Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations. Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber - available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet - to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance. The drone intercepts mark the emergence of a shadow cyber war within the U.S.-led conflicts overseas. They also point to a potentially serious vulnerability in Washington's growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

The United States and Pakistan, always prone to bickering, need a big idea to unite and sustain them through the testing battle in Afghanistan. So here's a strategic concept I've been trying out with officials in both countries: By partnering with America, Pakistan can gain sovereignty over all its tribal territory for the first time in its history - and thereby finally complete the task of building its own nation. This is a classic example of what strategists call a "positive sum" game, where, by working together, Washington and Islamabad could gain benefits that they would not achieve alone. But instead of cooperating, they have been trading resentful messages over the past month in which the United States requested Pakistan's help in closing Taliban havens and Pakistan responded, in effect, "Don't tell us what to do."

Here's the cold, hard truth: U.S. success in Afghanistan depends on Pakistan gaining sovereignty over the tribal belt. If the insurgents can continue to maintain their havens in North Waziristan and other tribal areas, then President Obama's surge of troops in Afghanistan will fail. It's that simple...

More at The Washington Post.

In the vast swirl of debate about Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is worth taking the time to read this piece in the Small Wars Journal by Michael Yon about the looming battle for Kandahar and the central importance of the Arghandab River Valley (pdf document).

Just as "a tiger doesn't need to completely understand the jungle to survive, navigate, and then dominate", Yon argues, you don't have to master the full geographical and historical complexity of the Afghan war to grasp the importance of the Arghandab River Valley in securing Kandahar - a battle he suggests will be crucial in 2010. Rather than do this very thoughtful piece the injustice of trying to summarise it, I'd recommend reading it in full.

We have got used to hearing that the United States will find it very difficult to succeed in Afghanistan without help from Pakistan in acting against militants based there - an argument given another airing in the latest New York Times story about Pakistan resisting U.S. demands to move against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan. What Yon's piece does is to give a different perspective on that argument by suggesting the possibility of U.S. military successes on the ground in Afghanistan -- almost independently of what happens in Pakistan.

The point here is not to discuss U.S. military strategy and tactics (many others are far better qualified to do so, among them Hershel Smith at the Captain's Journal who has nearly daily entries on this)...

More at Reuters.

- Who NTM-A / CSTC-A are and what they do

- A NTM-A / CSTC-A table of organization

- NTM-A / CSTC-A priorities

- Afghanistan National Security Forces - now - objective - future goal

- ANSF growth key points

- ANSF recruitment, retention and attrition overview

SWJ wishes NTM-A / CSTC-A the best in accomplishing this most difficult and important mission.

With a major exposure to telecommunications and computer technology both in its economy and with its military operations, the U.S. has a notable vulnerability to cyber attack and thus a great interest in cyber security. If some form of international cooperation can provide a low-cost path to greater cyber security for the U.S., it makes sense to explore this option. On this level, talks with Russia could make sense.

But it is important to be careful. According to the New York Times article, the Russian negotiating position emphasizes an international ban on offensive cyber weapons. The Russian position also seeks to protect Russia's sovereignty regarding criminal investigations of cyber activity in its territory. For its part, the U.S. seems to seek greater international cooperation on investigating and defending against cyber crimes.

The thousands of daily cyber attacks on U.S. military and infrastructure systems come from all over the world but with a substantial portion either originating or routed through Russian and Chinese sources. Naturally the Russian and Chinese governments disclaim any responsibility for these attacks. An international arms control-type treaty banning offensive cyber weapons would include only nation-states as signatories. Such a treaty wouldn't seem to help the U.S. with its current cyber defense problems. But it would take away the U.S. government's ability to use a declared offensive capability as a deterrent or as a war-fighting tool in a future campaign.

What covert relationship, if any, do the Russian and Chinese cyber attackers have with their governments? Are these cyber warriors just computer hobbyists acting alone? Or are they clandestine cut-outs implementing government policy? Would a structure of clandestine cut-outs be a way for nation-states to sign up for the international ban on offensive cyber weapons and simultaneously circumvent the ban through the use of non-state proxies? For legal and cultural reasons, the U.S. government would seem to have a more difficult time executing such a duplicitous policy, with an asymmetrical disadvantage the result.

The U.S. emphasis on international criminal cooperation gets at the key issue from the U.S. perspective, namely, will governments be held responsible for the cyber activity that originates from inside their borders? Computers located in Russia, China, and elsewhere bombard U.S. systems. U.S. officials complain to their foreign counterparts and receive a shrug in response. Is this unwillingness to take responsibility due to the governments' technical inability to stop the attacks? Or is it an element of their national security strategies?

It is good that the U.S. and Russia are talking about cyber defense (when will the Chinese government show up?). But it seems as if the two sides have very different interests. That should hardly be a surprise.

Afghanistan is not and should not be just the United States' fight. Al Qaeda has used its sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan to plot and launch attacks on European cities. We welcome the news that some of America's 42 military partners in Afghanistan plan to send more troops. It was not an easy call.

As President Obama said in his Nobel acceptance speech last week, "In many countries, there is a disconnect between the efforts of those who serve and the ambivalence of the broader public." And in Europe any ambivalence has long been replaced by fierce demands for withdrawal. Still, NATO's announcement that an additional 7,000 troops will be going falls short of what is needed, and has too many casualty-limiting caveats attached. That isn't good for Afghanistan or NATO, which has never fully shouldered the burden of this mission. And it is unfair to the American people, who are being asked to make disproportionate sacrifices for what is, emphatically, a common fight...

More at The New York Times.

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War is dynamic, changing, and unpredictable. The ongoing war in Iraq is no different; it has seen a fundamental shift in how the Marine Corps fights as the doctrine of maneuver warfare and the decisive single battle concept have been supplanted by the steady state and continued operations that are counterinsurgency operations. Years of active combat in the hotly contested Al Anbar Province have been the driving force for change within the Marine Corps as al-Qaeda and others have sought to nullify American and the nascent Iraqi Government's influence in the area. Fortunately the studied development and application of counterinsurgency doctrine has resulted in a largely stable Iraq that is well on the road to self-governance. Unfortunately, it wasn't our idea.

The greatest single influence on our counterinsurgency doctrine isn't a Marine. He isn't even an American, or a colonel or a general or an admiral for that matter. He is an Australian lieutenant colonel who did the bulk of his influential work as a captain—work that has become the cornerstone of company-level counterinsurgent operations and has brought him to prominence as an advisor to the likes of GEN David Patraeus, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, and to the Department of Defense during the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review. Not bad for a foreign field grade officer, but why are we, the most powerful Nation on the planet, importing talent to help solve our warfighting problems? Don't we have Marine officers capable of doing the same?

The answer, unfortunately, is that we do not. The Marine Corps has not invested in the education and development of its officer corps to produce such an officer and, as a result, stands ready to be marginalized within the Department of Defense as a result of this shortfall. Unconventional times and unconventional wars require unconventional thought, and the ability to think brilliantly and unconventionally is a product of education. The foreigner who so significantly impacted our counterinsurgency doctrine and the planners who developed the controversial, but ultimately successful, "surge" shared a common background—the commonality of a doctoral-level education. How, though, can the Marine Corps correct the deficiency? And who is this guy, anyway? ...

Much more at the Marine Corps Gazette.

" Are we all going to become like Special Forces, or is Special Forces going to become like the rest of the Army? I hope not. Special Forces push the envelope. I do believe we need a center of excellence for IW. If it's not here (Fort Bragg), I don't know where it could be. We need someone to continue to think about the challenge of IW and to continue to push the envelope not only for the Army, but for the rest of the U.S."

The Army made a first step toward the establishment of a whole-of-government approach to ongoing military operations around the world as the JFK Special Warfare Center and School hosted the U.S. Army Executive Irregular Warfare Conference Aug. 10-14 at Fort Bragg, N.C. The conference brought together both conventional and special-operations forces, members of the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development and members of academia.

Lieutenant General John Mulholland, commander of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and the host of the conference, noted that the conference brought together "luminaries and experts" in the IW field to work to put together a way ahead. Top military leaders in attendance were General George Casey, chief of staff of the Army; General James Mattis, commander of the Joint Forces Command; General Martin E. Dempsey, commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command; and Admiral Eric Olson, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command. Civilian experts in attendance included Robert Kaplan, Dr. John Nagl and Ralph Peters...

More at Special Warfare.

Topics include:

1) Mexico's drug gangs don't want to destroy the state, they just want to rent it,

2) Does Afghanistan need the Phoenix Program? Part II

Mexico's drug gangs don't want to destroy the state, they just want to rent it

The U.S. Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute has published a disturbing research paper written by Professor Max Manwaring. Titled A "New" Dynamic in the Western Hemisphere Security Environment: The Mexican Zetas and Other Private Armies, the paper discusses how Mexico's drug cartels and the private armies they finance are systematically displacing legitimate state authority across Mexico and Central America. Those who follow events in the region will not find much new in that assertion. What is new is Manwaring's description of the untapped potential of Los Zetas - the private army associated with the powerful Gulf Cartel -- and why it will be especially difficult for either the Mexican or U.S. governments to counter the organization's power.

Los Zetas was born in the late 1990s when the Gulf Cartel began recruiting soldiers from the Mexican army's Airborne Special Force Group. The Gulf Cartel was able to provide the deserters with far more pay, prestige, and side benefits than the Mexican government could. The project was a huge success; the cartel used the organization, training, discipline, experience, and equipment the former soldiers provided to greatly expand its operating territory, smuggling routes, debt collection, and capacity to intimidate or kill opponents. Los Zetas went on to recruit soldiers from the Guatemalan army's special forces and from other militaries in the region.

According to Manwaring, Los Zetas is no longer merely an enforcer for the Gulf Cartel, but an independent military force that rivals the power of legitimate governments in the region. It has used the enormous cash flow it receives from drug smuggling to acquire state-of-the-art weapons and electronics technology and to build intelligence-gathering, logistics, and operational planning staffs that Western military commanders would not only recognize but envy.

So do Los Zetas's commanders aim to seize control of the Mexican state? Probably not, according to Manwaring -- at least not directly. Los Zetas (and other cartel leaders in the region) want to weaken but not completely destroy the traditional authority of the state. Los Zetas and cartel members need to travel outside the country, communicate, and conduct financial transactions. Most important, these transnational criminal organizations greatly benefit from the Mexican government's zealous protection of its sovereignty -- this keeps the U.S. government one step away from interfering with the cartels.

Viewed in this light, Los Zetas and other such transnational private military forces may be much more dangerous to stability and legitimate governance than al Qaeda or religion-inspired terror groups. The multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling business seems to buy far more military capability, foot soldiers, high and low-level government officials, and neighborhood support than religious exhortation does. It is easy to organize against al Qaeda's highly unpopular vision of society. For Los Zetas, it's business, not political -- there can be a cut of the action for everyone. That might make Los Zetas and their private military cousins the more insidious threat to legitimate governance.

Does Afghanistan need the Phoenix Program? Part II

A Dec. 8 Washington Post article by Griff Witte discussed the Taliban's shadow government in Afghanistan. According to Witte, the Taliban is preparing for its return to power "by establishing an elaborate shadow government of governors, police chiefs, district administrators and judges that in many cases already has more bearing on the lives of Afghans than the real government." In the 1960s the Viet Cong organized a similar shadow government in South Vietnam. The United States and South Vietnamese governments responded with the controversial Phoenix program, which infiltrated and crippled the Viet Cong cadre organization. President Barack Obama has tasked General Stanley McChrystal and the rest of the U.S. government to "reverse the Taliban's momentum." Does Afghanistan need its version of the Phoenix program?

In my July 31 column, I discussed a recent RAND Corporation report on the Phoenix program that was commissioned by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The purpose of the report was to review the effectiveness of Phoenix's techniques and assess whether the U.S. and Afghan governments could use those techniques effectively in Afghanistan.

Phoenix's principal technique for attacking the Viet Cong's organization was to recruit South Vietnamese citizens (many former soldiers) and send them back to their home provinces and villages. There they would make contact with the Viet Cong, infiltrate the organization, and collect intelligence on its structure and membership. Military and paramilitary forces would then arrest or kill the Viet Cong members. The Central Intelligence Agency, which was the lead agency for Phoenix, carefully selected the infiltrating agents based on an assessment of their motivation (often based on revenge), reliability, and adaptability.

The RAND report noted that, aside from a few exceptions, neither in Iraq nor Afghanistan has the U.S. government aggressively recruited indigenous agents to infiltrate insurgent organizations. The report offered no explanation for the neglect of this seemingly basic counterinsurgency technique.

Witte's recent article on the Taliban's shadow government showed why the employment of Phoenix techniques in Afghanistan might be a waste of effort. Even if such a program did reveal and destroy the Taliban shadow government, all that would remain in many parts of the country would be an empty political vacuum. According to Witte, the legitimate government has virtually no presence in many areas. And where officials and the government bureaucracy are present, their demand for bribes and inability to enforce security only seem to be alienating the population and increasing the appeal of the Taliban.

"Reversing the Taliban's momentum" might require a ruthless Phoenix program. But that alone would be insufficient. U.S. planners are well aware of the requirement for better and cleaner Afghan governance. Delivering that in a timely manner would seem to be more difficult than eradicating the Taliban's shadow government.