Topics include:

1) Experts' advice to NATO: Slim down, scale back, and pass the ball,

2) Will China end up liable for the actions of its "rogues"?

Experts' advice to NATO: Slim down, scale back, and pass the ball

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright chaired a commission charged with reviewing NATO's "strategic concept." Last revised in 1999, the strategic concept is "an official document that outlines NATO's enduring purpose and nature and its fundamental security tasks." On May 17, Albright's "Group of Experts" released its report, which forecasts the security environment through 2020 and lists recommendations for how NATO should respond. The group's conclusion? NATO should slim down, scale back, and pass the ball.

Albright's panel called on NATO to adjust to the modern threat environment. According to the group, NATO needs better preparations against cyberattacks, ballistic missiles, and unconventional threats. The report noted that many member states -- their defense budgets weighed down with excessive personnel costs -- are spending too little on new military hardware. And NATO headquarters, with a bloated staff and far too many generals walking its halls, is itself due for slimming down.

But looming over the panel's effort is NATO's inheritance from Afghanistan. Following a review of lessons learned in Afghanistan, the report calls for guidelines on when and where the alliance will again operate outside its borders. The authors remind readers that "NATO is a regional, not a global organisation; its financial resources are limited and subject to other priorities; and it has no desire to take on missions that other institutions and countries can be counted upon to handle."

Although the report left open the hypothetical possibility that NATO could engage in another out-of-area mission, it also plainly discussed the political limitations that member states will put on the organization's ambitions. Those member states with detachments in Afghanistan will no doubt be eager to join the U.S. caravan that will begin departing in 2011. After that, crushing fiscal retrenchment and sour memories of Afghanistan will likely leave most member states in Europe incapable of any significant military expeditions.

Finally, the group reviewed the importance of NATO's many partnerships, which include relationships with the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, the Black Sea and Caucasus regions, Central Asia, and Africa. The report also discussed the need to improve NATO's doctrine for operating in partnership with civilian NGOs. The authors noted, "NATO is strong and versatile but it is by no means well-suited to every task." The report was an invitation for NATO to use its relationships to pass off tasks to others.

The report's lengthy discussion of these partnerships, combined with the inevitable decline in NATO's military capacity and its members' low enthusiasm for new expeditions, point to the alliance's evolving role. NATO's days as an armed-to-the-teeth phalanx blocking the Soviet Army are now in the misty past. After Afghanistan, NATO's military character will shrink, making way for a more purely diplomatic role. The staff in Brussels -- those who remain after the pink slips -- will spend more time coordinating NGOs and contractors than directing tank brigades.

Will China end up liable for the actions of its "rogues"?

This week's flurry of diplomacy over Iran's nuclear program concluded with the United States introducing another sanctions resolution against Iran at the U.N. Security Council. This occurred just one day after Iran, Turkey, and Brazil dramatically unveiled their own plan to swap some of Iran's low-enriched uranium for fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed that the U.S. sanctions resolution had the support of Russia, China, and Europe.

The resolution appears to nullify the Iran-Turkey-Brazil proposal. That proposal was designed to negate the sanctions resolution against Iran. But its implementation would require Russia or France -- according to Clinton, supporters of more sanctions -- to supply the fuel for Iran's medical research reactor as part of the swap agreement. In theory the sanctions proposal and the swap agreement are not mutually exclusive. But politically they are. The result could be a split on the Security Council between the permanent five and some of the nonpermanent developing countries -- which currently include Brazil and Turkey.

The clash between the Iran-Turkey-Brazil proposal and the U.S. sanctions resolution risks a breakdown of the council's previously unanimous front against Iran. Even more dangerous for the Obama administration's agenda, the split could contaminate the ongoing review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, resulting in a rebellion by developing countries against the tougher nuclear inspections regime favored by the United States.

Clinton's sanctions resolution, the result of many months of negotiations with Russia and China, reveals the limits of what the Security Council can agree on. The resolution excludes restrictions on Iran's oil trade, restrictions on investments in Iran's energy sector, or a comprehensive ban on financial transactions with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or its affiliates. Without any of these measures, the resolution won't apply enough additional leverage on Iran to change its leadership's behavior.

U.S. officials hope that passage of the resolution by the Security Council will clear the way for governments disposed to the U.S. viewpoint to unilaterally impose their own restrictions on Iran, especially regarding investments in Iran's oil and gas sector and financial transactions with the Revolutionary Guard.

But the United States won't get any such cooperation from China, which is the main reason why the sanctions resolution is so weak. China has an enduring interest in Iran's oil that trumps any concern about a possible Iranian nuclear weapons capability. China is a leading investor in Iran's energy sector and a rapidly growing customer of its oil.

As the United States, Europe, and other allies extend their crackdown on Iran, China is very likely to fill in the gap by expanding its relationship with Iran along many dimensions. The result will be China's increasingly clear patronage of another "rogue," adding to a list that includes North Korea, Burma, and Sudan.

Viewed from Beijing, China's actions are pragmatic and transactional. China professes no intention of clashing with the United States or the West. It is merely taking advantage of opportunities to feed its growing industrial machine and thus raise the living standards of its population.

But the rest of the world might increasingly conclude that China is establishing a pattern of behavior that demonstrates that it is not becoming a responsible stakeholder in the international system. Such a trend would increase the risk of confrontation in the future. How China responds to calls to punish North Korea for its recent sinking of a South Korean warship will be another test of whether China wants to be a responsible stakeholder inside the international system or a corrosive force operating outside it.

The result could be a growing list of countries that will increasingly hold China liable for the transgressions of the "rogues" it sponsors. China's leaders need to ponder whether their scavenging for oil will be worth the risks they are taking with China's diplomatic agenda and prestige.

Michael Furlong, the long-time Defense Department official who set up and ran network of private intelligence collectors for the military, is being hung out to dry by the very forces that precipitated the network's formation in the first place. Here's the skinny: form follows function in the military, and the U.S. Strategic Command, or STRATCOM, has been aggressively moving into territory traditionally occupied by other military elements and the Central Intelligence Agency. They're doing it under the cover of something called IO -- Information Operations -- which they've adapted as one of their core missions. (The others: cybersecurity, which overlaps with IO, nuclear weapons, and space defense.)

Around 2004 or 2005, STRATCOM set up what it calls the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center in San Antonio, Texas. IO ops are run from here. Most everyone involved in this controversy, from Furlong to his superiors to the contractor intelligence gatherers, went through the JIOWC at some point in their careers. The CIA doesn't think STRATCOM should play in this lane. But neither does Robert Gates, the Defense Secretary, or the State Department, or the National Security Staff. Information Operations involves five fields: deception, psychological operations, computer network operations, electronic warfare and operations security...

More at The Atlantic.

What If COIN Just Doesn't Work? - Ann Marlowe, World Affairs.

I don't mean, What if counterinsurgency is too trendy? or What if we shouldn't neglect preparing for conventional wars in our enthusiasm for COIN? I mean, what if counterinsurgency has never, ever, anywhere actually worked? What if our military has been chasing a chimera for almost four years — or more? These thoughts are prompted by my last couple of trips to Afghanistan where, truth to tell, there doesn't seem to be any increase in security when our troops do the right stuff (getting out among the people, lots of presence, lots of talking). We've got it down to a science now: the shuras, the projects, the provincial development plans, the embedded partners (is it my imagination or does the current military jargon for police mentors sound like a euphemism for a gay relationship?).

COIN makes sense intellectually, especially in the pellucid prose of David Galula, who wrote better in English than Roger Trinquier in French. Part of the reason it makes sense is that COIN is congruent with our culture's bias toward a perspectival view of reality. As General McChrystal keeps saying, counterinsurgency is a matter of perception. If you feel that the government provides security, that's reality. If you feel insecure, that's reality. We think lots of stuff is a matter of perspective, from modern art and music to ethics. But when COIN succeeded, it may well have had nothing to do with the living among the people bit — or the talking bit...

More at World Affairs.

An 80 percent illiteracy rate, corruption and a lack of trained personnel are hampering Afghan police, the NATO commander overseeing the training of Afghan security forces said on Wednesday. NATO has stepped up training of Afghan police in an effort to reform a force that inspires little confidence among locals, struggles with high dropout rates and is frequently accused of incompetence and drug use.

But only 45 percent of Afghan police have had any formal preparation, said U.S. Lieutenant-General William Caldwell, who heads the training mission as the alliance prepares to boost the size of the Afghan army and police to over 300,000 by 2011. The training is also central to NATO's strategy to eventually transfer control of security to Afghan forces so that Western troops can start withdrawing next year. Professionalizing the police force will not happen overnight, Caldwell said...

More at The New York Times.

Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires: A New History of the Borderland

David Isby

ISBN 978-1-60598-9 Cloth $28.95 6 x9 xxii, 440 pages

Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires, published by Pegasus Books in New York, is an in-depth analysis of the conflicts currently taking place in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The author sees Afghanistan as defined by distinct but interconnected conflicts that are currently shaping its future. The book concentrates on the realities of these conflicts in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, internal instability threatens the future of its neighbours as well. The book also makes recommendations for effective future policies.

An illuminating history of modern Afghanistan: the story of a country caught in a vortex of terror. Veteran defense analyst and Afghanistan expert David Isby provides an insightful and meticulously researched look at the current situation in Afghanistan, her history, and what he believes must be done so that the US and NATO coalition can succeed in what has historically been known as "the graveyard of empires."

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world with one of the lowest literacy rates. It is rife with divisions between ethnic groups that dwarf current schisms in Iraq, and all the groups are lead by warlords who fight over control of the drug trade as much as they do over religion. The region is still racked with these confrontations along with conflicts between rouge factions from Pakistan, with whom relations are increasingly strained. After seven years and billions of dollars in aid, efforts at nation-building in Afghanistan has produced only a puppet regime that is dependent on foreign aid for survival and has no control over a corrupt police force nor the increasingly militant criminal organizations and the deepening social and economic crisis.

The task of implementing an effective US policy and cementing Afghani rule is hampered by what Isby sees as separate but overlapping conflicts between terrorism, narcotics, and regional rivalries, each requiring different strategies to resolve. Pulling these various threads together will be the challenge for the Obama administration, yet it is a challenge that can be met by continuing to foster local involvement and Afghani investment in the region.

David Isby, the author, has published three previous books on Afghanistan, written extensively in journals such as USA Today, Jane's Intelligence Review, Jane's Defense Weekly and other publications, testified before House and Senate committees as an independent expert, and has appeared discussing Afghanistan on CNN, PBS News Hour, the McLaughlin Group, C-SPAN, the BBC, the Voice of America and many other broadcasts. The author has spent much time on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan, starting in the 1980s. Afghanistan, Graveyard of Empires is available at bookstores nationwide and on-line from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's and others.

May 18, 2010

The May 18 edition of The New York Times contained an article ("Review Cites Flaws in U.S. Antimissile Program") detailing a study conducted by Dr. Theodore Postol and Dr. George Lewis published in the May issue of Arms Control Today (ACT). The study called into question the test record of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) sea-based interceptor that is designed to intercept and destroy short- to medium-range ballistic missiles. The ACT article stated that successful intercepts during tests of the SM-3 actually "missed" targets and should not have been assessed as successful.

The Missile Defense Agency strongly refutes this allegation. The SM-3 program is one of the most successful programs within the Department of Defense, with operational interceptors now deployed aboard U.S. Navy ships. These ships range throughout the world's oceans, providing an effective, reliable defense against short- to medium-range ballistic missiles. An extensive, operationally realistic test program is continuing to further improve and enhance the capabilities of the SM-3 element of the Ballistic Missile Defense System.

For whatever reasons, The New York Times chose not to include information provided to the newspaper by MDA to respond to allegations by Dr. Postol and Dr. Lewis which would have provided accuracy, clarity and context to the article.

Some examples:

"The system is highly fragile and brittle and will intercept warheads only by accident, if ever," said Dr. Postol..."

FACT: Not included in the Times article from information provided to the reporter that from 1991 through 2010 the Missile Defense Agency has conducted 66 full scale hit-to-kill lethality sled tests and 138 sub-scale hit-to-kill light gas gun tests covering all MDA interceptor types against nuclear, unitary chemical, chemical submunitions, biological bomblets and high-explosive submunition threats. Eighteen of these tests were specifically devoted to the current SM-3 kinetic warhead system. This extensive database of lethality testing has conclusively demonstrated that MDA's weapon systems are highly lethal against ballistic missile threats when they engage within their accuracy and velocity specifications. After successful completion of early developmental tests, the test program progressed from just "hitting the target" to one of determining lethality and proving the operationally configured Aegis SM-3 Block I and SM-3 Block 1A system. These tests were the MDA's most comprehensive and realistic test series, resulting in the Operational Test and Evaluation Force's October 2008 Evaluation Report stating that Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Block 04 3.6 System was operationally effective and suitable for transition to the Navy.

"Even so, the Pentagon later admitted that four of the 10 analyzed flight tests carried no mock warheads at all."

FACT: As stated to the Times reporter, three of the four tests cited were the very first intercept tests conducted in 2002 using a prototype SM-3. The objective of these early developmental tests was to determine if an SM-3 interceptor launched from an Aegis ship could hit a ballistic missile in flight. In each test the target was intercepted and destroyed. Since they were the very first intercept tests of the SM-3, specific lethality (hitting the warhead) was not a test objective. Target warheads used in missile defense tests are very complex, expensive assets, and since specific lethality wasn't a test objective, mock warheads were not used in these very early developmental tests. The fourth test cited in the Times article was also not a test of specific lethality. All other SM-3 intercept tests used mock warheads that were threat-representative and extensively instrumented to obtain target data and to determine the extent of their destruction.

"The dispute between the academics and the Pentagon centers on whether it is enough for a speeding interceptor to hit the body of a spent rocket moving through outer space or whether it must hit the attached warhead. Dr. Postol says the SM-3 interceptor must shatter the warhead directly, and public statements of the Pentagon agency seem to suggest that it agrees. "The interceptors," the agency Web site says in its basic explanation of antimissile goals, "ram the warhead at a very high closing speed, destroying the target."

FACT: Although MDA provided extensive information, the Times article failed to mention that the assessment by Dr. Postol and Dr. Lewis examined only tests using "unitary" targets, whereby the warhead and booster rocket do not separate, and represents short-range "SCUD" missile technology. In tests against unitary targets, the SM-3 has been very successful, hitting the target missile at speeds up to 8,000 miles per hour, generating a tremendous amount of energy that caused catastrophic failure of the target missile. The Times article also didn't mention that five of six intercept tests involving separating targets—when the warhead separates from the booster rocket, and representative of medium-range "No Dong" technology—were very successful, with the SM-3 directly colliding with the target warhead as it traveled through space, a much smaller and challenging target compared with a unitary target.

"The study examined video images that the SM-3 kill vehicle took a split second before striking the target and that the Missile Defense Agency subsequently made public. The analysis looked at 10 tests between 2002 and 2009 — all of which the agency hailed as successful intercepts."

FACT: Dr. Postol and Dr. Lewis stated in their article that the video and still images of the intercept were the "final" frame before interceptor impact. This isn't true; they were only images that were publicly released. Although MDA provided this information to the reporter, the Times chose not to report that subsequent sensor views showed exactly where the interceptor collided with the target—within inches of the planned impact point—and that these images were not released to preclude potential adversaries from determining the exact impact point.

The San Antonio class amphibious transport dock ship, USS Mesa Verde (LPD 19) assisted six stranded Iranian mariners early Friday morning May 14th while conducting routine Maritime Security Operations (MSO) in the Arabian Gulf. Mesa Verde is currently assigned to Combined Task Force (CTF) 152, part of the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF).

The ship received a faint mayday call over the radio just before 4 am and shortly after, the lookout spotted a signal fire coming from a dhow in the direction of the received distress call.

Mesa Verde sent an Approach and Visit (AAV) team to assess the needs of the vessel and to provide assistance if required. Once on scene, the AAV team discovered that the dhow's propulsion, electrical and steering systems had failed and that the crew had been adrift for four days at sea and dangerously low on food and water.

The Mesa Verde provided these necessities for the distressed mariners as well as medical attention for two of the crew members with burn injuries. Furthermore, engineers from the ship replaced the battery and fixed the steering so the crew of the dhow could continue their journey safely.

"It's well trained boat crews and Mesa Verde's skilled engineers that made this difficult task look easy," said Cmdr. Larry LeGree, Commanding Officer, USS Mesa Verde. "While conducting maritime security operations, it was rewarding to be able to assist mariners in trouble."

CTF 152 was established in March 2004 and operates in the international waters of the Arabian Gulf. The task force coordinates Theatre Security Cooperation (TSC) activities with regional partners and conducts Maritime Security Operations, as well as being prepared to respond to any crisis inside the Arabian Gulf...

Straightforward piece of work suggests someone who knows what he's doing, doesn't mess around, keeps his head and lets it tell itself. Could stand as a great tutorial for Journalism 101, or Advanced War Reporting, the graduate seminar. You still have to be a reporter, and do the basic job. I don't want to think about how you get that good at that and what you walk away with. It's too early in the morning.

Much more at Forward Movement.

There is a renewal of interest in the lower house of Afghanistan's parliament, known as the Wolesi Jirga, taking place in both Afghan domestic politics and international discussion about governance in Afghanistan. This is particularly in the wake of the house's rejection of a significant number of ministerial nominees, its opposition to President Hamid Karzai's recent election decree and its initial refusal to ratify the national budget. With an evolving relationship with the executive branch, and elections currently scheduled for 18 September 2010, there are many questions about the role of the Wolesi Jirga in national and local politics that have not been considered carefully enough. And despite widespread concern about fraud and corruption during the 2009 presidential and provincial council elections, there is little consensus on what lessons were learned from those elections or what parliamentary elections mean for politics in Afghanistan.

While the international community focuses on procedural aspects of the upcoming elections, this preliminary study suggests that, on a local level, many Afghans are concerned about how parliamentary elections will play out for very different reasons. In fact, interviewees have tended to de-emphasise the role of corruption and questions of government legitimacy and procedure, which dominate much of the current discussion of the election in the international press. Instead, those questioned tended to focus on the role of parliamentarians as important members of local patronage networks who provide some of the few real opportunities for communities to connect with the funding opportunities available in Kabul.

This paper argues in particular that the international community needs to pay more attention to the upcoming parliamentary election—not only for the precedents it will set in attempts to promote representational governance in Afghanistan, but, more pressingly, because of the ability of parliamentary elections to stimulate local political debate and reshape local political networks across Afghanistan in a meaningful manner. It suggest several broad measures that the Afghan government and the international community should take to better concentrate their efforts to support more active, local and democratic political debates...

Read the entire paper the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit.

The annual "Unified Quest" futures war game held recently at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was pretty impressive -- and also a refreshing change from my many previous forays.

Led by the human energizer Brigadier "HR" McMaster, this forum kicked off as a Very-Different-from-the-Big-Army event by enforcing a "NO POWERPOINT" rule. (OK, they showed about five slides over four-plus days.) Army insiders recognize how fundamentally heart-stopping this notion is among any audience of generals. A four-day conversation -- scary for some, I know!

Although labeled a "war game" (and based on some scarily realistic scenarios), this week was more of a graduate seminar for a fistful of Army generals and senior civilians, as well as a smattering of U.S. allies and partners. 4-star TRADOC Commander Marty Dempsey chaired all four days 00 a huge commitment that I've never seen made by his predecessors in earlier years...

More at The Best Defense.

Nagl:

The war in Afghanistan is winnable because for the first time the coalition fighting there has the right strategy and the resources to begin to implement it.

Galbraith:

The war in Afghanistan is not winnable because America does not have a credible Afghan partner and there is no prospect that one will emerge.

Join the debate and vote at The Economist.