Rageh Omaar, Al-Jazeera International, investigates the US' military and political strategy for Africa and how its relationship with the continent may change under US president Obama. The first part of the documentary (Witness - America's New Frontline) can be seen from Sunday, September 20; and the second part airs from Sunday, September 27. US Africa Command (USAFRICOM) cooperated with Al-Jazeera, in the filming of this documentary.

President Obama rejected comparisons on Monday between the war in Afghanistan and the conflict in Vietnam a generation ago, but he expressed concern about "the dangers of overreach" and pledged a full debate before making further decisions on strategy. The president's comments, in an interview at the White House with The New York Times and CNBC, appeared to be a response to rising unease within his own party in Congress about the possibility of the United States becoming bogged down in Afghanistan.

Asked whether he worried about repeating the fate of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who declined to seek re-election in 1968 as a result of the turmoil over Vietnam, Mr. Obama replied: "You have to learn lessons from history. On the other hand, each historical moment is different. You never step into the same river twice. And so Afghanistan is not Vietnam." But, he added, "The dangers of overreach and not having clear goals and not having strong support from the American people, those are all issues that I think about all the time."

The president promised to weigh the recommendation of the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, on whether the United States should commit more troops. But he took issue with assertions that the job of dismantling terrorism networks can be handled by drones and other alternatives to soldiers on the ground...

More at The New York Times.

American commandos killed one of the most wanted Islamic militants in Africa in a daylight raid in southern Somalia on Monday, according to American and Somali officials, an indication of the Obama administration's willingness to use combat troops strategically against Al Qaeda's growing influence in the region.

Western intelligence agents have described the militant, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, as the ringleader of a Qaeda cell in Kenya responsible for the bombing of an Israeli hotel on the Kenyan coast in 2002. Mr. Nabhan may have also played a role in the attacks on two American embassies in East Africa in 1998...

More at The New York Times.

US Says Raid in Somalia Killed Terrorist With Links to Al-Qaeda - Karen DeYoung, Washington Post.

Helicopter-borne Special Forces troops attacked and killed a top al-Qaeda-linked suspect in a raid in southern Somalia early Monday, US officials said. Officials said Saleh Ali Nabhan, 30, a Kenyan sought in the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned resort in Kenya and an unsuccessful attempt that year to shoot down an Israeli airliner, was among four men killed in the attack. US troops fired from the air at a vehicle in which the men were traveling.

At least four helicopters participated in the raid, launched from a nearby US naval vessel, a senior military official said. At least one of them landed, and troops retrieved the bodies. "You want to go in there, do this fast, and get out before you're detected," the official said...

More at The Washington Post.

It is time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option. The United States, NATO, the European Union and others have invested massively in stabilizing that country over the past eight years, and they should not abandon it because the Taliban is proving a tougher foe than anticipated. But there is still a large gap between the goals the Obama administration is outlining and the means available to achieve them. This gap is best closed not by sending in tens of thousands of more troops but, rather, by understanding the limits of what we can reasonably achieve in Afghanistan.

The most important reality of the post-Sept. 11 world has been the lack of any major follow-up attack. That's largely because al-Qaeda has been on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The campaign against terrorist groups in both countries rests on ground forces and intelligence. A senior US military official involved in planning these campaigns told me that America's presence in Afghanistan has been the critical element in the successful strikes against al-Qaeda leaders and camps. Were America to leave the scene, all the region's players would start jockeying for influence over Afghanistan. That would almost certainly mean the revival of the poisonous alliance between the Pakistani military and the hardest-line elements of the Taliban...

More at The Washington Post.

Growing numbers of Americans are starting to doubt whether we should have troops in Afghanistan and whether the war there is even winnable. We are confident that not only is it winnable, but that we have no choice. We must prevail in Afghanistan. We went to war there because the 9/11 attacks were a direct consequence of the safe haven given to al Qaeda in that country under the Taliban. We remain at war because a resurgent Taliban, still allied with al Qaeda, is trying to restore its brutal regime and re-establish that country as a terrorist safe haven.

It remains a clear, vital national interest of the United States to prevent this from happening. Yet an increasing number of commentators, including some of the very same individuals who opposed the surge in Iraq and called for withdrawal there, now declare Afghanistan essentially unwinnable. Had their view prevailed with respect to Iraq in 2006 and 2007, the consequences of our failure there would have been catastrophic.

Similarly, the ramifications of an American defeat in Afghanistan would not only be a devastating setback for our nation in what is now the central front in the global war on terror, but would inevitably further destabilize neighboring, nuclear Pakistan. Those who advocate such a course were wrong about Iraq, and they are wrong about Afghanistan...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Much of the debate centers over a series of articles and rebuttals which have occurred over the past six weeks, but intensifying with George Will's exhortation to give up on nation-building in Afghanistan and pursue al Qaeda via "over-the-horizon" capabilities. Will was joined by General Charles Krulak, the former Commandant of the US Marine Corps, who also echoed many of Will's arguments in an e-mail earlier this week. Both George Will and General Krulak--as well as many within the defense community, such as Col. Gian Gentile and Col. TX Hammes--feel that Afghanistan has outlived its strategic relevance due to al Qaeda's relocation into Pakistan and the perceived futility of building a nation-state in Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Yingling, on the other hand, feels that population-centric counterinsurgency can work in Afghanistan, given the right amount of troops and time. To Yingling, building a stable nation-state in Afghanistan is a necessary step in countering al Qaeda. Other prominent military thinkers agree with Yingling, such as retired Lt. Col. John Nagl, president of the Washington-based think-tank, Center for a New American Security.

Our professional community thrives on respectful, professional debate, such as the debate that exists over the strategic and operational goals in Afghanistan. We owe it to the men and women of ISAF to decide whether or not Afghanistan warrants further involvement, and if the situation does warrant involvement, we must determine the best course towards achieving ISAF's goals.

Having said that, I would like to point to the US Army's latest manual which concerns campaign planning, TRADOC Publication 525-5-500, "Commander's Appreciation and Campaign Design". This document is designed to give senior level planners the intellectual tools they need to solve "ill-structured" problems. As David Kilcullen points out in "The Accidental Guerrilla", Afghanistan is certainly an ill-structured problem—a "hybrid war", as he calls it, which blends elements of counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, and tribal warfare.

TRADOC Publication 525-5-500 defines operational problems and discusses the three types of operational problems we, as planners, will experience. TRADOC defines an operational problem as a "discrepancy between the state of affairs as it is and the state of affairs as it ought to be that compels military action to resolve it". The document also mentions that not all operational problems require actions, and are more correctly referred to as "concerns". The implication of course is that a "concern" exists when the cost:benefit ratio regarding military action is deemed too high a price to pay.

Having said that, there are three types of operational problems which we typically experience in the military. The one most of us are familiar with from most training exercise is the well-structured problem. These are generally linear problems which have one solution, and have a predictable outcome. Examples of these problems typically include many of the planning exercises we have witnessed in our military educational courses—the defeat of a Soviet-style Division Tactical Group as it approaches a Brigade Combat Team, or the movement of material and people from point A to point B. Problems like these beg the use of the Military Decision Making Process (MDMP), which is a linear, scientifically-based process to solving problems of this nature.

Unfortunately, MDMP does not lend itself well to all situations, and comes with severe limitations. Certainly, General Moltke and the German High Command realized that, despite the meticulous planning calculations which went into the Schlieffen Plan, they failed to understand the grand strategic picture, grossly underestimating Russian mobilization. Additionally, Robert MacNamara's "whiz kids" applied mathematical formulas to Vietnam with disastrous results.

The complex operating environment of the 21st Century's "Small Wars" present decision-makers with problems which can be open-ended, ill-defined, and with no obvious solution. It is up to leaders to apply a decision making model to understand the nature of the problem, ascertain strategic goals, and formulate a plan from there. These problems are often referred to as "ill-structured" problems, or more appropriately, "wicked problems", according to TRADOC.

Although the Army has packaged this thought process into a manual and given it the name "operational design", this process has actually been practiced by leaders throughout history—TRADOC has simply given this generation of military leaders the blueprint for success.

Operational design begins by problem framing, with the first step being to establish the strategic context of the problem. TRADOC's publication recommends the following questions be asked:

What is the history of the problem? What is its genesis?

Who are the parties interested in the problem and what are the implications of likely outcomes?

What caused the problem to come to the fore?

Why is this emerging problem important to the nation's strategic leaders? Particularly consider factors such as:

Are national interests and ideals at stake?

What are the domestic political considerations for taking action?

What are the economic considerations of action?

Are there treaty obligations that require or block the ability to act?

Why do strategic leaders believe this problem requires a military solution?

To this, we might add in even more fundamental questions regarding the nature of the problem in Afghanistan:

Who are the enemies? What are their goals? Where are they located? What threat does each group pose to the United States? What effect does ISAF involvement in Afghanistan have on them?

Any "solution" to the Afghanistan problem must be well-thought out, and operational design gives us a framework for examining problems of this nature. I'd like to invite everyone to not only debate the merits of further involvement in Afghanistan, but also to participate in the Army's new operational design framework as a process for solving problems as complex as the ones we will face in small wars.

Washington wants closure, but election fallout continues. Realpolitik suggests that the sooner a functioning government can be established in Kabul the better. But after weeks of revelations about widespread fraud in the August 20 election, the prospect of moving on quickly in Afghanistan remains elusive. At the weekend, opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah urged supporters not to take to the streets in protest, but insisted he would not be part of a national unity government with President Hamid Karzai - the solution being pressed by the international community.

With about 90 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Karzai has more than 54per cent support but the stories of bribery and ballot-box interference have destroyed confidence in the outcome. Monitors suggest up to 23per cent of votes counted so far could be fraudulent, according to a report in The Sunday Times.

It's a mess, but the problem is what happens next as governments involved in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force face falling domestic support for involvement in Afghanistan. It is a particular headache for the US, which favoured Mr Karzai in the first presidential election in 2004. With Americans increasingly unhappy about their troops in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama needs the electoral debacle to go away before it undermines his military strategy...

More at The Australian.

A Short Reply to the Dubik and Kagans' Washington Post Oped

Lieutenant General James Dubik, Dr Kim Kagan, and Dr Fred Kagan, the three authors of a Sunday Washington Post oped titled The Afghan Illusion: Kabul's Forces Aren't Yet a Substitute for Our Own, conclude their Oped with this statement:

"Building Afghan forces dramatically is part of a strategy for succeeding in Afghanistan and permitting the reduction of foreign forces. It cannot, however, be the whole strategy."

And to ask this reoccurring question one more time, what is the "whole strategy"? Although the authors do not come out and say it, armed nation building is clearly the "whole" strategy.

Why do we think nation building at the barrel of an American gun can work in Afghanistan? The authors cleverly tell us at the end of the article that the building up of the Afghani National Forces will allow the Americans to "begin" to reduce their footprint in 2011. But then again, that statement is followed by the idea that building Afghani forces is part of a larger strategy of (implied) nation building which I infer from the piece actually requires a generational effort. Realistically and being blunt and honest how could building an Afghanistan Nation up from what it is now take anything less than a generation?

Again, back to my original question, why do we think armed nation building in Afghanistan will work. Naturally these three authors fall back on the flawed understanding produced by the Iraq Triumph Narrative that underpins current hopes for Astan: It worked in Iraq because we said so, so listen to us, try harder, give us just a bit more, and we can make it work in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is a country wracked with internal problems; tribal conflict, backwardness, corruption, tension that produces endemic violence, bitter regional disputes, dysfunctional national boundaries, etc. So why do we think we can solve their problems in a matter of a few decades through foreign occupation? Could any outside force have come into the United States in the 1850s and resolved its internal conflicts at the barrel of a gun? Actually, the British tried to resolve internal conflict in North America about 80 years earlier during the American Revolution and lost, or gave up trying because strategy demanded for them that it became not worth the cost of trying to do it.

The question about the efficacy of nation building in Afghanistan is important for strategy because it is the underlying and supremely powerful belief that we can make it work that continues to push us down the present operational path of population centric Coin that we are on. Sometimes it does seem that "wicked" tactical and operational problems in a place like Afghanistan requires not necessarily more experts and "scary smart" army officers to tackle them, but clear, astute, and resolute thinking about strategy and national interests.

Just like the coherent and logical thought that General (ret) Krulak displayed in his very recent letter to George Will on strategy, national interests, and Afghanistan.

While some are discussing whether the US presence in Afghanistan should be maintained, the Obama administration does not appear to be seriously considering withdrawal. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and others have instead proposed expanding the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) first and raising US force levels only if that approach is unsuccessful. This option holds out hope of success without the need to send more US troops, but we believe it is illusory.

Withdrawal now would allow Afghanistan to again become a haven for terrorists. It would destabilize Pakistan by giving refuge to terrorist and insurgent groups attacking Islamabad and by strengthening the forces within the Pakistani government and security forces that continue to support the Taliban as a hedging strategy against precisely such an American retreat. Pursuing an offshore strategy of surgical strikes using aircraft and Special Forces units would destabilize Pakistan for the same reasons. Further, if such a strategy could work against al-Qaeda, the commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal - the most accomplished practitioner of Special Forces counterterrorism campaigns - would be advocating it. Instead, he is advocating counterinsurgency...

More at The Washington Post.

The concept of Strategic Communication had, until late 2008, received only scant attention in the UK. However the production of the UK's counterinsurgency doctrine (still to be definitively named but catalogued as Joint Doctrine Publication 3-40: Security and Stabilisation: The Military Contribution) presented an opportunity for this to be addressed in what was to be a chapter on military influence.

That the doctrine has still not been published, after nearly two years of development, is indicative of the difficulties the British Armed Forces are experienceing in articulating not just lessons learned from Iraq and on-going operations in Afghanistan - but also in applying the same to future scenarios. To assist the Defence Concepts and Doctrine Centre in its work the UK Defence Academy's Director of Communication Research; Commander Tatham, a media operations expert and author of the 2006 polemic study 'Losing Arab Hearts and Minds: The Coalition, Al-Jazeera & Muslim Public Opinion; produced and published the Strategic Communication Primer in late 2008. This document attempts the first definition of strategic communication by the UK and considers some of the problems of communication in 21st Century conflict, settling on the pragmatic complexity model presented by Arizona State's Consortium for Strategic Communication. Tatham's primer has been followed by the roll out of a Strategic Communication education program across all UK Staff Courses. Trialed initially on the UK's Tri-Service Warrant Officer's course - where the concept was warmly welcomed - it has subsequently been rolled out to the initial (8 week) staff courses (for Lieutenants and Captains), the Advanced (1 year) staff course (for Majors and Lieutenant Colonels) and the Higher Staff Course for very senior officers.

Key in Tatham's findings are the belief that Strategic Communication is not simply the tighter binding of Information Operations, Public Affairs, etal, but that Strategic Communication should be a core component of the Command function; that recognizing every action, however benign it may superficially appear, will generate an informational effect. That effect can alter perception and for many perception equals reality. Tatham advised Brigadier (now Major General) Andrew Mackay during his planning for 52 Brigade British Army deployment to Helmand. Mackay centralized the idea, from lowest private to the highest ranks, that popular consent was vital and the story of his preparation and deployment is told in the recent British Army Review article by Commander Tatham linked above.