... The incident this year highlights the pitfalls of establishing militias in Afghanistan, a country marked by tribal rivalries, age-old feuds and warlords. In principle, the concept makes sense. Even as the United States sends tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, its forces cannot police every patch of a country about the size of Texas. The Afghan army and police remain a work in progress. Tribal militias represent a ready-made answer. In a society where firearms are prevalent, members are already well-armed. And they have an intimate knowledge of the lands they patrol.

But as anti-Taliban militias have surfaced here in Nangarhar province and several other areas of the country, they have been accompanied by a wide array of troubles, from armed robbery to an alleged gang-rape. Some experts and Afghan lawmakers believe a reliance on tribal militias to help combat an insurgency is the wrong approach, especially if governmental monitoring is scant or nonexistent...

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are talking about how to make peace with insurgents fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including one faction considered the coalition forces' most lethal foe, according to Pakistani and U.S. officials. The discussions reflect the beginnings of a thaw in relations between Kabul and Islamabad, which are increasingly focused on shaping the aftermath of what they fear could be a more abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops than is now anticipated. But one element of the effort - outreach by Pakistan to the militia headed by the young commander Sirajuddin Haqqani - faces opposition from U.S. officials, who consider the al-Qaeda-linked group too brutal to be tolerated.

At Pakistan's suggestion, Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the chief of Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, made an unprecedented trip last month to Kabul to discuss with Afghan President Hamid Karzai a wide range of possible cooperation, including mediating with Pakistan-based insurgents...

More at The Washington Post.

-----

Crazy! I mean like so many positive waves maybe we can't lose!

-----

There's no booze, there's no broads, there's no action!

That's another thing - don't fool around with the women. Their husbands carry guns. And don't forget, the penalty for looting is death.

Loot what? There's nothing here to loot!

-----

God almighty, you guys smell like you fell into a dung heap!

Kinda makes ya homesick, don't it?

-----

These engines are the fastest in any tanks in the European Theater of Operations, forwards or backwards. You see, man, we like to feel we can get out of trouble, quicker than we got into it.

-----

Coulda been in the States playing ping-pong; volleyball... Plenty of broads... Who the hell needs all this? Gonna get my knife & get the hell outta here. Eaaa, lousy equipment! Now I gotta lift up this CANNON; carry it all the way to the front line someplace. Damned thing is heavier that Kelsey's burgers!

-----

Sit down on this bench. I want you to have a drink.

Under the Geneva Convention...

This isn't Geneva...

-----

I'm going to Battalion to see if I can get some dirty movies...

Topics include:

1) Iran applies the Saddam method at the U.N.

2) How to avoid a space war.

Iran applies the Saddam method at the U.N.

On June 9 the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 1929 which imposes further sanctions on Iran for its lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). U.S. officials hope that the resolution, combined with follow-on sanctions imposed by the European Union and others, will encourage Iran to fully cooperate with the inspections or return to negotiations. Failing that, the White House hopes that the new sanctions -- which target Iran's nuclear program, its ballistic missile effort, and its conventional military forces -- will disrupt and delay the country's nuclear and conventional military potential.

In remarks he made the same day, President Barack Obama agreed with the vast majority of analysts who hold out little hope that Iran's leadership will reverse course any time soon. That leaves the hope that sanctions will materially degrade Iran's nuclear and military programs. They might, but how will the international community know how much? From 1991 to 2003, Saddam Hussein's Iraq tormented U.S. policymakers with inspection-dodging and intelligence uncertainty. It looks like a new generation of U.S. officials is about to experience similar taunting from Iran.

Iranian leaders have no doubt closely studied how Iraq resisted the Security Council's attempts to rein in its military potential after the 1991 war. In the early years of the Clinton administration, Iraq was in technical compliance with the post-war inspection requirements, but this cooperation was grudging, increasingly belligerent, and was eventually terminated. Iran's cooperation with the IAEA is already incomplete and in the wake of Resolution 1929, Tehran has threatened to reduce it further. Through a combination of humanitarian appeals, back-channel deal-making, and bribery, Iraq was able to wear down and divide the international consensus that existed after the 1991 war. Iran has similarly found friends in Turkey and Brazil and is likely to find more in the developing world (some of whom might have their own nuclear ambitions) in the period ahead.

The goal of a sanctions strategy is to avoid either a regional arms race or the necessity of a military response. We will know that sanctions have worked if the Iranian government returns to negotiations, settles the nuclear issue, and opens itself fully to IAEA inspections, but very few observers expect such an outcome. What will remain are the sanctions, which in turn will lead to Iranian resistance, inspections-dodging, an intelligence black hole, and ominous strategic uncertainty. In the case of Iraq, these factors led to war in 2003. Needless to say, this is not an experience U.S. policymakers will be anxious to repeat. Iran's leaders are aware of this understandable hesitancy and thus have little reason to fear suffering Saddam's fate.

What is ironic in retrospect is how effective sanctions against Iraq (combined with the four-day Desert Fox air campaign in December 1998) turned out to be at weakening the country's once-formidable military power. But no Western intelligence agency knew the full extent of this effectiveness until after 2003. When pondering the mystery of Iran's future nuclear capabilities, other countries in the region are unlikely to get much comfort from this precedent. From their perspective, prudence in the face of uncertainty will require additional defensive and retaliatory capabilities. Thus, sanctions are not likely to prevent an arms race in the region, an outcome the Obama administration hopes to avoid.

Now that Resolution 1929 is in place, what subsequent moves do Obama administration officials contemplate? Hopefully they've been studying Iraq's experience as well.

How to avoid a space war

A recent report from the Rand Corp. examined what steps the U.S. government should take to deter attacks on militarily critical space assets. U.S. military forces are highly dependent on space-based platforms for communications, navigation, weather forecasts, and reconnaissance imagery. This dependence could create a tempting target for adversaries.

According to the report, adversaries will carefully weigh the costs of attacking certain U.S. space systems against the benefits of doing so. For example, there would be a relatively low cost to an adversary who attempted to merely jam signals from communication or navigation satellites as compared to physically attacking those same systems. There are also relatively low political costs and high military payoffs to attacks on U.S. reconnaissance and ocean surveillance satellite systems that lack redundancy and have purely military applications. By contrast, attacks on navigation, communication, and weather systems -- used by non-combatants around the world -- would be politically costly. And the benefits of attacks on these systems would be limited due to their redundancy.

The Rand report recommends that U.S. policymakers take steps to increase the political costs and reduce the military benefits of extending war into space. The report recommends that the United States consider declaring a "no first attack" policy regarding space assets. Such a policy would not be risk-free since it would force U.S. commanders to accept satellite observation of their own deployed forces and an adversary's use of satellite navigation and communication systems. Although it would be tempting for a commander to shut down these enemy capabilities, the United States could emerge the loser after space warfare escalates. A "no first attack" policy would place the political cost of escalation into space onto U.S. adversaries.

The report also recommends that the United States consider sharing ownership of some of its military satellite programs with other allied countries. In a conflict, an adversary may be dissuaded from attacking such satellites out of fear of creating enemies from partner non-combatants. Finally, Rand recommends that the United States explore ways of creating passive and active defenses for its satellites, making its most vulnerable systems more redundant, and using terrestrially-based systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles to diversify away from reliance on space systems.

Mentioned, but left undeveloped in the report, is the role of retaliation in enforcing space deterrence. If a shooting war in space begins, what targets should the United States plan on hitting in response? Should retaliation be limited to just space or are terrestrial targets fair game also? Should the United States retaliate with cyber attacks, other electronic attacks, or physical destruction? And what risks do these strategies open up? The Rand report punts this analysis to another study.

How much the U.S. government has thought through the issue of space warfare deterrence remains shrouded in secrecy. But a main principle of deterrence is being very open and clear with potential adversaries about your retaliatory intentions. For its own good, the U.S. government should develop and declare its space warfare strategy.

We're expanding our team. Can you help?

We're looking to up the ante within this Small Wars Journal

endeavor of ours.  As we continue our struggle toward world domination, we find

ourselves in dire need of talented and capable conspirators.  We are moving

forward on our painfully overdue system upgrade, and trying to build out our

production and operations team so we can live well, work well, and play well

together to do more for the small wars community of interest.

It always makes Dave and me laugh (or cry) when we get

notes that refer to our "staff" or our "facility." Don't get us wrong -- we are

enriched by some fantastic advocates and supporters, a handful of volunteers

moderating the discussion board, all of our volunteer writers, and the active

participants in the online community.  But at the end of the day, in large part

due to our own failings, it is still just two guys doing most of the nug work

out of our virtual offices.  Not for much longer.  We are growing.

We have a couple of positions looming into semblance of a

shape.  You should see these as great opportunities to be involved rather than

as well defined, highly compensated career opportunities with promising growth

paths.  Heck, we can't even really pay ourselves.  But we are looking to expand

our team with sharp and enthusiastic folks, and find a way to make it work for

them, us, and everyone. 

These are roles rather than job descriptions; each has a

bit of an up-front project flavor to it with an enduring execution tail.  We

expect you to bring some insight and vision to the position, and expand it in a

win-win way.  We're trying to frame these in terms where a palatable chunk of 10

or so hours per week is ample for success, though we realize that's a wild guess

and it is recon pull --  we'll  evolve together to further lump, divide, or build

out the cast of characters. 

The big roles we're framing now are:

• Advertising Manager (Banner King/Queen) -- run our advertising

  operations:  rethink our ad inventory as we go through site redesign; enhance

  our advertiser kit and the whole flow; outreach to, discussions with, and inking

  deals with advertisers; monitor campaign execution. You have audacity, tact and hutzpah,

  with the business, people, and operations sense to put it all together.

• Merchandise Manager (Schwag Tsar) -- think up some nice

  small wars stuff that our folks would like to have, and find a way to get it to

  them.  Not at a loss, but we're more interested in building a brand and a

  community than we are at selling cheap stuff to make an extra buck.  Deal with

  vendors, figure out some realistic inventory, and get 'er done. Should have a keen eye for the difference between

  stuff and junk, and think end to end as far as the logistics goes. Amateurs talk

  t-shirts & coins, professionals talk fulfullment.

• Social Networking Manager (Grand Twit) -- so we've got a

  token Twitter and Facebook presence, but we aren't doing much with it.  There

  are some untapped capabilities there and in our user profiles in vBulletin. We

  haven't done much in the way of facilitating local get togethers. 

  There's tons we could do but aren't because we just don't have the

  time. You have the vision and execution ability to do more smart stuff to

  help more people get SWJ their way, and get together in ways that are

  meaningful to them.

We've also got some more focused gaps where folks with some

specific talents can help us:

• Developer -- if you're competent on a LAMP box, we've got a

  few office workflow things we'd like to have our system do more nicely.  These

  are distinct from our in-process migration to Drupal and we hope they are

  discrete, interesting projects that can be feathers in your cap and arrows in

  our quiver.  If you'd like to drop a shoulder on some of it, send us a note for a short list of

  specific things we're interested in.

• Graphic Design (Style Guru) -- so with all this redesign and

  rework we're doing, we need someone with a better eye than us fashion disasters.  We'll soon be doing the CSS work with our site

  development team, and then there are a couple of collateral things that should synch

  up for that clean, consistent, simple, functional, good looks.  More Filson than

  Guggenheim, but we want some restrained flair and perhaps you're just the person

  to dope slap us with it.  We've got to make our 2009 Rolling Stone hotness even

  hotter.  Maybe this design gigs stops at the look & feel, maybe you drive

  through that

  to be more of a brand manager than a designer with excursions into content and

  the whole IO thing -- e.g. who knows what kind of junk that merchandise person is

  going to try to schlep that is just inconsistent with our "look"? 

  Your call.  But it starts with a sense of style.

We've got even more needs, but are a bit further out from being

able to engage when we find the right folks.  So we'll tighten that up ASAP. 

For now, please know that

down the road a bit we'll be looking for some more help in the areas of:

• Editorial and Production Assistants
• Fundraising & Outreach
• Office & Event Operations
• Content Gurus for various topic areas (~ library moderators / topic

  guides)

Next steps?  If you're interested, talk to us.  We have no

shortage of good ideas, what we lack is ability to execute (mostly

time-constrained); we'll want to know that you have those in balance to be able

to come in as a value add. We need you to be able to run with intent and a

shared vision (don't need a roadmap but won't wander off the reservation

either), be a straight-shooter, represent us well, and get your own benefit or

joy out of doing this. Let us know what you can do for us and how we can make it

work for you.

Publisher's Description:

The first Afghanistan memoir ever to be written by a Marine Harrier pilot, A Nightmare's Prayer portrays the realities of war in the twenty-first century, taking a unique and powerful perspective on combat in Afghanistan as told by a former enlisted man turned officer. Lt. Col. Michael "Zak" Franzak was an AV-8B Marine Corps Harrier pilot who served as executive officer of VMA-513, "The Flying Nightmares," while deployed in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2003. The squadron was the first to base Harriers in Bagram in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. But what should have been a standard six-month deployment soon turned to a yearlong ordeal as the Iraq conflict intensified. And in what appeared to be a forgotten war half a world away from home, Franzak and his colleagues struggled to stay motivated and do their job providing air cover to soldiers patrolling the inhospitable terrain.

I wasn't in a foxhole. I was above it. I was safe and comfortable in my sheltered cocoon 20,000 feet over the Hindu Kush. But I prayed. I prayed when I heard the muted cries of men who at last understood their fate.

Franzak's personal narrative captures the day-by-day details of his deployment, from family good-byes on departure day to the squadron's return home. He explains the role the Harrier played over the Afghanistan battlefields and chronicles the life of an attack pilot—from the challenges of nighttime, weather, and the austere mountain environment to the frustrations of working under higher command whose micromanagement often exacerbated difficulties. In vivid and poignant passages, he delivers the full impact of enemy ambushes, the violence of combat, and the heartbreaking aftermath.

And as the Iraq War unfolded, Franzak became embroiled in another battle: one within himself. Plagued with doubts and wrestling with his ego and his belief in God, he discovered in himself a man he loathed. But the hardest test of his lifetime and career was still to come—one that would change him forever.

A stunning true account of service and sacrifice that takes the reader from the harrowing dangers of the cockpit to the secret, interior spiritual struggle facing a man trained for combat, A Nightmare's Prayer brings to life a Marine's public and personal trials set against "the fine talcum brown soot of Afghanistan that permeated everything—even one's soul."

A Nightmare's Prayer: A Marine Harrier Pilot's War in Afghanistan

There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts. It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan. It may well still be winnable, but it is not going to be won by denying the risks, the complexity, and the time that any real hope of victory will take. It is not going to be won by "spin" or artificial news stories, and it can easily be lost by exaggerating solvable short-term problems...

Andrew Exum responds at Abu Muqawama.

These past few weeks have brought a fresh torrent of bad news from Afghanistan: a governor in a key district assassinated, U.S. and allied operations in flux, Afghan leadership in question. Policy-makers in Washington and allied capitols are wondering if the U.S. and allied counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan can succeed. These are reasonable concerns. Tony Cordesman, one of the U.S. defense analysts who has advised the command in Afghanistan, wrote today that "There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts. It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan. It may well still be winnable, but it is not going to be won by denying the risks, the complexity, and the time that any real hope of victory will take. It is not going to be won by 'spin' or artificial news stories, and it can easily be lost by exaggerating solvable short-term problems"...

Michael Cohen responds to Cordesman and Exum at Democracy Arsenal.

As regular readers of DA are well aware I have been beating the drums on the incoherence of our Afghanistan policy for more than a year - well for the first time in a long while I have some company and from two individuals whose voices should wake people up. Both Tony Cordesman and Andrew Exum served on General McChrystal's strategic review team that last year recommended a pop-centric COIN strategy for Afghanistan. Both are now having second thoughts...

Max Boot responds to Exum at Contentions.

... I agree with him that the political will to prevail appears to be waning. But I think it's bizarre that he treats "political will" as a fixed, exogenous factor like the weather or the terrain. Hurricane Katrina did not make impossible the success of the surge in Iraq; so too the BP oil spill does not make impossible the success of the ongoing surge in Afghanistan. The question is whether President Obama will have the will to see this through as President Bush did in the face of much greater public opposition...

Spencer Ackerman responds to Exum at Attackerman.

Andrew Exum writes a very valuable post hinging off the Tony Cordesman piece that I cited earlier, and the point of both posts is to test the tensile strength of the assumptions behind the Obama administration's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. As a meta-point, it amuses me when critics accuse counterinsurgents of dogmatism or closed-mindedness. Ex is —to subject himself to rather thorough self-criticism, as have many others in counterinsurgent circles - particularly around CNAS - who recognize that their course of action involves the escalation of a war. As far as I've concerned, from the perspective of intellectual honesty and intellectual rigor, they've acquitted themselves well. Personally, I would find arguments for de-escalation in Afghanistan more persuasive if they dealt similarly with an assessment of the risks they entail and why those risks ultimately better advance the national interest...

What say you?

The State Department is quietly forming a small army to protect diplomatic personnel in Iraq after U.S. military forces leave the country at the end of 2011, taking its firepower with them. Department officials are asking the Pentagon to provide heavy military gear, including Black Hawk helicopters, and say they also will need substantial support from private contractors.

The shopping list demonstrates the department's reluctance to count on Iraq's army and police forces for security, despite the billions of dollars the U.S. invested to equip and train them. And it shows that President Obama is having a hard time keeping his pledge to reduce U.S. reliance on contractors, a practice that flourished under the Bush administration. In an early April request to the Pentagon, Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's undersecretary for management, is seeking 24 Black Hawks, 50 bomb-resistant vehicles, heavy cargo trucks, fuel trailers, and high-tech surveillance systems. Mr. Kennedy asks that the equipment, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, be transferred at "no cost" from military stocks...

More at The Washington Times.

Muslim states said Wednesday that what they call "islamophobia" is sweeping the West and its media and demanded that the United Nations take tougher action against it. Delegates from Islamic countries, including Pakistan and Egypt, told the United Nations Human Rights Council that treatment of Muslims in Western countries amounted to racism and discrimination and must be fought.

"People of Arab origin face new forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance and experience discrimination and marginalisation," an Egyptian delegate said, according to a U.N. summary. And Pakistan, speaking for the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said the council's special investigator into religious freedom should look into such racism "especially in Western societies." ...

Diplomats say the resolution, which also tells the investigator to make recommendations to the Human Rights Council on how its strictures might be implemented, is bound to pass given the majority the OIC and its allies have in the body. The countries of the majority group, which also include India and Brazil, ensure that its members and their friends outside the council - such as Sri Lanka and Iran - are shielded from any serious criticism of their rights record. The group ensures that council fire is largely aimed at Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories and treatment of people living there as well as on the Israeli blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza...

More at The New York Times.

Bolded emphasis added by SWJ.

In the face of an increasingly bloody and desperate battle with illegal-drug traffickers, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has launched a full-scale defense of his government's policies and called on his countrymen to step up their own efforts to defeat the powerful cartels.

In a lengthy essay and a nationally televised address this week, Mr. Calderon called for a full-scale assault on the cartels, denying that his administration's own tough policies had provoked the violence to unprecedented levels.

"This is a battle that is worth fighting because our future is at stake," he said in the 10-minute national address. "It's a battle that, with all Mexicans united, we will win." ...

More at The Washington Times.

And in The Christian Science Monitor - Mexico Drug War: Has Felipe Calderón Lost Control? By Sara Miller Llana.

... Since then death tolls have mounted -- with nearly 23,000 killed since he became president -- and the incessant headlines, including of the past week, appear to be causing a certain defense mechanism to rise in government quarters. On Monday, President Calderón published a two-page editorial in newspapers across the country defending his strategy, arguing that he had no choice and that Mexicans must remain stoic. But many Mexicans have lost faith.

"[Calderón] has lost the reins of the country, not partially but totally," writes journalist and columnist Lydia Cacho in a column that appeared 14 pages before the president's missive in the daily El Universal...

But Calderón is also hinting of a change in strategy. The president said he would hire a public relations firm to improve Mexico's image, according to the Associated Press. He also said he would clamp down on dollar cash transactions, in an apparent bid to stem money laundering. It remains to be seen what lies ahead, but there is no doubt that the president, and his flaks, face a tough road ahead -- even judging from the past two days alone...

More at The Christian Science Monitor.