... Countering terrorists and extremism requires more than a conventional military approach. Military operations enable you to clear areas of extremist and insurgent elements, and to stop them from putting themselves back together. But the core of any counterinsurgency strategy must focus on the fact that the decisive terrain is the human terrain, not the high ground or river crossing.

Focusing on the population can, if done properly, improve security for local people and help to extend basic services. It can help to delegitimise the methods of the extremists - especially if you can contrast your ability and willingness to support and protect the population with the often horrific actions of extremist groups. Indeed, exposing their extremist ideologies, indiscriminate violence and oppressive practices can help people to realise that their lives are unlikely to be improved if under the control of such movements.

For the strategy to work, it is also necessary to find ways to identify reconcilable members of insurgent elements and to transform them into part of the solution...

More at The Times.

The Obama announcement (followed up by a press conference with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General James Cartwright, USMC) is essentially a redefinition of the U.S. response to the broad Iranian ballistic missile threat. The Bush plan was focused on hedging against an Iranian IRBM/ICBM threat, thought to be possible around 2015. The Iranian short and medium range missile threat was always a known problem but in the Bush era was managed separately. The Obama team has redefined the "Europe missile defense" issue by encompassing the entire Iranian ballistic missile threat, which in the short run won't involve Europe at all (unless you count Turkey in Europe).

In any case, here, lifted from the White House website, is the four-phase plan:

• Phase One (in the 2011 timeframe) -- Deploy current and proven missile defense systems available in the next two years, including the sea-based Aegis Weapon System, the SM-3 interceptor (Block IA), and sensors such as the forward-based Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance system (AN/TPY-2), to address regional ballistic missile threats to Europe and our deployed personnel and their families;

• Phase Two (in the 2015 timeframe) -- After appropriate testing, deploy a more capable version of the SM-3 interceptor (Block IB) in both sea- and land-based configurations, and more advanced sensors, to expand the defended area against short- and medium-range missile threats;

• Phase Three (in the 2018 timeframe) -- After development and testing are complete, deploy the more advanced SM-3 Block IIA variant currently under development, to counter short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missile threats; and

• Phase Four (in the 2020 timeframe) -- After development and testing are complete, deploy the SM-3 Block IIB to help better cope with medium- and intermediate-range missiles and the potential future ICBM threat to the United States.

On to the good and the bad.

The Good

1. From a purely military view, "distributed, adaptable, and flexible" are preferable to the two static sites formerly proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic.

2. Cost. The Obama plan recognizes rule #1 for missile defense: the marginal cost of an interceptor must be less than the marginal cost of the missile it is to intercept. In order for missile defense to make sense, it must be cheaper to build interceptors than offensive missiles. The plan projects that the future SM-3 IIB ICBM killer will be much cheaper than the current GBI and presumably cheaper than an Iranian ICBM. Thus the U.S. will be able to produce and deploy interceptors in quantity to defend against barrage attacks.

3. The Obama plan recognizes (as did planners in the Bush years) that the current short-range Iranian threat requires defending against dozens or scores of missiles at a time.

4. Burden sharing. The Obama plan will use systems such as SM-3, Aegis, PAC-3, etc. that are in use by other allied countries, thus sharing the cost.

The Bad

1. From a political and diplomatic perspective, "distributed, adaptable, and flexible" are not reassuring words to allies. The Obama plan is vague and undefined. Allies are rightly wondering whether they will get the benefits of a U.S. defense presence, when exactly these new capabilities will come on line, what the coverage will be, who will be in, who will be out, etc. And how all of these things will change under a distributed defense architecture as the threat and technology change.

2. The GBI is the only capability the U.S. has to intercept an ICBM. Under the Obama plan, the GBI is out with respect to the Iranian threat. The SM-3 IIB is supposed to substitute for the GBI around 2020, about five years after the GBI was to be ready in Europe (to defend the U.S. against an Iranian ICBM). The U.S. intelligence community better hope that its new forecast on Iranian ICBM arrival is both correct and won't change for the worse between now and then.

3. The new plan calls for the system's X-band radar, a very important component in the system, to now be located "somewhere in the Caucasus." Where exactly? How stable and defensible will that position be? The U.S. is moving it there from the Czech Republic to pacify the Russians -- down south it won't be able to peer across Russia. But if the U.S. puts the radar in, say, Georgia, thus tying Georgia into a virtual U.S. defense alliance, will the Russians be happy with that? And if not Georgia, then where?

In sum, the Obama plan gets some military aspects right but some political aspects wrong. The plan's vagueness is unsettling. It puts a proper short-term emphasis on the short and medium-range missile problem -- but everyone already knew about that problem. And it takes a gamble with the ICBM threat.

The big payoff is supposed to be Russian cooperation on Iran's nuclear program and other issues. We'll have to wait and see about that. And after the Russians look this over, they might miss the Bush plan.

The beat goes on, the beat goes on

Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain

La de da de de, la de da de da...

The Center for Defense Studies can be found here. From the "About" page:

The American Enterprise Institute is pleased to announce the creation of its Center for Defense Studies (CDS). The primary purpose of the center is to impart a distinct identity to the scholarship on defense issues and military affairs currently produced at AEI, while signaling a new, focused intent to pursue rigorous studies and analysis on a range of strategic, programmatic, and budgetary issues.

The center will be anchored by a series of targeted studies and reports. The American military establishment is an enormous and complex institution, only occasionally (and usually in moments of crisis) amenable to decisive direction, but also requiring constant smaller course corrections. For every major strategic point of deflection in American defense policy, there are dozens of programmatic, budgetary, and force posture decisions and assessments to be made. One purpose of CDS will be to better shape and influence these decisions, to the extent that they both determine larger strategic choices and are the systemic expressions of American strategic purposes. To that end, CDS has undertaken the following projects:

- a study, cosponsored by the Brookings Institution, on the emerging requirements for U.S. nuclear forces which will re-examine the purpose and posture of America's strategic systems and capabilities;

- a comprehensive assessment of American security commitments and defense requirements modeled on the Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review;

- an ongoing study on the performance of the first Stryker brigade deployed to Afghanistan, undertaken in an effort to better understand and communicate to policymakers the technological requirements for conducting mounted operations in the theater;

- an evaluation of the "hard power" capabilities of America's allies and security partners—and how they impact U.S. defense spending and alliance culture.

To complement these scholarly efforts, CDS will also host a blog, FYSA "For Your Situational Awareness" where AEI scholars and others will regularly post commentary and analysis. The CDS website also features a frequently updated column titled "Must Reads," designed to highlight a selection of noteworthy books, reports, and articles which are (or should be) informing and driving the day's defense policy debates.

We hope that the website serves as a useful resource, and we welcome your comments.

Allegations of ballot-stuffing in the presidential election in Afghanistan last month are now so widespread that a recount is necessary, and perhaps even a runoff. Yet this electoral chicanery pales in comparison to the systemic, day-to-day corruption within the administration of President Hamid Karzai, who has claimed victory in the election. Without a concerted campaign to fight this pervasive venality, all our efforts there, including the sending of additional troops, will be in vain.

I have just returned from Afghanistan, where I spent seven months as a special adviser to NATO's director of communications. On listening tours across the country, we left behind the official procession of armored SUV's, bristling guns and imposing flak jackets that too often encumber coalition forces when they arrive in local villages. Dressed in civilian clothes and driven in ordinary cars, we were able to move around in a manner less likely to intimidate and more likely to elicit candor.

The recurring complaint I heard from Afghans centered on the untenable encroachment of government corruption into their daily lives - the homeowner who has to pay a bribe to get connected to the sewage system, the defendant who tenders payment to a judge for a favorable verdict. People were so incensed with the current government's misdeeds that I often heard the disturbing refrain: "If Karzai is re-elected, then I am going to join the Taliban." ...

More at The New York Times.

The nation's top military officer pushed back Tuesday against Democrats who oppose sending additional combat troops to Afghanistan, telling Congress that success would probably require more fighting forces, and certainly much more time.

That assessment by the officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stopped short of an explicit request for more troops. But it signals that the military intends to have a public voice in the evolving debate as many Democrats express reluctance to expand the war and President Obama weighs options...

Moer at The New York Times.

Call for an Afghan Surge - Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal.

America's top military officer endorsed sending more US troops to Afghanistan, a shift in Pentagon rhetoric that heralds a potential deepening of involvement in the Afghan war despite flagging support from the public and top Democrats in Congress. Addressing a Senate panel, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered no new details about how many American reinforcements will be needed in Afghanistan. But his comments mean that both Adm. Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who spoke on the subject last week, now appear —to order more forces to Afghanistan despite their earlier skepticism about expanding the American military presence there.

Their support makes it easier for President Barack Obama to approve the plans of Gen. Stanley McChrystal - whom the Obama administration installed as the top American commander in Kabul - when he submits a formal request later this month for as many as 40,000 new troops, in addition to 62,000 now there...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Mullen: More Troops 'Probably' Needed - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post.

The nation's top military officer told Congress on Tuesday that the US war in Afghanistan "probably needs more forces" and sought to reassure lawmakers skeptical of sending additional troops that commanders were devising new tactics that would lead to victory over a resurgent Taliban.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that 2,000 to 4,000 additional military trainers from the United States and its NATO partners will be needed to "jump-start" the expansion of Afghan security forces and strongly suggested that more US combat troops will be required to provide security in the short term. "A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably needs more forces," Mullen said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Mullen spoke amid a growing political debate over Afghanistan as President Obama weighs a recently completed assessment of the war by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander there...

More at The Washington Post.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Mullen Says More Troops Probably Needed in Afghanistan - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times.

Facing increasingly skeptical congressional Democrats, the nation's top uniformed officer said Tuesday that the Obama administration's strategy to counter Afghanistan militants probably means that more troops will be needed there. The comments are likely to sharpen an intensifying national debate over the future of the mission in Afghanistan that could force President Obama to decide between military leaders pushing for more firepower and his political base wary of a quagmire. Growing numbers of Democrats, including top congressional leaders, have expressed doubts about increasing the number of combat troops.

Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that he had not received a formal request for additional trainers and combat troops. But Mullen said that, based on the strategy outlined by Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top allied commander in Afghanistan, a larger force is likely to be needed. "He is alarmed by the insurgency, and he is in a position where he needs to retake the initiative from the insurgents, who have grabbed it over the last three years," Mullen said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee...

More at The Los Angeles Times.

President Obama's Top Military Adviser Exposes Afghanistan Rifts - Giles Whittell, Michael Evans and Catherine Philp, The Times.

Deep rifts at the heart of Western policy on Afghanistan were laid bare yesterday when President Obama's top military adviser challenged him to authorise a troop surge that his most senior congressional allies have said they will oppose. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that more US troops as well as a rapid increase in the size and capability of the Afghan army were needed to carry out the President's own strategy for prevailing in Afghanistan as the eighth anniversary of a debilitating war approaches.

His remarks to a Senate hearing came as Bob Ainsworth, the British Defence Secretary, said that the Taleban had proven a resilient enemy. "We're far from succeeding against them yet but I reject that we're not making progress," he said at King's College London. Mr Obama also rejected claims that Afghanistan was turning into a quagmire akin to Vietnam, but his immediate dilemma is political: approving a surge could trigger a high-level mutiny within his own party. Making matters worse, a new poll showed that public support for the war has slumped since April...

More at The Times.

Tara McKelvey at Columbia Journalism Review takes a cheap and shallow shot at Tom Ricks in Too Close for Comfort? - as do several in the comments section. I'd respond, but why bother when someone much more informed about such matters can do it much more eloquently? See Jamie McIntyre's CFR's Errant Dart at Line of Departure. Money quote: And the primary charge against Tom Ricks seems to be that he's done too much research, talked to too many people, knows too much history, and is unafraid to say what he really thinks.

Speaking of Tom Ricks - he has several interesting posts up at Best Defense - Marine generals to Cheney: Knock it off, mac. Money quote: ... we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas -- and his scare tactics. Also see Tom's Rory Stewart on being a government consultant. Money quote: It's like they're coming in and saying to you, 'I'm going to drive my car off a cliff. Should I or should I not wear a seatbelt?' And you say, 'I don't think you should drive your car off the cliff.' And they say, No, no, that bit's already been decided -- the question is whether to wear a seatbelt.' And you say, 'Well, you might as well wear a seatbelt.' And then they say, 'We've consulted with policy expert Rory Stewart and he says ... And speaking of Rory Stewart, Emily Stokes over at The Financial Times as a great synopsis of her interview with Rory - Lunch with the FT. Certainly an interesting man living in interesting times.

At The National - Foreign Correspondent Gretchen Peters reports on an expert panel that says NATO has lost trust of Afghans - serious stuff if true and something that cannot be taken lightly.

Moving on, The Associated Press' John Milburn has penned a decent overview of the U.S. Army's advisor training program at The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. Bottom-line: the mission is moving from Fort Riley to Fort Polk, and significantly expanding. Good news.

Joshua Foust at Registan, not one of our fans but that is most certainly okay with us, offers up the case for Afghanistan in regards to recent historical considerations. This is part 3 of a ? part series...

The GAO offers up a US NORTHCOM "report card" in a very recent Homeland Defense report to Congress titled U.S. Northern Command Has a Strong Exercise Program, but Involvement of Interagency Partners and States Can Be Improved.

Chris Schnaubelt has a very nice research piece at the NATO Defence College's web page - NATO and the New U.S. "Afpak" Policy - bottom line is we can do better. Dr. Schnaubelt holds the Transformation Chair at the College.

There's more but out of time - I'll leave you with sites (not all inclusive mind you) I should be reading more - given eight days a week - Ex's Abu Muqawama, Best Defense - Tom Ricks again, AFPAK Channel at Foreign Policy, Marc Lynch also at FP, Thomas P.M. Barnett, Max Boot at Contentions, Herschel Smith at The Captain's Journal, Steve Coll at The Think Tank, Danger Room - especially Noah, Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement, GrEaT sAtAn'S gIrLfRiEnD - still figuring that one out - but I like it, In Harmonium, Information Dissemination, Kings of War, The Lede at the NYT and thanks for the link guys, SWJ great friend Matt Armstrong's MountainRunner, Outside the Beltway, Schmedlap, Shadow Government at FP, The Long War Journal's The Threat Matrix, Joshua Foust's Registan, the whole crew at Threats Watch, uber-embed and boots on the ground reporter David Wood, Spencer Ackerman at The Washington Independent, Wings Over Iraq, Michael Yon - another boots on the ground - never comes home kinda guy, and of course Zenpundit aka Mark Safranski - always last but not least.

I've missed a few I like a lot, I'm sure...

By Tom Donnelly

OK, I'll take the bait.

To offer the killing of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan as evidence of the success of a strategy of "offshore balancing" would be myopic in the extreme. By press accounts, it was a very well conducted SEAL raid, but let's not confuse good tactics with good strategy.

Let's begin with U.S. strategy toward Somalia. Since the withdrawal from Mogadishu in the wake of the "Black Hawk Down" incident -- and let's remember why this was Osama bin Laden's favorite movie, an exemplar of America the "weak horse," unable to run the course -- keeping that failed state from becoming an al Qaeda haven has been a very narrowly run thing, at best. Arguably, the single most effective step in accomplishing that goal was the Ethiopian invasion that removed the Islamic Courts Union. Certainly, our support to the various UN-approved governments there hasn't made a lasting impact -- local "proxies" or "indigenous forces" have failed to establish anything remotely resembling stability. We've been safely offshore, but haven't achieved much balance.

The East African franchises of al Qaeda haven't been enough inconvenienced, either. Nabhan had a pretty good terrorist career -- he was supposedly responsible for the 2002 attack on an Israeli hotel in Kenya and may have had a role in the 1998 bombings of American embassies -- even if he didn't make Osama-sized headlines. Indeed, the "theater" from Sudan south to Tanzania has been a relatively good one, from an al Qaeda point of view, at least in comparison to Arabia or South Asia, where they've had to confront U.S. forces, NATO forces, and Afghan and Iraqi allies that we've invested in hugely, and where AQ has thus had to retreat.

So far from being an advertisement for "offshore balancing," the experience of Somalia and the Nabhan incident -- as gratifying as the tactical result may be -- look more like further expressions of the limitations of an over-the-horizon posture. That's hardly the end of the world in Somalia; Iraq and even Afghanistan (if for no other reason than the proximity of Pakistan) are obviously of greater strategic importance. But it is indicative of the inherent problem of offshore balancers, who begin with the means and think about the strategic ends.

Conversely, recognizing the necessity of an "on-shore" commitment doesn't mean we still don't have to make choices. But it's better to think of Somalia and lesser theaters of the larger Long War as economy of force efforts, rather that seeing them through the offshore-onshore lens. We must find a way to keep our focus on the fact that instability and violence across the greater Middle East -- which decades of experience indicate is endemic to the current regional political order -- engages our most fundamental security interests. We've already come ashore, and cannot easily withdraw.

Thomas Donnelly, a defense and security policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute is the coauthor with Frederick W. Kagan of Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power (2008). Among his recent books are Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources (2007), co-edited with Gary J. Schmitt; The Military We Need (2005); and Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment (2004).

Somalia strike and offshore balancing

A helicopter-borne U.S. special operations group, apparently operating from a U.S. warship in the Indian Ocean, attacked and killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan along with several of his associates along a road in southern Somalia. According to the cited New York Times article, the U.S. special operations soldiers recovered the bodies and presumably other interesting intelligence products from the site.

This strike will boost the argument for "offshore balancing," a subject of intense discussion after an email by General Charles Krulak, USMC (ret) in support of offshore balancing for Afghanistan found its way to Small Wars Journal blog.

After the "Blackhawk Down" episode of 1993, there is no chance that U.S. policymakers would consider any form of counterinsurgency or stability operations in Somalia. Intelligence cooperation, covert action, raids, and offshore balancing are the only choices available to U.S. policymakers. It remains to be seen whether these tools will be enough; as happened in 2001, a catastrophic attack on the U.S. homeland sourced from Somalia might change these assumptions.

But for now, U.S. policymakers dealing with Somalia have to make intelligence cooperation, covert action, raids, and offshore balancing work. The U.S. apparently received enough intelligence from local sources to make the Nabhan raid a success. Such sources, combined with other surveillance and quarantine efforts, might be enough to prevent Somalia from hosting terror threats with a global reach. Most important for U.S. policymakers, the U.S. could sustain offshore balancing for Somalia indefinitely.

So the question will then follow, if the U.S. has to make offshore balancing work for Somalia, why can't it choose to make it work for Afghanistan?

Sri Lanka Rules in the Swat Valley

On August 27, Niel Smith opened a discussion at Small Wars Journal blog on the Sri Lanka Rules for ending an insurgency. Today's New York Times ran a story on the discovery of scores, perhaps hundreds of dead bodies dumped in the streets of Swat, Pakistan. These are the bodies of Taliban sympathizers and some allege that they were left as calling cards of the Pakistani army (a charge the Pakistani army leadership denies).

Earlier this year, the Sri Lankan government used extreme brutality to end, at least for now, the LTTE insurgency. The Sri Lankan army's violence successfully cut a path to the center of the LTTE's leadership, destroying it. The army's violence may also have tilted the "balance of terror" in the government's favor.

Western counterinsurgency theory makes the hopeful assumption that eliciting positive cooperation from the indigenous population is the most effective course of action against the insurgents. Needless to say, not everyone in the world agrees with this assumption. Someone is attempting to get the residents of Swat to fear the anti-Taliban more than the Taliban. In the battle for "hearts and minds," they must believe that winning over the mind must come first. We should monitor this experiment in applied sociology.

Raid a New York apartment, update the terror database

I have written about TIDE (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment), the U.S. government's extensive database of global terror suspects. I have asserted that this database is the U.S. government's most effective counterterrorism tool. Naturally, such databases are only useful if they are constantly maintained.

At 2:30 am on Monday, a dozen federal agents bashed down the door of a New York City apartment in what will very likely end up, in one form or another, as a small maintenance procedure for the terrorist database.

As reported by the New York Times, the raid yielded no arrests, no weapons, and the discovery of no conspiracies. According the article, federal agents had followed an Afghan immigrant to this apartment and its occupants. They suspected the man of having ties to al Qaeda. The agents seized a computer and cell phones, which government technicians will now scour.

TIDE will get an update. But will the apartment dwellers get a new door?

A forthcoming request from the commander of US troops in Afghanistan for additional resources for the war is likely to take the form of a palette of options, not simply an appeal for more troops, according to Obama administration officials. Combined with a recent congressional proposal to delay a troop request, the options request might allow President Obama to avoid the politically thorny question of ordering a second escalation of US forces in Afghanistan this year.

Administration officials said that the widespread expectation within the administration was that Gen. Stanley McChrystal would present Obama with a series of options for how to resource the US effort to combat the deterioration of security in Afghanistan, along with a discussion of the merits and drawbacks of each. Among the options anticipated by the officials: an accelerated increase in Afghan security forces; the transference of US or Afghan troops to relatively volatile parts of the country; substituting US support troops for US combat troops while holding overall troop levels static; or increasing US troops in total. The officials would not speak for attribution, citing the sensitivity of the internal Afghanistan debate...

More at The Washington Independent.