Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed a U.S. "defense umbrella" over the entire Middle East should Iran fail to cease work on its nuclear complex. Other officials in the Obama administration soon attempted to repeal Clinton's remarks, while simultaneously implying that some kind of U.S. security umbrella has always been over the Middle East.

Just as the Truman and Eisenhower administration officials figured out at the beginning of the Cold War, a "defense umbrella" or security guarantee presents itself as a seemingly painless solution to an intractable security challenge. At first glance, issuing a promise to use military force later seems to be a more attractive choice than committing to use military force now. In the case of Iran, sanctions won't work before Iran has nuclear weapons. And a preventive air campaign is unappealing for a variety of reasons. Thus, a U.S. security guarantee for friends in the region seems like an easy solution.

But anyone who remembers the Cold War should recall that U.S. security guarantees for Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea were not easy, cheap, or simple. A U.S. guarantee for the Middle East against Iranian aggression will be even more problematic than were America's guarantees during the Cold War.

1) Will the supposed beneficiaries of the guarantee take the guarantee seriously? It is one thing to make a promise, it is another to deliver on it under stress. The credibility of a U.S. security guarantee would increase if there were visible presidential speeches on the subject, a Senate-ratified treaty, and permanent U.S. force structure commitments and deployments to back it up. Until these things happen, statesmen in Israel and the friendly Arab regimes will be rightfully skeptical.

2) Locking in a nuclear standoff between Iran and the U.S. will shift the conflict onto the irregular warfare playing field. Iran will have the advantage on this field while the U.S. and its friends will most likely be stuck on defense. Here again there are parallels with the Cold War. With a nuclear standoff in place, the Soviet Union's political and military subversions and proxy wars achieved success in Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa and the Middle East. Quantitatively Iran is no Soviet Union. But qualitatively, Iran is organized for subversion and prolonged irregular and proxy warfare, just as was the Soviet Union. A U.S. security guarantee policy that accepts an Iranian nuclear weapons capability will have to prepare for another such "twilight struggle."

3) Be ready to relearn some old Cold War terms such as "hair-trigger alert," "launch on warning," "second strike reserve," "counter-force versus counter-value targeting," etc. This time, the standoff will be three-sided (Israel vs. Iran vs. Saudi Arabia) just like the gunfight at the end of "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly." And Middle East nuclear strategists will look back to the Cold War with envy when ICBM flight times were a leisurely 25 minutes.

Secretary Clinton's "defense umbrella" seems like an easy way out. But such comfort is an illusion. For today's policymakers trying to figure out what to do about Iran, the lessons of the Cold War are very much alive.

Many Australians revere the military, and it occupies a sacred place in their consciousness. Soldiers put their lives on the line when we ask them to, in the name of keeping us safe. They are doing so now in Afghanistan, where an 11th soldier lost his life last weekend. But has our Defence Force become complacent about its status?

An adviser to the British and US militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, Dr Daniel Marston, suggests that some Australian officers have questioned, to him, whether Australia's team training and mentoring Afghan soldiers is as educated on counter-insurgency operations as it should be. His comments hint at a disconnection in the political and military establishment over the nature of the mission, and teaching of Australian soldiers who are fighting there.

Are we fighting terrorists in Afghanistan or are we fighting a counter-insurgency to protect the local population? And if we are fighting a counter-insurgency, are our soldiers properly equipped for it? In the past few months there has been a great strategic shift in the way the war is being fought. The US is now fighting a war more focused on protecting civilians, and less on hunting Taliban. Coalition forces are trying to convince Afghans that - this time round - they will not abandon them to the insurgents.

Where possible, coalition troops are being partnered with Afghan soldiers, and are working across provincial boundaries, having learnt that confining troops to certain areas (all the Canadians in Kandahar, all the British in Helmand) is inflexible and that battalions must be able to move across the country. As one Australian historian recently there observed: "Insurgents pay as little heed to the provincial borders as they do to the Pakistani frontier."

While the Americans, in short, are fighting a counter-insurgency campaign, consider what the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, said about Australia's mission this week. The "underpinning reason" for being there, aside from the US alliance, was "acting against the global threat of terrorism"...

Much more at The Sydney Morning Herald. Join the discussion at Small Wars Council.

A Warrior Fighting the Wrong War is the title of Nate Fick's Washington Post review of By His Own Rules: The Story of Donald Rumsfeld by Bradley Graham.

Book Description

A penetrating political biography of the controversial Defense Secretary, by a longtime military affairs correspondent for the Washington Post.

Once considered among the best and brightest of his generation, Donald Rumsfeld was exceptionally prepared to assume the Pentagon's top job in 2001. Yet six years later, he left office as the most controversial Defense Secretary since Robert McNamara, widely criticized for his management of the Iraq war and for his difficult relationships with Congress, administration colleagues, and military officers. Was he really the arrogant, errant, over-controlling Pentagon leader frequently portrayed--or as his supporters contend, a brilliant, hard-charging visionary caught in a whirl of polarized Washington politics, dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, and bad luck?

Bradley Graham, who closely covered Rumsfeld's challenging tenure at the Pentagon, offers an insightful biography of a complex and immensely influential personality. What emerges is a layered and revealing portrait of a man whose impact on U.S. national security affairs will long out-live him.

A Warrior Fighting the Wrong War - Nathaniel Fick, Washington Post.

"The blizzard is over!" Donald Rumsfeld declared in the last of some 20,000 memos -- or "snowflakes" -- that had become a hallmark of his contentious tenure as secretary of defense. During the summer of 2003, a squall of snowflakes and counter-snowflakes blew through the offices of Rumsfeld and Gen. John Abizaid, the newly appointed head of U.S. Central Command, about the definitions of "insurgent" and "guerrilla warfare." Rumsfeld, over Abizaid's objections, resisted acknowledging the enemy in Iraq as an organized force because doing so would have suggested that the U.S. presence there was likely to be long and costly. But his denial merely delayed the inevitable, and, as in a real snowstorm, the cleanup began only after the last flake fell.

Rumsfeld is not a simple man. But the two biggest questions about his tenure at the Pentagon -- why the United States invaded Iraq, and why it so bungled the aftermath of the Hussein regime's fall -- are often answered with only the simplest of explanations: ideology and hubris.

In this meticulously researched and compelling book, veteran Washington Post reporter Bradley Graham acknowledges these contributors to the national-security travails of the Bush years, but he highlights another as well: the secretary of defense's unwavering commitment to military transformation, his vision of a leaner, more lethal Department of Defense. The early phases of the war in Afghanistan apparently vindicated this concept, while the prospect of war in Iraq promised a wider proving ground for it - but the nasty counterinsurgency campaign that followed threatened to undermine it...

More at The Washington Post.

Why is the United States fighting a war in Afghanistan? According to the Obama administration's strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the goal of the campaign is to "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens." But according to Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a new member of the Defense Policy Board, the more important reason to is to prevent the Taliban from taking over Pakistan. Does this 21st century version of the domino theory make any more sense than its 1960s incarnation?

Writing in The American Interest, Biddle asserted:

If the Taliban regained control of the Afghan state, their ability to use the state's resources to destabilize the secular government in Pakistan would increase the risk of state collapse there. Analysts have made much of the threat that Pakistani Taliban base camps pose to the stability of the government in Kabul, but the danger works both ways: Instability in Afghanistan also poses a serious threat to the secular civilian government in Pakistan. This is the single greatest U.S. interest in Afghanistan: to prevent it from aggravating Pakistan's internal problems and magnifying the danger of an al-Qaeda nuclear-armed sanctuary there.

Inside this otherwise excellent essay, Biddle seems to have forgotten the 1990s. From 1996 to 2001 the Taliban controlled virtually all of Afghanistan and did so with the support of the Pakistani government. During this time, Pakistan suffered its usual episodes of political infighting, high-level corruption, and another military coup. But even with an aggressive theocracy right next door, the takeover of Islamabad by Islamic radicals was never a threat.

Contrary to Biddle's assertion, it seems equally reasonable to argue that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan provided a relief valve of sorts for Islamist pressure that might have otherwise formed inside Pakistan during the 1990s. And although the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban are two distinct movements, the U.S.--led operation in Afghanistan may be inciting and pressurizing Taliban activity inside Pakistan. Contrary to Biddle, the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan may be increasing rather than decreasing the risk to Pakistan.

Pakistan's powerful Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence seems to see it this way. The ISI recently invited reporters from the New York Times to its offices for a two-hour briefing. During the briefing, ISI officials objected to the U.S. Marine Corps offensive in Afghanistan's southern Helmand province. They feared that the offensive would push Taliban fighters into Pakistan's Baluchistan area, destabilizing it.

This is not an argument to abandon NATO's effort in Afghanistan. In spite of the slim odds, it may be worth fighting for the stable self-governance for Afghanistan. As Biddle points out in his essay, Pakistan may collapse for any number of reasons, regardless of what actions the United States takes in the region. A long-term military presence in Afghanistan may be necessary in order to monitor the region and contain terrorist personnel and assets.

As Biddle points out, the Obama administration will have a hard enough time maintaining public support for the Afghan campaign. They should leave the domino theory out of it.

Thank you, Rafael Correa

Last year, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador refused to renew a lease that permitted the U.S. military to operate up to eight surveillance aircraft from an Ecuadorian airbase. Correa's decision forced the U.S. government to scramble for a new base in the region. The result is an agreement with Colombia that will greatly improve the U.S. military's position in the region. The agreement will also boost Colombia's leverage and strategic position. If Correa thought he was punishing the United States by ejecting it, his decision has backfired.

From Ecuador's Manta airport, U.S. aircraft patrolled the Pacific Ocean side of Latin America mainly to track smuggling activity. Under the basing agreement with Colombia, U.S. intelligence-gathering aircraft are expected to obtain access to three of the Colombian military's air bases. From these bases, U.S. long-range surveillance aircraft will have access to the Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. In addition, the Colombians are expected to agree to more frequent visits by U.S. Navy warships to ports on both its Pacific and Caribbean coasts, presumably to step up naval cooperation between the two countries.

In exchange, Colombia will likely receive preferential access to U.S. military technology. They also gain greater leverage to lobby the Obama administration to support the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement, not previously a priority for the White House. Perhaps most important for Colombia, it will lock in a long-term strategic relationship with the United States. As a presidential candidate, Obama appeared unlikely to show Colombia the affection that it enjoyed during the Bush years. But Correa's decision to throw the U.S. out of Ecuador has compelled the Obama team to extend the U.S.-Colombia security relationship far beyond what was achieved during the Bush years.

From their new home in Colombia, U.S. surveillance aircraft will continue long-standing counter-narcotics patrolling. But the new location is also centrally located to enable electronic monitoring of military and political developments in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Recent political trends in those countries may be more troubling to Colombia than they are to the United States. But the new basing deal greatly improves the ability of both countries to respond to whatever may develop in the region.

Col. Hammes' article has gotten quite a reception throughout the blogosphere, with a few sites (Red Team Journal by Adam Elkus, Building Peace by "Reach 364", The Best Defense by Thomas Ricks) posting their own replies.

In the hopes of spurring some conversation on the topic--I'm too into the whole instant gratification thing to wait for the winner to be announced in November--I'm posting my own reply to Col. Hammes.

In January 2009, a military-oriented site, "Company Command", asked current Army commanders and platoon leaders in Iraq what they spent most of their time doing. One officer, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, answered flat-out: "Making PowerPoint slides".

When pressed, the lieutenant continued:

"I'm dead serious, guys. The one thing I spend more time on than anything else here in combat is making PowerPoint slides. I have to make a storyboard [a PowerPoint slide] complete with digital pictures, diagrams and text summaries on just about anything that happens. Recon a water pump? Make a storyboard. Conduct a key leader engagement? Make a storyboard. Award a microgrant? Make a

storyboard."

This generated a great deal of discussion from a number of junior officers in Iraq, who weighed in on the hours they put in each day making PowerPoint slides for mission briefings, storyboards, training meetings and command and staff meetings.

PowerPoint iseverywhere--not only in the military, but also in the government and private sector. Used correctly, it is an effective communication tool that can be used to supplement speeches or detailed, written operations orders. For example, an air assault mission involving dozens of aircraft, artillery and hundreds of troops can be collaboratively planned and briefed among the aviators and ground troops using maps, diagrams and satellite imagery e-mailed back and forth among the various actors on PowerPoint slides in order to assist the planning process. The graphics used in PowerPoint replace the massive campaign maps and problematic acetate overlays which were used by armies for decades, allowing these documents to be easily produced and mass-distributed with the click of a mouse. Indeed, PowerPoint has been the 21^st Century's solution to the age-old requirement for organizations to report information between various levels of bureaucracy—whether it be a sales pitch to board members, or an air crew mission briefing for a flight of Black Hawk helicopters.

But PowerPoint is only as smart as those who are using it. In the military, business and even in NASA, misuse of PowerPoint can cause confusion and frustration. In the hands of a poor communicator, PowerPoint can spread misinformation, leading to bad decision-making. But we will also look at the flip side of the coin: despite the pervasiveness of elaborate PowerPoint presentations within the military, we will also look at PowerPoint presentations that would be considered poor by conventional standards, but actually communicated a message far more effectively than many other presentations.

There are two notable drawbacks of the use of PowerPoint (and other such slide-producing software) in most organizations. For starters, emphasis on style over substance causes a great deal of frustration—particularly as the process of making increasingly elaborate presentations takes time away from more important tasks. Secondly, the bullet-point format of PowerPoint often serves to oversimplify complex topics. Although the ability to display graphics allows the presenter to depict information such as a complex series of troop movements on a map, it can also be used to "dumb down" the audience, substituting cartoons for in-depth analysis.

Slides, transparencies and other charts have been in use in the military, the classroom, and in the board room for decades. Typically, they are used to provide a brief outline of subject material, or to provide some focal point of reference for everyone to look at, such as a map of an objective. These products were originally meant to supplement a lecture, briefing, or written order, not to be the central point of one. However, as time has gone on and PowerPoint has become more ubiquitous, presentations of this sort have, in some cases, become the sole focus of the briefing. Moreover, as the graphical capabilities of PowerPoint increased, so did the expectation to produce more graphically sophisticated presentations. What started as a simple medium for black text on white background quickly evolved into an extravaganza of unit or corporate logos and backgrounds and colorful charts. Unfortunately, as the graphical capabilities of PowerPoint increased, it also took a great deal more time to construct a presentation with the appropriate amount of "bells and whistles".

Star Wars director George Lucas once said, correctly, that "a special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing" (although, despite this advice, he still directed The Phantom Menace). Unfortunately, this piece of advice hasn't quite hit the circles of business, government or the military. In any of these fields, we find considerable emphasis being placed on adding more and more special effects to PowerPoint presentations. Stories abound in the military and business communities of PowerPoint presentations which are expected to look like elaborate Hollywood productions. Sales pitches may be filled with animation, elaborate motivational graphics and music. Military briefings may feature complex charts, or animated helicopters approaching and departing a landing zone and dropping off tiny Soldier icons.

Today, leaders in both business and the military may see dozens of PowerPoint briefings in a single day, and there is often competition to produce the most elaborate and extravagant PowerPoint presentation. Indeed, the process of spending hours each day adding more bells and whistles in PowerPoint presentations has become such an accepted part of military culture that many in the military use the term "PowerPoint Ranger", to describe someone who spends most of his or her time in front of a computer making PowerPoint slides. Some have even gone so far as to create mock badges, similar to the wings worn by paratroopers or aviators, which denote how many hours a person has logged in front of their computer on PowerPoint.

The respondents on CompanyCommand's site noted that, in some cases, time spent on PowerPoint cut into more important leader tasks, such as pre-combat inspections of equipment, mission rehearsals and interaction with Soldiers. While disseminating reports among units and headquarters has been an important part of military operations since armies communicated with signal flags and bugles, the key to effective communication is that reports are accurate, concise, and timely—that way, the message is understood, and subsequent decisions can be made based on the report. Ideally, timely, accurate and clear reporting helps to allow leaders at higher echelons in the military, government and in business to execute a far more efficient Observe-Orient-Decide-Act Loop, which is critical in any form of competition, from business to blitzkrieg.

Another issue brought up with the use of PowerPoint slides is the reliance on using cartoonish images to display complex information. The old adage holds true that a picture is worth a thousand words—indeed, complex troop movements can be better depicted on a moving map display than they can be through verbose operations orders. However, the flip side of the adage about a picture being worth a thousand words is that some issues are far too complex to be summed up in a thousand words.

Take "Phase IV" of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the reconstruction of Iraq. General Tommy Franks' headquarters produced a complicated-looking PowerPoint slide during the run-up to the invasion, which described the reconstruction of Iraq's services and government on the following PowerPoint slide.

Although the slide looks busy and complex, it's surprisingly sparse on the details of reconstructing an entire country after a massive invasion. (Although I need to caveat this by saying that this is not the only slide produced during the run-up to the invasion) Nevertheless, a slide like this, with nothing but pictures, arrows, lines and vague terms cannot accurately describe the process of turning a fractured dictatorship into a democracy.

Thomas Ricks, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author of two books on the Iraq War, notes that the use of PowerPoint slides instead of written text permeated the US military during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Ricks noted in his book Fiasco, that General Tommy Franks' reliance on passing PowerPoint slides to his subordinates in order to plan the initial stages of the war, instead of explicit, written orders, caused much frustration among senior military officers. Ricks notes that military leaders such as General Robert McKiernan were often baffled as to how to interpret the slides. Ricks also interviewed Dr. Andrew Bacevich, who felt that substituting PowerPoint slides for formal, written orders was "the height of recklessness".

Over-reliance on PowerPoint's graphical features isn't the only aspect of viewgraph software that can cause miscommunication within the workplace. The "bullet-point" format of relaying information can also be a poor method of conveying complex information if used improperly. For example, in 2003, NASA engineers noted that a piece of material dislocated from the external fuel tank of the Space Shuttle Columbia, and struck the thermal-protective tile coating of the orbiter during its launch. Initial testing of the protective tile did not accurately reflect the fact that the Space Shuttle would be travelling several times the speed of sound. NASA engineers formed an emergency planning group, compiling a total of 28 slides, which documented the perceived extent of the damage to the Space Shuttle, as well as potential courses of action.

Dr. Edward Tufte of Yale University, an expert on information presentation who has participated in the accident investigation of both Space Shuttles, wrote extensively on the misuse of PowerPoint slides in NASA during the accident investigation board.

Tufte had considerable issues with one slide in particular, reproduced here.

The slide shows a huge contradiction between the title, in large font, and the actual text of the bullet-points, which is in small text. The title of the slide downplays the extent of the potential damage to the Space Shuttle ("indicates conservatism for tile penetration"), while the small text in the bullets however, indicate that the damage to the shuttle could potentially be significant, which it was ("Test results do show that [penetration and damage] is possible", "can cause significant damage", and "flight condition is significantly outside of test database"). Tufte notes that, as information was passed up the chain, important details were omitted—details which stressed the potential for extreme damage to the Columbia's wing, and ultimately, resulted in its destruction upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. Notes Tufte:

As information gets passed up an organization hierarchy, from people who do analysis to mid-level managers to high-level leadership, key explanations and supporting information is fil­tered out. In this context, it is easy to understand how a senior manager might read this PowerPoint slide and not realize that it addresses a life-threatening situation. At many points during its investigation, the Board was sur­prised to receive similar presentation slides from NASA offi­cials in place of technical reports. The Board views the endemic use of PowerPoint briefing slides instead of technical papers as an illustration of the problematic methods of technical com­munication at NASA. [Emphasis added]

Despite the aforementioned examples of poor use of PowerPoint—namely, the oversimplification of text and graphics, and the emphasis on style over substance—there are some who have been able to communicate very effectively using the product, in some very surprising ways. One of the most famous PowerPoint presentations to come out of the Iraq War was made by the late Captain Travis Patriquin, a Special Forces Soldier who was serving in Anbar Province in Iraq during 2006. Patriquin played a part in developing some of the techniques which led to the success of "The Surge" of 2007—namely, the empowering of local sheiks and the development of local police forces and concerned local citizens groups, such as the Sons of Iraq.

Captain Patriquin produced an 18-slide PowerPoint presentation describing the effects of empowering the local population. In contrast with the extravagant animated presentations that are normally given in the military, Patriquin's features crudely-drawn stick figures (some of which are terrorists, who can be identified by the fact that they are holding decapitated stick figure heads), and uses language which parodies children's books. Patriquin features loads of tongue-in-cheek humor in the presentation as well; at one point noting that "Had we tried [arming concerned local citizens] earlier, Joe [the Soldier] would have a much more happy family, as he would have been home a lot more often". Patriquin also flings a smart-allecky remark at then-Ambassador Paul Bremer III, and the rest of the Coalition Provincial Authority regarding their disenfranchising of local sheiks.

The 18-slide presentation—looking for all the world like something out of a Jack Handey sketch—was distributed among a number of senior officers. Despite the near-Hollywood production values which go into many PowerPoint presentations, it was this presentation which caught the attention of senior officers. The ideas presented by Captain Pataquin helped to change the course of the Iraq War. The format and look of Patriquin's message wasn't what counted—it was what he said. For all the satire and adolescent humor contained in his presentation, it presented a much clearer message about The Surge of 2007 than nearly any other document.

PowerPoint in and of itself is not to blame for communication failures in the workplace or military. As a reader in Dr. Edward Tufte's blog points out, blaming PowerPoint for the Columbia disaster would be like blaming Microsoft Outlook for spurring people to donate money to non-existant Nigerian royalty. Rather, our over-reliance on slide-view software, over-filtering of information, and over-simplification of complex ideas into small bullet points and cartoons is to blame for our communication errors. Not all presentations need be complex and filled with special effects, nor do important ideas need to be transmitted via PowerPoint. After all, our counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24, was, in part, written based off of notes taken on a beer napkin at a hamburger restaurant.

Small remotely piloted planes are now used mainly to gather intelligence and fire missiles at insurgents. But over the next several decades, the Air Force envisions building larger ones that could do the work of bombers and cargo planes and even tiny ones that could spy inside a room.

In a report released Thursday laying out a "flight plan" for developing pilotless systems, the Air Force also said it could eventually field swarms of drones to attack enemy targets. And it will have to be ready to defend against the same threat, which could become another inexpensive way for insurgents to attack American forces.

Col. Eric Mathewson, who directs the Air Force task force on pilotless aerial systems, said in an interview that the service sketched its vision to encourage contractors and university researchers to help create the technologies...

More at The New York Times.

By John House

Special to American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2009 -- International forces in Afghanistan must garner popular support among residents to defeat the insurgency, the director of counterinsurgency training there said yesterday.

"This is different from conventional combat, which is terrain or enemy focused," Army Col. John Agoglia, director of Counterinsurgency Training Center Afghanistan, said during a "DoDLive" bloggers roundtable.

"Counterinsurgency is population-focused," Agoglia said in his update on the center's doctrine, curriculum and methodologies. "How we operate in and amongst the population will determine the outcome more than traditional measures, like capture of terrain or attrition of the enemy."

Making sure all involved in the war see counterinsurgency "as a mindset, and not just a training event, ... and that this mindset permeates all actions they take," is one of Agoglia's guiding principles.

A counterinsurgency mindset that encompasses prevention of civilian casualties, fosters public trust in the government and establishes conditions for economic growth is necessary to win the war, Agoglia said.

He talked about the judicious application of military force, and emphasized that preventing civilian casualties is a priority.

"It's getting people to understand that sometimes it is better to back away from a fight than risk killing civilians and alienating those who you are supposed to be protecting," he said. This can be complicated, he acknowledged, "especially when you are dealing with an enemy who's intentionally putting themselves in with civilians."

Another key objective in the counterinsurgency campaign is fostering public trust in the government. "We're trying to reconnect formal government at the district level with the informal government out there at the tribal, village and municipal level," Agoglia said.

The center's curriculum includes conducting a village "shura," or town meeting, that emphasizes the importance of local input on decisions affecting the community.

One of the biggest challenges Agoglia sees within the formal Afghan government is corruption. "We have to work through the Afghan system to help establish rule of law to instill anti-corruption programs," he said. The key to stopping corruption, he added, is to have a formal police force that is trained to serve and protect.

Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan, headquarters for the counterinsurgency center, is helping Afghans fight corruption in its role to train, equip, advise and mentor the Afghan national security forces. Pay and rank reform, electronic banking, and biometric screening are just a few programs implemented to reduce corrupt practices, Agoglia noted.

International forces signed an agreement with the Afghan national government July 21 to commit to eliminating corruption there and increase public trust.

Partnership is an important aspect to the counterinsurgency fight, too. Agoglia pointed out that while coalition nations may have varying restrictions on their military activities, all are contributing seriously to helping the Afghans.

While insurgents garner support through intimidation and threats, Agoglia said, "we will win this war by working together with our Afghan partners to provide the population a viable alternative," in terms of security, freedom from intimidation and conditions that will foster economic well-being.

As the counterinsurgency mindset and resources are increasingly applied, the impact will become evident, Agoglia said. "There is a lag time between resources, implementation, and effect," he explained. "It'll take some time, but I think we're going in the right direction, definitely."

(John House works in the Counterinsurgency Training Center Afghanistan public affairs office.)

Related Sites:

Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan

"DoDLive" Bloggers Roundtable

by Major Morgan Smiley

Several recent articles have cited the growing interest in accelerating the development and expansion of Afghanistan's security forces, which will directly influence the number of US forces sent there to serve as advisors and trainers.

Currently, we have increased the number of advisors by adding a 4000-man brigade to the training element already in place in Afghanistan, and I suspect this will help. But another part of this equation that we ought to consider is how long those advisors remain with their Afghan counterparts. My recommendation....combat advisors need to be on-ground for at least 18, but no more than 24, months. The longer we stay with them, the greater our chances of inculcating in our Afghan allies what we are trying to teach.

While adding more advisors helps to address the issue of expanding Afghan security forces (more advisors means more Afghan forces that can be trained), another equally important area to address is the dynamic created by those advisory teams and how it impacts the Afghans we advise, how our efforts influence their cultural mind-set. We talk of this war as the "Long War" because counterinsurgencies are traditionally lengthy affairs, often taking the better part of a decade to conduct. Despite our acknowledgement of this oft-stated point, we seem to ignore it or brush it aside in favor of our typical "more is better" and "hurry, hurry, hurry" approaches.

The current deployment schedule calls for US units to deploy for 12 months. While this may be adequate for combat units executing traditional combat missions, it is not conducive for the mission of the combat advisor.

Within Afghan culture (& many other non-western ones), relationships are regarded far more seriously than we are accustomed to, and often take quite a bit of time to build. Add to that the fact that we are advising people who may be unfamiliar with our cultural perspective and, may in some cases be hostile to it if they are familiar with it, and it becomes clearer why the building of Afghan security forces is taking longer than many would like & why having advisor teams on-ground longer than 12 months is so important.

For many advisors, the first few months can be filled with frustrations simply because our Afghan counterparts haven't fully accepted us and therefore disregard our advice and counsel. After several months of building that relationship by working to understanding each other's perspective, as well as generating and reinforcing trust through training & shared hardship, we reach a point where we begin to make some progress, however small. By that point, though, our one-year tour is up and we go home. If you're a Guardsman, you go home after 9-months. The incoming team then has to start out at ground zero building that relationship because the Afghans don't know the new team.

By keeping advisor teams on-ground for 18 to 24 months, the team can build, sustain, and cultivate that all-important relationship. A few advisors who have effectively built, and can maintain over a long term, a good working relationship with their counterparts will do more than thousands of new advisors who are there for only a short time.

There are many in our Army who will find this idea asinine to say the least (my former NCOIC comes to mind). After all, who wants to be away from home for more than a year, especially given the environment many advisors have to live in? Having already spent 3 years away from my family, I can fully appreciate that sentiment. However, any war worth executing is worth executing well.

Our leaders have identified as a critical part of our strategy the building of host-nation security forces in an effort to safeguard our country, our allies, and our interests. By doing this, we ensure that terrorists forces are denied failed states in which to incubate like destructive viruses and to use as bases from which to launch devastating attacks in easily accessible parts of the civilized world, to include our own very open country.

If we are serious about the use of our combat advisors and the mission they have been given, we ought to look beyond simply adding more advisors to the Afghan theater and consider the advantage of having advisors on-ground with their counterparts for more than one year. Building strong relationships that generate trust between our two radically different cultures will go a long way in convincing our new allies to accept and adopt the lessons we are imparting. We may also develop a corps of Soldiers who will have a unique cultural insight into a part of the world that we are likely to be involved in for next few decades. In either case, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Major Morgan Smiley an Army infantry officer currently serving as a battalion S3 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. He served in Afghanistan in 2008 as a combat advisor with the Afghan army and police.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki opened the door for the first time Wednesday to the prospect of a U.S. military presence in Iraq after the December 2011 deadline for troop withdrawal set by last year's bilateral accord - something President Obama appeared to rule out during a joint appearance on Tuesday.

Speaking to an audience at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, Maliki said the accord, known as the Status of Forces Agreement, would "end" the American military presence in his country in 2011, but "nevertheless, if Iraqi forces required further training and further support, we shall examine this at that time based on the needs of Iraq," he said through translation in response to a question from The Washington Independent. "I am sure that the will, the prospects and the desire for such cooperation is found among both parties."

Maliki continued, "The nature of that relationship - the functions and the amount of [U.S.] forces - will then be discussed and reexamined based on the needs" of Iraq...

More at The Washington Independent.

The Army's study of what happened in the Wanat battle a year ago in eastern Afghanistan is even harder on senior U.S. military commanders than I was in my series on it back in February, saying that they didn't understand counterinsurgency doctrine and also that some of their statements about the fight were misleading at best.

The report, which is still in draft form, contradicts a few aspects of the accounts provided by some of the senior officers involved, implicitly raising integrity questions. That's especially significant because two officials at Fort Leavenworth have told me that the Army inspector general's office is investigating how the Wanat incident was reported and reviewed. I also hear that congressional interest in the situation is growing.

The report, which has not been released and was written for the Army's Combat Studies Institute by military historian Douglas Cubbison, finds multiple failures by the battalion and brigade commanders involved...

... The report also is in awe of the bravery and persistence of the 42 soldiers and 3 Marines who fought at Wanat, as I am. I knew that some continued to fight after being hit several times. But I didn't know that one continued to pass ammunition even when he was mortally wounded.

I also think the Army deserves praise for having the honesty to have this report done. I am told that the final version will be released soon. Let's hope it isn't thrown out the back door at 5 pm on a Friday afternoon in August.

Much more at Best Defense.