By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 30, 2009 -- Army Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV discovered the power of social networking in 2007 when he was the U.S. military's top spokesman in Iraq.

It was "probably one of the toughest times in Iraq," Caldwell recalled of his time as Multinational Force Iraq's deputy chief of staff for strategic effects. Mounting U.S. casualties and sectarian violence dominated the news headlines.

Caldwell, who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division before arriving in Baghdad, knew the coverage wasn't telling the whole story.

"Men and women were doing incredibly great things every day, and not just heroic things," he told American Forces Press Service. "They were building schools, helping establish government systems, empowering the Iraqi police forces to take on more responsibility, training Iraqi army forces.

"We were doing a lot of incredibly great things," he continued, "and the stories weren't getting out because they were overshadowed by the kinetic things going on and the loss of American life and the fact that casualty rates were up."

So at the urging of his younger staff, Caldwell took the monumental step of launching Multinational Force Iraq into the world of social networking.

"A 'You who?'" Caldwell recalls asking when his staffers first recommended a YouTube site. "I had absolutely no idea what it was."

But the staff talked him through the process, sat him down with a commercial server and showed him how YouTube worked. "I immediately understood the incredible power that would exist if we could leverage that," he said.

The problem was that access to the YouTube site had been blocked within the U.S. Central Command theater. So Caldwell took the issue up with Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., Multinational Force Iraq commander at the time, and got approval to establish an official YouTube site.

The site went live in early March 2007 and amazed even Caldwell with the following it attracted. "Within the next six months, it was in the top 10 of all YouTube sites visited in the world," he said. "Viewership was phenomenal."

Officials put word out to the theater, urging troops to send videos that helped to explain the work they were doing. "We were looking for a variety of things -- we wanted kinetic and nonkinetic [activities], and we wanted personal stories," Caldwell said. "Nobody was out collecting. We just asked people, 'Feed us what you've got.'"

And feed they did -- clips showing troops engaged in everything from firefights to the destruction of bomb-making factories to delivering medical care to wounded Iraqis.

Officials reviewed the videos to ensure they didn't violate operational security considerations, use profanity or show sexual, overly graphic, disturbing or offensive material, then posted the clips as quickly as possible.

"The entire rest of the time I was there, it was an enormous hit," Caldwell said. "The number of people going to it and looking at it on a daily basis was phenomenal."\

YouTube was just the start of the command's effort to deliver a more complete story of what was happening in Iraq to a broader audience. And as Caldwell discovered, social networking offered a whole new range of outlets for sharing that story, without the traditional media filters.

"It eliminated the gatekeeper," he said. "We now had the ability to help inform and present information that people might want to hear about or see in a way that was never there before."

Command officials urged people to come forward with ideas about how to leverage social media as part of a broader communications outreach. Meanwhile, Caldwell ratcheted up his media engagements with a growing array of outlets. His team, taking the lead from the enemy they were working to defeat, redesigned the command's Web site to make it more interactive, visually stimulating and user-friendly.

"We saw the fact that insurgents were making great use of the Internet," Caldwell said. "It was clear that this was a venue through which they were transmitting information and providing visuals. And we also started realizing that it was an opportunity for us to do the exact same thing back -- not in a propaganda sense, but in a sense of informing and educating people about just what we were doing."

The Army that Caldwell had grown up in had only one way to do that: through print and broadcast media outlets. And like many of his fellow officers, Caldwell conceded, he was leery of engaging with them.

"I came into a culture that said, 'Avoid the media at all cost. Absolutely nothing good comes out of a media engagement,'" he said.

He's made a 180-degree turn in his thinking, he said, recognizing the military's responsibility to keep the American public informed, and the importance of that understanding to ensure support for the mission. Now, as commander of the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Caldwell is working to impress those concepts on future military leaders.

One of the first things he noticed after arriving at his post was that nobody was taking advantage of the social media tools that had proven so successful in Iraq. "Nobody was blogging. Nobody was going on YouTube," he said.

As when he arrived at Multinational Force Iraq, Caldwell found these venues had been blocked, and military members weren't allowed to use them. He set out to lift those prohibitions.

"For the first four or five months there, I kept working through the system to get permissions to allow us to blog, go on YouTube, play with Facebook," he said. "I wanted to engage in these social media forums, and you just couldn't get access to them on your military computers."

But Caldwell met with red tape everywhere he turned -- until he mentioned his frustration to Casey, now Army chief of staff, during one of Casey's monthly visits to the Combined Arms Center.

"He looked at me and said, 'Just do it,'" Caldwell said. "And when I asked him if this meant he was giving his permission to do this, he said, 'Absolutely.' He said, 'We have got to change the culture of the Army, and you can help make this happen.'"

Then-Army Secretary Pete Geren turned into another big advocate of giving soldiers access to social media.

Caldwell got the ball rolling at the Combined Arms Center by starting to blog on the center's Web site. "I'm not a prolific blogger, but I recognize that if I don't get on there periodically and do it, nobody else will," he said. "I saw it as a venue to stimulate discussion. It was a great mechanism to reach out and touch a large portion of the United States Army about an issue we might want to talk about or dialog on."

He recognized many soldiers' resistance to blogging, especially after a Defense Department message had outright prohibited the practice in late 2006. Those —to give it a try still felt hampered by longstanding approval chains that stilted opinion-sharing and individual expression.

So Caldwell began requiring his students to blog as part of their curriculum at the center. His goal, he said, is to help create a new generation of leaders who recognize the power of social media and help the Army change its cultural mindset so it's able to embrace it.

"The idea is, once you have done it and have seen the power of social networking that can be done through the blogosphere, we are hoping that it becomes a routine habit they have through the rest of the academic year," he said. "That way, by the time they graduate, they are comfortable doing it and recognize it as something they can use ... as a great connectivity tool."

Caldwell established seven basic rules for bloggers on the Combined Arms Center's Web site: Report only personal experience unless you can document it. Don't divulge classified or sensitive information, planned military operations or tactics, techniques and procedures that haven't yet been approved. Keep the discussion above-board, and don't post material that's political or endorses a commercial interest.

"The idea is, use it as a professional forum to dialogue and get at tough issues," Caldwell said.

The Combined Arms Center has become a case study in how social media tools can benefit the military.

Students are encouraged to contribute to the center's YouTube, Twitter and Facebook pages. The Command and General Staff College class to assemble at Fort Leavenworth next month will set up Facebook accounts for their 16-member staff group exercises.

Meanwhile, the center is exploring ways to use social media to capture and share lessons learned throughout the Army and improve the way it operates. Using an Army common-access card, users can access a variety of sites to contribute thoughts and suggestions to improve the way the Army trains and operates.

A new pilot program, for example, is using a military "wiki" site to encourage collaboration in updating seven Army field manuals. Five thousand contributors visited the wiki site when it first went live two weeks ago, and last week that number increased to 8,000.

"It's really brand new at this point, but we are just thrilled by the number of people coming to the site and the input that is being provided," Caldwell said.

Meanwhile, center officials set up an Army training network that will enable people to suggest ways to improve military training. Caldwell called the networking opportunities social networking provides a major breakthrough in elevating the level of information exchange.

"We can have a much greater and richer exchange of information than we have ever had in the past by using more of these social networking sites as a mechanism to exchange ideas and thoughts," he said.

Caldwell concedes that the military still has many barriers to break down before it can fully capitalize on social networking forums. He said he's been impressed by the way bloggers police themselves to ensure their postings don't violate established rules. But errors could -- and probably will -- happen, he said, as people learn to use these new tools.

"There are going to be some errors. This is a learning process, and along the way, people are going to make mistakes," he said. "They won't be deliberate or intentional, but people will make mistakes."

Caldwell called these mistakes, particularly because they can be corrected simply by pulling down a blog entry, a small price to pay to unleash the power of social networking for the 21st-century military.

"To take advantage of it and utilize it to our benefit, we have to first embrace it," he said. "And in embracing it, there are going to be inherent risks. People have to be —to underwrite some of those risks in order for us to move forward."

Related Sites:

U.S. Army Combined Arms Center

U.S. Army Combined Arms Center Blogs

Multinational Force Iraq on Facebook

Multinational Force Iraq on Flickr

Multinational Force Iraq on Twitter

Two recent reports are reminders of the scope of the coming unmanned system tsunami. First, the Air Force released its Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Flight Plan 2009-2047. Lt. Gen. David Deptula's ISR directorate is leading this planning effort, which will have implications for every aspect of the Air Force for the next several decades (click here for a transcript of his recent presentation at the Pentagon). Slides 15-20 of the UAS flight plan display the Air Force's ambition to dominate UAS activity from nano-sized vehicles through large cargo-sized aircraft. The presentation also indicates the Air Force's awareness that unmanned systems will transform its doctrine, training, and culture.

The U.S. Navy hired RAND to study its plans for unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs). RAND studied the Navy's list of possible missions for UUVs and compared those to the near-term prospects for UUV technology (click here for the RAND report). RAND recommended that the Navy pursue UUV development in seven mission categories: mine countermeasures, leave-behind sensor deployment, harbor monitoring, oceanography, undersea infrastructure, identification/inspection, and anti-submarine warfare. Naval mines and adversary diesel submarines threaten the Navy's future access to parts of the western Pacific and Persian Gulf. According to RAND, UUVs provide a possible solution. As for naval aviation and the support it provides for ground forces, this study from CSBA shows the future for unmanned carrier-based strike aircraft.

On one level, a RAND report and two PowerPoint presentations are no more than just embryonic studies. In addition, unmanned vehicles have yet to confront defended spaces or hostile electronic countermeasures, concerns General Deptula readily acknowledged.

Yet no one should doubt the unmanned tsunami is on its way. Robert Gates badly thrashed the Air Force until it increased its UAV presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. The upcoming QDR is certain to prominently promote UAS and UUV development. In addition, in his review of the Army's FCS program, Gates terminated the combat vehicles but retained much of the sensors and unmanned systems. So unmanned systems are getting close attention from the top of the Pentagon.

In his presentation at the Pentagon, General Deptula likened UAS development to where airpower was in the 1920s. Then, rickety platforms needed to mature and military planners needed to imagine new battlefield doctrines. Pressured by OSD if by nothing else, the Air Force and Navy will push ahead with their unmanned plans. Army and Marine Corps leaders need to involve themselves in those plans to avoid being left behind.

By Al Pessin

Voice of America

Washington

29 July 2009

A member of the strategic assessment team working with the new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan says the U.S. government and its allies need to be more realistic about what is needed to win the Afghan war, and he says that may include more troops.

Senior Washington analyst Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the United States and its allies need to take the Afghanistan war more seriously. He says they need to be honest about the security and development problems they have allowed to fester in recent years, and about the resources that will be needed to reverse the situation.

"This war has been fought without resources, but above all without realism," he said.

Cordesman is recently back from Afghanistan, where he joined other experts on a team advising the new U.S. commander, General Stanley McChrystal, on how to move forward. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Cordesman declined to speak directly about the strategic assessment team's deliberations, but he suggested he believes more U.S. troops are needed.

"If you don't provide those resources and additional brigade combat teams, if you do not, I think, effectively move the Afghan security forces toward doubling them. I think unless we're prepared to commit those resources. If we somehow believe that a civilian surge of 700 people and tailoring our force posture to the views of a completely different set of strategic priorities, this is going to win, the answer is no, it's going to lose," he said.

President Barack Obama has already approved a near doubling of U.S. forces to 68,000 by the end of this year. Pressed on the number of troops needed beyond that, Cordesman said it is a difficult calculation that can not be made based on any other counterinsurgency campaign.

"This is an experiment. This isn't some historical ratio. There is no way to easily calculate this. You're going to have to make the best guess you can. And we'll probably learn more from what's happening in Helmand right now," he said.

The president's national security adviser, James Jones, has urged commanders not to ask for more troops. And Defense Secretary Robert Gates has expressed concern that more troops in Afghanistan could alienate people and be counterproductive.

But Cordesman said policymakers in Washington should not limit General McChrystal's options in advance. Rather he says they should wait for the 60-day report the new commander will provide next month, based partly on the assessment in which Cordesman participated. He said the military experts are working hard on the question of how many U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan. And he says it is particularly important to significantly increase the number of competent Afghan troops.

The analyst was sharply critical of the latest Pentagon report on the situation in Afghanistan, saying it does not provide an adequate assessment of the country's insurgency. He said U.S. intelligence services need to focus on that. In addition, he says the U.S. government needs to deal with what he called the corruption and power brokering in Afghanistan, and must bring integrity to the aid system and work with allies to get more military and civilian help from them.

Cordesman says some allies are not honest about their contributions or are not —to recognize the seriousness of the situation and the need for more effort to fix it. He described the international aid effort in Afghanistan, now in its eighth year, as being conducted as if it were in its first year, and having little impact.

"What should be an integrated civil-military effort and a focus on winning the war in the field, is a dysfunctional, wasteful mess focused on Kabul and crippled by bureaucratic divisions," he said.

Cordesman says the current U.S. and British military operation in Helmand Province was launched without adequate preparation for civilian aid after the military delivers stability. But he said it might still be successful, and could become a model for what is called the clear-hold-and-build approach to defeating insurgents. In any case, he says, it will provide valuable lessons as Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces prepare to move into other parts of Afghanistan.

Cordesman also urged the allies to adopt more modest goals for Afghanistan, such as establishing stability and keeping al-Qaida terrorists out - similar to the goals President Obama announced in March. But he also said while some progress can be made toward those goals in the short term, with the right resources, the job will likely stretch beyond the president's four-year term.

"Can we make a significant level of progress in Afghanistan in the next 12-to-18 months? Yes, we can. It is going to require an effective, concerted effort. If we meet those needs, and we provide the resources, that timeframe of 12 to 18 months to make real progress is very realistic," he said.

Senior administration officials have said they want to see at least the beginning of a turnaround in Afghanistan within that timeframe.

Andrew Exum is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and author of the influential counterinsurgency blog Abu Muqawama. He just returned from a month in Afghanistan, where he took part in recently appointed U.S. and Coalition commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's 60-day review of strategy and operations. He graciously agreed to talk with WPR Managing Editor Judah Grunstein about his impressions from his trip...

The full audio file is available as a WPR podcast here.

... what makes you feel optimistic about the possibility of a successful outcome?

... the U.S. Army's officer corps has undergone a tremendously difficult but ultimately rewarding learning process over the past few years, and there is a keen understanding of the operating environment in Afghanistan. Whether or not we're going to be able to translate our operational prowess into strategic success is very much a question that is yet to be answered. But there was reason for being encouraged.

... what isolated snapshot would make you feel pessimistic about the outcome?

One word: Kandahar... Our intelligence and the way that we gather intelligence continues to be focused on the enemy....

Read the entire interview at World Politics Review.

Update:

... Strangely, our military leaders rarely talk about the battles here. They urge shooting less and drinking more cups of tea with village elders. This is the new face of war - counterinsurgency defined as nation-building, an idealistic blend of development aid and John Locke philosophy. Our generals say that the war is "80% non-kinetic."

Although they welcome the largess provided by coalition forces, the village elders with whom our soldiers drink tea are intimidated by an enemy that prowls at night when our forces return to their bases. The Taliban is a highly mobile, amorphous force, with little popular support. But it is very —to fight. Firefights are infrequent during the harvest seasons for poppy, corn and wheat, indicating that most local guerrillas are poor kids raised in a culture of tribal feuds, brigandage and AK rifles. The enemy leaders, more sinister and gangster-like, slip back and forth across the 1,500-mile border with Pakistan.

While our Special Operations Forces launch raids that disrupt the Taliban, our conventional soldiers carry out the less-adventurous "framework" operations—mainly presence patrols. With 80 pounds on their back, day after day they slog through the heat, dust and mud, waiting for the enemy to initiate contact.

Overall, too few of the enemy are being killed or captured to sap their morale. It's like fighting Apaches in the 19th century. The hidden guerillas shoot from tree lines or mountainsides, making accurate return fire impossible. And we rarely bomb a compound, despite press headlines to the contrary...

Much more at The Wall Street Journal.

23 September 2009

National Press Club

Washington, D.C.

On 23 September 2009, the U.S. Marine Corps University and Marine Corps University Foundation will host a one-day symposium entitled Counterinsurgency Leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond. The event will take place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., and registration for a limited number of seats is now open to the public. Confirmed speakers include General David Petraeus, Brigadier General (select) H.R. McMaster, Dr. Peter Mansoor, Thomas E. Ricks, Dr. Eliot Cohen, Sarah Chayes, and many other distinguished practitioners and scholars.

In addressing the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, symposium speakers will examine how leadership - indigenous and foreign - has often meant the difference between success and failure. They will identify best practices in counterinsurgency leadership and explore methods for leadership improvement. In addition, the symposium will delve into the current debate over the prioritization of counterinsurgency in the development of America's national security organizations and strategy. While much of that debate has focused on the allocation of funding for military equipment or on international politics, this symposium will focus on the formidable leadership requirements for counterinsurgency and other future challenges.

The complete symposium agenda is available on the registration website. Because space is limited, you are encouraged to register as soon as possible.

Point of contact:

Paul Trapp

paul@nationalconference.com

Fresh interest in the history of counterinsurgency has focused renewed attention on the Phoenix Program, the United States' primary effort to improve intelligence coordination and operations aimed at identifying and dismantling the communist underground during the Vietnam War. Modern-day advocates of the program argue that it was devastatingly effective, but detractors condemn it as a merciless assassination campaign. Without a clearer understanding of the truth about Phoenix and its overall effectiveness, analysts risk drawing flawed conclusions about the program's applicability to contemporary conflicts.

The authors explore the Viet Cong underground (the target of Phoenix operations) and the early US and South Vietnamese operations designed to dismantle it. Tracing the provenance and evolution of the Phoenix Program from these early operations, they identify the program's three elements and assess its overall success. They conclude that the truth about Phoenix and its effectiveness lies somewhere between the extremes of today's competing claims: The program made positive contributions to counterinsurgency in South Vietnam, but its political costs to the United States were substantial. The authors note that the Phoenix Program highlights the continuing importance of intelligence coordination and anti-infrastructure operations in contemporary counterinsurgency.

Full document at Rand.

You have said that in Afghanistan protecting the population is the top priority. What does that mean you stop doing?

It means we put as much of our effort as we can to establish security for the population and we stay there so those other critical parts, governance and development, can happen.

Obviously everything comes at a cost. So it means we don't have as many forces to maneuver in the country. So we have to rigorously prioritize and then some things come later.

Read the entire Q & A at The Los Angeles Times.

By Captain David Blair, US Air Force

Originally posted at Air University's The Wright Stuff.

(Hat tip to Colonel Bob Potter for sending this along to SWJ)

"... That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same." That was how it went. There was not an exception for 'achieving childhood dreams,' nor an exclusion for 'as long as leadership has a coherent plan,' nor a caveat for 'as long as you're still doing what you signed up for.' After serving for the better part of a decade, perhaps I began to take my original oath somewhat for granted; perhaps I lost some of my focus on the reasons that first guided me to military service. I was comfortable, happy and proud serving as an AC-130 pilot, deploying several times a year to keep good guys safe and to take the fight to the enemy. That experience was one of the greatest privileges of my life, but it took a "needs-of-the-Air-Force" move to bring me back to the basics of duty, honor and service. I do not believe that I was alone in that mindset, nor do I believe that my story is unique. It is for exactly that reason that I believe my story may be worth the retelling.

Two years ago, in the middle of my third deployment in the right seat of an AC-130, I felt the world was more or less in order. I loved the Gunship, its mission and the community, I enjoyed the self-satisfaction that I was contributing to the fight; truly, I was living out a childhood dream of flying CAS (close air support) missions in combat as a Special Operations aviator. Like so many of my comrades, I believed in what I was doing and consequently poured my passions into learning the aircraft and the mission. I believed those efforts were finally resulting in a deep understanding of the weapon system. On the home front, I had just finished re-modeling my house, a three-year and $10K project. The West Florida housing market had already crashed, but no matter, because I was very much under the impression that I was going to be in Gunships and at Hurlburt Field for quite some time. I confidently assumed things were stable and secure... perhaps I had forgotten that the one constant in the fog and friction of warfare is that there are no constants.

I found out I was transferring to the Predator mission right before a step brief for a combat mission, in the form of a post-it note. There was no preferences worksheet, no input, and, being downrange, no ability to make a case one way or another. I think the conversation went something along the lines of, 'we had to give them a name, and it was you. Sorry.' Honestly, I was not exactly delighted about this turn of events. Being moved right before I could upgrade to Aircraft Commander effectively closed off the option of coming back, at least for the foreseeable future; being moved from a collapsed housing market into a BRAC-inflated speculators' market brought a new flavor to what had previously seemed prudent financial arrangements. Any plans I had made to that point were pretty much OBE (overcome by events). There are, however, two sides to that coin: not to be melodramatic, but when you find yourself on Sun Tzu's "death ground," in a position where you either press the attack or give up, things suddenly become much simpler. Moreover, sometimes when you fight through the 'death ground,' you find some blessings that you never expected on the other side.

So it was strange how, in the wreckage of plans, you find valuable things long forgotten rising to the surface like flotsam. I don't think that I had seriously considered my reasons for joining the military for quite some time. True, I wanted to be a pilot. And I wanted to be part of a tactical culture. And I certainly didn't mind living in Florida. Ultimately, though, none of those were a calling, for a calling must be about something higher than yourself. Being a warrior is a calling. Flying airplanes is a job. I love flying with all of my heart, and I am thankful that I can fly, fight and win our nation's wars as an Air Force pilot. Nonetheless, the warrior spirit must trump our pride in our platforms; warriors serve where they are needed, not necessarily where they would prefer.

With that in mind, I decided I would become the best Predator pilot I could possibly be. I decided I would join the community of UAS crewmembers with my head held high, and together we would take that airplane and use it to bring American kids home and send terrorists away for good. I decided I would spend my time and effort making Al-Qaeda hate me, rather than concerning myself with whether or not the arbiters of pilot culture liked me. Between being cool and winning this war, I'll choose winning this war.

That was the attitude I took into day one, and one that has served me well since. I take great pride in my fellow Pred professionals and our combat missions that deny the terrorists safe haven night after night. I am even prouder to stand with my new teammates to watch over brave Americans on the ground. I still miss the feeling of being airborne, the sound of the howitzer firing, the adrenaline of actually being physically present for a fire mission. But I have come to see the Pred mission as an equally important compliment to the AC-130 mission—our continuing joint endeavor to ensure that one more American hero makes it home safely and that one more Al-Qaeda murderer does not. I am proud to serve toward that end alongside my manned aircraft brethren.

I won't sugar coat it, though: the Pred life is tough. Our choices in bases aren't exactly great, our career path isn't exactly well defined, our hours are long and our extrinsic rewards are virtually non-existent. We have a long way to go as a service before we achieve sustainability for the Predator community. All of that said, none of it changes the ground truths of duty, honor or country. I imagine that many a sailor in the opening bouts of World War Two lamented the strategic choices that left the battleships of the Pacific Fleet at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and left them facing an enemy who had made wiser choices concerning the future of warfare. The indelible legacy of those choices could not be undone, but the lack of planning for December 7th meant that we had to fight all the harder on December 8th and every day after. The Predator community, too, lives in the legacy of choices that cannot be undone. We are paying for those choices. But someone has to, and if that is the only road to victory, then so be it.

I wonder if my story isn't in some way a microcosm of the Air Force's journey of the last few years. We had a largely fixed way of viewing the world, our mission and ourselves. We were, in effect, comfortable with our role. But war does not abide comfort. I do not presume to interject myself into discussions about strategic risk, the number of air supremacy fighters, and the like. But I do know that war changed around us. Some hold that by focusing on the present war, we are becoming ill-equipped for future wars. I would point out that the strategic geniuses on both sides of the quite-conventional American Civil War were forged in the fires of the counterinsurgency actions of the American West. Remember that Red Flag itself was borne out of our experiences in Viet Nam, an unconventional war if there ever was one. I believe that by engaging fully in this war, we forge ourselves for both present and future wars, for combat itself is the truest seedbed for future combat leaders. We cannot expect war to meet us on our terms. War has found us... will we ride out to meet it, or will we opt out?

I can only speak for myself and my own situation, but insofar as I am able, and as long as I am bound to my oath, energetically will I meet the enemies of my country. If I can best meet them via satellite, then all the better... so long as I can provide our strikers the intel they need to meet those enemies in person. This is my war. I will do all I can to win it. If that happens to be inside a cargo container parked on a concrete slab in the middle of New Mexico, then so be it. I am proud to serve.

Captain David Blair is an MQ-1 Predator Aircraft Commander. Prior to his current assignment, Captain Blair served as an AC-130 Pilot, flying more than 100 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He flew his first combat Predator mission in May 2009. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy with a Bachelor's of Science degree in 2002. In 2004, he graduated from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government with a Master's degree in Public Policy. He has written extensively on military strategy and public diplomacy. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and may not reflect the views and policies of the US Air Force or the Department of Defense.

Soon after 4,000 U.S. Marines flooded into Afghanistan's Helmand River Valley on July 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar called top Taliban regional commanders together for an urgent briefing. The meeting took place in southwestern Pakistan—not far from the Afghan border but safely out of the Americans' reach. Baradar told the commanders he wanted just one thing: to keep the Taliban's losses to a minimum while maximizing the cost to the enemy. Don't try to hold territory against the Americans' superior firepower by fighting them head-on, he ordered. Rely on guerrilla tactics whenever possible. Plant "flowers"—improvised explosive devices—on trails and dirt roads. Concentrate on small-unit ambushes, with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. He gave his listeners a special warning: he would hold each of them responsible for the lives of their men. "Keep your weapons on your backs and be on your motorcycles," Baradar exhorted them. "America has greater military strength, but we have greater faith and commitment."

In all likelihood, you've never heard of Mullah Baradar. The only Taliban leader most people know is Mullah Mohammed Omar, the unworldly, one-eyed village preacher who held the grand title amir-ul-momineen—"leader of the faithful"—when he ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Omar remains a high-value target, with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. But he hasn't been seen in at least three years, even by his most loyal followers, and rarely issues direct orders anymore. In his place, the adversary that American forces are squaring off against in Afghanistan—the man ultimately responsible for the spike in casualties that has made July the deadliest month for Coalition soldiers since the war began in 2001—is Baradar. A cunning, little-known figure, he may be more dangerous than Omar ever was...

Much more at Newsweek.