Journal

Countering Corruption in Afghanistan

by Dan Rice and Guy Filippelli

Download the full article: One Cell Phone at a Time

American commanders are preparing for a major offensive in Afghanistan to attack one of the most formidable enemies we face in country: corruption. Despite sincere efforts to promote governance and accountability initiatives, Afghanistan has slipped from 112th to158th place on Transparency International's global corruption index. One reason the international community has been unable to effectively tackle corruption in Afghanistan is that our own reconstruction efforts perpetuate the problem. As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently acknowledged, "Corruption, frankly... is not all an Afghan problem." Money appropriated to secure and stabilize the country is too easily siphoned and redirected as it changes hands, inevitably making its way to local powerbrokers, insurgent networks, and offshore bank accounts, rather than the individuals who need it most. One solution to this problem lies in the palm of our hands: the mighty cell phone.

When Americans first entered Afghanistan in 2001 there was little infrastructure and no banking system in an entirely cash economy. Nine years later it is still a cash economy and 97% of the country remains "unbanked", but Afghanistan's thriving telecom industry offers a way to minimize graft. From a standing start, Afghanistan now boasts a cellular network of 12 million cell phones in country of 28 million. Mobile technology is the largest legal, taxpaying industry in Afghanistan and the single greatest economic success story in the country since the fall of the Taliban. The existing network also offers a proven way to help defeat corruption.

Download the full article: One Cell Phone at a Time

Dan Rice is the President of Sundial Capital Partners. Guy Filippelli is the CEO and President of Berico Technologies. Both are West Point graduates who have served as Army officers in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively.

by CDR Youssef Aboul-Enein, MSC, USN

Download the full article: Reflections on Algeria's Islamist Experiences, Past and Present

The revolutionary history of Algeria is inextricably linked to Islamist symbols and activism. It is important to comprehend that Islam tends to be exploited by Near East revolutionary movements as a means of exerting societal control. Upon its independence from France in August 1962, Algeria's religious clergy, who were long-suppressed by French colonial authorities, called for a rejection of secularism as practiced by the ideals of the French Revolution. The ideals of the French Revolution in its pure form, is a rigid secularism that has no place for God in government life. This form of French ultra-secularism, known as laí¯cité (laicism), rejects the mention of God in currency, and the invocation of God before and after public speeches. It is a battle being fought in France today pitting the rights of an individual to dress as they please, against attempts to pass legislation on the dress of practicing Muslim citizens. Of course, secularism is not monolithic, thus the attempt to apply laicism in the Muslim world has been met with natural aversion, and Islamist movements reacted strongly to such uncompromising interpretations of secularism.

Download the full article: Reflections on Algeria's Islamist Experiences, Past and Present

Commander Aboul-Enein is author of "Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat," recently published by Naval Institute Press. He recently graduated from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and will be teaching there part-time as Adjunct Military Professor and Islamic Studies Chair. CDR Aboul-Enein wishes to thank Dr. William Knowlton and Dr. Christina Lafferty of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces for their patient advice that enhanced the piece. In addition, CDR Scott Olivolo, MSC, USN who is completing his graduate studies in International Relations with the American Military University for his edits and discussion that enhanced this essay. Finally, statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

by Bradford Burris

Download the Full Article: PME for USARSOF (Part Three)

One way to educate United States Army Special Operators is by allowing organizational design and individual competencies to form the nucleus of a professional military education curriculum routinely evaluated against assessment variables such as the emerging strategic context, the requests of Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOC) or other customer units, and the feedback of deployed operators. This essay recommends an Army Special Operations Command-focused educational development process applicable to the career-long education and utilization of Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations professionals.

To make these recommendations, I consider why the organizational structure of the Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) should differ from that of their General Purpose Forces counterparts and identify the expected ARSOF mission set for the next twenty years as well as the professional competencies required to execute this expected mission set. I then offer a series of suggestions for how the recommended changes could be implemented.

Unlike the majority of academic thought papers that analyze and present data in a dry and mechanistic fashion, this essay presents several ideas for consideration utilizing the literary medium of fiction. The characters used to convey the ideas herein are figments of my imagination; any relationship to any actual former or future special operator is purely unintentional. What you take away from the following pages will depend on your desire to infer practical concepts from the nascent thoughts presented by members of the USASOC PME working group that, while it does not exist in reality, you will nonetheless find hard at work in the following paragraphs.

Download the Full Article: PME for USARSOF (Part Three)

Major Bradford M. Burris is an active duty Military Information Support Operations (or Psychological Operations) officer. He has served in various command and staff positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Major Burris earned a Master of Science in Defense Analysis at the United States Naval Postgraduate School. He currently serves as the Operations Officer of the 6th Military Information Support Operations Battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Editor's Note: This essay is the final part of a thesis the author penned while assigned to the Naval Postgraduate School. Part one can be found here. Part two can be found here.

Undermining Taliban Legitimacy by Highlighting Their Own Hypocrisy

by Colonel Greg Kleponis

Download the Full Article: Throwing the Book at the Taliban

My language assistant, Hamid came to me just the other day to express a safety concern he had for both he and his family. I paid attention because in the five plus months I have known him he never seemed to worry about security. In fact, one of the first things I noticed when arriving in Afghanistan was the lack of fear our Language Assistants, Cultural Advisors and local partners showed when working with us. This is in marked contrast from my observations during three years in Iraq where we lost more than a few interpreters to assassination. Hamid and I have traveled to various provinces throughout the country with the Deputy Minister and we have walked the streets of Kabul, in relative safety. What suddenly changed this? What did I see in his eyes that day that I had seen in the faces of my Iraqi Interpreters? I recognized it as fear and at last the real possibility that the enemy could and would take reprisals on those Afghans who assist us whom they most loathe -- interpreters.

He brought to my attention a communiqué allegedly released by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, issuing new orders to his commanders in Afghanistan, and obtained by NATO. A NATO spokesman stated that Omar issued the orders from Pakistan, calling on Taliban commanders to capture or kill Afghan civilians working for foreign forces or the Afghan government. This would represent a reversal of a previous order issued by Omar in 2009 directing the Taliban to avoid targeting civilians. In Hamid's words, "Sir they changed the rules!" I had no idea what he was talking about; rules for terrorists and insurgents? I then remembered that I had first heard about the Taliban's so called Rule Book from Dr. David Kilcullen, the noted Counterinsurgency theorist and adviser, over lunch at the Army Navy Club in Washington a few weeks prior. He also made mention of it in his book Counterinsurgency but only as a passing reference. The idea of a Rule Book for insurgents so intrigued me I decided to find out just what was in it, why it was issued, and how (knowing our experience with the Afghan National Security Force's [ANSF] habit of disregarding or selectively apply rules) how the Taliban was doing in the compliance arena. I also had to ask myself that if a 25 year old ethnic Tajik living and working in downtown Kabul "knew" the rules, how pervasive among the population was this knowledge and how could it be leveraged?

Download the Full Article: Throwing the Book at the Taliban

Colonel Greg Kleponis, U.S. Air Force, is currently assigned as the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Interior Minister/Security at NATO Training Mission Afghanistan / Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan. He was previously assigned as Division Chief, Policy, Requirements & Applications, Global Combat Support Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Installation, and Mission Support, Headquarters United States Air Force.

by James R. Van de Velde

Download the Full Article: Bring It On Worked

Through accident or design, mostly through accident and blunt trauma, the war in Iraq was brutal, costly in lives and money, and heavy-handed, but dealt al-Qa'ida a severe blow -- hopefully a fatal one and even better, a self-inflicted blow. By creating such a rallying cry for the West's alleged 'war against Islam,' thousands of al-Qa'ida fighters were directed to Iraq where they trained and committed terrorist acts. These acts killed the perpetrators, of course, and killed thousands of innocent Muslims and many American, and Coalition soldiers and civilians. But the attacks revealed al-Qa'ida's brutish nature, its willingness to kill Muslims, and its goal of achieving chaos and totalitarian rule in pursuit of deposing 'apostate regimes' and restoring a new Caliphate (under al-Qa'ida rule, of course) -- all of which undermined its legitimacy.

Download the Full Article: Bring It On Worked

James R. Van de Velde, Ph.D., a former Lecturer of Political Science at Yale University and a former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Naval Intelligence (Reserves), is a counter terrorism and WMD expert at the international consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.

A Critique of Paul Davis' RAND Study

by Daniel R. DePetris

Download the Full Article: Deterring Al Qaeda after Iraq

Today marks the last day of Operation Iraqi Freedom. So what? At what cost? To what end? Ever since the successful conclusion of the Cold War, U.S. academics and policymakers have frequently championed deterrence as a military concept. This, of course, is not without substance. Through a combination of nuclear weapons, large bases overseas, and the potential for quick military action, Washington was able to change the Soviet Union's behavior from a force who aggressively tried to expand communist ideology in the 1960's to a reserved and degraded confederation by the time of its collapse.

Deterrence is not just about the past, however. Today, the White House uses deterrence throughout its foreign policy, both to keep adversaries in check and to prevent violence from spiraling out of control once conflict is initiated. After Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, deterrence worked on Iraq quite significantly until the collapse of his regime twelve years later. The threat of mutually assured destruction continues to prevent the North Koreans (however "crazy") from invading its southern neighbor, lest the US military be drawn into the fighting. The most contemporary example of deterrence at work is the containment of the Iranians, who have become isolated in terms of the international community and boxed-in by U.S. forces along its southern coast (via U.S. naval vessels) and its western border (U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan).

Paul Davis- a researcher at the RAND Corp. - is now taking the concept further than it has ever gone before. In a recent study that was just published by the RAND Corp's National Defense Research Institute, Davis tries to assess whether old-fashioned deterrence theory can work on one of America's most dangerous contemporary foes: Al'Qaeda (AQ). Is it possible for the United States to deter AQ from launching large-scale attacks on American targets? And if so, can deterrence apply to other terrorist groups as well, say the Pakistani Taliban or Lashkar e-Taiba in South Asia?

Download the Full Article: Deterring Al Qaeda after Iraq

Daniel R. DePetris is an M.A. candidate in the Political Science Department of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. He is pursuing a specialization in security studies from the Institute of National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT). The views expressed in this article are his own and do not reflect the views of any organization.

Overcoming the Current Flawed Strategy

by John Ubaldi

Download the Full Article: Another Way in Afghanistan

All too often, the United States tries to impart a Jeffersonian style democracy into regions of the world which have had no history of democracy or into a complex tribal region of similar circumstance. If the United States Government wishes to be successful in Afghanistan, then it needs to reexamine its current Afghan strategy, understand traditional Afghan governance, and pursue a federal system of governing. Both the Bush and Obama administrations implemented flawed strategies in Afghanistan by focusing U.S. efforts on establishing a strong central government in Kabul as a way to build a cohesive national government. Both administrations failed/fail to understand the complexities of the Afghan tribal structure that resent a strong central government. Ultimately, Afghanistan needs a central government built around a federal system with strong autonomous regions.

For the United States to pursue an effective counterinsurgency strategy the center of gravity needs to be on the civilian population. The focal point of U.S. strategy should be in establishing a federal system of governing in Afghanistan, by centering our focus of efforts on the tribal structure and building up governance at the local level. The Afghan people don't want the return of the Taliban, but they represent something the central government in Kabul has not brought them; security and the end of corruption. As brutal as the Taliban where they were fair and acted in a swift manner, unlike the corrupt governmental officials in Kabul. The tribal structure will act as the governing body in the local areas, they will provide the security. We just have to show that we have their best interests at hand and will not leave them to the chaos that we did before. If we are to be successful in Afghanistan, we as allies need to pursue a successful counterinsurgency strategy which focuses on the tribal level.

Download the Full Article: Another Way in Afghanistan

Master Gunnery Sergeant John Ubaldi is a non-commissioned officer in the Marine Corps Reserves who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Currently, he is assigned as the Operations Chief for 3D Civil Affairs Group at Camp Pendleton California, and he is CEO of Military Briefing Book, an online news & consulting service.

The Reoccurrence of International Terrorism in Somalia

by Joe Royo

Download the Full Article: Afghanistan Part II

Recent events in Somalia are slowly grabbing the world's attention. Is the world paying attention, though? In the 1990s another country followed a similarly dysfunctional pattern -- Afghanistan. There are lessons to be learned from the way Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 1996 to how the al Shabaab terrorist network may be trying to seize Somalia. We should not only pay attention to the clues. We should act on those clues. The conditions are ripe to do something about it now. If something is not done now, we may be replaying what happened in Afghanistan with the Taliban all over again.

Download the Full Article: Afghanistan Part II

Major Joe Royo is a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer assigned to the Special Operations Training Detachment, part of the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, LA. He recently served with the 3rd Special Forces Group and has multiple combat rotations to Afghanistan and Iraq as well as experience in Pakistan. He holds a MA in Diplomacy from Norwich University.

A Rebuttal of the UN Commission of Inquiry

by Judy Mionki

Download the Full Article: Genocide in Darfur

The words 'Darfur' and 'Genocide' have been synonymous for quite some time now. The crisis in Darfur began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), composed mainly by the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit tribes, started accusing the Sudanese Government of oppressing the black Africans and being in favour of the Arab Africans. These two groups began attacks against the government and to counter this, the Sudanese Government military together with some African Arabs known as the Janjaweed militias, launched their own attacks. As in many conflicts, the civilians suffer the most. Whereas reports vary, the death toll is said to be about 300,000 people.

This essay aims to examine the findings of the Darfur Commission of Inquiry in relation to its approach to the crime of genocide. This will be done by analysing the purpose based approach used by the Commission to come to its conclusion. The essay will also attempt to prove genocidal intent in the Darfur case and it concludes by stating that the Commission erred in its findings and that Genocide was and is taking place in Darfur.

Download the Full Article: Genocide in Darfur

Judy Mionki holds a B.A in International Relations (United States International University-Africa) and is currently an LL.M student in International Law with International Relations at the University of Kent in Brussels. She has completed internships at the International Criminal Court, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and has monitored the Charles Taylor trial for the Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center.

by Colonel Gary Anderson

Download Full Article: A Retrospective on Combat in Iraq

When bombs began to fall on Baghdad on March 19th, 2003, I was doing some commentary with NPR anchor Neal Conan who was broadcasting a description of the kick-off of the war. One observation that I made to him that night was that, once the first shots in a war are fired, the plans of the side that initiates the fighting are subject to a series of permutations that the planners could not have predicted. I went on to further observe that, the longer a war lasts, it becomes subject to more and more permutations. As we near the August 31, 2010 deadline for the end of combat operations in Iraq, this long war has seen more than its fair share of ironic twists.

No-one in his right mind sets out to start a long and bloody war. Most planners have visions of short and glorious affairs. In every major conflict of the Twentieth Century, the war plan of the nation that initiated the conflict called for a short campaign. In fully sixty percent of those cases the war lasted longer than a year; and in eighty percent of those the initiating nation lost the war. Of those nations that lost long wars that they started, one hundred percent experienced regime change.

Download Full Article: A Retrospective on Combat in Iraq

Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps officer. He teaches a course in Alternative Analysis and is a Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

by Deane-Peter Baker

Download the Full Article: Is the US intelligence community misreading the Shabaab-Qaeda relationship?

In a recent report at Long War Journal an unnamed senior US intelligence official is quoted as saying that "Al Qaeda's top leadership has instructed Shabaab to maintain a low profile on al Qaeda links." This, according to the same official, is because "al Qaeda is applying lessons learned from Iraq, that an overexposure of the links between al Qaeda central leadership and its affiliates can cause some unwanted attention." The official added that "al Qaeda is pleased with the double suicide attack in Uganda, but suggested Shabaab reserve future strikes at US interests in the region."

Perhaps access to the intelligence sources available to the unnamed official would make it obvious to any analyst that this interpretation is correct. From an outsider's perspective, however, there are reasons to suspect that the intelligence community might, perhaps, have misread matters in this case.

Download the Full Article: Is the US intelligence community misreading the Shabaab-Qaeda relationship

Deane-Peter Baker is Editor of the African Security Review, Journal of the Institute for Security Studies, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership, Ethics and Law at the US Naval Academy and a 2010-2011 Academic Fellow of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. All opinions expressed here are his own and should not be taken to reflect the official position of any organization.

Realpolitik on the Horn of Africa

by Vincent G. Heintz

Download Full Article: Eritrea and Al Shabaab

Eritrea and Ethiopia are neighbors on the Horn of Africa. They share common languages, ethnicities, tribal structures and religious traditions. By outward appearances, they should co-exist symbiotically, like Canada and the United States. Instead, they resemble the Koreas -- each at the other's throat with no prospect for reconciliation on the horizon. Eritrean political culture over the past fifty years has spawned a national psyche consumed with fear and hatred of all things Ethiopian. That same culture has isolated Eritrea from the African Union (AU), the UN and the United States, and has driven the country into alignment with destabilizing regional forces for which it has no pre-ordained cultural affinity. Principal among Eritrea's unlikely allies is Al Shabaab, the al Qaeda-affiliated militia prosecuting the Islamist insurgency in Somalia and an expanding terror campaign in greater Africa. This article reviews the genesis of this strange alliance and explores potential military solutions.

Download Full Article: Eritrea and Al Shabaab

Major Vincent G Heintz is an Infantry Officer in the New York National Guard who has served in command and military advisor positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In civilian life, Major Heintz practices law in New York City.

by Bradford Burris

Download the Full Article: PME for USARSOF (Part Two)

One way to educate United States Army Special Operators is by allowing organizational design and individual competencies to form the nucleus of a professional military education curriculum routinely evaluated against assessment variables such as the emerging strategic context, the requests of Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOC) or other customer units, and the feedback of deployed operators. This essay recommends an Army Special Operations Command-focused educational development process applicable to the career-long education and utilization of Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations professionals.

To make these recommendations, I consider why the organizational structure of the Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) should differ from that of their General Purpose Forces counterparts and identify the expected ARSOF mission set for the next twenty years as well as the professional competencies required to execute this expected mission set. I then offer a series of suggestions for how the recommended changes could be implemented.

Unlike the majority of academic thought papers that analyze and present data in a dry and mechanistic fashion, this essay presents several ideas for consideration utilizing the literary medium of fiction. The characters used to convey the ideas herein are figments of my imagination; any relationship to any actual former or future special operator is purely unintentional. What you take away from the following pages will depend on your desire to infer practical concepts from the nascent thoughts presented by members of the USASOC PME working group that, while it does not exist in reality, you will nonetheless find hard at work in the following paragraphs.

Download the Full Article: PME for USARSOF (Part Two)

Major Bradford M. Burris is an active duty Military Information Support Operations (or Psychological Operations) officer. He has served in various command and staff positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Major Burris earned a Master of Science in Defense Analysis at the United States Naval Postgraduate School. He currently serves as the Operations Officer of the 6th Military Information Support Operations Battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Editor's Note: This essay comprises part two of a three-part thesis the author penned while assigned to the Naval Postgraduate School. Part one can be found here.

by G. Murphy Donovan

Download the Full Article: Signals and Noise in Intelligence

Media pundits have reduced the complex problems of tactical and strategic Intelligence to a kind of running joke. Failure to "connect the dots" is the common taunt. Such mindless euphemisms, when applied to national security analysis, reduce the signal/noise dilemma to a child's game. As a practical matter, conveying the correct signal to the correct receiver is the most difficult challenge in art, science, and especially, government. A signal is not singular. Indeed, signals are irrelevant without receivers. In similar veins; speakers require listeners, writers require readers, warnings require recognition, and analysis requires acceptance.

Many of the impediments to signals are internal to the Intelligence Community: this includes time honored vehicles like briefings and reports and less obvious barriers like structure, size, and politics. Intelligence collection and targeting systems operate efficiently today in real time. The strategic analysis process, however, does not provide a comparable return on investment.

Download the Full Article: Signals and Noise in Intelligence

G. Murphy Donovan is a Vietnam veteran, former senior USAF research fellow at the RAND Corp, and former Director for Research and Russian Studies for ACS/Intelligence, HQ USAF. Previous work has appeared in Studies in Intelligence, the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Parameters, and other national security publications.

by Lionel Beehner

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It has become a truism to say there are no military solutions to defeat an insurgency. That was the thrust of the U.S. military's 2006 counterinsurgency (COIN) manual as well as the mantras repeated by CENTCOM Commander David Petraeus, the manual's coauthor, and his "warrior intellectual" offspring. Conventional wisdom also holds that COIN takes years, if not decades, to complete and emphasizes a population-centric strategy to avoid civilian casualties and win locals' hearts and minds.

But Sri Lanka's successful victory one year ago stands all this conventional wisdom on its head. It was brute military force, not political dialogue or population control, which ended its brutal decades-long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, a separatist group perhaps most notorious for popularizing the suicide bomb. The final military campaign lasted months, not years or decades. It was a gruesome finale, to be sure. The Sri Lankan government paid little heed to outside calls for preventing collateral damage. While humanitarian workers and journalists were barred from entering the war zone, as many as 20,000 civilians were killed in the crossfire and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Tamils were corralled into camps after war ended . It was, as one journalist I spoke to in Colombo put it, "a war without witnesses." Hearts and minds took a backseat to shock and awe.

Still, the lesson from Sri Lanka's COIN experiment is that overwhelming force can defeat insurgents, terrorists and other irregular armed groups in relatively short order, but at a steep cost. Its model disproves the notion that counterinsurgencies must be drawn-out, Vietnam-like campaigns. With U.S. forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, it also provides states fighting small wars with a different counterinsurgency template. Not without reason did Pakistan and Thailand, which both face insurgencies on their peripheries, seek out Sri Lanka for military training and advice in recent months.

So do America's warrior intellectuals and COIN theorists have it all backwards? Should we be emphasizing military solutions over political compromises and accommodation, overwhelming force over clear-hold-and-build campaigns, defeating the enemy over winning locals' "hearts and minds"? Does Sri Lanka's COIN strategy provide any lessons for Washington as it escalates the war in Afghanistan, or for other countries facing violent insurgencies along their unruly peripheries?

Or does the fallout from the use of massive force—the high death toll, the lost hearts and minds, the accusations of war crimes, the unresolved grievances of ethnic minorities—negate whatever victory is achieved on the battlefield or goodwill that comes from a peaceful settlement? It is a perplexing question for military strategists. "The end of the Sri Lankan civil war," wrote Robert Haddick, a managing editor at the Small Wars Journal, "most especially the way it ended, with a clear military solution -- will cause many sleepless nights for Western counterinsurgency theorists."

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Lionel Beehner is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University and formerly a senior writer at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he is also a term member.

34th Commandant of the Marine Corps

Joint Force Quarterly Interview by David H. Gurney and Jeffrey D. Smotherman

publish this forthcoming JFQ article.

Download the Full Article: An Interview with General James T. Conway

JFQ: For several years, the Marine Corps has been operating very closely with the United States Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. To what degree have sea service skill sets atrophied, and do you sense that some increasingly see the Marine Corps as a second Army?

General Conway: I'll answer the second part first. The bottom line is that the Marine Corps, as we say, "does windows." That has prompted us in both Iraq and Afghanistan to operate 500 miles from the smell of salty sea air. But that's okay with us. If there's a fight to be engaged in, we're going to be there, and so we've made the necessary adjustments to make it all work. In 2003, we lined up alongside V Corps and 3d ID [Infantry Division], and did something that no MAGTF [Marine Air-Ground Task Force] has ever done—that is, to attack 500 miles from Kuwait to Baghdad and beyond. It really strained our capacity to do that, but we were pretty proud of ourselves that in the end we were able to make those kinds of adjustments. Going back to Iraq in 2004, and subsequently in Afghanistan, we've had to heavy-up, because of the threat, because of the employment methodologies, and so forth. So yes, we have in some ways become a second land Army.

I think we're able to morph in and out of those kinds of conditions and missions based on events, but we do not feel as though we are being properly employed as a second land Army. We have more to offer the Nation. When I go to meetings and I hear "Army and Marine Corps" talked about in the same breath, I get uncomfortable. It should be "Navy and Marine Corps." One day, again, it will be. But right now, we're simply doing what the Nation asks us to do. We're trying to keep current, and polish those Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard skills. My people get it, they buy into it, and as we see more dwell, 14 months at home between combat deployments, I think we're going to be able to return to our naval and amphibious roots on an increasingly incremental basis.

Download the Full Article: An Interview with General James T. Conway

Partnering with USAID and the Office of Reconstruction and Development

by Nicholas Dickson

Download the Full Article: Preventing Future Natural Disasters

On March 4, 2010, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mullen, discussed the future of the military in the 21st Century to the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth KS. ADM Mullen stressed that in our future conflicts, the United States military would need to be prepared for several eventualities. First, the Military should be the last resource used in the elements of national power at the President's disposal. Second, ADM Mullen stressed heavily that the Military must take care of the civilians. At one point, he mentioned that the military needed to focus on people and prevent strategic failures with tactical success. (Mullen, 2010) While this was an obvious nod to GEN McChrystal's new policies which attempt to limit civilian causalities in Afghanistan, it is easy to see this focus stretching out to almost all that the military encompasses. It is essential that we carry this focus to all aspects of our efforts. Most importantly, it is necessary to examine an unexplored crisis developing in our nation's efforts. The majority of our military led construction projects do not adequately address proper design or engineering standards commensurate with the level of geological risk in the development area. This is a failure which will damage our reputation, or relationships, and has the potential to kill innocent civilians in the future.

One of the key aspects of the military's efforts to reach out to civilians and local leaders is the Civil Affairs team. These teams, as part of the Special Operations Forces missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, have unique access to the populace. With this access comes an unparallel chance to build trust with the local civilians and government organizations. It is through this trust that the majority of the efforts to legitimize the host nation occur. ADM Mullen highlighted this during his speech when he said, "trust is the coin of the realm." (Mullen, 2010) GEN McChrystal's new strategy in Afghanistan attempts to earn the trust of the populace by separating the population from the insurgency and attempting to limit events which could harm this trust. However, our current policies on Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) projects, and especially our implementation of these projects, do not currently show the planning or execution to keep the trust of the populace. The mutual support, or lack thereof, between the Department of Defense (CERP) and Department of State projects has already been explored at length in many Congressional studies. What has not been explored is how CERP projects for infrastructure and buildings are potentially setting the stage for future failures in this trust with our host nation partners and citizens and how Civil Affairs forces can work to prevent this from happening.

Download the Full Article: Preventing Future Natural Disasters

Major Nicholas Dickson is an active duty civil affairs officer who has served in various team leader and staff positions in tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. As a professional civil engineer, his experience in his tours highlighted issues which formed the basis of this article. He is currently serving with the 97th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) at Fort Bragg NC.

Continuing the Discussion on the Reported Death of the Armor Corps

by Thomas Weiss

Download the Full Article: Mostly Dead

In mid-April, COL Gian Gentile offered what amounted to an Armor Corps post-mortem in a piece for Small Wars Journal called The Death of the Armor Corps. Recently in the same pages, Major James Smith and Major James Harbridge wrote a rebuttal entitled A Combined Arms Response to Death of the Armor Corps. The first question which came to mind after reading the latter piece was: if two Jacks beat a lone King in poker, do two Majors trump a Colonel in a doctrinal argument?

COL Gentile, in many important respects, echoes the arguments made by three former BCT commanders in a white paper diagnosing the Field Artillery with a similar disease, entitled The King and I (which was, ironically, forwarded to me by a gleeful Armor officer some two years ago). In essence, both arguments state that the capability of the maneuver, fires and effects elements of the Army to prosecute a high intensity conflict has been drastically reduced by our commitment to the counterinsurgency competencies employed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, COL Gentile plainly declares that the Armor corps "is no more."

In their rebuttal, Majors Smith and Harbridge seem to be saying, like the old man about to be put onto a meat wagon in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "We're not dead yet." They offer examples of units transitioning the spectrum of conflict and proffer that as an Army, our strength "is our ability to adapt and innovate while still retaining the ability to relearn our core competencies."

Three fundamental questions arise from these two articles. First, is the Army truly at a place where its combined arms competencies have degraded almost to the point of non-existence? Second, if these competencies have degraded, does it constitute a crisis or a point from which we may never return? And third, looking beyond our current conflicts, how should we best organize and train our forces?

Download the Full Article: Mostly Dead

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Weiss is an active duty Field Artillery Officer with served in various command and staff positions in multiple tours to Iraq. Currently, he is rehabilitating at Fort Sam Houston, TX, following injuries received in Iraq last year.

An Analysis of the Bushehr Nuclear Plant and Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks

by Renanah Miles

Download the Full Article: Iran Goes Nuclear

Iran won't swerve first and Russia will do as Russia pleases are, perhaps, the intended takeaways from Sunday's ceremony opening the Bushehr nuclear power plant. The event itself was uncharacteristically subdued, factual, just one more tick on the clock counting down to Iran going nuclear. But in light of Bushehr, it's a very different announcement made two days prior that is most worth considering: Resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks next month. Progress in the talks is critical to buying Israel, America and wary Arab states strategic room to maneuver with Iran.

With impeccable timing, the news preempted the spotlight from Bushehr, and will likely do so again in September. The planned start date for the talks -- September 2 -- is purportedly linked to the expiration date of the Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank at the end of September, an incendiary issue that if resumed would likely burn bridges to negotiation yet again. If talks start on time though, it will handily refocus attention off another Iranian milestone the same weekend -- Bushehr is scheduled to become operational Sunday, September 5.

Download the Full Article: Iran Goes Nuclear

Renanah Miles is a student in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. From 2007-2008, she deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The views in this article are her own. They do not reflect the official views of the United States Government.

New Threats and New Methods

by Stephane Dosse

Download the Full Article: The Rise of Intrastate Wars

Ultimately, the war among the people rising is really one of the "symptoms" of a temporary global decline of the concept of "State" and of the interstate warfare. An evolution of the political organizations and practices involves a change of the methods to make war. Nobody can really say what will be the face of war during the next decades even if for the next years, the hybrid threats may probably entail new types of operations which will combine counter insurgency, stabilization and interstate war knowledge. A large share of information and the understanding of the environment, the opponents and the populations should be the keys of the future warfare. The greatest armed forces in the world will thus have to train both for interstate and intrastate wars. What seems to be the most important is to adapt all aspects of these forces to intrastate warfare: command and control systems, organization, equipment, and mentalities. Those who dare not to adapt will run the risk of defeat. To paraphrase Charles Darwin, it is neither the strongest nor the most intelligent competitor that survives, but rather the most adaptive to change.

Download the Full Article: The Rise of Intrastate Wars

Major Stéphane Dosse is a French Army Officer who currently is a student at the Collí¨ge Interarmées de Defense (French joint staff college), promotion Maréchal Lyautey. He is a graduate of the French Military Academy at Saint-Cyr and also holds a Master of Arts in defense and international security from Grenoble University in France. He has deployed to the former Yugoslavia, Africa, and Lebanon.

Past the Motorcycle Diaries towards understanding Che Gueverra

by Hugues Esquerre

Download the Full Article: Deep Into the Insurgent's Mind

The second half of the 20th century was dominated by the Cold War; however, partisan warfare, guerrilla warfare, brush-fire wars, civil wars, rebellions and insurgencies -- what British Major General Charles Callwell summarizes as "small wars" -- continued to proliferate throughout the world. Western militaries focused almost exclusively on preparing for high intensity, technologically advanced warfare. Meanwhile, the study of insurgencies and the development of counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine essentially came to a halt. Since 2001, the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have once again brought the study and development of counter-insurgency principles and doctrine back to the forefront of Western military thought . For the most part, these "new counter-insurgency doctrines " have been based on the works of theorists like the Frenchmen Bernard Fall , David Galula and Roger Trinquier , the American John J. McCuen , or the Englishmen Frank Kitson and Robert Thompson . Although these works are valuable resources, they focus primarily on the American, English, French and even sometimes the Soviet counter-insurgency experiences and perspectives . The shortfall of these works is that they fail to examine the insurgency from the point of view of the insurgent.

As every soldier or strategist knows, one must "turn the map around" and view the situation from the enemy's perspective. One must understand and anticipate his opponent's most likely courses of action in order to defeat him. As such, it is very interesting to try to enter into the mind of an insurgent to understand how an insurgency is conceived, developed, and led on "the other side". Of even greater interest and value, given the insurgencies currently being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, is to choose to study insurgents who won their fights within the last six decades. The number of insurgents that fit this criteria are relatively small, with the most famous being Mao Zedong, who defeated the Chinese nationalists to seize power (1949), Ví´ N'Guyen Giap, who served as Hí´ Chi Minh's strategist against the French (1954) and the Americans (1975), and finally Che Guevara, who took a prominent role in the rise to power of Fidel Castro in Cuba (1959).

In analysing the publications produced by each of these insurgents, the works of Che Guevara, and particularly his book Guerrilla Warfare , stand-out as an excellent "guidebook" to the mind of an insurgent. Indeed, after the victorious Cuban campaign of the late 1950's led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, it was Guevara's goal to publish and widely disseminate what he considered to be the best rules and practices to ensure victory to any insurgency. Due to the influence and impact of Guevara's book, it is now considered by counter-insurgency theorists to have an equal place of importance next to the revolutionary doctrines of Mao . As a result, the study of Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare is extremely pertinent because it clearly lays out the keys to weaken, discredit, and ultimately defeat - sometimes before it has really even started - an insurgency.

Before delving into Guevara's insurgency theories found in Guerrilla Warfare in the second part of this article and before identifying in a third and last part what are the weaknesses of his theories and what can be useful for a counter-insurgency force to defeat an insurgency, one must first put this book into context by remembering, without any political or ideological blindness, who Che Guevara was and what he did. This will allow the reader to avoid any preconceptions and to concentrate only on his theories and their usefulness in modern counter-insurgency warfare. That's the aim of the first part of this article.

Download the Full Article: Deep Into the Insurgent's Mind

Major (FRA MC) Hugues Esquerre is an officer in the French Marine Corps who served in tours to Kosovo, Gaboon, the Horn of Africa, and Afghanistan. He is a graduate of the Collí¨ge Interarmées de Défense in Paris.

The Necessity of Targeted Killing

by E. Walker Nordan Jr.

Download the Full Article: The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Over the last four decades, terrorism has grown to be recognized as not only the popular, but openly-accepted method among Islamic extremist factions in making a political statement. Through the practice of airline hijackings and bombings through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, to the astonishing blow to the United States on September 11th, 2001, radical Islamists have ultimately been successful in striking fear into the hearts and minds of people world-wide, innocents and combatants alike. Though most democratic nations of today have the standard policy of not accepting, sponsoring, or even negotiating with terrorists; very few have a policy of eradicating them. Israel, however, has maintained a practice of openly engaging terrorists through "targeted killings". Israel has raised a great deal of controversy in the international community as to whether or not targeted killing is an acceptable form of warfare, and more specifically, whether or not targeted killing is identical to "assassination".

I shall assert that targeted killing is distinctly different from assassination and fits within the guidelines of international law -- though some changes should be made; additionally, with the changing face of the battlefields of today, I shall argue that targeted killing should be supported by the international community and embraced by the United States as not only an acceptable form of warfare, but the form of warfare against terrorism for the future.

Download the Full Article: The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Major E. Walker Nordan is an active duty Psychological Operations officer that has served in the USASOC community for over eight years, with experiences in combat in Iraq serving at the Joint Task Force level and in leading a Military Information Support Team for Ambassador Crocker in support of the Department of State and USSOCOM.

Targeting Violent Extremists While Developing Rule of Law Capacity

by Steve D. Berlin

Download the Full Article: Conviction Focused Targeting

Stability operations present unique, simultaneous challenges to traditional intelligence-driven operations and rule of law (ROL) development. As units expand from purely offensive operations into increasing stability operations, host nation entities must concomitantly become increasingly responsible to suppress violent extremist networks (VEN) and other criminals within their borders. However, even though the host nation authorities are to assume more responsibility for VENs and other criminal activities as stability operations evolve, the conundrum is that these extremists often remain the primary focus of U.S. Forces (USF) because they pose the largest threats to host nation, and hence regional, stability. In order to be effective, intelligence-driven targeting within stability operations must operate in conjunction with the host nation legal systems. During the shift to increasing stability operations, commanders must also shift their targeting philosophy to combat violent extremism by means of the host nation criminal justice institutions. The host nation systems in turn become stronger; thus, USF will target VENs while simultaneously strengthening the host nation ROL systems.

Perhaps the greatest impediment that many commanders face in combating violent extremists during full spectrum operations is that they operate solely on intelligence-based targeting. They rely on intelligence to find, fix, and capture violent extremists. These violent extremists then become security or criminal detainees and some commanders then hope that they will one day be punished for their actions. To ensure these violent extremists are properly punished for their crimes, commanders should instead leverage the host nation legal system. In order to use the host nation criminal legal system, commanders should not look at facts they gather only as intelligence, but also as evidence. Intelligence, in turn, becomes evidence for use in host nation criminal prosecution and this evidence, in turn, also feeds into intelligence.

As USF conduct stability operations; or, more importantly, shift from offense focused operations to increasing stability operations, units must find practical methods to simultaneously support ROL development while targeting violent extremists. This article posits a model when USF and the host nation conduct stability operations by working as true partners. While this article is Iraq-centric, its methodology applies to any host nation legal system. Commanders should work alongside host nation legal systems however they are aligned. Thus, when units then plan to target violent extremists, they should do so using a law enforcement partnership model that focuses on convictions rather than stopping at the warrant threshold. Doing so moves us past a catch-and-release program while simultaneously strengthening host nation institutions and removing violent extremists from the operating environment.

Commanders should therefore create prosecution support teams. These teams pull together a brigade combat team's organic Soldiers, Department of State personnel, and contractors to team with host nation security forces. The combined forces then create a task force that targets VENs. The USF will deliver evidence and evidentiary leads to their host nation partners. Together they will develop criminal cases to eliminate the VENs using the local judicial system. The ultimate goal of the organization is not simply kill or capture, but for the local courts to convict the violent extremists and for them to face punishment. This method not only targets VENs and eliminates them from the community, but also simultaneously builds rule of law institutions. Thus, the U.S. will leave the host nation more capable of controlling its own security.

Download the Full Article: Conviction Focused Targeting

Major Steve Berlin is an active duty U.S. Army Judge Advocate presently assigned as Brigade Judge Advocate, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82d Division (Airborne). He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, University of Florida, and the Judge Advocate General's School. He wrote this article while deployed to Iraq.

The Impact on US Military Advisory Efforts

by Ben Williams

Download the Full Article: Transition to Iraq Sovereignty

ODA (Operational Detachment Alpha) 5122 and its principal partner force, the 7th RCB (Regional Commando Battalion) were instrumental in disrupting the activities of Sunni Insurgent Groups in northern Iraq throughout late 2009. In less than six months, this combined force conducted over 50 operations, attained an 85% capture rate, and detained five of the ODA's top ten HVIs (High Value Individuals). These successes were not simply a direct result of our own diligence and professionalism, but also a reflection of the professionalism and high level of ability of our Iraqi counterparts.

Simultaneously, our combined, aggressive, precise, and counter-terrorism efforts were complemented by an equally aggressive and robust array of shaping efforts. Relationships with local civic, religious, and military leaders were cultivated and networks of influence expanded. The ODA also orchestrated no fewer than ten carefully developed and successful Psychological Operations. These were implemented using multiple forms of media and were intended to shape the perception of local nationals, incite violence between rival threat groups, and discredit specific HVIs. This paper explores a representative cross section of the ODA's activities during the latter half of 2009. This is the story of a small group of men who thought and acted unconventionally, and were able to leverage their capabilities to obtain maximum effects within their area of operation.

Download the Full Article: Transition to Iraq Sovereignty

Captain Ben Williams is a U.S. Army Special Forces Officer with multiple deployments to Iraq. He currently commands an ODA in 1/5th Special Forces Group (A). Prior to his assignment to 5th SFG (A) he served as a MiTT advisor to the 4/6th Iraqi Army and as a Task Force Engineer with the 101st Airborne Division (AASLT). CPT Williams is a graduate of both the University of Michigan and Princeton University. His military education includes Officer Candidate School, Engineer Officer Basic Course, Maneuver Captains Career Course, and Special Forces Detachment Officer Qualification Course

The Social Psychological Development of Radical Spiritual Leaders

by John Ty Grubbs

Download the Full Article: Constructing the Revolution

Sayyid Qutb is widely acknowledged as the unchallenged Islamist ideologue of the past century. Virtually every piece of contemporary literature about Islamic terrorism makes at least a perfunctory reference to the radical spiritual leader. The dawn of the 20th century gave birth to several movements in the Middle East. Zionism, Arab Nationalism, and Radical Islamism, all came to the world stage in varying degrees, and it was Qutb that became the godfather of Islamist thought. Due to his role as the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), he was executed by the Egyptian government in 1966. Nevertheless, his legacy lives on.

Since the British occupation in 1882, modernity, secularism, and Western-style education were becoming more prevalent in Egyptian society. The rapid infusion of commerce, political diversity, and progressive culture created friction with Egypt's Islamic traditionalists. Perceived oppression under British rule was further exacerbated by the British Mandate of Palestine, the United Nations Partition of Palestine, and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Israelis know it as The War of Independence, while Arabs know it as al-Nakba (the catastrophe). Calls for reform could be heard in Egypt long before 1948. However, the events that unfolded after the British Mandate of Palestine engendered an unforeseen level of discontent in the Arab world. Sayyid Qutb and the MB capitalized on this anger.

Qutb was born in 1906, in the northern Egyptian farming village of Musha. His family was caring, religious, and well-respected in the community. While he may have been considered a pious child, nothing indicates his views were ever radical. Rather, the popularly-held belief is that his radicalization occurred over time. Several historical events are usually cited: the British occupation, al-Nakba, Qutb's experiences in the U.S., and the events he endured during imprisonment in Egypt. There is no doubt that all of these events played a major factor in his intellectual maturation. However, looking at these events alone reveals little about the social psychological reasons behind radicalization.

Download the Full Article: Constructing the Revolution

John Ty Grubbs is a recent graduate of Kansas State University's Security Studies M.A. program. As a Department of Defense contractor, he previously worked for the Joint IED Defeat Organization and the Multi-National Force - Iraq Strategic Communications Division. His essay "The Mongol Intelligence Apparatus" recently received an award from The International Institute for Intelligence Education

by Dianna Wuagneux

See Full Article: Identity, Insurgency & Healing

A constant challenge faced by the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan is the ability of the Anti-Coalition Forces (ACF) to steadily reinforce its ranks through the recruitment of a seemingly unending supply of fresh human reserves. Though the Taliban , et al are known to recruit from a variety of sources (e.g. particular madrassas and more fundamentalist villages on both sides of the Durand Line), among the most lucrative hunting grounds are those places where refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) languish in political and geographic limbo.

While the numbers vary from one agency to the next, Refugees International estimates that at present over 3 million Afghans remain refugees. Nearly all reside in decaying, ramshackle camps lacking basic health, education, or food facilities and over 300,000 are approximated to be suffering from the effects of contaminated water and substandard food today. The overcrowded shelters provided most often consist of makeshift tents which cannot protect the inhabitants from the extreme environment, or provide women and their children with basic privacy and protection.

The needs of these Afghans are for the most part neglected by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (IROA), CFS, and donors alike. In recent months many refugees and IPDs have made efforts return to their former homes. They are largely undocumented, disenfranchised, and unwanted where ever they go, leaving them, like their counterparts remaining in the camps, particularly susceptible to the attentions and motivations of ACF. Like any predator, Taliban and other ACF recruiting scouts are seeking the prey most vulnerable to their intentions. This includes individuals who, because of their experiences and circumstances, are both angry and malleable, such as young and impressionable males without much in the way of resources or future prospects and who lack sufficient mature patriarchical guidance. These landless, disenfranchised populations offer the ACF an abundance of low-hanging fruit.

See Full Article: Identity, Insurgency & Healing

Dr. Dianna Wuagneux holds an earned doctorate in international relations with a MBA in cultural studies. She is currently an independent international advisor for Fragile States and Nations in Transition in the former Soviet Union, N. Africa, the Middle East, India, and Central Asia with more than 18 years experience as an international adviser for international humanitarian organizations, the US military, government agencies around the world. In 2009- early 2010, Dr. Wuagneux worked border stabilization issues for the UN between Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan for UN Central Asia out of Dushanbe. During 2008, Dr. Wuagneux provide expertise as executive advisor the DOD (JIEDDO) relevant to nation-building, cross-border negotiations, governance, conflict mitigation, civil-society, capacity building, reconstruction and development for the nation of Iraq. Throughout 2006 and early 2007, Dr. Wuagneux served as the Senior Policy Advisor for reconstruction and development in Afghanistan for both the Department of State and Department of Defense.

Progress Made and Future Challenges

by Robert M. Guido

Download the Full Article: U.S. Efforts to Combat Terrorism Financing

The United States and the international community have made great strides against al Qaeda since September 11, and counter-terrorist financing policies will remain a vital component of future efforts. The successes in tightening and shoring up the international financial system in the post-September 11 era, however, cannot be taken for granted. Al Qaeda and its affiliates have shown remarkable resilience and an ability to structurally evolve to survive the best efforts of the international community. To maintain progress in squeezing al Qaeda's finance, governments will need to continually adapt counter-terrorist financing policies to address the simpler but untraceable methods of moving cash and assets such as hawala, and work collaboratively to combat alternative methods of finance that capitalize on the ever-present and growing field of international criminal activity.

Download the Full Article: U.S. Efforts to Combat Terrorism Financing

Robert M. Guido has served for the past four years as military legislative assistant to a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He received a M.A. in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College, a M.A. in International Relations from American University's School of International Service, and a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

by Bradford Burris

Download the Full Article: PME for USARSOF

One way to educate United States Army Special Operators is by allowing organizational design and individual competencies to form the nucleus of a professional military education curriculum routinely evaluated against assessment variables such as the emerging strategic context, the requests of Theater Special Operations Commands (TSOC) or other customer units, and the feedback of deployed operators. This essay recommends an Army Special Operations Command-focused educational development process applicable to the career-long education and utilization of Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations professionals.

To make these recommendations, I consider why the organizational structure of the Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) should differ from that of their General Purpose Forces counterparts and identify the expected ARSOF mission set for the next twenty years as well as the professional competencies required to execute this expected mission set. I then offer a series of suggestions for how the recommended changes could be implemented.

Unlike the majority of academic thought papers that analyze and present data in a dry and mechanistic fashion, this essay presents several ideas for consideration utilizing the literary medium of fiction. The characters used to convey the ideas herein are figments of my imagination; any relationship to any actual former or future special operator is purely unintentional. What you take away from the following pages will depend on your desire to infer practical concepts from the nascent thoughts presented by members of the USASOC PME working group that, while it does not exist in reality, you will nonetheless find hard at work in the following paragraphs.

Download the Full Article: PME for USARSOF

Major Bradford M. Burris is an active duty Military Information Support Operations (or Psychological Operations) officer. He has served in various command and staff positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Major Burris earned a Master of Science in Defense Analysis at the United States Naval Postgraduate School. He currently serves as the Operations Officer of the 6th Military Information Support Operations Battalion at Fort Bragg, N.C.

by Phillip S. Meilinger

Download the Full Article: Primitive Violence, Culture, and the Path to Peace

There is an old saw among political scientists that democracies seldom fight other democracies. Although the accuracy of that statement often hinges on definitions—was 1914 Germany an autocracy because of the Kaiser, or a budding democracy because of an elected Reichstag—it is nonetheless largely valid. It has thus been a tenet of US diplomacy to urge the spread of democracy worldwide. Richard L. Armitage, the former Deputy Secretary of State, said recently in an interview: "every President except John Quincy Adams has been involved in the belief that the world is made better by a U.S that is involved in the protection of human freedoms and human rights across the board." He went on to assert that "every postwar President has believed we have a duty to spread democracy."

At times, as with Presidents Ronald Reagan and both Bushes, that quest has been a major factor in foreign policy. Ironically, when President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize, he stated that negotiations would not force terrorists to lay down their arms; rather, "force is sometimes necessary [and that] is not a call to cynicism—it is a recognition of history." He went on to argue that "the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace" and that "force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That is why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace." These are interesting words coming from a man not viewed as a hawk; yet, implementing such a vision is problematic.

Wishing for peace and the growth of democracy will not produce them. Although the fall of the Soviet empire has spawned nascent democracies in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Russia itself seems to be backsliding into its traditional form of Oriental despotism. The democratic experiment in tribal Afghanistan is certainly an advance over the dismal situation that had existed under the Taliban, but the future of freedom in that unhappy nation is not assured. As for Iraq, time will tell if elections are truly inclusive and credible enough to bring all parties to the negotiating table of democratic government, much less whether the government can defend itself against hostile neighbors and internal rebels.

When looking ahead to the prospects of democracy spreading in dark corners of the globe, it may be useful to look backwards first. The tribal, fractional, culturally driven, and in some ways primitive nations we are trying to influence today are not unlike those we have confronted in the past.

Download the Full Article: Primitive Violence, Culture, and the Path to Peace

Phillip S. Meilinger is a retired Air Force colonel with a PhD in military history from the University of Michigan. He is the author of eight books and over eighty articles on military theory and practice.

by Thomas Bundt

Download the Full Article: Reexamination of a Quintessential Joint Force Operation Case Study: Urgent Fury

Although Operation Urgent Fury, the 1983 American-led intervention in Grenada, was a successful operation from a public approval standpoint, significant concerns developed over the performance of the joint command structure charged with the conduct of the mission. Examination and reassessment of relevant literature reveals the overall operation as a textbook case study of the intricacies of joint forces command. In an effort to continue to capture historical lessons learned, further introspection of Operation Urgent Fury, if only to reexamine the primary shortfalls of a joint command experience, is necessary. Reviews of literature mixed with current updates to this operation delineate significant components and recommendations for consideration in future joint doctrine reviews. This analysis narrows the components and recommendations into three mutually 'inclusive' categories as they relate to three key joint force doctrine tenets: command and control, operational techniques, and equipment interoperability (joint procurement/acquisition).

Operation Urgent Fury was the U.S. response to the growing destabilization in Grenada that climaxed with the assassination of Maurice Bishop, Grenada's president. Following the Iranian crisis and expansion of communist presence in the region, this operation proved critical to America's prestige and commitment to national security. Because of the nature of the crisis, the time in our nation's history, and the prior military fiasco demonstrated by Operation Desert One, diplomatic and military bodies seriously considered the measures necessary to ensure success. The primary mission imperatives included the neutralization of the Grenada forces, protection and evacuation of US and designated foreign nationals, stabilization of the internal situation, and transition to peacekeeping. To complete these mission imperatives, the US deployed nearly 6,000 soldiers, marines, airman, and sailors to the region under the command and control of a single joint force commander.

Although this vast force complied with the mission imperatives, significant incidents and unintended casualties resulted from deficient command and control relationships, unfamiliarity with operational designs, and the lack of interoperability of key equipment. Some of these same themes likewise resonate with current challenges in present day joint operations such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. Specific to Operation Urgent Fury case study these issues raised great concern for Department of Defense planners, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense in the mission's aftermath. Aside from specific lessons learned annotated in after-action reviews, the single greatest commitment to amend these shortcomings was the enactment of the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act legislation.

Download the Full Article: Reexamination of a Quintessential Joint Force Operation Case Study: Urgent Fury

LTC Thomas S. Bundt is a Medical Service Corps Officer and the Commander of the 187th Medical Battalion, 32nd Medical Brigade, at Fort Sam Houston Texas. LTC Bundt has served in a variety of command and staff positions from Mechanized Infantry to fixed Army Hospitals. His latest overseas tour was to Iraq where he served as the Deputy Health Attaché to the US Embassy in Baghdad working directly with the Minister of Health on the first implemented health policy since Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is published in several journals to include Military Medicine, AHIMA, and Military Review. LTC Bundt holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Washington, a Masters in History and International Relations from Louisiana State University, a Masters in Healthcare Administration, a Masters in Business Administration and a Doctorate in Health Services Research from the University of Florida and a M.A. in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College Class of 2009.

by Adam Elkus

Download the Full Article: The Hezbollah Myth and Asymmetric Warfare

Since the early 1990s, military theorists examined ways that a rogue state, substate, or nonstate actor could frustrate a conventional force. The 2006 Israeli clash with Hezbollah came to be seen as the harbinger of an era of cheap missiles, stronger defenses, and danger to conventional forces. Hezbollah's supposed success furthered a growing notion that a strong high-end asymmetric warfare defense could make a country a poison pill for foreign intervention.

But this narrative does not capture the conflict's ambivalent results, exaggerating Israeli difficulties while overplaying Hezbollah's performance. The Hezbollah myth also masks the ability of a sufficiently driven and equipped state to use conventional military power to annihilate a weaker state or substate group. While the operational challenges of high-end asymmetric threats do pose dangers for conventional forces that deserve sustained analysis, the strategic question of whether high-end asymmetric warfare can effectively deter a conventional force hinges instead on the political context of the conflict and the adversaries who fight it.

Download the Full Article: The Hezbollah Myth and Asymmetric Warfare

Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing on foreign policy and security. He has published on defense issues in Small Wars Journal, West Point Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel, Defense Concepts, and other publications. He is currently the Associate Editor of Red Team Journal.

The Pentagon is Not Preparing for the Most Likely Conflicts

by Dr. Roy Godson and Dr. Richard H. Shultz, Jr.

Joint Force Quarterly has kindly granted Small Wars Journal permission to publish this forthcoming JFQ article.

Download the Full Article: A QDR for All Seasons?

The end of the Cold War and the massive changes in the conflict environment that ensued launched the United States on a transformational path in military force planning. In 1996, the first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) set out a vision of the two regional contingencies model, with the Nation equipped and able to dominate in two major conventional wars at the same time. But the outlines of a different kind of conflict setting began to emerge as the United States attempted to protect its interests in several different regions. The first decade of the 21st century has shown clearly that the way the Nation thought about and prepared for war in most of the 20th century requires a major overhaul. But change comes slowly.

The years following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq were filled with adversity and indecision among the military leadership about how to overcome a different type of foe. The 2006 QDR appeared to be an attempt to refocus the Pentagon's warfighting approach to meet the challenge. In that assessment, the Department of Defense (DOD) acknowledged that a serious gap existed between the changed nature of conflict and the doctrine and means it had available for fighting it. DOD stipulated that irregular warfare (IW) had become a vital mission area for which the Services needed to prepare. Post-9/11 combat was depicted as "irregular in its nature." Enemies in those fights were "not conventional military forces." Rather, they employed indirect and asymmetric means. Adaptation was the way forward.

The 2006 QDR also set in motion IW initiatives inside DOD leading up to the December 2008 release of DOD Directive 3000.07, "Irregular Warfare." That directive was unambiguous about 21st-century conflict, declaring: "Irregular warfare is as strategically important as traditional warfare," and it is essential to "maintain capabilities . . . so that the DOD is as effective in IW as it is in traditional [conventional] warfare." Moreover, according to Directive 3000.07, the capabilities required for each type of fight were different.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had been among the most vociferous advocates, reinforcing the message in numerous statements, lectures, congressional testimony, and popular articles. Gates was by no means alone in the Pentagon and administration. But despite direction at the top, consensus was elusive. Many within the Joint Chiefs organization, Defense bureaucracy and industry, and Services viewed post-9/11 irregular fights as anomalies—ephemeral trends generated by particular circumstances. Furthermore, they held that conventional or general purpose forces could handle them.

Download the Full Article: A QDR for All Seasons?

Dr. Roy Godson is President of the National Strategy Information Center, a Washington, DC--based nongovernmental, nonpartisan educational organization. Dr. Richard H. Shultz, Jr., is Professor and Director of the International Security Studies Program in the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

The Clarion Call

by Colonel Charles D. Allen

Joint Force Quarterly has kindly granted Small Wars Journal permission to publish this forthcoming JFQ article.

Download the Full Article: Redress of Professional Military Education

In 1908, the American short story writer O. Henry penned "The Clarion Call." This title has become synonymous with a powerful request for action or an irresistible mandate. As the Nation looks to the institution of the U.S. Army during an era of persistent conflict and after 9 years of war, it is time to recapture professional military education (PME) as part of our profession.

The Army is arguably the largest and best educational and training institution in the United States. It has a strong, established educational program that seeks to provide the right Soldier with the right education at the right time. Without doubt, even as we have fought two wars, there have been laudable advances to include an expanded graduate school program, increased numbers of international fellows at our schools, and an effort led by the Chief of Staff of the Army to broaden the experiences of the officer corps with more opportunities to serve in think tanks, interagency positions, and world-class universities.

For the officer corps, this PME program is ingrained from pre-commissioning through promotion to general officer. Unfortunately, even with the advances mentioned above, what is presented in official policy as an espoused value does not always translate into what is valued within the Army in the real world. More importantly, the gap between espoused and enacted values is significant and growing. Without action to arrest this trend, the Army risks the professional development of its senior leaders as well as its competency as a force to meet the Nation's needs in the years ahead.

Developing promising senior and strategic leaders is an obligation of the military profession. At a recent Military Education Coordination Council meeting in Washington, DC, several uniformed members asked questions about the types of conflict that we should prepare our senior officers for. In the contemporary operating environment, the focus has understandably been on the curriculum within the colleges: what is taught, how it is delivered, and by whom (faculty) in order to provide relevant education to senior officers. Two essays from the National War College and Naval War College, respectively, captured the discussion of the joint PME and Service-specific senior PME content and methodology in a recent issue of this journal. As important as curriculum and faculty are, they are moot issues if those officers who have the greatest potential to serve as strategic leaders deem attendance at one of our war colleges unnecessary and are allowed to bypass it.

Download the Full Article: Redress of Professional Military Education

Colonel Charles D. Allen, USA (Ret.), is Professor of Cultural Science in the Department of Command, Leadership, and Management at the U.S. Army War College.

The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal

by Dr. Robert Bunker

Download the Full Article: The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal

The recent release by WikiLeaks.org of over seventy thousand classified U.S. Military documents pertaining to the insurgency in Afghanistan has generated immense media and public interest and is being compared in scale to the release of the 'Pentagon Papers' in 1965 by Daniel Ellsberg. Immediate U.S. governmental condemnations concerning unnecessarily placing troops in harm's way, on the one hand, combined with war crimes accusations, on the other, have only served to heighten the rhetoric surrounding the posting of these documents on the Web. The criminal and unauthorized manner in which this massive volume of documents was leaked has only helped to further politicize and emotionally galvanize commentators taking sides on this issue.

The intent of this short essay is to move past the hype, rhetoric, and passions of the moment and get to the core of the issue at hand. The ugly truth has nothing to do with who released the documents, why they were released, or even what political outcomes and potential policy fallout will occur after the dust settles. The core issue at hand is that insurgencies, by their very nature, are inherently brutal. This point was recently driven home after doing a considerable amount of research and reflection on issues pertaining to insurgent use of targeted killing, via both the techniques of assassination and political execution, and engaging in subsequent discourse on this topic with insurgency warfare scholars and practitioners. Further sensitizing me to this truth is that, prior to the insurgent analysis, I was recently involved in an edited book project on Mexican drug cartels and the criminal insurgencies taking place within the lands of our Southern neighbor with over twenty-five thousand dead since December 2006.

Download the Full Article: The Ugly Truth: Insurgencies are Brutal

Dr. Robert J. Bunker holds degrees in political science, government, behavioral science, social science, anthropology-geography, and history. Training taken includes that provided by DHS, FLETC, DIA, Cal DOJ, Cal POST, LA JRIC, NTOA, and private security entities in counter-terrorism, counter-surveillance, incident-response, force protection, and intelligence. Dr. Bunker has been involved in red teaming and counter-terrorism exercises and has provided operations support within Los Angeles County. Past associations have included Futurist in Residence, FBI Academy, Quantico, VA; Counter-OPFOR Program Consultant (Staff Member), National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center—West, El Segundo, CA; Fellow, Institute of Law Warfare, Association of the US Army, Arlington, VA; Lecturer-Adjunct Professor, National Security Studies Program, California State University San Bernardino, San Bernardino, CA; instructor, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA; and founding member, Los Angeles County Terrorism Early Warning Group. Dr. Bunker has over 200 publications including short essays, articles, chapters, papers and book length documents. These include Non-State Threats and Future Wars (editor); Networks, Terrorism and Global Insurgency (editor); Criminal-States and Criminal-Soldiers (editor); Narcos Over the Border (editor); and Red Teams and Counter-Terrorism Training (co-author— forthcoming). He has provided over 200 briefings, papers, and presentations to US LE, MIL, GOV, and other groups in the US and overseas. He can be reached at bunker@usc.edu.

al-Qaeda's Newest Jihad Zone?

by Malcolm Nance

Download the Full Article: The Strait of Hormuz: al-Qaeda's Newest Jihad Zone?

After the July 28 explosion alongside the Japanese oil tanker M. Star in the Strait of Hormuz initial speculation was that it had struck a derelict sea mine from the 1991 Iraq war, encountered a rogue wave from an earthquake in Iran or had a collision with a whale or submarine. Pundits and even some counter-terror observers, particularly those in the Gulf States, spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to explain it away with any possibility except the most obvious one - terrorism. That can no longer be ignored.

When news of the incident broke caution was called for in the region as to assigning a specific cause and terrorism was specifically rejected as likely.

Here in the UAE, skepticism is the preferred form of denial and critics of the suicide boat theory are being given strong voice. The very mention of the possibility of terrorism originating in or near the United Arab Emirates is met with hushes and alternative explanations, hence the whale, wave and submarine theories. The "T" word (Terrorism) is not welcome in public or political discourse. Some political pundits claim that conventional war with Iran is a greater threat to the Strait. That may be true solely in relation to Iran's nuclear ambitions, but a wave of successful al-Qaeda suicide attacks could destabilize the markets in a way that rising tensions with Iran cannot.

Download the Full Article: The Strait of Hormuz: al-Qaeda's Newest Jihad Zone?

Malcolm W. Nance is a counter-terrorism and terrorism intelligence consultant for the U.S. government's Special Operations, Homeland Security and Intelligence agencies. A 20-year veteran of the US intelligence community's Combating Terrorism program and a six year veteran of the Global War on Terrorism he has extensive field and combat experience as an field intelligence collections operator, an Arabic speaking interrogator and a master Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) instructor.

Right Doctrine, Wrong War

by Jason Thomas

Download the Full Article: The Cognitive Dissonance of COIN

The psychological investment in COIN is now so deep that the cognitive dissonance would be too great to change course or admit COIN is the right doctrine for the wrong war. Cognitive dissonance theory suggests that despite contrary evidence, people are biased to think of their choices as correct. Like climate change, so much has been invested in counterinsurgency with huge reputations at stake, that anyone who challenges COIN in Afghanistan could be labeled a COIN skeptic.

No matter how much we try to win the hearts and minds, no matter how many millions of dollars is spent on development and regardless of attempts to improve governance and eliminate corruption, the socio-cultural ecosystem of Afghanistan does not respond to the doctrine of counterinsurgency. While the pockets can be won the heart and minds in Afghanistan will always remain notoriously capricious.

There are many reasons to continually question COIN from every angle, but the two this paper is concerned with are i) whether COIN could be the right military doctrine being applied in the wrong campaign; and ii) preparing for the next major unconventional war -- as is often the case in political campaigns and war, we tend to find ourselves fighting on the issues, theories or practices in the last campaign.

This paper will attempt to "play the ball and not the man" by pointing to the range of reasons unique to Afghanistan on top of self-imposed obstacles that reinforce the hypothesis of right doctrine, wrong war.

Download the Full Article: The Cognitive Dissonance of COIN

Jason Thomas has completed an eight month mission in Afghanistan as the Regional Manager for a USAID implementing partner. The role involved delivering counterinsurgency operations with US and Coalition Forces in three Provinces in Afghanistan - Ghazni, Wardak and Logar. Before Afghanistan Jason had worked in the civil war area in Sri Lanka after establishing one of the largest private responses to the Boxing Day Tsunami in Victoria, Australia. This also involved negotiating with the Tamil Tigers and being the first Westerner allowed by the GOSL into the high security zones following the end of the civil war last year. Jason implemented the Kokoda Track Project in Boroondara in 2008 taking disadvantage youth up the Kokoda track with the support of the Victorian Police, Hawthorn Football Club and the Kokoda Veterans from the 39th Infantry Battalion - this has now been adopted by the YMCA as an annual event. He has worked as Director of Research in the New Zealand Parliament for ACT New Zealand, political advisor in the House of Commons and House of Lords, London and as well as being political strategist for CEOs and Boards of Australian ASX 100 companies. He was Queen's Relay Baton Runner for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, nominated for Citizen of the Year in 2005 and awarded a Paul Harris Fellow in 2006.

by Cora Sol Goldstein

Download the Full Article: President Obama: Look for a New Massoud

It is often said that foreign powers are condemned to fail in Afghanistan. This is an over-simplification -- the ancient history of Afghanistan is the history of successive and successful foreign occupations that radically changed the country and its prevailing ideologies. It is true that in modern times imperial powers have systematically lost their Afghan adventures. In all cases, the invading armies tried to deploy a reduced number of troops and attempted to keep their casualties low. They relied on their technological superiority in their efforts to impose a central government that could be controlled from afar. The U.S. is losing Afghanistan because it is adhering blindly to this model.

It is imperative to free American policy from the straitjacket of misconceptions that shapes U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

Download the Full Article: President Obama: Look for a New Massoud

Cora Sol Goldstein is an Associate Professor of Political Science at California State University, Long Beach. Goldstein received her Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago in 2002. Her book, Capturing the German Eye: American Visual Propaganda in Occupied Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009) discusses the U.S. experience in postwar Germany. Her recent publications include  "2003 Iraq, 1945 Germany, and 1940 France: Success and Failure in Military Occupations," Military Review, July 2010 and "A Strategic Failure: American Information Control Policy in Occupied Iraq," Military Review, March-April 2008.

Down at the District

A Look at the

District Delivery Program

by MAJ Gail Fisher

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In foothills of eastern Afghanistan on a brilliant

spring day, district elders from Sayyidibad crowd into a cold, sunlit room in

the cinderblock district center.  They listen to speeches from men smartly

dressed in western style just arrived from Kabul.  

An enormous wooden table sits squarely in the middle

of the room.   The district center was built only three years ago, but a

florescent light already dangles precariously from the ceiling, one end free of

its anchor.  Burnt-orange curtains, stained and torn, hang on the windows. 

Brightly colored plastic-wrapped snacks are brought in with tea, and the

Provincial Governor gives his speech over the rattle of opening snacks and

sipping of tea.

The Provincial Governor speaks of endless disappointments, the Afghan central

government's broken promises, and proposes a way forward in the district. 

Promise and caution comingle in the morning's remarks.

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MAJ Gail Fisher is a U.S.  Army Reserve Civil Affairs

officer serving in the Future Operations Section of ISAF Joint Command, Kabul,

Afghanistan as a stability operations planner.

Strategic Communication &

Influence Operations

Do We Really Get 'It'?

by Dr Lee Rowland  & Cdr

Steve Tatham RN

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The last 2-3 years have seen an explosion in interest in the application of influence

as a tool for achieving military objectives.  This is not new, the military

have always sought to exert influence -- albeit at times unwittingly.  However,

two significant events have brought the issue to further prominence - the publication

of JDP3-40 and the deployment of 52 Brigade to Helmand Province in 2007/8. 

This article does not intend to debate either in any detail -- a quick search of

inter and intra nets will provide plenty of information for the curious

reader -- but there are two issues worthy of slightly more discussion. 

The first concerns 52 Brigade's deployment.  When Brigadier Andrew Mackay

led 52 Brigade to Helmand Province he did so having examined previous kinetic based

deployments and concluded that these, for various reasons, had not achieved the

effects that he envisaged for his mission.  For him the consent of the population

was utterly key and would not, nor could it, be achieved by hard power alone or

even with hard power primacy; as he developed his operational design he felt frustrated

that existing doctrine did not adequately prepare him to operate within the influence

arena.  The second is that Andrew Mackay subsequently became one of the driving

forces behind JDP3-40 and in particular the forceful articulation of the 'centrality'

of influence.  However, the 'how to do it' guidance still lags behind the emphasis

on and enthusiasm for, its use.....

This paper seeks to provide greater clarity in two key areas -- Target

Audience Analysis (TAA) and Measurements of Effectiveness (MOE).

Download the full article

Lee Rowland is a former Royal Marines Commando. He holds a Ph.D. in Experimental

Psychology and was co-director for the M.SC. in Psychological Research in the Department

of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University. He now directs the Behavioural

Dynamics Institute.

Cdr Steve Tatham is completing a PhD in Strategic Communication and was formerly

Director of Advanced Communication Research at the Defence Academy.

Thai Village Security Lessons for

Afghanistan

by Jeff Moore

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the full article

As General David Petraeus takes over military command in Afghanistan, a major

point of contention has arisen regarding village security forces -- are they to be,

or not to be?  Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his supporters are weary,

saying village security forces will become tools of warlords and undermine central

authority.  General Petraeus and his subordinates think they are valuable to

their COIN strategy.  A hyper-political debate, full of miss direction, is

likely to follow as both sides maneuver to control the issue.  Village security,

however, is essential to separating the people from insurgents, no matter what the

war.  Examples from Thailand's COIN successes can help show the way forward.

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the full article

Jeff Moore is an assistant professor at National Defense University's Irregular

Warfare Department.  He is latter stage PhD candidate at the University of

Exeter. His subject is Thai COIN strategies and tactics and his dissertation analyzes

lessons learned from Thailand's past successful and current COIN campaigns to reveal

patterns on how the Thai strategize and execute counterinsurgency.  Moore's

work experience includes executive protection details and protective intelligence,

corporate security in Southeast Asia, and defense contracting for various government

entities, including the U.S. Army G-3 in the Pentagon.

Army Capstone Concept & the Genesis

of German World War One Assault Squad & Infiltration Tactics 

The Historical Linkage

by Dave Shunk

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the full article

How German Captain Willy Rohr changed infantry tactics, weapons and doctrine

within the World War One German Army is a remarkable story.  He succeeded in

his task as a result of the German Army's ideas of operational adaptability, mission

command and decentralized authority.  This paper presents by historical example

the basic ideas and inherent power in the Army Capstone Concept based on the German

model.  But first, a few Capstone Concept definitions as a baseline reference....

Operational adaptability requires a mindset based on flexibility of

thought calling for leaders at all levels who are comfortable with collaborative

planning and decentralized execution, have a tolerance for ambiguity, and possess

the ability and willingness to make rapid adjustments according to the situation.

Operational adaptability is essential to developing situational understanding

and seizing, retaining, and exploiting the initiative under a broad range of conditions.

Operational adaptability is also critical to developing the coercive and persuasive

skills the Army will need to assist friends, reassure and protect populations, and

to identify, isolate, and defeat enemies. 5

So how did the Germany Army of World War One use decentralization, mission command,

and operational adaptability to create infiltration tactics and revolutionize infantry

tactics in World War I? The story revolves around a Captain Willy Rohr.

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the full article

Dave Shunk is a retired USAF colonel, B-52G pilot, and Desert Storm combat

veteran whose last military assignment was as the B-2 Vice Wing Commander of the

509th Bomb Wing, Whitman AFB, MO. Currently, he is a historical researcher and DA

civilian working in the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC), Fort Monroe,

Virginia. He has a National Security Strategy MS from the National War College.

The Saudi Option

by Tristan Abbey and Scott Palter

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The year is 2012. Squadrons of F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s streak across the sky,

swamping air defenses and neutralizing other key Iranian installations. The next

wave targets the uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz and Qom, the nuclear power

station at Bushehr, the conversion plant in Isfahan, and the heavy water plant at

Arak. Within hours the Iranian nuclear program is crippled. As the armada returns

to base, the head of state who ordered the attack readies to congratulate the pilots

who carried it out.

 "Peace be upon you all," King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz says to his men.

"Your bravery humbles me. The Saudi Kingdom will be forever grateful.

 *         

*          *

Since the Bush administration forced the issue of Iran's nuclear program to the

fore in 2002, debating the merits and perils of a preemptive airstrike has become

something of a favorite pastime. Amid all the chatter about narrow corridors and

Saudi "green lights" lies an inescapable truth: a surprise Israeli strike has never

been more unlikely.

The contours of the problem have remained largely unchanged over the years. The

United States risks too much by attacking Iran, while an Israeli strike is difficult

to achieve without American backing. None of the countries that could conceivably

grant Israel over-flight rights—Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia—relishes the thought

of being seen as complicit in a Zionist-Crusader foray against yet another Muslim

country. Logistical requirements, namely limited refueling capacity, restrict the

Israeli Air Force's options to but a single multi-squadron assault of questionable

long-term effectiveness. Tel Aviv, essentially, has one bullet.

Download the full article

Tristan Abbey is in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Scott Palter, a professional wargame designer and publisher, is President of Final Sword Productions, LLC. Both are senior editors at

Bellum: A Project of The Stanford Review.

Interviewing Tactics in Counterinsurgency

by Stacy S. Lamon, Ph.D., Nahama

Broner, Ph.D., John Hollywood, Ph.D., and COL Billy McFarland, USAR

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There is a recent growing body of literature on strategic, operational and theoretical

approaches to interacting with insurgents, as well as official documentation on

the topic.  Though there is demand for it, often from junior officers, surprisingly

little attention is given to the applied, boots-on-the-ground questions of "How

do I do it? Who do I ask? What do I ask them?" and"How do I ask it?" 

Not since Galula's 1964 manual on counterinsurgency has a basic hands-on approach,

written for the user, been offered. Using techniques from criminology, police investigation,

military science, psychology, and social network analysis, as well as practices

learned in the field, this article provides a framework for organizing tactics of

how to conduct interviews in non-controlled settings with the uninvolved man or

woman in the street and the bystander or victim aware of insurgent activities, as

well as the non-combatant collaborator and functionary of an insurgency, and a framework

for interviews in semi-controlled settings such as government or police offices.

In effect, this article walks the reader through the interview process step-by-step,

question-by-question, from planning to execution to analysis.  In doing so,

it provides a basic tactical answer to the question "How do I do it?" -- This

is how it can be done.

Download the full article

Dr. Stacy S. Lamon, a clinical and forensic psychologist and research scientist,

is currently a senior development advisor to the United States Agency for International

Development (USAID) in Iraq. 

Dr. Nahama Broner as a senior research psychologist at RTI International and

adjunct Associate Professor at New York University researches violence (victimization

and perpetration), public health and safety risk management interventions of offender

populations, and the translation of research to practice.

Dr. John Hollywood is an operations researcher at the RAND Corporation, where

he studies intelligence collection and analysis methods to preempt violent attacks

in the areas of crime prevention, counterterrorism and counterinsurgency.

COL Billy McFarland, USAR, is the Assistant Chief of the U.S. Army's Foreign

Area Officer Proponent, the Pentagon office responsible for the design, support

and advocacy for the Army's Foreign Area Officers -- the language, regional and political-military experts serving commanders, Defense agencies, and Embassy Country Teams around the globe.

Terrorism or Insurgency:

America's Flawed Approach to the Global

War on Terror

by Jon C. Couch

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the full article

America is not fighting a global war on terror; rather, it is engaged in a global

insurgency whose participants are intent on destroying western culture and replacing

it with an Islamic Caliph -- or Islamic government.  For centuries, insurgencies

and other forms of strife have plagued the global community.  Likewise, terrorists

claimed center stage for high profile acts attributed to this asymmetric type of

warfare; most notably the bombings on September 11, 2001, as well as earlier attacks

on US embassies in Africa.  The problem is that the United States has incorrectly

coined the current conflict the global war on terror when the term global

insurgency more closely describes the conflict. The present global environment,

complete with the technologies available (to the United States and its enemies)

and the strategic decisions made by the United States of how to counter these threats

will shape America's future, positively or negatively.  If the correct threat

is realized and that threat's correct center of gravity chosen for attack, as well

as a correct long term strategies and policies chosen and applied, America could

very well succeed in this conflict. If, on the other hand, the incorrect threat

and center of gravity are pursued resulting in the wrong strategy being chosen;

America will fare poorly in the current conflict, and may very well lose the conflict.

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the full article

Jon Couch enlisted in the USMC in 1979. Mr. Couch originally trained to be

an amphibious Reconnaissance Marine and then in 1982 changed his job specialty to

Intelligence Analyst and later Special Forces Survival Instructor. Mr. Couch went

on to serve in aviation and logistical units before being medically retired at twenty

years active service. After retiring, Mr. Couch worked as a contractor at the Marine

Corps' MAGTF Staff Training Program. Since 2003, he has been working at the Joint

Personnel Recovery Agency as a Personnel Recovery Instructor, Observer-Trainer,

Supervisory Intelligence Analyst, and Course Manager for the Intelligence Support

to Personnel Recovery Course.

Recruiting, Development, and Retention

of Cyber Warriors Despite an Inhospitable Culture

by Lieutenant Colonel Gregory

Conti and Lieutenant Colonel Jen Easterly

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Recruiting, Development, and Retention of Cyber Warriors Despite an Inhospitable

Culture

Make no mistake, our nation faces persistent, widespread and growing threats

in cyberspace. Across the array of dangerous actors and their capabilities, we've

witnessed an evolution from data compromise and loss, to the disruption of information

networks to the physical destruction of information systems. Our military forces,

in particular, depend heavily on classified and unclassified networks for command

and control, intelligence, operations and logistics. These networks -- over 15,000

of them -- represent a very tempting target, and the number of attacks against them

has increased dramatically over the past several years.  The United States

Government recognized the clear and present danger posed by this increasingly perilous

threat environment and created United States Cyber Command. 

We are at a unique cusp in history, as we have the first-ever opportunity to

create a large-scale organization to fight and win wars in cyber space.  

This isn't a trivial undertaking; there are myriad details that must be addressed. 

In this article, we focus on what is arguably the most important -- the human dimension,

specifically how we attract, develop, and retain a world-class cadre of cyber warriors. 

By building the best possible team and creating an environment that attracts more,

we can lay the foundation upon which we can successfully build Cyber Command. 

However, while the Defense Department has endorsed Cyber Command, the kinetic warfighting

culture generally has not. Positive strides have been made recently to include the

development of the Navy's Information Dominance Corps and planned establishment

of the Army's Cyber Brigade.

However, building the most effective Cyber Command will require fundamentally

changing military culture -- specifically how we think about networks and how we

manage the talent that we need to leverage these networks for warfighting effects.  

Uncomfortable, but necessary change will be required, else we risk creating a large

bureaucracy, staffed with marginally effective individuals, a "Cyber Command" in

name only.  This article presents a viable way ahead and suggests actionable

solutions for building, developing and retaining a world-class team.

Download the full article: 

Recruiting, Development, and Retention of Cyber Warriors Despite an Inhospitable

Culture

LTC Gregory Conti is an Academy Professor and Director of West Point's Cyber

Security Research Center. He holds a BS from West Point, an MS from Johns Hopkins

University and a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology, all in Computer Science.  

He is the author of Security Data Visualization (No Starch Press) and Googling Security

(Addison-Wesley) as well as over 40 articles covering computer security, online

privacy, and cyber warfare.  He is a frequent speaker at leading security conferences

including Defcon, Black Hat, RSA, and Shmoocon.  He recently returned from

a deployment as Officer in Charge of Cyber Command's Expeditionary Cyber Support

Element in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

LTC Jen Easterly is a member of the US Cyber Command Commander's Action Group

(CAG). She served as the first Commander of the Army Network Warfare Battalion from

July 08 - July 2010.  She holds a BS in International Relations from the United

States Military Academy and an MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the

University of Oxford.

No, Really: Is the US Military Cut

Out For Courageous Restraint?

by Jason Lemieux

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No,

Really: Is the US Military Cut Out For Courageous Restraint?

General (GEN) Stanley McChrystal's recent dismissal has spurred a host of articles

that quote US troops complaining about his controversial rules of engagement (ROEs)

directives in Afghanistan. The reasoning underlying these complaints usually shows

a lack of understanding of counterinsurgency doctrine, an unwillingness to accept

its logic, or both.  The stubborn refusal of many servicemembers to accept

McChrystal's "courageous restraint" directive calls into question our military's

suitability for population-centric counterinsurgency.

By now, the reasoning behind the restrictive ROEs is well known: Insurgents depend

on support from the civilian inhabitants (whether the distinction between insurgents

and "civilian inhabitants" is always meaningful is another question) of their theater

of operations. GEN McChrystal termed it "Insurgent

Math": Every time you kill an innocent person, you create ten new insurgents.

GEN McChrystal further elaborated that, "Destroying a home or property jeopardizes

the livelihood of an entire family and creates more insurgents."

In a June 23, 2010 radio bit titled, "Troops Surprised About Gen. McChrystal's

Ouster," NPR correspondent Tom Bowman

told his

colleague that, "Now, clearly, you know, [the troops] don't want to kill innocent

civilians, but they believe their hands are tied in going after the Taliban." 

It's certainly true that a portion of the troops, perhaps the majority, have no

desire to kill innocent civilians.  What America is not being honest with itself

about, however, is that a significant minority don't really care how many civilians

are killed as long as they are allowed to do what they imagine to be their jobs:

Download the full article: 

No,

Really: Is the US Military Cut Out For Courageous Restraint?

Jason Lemieux served in the US Marine Corps infantry from 2001-2006. After

serving his third tour in Iraq under a voluntary ten-month contract extension, Lemieux

was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant. In December 2010, Lemieux will

receive his B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University. He is currently

a research intern for the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and

International Studies in Washington, D.C. The views expressed here are his own.

A Game Theory Analysis

by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Chad Machiela

Download the full article: Gun Control in Counterinsurgency

Throughout 2006, Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) coalition forces and the farmers of the al Jazeera Desert of Iraq struggled to cooperate while pursuing separate goals. Consistently, the desire by MNC-I to impose populace and resource control measures to limit use of the area by insurgents clashed with the needs of the populace to survive and care for their families. One issue in particular resulted in the repeated arrest of farmers who intended no crime but to protect their families and left the farmers with no choice but to support the insurgents—the coalition's policy for gun control. Game theory provides commanders and policy officials a methodology to analyze the options available to disparate actors within a competitive situation or conflict, to predict likely adversary and population reaction to plans or policy, and to help develop courses of action beneficial to all.

The al Jazeera Desert is a sparsely populated region, bordered by Lake Thar Thar to the west and Main Supply Route (MSR) Tampa between Samarra and Tikrit to the east. Because of the coalition's top-down method of controlling Iraq, this rural area hosted no coalition forces. Coalition patrols instead focused on protecting MSR Tampa and the pipeline between the population centers of Samarra and Tikrit. Because the area was without cell coverage, residents could not call on security forces for assistance when threatened by insurgents or criminals, providing insurgent forces an ideal area for hiding, training, and reconstituting before traveling back into the larger population centers to resume direct conflict. Criminals flocked into the desert to remain out of the reach of government forces and prey upon the isolated farms.

In 2006 the coalition's populace and resources control measure for management of privately owned weapons was to allow each Iraqi household to maintain one AK-47 or AK-74, with two magazines with 60 rounds of ammunition. Ostensibly, this would allow the family to protect itself against local criminals and insurgents, while limiting the number of armed individuals who might oppose the forces of the coalition and the Government of Iraq. Instead this policy ensured that local residents were left helpless to resist the insurgents, who cared little about limits on gun ownership and generally travelled in armed groups of four to twenty.

Download the full article: Gun Control in Counterinsurgency

CW3 Chad Machiela is a Special Forces warrant officer assigned to 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), Joint Base Lewis McChord. He holds a M.S. in Defense Analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School and a B.A. in Public Law from Western Michigan University. The opinions expressed here are the author's own and do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Saving the COIN Baby from the Afghan Bathwater (and Vice-Versa)

by Dr. Tony Corn

Download the full article: Saving the COIN Baby from the Afghan Bathwater

When General Petraeus guided the elaboration of the new counterinsurgency field manual FM-3-24 in 2006, the main theater of operations happened to be Iraq, and the main operational priority was to analytically discriminate between global and local grievances in order to strategically disaggregate the transnational Jihadist from the "accidental guerrilla" whose space happens to be invaded. Given the urgency of the situation, there was no time to reflect on the "Grievance vs. Greed" debate that had been at the center of the civilian literature on civil wars in the previous decade. As a result, the COIN doctrine enshrined in FM 3-24 is as long on Grievance as it is short on Greed.

But while the Grievance paradigm was by and large adequate to understand the situation in Iraq five years ago, the Greed paradigm is more relevant in the case of Afghanistan - a country that has had a war economy since 1979, where warlordism and poppy cultivation play a central role, and which has achieved the dubious distinction of being the second most corrupt country in the world.

Add to that the "resource curse" represented by the massive U.S presence: beginning with Bush's quiet surge of September 2008, a series of military surges increasing the number of troops by more than 50,000 (plus an equal number of contractors) has been partly responsible for a fifty percent increase of corruption in the past two years.

Today, a good case could be made that the political divergences (Grievance) that once existed between the main protagonists (Kabul officials, regional warlords, Taliban of all stripes, not to mention Pakistani officials) have taken a backseat, and that a convergence of sorts has begun to emerge on a shared economic objective (Greed): milking the American cow for all it's worth, and for as long as possible.

Download the full article: Saving the COIN Baby from the Afghan Bathwater

Dr. Tony Corn is on leave from the State Department and currently writing a book on the Long War. This essay is a follow-up to two previous articles: "The Art of Declaring Victory and Going Home: Strategic Communication and the Management of Expectations," Small Wars Journal, September 2009, and "Toward a Kilcullen-Biden Plan?: Bounding Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan," Small Wars Journal, October 2009. The opinions expressed here are the author's own and do not reflect the view of the U.S. State Department or the U.S. Government.

by Captain John A. Kendall

Download the full article: Afghanistan: The Importance of Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency Operations

Any commander operating in a counterinsurgency (COIN) environment is besieged by the constant need to make numerous and varied decisions critical to the successful execution of a COIN campaign. While all military and political campaigns are challenging due to the "fog of war", COIN campaigns can prove particularly difficult for military personnel due to a military culture that does not understand how to politically maneuver in semi to non-permissive environments. This paper demonstrates the need for military organizations to gain a better understanding of their operational environment before executing political maneuver in a full spectrum COIN campaign.

Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 7311 did not originally intend to conduct a full spectrum counterinsurgency(COIN) operation; instead it originally chose to expand Ghazni's Foreign Internal Defense (FID) efforts as part of a larger joint COIN campaign. The Detachment inherited the Afghan National Police Special Response Team (ANP SRT); a small yet well trained platoon of 19 ethnic Hazarans. While seeking to expand the ANP SRT's size and capabilities, the Detachment planned to simultaneously execute surgical strike operations against high ranking and mid level Taliban commanders as a means of validating the ANP SRT's capabilities. An emphasis on Foreign Internal Defense combined with Direct Action was a typical Detachment strategy during 2008 that has gradually shifted to FID and population security with the advent of Village Stability Operations (VSO).

The Detachment's elation over the successful capture of Taliban commander Mullah Faizoni in late July would transition to frustration over its inability to capture/kill Taliban Intelligence Chief Sher Agha. To reacquire the target, the Detachment conducted limited engagement of Espandi Village in order to generate additional atmospherics. It assessed that a larger COIN operation should be left to the conventional forces and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) as the battle space owner was the final approving authority for all kinetic operations. Yet, when its limited engagement produced no results, the Detachment realized that in order to obtain long term effects as codified by the SOF imperatives, it needed to conduct a combined political maneuver.

Download the full article: Afghanistan: The Importance of Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency Operations

About the Detachment: ODA 7311 has deployed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedoms VIII, XII, XIV and is set to return for OEF XVI. It was my privilege to have served with them during OEF XII as their Detachment Commander. This article was written in their honor and is especially dedicated to SFC Bradley S. Bohle, SFC Shawn P. McCloskey and SSG Joshua M. Mills who were KIA on 15 September, 2009 while conducting combat operations in Nimruz Province, Afghanistan.

by Nathan Freier

This paper is being published simultaneously in Small Wars Journal and the PKSOI Bulletin, an on-line publication of the United States Army's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute.

Download the full article: MIA in QDR: A Unifying Vision for Land Forces

The post-9/11 period has witnessed a marked improvement in corporate defense perceptions about the utility of U.S. land forces. Although they have sacrificed a great deal in the field, the Iraq and Afghan wars have been good to the Army, Marine Corps (USMC), and Special Operations Forces (SOF) from a defense policy perspective. With counterinsurgency (COIN), counterterrorism (CT), stability operations (SO), and security force assistance (SFA) currently dominating the defense agenda, even passive observers recognize the near-term value of land power. Today, land forces are central to solving the United States' most pressing near-term national security challenges. Consequently, the land combat function has benefited from steadily rising stock prices within the Department of Defense (DoD).

The current era of land force ascendancy has witnessed significant changes in mission. For example, land force competency in irregular warfighting has risen substantially while service competency for high-intensity traditional conflict has atrophied. The Army, USMC, and, to some extent, SOF, have radically adjusted their operational worldview to account for previously under-valued "irregular" missions like CT, COIN, SO, etc. The army now openly acknowledges in its capstone doctrine that stability and civil support are core army missions, alongside more conventional offensive and defensive operations. For its part, the USMC — while often decrying the loss of some of its expeditionary capability — has become increasingly comfortable operating in force ashore for extended periods. Both the Army and USMC have also accepted new responsibilities in SFA.

SOF, too, has witnessed significant change in focus and operating principles. "Direct action" (DA) SOF forces — long accustomed to operating autonomously — have learned to operate in close proximity to and in close coordination with large conventional ground forces sharing the same battlespace. Army SOF specifically — an organization whose pre-9/11 sine qua non was largely foreign internal defense (FID) and SFA — now, by necessity, is more accustomed to serial employment in DA. And, in recent years, the scale of DA and SFA requirements necessitated that Army SOF cede many of its traditional FID and SFA responsibilities to general purpose ground forces (GPF). This has resulted in a number of "in stride" GPF innovations like the Army's new Advisory and Assistance Brigades (AAB) and the Marine Corps' Security Cooperation Marine Air Ground Task Forces (SCMAGTF).

Whether or not any of this amounts to a bellwether for the future of land operations remains a hotly debated issue across defense-interested communities. Some traditionalists see unacceptably high-risk in these trends; whereas less traditional military thinkers argue that contemporary strategic conditions necessitate a new, more unconventional focus for land forces, leaving many aspects of the next generation traditional warfight to the Air Force and Navy.

Some influential thought leaders see recent irregular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as concrete demonstrations of the utility of robust (if not less traditionally-oriented) land forces. Still others see the uneven history and raw cost of Iraq and Afghanistan as data points militating against future large-scale U.S. interventions. The author argues that future land interventions are unavoidable. But, the circumstances under which they occur, the operating concepts employed in their execution, and the objectives pursued throughout their course may be substantially different than those that shape current warfights.

Download the full article: MIA in QDR: A Unifying Vision for Land Forces

Nathan Freier joined the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute as a Visiting Research Professor in August 2008. He is also a Senior Fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He joined CSIS in April of 2008 after a 20-year career as a field artillery officer and strategist in the United States Army.