Starbuck at Wings Over Iraq comments: It's better than the initial joke that I had, where the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine would be a boy band consisting of Nagl, Exum, Dave Dilegge, Zenpundit and David Kilcullen called the "Small Wars Boys".
While relatively short and designed, naturally, to help promote a book by a friend and CNAS colleague, Dr. Nagl has also taken a significant step toward influencing policy by distilling and reframing Dr. Klicullen's lengthy and detailed observations into a reified and crystallized COIN doctrine". A digestible set of memes sized exactly right for the journalistic and governmental elite whose eyes glaze over at the mention of military jargon and who approach national security from a distinctly civilian and political perspective.
New Doctrines Without Strategic Foundations - Raymond Pritchett, Information Dissemination.
I am not an expert on counterinsurgency, but ever since the surge and getting turned onto the topic by reading the Small Wars Journal, I have studied it enough to understand when COIN is and is not effective. I don't believe that COIN is a subject anyone will truly master without a great deal of regional centric training, education, and experience, although I really appreciate how many concepts of COIN scale in warfare, in particular the complicated discussions of how to operate military forces in populated environments (like the littoral).
Legal Advice From the Taliban - Patrick Devenny, FP's The Argument.
So far, NATO has responded to Taliban expansion by reinforcing its units in the area, boosting its firepower, and combating the poppy economy through interdiction and crop substitution. That's the easy part. The real challenge will come after territory is regained and NATO begins its fight for the population -- not just the land. To get this next phase right, NATO and its Afghan allies would do well to take a lesson from the force that has been managing much of the south for the last two years: the Taliban. Yes, time to take advice from the enemy. What methods of "guerrilla governance" are attracting the support of local populations? And how could NATO and Afghan forces use them to "clear, hold, and build?"
Pakistan on the Brink - Ahmed Rashid, The New York Review of Books (Hat tip to Tom Ricks).
Pakistan is close to the brink, perhaps not to a meltdown of the government, but to a permanent state of anarchy, as the Islamist revolutionaries led by the Taliban and their many allies take more territory, and state power shrinks. There will be no mass revolutionary uprising like in Iran in 1979 or storming of the citadels of power as in Vietnam and Cambodia; rather we can expect a slow, insidious, long-burning fuse of fear, terror, and paralysis that the Taliban have lit and that the state is unable, and partly unwilling, to douse.
Petraeus: Video Shows Strike Aimed At Taliban - Steve Inskeep, NPR interview.
Gen. David Petraeus: I have. In fact, I was in Kabul the other night briefed by the brigadier general who I appointed to carry out an investigation of this particular incident, and there is indeed video from a B-1 Bomber that very clearly shows bombs hitting individuals who are the Taliban who are reacting to the movements of the Afghan and coalition forces on the ground.
What's Up With that "Global Engagement Directive"? - Marc Lynch, FP's Abu Aardvark.
The White House announced the other day that there would be a new desk at the National Security Council called the "Global Engagement Directive" which would take the lead in public diplomacy, international communications, foreign aid and other areas of engagement. This is a good move, which could potentially overcome a number of persistent problems in American public diplomacy and strategic communications.
5 Reasons Why this North Korean Crisis is No Groundhog's Day - Dan Twining, FP's Shadow Government.
North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, new threats of war against its declared enemies, and the predictable results of these developments -- expressions of concern at the UN Security Council, U.S. offers of more unconditional talks, China's ambivalent response - suggest that we remain in the Groundhog Day" cycle of crisis and response that has characterized U.S. policy towards Pyongyang since 1994. In fact, new dynamics on the peninsula and in the region, and the fresh opportunity provided by what can now clearly be judged to be years of failed policy on denuclearization and disarmament, present an opportunity for a creative rethink about U.S. policy options. To clarify a way forward, it's worth considering how the playing field has shifted (I see five ways that it has), and how this may create a different set of possibilities for the United States and our allies vis-í -vis the North Korean regime -- one that breaks decisively from the past and offers real hope for change.
Anything at Abu Muqawama.
Creating a Supercharged Battalion
By Lieutenant Colonel William David
Creating a Supercharged Battalion (Full PDF Article)
From the Preface:
In late July 1993, the 2nd Battalion 14th Infantry Task Force, 10th Mountain Division, departed Fort Drum for Mogadishu. They were to become the ground element of the 10th Mountain Division Brigade serving as the Quick Reaction Force for the United Nations command in Somalia.
They were the only U.S. maneuver element in country. Over a seventeen hour period on 3 and 4 October, TF 2-14 Infantry--fighting its way from the Mogadishu airfield to downtown--extracted ground elements of Task Force Ranger following the downing of two Task Force Ranger helicopters during an operation that had begun midday on Sunday the 3rd. This battle was marked by fierce fighting.
The 2-14 Infantry accomplished their challenging and dangerous mission. I am one of those who believe that only a really extraordinary infantry battalion could have gotten the Rangers out that night. TF 2-14 Infantry was clearly outstanding. Several of us, therefore, encouraged LTC Bill David to write this story.
Bill's story is simple and complex at the same time. The insights and lessons are, for the most part, timeless and broadly applicable. Bill presents a clear picture of what is required to make an outfit truly first rate.
This is the story of a battalion commander leading his soldiers in combat. LTC David describes how he built on the basic Army training and doctrine formula and added particular emphasis in core areas to develop a winning team.
This is a personal account. It is not history.
Luck was not a factor in 2-14's success. As will become apparent, 2-14's performance was the result of mission/combat-focused training, careful planning, aggressive execution, and an unwavering commitment to the welfare of soldiers....
What do Lady Gaga and Small Wars Journal have in common? One is on the cover of the Rolling Stone and one isn't -- but sure enough both made the Rolling Stone 2009 Hot List" -- go figure.
Stocks may tumble and fortunes may fall, but hotness, it seems, is eternal.
There was some concern about compiling our latest Rolling Stone Hot List during an ice-cold era. But it seems that in these uncertain, gray days, we need what our Managing Editor Will Dana called "the sparkly and the sexy, the perfectly shaped diversions America leads the world in creating."
... Since we launched the Hot List in 1986, we've had our share of hits and misses (check our cover gallery to revisit all out past Hot Issues, from Angelina to Giselle to Britney). In 1988, we profiled "Hot Character Actor" Kevin Spacey, and we're particularly proud that in 1990, we introduced readers to a 23-year-old screenwriter named Jeffrey Abrams (you might know him now as Lost and Star Trek visionary J.J. Abrams). Of course, we've also missed the mark — in 1990, we thought Renny Harlin's hot streak would last, and the same issue that featured Abrams also declared Tevin Campbell "Hot Prodigy."
This time, we're banking on an assortment of movers, shakers and muckrakers that runs the gamut from the warfare digest "Small Wars Journal" to Hot Issue cover girl Lady Gaga...
Rolling Stone's 2009 Hot List - as soon as we grab a hard copy of RS we'll post the SWJ entry - anyone seen it yet and care to share in comments below? This issue has not hit the news stands as yet.
Update:
Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement:
Yeah, well, anyone with a Y chromosome can see the chick with the Phyllis Diller fright wig and the bubble bikini is hot. Glad to see RS is getting hip to how hot Small Wars can be. Now breathlessly awaiting the print version with the actual RS SWJ review. Hate to get political about it, but seeing as SWJ was the go-to place for understanding the Iraq surge and RS is only just catching up two years later, forgive me for suspecting that the Odoption of the Bush embrace of counterinsurgency tactics has something to do with the new Small Wars fashion craze.
Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette:
Dave Dilegge asks "What do Lady Gaga and Small Wars Journal have in common? One is on the cover of the Rolling Stone and one isn't - but sure enough both made the Rolling Stone 2009 "Hot List" - go figure."
"This time," an anonymous Rolling Stone editor says of the list, "we're banking on an assortment of movers, shakers and muckrakers that runs the gamut from the warfare digest "Small Wars Journal" to Hot Issue cover girl Lady Gaga."
The kewl kidz know where to go for the show.
Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama:
So are we bitter that our boss John Nagl nominated Small Wars Journal to Rolling Stone's "Hot List" instead of us? Naw. I'm pretty sure no one under 40 years of age reads Rolling Stone anymore, so it makes sense that my pleated pants-wearing boss would turn down Frampton Comes Alive! long enough to speak to some geriatric Rolling Stone journalist about the latest "hot" thing.
No, no, in all seriousness, congrats to Dave and the gang at SWJ. We'll be out behind the cafeteria dumpster smoking with the cool kids if anyone needs us.
Starbuck at Wings Over Iraq:
Small Wars Journal is a great site. But you normally wouldn't associate it with Rolling Stone Magazine's "Hot List". Until now.
It looks as if I'm going to have to acquire a copy of Rolling Stone when it gets shipped over here.
Joshua Keating at FP Passport:
Congratulations to everyone at SWJ! The recognition is well deserved. Since FP has teamed up with them to publish Robert Haddick's excellent weekly column "This Week at War," we can't help but feel a little hotter ourselves today.
Rumors that Ricks and Rothkopf are appearing together on the next Tiger Beat cover have yet to be confirmed.
Okay here's the scoop (RS page 85):
Hot Intelligence: 'Small Wars Journal'
The Military's New Must Read
Want to know how Obama is going to fight the war in Afghanistan? Then check out Small Wars Journal, an online magazine that provides a crash course on asymmetric warfare. Get schooled in fighting Somali pirates. Find out what Malcolm Nance, a former Navy interrogation instructor, thinks about waterboarding ("a torture technique, Period"). When David Kilcullen, special adviser to Gen. Petraeus, live-blogged the Iraq surge, he did it for SWJ.
Contributions include who's who of the sharpest minds in uniform, regardless of rank. "You're judged purely on the strength of your intellectual argument," says John Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who helped write the Army's Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Run by two former Marines, the site is a must-read for military insiders. "We must be doing something right," says co-founder Dave Dilegge, "because we get people calling us Attila the Hun warmongers one day and counterinsurgency-loving tree-huggers the next."
Hat tip to JMG1093 at the Council.
I just received this e-mail from someone involved in an Army-based web forum called "CompanyCommand.com" (whose sister site is "PlatoonLeader.com"). Seems that, with projected budget "cuts", the first thing to go isn't bloated programs like the F-22 Raptor or the Army's Future Combat System, but rather, inexpensive projects which have actually yielded impressive results by spurring innovation from the field...
Again, I don't know how serious the recommendation was to shut down CompanyCommand.com, but should anyone question the power of "The New Media" on combat operations, I merely direct them to this article in Small Wars Journal. (Includes interviews from Zenpundit, David Kilcullen, Thomas Ricks, Abu Muqawama, and, of course, from me).
Starbuck goes on to recommend that if you have an account at CompanyCommand or PlatoonLeader, log in and tell the admins not to shut the site down.
Putting the Pieces Together
Edited by Paul K. Davis, Kim Cragin.
Contributors: Darcy Noricks, Todd C. Helmus, Christopher Paul, Claude Berrebi, Brian A. Jackson, Gaga Gvineria, Michael Egner, and Benjamin Bahney - Rand.
Social Science for Counterterrorism (Full Monograph)
The authors report on an aggressively interdisciplinary project to survey and integrate the scholarly social-science literature relevant to counterterrorism. They draw on literature from numerous disciplines, both qualitative and quantitative, and then use high-level conceptual models to pull the pieces together. In their monograph, they identify points of agreement and disagreement and point out instances in which disagreements merely reflect difference of research context or perspective. Priorities for further research are suggested and improved ways to frame questions for research and analysis are identified. The questions addressed relate to how terrorism arises, why some individuals become terrorists, how terrorists generate public support, how terrorist organizations make decisions, how terrorism declines, why individuals disengage, and how strategic communications can be more or less effective.
HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868
I. The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
We are organized, comrades, as our regulations tell us, for the purpose among other things, "of preserving and strengthening those kind and fraternal feelings which have bound together the soldiers, sailors, and marines who united to suppress the late rebellion." What can aid more to assure this result than cherishing tenderly the memory of our heroic dead, who made their breasts a barricade between our country and its foes? Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic.
If our eyes grow dull, other hands slack, and other hearts cold in the solemn trust, ours shall keep it well as long as the light and warmth of life remain to us.
Let us, then, at the time appointed gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of spring-time; let us raise above them the dear old flag they saved from dishonor; let us in this solemn presence renew our pledges to aid and assist those whom they have left among us a sacred charge upon a nation's gratitude, the soldier's and sailor's widow and orphan.
II. It is the purpose of the Commander-in-Chief to inaugurate this observance with the hope that it will be kept up from year to year, while a survivor of the war remains to honor the memory of his departed comrades. He earnestly desires the public press to lend its friendly aid in bringing to the notice of comrades in all parts of the country in time for simultaneous compliance therewith.
III. Department commanders will use efforts to make this order effective.
By order of
JOHN A. LOGAN,
Commander-in-Chief
N.P. CHIPMAN,
Adjutant General
Official:
WM. T. COLLINS, A.A.G.
Old Army Buddies - Michael Auslin, Washington Post
Those Who Make Us Say 'Oh!' - Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal
They Died for You - Rick Atkinson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Remembering Bataan - Washington Times
Roots of Memorial Day - Hayley Peterson, Washington Examiner
What are the Origins of Memorial Day? - Seattle Post Intelligencer
Observing Memorial Day - Larry Abeldt, Abilene Recorder Chronicle
What Does Memorial Day Mean? - Tabatha Hunter, Benton County Daily Record
What Patriotism Means to an American Citizen - Johnnie Godwin, The Tennessean
Let Us Honor the Best and Noblest of Us All - Spartanburg Herald Journal
Honor Their Sacrifice - Doug Chapin, Washington Times
The Dead We Honor - New York Post
Legacies of War Dead Endure - Rick Hampson, USA Today
Memorial Day Roll Call Salutes 148,000 Veterans - Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press
Obama Pays Memorial Day Weekend Tribute - Kent Klein, Voice of America
Grief and Honor at Arlington Cemetery - James Key, USA Today
Rolling Thunder - Michael Ruane, Washington Post
Memorial Day 2009 - Washington Post
This Memorial Day - New York Times
Being True to Our Values - Philadelphia Inquirer
Sterling Memorial - Bob McManus, New York Post
Memorial Day 2009 - McQ, Blackfive
A Word of Caution - Greyhawk, Mudville Gazette
How Not to Celebrate Memorial Day - Uncle Jimbo, Blackfive
Tibor Rubin - Greyhawk, Mudville Gazette
When U.S. and Israeli officials say that "all options are on the table" for stopping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, that's usually taken to mean aerial bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and other locations.
But there is another option for impeding the Iranian program -- a covert campaign to disrupt and deceive Iran's nuclear establishment. Despite the secrecy surrounding such efforts, reports about Israeli and U.S. sabotage efforts have surfaced recently in newspaper stories, which undoubtedly have been read with interest in Tehran.
These published reports raise an interesting question: Do secret sabotage programs offer a "magic bullet" for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat -- raising the cost to Iran of pursuing its program, while avoiding the chaotic backlash that would follow a conventional military strike?
More at The Washington Post.
It took a pitched two-hour gun battle with Sri Lankan special forces. Then a rocket launched into his armor-plated ambulance. But last Monday, death finally came to Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the Tamil Tigers separatist group.
Also gone are Prabhakaran's son and heir apparent, Charles Anthony, and as many as 300 cadres. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations on the planet, has been essentially wiped out.
But the Tigers' legacy remains intact. Their perfection of suicide bombings, their recruitment of women and children, their innovation in IEDs, have been emulated by other terrorist groups worldwide, from al-Qaeda to Hezbollah. Though they considered themselves superior to jihadi terrorists -- who regularly target civilians -- the Tigers opened the door to terrorism as a strategy of liberation and resistance to an unwanted government or occupying force. And they reached a standard of deadly efficiency envied by U.S. enemies and terrorists around the globe...
More at The Washington Post.
