figure of 300,000 child soldiers, but it is interesting to note that literature published in the late 1990s also estimated the same number of children. The lack of change in these numbers may represent not a stagnant growth pattern but more likely the difficulty of getting accurate data.

The Law of Lost Innocence: International Law and the Modern Reality of Child Soldiers by Major Bryan Watson, USAF.

History does not note many instances in which children have served during wartime; in fact, the last four millennia of warfare have embraced a general norm against using children in war. Modern conflicts have distorted this standard, with some commentators pointing to a "drastic spike" in the practice over the last two decades and arguing that the last fifteen years have come to be known as the "era of the child soldier."

By most accounts, this increase is grounded in the complexity of the modern global order. One scholar points to (1) "social disruptions and failures of development caused by globalization, war, and disease" leading to "greater global conflict and instability" and "generational disconnections that create a new pool of potential recruits," (2) "technological improvements in small arms [that] now permit child recruits to be effective participants in warfare," and (3) "a rise in a new type of conflict that is far more brutal and criminalized." Together, these phenomena have caused tremendous numbers of children to become vulnerable to exploitation as a convenient labor pool for the world's battlefields.

Girl Child Soldiers: The Other Face of Sexual Exploitation and Gender Violence by Dr. Waltraud Morales.

A simple perusal of the hundreds of online resources on "child soldiers" will reveal that in the first decade of the twenty-first century, some of the worst abuse and exploitation is under way. Mankind has made extraordinary progress over the last 300 years in sensitivity and awareness as well as policy making and legislation against many of the most egregious violations of human rights, ranging from battery and torture to outright slavery. Both international humanitarian and international human-rights law have formally and explicitly recognized children's rights and extended special protections. Recently, more governments have acceded to the United Nations' Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.

Nevertheless, at this very moment, according to recent appeals by nongovernmental organizations (NGO) such World Vision, the International Rescue Commission, and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, and major intergovernmental organizations (IGO), including the United Nations and specialized agencies such as United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), millions of children around the world not only are the victims of violent conflict and war but also have been forced to become child soldiers. The International Rescue Committee has described the systematic atrocities committed against the world's children as no less than a slow "genocide" or "holocaust" that has yet to grab the world's full attention and organized response.

Here is the short version of the thesis: The political appointees in the Pentagon try to counteract adverse news stories and also try to increase what they believe are positive news stories.

Whoa Nellie! Knocked ya right outta your saddle with that one, didn't they?

Of course, as with all such situations, there are some nuggets to be found within the body of the story. I will get to those in a minute. But as in other cases, be it the flights of fantasy engaged in by the Associated Press when they published their No Gun Ri story back in 1999, or the befuddled and confused musings of the quacks who would deny the Holocaust, or even the delusional belief of many military officers that it was the media, not the military, who lost Vietnam (Note: It was our fault. Us. In uniform. We failed in Vietnam. End Note.), the reporter for the New York Times takes factoids and spins them into a narrative just ripe for the Conspiracy Theorists of America, Inc.

Just look at the opening graphic. Somehow the NYT contends that Major General (Ret) Robert Scales is an administration cheerleader incapable of independent thought?! In what alternate reality is that true? Generals Montgomery Meigs and Barry McCaffrey? For Christ's sake, those are three of the most vocal and respected critics of the military conduct of operations that America has seen these past five years (though it should be noted that at least McCaffrey was initially in favor of the invasion). And yet the NYT wants to paint them as tools of the administration? Seriously? Folks, at least two of those generals have been invited panelists to speak before the House and Senate Armed Services Committees about the problems with the war. Invited by the Democrats mind you, not the Republicans. Seriously, somebody at the NYT headquarters needs to consider instituting a random drug testing program over there because the intellectual loops one has to tie oneself into to come to their thesis are worthy of Jayson Blair's style of "reporting."

Any hope that there might critical thinking vanishes in a cotton-candy poof of intellectual smoke when one realizes that the Times is seriously contending that we readers should believe that these retired generals and other officers were swayed by, well, see it yourself: "In interviews, participants described a powerfully seductive environment — the uniformed escorts to Mr. Rumsfeld's private conference room, the best government china laid out, the embossed name cards, the blizzard of PowerPoints, the solicitations of advice and counsel..."

Wait a second...you mean that the "participants" called it "powerfully seductive"? No, look closer, that word "described" means something. It means that they said no such thing and that the reporter is interpreting the scene for us plebians because, you know, we're not qualified on that count.

We should instead just take the reporter's word for it that men who just spent several decades dealing with all that same stuff as a course of their normal daily lives (the General Officer's mess in the Pentagon anyone?) are now suddenly "seduced" by "uniformed escorts" (ooooh, ahhhhh...such pretty uniforms, I am sooooo flattered), flatware and embossed cards. Oh, and I bet they were just bowled over by that new invention, the PowerPoint briefing. Bet none of them ever saw nuthin' like that.

What makes this even more disappointing is that the broader outlines of the thesis are not even really news. You see, when somebody writes a book about a topic, you cannot then pretend that book does not exist which covers the same material, or that you have found something all new...as the New York Times has now done. Retired Colonel and former-analyst Ken Allard wrote just such a damned book, several years ago. That is years. Not weeks. Not months. Years. It's called Warheads, and it is about the underside of being a military analyst. Now while Allard noted most of the points (but without the conspiracy theory spin) about interactions and connections, in his book, and is a source cited in the article in his own right...there is not so much as a hint about the fact that this is all, effectively, old information.

Hell, you can ask any historian and he'll take you back further. As one friend asked me, "When exactly did DoD PAO get into the 1984 business?" That would be 1947. Prior to that it was Department of War and Navy which did the same thing. And if you don't think FDR gave or withheld access? Or Wilson? Or Lincoln? You need to go back to school. All three most definitely tracked what was written and by whom, and granted or denied access on that basis...as did that feller Sherman (when he wasn't threatening to actually hang journalists), and Grant, and Pershing, and you can bet MacArthur did, and even Eisenhower tracked what journalists wrote, by name, and granted or denied access on that basis at times. (Most especially during the flare-up with His-Royal-Hineyness Montgomery of Alamein when the whole flap over "saving the Americans" appeared in the UK press in late Dec '44.) And let's not even get into Korea and Vietnam. So unless one is also "concerned" that this was wrong for Grant, Pershing, Eisenhower, etc., and that they were doing it wrong...

Now I am certainly not disputing that the Administration tries to spin America, and occasionally the world for that matter, like a Siamese kitten dropped into a Maytag. And I in no way dispute that they have tried to use friendly analysts to do so. I do not think that there is a reader out there who would be the least bit surprised that as the NYT put it, "many of them ideologically in sync with the administration's neoconservative brain trust." Hello? Homer Simpson has had more enlightening insights that that.

What I am disputing that it was propaganda for them to make the attempt. Look at the Creel Committee (aka the Committee for Public Information) circa 1917-1918. That, ladies and gentlemen, is propaganda. Look at some of the other things done during the Wilson Administration as well. This? No, this is about as surprising as POTUS giving repeated "exclusive" sit-down interviews to FOX News, and boxing out the other stations. It is also about as effective.

Indeed that is the unstated subtext of this story, and it is a pity nobody in the editorial offices of the New York Times picked up on the fact and gave that reporter a clue. You see the story is not that the current Administration tries to spin. All of them do that and none of us are surprised. The story is that this administration's public relations people are so completely incompetent at the effort. How do we know? Well, for starters look at public support for the war. But more importantly, go to the NYT site and look at some of the specifics of who the civilian appointees in the Office of the SecDef decided to invite, over and over...notice anything? FOX News, FOX News, FOX News...and that gang, is why the public affairs people in DoD and this Administration are about as successful at this whole "propaganda" thing as Charlie Brown on the first day of football season.

If your intent is to swing the public opinion which has turned against the war (or at various points, "was turning"), then hello, you have to talk to those people, the people who hold different opinions. You do not go forth with public appeals and "talking points" to the people who rabidly support your every bowel movement and seek justification for holding the TP whilst you wipe!

The bottom line is that somebody who watches FOX News gets the absolute LEAST war news (about 30% less as I recall), and is likely already completely ideologically committed to the Administration anyway, so it serves no purpose. (Something that the civilian political appointees in the OSD/DoD Public Affairs offices apparently have difficulty understanding.)

Now I stated at the outset that there is a nugget here, and that is the business ties aspect of the story, that's legit. To a degree. But at the same time you don't see when a legal consultant is on the air, or a medical one, the depth of their ties to their own industries. The interlocking of the board memberships is also a bit problematic, and I think full disclosure on those points should have been made by the analysts. But then again, if the news organizations did not ask (or even inform/educate about the standards of journalism) their analysts the questions about their business connections, how were the retirees supposed to know about the journalism ethics? Osmosis?

A wise fellow once noted that "A Nation that would separate it's scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools." Well, on a similar note lets add the Bateman Corollary: "A nation that would separate its soldiers from its communicators will have its COIN (counterinsurgency) conducted by mutes and its communications done by the militarily illiterate."

You can vent to the author at R_Bateman_LTC@hotmail.com

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SWJ Editors' Links

TV Military Analysts Co-opted by Pentagon - Outside the Beltway

Smart IO Campaign or Out of Bounds? - Abu Muqawama

The Hidden Hand - MountainRunner

Pundits or Pentagon Puppets? - Intel Dump

Message Force Multipliers - Kings of War

All in all, it was an enlightening experience, and it was fascinating to get a glimpse of what professional wargame developers are doing in the military. Although board games are highly respected in this group, they are not taken seriously as modeling tools. To some extent I found that disappointing in that there is, in my opinion, too much dependence upon computer based agent interaction and stochastic processes, and too little upon the actual human interaction, which is where board games excel. The other problem I see is the black box issue related to computer-based simulations. This issue became very apparent as I quizzed the developers of the wargame we participated in and discovered that many of the governing assumptions were not based upon any sort of empirical or theoretical structure, but were simply invented out of whole cloth. This is information you would not know by playing the game, whereas with board games the system is open to examination and critical evaluation.

The Center For Naval Analyses (CNA) - certainly no stranger to MORS or to those well-read in counterinsurgency studies - published a very interesting monograph in September 2006 on the possibilities of wargaming such situations in board wargame formats, most notably using Card Driven Game (CDG) method pioneered by Mark Herman (currently at Booz, Allen and Hamilton) in his commercial hobby wargames. Entitled Wargaming Fourth Generation Warfare, authors Peter P. Perla, Albert A. Nofi, and Michael C. Markowitz would seem to solve some of Compton's complaints - if only commercial game designers could be taken seriously:

Our process of design then begins with identifying each player's worldviews and purposes. This leads to an assessment of the actions and means at their disposal, along with any constraints that may apply. This is perhaps the most difficult element of the design process to explain or envision. The designers must overcome the challenge of designing, in effect, multiple games, and then tying them together into a single coherent system.

We chose the currently popular mental models of DIME (Diplomatic, Information, Military, Economic) and PMESII ( Political, Military, Economic, Social, Infrastructure, Information) as the structural underpinnings for our assessments, as well as for many of the fundamental game-design parameters. Key among these parameters is the structure of the basic cards that drive the game's play. Use of a well-defined structure helps keep the design of the basic cards focused on critical elements, and helps us knit together the cards into a coherent fabric of play. What's more, this structural framework for the cards allows us to specify a process through which the players of the game might themselves define cards according to their own creativity and insights into the processes that the game proposes to investigate.

Such a design benefits from the strengths of a rigid-kriegspiel system, in which careful research underlies most assessments of actions and outcomes. At the same time, it opens the game to free-kriegspiel-style flexibility by allowing the players (and Control, for that matter) to create and invoke new ideas, but within a strong but flexible framework of game mechanics. The game we envision is largely player driven and action-centric, unlike games whose tendencies toward a Control-centric approach are, at times, regrettable....

Many of the techniques we have sampled or envisioned are similar to or adapted from techniques employed by commercial boardgame designers of card-driven wargames. As a result, we are confident that the approach we espouse can achieve many, if not all, the goals we set for it. What is most important at this early stage is that we know, in fact, that solutions to most - and hopefully all - the basic problems of wargaming 4GW exist. We have seen them in commercial games and in Naval War College games.

The investigations we have conducted and the ideas we have proposed have only started the ball rolling. All it will take for future game designers to develop effective new techniques - grounded in proven methods - to wargame Fourth-Generation Warfare much more successfully than in the past is thorough research, careful design, and expert execution.

Why, given the ready ability for commercial wargame designers such as Herman, Perla, Nofi, and others who comfortably sit within the Department of Defense operational analysis community, do we seem to nevertheless suffer from the problems that Compton notes above?

Over my nearly 27 years of active duty service as a Marine officer and as a hobby wargamer, I have sympathesized with thoughtful observers like Compton and wondered why it seemed so difficult to integrate commercial methods into "serious games" held within DoD. Below are some opinions on the issue:

Deus Ex Machina Syndrome: It's too easy to put blind faith in those "black box" simulations and believe in the Wizard of Oz. We do this to ourselves - I've been to a number of technology demonstrations in the modeling and simulation community. These demos tend to be long on "eye candy" graphics and short on trade show personnel who had the technical knowledge to talk intelligently about the variables and algorithms behind the design. Our oracles today are computer simulations and games and we tend to trust them too much. Conversely, board game systems are usually endlessly debated and tinkered with by game designers and players who have their particular take on the variables and adjudication procedures. This makes people who like to get "the answer" (and usually only ONE answer will do) uncomfortable.

Suspicion Surrounding Entertainment Games (and their Designers): Philip Sabin of King's College in London described this best in his excellent 2007 book, Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World, in the introduction:

People have been refighting ancient battles for decades using counters on a map or miniature figures on a tabletop, but it is only recently that the activity has acquired a higher public profile through the BBC television series Time Commanders, based on the 2004 computer game Rome: Total War. The popularity of wargaming as a leisure activity brings a certain stigma that has hitherto deterred its employment by academics (even those who are themselves wargamers in their spare time), but the technique is actually of much wider application....

Many existing battle simulations produced for the popular market are compromised by inadequate research and historical documentation and by the sacrifice of entertainment value--in Rome: Total War, for instance, battles last just a few minutes but involve enormous mutual casualties rather than the one-sided losses attensted by the sources.

These computer games aimed at the popular market engender suspicion quite naturally among those pursuing serious simulation to solve real problems. Yet even Sabin will acknowledge that within the small niche market of "historical enthusiasts," there are games of such depth and thoughtfulness that he claims "put many books to shame." The problem is that these kinds of games are not widely advertised or available and their players tend to keep to themselves. Many of these games are not very accessible, comprising of what seems to the uninitiated to be thick and opaque rulebooks, many pieces, and very slow playing time. Computer games are generally faster and easier to immerse oneself into.

Imprecise Metrics of Gain Versus Investment: The last problem is that the game experience is difficult to quantify, particularly when the "operating system" is laid open for examination and debate such as boardgames provide. Game sponsors want to know what benefits accrue from playing these "serious games," particularly when they see distinguished analysts, civilian senior leaders, and military officers rolling dice and moving tokens on a paper map. Actually, the problem occurs whether computer "black box" games or manual games are used; the best games focus on human interaction between players and insights gained from that experience. Participants walk away from the experience with more questions, better questions, and better ideas of where to look for the answers than they did before the game. But how can one put a price tag on this?

Commercial wargame designers have been sinking their teeth into the counterinsurgency gaming problem for some time and we can expect the fruits of their labor to finally see publication soon. The question Jon Compton implies still remains - will Department of Defense "serious games" eventually incorporate their design features or not?

Topics included the state of relations between academia and the military, Human Terrain Team anthropologists in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Minerva consortia to promote research relevant to national security, China, Iraq, religion and ideology, an ROTC initiative to improve foreign languages in the military, and what universities can do to support veterans.

The full transcript can be found here.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as "military analysts" whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air...

The article continues.

In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.

"It was them saying, 'We need to stick our hands up your back and move your mouth for you,' " Robert S. Bevelacqua, a retired Green Beret and former Fox News analyst, said.

Kenneth Allard, a former NBC military analyst who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, said the campaign amounted to a sophisticated information operation. "This was a coherent, active policy," he said...

Much more here and at NYT's multimedia piece - How the Pentagon Spread Its Message - chapters include The General's Revolt, A Private Meeting and Deployed on the Air. Also included are the primary source documents used by the NYT.

Michael Goldfarb, Weekly Standard, comments.

The piece goes on for some ten pages, with one damning revelation after the next.The Pentagon distributes talking points, provides special access to retired generals, and even arranged a meeting for them with the Secretary of Defense. You'll also be very surprised to learn that many retired generals have business interests in the defense industry.

The paper offers no evidence that any of these men were using their influence to directly further a personal interest (unless one counts "networking"), and it offers no evidence of coercion on the part of the administration. So the charge is a lack of transparency, and it rests on the assumption that Americans are too stupid to surmise the likely ideological and institutional biases of a former general officer in the United States military.

For my money, concerning understanding the complexities and trends in strategic communications / outreach and public diplomacy, I do my research (sanity check) at MountainRunner, an excellent resource by Matt Armstrong.

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SWJ Editors' Links

Stop the Presses! - Contentions

The NYT's Method and the Commentariat - Democracy Project

NYTimes Exclusive: Generals Know People at Pentagon - Weekly Standard Blog

Attacking the Military Analysts - PrairiePundit

Discuss at Small Wars Council

The war in Iraq has become ''a major debacle'' and the outcome ''is in doubt'' despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute.

The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush's projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations. It was published by the university's National Institute for Strategic Studies [SWJ Note: Institute for National Security Studies], a Defense Department research center...

The Miami Herald piece on a NDU "occasional paper" (Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath), quoted alternately as a Pentagon or NDU study, raised some flags here at SWJ. So we asked the author, Joseph Collins, to provide some context. His reply:

The Miami Herald story ("Pentagon Study: War is a 'Debacle' ") distorts the nature of and intent of my personal research project. It was not an NDU study, nor was it a Pentagon study. Indeed, the implication of the Herald story was that this study was mostly about current events. Such is not the case. It was mainly about the period 2002-04. The story also hypes a number of paragraphs, many of which are quoted out of context. The study does not "lay much of the blame" on Secretary Rumsfeld for problems in the conduct of the war, nor does it say that he "bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff." It does not single out "Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley" for criticism.

Here is a fair summary of my personal research, which formally is NDU INSS Occasional Paper 5, "Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath."

This study examines how the United States chose to go to war in Iraq, how its decision-making process functioned, and what can be done to improve that process. The central finding of this study is that U.S. efforts in Iraq were hobbled by a set of faulty assumptions, a flawed planning effort, and a continuing inability to create security conditions in Iraq that could have fostered meaningful advances in stabilization, reconstruction, and governance. With the best of intentions, the United States toppled a vile, dangerous regime but has been unable to replace it with a stable entity. Even allowing for progress under the Surge, the study insists that mistakes in the Iraq operation cry out in the mid- to long-term for improvements in the U.S. decision-making and policy execution systems.

The study recommends the development of a national planning charter, improving the qualifications of national security planners, streamlining policy execution in the field, improving military education, strengthening the Department of State and USAID, and reviewing the tangled legal authorities for complex contingencies. The study ends with a plea to improve alliance relations and to exercise caution in deciding to go to war.

SWJ Editors Note: Unfortunately this is not the first instance - nor will it be the last -- of highly selective use of source quotes and excerpts as well as distortion of context by members of the "mainstream media" in reporting on recent events and trends in Iraq...

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Update 1: The Herald article is a McClatchy News item picked up by the former (H/T Charles Bird).

Update 2: SWJ Editors' Links

The "NDU" Report - Abu Muqawama

Miami Herald's "Major Debacle": a Lack of Journalism - Hot Air

Distorted Antiwar Propaganda from McClatchy - Protein Wisdom

'Classic Case Of Failure' - Think Progress

Liberal Narrative on Iraq Might Not Be Going Official Yet! - Washington Independent

Not So Fast With That "Pentagon Study" - Outside the Beltway

The McClatchy Narrative on Iraq - Red State

McClatchey Misreports Iraq War Report - Flopping Aces

Less Than Meets the Eye in "Pentagon Story" - The Glittering Eye

Small Wars Has the Details - Argghhh!

Misrepresentation at the Miami Herald - Instapundit

Iraq War "A Major Debacle," Outcome "Is In Doubt" - The Huffington Post

MSM Distorts War Report - The Jawa Report

The Spring 2008 issue of the US Army War College's Parameters is posted.

Parameters, a refereed journal of ideas and issues, provides a forum for the expression of mature thought on the art and science of land warfare, joint and combined matters, national and international security affairs, military strategy, military leadership and management, military history, ethics, and other topics of significant and current interest to the US Army and Department of Defense.

Here is the line-up:

In This Issue - Parameters Editors

Revolt of the Generals: A Case Study in Professional Ethics by Martin L. Cook

The fact that a joke like that could be told in front of an audience including the President, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Chief of Staff, and many other Washington dignitaries spoke volumes for the state of relations between senior military leaders and their civilian superiors. For those recently retired general officers who chose to go public with their criticisms of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (and by implication the Iraq policy), clearly the situation had reached a point where they felt it was part of their obligation to the profession of arms and the American people to dissent. Such intense criticism from military officers who previously held positions of great responsibility in implementing the Administration's policies is something rarely seen in American history. This article will attempt to assess the ethical considerations that bear on officers contemplating such action in any future civil-military crisis.

The Limits of American Generalship: The JCS's Strategic Advice in Early Cold War Crises by Wade Markel

Last spring, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling reignited the perennial debate regarding American generalship with his article, "General Failure." He joined a number of critics in blaming America's senior military leadership, especially Army leaders, for the situation in Iraq. In his view, US generals failed the nation by not anticipating the nature of the war, thus failing to prepare the military for the war in which it is now engaged. Worse, he asserted that they failed to conduct counterinsurgency operations with competence, poorly integrating the political, military, economic, social, and information domains, if at all. In short, Yingling believed that America's generals had waged the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

The Mythical Shia Crescent by Pat Proctor

Sometime in late 2006, America awoke to the realization that, by deposing Saddam Hussein and toppling his Ba'athist regime, it had inadvertently removed a major obstacle to Iranian dominance in the Middle East. Assessments of the associated events reached hyperbolic levels. Dire warnings of a growing Iranian hegemony began to surface. Sunni leaders such as Jordan's King Abdullah II began to warn the West of an emerging "Shia Crescent," led by Iran and encompassing Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. The idea caught fire in American media and became the dominant narrative in discourse on Middle East policy.

But how realistic is this amalgamation? Is a Shia Crescent really emerging that is capable of challenging more than a millennium of Sunni domination in the Islamic world? Will Iran lead it? On the surface, the idea appears plausible. Yet, a more in-depth examination of the prospective members of this geopolitical realignment raises numerous questions. This intellectual shorthand may be blinding the United States to opportunities that could yield tangible progress on several strategic fronts in the Middle East, while providing a new ally in the global war on terrorism.

Meddling in the Markets: Foreign Manipulation by Felix K. Chang and Jonathan Goldman

No bombs need fall from the sky. Yet damage can be inflicted on the United States through market manipulation that would be as costly to recover from as any conventional attack. The threat of financial and commodity market manipulation is not new. What is new is the ability of a foreign government to use manipulation in a way that would cause a swift and systemic economic crisis in the United States. Such actions could be taken without ever clashing with the American military—offering those without the military capability to penetrate America's defenses an asymmetric tactic for direct attack. That a foreign government could do so should be a major concern for all of America's political and military strategists.

China through Arab Eyes: American Influence in the Middle East by Chris Zambelis and Brandon Gentry

The significance of Beijing's hosting of the second annual China-Arab Cooperation Forum—an event bringing together key envoys from 22 Arab nations under the auspices of the Arab League and their Chinese counterparts—went largely unnoticed in the western media. According to Chinese and Arab news reports, however, the conference, held in May and June 2006, was a success on many levels. As Chinese and Arab dignitaries agreed to greatly strengthen and expand economic, energy, and cultural ties to unprecedented levels over the course of the twenty-first century, Chinese President Hu Jintao, speaking warmly of the blossoming Sino-Arab relationship, stated, "China thanks the Arab states for supporting China in relation to Taiwan and human rights issues and will as always support the just cause of the Arab states and people." For his part, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa reaffirmed the League's support of the "One China" principle, declaring, "The world has but one China, and we only visit a China with Beijing as its capital."

The Strategic Importance of Central Asia: An American View by Stephen Blank

Undoubtedly Central Asia's strategic importance in international affairs is growing. The rivalries among Russia, China, United States, Iran, India, and Pakistan not to mention the ever-changing pattern of relations among local states (five former Soviet republics and Afghanistan) make the region's importance obviously clear. Central Asia's strategic importance for Washington, Moscow, and Beijing varies with each nation's perception of its strategic interests. Washington focuses primarily on Central Asia as an important theater in the war on terrorism. Additionally, it is viewed as a theater where America might counter a revived Russia or China, or a place to blunt any extension of Iranian influence. Moscow and Beijing view the region as a vital locale for defending critical domestic interests. This asymmetry of interest is a major factor in the competition among states for influence in the region.

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