Is Somalia the New Afghanistan? - Jon Swain and Michael Gillard, The Times.

... The slick video showing the last moments of a suicide bomber, entitled "Message to those who stay behind", is part of the latest recruitment propaganda to emerge on English-language websites directed at young wannabe jihadis. Its origins were not, however, in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan, the usual bases of jihadi recruiters, but Somalia, the war-torn east African state.

The site has been traced to Al-Shabaab, a radicalised Islamist militia group led by Somalis trained in Afghanistan and aligned with Al-Qaeda. The group is fighting against Somalia's fragile transitional government, which is backed by the West and the United Nations. It is seeking to impose sharia (Islamic law) in Somalia with brutal tactics including public beheadings. Amnesty International has condemned it for cruel punishments including sentencing robbers, without trial, to have their right hand and left foot cut off.

What concerns western security officials is that the movement has built an international recruiting network in Somali expatriate communities in the West. It has arranged for impressionable young Somali men to go to a country they scarcely know, to fight for its cause.

Now there are signs that these fighters are returning to their home countries to spread terror there...

More at The Times.

Seems like a decent thing to do around this one-horse town... It's been a hard day's night...

... and some twist and shout at Shea - 1965...

... and of course, Saturday night is alright for fighting...

... especially with one bourbon, one scotch, and one beer...

... and not to forget you Eileen... I said too-ra-loo-ra-too-ra-loo-rye-aye...

Going Local: The Key to Afghanistan - Seth G. Jones, Wall Street Journal opinion.

The rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan is now President Barack Obama's war, one he pledged to win during his election campaign, promising to "reverse course" and defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda. One of the biggest problems, however, is that since late 2001, the United States has crafted its Afghanistan strategy on a fatally flawed assumption: The recipe for stability is building a strong central government capable of establishing law and order in rural areas. This notion reflects a failure to grasp the local nature of Afghan politics.

In many countries where the United States has engaged in state-building, such as Germany and Japan after World War II, US policy makers inherited a strong central government that allowed them to rebuild from the top down. Even in Iraq, Saddam Hussein amassed a powerful military and intelligence apparatus that brutally suppressed dissent from the center. But Afghanistan is different. Power has often come from the bottom up in Pashtun areas of the country, the focus of today's insurgency.

It is striking that most Americans who try to learn lessons from Afghanistan's recent history turn to the failed military exploits of the British or Soviet Union. Just look at the list of books that many newly deployed soldiers are urged to read, such as Lester Grau's "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" and Mohammed Yousaf and Mark Adkin's "The Bear Trap," which document some of the searing battlefield lessons that contributed to the Soviet defeat. Yet, outside of some anthropologists, few people have bothered to examine Afghanistan's stable periods. The lessons are revealing...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Déjí  Vue All Over Again in Afghanistan? - Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, Weekly Standard opinion.

Throughout the debate about the "surge" in Iraq at the end of 2006 and the start of 2007, Bush administration spokesmen consistently underplayed the military requirements, and some people within the administration and the military tried to constrain the resources available to the commanders. These efforts were mistaken. They undermined support for the effort rather than building it, they distracted the commanders in the field from fighting the war to fighting for the troops they needed, and they continually put in question the administration's determination to see a very hard problem through to a successful conclusion. Is the Obama administration making similar mistakes regarding policy in Afghanistan? Judging by Wednesday's press conference with Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell, it seems that the answer might well be yes.

Morrell began oddly by downplaying the significance of the review currently being conducted by General Stanley McChrystal. (Full disclosure: we were members of the civilian team that worked from late June to late July drafting products to support that review--but this article reflects our opinions only; not necessarily General McChrystal's or the conclusions of the review itself). Morrell said, "This is not akin to the much-anticipated General Petraeus assessments that we got in 2006 [sic], 2007." He added, "The assessment will not be, despite some erroneous reporting that I've seen, a work product that includes specific resource requests, if indeed there will be additional resource requests . . . that assessment will focus . . . on the situation on the ground and the way ahead, but it will not offer specific resource requests or recommendations." ...

... Why would the Pentagon spokesman describe the commander's review process in such a dismissive and meaningless way? Why is the Pentagon spokesman talking down an assessment by that commander that is underway and incomplete but clearly marks a critical inflection point in the war? Why does the Pentagon wish to "lower expectations just a bit about what it is that's coming" out of General McChrystal's assessment? Unless, of course, the rumors are true that the administration is highly resistant to the idea of providing any additional forces that might be necessary to conduct the new strategy designed by their chosen commander to fight the war that the president said was the most important national security challenge we face...

More at The Weekly Standard.

Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:

Gates tries to get a grip on McChrystal

After appointing General Stanley McChrystal the new commander in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave him two months to write an analysis of the situation there in yet another review of U.S. strategy. But after rumors leaked out that McChrystal would ask for another increase in U.S. troops, it appears that Gates decided he would not wait for McChrystal's finished report. On Aug. 2, he summoned McChrystal and his deputy, Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez to a hastily arranged meeting in Belgium which also included Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullin, NATO commander Admiral James Stavridis, McChrystal's direct boss General David Petraeus, and undersecretary of defense for policy Michele Flournoy.

On Aug. 5, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell briefed reporters on the results of the unusual Sunday meeting. According to Morrell, Gates instructed McChrystal to consider a few additional, and unspecified, issues in his report. Gates also instructed McChrystal to take more time, likely postponing the delivery of the report into September.

Finally, Morrell explained that McChrystal's report will not include any discussion or request for additional "resources" (meaning U.S. troops and money) for Afghanistan. If McChrystal wants to make such a request, Morrell said, he will do so separately and at a later time.

What accounts for Gates's preemptive meeting with McChrystal? It is possible that Gates (or someone else in the administration) feared that McChrystal's report would take on a life of its own, perhaps compelling Gates and President Obama into decisions they would prefer not to make. If true, the meeting in Belgium was an attempt to minimize the report's impact by redefining its purpose, reducing its prominence, and controlling the timing of its release. We will see in September whether Gates accomplished these goals.

Yet regardless of how he manages McChrystal, the general's implicit message will be the need for more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, either in direct combat to suppress the Taliban or serving as trainers and advisors to an expanding Afghan army.

With this year's doubling of the U.S. troop level in Afghanistan, Gates and his commanders expected more casualties, and indeed, July was the deadliest month of the war for the United States and 2009 will certainly be the deadliest year of the Afghan war. But Gates was also hoping for signs that the situation would visibly stabilize during 2010. A request by McChrystal for even more U.S. troops would mean a deeper U.S. commitment, not to mention even more combat deaths.

One can hardly blame Gates for intervening before the final report took on a life of its own. He's still hoping for a quiet landing. But McChrystal's report will very likely arrive with a loud bang.

Shrinking Arctic ice will stretch a shrinking U.S. Navy

Climate change and reduced sea ice cover may result in opening up the Arctic to vastly increased resource development and commercial traffic. These trends will inevitably spark international conflicts and create a need for more military forces to provide security and protect interests in the Arctic region. This is bad news for the U.S. Navy, already hard-pressed by shrinking fleets and rising challenges elsewhere.

Rear Admiral David Titley, the U.S. Navy's top oceanographer, was recently in Barrow, Alaska supervising a global warming research expedition. According to Titley, changes in Arctic sea ice cover will require a new assessment of the Navy's maritime strategy. Such an assessment will likely recommend changes to military infrastructure in the Arctic, military force structure deployed to the Arctic, and new capabilities to respond to a changing Arctic climate.

The June 2006 issue of the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings journal (registration required) contained an article by Lieutenant Magda Hanna, that described the looming implications of Arctic climate change for resource development, commercial activity, and clashing national interests. Hanna discussed competing subsurface territorial claims; Arctic oil and natural gas potential; sovereignty disputes over Arctic shipping routes, China's interests in the Arctic; and U.S. Navy and Coast Guard capabilities in the Arctic region. Her conclusion is that significant growth in Arctic commerce, opened up by reduced sea ice, will result in the need for a larger U.S. naval presence in the region.

This added requirement couldn't come at a more stressful time for the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Navy is down to 285 deployable battle force ships from nearly 600 during the 1980s. Although the U.S. Navy is without question far more powerful than any other navy and will be for many years, it also has global responsibilities, requiring patrolling in many corners of the oceans. Reduced sea ice in the Arctic will add more corners to patrol.

Meanwhile, Navy shipbuilders remain incapable of building new surface warships on time and on budget. In April, Gates terminated the Navy's next-generation destroyer program and delayed decisions about the next-generation cruiser and amphibious assault ships until after the next Quadrennial Defense Review arrives. Gates ordered an acceleration of Littoral Combat Ship purchases, but that program is plagued with severe cost overruns and contractor problems.

Thus, the Navy faces the prospect of an expanded list of tasks just when it is having the most difficulty getting enough ships to go out on patrol. There is a real risk that an adversary may be able to achieve local superiority over a Navy stretched by these new responsibilities. Climate change is forcing adaptation all around the world, not least inside the Pentagon.

Germany's Combat Revival - Elizabeth Pond, Christian Science Monitor opinion.

Today's Germans have not yet fully reconciled their post-Hitler conscience with the use of military force for anything beyond narrow homeland defense. But Berlin has just tiptoed over another red line, in the Hindu Kush mountains.

To be sure, Germany's recent first use of heavy weapons and tank-like vehicles in a two-week offensive against insurgents will hardly satisfy the American hope for more German combat action in southern Afghanistan. Yet the new German assertiveness does augur a certain convergence. Just as Berlin is getting drawn into easing national restrictions and letting its troops engage in American-style firefights to repulse Taliban intimidation of Afghan villagers, so is the Obama administration shifting American priorities toward German-style emphasis on local civilian development...

... Yet at heart, as the new US counterinsurgency doctrine of last December stresses, US-style war fighting and German-style development are both essential. Mobile infantry sweeps can never win the war if Afghan teenagers with no future prospects constantly replace killed insurgents. And young Afghans can never imagine a peaceful future for themselves if the Taliban are not blocked from repeatedly blowing up those new schools and bridges.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

Our friends at the USA and USMC COIN Center have made locating recent COIN doctrine easy. FM 3-24 is even available in Dari and Arabic for those needing to work with host nation counterparts. Follow the links below for direct download or browse their Knowledge Center for additional information.

• FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (English)

• FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (Arabic)

• FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (English and Arabic)

• FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency (English and Dari)

• FM 3-24.2 Tactics in Counterinsurgency

• FM 3-07 Stability Operations

• FM 3-07.1 Security Force Assistance

Censoring the Voice of America - Matt Armstrong, Foreign Policy.

Why is it OK to broadcast terrorist propaganda but not taxpayer-funded media reports?

Earlier this year, a community radio station in Minneapolis asked Voice of America (VOA) for permission to retransmit its news coverage on the increasingly volatile situation in Somalia. The VOA audio files it requested were freely available online without copyright or any licensing requirements. The radio station's intentions were simple enough: Producers hoped to offer an informative, Somali-language alternative to the terrorist propaganda that is streaming into Minneapolis, where the United States' largest Somali community resides. Over the last year or more, al-Shabab, an al Qaeda linked Somali militia, has successfully recruited two dozen or more Somali-Americans to return home and fight. The radio station was grasping for a remedy.

It all seemed straightforward enough until VOA turned down the request for the Somali-language programming. In the United States, airing a program produced by a U.S. public diplomacy radio or television station such as VOA is illegal. Oddly, though, airing similar programs produced by foreign governments -- or even terrorist groups -- is not. As a result, the same professional journalists, editors, and public diplomacy officers whom we trust to inform and engage the world are considered more threatening to Americans than terrorist propaganda -- like the stuff pouring into Minneapolis...

More at Foreign Policy.

White House Struggles to Gauge Afghan Success - David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, New York Times.

As the American military comes to full strength in the Afghan buildup, the Obama administration is struggling to come up with a long-promised plan to measure whether the war is being won. Those "metrics" of success, demanded by Congress and eagerly awaited by the military, are seen as crucial if the president is to convince Capitol Hill and the country that his revamped strategy is working. Without concrete signs of progress, Mr. Obama may lack the political stock - especially among Democrats and his liberal base - to make the case for continuing the military effort or enlarging the American presence.

That problem will become particularly acute if American commanders in Afghanistan seek even more troops for a mission that many of Mr. Obama's most ardent supporters say remains ill defined and open-ended. Senior administration officials said that the president's national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, approved a classified policy document on July 17 setting out nine broad objectives for metrics to guide the administration's policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Another month or two is still needed to flesh out the details, according to officials engaged in the work...

More at The New York Times.

US Looks to Vietnam for Afghan Tips - Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press via Mercury News

Top US officials have reached out to a leading Vietnam war scholar to discuss the similarities of that conflict 40 years ago with American involvement in Afghanistan, where the US is seeking ways to isolate an elusive guerrilla force and win over a skeptical local population. The overture to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stanley Karnow, who opposes the Afghan war, comes as the US is evaluating its strategy there.

President Barack Obama has doubled the size of the US force to curb a burgeoning Taliban insurgency and bolster the Afghan government. He has tasked Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander, to conduct a strategic review of the fight against Taliban guerrillas and draft a detailed proposal for victory.

McChrystal and Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to the country, telephoned Karnow on July 27 in an apparent effort to apply the lessons of Vietnam to the Afghan war, which started in 2001 when US-led forces ousted the Taliban regime in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Among the concerns voiced by historians is the credibility of President Hamid Karzai's government, which is widely perceived as being plagued by graft and corruption. They draw a parallel between Afghanistan's presidential election on Aug. 20 and the failed effort in Vietnam to legitimize a military regime lacking broad popular support through an imposed presidential election in 1967...

More at Mercury News.

Also see:

SWJ's Vietnam Section in our Reference Library.

Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow