Journal

by William S. McCallister

Download the full article: Afghan Governance Considerations

President Karzai appears to follow an imperial-confederacy form of governance which assumes that disparate Afghan territories are controlled by autonomous groups and where quid-pro-quo and patronage relationships assist in imposing order and stability. The system of government in Afghanistan is therefore an ad hoc combination of political expediency and private enterprise. It is efficient in its own way, but can also lead to flagrant abuses and corruption. The following are a number of considerations that might shed light on the Karzai government's approach to counterinsurgency.

I start with a two assumptions. First, the tension between the Karzai government and the various groups competing for influence and resources is an expression of power. Second, competition takes place within an established power-sharing system that includes urban and rural, sectarian, political, economic and tribal/qawm groupings.

Download the full article: Afghan Governance Considerations

William S. "Mac" McCallister is a retired military officer. He has worked extensively in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. While on active duty, McCallister served in numerous infantry and special operations assignments specializing in civil-military, psychological and information operations.

A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq

SWJ Book Review by Lieutenant Colonel Adam Strickland

Download the full review: A Third COIN Course of Action

A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq by Mark Moyar, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2009, 368 pp., $30.

Years from now, local economists and civic leaders may well curse the name Dr. Mark Moyar for the irreparable harm he did to the local Washington, DC economy in 2009-2010, and blame him for creating the conditions necessary to finally inhibit the unfettered flow of government money to local defense corporations asserting special skills or knowledge applicable to counterinsurgency. Over the past decade, thousands of retired and former military professionals have created new-identities for themselves as counterinsurgency or counterterrorism experts around the Metro DC area regardless of their lack of experience, training, or education in those fields. This re-branding created financial and professional opportunities that were only possible due to the absence of counterinsurgency and counterterrorism knowledge within the Department of Defense and individual military branches in the period immediately before and after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001; thus, we in the military have no one to blame but ourselves. Thankfully, after hundreds of books and thousands of articles produced by self-proclaimed counterinsurgency experts, that were truly more akin to travel monologues detailing individual lessons learned during extensive periods in-theater ranging from 10 days in Kabul or Baghdad to a 12 months combat deployment in which the author was fortunate if he ever left the immediate 5 miles around his Forward-Operating-Base, we finally have a book worthy of careful examination and an all-important second-read.

Download the full review: A Third COIN Course of Action

Lieutenant Colonel Adam Strickland is a Marine Infantry Officer with previous combat tours in Iraq. During his last tour, he engaged daily with former insurgents, members of the former regime, and civic leaders as part of Marine counterinsurgency efforts in Anbar Province, Iraq. He is a graduate of USMC Command and Staff College, the School of Advanced Warfighting, and MIT's National Security Studies Seminar XXI Program. He is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in 2011 in support of continuing USMC counterinsurgency efforts.

Reflections on the Car Bombing in Ciudad Juarez

by John P. Sullivan

Download the full article: Reflections on the Car Bombing in Ciudad Juarez

In an apparently significant acceleration of tactics, techniques and procedures (TTP), Mexican cartel violence embraced the car bomb in an attack on Federal police in embattled Ciudad Juárez last Thursday, 15 July 2010. Not only did the attack employ a car bomb (apparently a primitive improvised explosive secreted inside a car not the fully-integrated variant found in Iraq, and the AfPak theatres known as a VBIED), but it also was an ambush that directly targeted police. This TTP is a classic insurgent attack method that promises to be part of Mexico's future engagements in its on-going criminal insurgencies.

Download the full article: Reflections on the Car Bombing in Ciudad Juarez

John P. Sullivan is a regular contributor to Small Wars Journal. He is a career police officer and currently serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST). He is co-editor of Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-Terrorism Network (Routledge, 2006) and Global Biosecurity: Threats and Responses (Routledge, 2010). His current research focus is the impact of transnational organized crime on sovereignty, intelligence, terrorism, and criminal insurgencies.

by Colonel Steven Boylan

Download the full article: A Way to Accomplish Interviews for Commanders and Staff

The path to successful interviews and media relations is an art, not science. It is a combination of building blocks based upon common sense, relationship building with the media (and individual reporters), practice, rehearsals and a degree of confidence and desire to engage.

There are a number of ways to conduct interviews. Nobody has the market cornered on good ideas and what works for one person will not work for another. The key is to be flexible, understand the environment in which you are about to enter and get experienced Public Affairs Officers in the mix early. Above all, common sense must prevail. The golden rule, if you do not want to see it in print; do not say it. I have told many over the years, if you are okay seeing what you said on the six o'clock news in your home town or on the front page of the paper for your family to see, then you are probably okay. That is not a guarantee, but for the most part you will be fine.

For the inexperienced individual being interviewed, always consider everything you say to be on-the-record. That is advice we as public affairs officers give to those we interact with, especially if we are not there to assist and if they have never talked with the reporter prior to the interview. That is the safest approach to take. In addition, keep it simple, do not use jargon and stay in your lane are all part of the mantra you hear.

Download the full article: A Way to Accomplish Interviews for Commanders and Staff

Colonel Steven Boylan, who will be retiring this fall is currently an Assistant Professor in the Command & General Staff College, Department of Command & Leadership. He has more than 15 years of public affairs experience at two - four star commands in the Army and Combined and Joint assignments. He has been the principal PAO for senior leaders since 1999 to include General David Petraeus for approximately three years. His last public affairs assignment was as the Battle Command Training Program senior public affairs observer/trainer and PAO.

by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling

Download the full article: The All-Volunteer Force: The Debate

I'd like to share with SWJ readers the debate I've been having with current and former senior defense leaders on the deficiencies of the all-volunteer force.

This past February, I published "The Founder's Wisdom" in Armed Forces Journal. While the article addressed many aspects of Congressional and popular oversight of national security issues, the issue that provoked the strongest reaction was the portion concerning the all-volunteer military.

Raising an Army is not merely a matter of labor economics - finding the right combination of wages, benefits and marketing strategies to fill job vacancies. Raising an Army is a profoundly political act with profoundly political consequences. The issues of who fights and who pays for America's wars are ultimately questions about our conceptions of justice and civic obligation. My hope is that our debate about the merits of the all-volunteer force will move beyond questions of wages and benefits, and focus on these larger issues of justice and civic obligation.

As this "short-term struggle" approaches its tenth year, cheerful portrayals of the AVF are no longer plausible. It's time for the United States to reconsider the wisdom of the all-volunteer force.

I look forward to the always superb commentary by SWJ readers on this debate, and I hope that Dr. Gilroy and Mr. Ford will join us.

Download the full article: The All-Volunteer Force: The Debate

Lieutenant Colonel Paul L. Yingling is an Army officer who has served three tours of duty in Iraq and is currently a professor of security studies at the George C. Marshall Center in Garmisch, Germany. The views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Army or Defense Department.

by Gary Anderson

Download the full article: An Afghan Nahal?

It has become an article of faith in the Muslim world to despise Israel, and anything that it has accomplished. But one thing that Israel was able to do was to create a nation out of motley array of people with vastly different cultural and political backgrounds. Part of that was pure survival instinct, and much of the national glue came from the Army in which all Israelis are obligated, at least on paper, to serve. National service truly has provided a "school of the nation" for Israel. However, other Israeli organizations have helped greatly with the nation-building effort. One of those Israeli institutions might serve as a model for assisting us and the Afghan national government as we take on the daunting task of pacifying Kandahar. This organization was called The "Fighting Pioneer Youth"; NAHAL is the Israeli term.

These armed young collective settlers spread out like an ink blot, creating a ring of fortified farm collectives between the growing Jewish population and potentially hostile Arab settlements. This concept also denied Arab guerillas large sanctuary areas from which to stage attacks. The Palestinians don't like to admit it, but the NAHAL movement was a very effective nation- building and counter-guerilla tool; it kept young people employed and out of trouble as well.

Download the full article: An Afghan Nahal?

The author served as a UN observer in Lebanon and Gaza while on active duty in the Marine Corps and has been to Afghanistan several times while conducting a study of Taliban decision making. He also served on a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq.

Observations of Turkish Islamist

Politics:

Islamic Democrats or Enemies of

Turkish Secularism?

by CDR Youssef Aboul-Enein,

MSC, USN

Download the full article:

Observations of Turkish Islamist Politics

Having just returned from Istanbul as part of the Industrial College of the

Armed Forces Industry Study Group, I was exposed to diverse opinions from

Turkey's media, political groups, and social advocates whose political

persuasion range from Kemalist and Leftist to Islamist.  This essay takes this

week-long experience and attempts to make sense of where the Turkish Islamist

experiment has been and where it is going in the 21st century. This

thought piece is also timely given the recent attempts by Turkish Islamist

groups combined with Palestinian supporters attempting to run the Israeli

maritime blockade of Gaza using Turkish flagged ships. 

Turkey is a key member of NATO and stands poised to undertake the first

successful experiment in Islamic democracy; it is a political vision abhorred by

al-Qaida, yet could serve as a model for Arab Islamist political groups like the

Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  The Peace and Justice Party (AKP) is using the

democratic process to reorganize the social contract that has left two

institutions as dominant over the executive and legislative branches in Turkey.

Those two institutions are the military and the judiciary, whose senior

leadership view themselves as the protectors of the legacy of Turkey's founder

Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938). Yet Ataturk cannot be described as a secularist but

one who admires laicism, a form of secularism that leaves no room for religious

expression in public life.  Laicism was inspired by the French Revolution and

views expressions of God or the divine on currenc or, in opening legislative

sessions as intolerable.

Download the full article:

Observations of Turkish Islamist Politics

Commander Aboul-Enein is author of

Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat, published this

summer by Naval Institute Press.  He spent one week this spring in Turkey as

part of the Industry Study Program of the Industrial College of the Armed

Forces.  Commander Aboul-Enein learned much during this trip and thanks the

college, and Colonel Deborah Buonassisi, USAF, for an amazing intellectual

experience.  Finally, he wishes to thank Dr. Christina Lafferty for her edits

and discussions that enhanced this essay.

by Dr. Matthew B. Arnold and Dr. Anthony Vinci

Download the full article: The Need for Local, People-Centric Information Does Not End in Afghanistan

Appreciating local contexts and applying that understanding strategically is something Americans are accustomed to doing in the domestic forum. Presidential campaigns, for instance, regularly collect information about the local level, down to individual small towns in rural America or urban neighborhoods, and use this knowledge to design national campaigns. Yet, when we look at the rest of the world we have tended to discount the local perspective and instead focus on the national level.

Our latest generation of counterinsurgency experts, like generations before it, has had to relearn the lessons of local-level understanding in order to compete with insurgents. People-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) appears to have been one part of an effective strategy in Iraq and now the US' strategy in Afghanistan is predicated on its acceptance. The people-centric approach to COIN demands appreciating the local realities amongst which insurgents and counterinsurgents must fight, viz. understanding life at the village and neighborhood level. This means talking to local people, from farmers and truck drivers to village elders and merchants. It also involves asking the right questions about local dynamics, such as who provides social services, what the crop of choice to grow is, or how tribes interact with one another. This approach allows counter-insurgents to protect the local populace, assuring provision of basic social services, and to work with and through local leadership to ensure that actions taken are mutually beneficial to local communities and hence widely accepted.

But, the need for local, people-centric information does not end in Afghanistan. In an era defined by weak states with limited governance and the 'localization' dynamics that often make communities look inward for problem solving, adequately understanding foreign countries requires a more consistent emphasis on local socio-political dynamics. The counter-insurgency demands of Iraq and now Afghanistan provoked the initial development of an interest in localized, people-centric information. In the future, there is a need more broadly for such a localized approach to be consistently applied within the US government's presence abroad.

Download the full article: The Need for Local, People-Centric Information Does Not End in Afghanistan

Dr. Matthew B. Arnold served in Afghanistan in 2009-10 as a socio-political advisor for the US Department of Defense and was seconded to French forces in Kapisa Province. Prior to that he worked as an aid worker for the United Nations in assorted countries in Africa and Asia. He has a PhD from the London School of Economics and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.

Dr. Anthony Vinci received his PhD in International Relations from The London School of Economics. Dr. Vinci is the author of 'Armed Groups and the Balance of Power: The International Relations of Terrorists, Warlords and Insurgents' as well as articles in journals including Parameters: US Army War College Quarterly, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Journal of Strategic Studies. He has studied emerging threats and US responses to those threats on the ground throughout Africa and the Middle East. Currently Dr. Vinci consults on national security issues.

The views expressed are the authors' personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of the Human Terrain System, the US Army Training and Doctrine Command or the US Department of Defense.

Mentoring on the Edge

or, "What you Don't Learn in a Classroom"

by Colonel John Bessler

Download the full article:

Mentoring on the Edge

The 'Afghan experience' for those who serve overseas can be vastly different

from the one about which the American public sees, hears, and reads.  The same

can be said for those who do the writing and reporting.  It is comparatively

simple to travel to Afghanistan, observe and interview selflessly-serving

patriots at work, and write a blog or an article about the challenges ISAF and

the coalition faces; it is quite another to be intimately involved in a mission

extending over many months.  It's easy to watch; it's tough to "do."

This article attempts to bridge that gap.  As one of the many who have

mentored, assisted, trained, and fought with the Afghan National Security Forces

(ANSF), I hope to provide some perspective to the stories in the paper or

blogosphere.  From mid-2008 through 2009, I commanded all the ANSF mentors and

trainers in the Western Provinces of Afghanistan, in an area about the size of

Mississippi, and served as the senior US officer west of Kabul and north of

Kandahar. 

In my role of commanding the mentors and trainers embedded in all three

Afghan security organizations (Army, Police, and Border Police), we contended

with competing priorities, the tyranny of distance in counterinsurgency (COIN)

environment, answering to a NATO higher headquarters, and responsible for four

vast, remote and primitive Afghan provinces, in an economy of force mission.  We

experienced firsthand the day-to-day frustration and the almost crushing

inertia, friction, and fog of war that comes with working in a coalition; as a

result, I feel uniquely branded by my experiences.  Hence the article's title,

"Mentoring at the Edge of Civilization -- What You Can't Learn in the Classroom."

This story mostly takes place in Badghis Province.  Badghis is the one

province in Afghanistan in which no part of the Ring Road is paved.  Just east

of Herat City, the all-weather road turns to gravel, then dirt, then into a

potholed path.  It improves slightly over the 8200' Sabzak Pass (courtesy of the

Spanish), then returns to a bone-jarring, winding dirt path through several

villages enroute to Qala-E-Naw, and all the way into Ghormach District/ Farayab

Province in Regional Command-North.  It doesn't return to all-weather road until

about Meymanah, where a Chinese company is currently laboring to finish the job.

Download the full article:

Mentoring on the Edge

COL John Bessler became the Deputy Director of PKSOI in May 2010. Prior to

that he served as the Division Chief, Security, Reconstruction, and Transitions

for PKSOI in August 2009 after 14 months in Herat, Afghanistan, where he

commanded the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command, Western Provinces (ARSIC-West).

In that position, he worked and fought side-by-side with Afghan and NATO forces

while training Afghan Army and Afghan Police forces during 2008 and 2009. He

worked intimately and regularly with NATO forces both in a mentoring as well as

in a combat capacity, and even more routinely with United States Agency for

International Development (USAID) and Department of State representatives, four

Provincial Reconstruction Teams from as many countries, as well as routine

contacts with DIA, CIA, the Joint Interagency Task Force (Counter Narcotics),

and Special Operations Forces (USA and USMC.)

Applying Iraq to Afghanistan

by Bradford M. Burris, Major, Psychological Operations, United States Army

Download the full article:

Applying Iraq to Afghanistan

Editor's Note:  this article was submitted

to us in early May, so the recent change in leadership at ISAF were not known to

the author at the time.  We feel the analysis remains relevant so we are

publishing as is, and a re-write/ update  is not what MAJ Burris needs to be

doing in his last days before he's off to Afghanistan to do that "applying."

Now that the new US strategy for

prosecuting the war in Afghanistan has been determined, military leaders and

media pundits are turning their attention to discussions of the best manner in

which to implement and execute the strategy.  As the military develops plans

supporting the strategy and journalists search for stories about the plans, both

will ask three questions:  first, what made US forces successful during the Iraq

war; second, do those successes provide lessons learned for Afghanistan; and

finally, how could US personnel translate those lessons to future military

operations regardless of the culture and geography?  This essay is certainly not

the first to investigate these three questions; however, it is unique because it

supports no political or military agenda regarding the war in Afghanistan.

Although this essay will not provide an

analysis of strategic motives, take a position on operational decision-making,

nor make political comparisons between Iraq and Afghanistan; it will explore the

American policies that fomented transition of the Al Anbar province from what

was once referred to as the "wild west" to what experts now call a model for

stability operations.  I will use process-tracing to identify relationships

between US military activity and sustainable security in Anbar, present a theory

explaining the correlation between US policy and provincial stability, present

the general similarities at the provincial level between the situation in Iraq

and Afghanistan, and extrapolate the positive lessons learned from the Anbar

experience to the current US involvement in Afghanistan. 

To frame the discussion of current

situation in Afghanistan, I will draw heavily from General Stanley McChrystal's

initial situational assessment provided to the US political leadership in August

2009.  The result of my analytical research will be to provide US policy

recommendations that are both specific enough to be effective at the provincial

level in Afghanistan, as well as broad enough to be effective in U.S. military

operations regardless of geographical location.  In order to maintain academic

rigor and to encourage professional military discourse, I will also address the

counterarguments to the assertions laid out in this essay. 

Download the full article:

Applying Iraq to Afghanistan

Major Bradford M. Burris

entered the United States Army in 1996 and has since commanded three times.  He

commanded a Field Artillery training battery from March 2001 until June 2002. 

He commanded Headquarters Battery, 2nd Battalion, 5th Field Artillery Regiment

from November 2002 until March 2004 during which time he deployed in support of

Operation Iraqi Freedom.  He commanded Alpha Company, 8th PSYOP BN (Airborne)

from July 2007 until November 2008 during which time he deployed to numerous

U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility locations.  He is currently earning

a Master of Science Degree in Defense Analysis at the United States Naval Post

Graduate School.

Shaping the Information Environment

in Afghanistan

Understanding and Addressing Counter-Insurgency

Information Challenges through Bottom-up, Collaborative planning in the Future Operations

Cross Functional Team, ISAF Joint Command

by CDR Ingrid Rader, U.S. Navy,

et al

Download the full article:

Shaping

the Information Environment in Afghanistan

Afghanistan from the perspective of an International Security Assistance Forces

(ISAF) Joint Command (IJC) communicator or information professional: a multitude

of languages, tribes and sub-tribes; a literacy rate of only about 35%, and a generally

xenophobic population with a preference for face-to-face engagements with associates

they trust.  These characteristics significantly challenge coalition forces'

effective information and communication activities.

Of course, as is usually the case with indigenous people, the Anti-Afghan Forces

(AAF) -- which include Taliban fighters, insurgents, criminals and, in some cases

corrupt officials -- enjoy obvious advantages.  They live among the people.

They know the terrain.  They understand the social dynamics.  They communicate

their messages quickly and effectively in a way that can resonate with the audiences

they know intimately.  These are advantages that ISAF communicators simply

do not possess.

In Afghanistan, western airborne television broadcasting capabilities, leaflet

dissemination, or glossy media products may do more harm than good if they are not

thoroughly planned and carefully tailored.  Indeed, they might inadvertently

serve as ammunition for the adaptable, flexible and responsive enemy propaganda

machine. 

That environment, the limitations it represents, and other myriad other factors

demanded that the IJC FUOPS CFT information and communications planners re-evaluate

and redefine more effective ways to approach information operations (Info Ops),

psychological operations (PSYOPS) and public affairs (PA).  

This essay attempts to share those lessons.  It describes how the ISAF Joint

Command Future Operations (FUOPS) Cross-Functional Team (CFT) integrates synchronized

communications into planning and guidance in the complex Afghan environment. 

Additionally, in documenting the challenges the FUOPS CFT information communication

planners initially struggled with, the essay, as well, aims to provide insight for

IJC-bound Info Ops and communications planners and other interested professionals. 

Here, we will describe our methodology in planning synchronized communications in

the 72 hour -- 60 day horizon and discuss the factors that contributed to the positive

achievements of the team.

Download the full article:

Shaping

the Information Environment in Afghanistan

The entire FUOPS Synchronized Communications

Team contributed to this article.

Lieutenant Colonel Tomasz Grudzinski,

Polish Army, (Info Ops Planner)

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Gowan,

U.S. Army (PA Planner)

Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Manos,

U.S. Army (Info Ops Planner)

Major Niels Vistisen, Danish Army

(PSYOPS Planner)

Commander Ingrid Rader, U.S. Navy

(Info Ops Team Lead)

Edited by LTC Ed Ledford

On a balmy night in July 1927, armed only with revolver, three rounds, and some gumption, Coast Guard Ensign Charles Duke single-handedly boarded a rum-runner, took charge, and ran her aground in New York Harbor.

The 800-pound Gorilla and Stability

Operations

by James P. Hunt, Major General,

USAF

Deputy Commanding General, MNC-I, April

09 -- Jan 10

Download the full article:

The 800-pound

Gorilla and Stability Operations

It's early 2010, Baghdad, Iraq.  At the New Embassy Complex, three Foreign

Service officers wait for the start of their meeting with officers from United States

Forces-Iraq.  It's a small room, seating about ten people, but with only three

Department of State representatives there should be plenty of room for the military

participants.  The door swings open, and twenty officers walk in the room and

scramble for seats.  One opens up a satchel and pulls out sets of briefing

slides—it looks like there are close to fifty slides for the briefing.  After

lots of shuffling around, an officer starts the presentation.  Today, he's

talking about how the military will support the Provincial Reconstruction Teams;

he goes through the entire military planning process:  Mission analysis, courses

of action, the results of the military's war gaming, and which course of action

the military supports. 

Throughout the hour-long meeting, the Foreign Service Officers listen politely

and ask a few questions.  They ponder the complex diagrams, troop-to-task calculations,

logistics concepts.   Their few questions are answered in sentences filled

mostly with abbreviations or acronyms.  It's as if questions or discussion

will ruin the rhythm and timing of the briefing.  At the end of the meeting,

the senior military officer comments, "Thanks for listening to us today.  We

think we've got a good plan here and are ready to support you.  After all,

civilians are in the lead for improving civil capacity in Iraq, and we're here to

help.  Please let us know what you think, but we're ready to execute right

away..."

After the military team leaves, the Foreign Service Officers look at each other

and sigh.  They've just attended a meeting describing the military support

they'll be receiving without being part of the planning dialog that led to the military's

support plan.   The stacks of briefing slides wind up in the burn bag. 

They'll meet with the military planners again in a week, but next time the military

will bring a 100-page operations plan full of objectives, metrics, and implementing

instructions.  The Embassy was not part of the process that led to the plan

and wasn't asked specifically what support it needed.  They don't necessarily

understand the plan, would spend staff hours they simply don't have to make significant

changes to the plan, and would probably rather just be asked "how can we help?" 

The military officers walk away frustrated because the civilians are not jumping

with joy over their excellent briefing and plan that took many man-hours to build

and sense their civilian counterparts would rather have no plan at all. 

Download the full article:

The 800-pound

Gorilla and Stability Operations

Maj. Gen. James P. Hunt was the Deputy Commanding General, I Corps, U.S. Forces-Iraq,

Baghdad, Iraq, from April 2009 to January, 2010.  General Hunt was second-in-command

and was responsible for the Corps' coordination and integration at the tactical

and operational level with interagency partners, including the U.S. Embassy-Iraq,

the U.S. Agency for International Development and non-governmental organizations.

Maj Gen. Hunt was born in California and entered the Air Force in 1976 as

a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. He has held staff positions at the numbered

air force, major command, Air Staff and Joint Staff. The general commanded an F-117

squadron, a U-2 operations group and three wings, including an air expeditionary

wing in Afghanistan.  He is a fighter pilot with over 3,000 hours in the F-4,

F-15, F-117, and U-2 aircraft.

by Alfred Paddock, Jr.

Download the full article: PSYOP: On a Complete Change in Organization, Practice, and Doctrine

On Monday, June 21, 2010, Admiral Eric T. Olson, commander of the US Special Operations Command, announced a decision to change the term, "psychological operations" (PSYOP) to "Military Information Support" and "Military Information Support Operations" (MISO). He stated that henceforth the term, PSYOP, will be eliminated from usage in the military.

Admiral Olson commands all of the military services' special operations commands. He and General George Casey, Army chief of staff, agreed on the decision, which the Secretary of Defense approved. As Admiral Olson states, "This will be a complete change in organization, practice, and doctrine."

The bulk of our PSYOP forces is in the Army. Its only active duty organization, the 4th PSYOP Group, is located at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Its commander, a colonel, reports to the commander of the US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), a lieutenant general. In addition, there are two PSYOP groups in the Army Reserve.

Admiral Olson's memo announcing this decision states that the active duty PSYOP community is very receptive to this change. "Very" is the operative word. Based on my discussions with some active duty personnel over the past couple of years, I don't believe this to be the case. Of course, all of them knew that I was writing an article for publication, and asked for non-attribution.

Download the full article: PSYOP: On a Complete Change in Organization, Practice, and Doctrine

Alfred Paddock, Jr., was on active duty in the U.S. Army, 1957--1988, and served three combat tours in Laos and Vietnam with Special Forces. He also was the Director for Psychological Operations, Office of the Secretary of Defense. In June 2009 he received the inaugural Gold Award of the MG Robert A. McClure Medal for Exemplary Service in Psychological Operations, recognizing his lifetime of achievements and outstanding service to the Psychological Operations Regiment.

The Branch Formerly Known As PSYOP

Names Influence

By Edward Lopacienski, MAJ, PO

This article does not refute the directive to change the name of ARSOF's Psychological

Operations force or its refined task, but strives to support the change to one that

is suitable of the branch's purpose before finalization is determined.  With

the encouragement of COL Dave Maxwell and other senior leader mentors, I'm sharing

these thoughts with the greater community for consideration in establishing a more

appropriate brand and name for the US Military's foremost experts in influence warfare.

It could very well be perceived that we are being deceptive with this name change. 

Names, more specifically brand names, are crucial in establishing an organization's

effectiveness and competitive place in its operating and target market environments. 

The branch identity can still be shaped, and should assume a name that enhances

the PSYOP force rather than serve as an equivocal impairment the PSYOP label is

determined to have on the community.

Re-branding the branch is now an order, and should be embraced with initiative

versus sitting back and waiting for a decision on what it will become.  It's

a well established principle within the marketing and public relations communities

that re-branding an established organization is a risky venture at best.  Re-branding

risks forsaking the development and retention of a truly professional and consistent

brand identity that is clearly recognized and understood across the many environments

it operates within.   Organizational self identity and target market environments

have direct impacts on the organization.[1] 

Re-branding risks stakeholder and audience doubts about the company/organization.

It can create confusion about what the organization does.  Such a change creates

confusion about what the new brand does and how it can help target markets and stakeholder

support.  Changing names/brands can create indecision about working with the

re-branded organization, and may even create distrust.[2] 

A perception of what a company does and what it is perceived at doing can create

a gulf between an organization and its own environments.  Cautionary principles

aside, re-branding must choose a successful standout identity.[3]

The Death of Haji Abdul Jabar and the Future of the Alikozai Tribe

by Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Gaydon and Captain Jonathan Pan

Download the full article: Three Cups of Tea and an IED

Haji Abdul Jabar pulled out his pistol and with tears in his eyes, he pointed to his head shouting, "If you go, I will pull the trigger!" Jabar was the District Governor of Arghandab District, Kandahar Province, who served as the logistics chief for Mullah Naqib, the legendary mujahedeen commander who checked multiple Soviet advances into Arghandab in the 1980s.

Jabar's emotional outburst occurred when he discovered that the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment was being relocated out of Arghandab in December 2009. Jabar had developed a close bond with many soldiers and officers of 1-17 Infantry but above all, he treated Captain Jon Burton, the battalion's civil-military officer, as his own flesh and blood. As a hardened mujahedeen, his tears resounded deeply with Burton, who admired the old warrior for his tenacity, honor, and above all his passion for the people of Arghandab. Burton refused to answer any phone calls after Jabar's death but recently he had the following to say,

Like Greg Mortenson's best seller, Three Cups of Tea, our relationship with Jabar was forged over chai during the late summer and fall of 2009. When we first met Jabar, he was courteous but reserved. He had seen coalition forces come and go from Arghandab and many promises remain unfulfilled. But this time, it was different. The Stryker Brigade had teamed up with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to permanently station a combined civil-military team at the Arghandab District Center. The team was devoted, often fanatical in their efforts in building positive momentum with Jabar in the lead. Such dedication has led to legendary Burton-Jabar lore.

Download the full article: Three Cups of Tea and an IED

Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Gaydon is the commander of the Brigade Special Troops Battalion of 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Task Force Stryker). He is also dual-hatted as the Governance, Reconstruction, and Development Fusion Cell Lead.

Captain Jonathan Pan is the Economic Development Officer for of 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Task Force Stryker).

by Dr. Alfred H. Paddock, Jr.

Download the full article: American Guerrilla: A Review

In American Guerrilla: The Forgotten Heroics of Russell W. Volckmann, Mike Guardia seeks to demonstrate the contributions of Russell Volckmann and his guerrillas in the successful outcome of the US campaign to retake the Philippines from the Japanese during World War II; and, secondly, to establish Volckmann as the true father of Army Special Forces--"a title that history has erroneously awarded to Colonel Aaron Bank." He does an adequate job with the first goal, but his second attempt is flawed.

Guardia tells the story of Volckmann's adventures in the Philippines in a workmanlike manner, and he deserves plaudits for uncovering his "war diary" from the Volckmann family, as well as some of his other primary source research. However, in stating that "the historiography of the guerrilla war in the Philippines is comparatively narrow," he omits some important published sources in his bibliography. These include "Lieutenant Ramsey's War," by Edwin Price Ramsey and Stephen J. Rivele, and "The Intrepid Guerrillas of North Luzon," by Bernard Norling. Norling, a history professor at Notre Dame University for over 35 years, also co-authored other books on resistance movements in the Philippines. His work on the subject is authoritative.

While Guardia confines his tale to Volckmann's role in northern Luzon, the story of Wendell Fertig's accomplishments in the Japanese-occupied island of Mindano is also impressive. At its peak, Fertig commanded an army of 35,000 men, and headed the civil government in one of the largest islands in the world. His accomplishments are told in a novel-like fashion in John Keats' "They Fought Alone: A True Story of a Modern American Hero." Both Volckmann and Fertig later would play leading roles in the development of Army Special Forces.

Download the full article: American Guerrilla: A Review

Dr. Alfred H. Paddock, Jr., was born February 11, 1937, in Moscow, Idaho, and raised in Bogalusa, Louisiana. He holds a BA degree in political science from Park College, and MA and Ph.D. degrees in history from Duke University. Dr. Paddock completed a 31-year U.S. Army career as a colonel in October, 1988. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and the U.S. Army War College. His military career included command and staff assignments in Korea, Okinawa, Laos, Vietnam, and the United States. During the 1960s he served three combat tours in Laos and Vietnam with U.S. Army Special Forces "Green Beret" operational units.

by Colonel Victor M. Rosello, Colonel Dave Shunk and Colonel Michael D. Winstead

Download the full article: The Relevance of Technology in Afghanistan

With the US Army's renewed focus on Afghanistan, it looks at creating conditions to more effectively bring stability to a country that historically has had little stability. Conventional wisdom posits that to have any chance of success, a "surge" similar to the one in Iraq is needed in Afghanistan. After all, quantity has a certain innate quality all its own, particularly when numbers are essential to securing vast areas under insurgent control. To its credit, quantity can also be accompanied by innovative technological advances that enhance the existing quality of the deployed force. But, can technologically lethal advancements profoundly influence success? As the US Army fields new and more advanced technologies in the application of lethal force in Afghanistan, this question is at the center of much debate. But perhaps, the answer is staring directly at us in the form of previous lessons and the cold, stark reality of the Afghan strategic landscape. Success may hinge on the ability to learn from the past and to properly address the effects of this landscape.

Download the full article: The Relevance of Technology in Afghanistan

Victor M. Rosello is a retired Army colonel, military intelligence officer, Latin America Foreign Area Officer, and Desert Storm/Just Cause combat veteran currently serving as a military writer for MPRI with the Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC), TRADOC, Fort Monroe, Virginia. He has a Latin American Area Studies MA from the University of Chicago.

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 ARCIC, Fort Monroe, Virginia. He has a National Security Strategy MS from the National War College.

Michael D. Winstead is an active duty colonel, West Point graduate, infantry officer, and Desert Storm combat veteran currently serving on his second tour in Afghanistan. His awards include the Soldier's Medal, Bronze Star (2 OLC), and Purple Heart. He has an MMAS from the School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

A Review Essay

by Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Armstrong

Download the full article: Gators, Leathernecks, and Full Spectrum Operations

Gary J. Ohls, Somalia... From the Sea (Newport Paper #34), The Naval War College Press, Newport RI, 2009. 249 pp. appendix, notes, glossary, bibliography, available for free download here.

Much like the country of Iraq, the United States has faced the challenge of Somalia for two decades. Long before today's concerns about piracy and terrorist support, as the United States military built up is presence in the region during Operation Desert Shield, Somalia insisted that some of that capability be dedicated to its own problems. An alert was sent to Central Command warning them that internal clan conflict had the potential to endanger American citizens, and the embassy in Mogadishu. From that message the United States became involved in Somalia for four years of operations. Those operations involved urban warfare, population security, humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, infrastructure reconstruction, joint and interagency work with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and American military involvement with internal politics. The series of Somalia operations are a veritable menu of the kinds of missions that have become central to the U.S. approach to counterinsurgency a decade later in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gary Ohls' book Somalia... From the Sea, published by The Naval War College Press, offers a comprehensive and well considered account of U.S. operations in Somalia in the early 1990's. The mission was centered on the capability of the United States Navy and Marine Corps to conduct global expeditionary operations and provides an important illustration of amphibious forces. The account, nearly 250 pages long, is broken up into nine chapters and several appendices which are structured around the five separate operations which the Americans and United Nations carried out in Somalia. The appendices are very helpful, with explanations of abbreviations as well as short explanations of strategic concepts. Colonel Ohls, USMC (Ret), has a PhD in history from Texas Christian University and the research demonstrates the academic rigor of his background using original sources, reports, interviews of participants, as well as news coverage.

Download the full article: Gators, Leathernecks, and Full Spectrum Operations

Lieutenant Commander Benjamin "BJ" Armstrong is a Naval Aviator who has served as an Amphibious Search and Rescue and Special Warfare Pilot and an Advanced Helicopter Flight Instructor. He holds a MA in military history and has written on naval history and irregular warfare. He is a regular SWJ contributor and has had articles and reviews appear in numerous journals, including most recently in Defense & Security Analysis, USNI's Proceedings, and Naval History Magazine.

by Colonel Dennis P. Chapman

Download the full article: Our Ambivalent Iraqi-Kurdistan Policy

Twenty-three years ago I was nearing the end of a miserable Plebe year at West Point, having endured for ten months innumerable humiliating rebukes from upperclassmen and a severe and nearly constant state of mortification deriving from the great many embarrassing blunders, nearly all of my own making, that I had suffered since first passing through the Academy's gates the summer before. Throughout this year of horrors however, I had had one small comfort -- I had fallen in love with a hometown girl whom we'll call "Eva." Eva and I had been friends in high school and a stream of letters and phone calls through my dark time had deepened feelings, at least on my on end. In our correspondence Eva had given every indication of sharing my feelings and I had naturally very much looked forward to a reunion with her over the Christmas holidays. Things started out well enough -- a couple of dates, a cuddle, a kiss -- and then nothing. Eva became nearly unreachable and always unavailable. Disappointed and hurt I made my sad way back to my hard life on the Hudson only to find, to my surprise and joy, Eva once again renewing the connection! Another stream of letters and calls, more hopes for a joyful reunion and a happily ever after -- and, upon returning home for summer leave, another disappointment -- a date or two and another disappearing act. Needless to say, I'd have been better served had I taken the advice of the upperclassmen, who, when demanding to know "How are they all?" expected but one answer: "They are all fickle but one, Sir!" For my dear Eva was nothing if not fickle.

By now the patient reader will be wondering just what any of this has to do with Iraqi Kurdistan or our policy toward it. The answer is simply this: The United States has been nothing if not fickle in our treatment of the Kurdistan Region since 2003. By this point, seven years after the 2003 invasion, the Kurds of Iraq can be forgiven if America begins to look to them less like Lady Liberty, holding high aloft her shining torch as a beacon of freedom and justice, and more like my fickle friend Eva. Congress passes resolutions to commemorate Kurdish accomplishments but provides little or no practical help; American commanders rush to Erbil when Kurdish help is needed on thorny problems, only to disappear again as soon as the problem is gotten under control; Iraqi Kurds flock to America's colors during a long and difficult war, only to be turned away at our borders by immigration authorities too ignorant or naí¯ve to see the difference between the Kurdish parties -- our allies -- and our many enemies throughout the region. In short, we have not been able to make up our minds as to just what our relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan ought to be.

Download the full article: Our Ambivalent Iraqi-Kurdistan Policy

Colonel Dennis P. Chapman commanded a U.S. Military Transition Team embedded within an all-Kurdish Iraqi Army Brigade based in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan Region. He deployed with the brigade during their participation in the Baghdad Security Plan (at the time of the U.S. surge). Colonel Chapman completed a one-year military fellowship with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) where his principal research focus was the security services of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraq. He is the author of a book on Iraqi Kurdistan, Security Forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government, forthcoming soon from Mazda Publishers.

Why Studying History and Human Motivations is the Key to the Future of Warfare

by Major Grant Martin

Download the full article: The Need for the Return of History

As I was reading David Brooks' March 25 New York Times op-ed, The Return of History, I couldn't help but play a game I have come to enjoy ever since reading Eric D. Beinhocker's book The Origin of Wealth. What I do is every time I come to the word "economist" when reading a work on economics, I substitute the words "military theorist" in my mind, and every time I come to the word "economics" I replace it with the words "the study of warfare". Since the switch seemed to fit so well with Beinhocker's book, I was not too surprised when it seemed to fit Brooks' article as well.

At the risk of appearing to plagiarize and with apologies to Mr. Brooks, I have replaced most of the words in his article below that dealt with economics with a word or words that had more to do with warfare. I have left his words in italics, except for the title of books, and put my words in regular font.

What I think the scholar of military studies might find interesting is a possibly different perspective with which to look at warfare: one that more closely resembles trying to understand human economic behavior. For if we can understand economic behavior better using certain perspectives, is it possible that we could use some of the same perspectives to understand human behavior in warfare, or at least behavior in insurgency environments?

Download the full article: The Need for the Return of History

Major Grant Martin is an Army Special Forces officer currently serving in Afghanistan with the NATO Training Mission. The opinions expressed herein are his alone and do not represent the official position of the Department of Defense or the United States Army.

Choosing More Appropriate Tools to Understand the Population

by Paul Meinshausen and Dr. Schaun Wheeler

Download the full article: Choosing More Appropriate Tools to Understand the Population

This article makes the argument that intelligence preparation and strategy for counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan should not be based on assessments of tribe -- ever. Tribal "affiliation," "influence," "identification," and "dynamics" poorly correspond to actual local conditions. Information about tribes inaccurately and insufficiently assesses Local Population (LP) behavior and degrades ISAF's ability to make appropriate decisions by distorting and obscuring real indicators of behavior. To understand and influence LP behavior in Afghanistan, ISAF should discontinue its focus on tribes and instead increase focus on the access to locations, resources, information, and expertise that constrain LP capabilities, and the availability of institutions, routines, face-to-face interactions, and costs and benefits that constrain LP intents.

Download the full article: Choosing More Appropriate Tools to Understand the Population

Paul Meinshausen is an intelligence specialist currently deployed to the Combined Joint Intelligence Operations Center - Afghanistan, at the International Security Assistance Force Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. A subject matter expert on interactions between local populations and insurgencies, he was a 2007-08 Fulbright Scholar in Turkey, and received an M.A. in Eurasian Studies from Middle East Technical University, Ankara.

Dr. Schaun Wheeler is a cognitive anthropologist for the Department of the Army, specializing in assessments of local populations and their effects on insurgent and counterinsurgent operations. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Connecticut.

The views presented here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Department of Defense or its components.

Some Thoughts on Aid in COIN Operations

by Colonel Gary Anderson

Download the full article: Some Thoughts on Aid in COIN Operations

Some observers call the American led counterinsurgency efforts, past and present, in Iraq and Afghanistan, "a strategy of tactics". They argue that the American effort on the ground was and is too focused on doing population control village-by-village and district by district, that they forget the big picture of eliminating corruption nationwide and solving the big social and political problems that plague those countries.

I have no argument that, to date, we have failed to create the kinds of reforms within the Karzai regime that will cure wide ranging corruption and poor governance that have allowed the Taliban to make a comeback. However, counterinsurgency (COIN), like politics tends to be local.

Just as a mid-term election in the United States can force an American president (as well as Congress) to change course, many American soldiers and State Department civilian officials in Afghanistan believe that a large number of local successes against the Taliban will force change within the Karzai regime -- that Karzai and the national government will feel pressured by rising local stars to reform from the bottom up.

Until then, the most our tactical commanders and Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) leaders can do at the local / tactical level is use combat power to provide security and buy time for the Afghans to create effective security mechanisms and use aid in a way that best enhances the COIN fight by convincing the population that there is a viable alternative to what the Taliban offers.

Download the full article: Some Thoughts on Aid in COIN Operations

Colonel Gary Anderson is a retired Marine infantry officer. A a Marine and as a civilian he has seen service in Lebanon, Somalia, and did research for several Defense Department studies in Afghanistan; he also did humanitarian service in Bangladesh. He recently returned from a tour with an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq. He teaches at the George Washington University's Elliott School.

by Michael Yon

Download the full article: Dispatch: Gobar Gas

Brunei, Afghanistan, Nepal, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam

08 June 2010

A Gurkha Idea

Among the more interesting coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan are the legendary Nepalese Gurkhas. Trained and fielded by the British, as they have been since colonial days, Gurkhas are a fascinating admixture: today, they are elite soldiers used to traveling the world. But many of them grew up barefoot and poor in remote and primitive mountain villages in the high Himalayas—places that closely resemble parts of Afghanistan, geographically and culturally. Forefathers of some of today's Ghurkas fought in the Afghan region during earlier wars. Gurkhas understand impoverished life in a harsh environment, though Nepal has enjoyed material progress in recent decades that is mostly unrealized in Afghanistan. Unlike forces from Europe or America, who often regard Afghanistan as an outpost of 13th Century life, Gurkhas can provide a link between primitive Afghan standards of development, and the possibilities for progress, with insights and connections that might elude most Westerners.

The insights of a Gurkha veteran named Lalit, whom I met in the jungles of Borneo, at a British Army man-tracking school, were particularly valuable. One day in the jungle Lalit began a conversation by announcing that many of Afghanistan's household needs could be solved if Afghans would adopt "Gobar Gas" production. Gobar Gas could improve the lives of Afghans as it had that of the Nepalese, he said, as he began to explain with great enthusiasm.

During Lalit's time in Afghanistan, he found nobody who had heard of Gobar Gas—even though Gobar Gas has been a quiet engine of ground-level economic transformation in Nepal and numerous other poor Asian nations.

After the man-tracking course ended I returned to Afghanistan, this time to the desert-like areas of Ghor, Helmand and Kandahar provinces, where most people have no electricity and often spend hours daily scrounging for bits of wood or whatever other fuel they can find on the deforested plains. Lalit was right about two things: No Afghan I met had heard of the Gobar Gas -- by any name. Nor had most American development people on the ground. Second, Gobar Gas looked like a serious solution in some areas to the lack of available fuel to meet daily needs. Given its track record and its perfect applicability to Afghanistan's state of development, this was a match made in heaven. I flew back to Nepal to talk with Gobar Gas experts and users.

Download the full article: Dispatch: Gobar Gas

Michael Yon is a former Green Beret who has been reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan since December 2004. No other reporter has spent as much time with combat troops in these two wars. Michael's dispatches from the frontlines have earned him the reputation as the premier independent combat journalist of his generation. His work is published at Michael Yon Online and has been featured on Good Morning America, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, ABC, FOX, as well as hundreds of other major media outlets all around the world.

by Hannah Gurman

Download the full article: Tribal Engagement and the Heavy History of Counterinsurgency Light

For months now, James Gant has been dreaming of returning to Afghanistan, where he served for nearly four years since 2003 as a Special Forces officer for the U.S. Army. "I feel like I was born there. The greatest days of my entire life were spent in the Pesch Valley and Musa Qalay and with the great Sitting Bull." In a short time, Gant's dream will come true. Although the army originally ordered him to Iraq, where Gant served from 2006-2007, it has now re-written his orders. Soon, he will return to Afghanistan to re-unite with Sitting Bull and pursue an alternative strategy to defeat the Taliban.

Gant first met Sitting Bull in April 2003, when he and his team of nine soldiers, mostly Special Forces officers, were deployed to the Konar Province of Afghanistan on orders to "kill and capture anti-coalition members." After successfully fighting off an attack in the first months of their deployment, they made their way over to the village of Mangwel, where they met the tribal doctor who agreed to introduce Gant and his team to the tribal elder. When they sat down, Sitting Bull, whose real name is Malik Noorafzhal, asked Gant why none of the other US forces passing through his village had ever stopped to talk to him. It was the beginning of Gant's self-described "journey of discovery" through which he and his team threw their fate in with Sitting Bull's tribe, fighting and negotiating alongside them to resolve decades-long land disputes between local tribes and build their capacity to defend themselves from the Taliban.

Gant has received much praise in the military for his work with the Afghan tribes. One senior military officer dubbed him "Lawrence of Afghanistan" after the larger-than-life British officer who fought alongside Arab tribes in their rebellion against the Ottoman empire. The similarity is evident in a personal photo of Gant in Afghanistan, in which he is wearing a long black robe and headdress, looking straight into the camera with a serious gaze and a strong sense of purpose. While the analogy to Lawrence was originally intended to underscore the incredible promise of Gant's vision and influence, it unwittingly reveals the links between Gant and the darker side of the history of counterinsurgency.

Download the full article: Tribal Engagement and the Heavy History of Counterinsurgency Light

Hannah Gurman is an assistant professor at New York University's Gallatin School and is in the early stages of a larger research project in an attempt to (re)institutionalize counterinsurgency in the U.S. military and foreign policy establishment.

by Major Jim Gant and William "Mac" McCallister

Download the full article: Tribal Engagement: The Jirga and the Shura

According to NATO's military chief of intelligence in Afghanistan, the Taliban now maintain shadow governors in thirty-three out of thirty-four provinces. While we like to see the world in black and white, the complexities of relationships and alliances in the village and valley make it anything but a straightforward contest between two parties. The U.S. strategy of stripping away Taliban loyalists is not easy in a very complex socio-political landscape. This landscape includes different types of traditional authority, local rivalries and the various configurations of social power in each village and valley.

The rubber of U.S. strategy meets the road in the village assembly. It is in the local assemblies where Coalition Forces speak directly with the local inhabitants and indirectly with the shadow governors of the Taliban. Identifying ahead of time the familial, sectarian, security, economic and political alliances represented in a given village or valley assembly will assist in identifying how these alliances might influence group decisions. We must also contemplate, identify and differentiate between two very different village assemblies: the jirga and shura.

Download the full article: Tribal Engagement: The Jirga and the Shura

Major Jim Gant is currently assigned to the Afghanistan Pakistan Hands (AFPAK Hands) Program as a Tribal Engagement Advisor. AFPAK Hands is designed to develop cadres of officers (and civilians) from each of the military's services who agree to three to five year tours to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. He will be returning to Afghanistan in the near future.

William "Mac" McCallister is a retired military officer. He has worked extensively in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has applied his study of tribal culture in assessing reconstruction efforts, as well as insurgency and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror.

Grand Strategy with Chinese Characteristics

by Dr. Tony Corn

Download the full article: Grand Strategy with Chinese Characteristics

As countless observers have pointed out, the American-Chinese rivalry in the early 21st century bears more than a passing resemblance to the Anglo-German antagonism that led to World War I. In these conditions, it is not surprising if a consensus has emerged, among International Relations (IR) academics, around the proposition that the U.S.-China relation is bound to be the most important bilateral relation in the coming decades.

Yet, the degree of certainty regarding the salience of this bilateral relation is only matched by the degree of uncertainty surrounding its dynamics and its eventual outcome. When it comes to answering the question "Is a conflict inevitable?," all three IR schools (realism, liberalism, constructivism) hedge their bets by offering both a pessimistic and an optimistic variant -- a tacit admission that, on the most burning issue of the day, the predictive value of IR theory is close to nil.

For the outside observer, the most disconcerting aspect of this academic debate is that optimists and pessimists alike share the same unexamined notions of conflict and war, as if "conflict" was a self-explanatory concept, "war" was a trans-historical category. In particular, both proponents and critics of Power Transition Theory (PTT) -- the most popular theory about China in academe today - keep arguing about the factors conducive to the initiation, timing, severity, and consequences of "major wars" without giving much thought to either the singularity of Chinese strategic culture or, a fortiori, to three global developments of the past fifty years: the waning of "major wars," the declining "fungibility" of military force as such and, last but not least, the transformation of "war" itself.

In the military world, by contrast, the defining feature of the present era is precisely the impossibility of coming up with "a coherent concept of war to animate and focus our military efforts" (LTG David Barno, Ret.). Since 9/11, the strategic debate in America has been marked by a "war over war" and a seemingly endless proliferation of war modifiers: unconventional war, irregular war, asymmetric war, wicked war, criminal war, war of the third kind, non-trinitarian war, new war, counterwar, war amongst the people, three-block war, fourth-generation war, compound war, netwar, insurgency, global guerrilla, econo-jihad, not to mention information warfare, financial warfare, resource warfare, lawfare, cyberwarfare and chaoplexic warfare.

Few strategists, to be sure, are likely to subscribe to British General Rupert Smith's view that "war no longer exists." But while conventional, state-on-state, force-on-force, war, is unlikely to disappear any time soon, the fact remains that never before has the concept of War been surrounded with so much "fog and friction."

Download the full article: Grand Strategy with Chinese Characteristics

Dr. Tony Corn is the author of "World War IV as Fourth-Generation Warfare," Policy Review, web special, January 2006. He is currently writing a book on the Long War. This essay was written on the margins of the 2010 U.S. Army War College Annual Strategy Conference on "Defining War for the 21st Century." The opinions expressed here are the author's own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Department of State.

by Russell Hampsey

Download the full article: Rediscovering the Art of Psychological Operations

Psychological Operations (PSYOP) professionals have too long taken a cautionary approach to the counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Afghanistan. The forces waging COIN on a daily basis; Brigade, Battalion and Company sized units deride PSYOP as the "no" man. While the rest of the military has become learning organizations it seems PSYOP units are stuck trying to execute major combat operational war campaigns that are better suited for an enemy that is national and enjoys first or top tier second-world infrastructure. Commanders on the ground strive for responsive, timely, and relevant programs designed to influence the insurgent and selected Afghan target audiences that support or are ambivalent to the insurgents. PSYOP limitations in executing these tasks have relegated the branch to the second string. The PSYOP community must reinvigorate its agility and come prepared to fight the COIN strategy in Afghanistan.

There are underlying issues that have led the community to this undesirable point. PSYOP professionals have been in a 9 year struggle with the Information Operations (IO) field for primacy in addressing foreign target audiences. Field manuals and regulations tell you that PSYOP communicates with foreign audiences when influence is desired and Public Affairs communicate with foreign press and leaders when presenting informational releases. The PSYOP problem lies in the responsiveness in the field. In Afghanistan innovative PSYOP products that are not preapproved are scrutinized and boarded until their usefulness is irrelevant. In the meantime commanders look to the IO team to get message out, even if the risk is a less than optimal product. Preapproved product is great for standing messages such as tips lines, rewards programs and informational data e.g. tune in to x radio station; it is useless against a enemy that bases it entire campaign on influence and intimidation. It is time to get PSYOP back in the fight.

Download the full article: Rediscovering the Art of Psychological Operations

Russell Hampsey is a retired Psychological Operations Officer and is currently working for the ISAF Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team in Regional Command East.

Discourse on Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami

and Its Founder Abu al-Ala al-Mawdudi

Uncovering the Philosophy and Nuance

of America's Adversary in Pakistan

by Commander Youssef Aboul-Enein,

MSC, USN

Download the full article:

Discourse on Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami...

Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) has expended extensive efforts in imposing their

vision of Sharia on Pakistan's public life since the founding of the state in 1947. 

They stand opposed to any secular ideas introduced into Pakistan and are intolerant

of other Muslim belief systems that do not espouse their views. JI, like other Islamist

groups, confuse secularism as a modern form of religion versus as a mechanism to

manage Pakistan's diverse ethnic and religious (Muslim and non-Muslim) groups. 

In order to interact effectively with Pakistan, America's leaders must gain an understanding

of the core struggle between two of Pakistan's founders:  the secular vision

of Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), and the Islamist vision of Abu al Ala al-Mawdudi

(1903-1979).  This essay is a distillation of a dozen books written by Mawdudi

and published in Arabic, and attempts to get into the mind of an important ideologue

of modern radical Islamist movements.  Mawdudi's books are referenced in this

essay.  Commentary and analysis of Mawdudi's work, as well as comparisons are

listed at the end of this work.

Download the full article:

Discourse on Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami...

Commander Youssef Aboul-Enein is author of

Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat recently published

by Naval Institute Press.  He is currently studying at the Industrial College

of the Armed Forces in Washington DC.  Commander Aboul-Enein wishes to thank

Dr. Christina Lafferty for her edits and comments that enhanced this work. 

In addition, he wishes to thank the Bolling AFB Library and the National Defense

University Library both in Washington DC for their assistance and for providing

a place to write this piece.  The views represented are that of the author,

and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government.

Hints for the Counterinsurgency (COIN) Strategy in Afghanistan

by Sean McKenna and Russell Hampsey

ISAFCAAT-E Memorandum Special to Small Wars Journal

Download the full memorandum: "The COIN Warrior" Waging Influence

The purpose of this document is to flatten the information sharing process across the force and provide information that we have seen throughout the Afghan Theater. The intent is to provide information to personnel in their pre-deployment training at the National and International Training Centers, as well as forces currently operating in the Afghan COIN Environment. The information contained in this document can be utilized as a pocket guide for continual reference.

Since the announcement of the Counterinsurgency Strategy with the publishing of the Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan (ICMCP) we have advised and assisted numerous units from Regional Commands to Platoon sized elements. There are a few common threads that resonate throughout the lower echelons of command and we identified a need to address these universal issues.

This document is not a panacea, but should provide personnel at all levels with insight as to several techniques and ideas to put into their tool kit to improve their repertoire especially at the battalion, company, and platoon levels. The counterinsurgency environment in Afghanistan requires a customized approach in every village and valley; you are only limited by your imagination and ability to influence.

Download the full memorandum: "The COIN Warrior" Waging Influence

by Major James Smith and Major James Harbridge

Download the full article: A Combined Arms Response to Death of the Armor Corps

Since the emergence of Counterinsurgency (COIN) as a strategy in 2004, it has gained widespread acceptance both within and outside of the military. It has gained so much acceptance that it has essentially become Army dogma. Most writing on the subject is overwhelming supportive. However, one officer has stood out because he has dared to write articles that question COIN. Colonel Gian Gentile has been the one dissenting voice in the Army. He has used well researched and written historically based articles that question COIN as an underlying strategy of the Army. He has called for a return to core competencies of our various branches.

Colonel Gentile looks beyond the fifty and one hundred meter targets and sees targets that look more like conventional military adversaries with armor and artillery instead of insurgents with machine guns and improvised explosive devices (IED's). Whether or not one agrees with his assessments and suggestion, his work is terribly important to the Army because it does not toe the party line. In fact, when Thomas Ricks published his list of the top voices in Foreign Policy magazine, Colonel Gentile was the only one who was not pro-COIN. His opinion is imperative or else we might all drink from the COIN Kool-Aid and relive the days of Active Defense where Army doctrine was the result of one man and debate was discouraged. We are familiar with the result of how that doctrinal era turned out. Sadly, Colonel Gentile seems as if he has finally given up, gathered his pistol and canteen and ventured off to Fiddlers Green. In his most recent article, The Death of the Armor Corps, Colonel Gentile seems to be complaining that no one is listening. Gone are the well thought out historical examples, and they are replaced by incomplete contemporary examples. The result is a product that appears to stubbornly refuse to accept that what makes our military great is our ability to adapt and innovate while still retaining the ability to relearn our core competencies. As former company and troop commanders, we thoroughly enjoy the musings of Colonel Gentile, thus we have four simple reasons why Colonel Gentile should get back on his conventional horse, buckle his chinstrap and continue his charge for the combined-arms high ground.

Download the full article: A Combined Arms Response to Death of the Armor Corps

Major James "Jimmy" Smith and Major James Harbridge are currently serving as instructors in the Defense and Strategic Studies Major at the US Military Academy, West Point. Major Smith is an Armor Officer and Major Harbridge an Infantry Officer. Their intent here is to provide a Maneuver officers perspective. Both have served in combat, commanding a company or troop-level unit.

The Ship is the Visual, Even in the Shadow Zones

by Lieutenant Commander Claude G. Berube

Download the full article: The Ship is the Visual, Even in the Shadow Zones

U.S. foreign policy response to the latest incarnation of a multi-polar world has generated discussion within think tanks, the Pentagon, Congress, and industry on the appropriate naval force structure to maintain sea dominance in cooperation with partner states. While the U.S. Navy was designed to meet peer competitor, the same structure, directives, and policies have yet to adequately prepare for a transition from conventional naval warfare. The Navy has become accustomed to irregular challenges, such as conducting anti-piracy patrols. But non-state actors (NSAs) and non-governmental organizations currently operating on the maritime commons might illustrate how their operations and assets might be used in the future by other non-state actors, by state sponsors of irregular challenges, and by belligerent sponsors themselves. The nation and the Navy need to prepare for hybrid warfare at sea where people and platforms indistinguishable from traditional non-combatants are further complicated by geographical, legal, and public relations challenges.

Whether it is a bipolar or multi-polar world, the fundamental conditions required of state-to-state relations are the same: stable governments, systems of communication with one another, rules that guide their relations and enforcement mechanisms whether they are economic, political, or military in nature. When any one or more of those operating conditions is removed, the result is either anarchy or fault lines that pose security risks and can be exploited by irregular forces. As we have seen those circumstances on land, they might also be applied to the maritime commons.

Download the full article: The Ship is the Visual, Even in the Shadow Zones

Claude Berube is a Visiting Fellow for Maritime Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He has taught at the U.S. Naval Academy since 2005. A lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, he has been mobilized several times including a deployment to the Persian Gulf with Expeditionary Strike Group Five which included tsunami humanitarian relief operations in Sumatra, maritime interdiction operations, and anti-piracy operations off Somalia. He has worked on Capitol Hill for two Senators, for a defense firm, and as a civilian for the Office of Naval Intelligence.

by Nathan Freier

Download the full article: The New Theology: Building Partner Capacity

In a recent Foreign Affairs commentary, Secretary Gates again extolled the virtues of "building partner capacity" (BPC) — a cornerstone of contemporary defense policy and a key mission area in the QDR. The common Pentagon narrative on BPC holds that in a world where terrorists, insurgents, cartels, mobs, and proliferators pose fundamental security hazards, the best defense is local. In short, we don't fight ourselves; we make others better at fighting for us. At its foundation, BPC posits that training and equipping foreign security forces is a cheaper and more effective way of extending U.S. influence into areas where it is otherwise difficult to do so. A note of caution is in order. There is precious little room for error in BPC, as the distinction between true partner and unreliable mercenary picket is less clear than most appreciate.

Today, in an era of declining discretionary defense resources, finding efficiencies is essential. "Cheaper" and "more effective" are popular concepts. After all, the secretary already warned that the resource "gusher" is off indefinitely. Thus, competing DoD choices will soon become zero sum propositions. Key among them — the tension between investing in prevention via BPC and hedging against prevention's failure through prudent investment in contingency response. In the current environment, one's gain may be the other's loss. Thus, caution is warranted when deciding where and how to proceed with BPC.

Download the full article: The New Theology: Building Partner Capacity

Nathan Freier is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Visiting Professor at the Army War College's Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute.

The Spiritual Significance of ¿Plata O Plomo?

by Pamela L. Bunker and Dr. Robert J. Bunker

Download the full article: The Spiritual Significance of ¿Plata O Plomo?

Conventional wisdom holds that narco gang and drug cartel violence in Mexico is primarily secular in nature. This viewpoint has been recently challenged by the activities of the La Familia cartel and some Los Zetas, Gulfo, and other cartel adherents of the cult of Santa Muerte (Saint Death) by means of religious tenets of 'divine justice' and instances of tortured victims and ritual human sacrifice offered up to a dark deity, respectively. Severed heads thrown onto a disco floor in Michoacan in 2005 and burnt skull imprints in a clearing in a ranch in the Yucatán Peninsula in 2008 only serve to highlight the number of such incidents which have now taken place. Whereas the infamous 'black cauldron' incident in Matamoros in 1989, where American college student Mark Kilroy's brain was found in a ritual nganga belonging to a local narco gang, was the rare exception, such spiritual-like activities have now become far more frequent.

These activities only serve to further elaborate concerns amongst scholars, including Sullivan, Elkus, Brands, Manwaring, and the authors, over societal warfare breaking out across the Americas. This warfare— manifesting itself in 'criminal insurgencies' derived from groups of gang, cartel, and mercenary networks— promotes new forms of state organization drawn from criminally based social and political norms and behaviors. These include a value system derived from illicit narcotics use, killing for sport and pleasure, human trafficking and slavery, dysfunctional perspectives on women and family life, and a habitual orientation to violence and total disregard for modern civil society and democratic freedoms. This harkens back to Peter's thoughts concerning the emergence of a 'new warrior class' and, before that, van Creveld's 'non-trinitarian warfare' projections.

A recent insight, gained by the authors after the conclusion of a major research project on Mexican drug groups, is that this insurgency has at its basis a spiritual, if not religious, component that threatens the underlying foundations of our modern Western value system. This component is derived from the well known cartel technique of offering an individual ¿Plata O Plomo?—take our silver or we will fill you with our lead. As a tactic taken by groups with a theological bent, such as La Familia, this offer becomes Faustian, join us and in the process give up your soul or die, a choice historically associated with incidents of religious conversion at the tip of a sword. That technique is typically carried out by young religions, such as militant Christianity and Islam, during their expansionistic phases. These post-battlefield mass conversions are considered by the victors as actually saving the souls of those joining the righteous ranks of God's chosen.

Download the full article: The Spiritual Significance of ¿Plata O Plomo?

Pamela L. Bunker is a senior officer of the Counter-OPFOR Corporation. Research interests include less lethal weapons (LLW) and CONUS OPFORs (radical environmental and fringe groups and religious cults). Her work has been presented in policing and academic conferences in Alaska, Australia, and Germany. She was a contributor to the Encyclopedia of World War I (ABC-CLIO, 2005), has written on less lethal weapons for a NLECTC-West project, and has fired LLW on the South Australia Police (SAPOL) Range. She graduated from California State Polytechnic University Pomona with a B.S. in anthropology/geography and a B.S. in social science and from The Claremont Graduate University with a M.A. in public policy with additional post-graduate work completed in comparative politics and government. Past professional experience includes research and program coordination in University, Non-Government Organization (NGO), and City Government settings.

Dr. Robert J. Bunker attended California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and the Claremont Graduate University. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and an M.A. in government and bachelors' degrees in anthropology/geography, social science, behavioral science, and history. Dr. Bunker is Adjunct Professor, National Security Studies Program, California State University, San Bernardino, and Professor, Unconventional Warfare, American Military University, Manassas Park, Virginia. He has served as a consultant to both the military and law enforcement communities. His research focus is on the influence of technology on warfare and political organization and on the national security implications of emerging forms of warfare. Dr. Bunker's works have appeared in Parameters, Special Warfare, Army RDA, Military Intelligence, Red Thrust Star, Airpower Journal, Marine Corps Gazette, Institute of Land Warfare Papers, Institute For National Security Studies Occasional Papers, and various law enforcement publications, military encyclopedias, and in book chapters.

Many Paths up the Mountain:

Population-Centric COIN in Afghanistan

by Major Nathan Springer

Download the full article: Population-Centric COIN in Afghanistan

The reality of how Troops implement and execute Population-Centric Counterinsurgency (COIN) in Afghanistan and the associated narrative spin in the Western COIN community of interest are at odds. A misguided and mistaken narrative surrounds ISAF's Population-Centric strategy in Afghanistan. I have listened to countless experts describe Population-Centric COIN as soft, focused on anything but the enemy, and extremely left leaning while Enemy-Centric COIN gets pegged the right-wing counter-terrorism approach, wholly focused on the enemy. This over-simplifies both schools of thought and fails to accurately describe either of them.

I have heard leaders voice strong concerns that the Population-Centric strategy will constrain them in Afghanistan while some contend Population--Centric COIN is glorified nation building. Others have adopted Population-Centric COIN whole-heartedly and without much question, as if it is the ultimate cure-all for any Area of Operation.

COIN experts have seemingly come out of the woodwork, each articulating their own COIN theory on Afghanistan. Population-Centric, Leader-Centric, Enemy- Centric, tribally motivated, religiously motivated, externally organized, internally organized, you name it. I have experienced a recurrent thought as I have traveled to various COIN venues over the past few months, scrutinizing the dialogues about these theories. A few days ago, at the COIN symposium, I decided to just get it out there.

Download the full article: Population-Centric COIN in Afghanistan

Major Nathan Springer is the Chief of Operations at the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center. The thoughts and opinions in this article are entirely his own and do not represent the position of the United States Army.

Partnered Operations in Afghanistan

by Colonel Wayne W. Grigsby, Jr. and Lieutenant Colonel David W. Pendall

edited by Lieutenant Colonel Ed Ledford

Download the full article: The Combined Team: Partnered Operations in Afghanistan

The Combined Team of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is about protecting the Afghan people -- helping replace fear and uncertainty with a sense of trust and confidence in their security forces and their national, provincial, and district government. The combined team interdependent partnership -- integrated, coordinated, and synchronized -- represents the coalition's renewed commitment to Afghanistan, and the Afghan National Security Force's commitment to the people who populate this remarkable, beautiful, diverse, and incomprehensibly complex nation. Together, we bring to bear the sum of our strengths and bridge the gaps of our limitations.

Building a true combined team is a tremendously challenging proposition for any two nations. Imagine the unmitigated commitment necessary to successfully build a combined team between a forty-three nation coalition and its Afghan National Security Force partners and, then, achieve unity of command and effort. However, this commitment is exactly what we see among the Afghan security forces, exactly the commitment we see across the International Security Assistance Forces to Afghanistan, and exactly the commitment that has to exist, and continues to grow stronger, between the Afghan forces and the coalition forces.

The benefits far outweigh any difficulties -- that is clear to everyone.

As a Combined Team, Afghan and Coalition forces plan, brief, rehearse, and fight together as embedded partners, constantly building operational effectiveness and security capacity. It is the underlying premise of the combined team that our operations will enable the Afghan government, fully supported by the international community, to achieve stability and progress for the people of Afghanistan. So as ISAF and the Afghan Security Forces conduct integrated operations, we collectively appreciate that our efforts are part of a broader civil, government-led effort to meet the myriad requirements of the Afghan people at district level and below. We embrace and are completely dedicated to the notion that the Afghan people, led by a responsive government that meets their needs and places their welfare first, will decide this contest in favor of long-term peace and the opportunity for prosperity and hope for today's and future generations.

That is our asymmetric advantage over the enemy of the Afghan people.

Download the full article: The Combined Team: Partnered Operations in Afghanistan

Colonel Wayne W. Grigsby, Jr., US Army is the director of Future Operations, ISAF Joint Command, in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is a former Brigade Combat Team Commander, graduate of the National War College and the US Army School of Advanced Military Science (SAMS).

Lieutenant Colonel David W. Pendall, US Army, was the deputy director and the lead intelligence planner of Future Operations, ISAF Joint Command. He is in transition to the 1st Cavalry Division to become the Division G2 and is also a US Army School of Advanced Military Science (SAMS) graduate.

Lieutenant Colonel Edward C. Ledford, US Army, is the Chief of the IJC Command Operational Engagement Cell. He is a former assistant professor of English at the United States Military Academy, West Point, and speechwriter for the 34th Chief of Staff of the Army.

Bringing the "Wall of the Unknown"

Down:

Reframing Complex Problems

by Adrian Wolfberg and

Katherine C. Stewart

Download the full article: Bringing the "Wall of the Unknown" Down

Occasionally, intelligence problems - new and existing - defy existing

methods and techniques and become stubbornly persistent. Examples of analytic

challenges include changing methodology in the face of new global factors;

finding a methodological approach for a new topic when no methodology has

existed before; creating a network of professionals to solve a cross-discipline

and cross-functional problem when no network exists; and exploring the impact of

a not-quite-yet-understood threat. These challenges require analysts to do

something different than what they normally do because if they do not, nothing

different will happen. The first step to ensure something different happens is

to frame or reframe the problem in a new way. Only then can existing or new

technical methods and techniques be used to begin solving the problem.

Download the full article: Bringing the "Wall of the Unknown" Down

Adrian (Zeke) Wolfberg directs the Knowledge Laboratory, a

command sponsored enterprisewide resource for change within the Defense

Intelligence Agency.

Katie Stewart is a consultant with Toffler Associates. She leads

the Full Spectrum program for the DIA Knowledge Lab which focuses on increasing

analytic rigor and collaboration against agency hard problems.

Restoring the Balance

by Dr. Wm. J. Olson

Download the full article: Ten Reasons to Ignore bin Laden

What to do about bin Ladin? Ever since 9/11 that has been the central question in US policy to combat international terrorism. The events of 9/11 defined a presidency, became the motivation for the policies and actions of a superpower, and have remained a key component in an internal American debate over the best policies and strategies for understanding and responding to the world and US responsibilities in it. Exactly what is best to do and why? The major contention in what follows is offered more as a proposition than as a conclusion. It is a thought piece not a policy statement, in part because we have not thought enough about what we are doing, why or whether we should be doing it, and have rushed forward with policies and actions.

The main point is to argue that the focus on bin Ladin, on his organization, and on the role of Islam in their actions misses the point of the exercise as they misinterpret the world we now commonly inhabit. The proper focus is not what to do about bin Ladin but what American purpose is in a world where people like bin Ladin are possible. Viewed solely from the perspective of a bin Ladin, or any aspirants to his mantle, he is the most spectacularly successful terrorist in history. Not because of any individual acts, which have been heinous, but in their ability to mesmerize the world and to become the centerpiece of the purposes, policies, and actions of a superpower. The argument here is that this is not what the situation merits and is not what we should be about. It is not an argument for doing nothing but for reassessing the reasons for what we are doing or need to be doing. As a proposition, it does not offer final answers but a point of view. The United States has lost the art of strategic thinking and is locked in cycles of operational and tactical responses dressed up as strategy. The real struggle is about ideas not techniques. A change is needed.

One of the main elements in current US thinking on how to deal with the threat from bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida is the need to respond to the ideological support to terrorism derived from their efforts to coax the Islamic world into action. The idea behind combating the ideological support to terrorism is that bin Ladin & Associates are propagating an ideology, based on Islam, that is the source of their ability to recruit fighters among the world's Muslims and that this effort must and can be countered in a fashion parallel to how the United States countered Marxism, an ideology, and defeated the Soviet Union. It is, after all, a war of ideas and so we must engage on this battlefield as well. But, which war of ideas? What ideas are waging war and what ideas need to be countered? Supported? With what means?

Download the full article: Ten Reasons to Ignore bin Laden

William J. Olson is a professor at the Near East and South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Recently, he was the President and CEO of Olson & Associates, a diversified consultancy providing a variety of services to corporate, government, and private sector clients. Most recently, he was the Chief of the Information Management Unit in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Baghdad, Iraq. He was formerly the Staff Director for the US Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.

by Dr. Scott Corey

Download the full article: One Hundred Honest Preachers

US combat forces will begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in July of 2011. Afghan military and police must quickly prepare to fulfill their role in that nation. Training is being improved, but continuity of discipline and motivation after training appears to be problematic. Pay has been increased, but widespread corruption makes reliable delivery of payroll vulnerable to abuse.

If Afghan forces of order are going to be independent, capable, and constructive in a short time frame, daring (not reckless) ideas must be proposed and debated now, not six months from now. This article offers a daring idea enclosed in a gray bureaucratic folder.

Download the full article: One Hundred Honest Preachers

Dr. Scott Corey served as a rifleman in the US Marine Corps from 1972-6. He earned a BA from Claremont Men's College and went on to a PhD in political science from UC Berkeley. His dissertation subject was revolution and political violence. He now works at a rural crisis center in the Sierra Nevada region of California. Previous work includes an article on the Unabomber, and a conference paper on the 9/11 attacks.

The Use of Fusion Cells to Establish Unity of Effort Between SOF (Yin) and Conventional Forces (Yang)

by Captain Paul Lushenko

Download the full article: "Partnership 'Till it Hurts"

America's Special Operations Forces (SOF) have historically shared an adversarial, but necessary, relationship with conventional counterparts due primarily to intra-service rivalry, personality conflicts, and mission secrecy. Yet, the SOF-conventional operating paradigm mirrors a yin-yang dynamic in which both forces are seemingly disjunct but nevertheless complementary when synchronized: "...there is contradiction as well as harmony, and...unity in multiplicity." While yin-yang fluctuate in time and space, inherent opportunity costs ultimately compel balance. As the world's de facto leader against extremism, America has necessarily expanded SOF's global presence to undermine savvy militants and shadowy networks outside the mission and capabilities scope of more mechanical conventional forces. Consequently, the "wall of secrecy" once maintained by SOF has been lowered to synchronize all facets of the military within the contemporary operating environment (COE) in which SOF and conventional forces more deliberately cooperate.

As the Intelligence Officer of a Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF) re-deployed from eastern Afghanistan in the fall of 2009, my experiences reinforced the gravity of establishing unity of effort between SOF (yin) and conventional forces (yang) to exploit intelligence, capabilities, and mission opportunity costs. The development of a Brigade-level fusion cell in eastern Afghanistan fostered operational harmony, resulting in heightened, non-doctrinal partnership; deliberate intelligence sharing; joint planning and operations; and innovative leadership to more effectively conduct irregular warfare including counter-insurgency (COIN). By streamlining the opportunity costs of SOF and conventional forces through the fusion cell, our JSOTF empowered the conventional Brigade's more important Lines of Effort (LOE), undermined the Haqqani Network's (HQN) strategic objectives, precipitated the reconciliation of mid-senior level HQN leaders, and promoted legitimacy of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) through an aggressive Information Operations (IO) campaign.

Download the full article: "Partnership 'Till it Hurts"

Captain Paul Lushenko is currently assigned as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar at The Australian National University's (ANU) Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment in Fort Benning, Georgia as an Intelligence Officer. His deployments include multiple tours to Iraq and a recent deployment to Afghanistan where he served as the J2 for a Joint Special Operations Task Force. He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 2005 (B.S., International Relations) and is studying for dual masters in diplomacy and international relations.

The Jones Insurgency Model

A Tool for the Prevention and

Resolution of Insurgency

by Colonel Robert C. Jones

Download the full article:

The

The Jones Insurgency Model

Offered here is the simple proposition that insurgency happens when

governance fails. Similarly, foreign terrorism happens when one supports these

same failed systems.

countries like Somalia; which is probably more accurately described as a

rejection of forced western, Westphalian constructs of governance for forms

more acceptable to their culture and society.

countries like Bangladesh; where the lack of effective government services

and widespread poverty are largely seen as "normal" by the affected

populace.

countries like Liberia; where auspices of statehood are perverted to

criminal purposes.

No, the failures that lead to insurgency are far more fundamental, and often

so insidious that they are not even recognized or acknowledged by their equally

failing leaders; even when pointed out to them, often quite violently, by their

own populaces. What makes countering such insurgent causation even more

complicated is that these failures do not even have to be real; all that is

required is that some key segment of the populace reasonably believes them to be

true.  The irony is not that this happens in countries like those described

above, but that it also afflicts the most developed, upright, and law abiding

countries as well. This is the paradox. This is why counterinsurgency is so

difficult: it can happen anywhere, its causation is rooted in perceptions of

governmental failure; and its resolution is rooted in governmental recognition

and resolution of those same perceptions.

Download the full article:

The

The Jones Insurgency Model

Colonel Robert C. Jones, U.S. Army Reserve, is a Special Forces officer

currently assigned as the Chief, Strategic Studies for U.S. Special Operations

Command; with duty in Kandahar, Afghanistan as the Chief, Special Operations

Planning and Liaison Element to Regional Command-South.  The opinions he

expresses here are his own and represent no NATO, U.S. Government or Department

of Defense positions.

See also this article as published here in the ISAF Counterinsurgency Blog.

by Captain Don Moss

Download the full article: The Hidden Engagement: Interpreters

Author's Note: This article represents the second in a series of papers (see Engaging Afghans: KLE Keys to Success) addressed to units and individuals involved in direct engagement with the people of Afghanistan. The intent is to provide advice and "lessons learned" based on first-hand experience in order to deepen the Afghan-ISAF partnership through relationships.

In Afghanistan, there is a growing focus on the importance of partnering with Afghan institutions and building their capacity through broad, meaningful engagement. However, your unit's efforts to positively engage with local tribes, religious, military and government figures, you may be overlooking a critical engagement much closer to home: your own interpreters.

With the arrival of thousands of additional troops in Afghanistan this year, the need for interpreters or Host Nation Linguists (HNLs) will also skyrocket. Even now, there are upwards of 5,000 men and women working for the primary HNL employer, Mission Essential Personnel, alone. Highly intelligent (often speaking 3-4 languages), hard-working and cultural experts, HNLs represent a valuable asset and learning conduit. Often, the HNLs your unit inherits have years of experience dealing in the local area and with personalities your team will encounter. This enables them to provide valuable insight long after your predecessors depart, usually after far too little turnover. That said, this article contains some suggestions for engaging with your HNLs and making it a productive, long-term relationship that will pave the way for all others.

Download the full article: The Hidden Engagement: Interpreters

Captain Don Moss was the Chief of Intelligence Operations for Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Paktya in Eastern Afghanistan, 2008-2009. He is a 19-year veteran of the United States Air Force and the intelligence profession. A graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Language Institute, he has led or participated in over 40 Key Leader Engagements and compiled summaries of over 400 more with Provincial Governmental/religious/tribal and village leaders.

Suggested Readings:

Afghanistan: Maladies of Interpreters by Joshua Foust

Unfit Interpreters by Joshua Foust

A Key Tool in Population-Centric Counterinsurgency

by Dr. Paul Kamolnick

Download the full article: Leveraging Legitimacy

Permanently separating insurgents from the population, facilitating effective self-defense of a sovereign host nation government, and removing ultimate causes, are necessary conditions for defeating an insurgency. Success results, if possible, as counterinsurgents systematically develop trusted networks, out-compete insurgents for population allegiance, and destroy insurgent forces.

Utility and legitimacy are two bases counterinsurgents can use to secure a population's compliance. The quest for physical and psychological security predominates as human motives generally - let alone during the uncertainties and brutality of war. Delivering essential services, providing security, and satisfying elementary human needs, despite counterinsurgent coercion, produces population compliance. This Hobbesian predicament well-describes why counterinsurgents are treated to distant stares, surreptitious overtures, studied neglect, or outright hostility by an insurgency-contested population. The Counterinsurgency (COIN) Manual maintains a realist approach to these facts of the human condition.

Moreover, if survival depends on tribal social structures, COIN practitioners must carefully leverage those networks and dynamics without which households, kin, clan, and sub-tribes confront a hostile environment and enemy others.

Utility-centered compliance can be ignored only at one's peril. A second means, legitimate domination, is also key. The present COIN Manual repeatedly notes that establishing legitimacy is a key COIN objective yet mistakenly conceives legitimacy as an attribute exclusive to national governance.

Legitimate governance is necessary to COIN victory. However; equating the concept 'legitimacy' with legitimate governance, and legitimate governance with western liberal democratic constitutionalism narrows the sociological scope of this key concept. It also obscures its strategic relevance.

This article seeks to remedy these two deficiencies by reintroducing the classical conceptualization of 'legitimate domination; briefly define its subtypes; and identify key points of potential relevance—tactical, strategic, and operational--to current COIN operations.

Download the full article: Leveraging Legitimacy

Dr. Paul Kamolnick is a civilian social scientist with expertise in classical sociological theory, and an ongoing professional interest in analyzing the ideological foundations of global jihadism and also, the theory and practice of counterinsurgency. He teaches three courses at East Tennessee State University of particular relevance: Sociology of Religious Fundamentalism, Sociology of Global Terrorism, and Counterinsurgency Warfare.

by Major Charlie Burbridge

Download the full article: Trust: Central to Success in Partnered Operations

Partnering is a trust-based relationship between equals which will seek to capitalise on the strengths of each partner and mitigate for weaknesses. As part of Commander International Security Assistance Force's (COMISAF) dual mission principle, it is a tool for developing the ANSF whilst concurrently countering the insurgency by protecting the population. The central requirement of trust requires further examination. ISAF troops require a homogenous and consistent understanding of how trust can be developed and maintained between partners.

The aim of this short paper is to examine why the importance of trust is at the heart of partnering, define the concept of trust within the context of Partnering in Afghanistan and recommend methods for generating and maintaining it over successive iterations of Op HERRICK.

COMISAF directed that the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) will be partnered to form a combined force, which will serve a dual mission of developing ANSF capability and defeating the insurgency.

ISAF forces will be required to continue to conduct high intensity counter insurgency operations but will do so in partnership with a force with which it has not trained, does not necessarily understand, and with whom there is a language barrier. Furthermore, ISAF forces will roll in and out of theatre; in the UK case, every six months, whilst the ANSF will remain in location permanently. The requirement for trust to be established swiftly and to endure through successive deployments of ISAF units is central to the success of Partnering. A breach of trust may have serious implications for the cohesion of the force.

Download the full article: Trust: Central to Success in Partnered Operations

Charlie Burbridge is a serving British Army Major. He has served in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Oman, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan in a variety of staff and command appointments. Most recently he commanded his squadron during Operation Panther's Claw in Helmand. He currently works on the staff of the British Counter Insurgency Centre.

by Colonel Gary Anderson

Download the full article: Building Professional and Personal Relationships in Counterinsurgency Environments

A recent Washington Post article describes a meeting between a U.S. Army Captain and an Afghan village elder in Afghanistan that failed badly. The meeting could have been in Iraq, Lebanon, or Somalia. The result was largely predetermined before the first words were spoken. The Afghan elder asks the Captain why he is coming to speak at that time having not attended any of the local Shura (elders' meetings) in months. The captain replies that the meetings are useless, and that they only talk about goats. Not surprisingly, the meeting goes badly from there. This experience is depressingly familiar to many who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. After nearly a decade of war in traditional Muslim societies, many of our soldiers, diplomats, and aid workers simply cannot develop the long term professional relationships of mutual confidence .In these societies all professional relationships are also personal as well, and that does require building an atmosphere of mutual confidence.

I use the tem mutual confidence, because trust is too strong a word to use in defining many of these relationships. Mutual confidence calls for mutual respect and a two way expectation of promises kept. Real trust is a much more special thing, and most often takes longer to build than the usual seven to twelve month in-country tour. Too many Americans take the byzantine patterns of relationships in traditional Muslim societies personally. We are not in these counterinsurgency situations to gratify our personal egos.

Every culture and region is slightly different; Iraq is not Afghanistan and Lebanon is different than both. After a quarter of a century dealing off and on with Muslim societies built on largely tribal cultures, I've probably made every mistake in the book, but I've found some things that I think hold true across the board.

Download the full article: Building Professional and Personal Relationships in Counterinsurgency Environments

The author, a retired Marine Corps colonel, recently finished a tour with the State Department as the Senior Governance Advisor with an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq.

by Brigadier General Huba Wass de Czege

Download the full article: The Logic and Method of Collaborative Design

The logic and method of design outlined in this paper is first and foremost a collective research methodology for considering the best available information to make sense of what is known in order to construct an explicit and shared hypothesis of the very unique, dynamic and complex power and influence networks that pertain to the mission and how to act through them to take best advantage of the inherent situational potential for change. It is also a collective methodology for continually refining the command's understanding of them, and for facilitating collective adaptation accordingly.

In a fundamental way, "design" is deciding what, in this particular mission case, is the "right" thing to do. In other words, it is imposing a logical structure over a very messy and hard to understand situation. When that logical structure is not self-evident it must be imposed on the situation by a conscious command decision, one that needs to be made before any deliberate, coherent or purposeful action can be taken, one that settles on an explicit formulation of the way the mission world is assumed to function and of how to exploit the potential for positive change within it. But modern military operational design is also a greater continuous collective and cyclical thought process for testing and transforming any and all previous "designs" as the mission context evolves over the span of a campaign.

It is increasingly difficult to write doctrine for the variety of mission situations that we can encounter today. Historical experience provides us examples that are often more different than similar to the mission contexts we face. For instance, an uncritical and formulaic imposition of the doctrinally prescribed aims and lines of operations drawn from the recently published COIN manual would be imposing a foreign logic upon a unique situation. We need a way to test the applicability of accumulated wisdom in all of its forms, and transform what we think we know into newer more applicable wisdom tailored to the mission at hand. A critical and collaborative design inquiry by the unit's command team does that.

Download the full article: The Logic and Method of Collaborative Design

Huba Wass de Czege is a retired U.S. Army brigadier general. During his career as an infantry officer, he served two tours in Vietnam and gained staff experience at all levels up to assistant division commander. General Wass De Czege was a principal designer of the operational concept known as AirLand Battle. He also was the founder and first director of the Army's School for Advanced Military Studies where he also taught applied military strategy. After retiring in 1993, General Wass De Czege became heavily involved in the Army After Next Project and served on several Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency v advisory panels. He is a 1964 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and holds an MPA from Harvard University.

Canadian Lessons from Afghanistan

by Dr. Peter Dobias

Download the full article: Mission Assessment in Complex Operations

The assessment of mission effectiveness has been called the "Achilles' heel" of the effects based approach to operations. This is especially true in the multi-agency, multi-stakeholder environment of present-day counterinsurgency. This paper addresses some of the pitfalls of assessment and suggests possible solutions to enable effective mission assessment in a complex environment. It is based to a large degree on the author's experience with the whole-of-government environment gained while supporting the mission assessment for the Canadian mission in Afghanistan both in Canada and while deployed with Task Force Kandahar. The key point of the paper is that great care has to be taken when using lower-level assessments to obtain higher-level situational picture for the state of insurgency and/or economic and governance development. Otherwise, a potentially skewed picture can arise, or the assessment becomes too laborious and ineffective.

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Dr. Peter Dobias received his MSc degree in theoretical physics from the Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia and his PhD in physics from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He works for Defence Research and Development Canada Centre for Operational Research and Analysis. His focus is complex systems, combat modeling and wargaming, as well as effects-based operations and assessment. Recently he returned from Afghanistan where he worked as an Operational Analyst in Support of Task Force Kandahar, and supported the planning and assessment efforts of J5 Division.

by Michael Yon

Download the full article: An Afghan Story

Published 9 May 2010

If normal life were a river, most days would likely be a slow-moving, meandering passage. But when a life squeezes into the gorge of war, there can be a deafening whitewater, falls and yet bigger falls, slams against stones, falls again and underwater no air and over the falls again and time stretches and compresses and seems to defy normal experience and over the falls again and you drown or don't. Some people come out the other side exhilarated and want to do it again and again, while others are terrified, and yet others will just do what needs to be done. The persistence of the memories wrought would seem to leave clocks drooped over limbs or floating away.

From wars grow countless wild stories, many of which are true. Even a single witness will hear thousands over the years. Back at home, the retellings can seem vague, distant, and as soulful as a sole-less boot. But when you are in a war zone with civilians or combat troops, some stories might start like, "Be careful here. This is where Jimmy got blown up," and there is still a crater and all the branches are blown off a nearby tree. Later in the day, "Be careful here, bullets sometimes come through that window," and there are pocks on the walls inside the room. The retellings are not secondhand, not ancient, but immediate and pressing. In the wars, stories are road signs to the here and now, and so you seek out stories not for entertainment. They are not entertaining anyway. Few people likely would be entertained by the story of their own death. "This is where the suicide bomber hit," and you are standing there, knowing lightning makes habits.

Captain Max Hanlin of Charlie Company 1-17th Infantry was living with his soldiers at the Shah Wali Kot District Center in northern Kandahar Province, and he said to me from across the tent that the District Governor for Shah Wali Kot district had some interesting stories that should be told. We walked out to the perimeter under the watchful eye of a machine gunner in his guard-post, and around the corner to see the District Governor so that something useful could get out.

Download the full article: An Afghan Story

Michael Yon is a former Green Beret who has been reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan since December 2004. No other reporter has spent as much time with combat troops in these two wars. Michael's dispatches from the frontlines have earned him the reputation as the premier independent combat journalist of his generation. His work is published at Michael Yon Online and has been featured on Good Morning America, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, ABC, FOX, as well as hundreds of other major media outlets all around the world.

Design and the Prospects of a US Military Renaissance

by Colonel Christopher R. Paparone

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To the US Army's and Marine Corps' credit, their doctrinaires have been busy at work trying to incorporate aspects of design into field manuals (design was institutionalized in FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency). Framed around how to deal with highly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (high "VUCA") situations, design is becoming attractive as a complementary or perhaps an alternative for a military staff culture that is deeply rooted in the analytic-planning paradigm. While design-as-praxis is a relative newcomer to military professionals, it has conceptual ties to ancient Greek philosophical debates and a decades-long history in the areas of architecture, urban studies, public policy, and more recently, business management. The purpose here is to offer some additional perspective on design -- its philosophical underpinnings, its eclectic nature, and its potential significance toward a renaissance (cultural rebirth) of military profession practice.

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Christopher R. Paparone, Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired, is an associate professor in the Army Command and General Staff College's Department of Logistics and Resource Operations at Fort Lee, Virginia. He holds a B.A. from the University of South Florida; master's degrees from the Florida Institute of Technology, the U.S. Naval War College, and the Army War College; and a Ph.D. in public administration from Pennsylvania State University. On active duty he served in various command and staff positions in the continental United States, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Germany, and Bosnia.

Mass Hostage Taking in Russia and Mumbai

by Luke Allison

Download the full article: The Future of Terrorism

Terrorism has a future; terrorism always has a future. The question is: can the application of terror morph into something inherently capable of distorting strategic countermeasures? The answer is probably yes, because a states' fundamental responsibility is to maintain sovereignty by protecting its population. The problem with this responsibility in relation to terrorism is that it is debilitating in terms of being predictable. Predictability is not a strategy; it is the absence of strategy.

The future of terrorism is to isolate instances where the state is compelled to act predictably. The best example of this type of terrorism is an approach that involves mass hostage taking in conjunction with the use of barricades. This is quite remarkable, because " . . . the idea of taking hostages and placing the responsibility for their fate into the hands of the opposing government was a highly effective tool . . . " For the purposes of this article, a mass hostage taking incident occurs when between one hundred and two thousand people are held involuntarily under the threat of serious physical injury. Examples of mass hostage taking incidents will be restricted to those occurring in public buildings such as: schools, theaters, hospitals, and hotels. Similar incidents taking place on air planes, busses, or other modes of transportation will be considered outside the scope of inquiry.

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Luke Allison holds an MA in International Security from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He holds a BA in Communications Studies from Loyola University New Orleans. Mr. Allison has presented original research on counterinsurgency and terrorism at conferences around the United States.