Along with John Paul Vann, Bob co-authored two insightful studies on counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam in 1965. Motivational Training in Counterinsurgency: A Proposal offers practical advice to tactical units in developing host-nation security forces. These observations included "protect the villages upon completion of securing operations conducted by regular forces" and "promote the idea of participation in civic affairs."

What the motivational study is to tactics, Harnessing the Revolution in South Vietnam is to strategy. The authors begin with an analysis of the political situation in Vietnam, including the assessment that "a popular political base for the Government of South Vietnam does not now exist" and recommend "establishment of a country team advisory unit."

In reading these works, I recalled Phillip Larkin's Annus Mirabilis.

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three

(which was rather late for me) -

Between the end of the Chatterley ban

And the Beatles' first LP.

Counterinsurgency is surely among the world's oldest professions. The knowledge we need to win lies in the memories of our veterans, old and new. Our task in building the capabilities to fight the wars of the 21st century is a much a task of remembering as it is of innovating.

Paul Yingling

Commander, 1-21 FA

J5, Task Force 134

Terror at the Border by Robert Killebrew

With American attention diverted to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic crisis and a hard-fought national election, national security experts have largely overlooked the bitter countercartel war in Mexico. But that war, which is beginning to overlap the US border, is only the forerunner of an even more serious threat. Sometime in the near future a lethal combination of transnational terrorism and criminal gangs is going to cross the US border in force. According to some, it already has, and we haven't even noticed.

Learning from Lawrence: Lawrence the Insurgent by Robert Batement

Of late, there are quite a few people who have taken to quoting T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. The quotation presented above is seen almost every day now, on military briefings and in State Department papers, in news articles and in public statements from people involved in all aspects of our effort. In the eyes of many, Lawrence, it seems, holds the answer to our dilemmas - in our efforts to suppress an insurgency and helping develop a democracy.

Transition Strategy: If Iran Goes Nuclear by Joseph Collins

Iran and its nuclear program will be a top issue for the Obama administration. Both US political parties have declared an Iranian nuclear weapons capability to be "unacceptable." We all believe that we would better off if we lived in a world of fewer nuclear powers, and if erratic and ambitious states such as Iran did not develop nuclear weapons.

Flashpoint: Buccaneers are Back by Peter Brookes

The thought of pirates usually evokes Hollywood blockbusters involving swashbuckling buccaneers, tropical isles and buried treasure marked on a tattered map with an "X." To those mindful of history, piracy might conjure up notions of the Barbary pirates, who sailed the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, raiding coastal towns, capturing merchant ships (some American), and ransoming or enslaving their crews in North African ports. Strikingly, some two centuries later, piracy at sea is back - with a vengeance.

Talk, Without Preconception by Thomas Momiyama

The US stands as an uncontested superpower, albeit serendipitously with the demise of the USSR and despite being incessantly denounced and challenged by rogue states and insurgency factions. America's stature is questioned domestically and abroad for its "unilateral" invasions and tactically vexing deployment and engagement of military assets in the Near and Middle East under debatable political judgments. Nonetheless, America's de facto superpower status destines it to the role of leading the world into peace and freedom. President-elect Barack Obama must reckon that role in his long-range vision of the nation.

Fighting Words by Ralph Peters

If our troops shot as wildly as our politicians and bureaucrats fire off words, we'd never win a single firefight. The inaccurate terminology tossed about by presidents and pundits alike obscures the nature of the threats we face, the character of our enemies and the inadequacies of our response. If we cannot, or will not, label our opponents, their cause and their motivations correctly, how can we forge an efficient and effective national strategy?

More at Armed Forces Journal.

'Day of Infamy' Lives On In Memory - Timothy Warren, Washington Times

Sixty-seven years after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Edward K. Walker Jr. of Alexandria still "vividly" remembers watching the bombs fall, with little understanding then of the infamous role the event would play in history.

"I just climbed up on the roof to see what was happening, much to my mother's consternation," said Mr. Walker, who was 9 at the time. "I didn't really know what was happening. I just thought it was interesting to watch."

Mr. Walker, the son of a naval officer stationed at Pearl Harbor, later spent 38 years in the Navy, retiring in 1988 as a rear admiral.

He is one of a dwindling number of people who witnessed the forces of Imperial Japan nearly deliver their intended knockout blow to the US Pacific Fleet at its Hawaiian base on Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941. Some of them will be present for the annual wreath-laying at the Navy Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest in remembrance of those who died.

More at The Washington Times.

Victory at Sea: Navy Routs Army in 109th Meeting - Associated Press

Our favorite anti-COIN Colonel, Gian Gentile, and yet SWJ friend - go figure that one out, continues his personal crusade in this recent International Herald Tribune opinion piece - Mired in 'Surge' Dogma.

Here are some tidbits (regular SWJ and Abu Muqawama readers are well familiar with this drum beat):

The US Army and other parts of America's defense establishment have become transfixed by the promise of counterinsurgency...

The promise of counterinsurgency is to turn war into a program of social-scientific functions that will achieve victory...

The current US counterinsurgency program rests on the dubious assumption that the surge in Iraq was a successful feat of arms...

The recent uptick in bloodshed shows that the war is not over...

Yet influential American counterinsurgency experts have simply co-opted the counter-Maoist model. There is no originality - or at least a serious consideration for very different alternatives...

Many army officers and Department of Defense thinkers seem to be able to think only about how to apply the perceived counterinsurgency lessons from Iraq to Afghanistan...

Perhaps under the Obama administration, the army and the greater defense establishment will embrace creativity instead of dogma and at least consider other options. If not, our way ahead has already been decided for us...

Come on Gian, be part of the solution here - not the problem, and give General Petraeus and company credit where credit is due - no one - read - no one - is suggesting plopping down the Iraq model onto Afghanistan and even the most ardent counterinsurgency proponent freely admits we must maintain our military capabilities across a "full spectrum" of possible scenarios. I'd like you to at least acknowledge that we must maintain a reasonable capability to conduct COIN when all is said and done. I served through the post-Vietnam denial of all things "irregular" -- and look at where that got us.

A while ago, Michael Tanji came up with the concept of Think Tank 2.0--a geographically dispersed and eclectic network that collaborate online in a series of salon-like discussions. Since then, I've been entertaining a similar idea--the ludic space...

If we consider operational doctrines and theories of national security as kinds of narratives battling for control, we may do well to construct ludic structures where we can construct meaning from the play, competition, and the continuous exchange and modification of narratives about the future. Small Wars Journal is a kind of ludic space existing in the boundaries between the military, academia, and the media. It drives discussion on military issues because it provides a freewheeling, multi-dimensional exchange from individuals of many different backgrounds...

More at Rethinking Security.

In the January / February 2009 issue of Foreign Affairs, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has a paper entitled A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age.

Summary: The Pentagon has to do more than modernize its conventional forces; it must also focus on today's unconventional conflicts -- and tomorrow's.

The defining principle of the Pentagon's new National Defense Strategy is balance. The United States cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything. The Department of Defense must set priorities and consider inescapable tradeoffs and opportunity costs.

The strategy strives for balance in three areas: between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for other contingencies, between institutionalizing capabilities such as counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining the United States' existing conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, and between retaining those cultural traits that have made the US armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper their ability to do what needs to be done.

More at Foreign Affairs and The Captain's Journal.

US Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) released today their Joint Operating Environment 2008 (JOE 2008), a report that discusses the trends and contexts of the future operating environment and their implication for the future joint force. JOE 2008 is designed to spark discussions with the widest set of national security and multinational partners about the nature of the future security environment and its potential military requirements.

In the broadest sense, the Joint Operating Environment examines three questions:

1. What future trends and disruptions are likely to affect the joint force over the next quarter century?

2. How are these trends and disruptions likely to define the future contexts for joint operations?

3. What are the implications of these trends and contexts for the joint force?

By exploring these trends, contexts, and implications, the Joint Operating Environment provides a basis for thinking about the world a quarter of a century from now. Its purpose is not to predict, but to suggest ways leaders might think about the future.

JOE 2008 examines changes and trends in the geopolitical and military landscape, such as: demographics, globalization, economics, pandemics, cyber, space, energy, resource scarcity, climate change and national disasters. These trends then form the context for exploring the following types of scenarios:

1. Competition and Cooperation Among Conventional Powers

2. Potential Challenges and Threats

3. Weak and Failing States

4. The Threats of Unconventional Power

5. Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

6. Technology

7. The Battle of Narratives

8. Urbanization.

JOE 2008 makes the case that, "The next quarter century will challenge US joint forces with threats and opportunities ranging from regular and irregular wars in remote lands, to relief and reconstruction in crisis zones, to sustained engagement in the global commons."

JOE 2008 contributes to USJFCOM's central mission to develop a vision for how our military forces will conduct future operations and test this vision in the most realistic and challenging ways possible.

Joint Operating Environment 2008 (JOE 2008 full document)

A new Pentagon directive on irregular warfare drops the idea of making US Special Operations Command the joint proponent for IW and assigns a leading role for developing IW doctrine and capabilities to US Joint Forces Command. ...links IW to the "core US military mission" of stability operations, noting that improving the Defense Department's IW proficiency enhances DOD's conduct of stability operations...

JFCOM, rather than SOCOM, will assist the Office of the Secretary of Defense in "identifying tracking requirements for critical skills and experiences relevant to IW"... JFCOM will also handle another task previously envisioned for SOCOM: leading the identification of "joint IW-relevant capabilities" and recommending priorities for developing those capabilities.

The directive also says JFCOM chief Gen. James Mattis will lead the collaborative development of joint standards for general purpose forces' "IW-relevant training and readiness," along with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen and the service chiefs...

Further, in what could be an attempt to advance a more holistic approach to IW, the final directive omits language that would have required organizations to assign IW tasks to a specific official, as opposed to the institution at large. The final version of the directive notably lists stability operations on the roster of IW missions...

For those who subscribe to Inside Defense there is much more - or sign up for an account at the Inside Defense News Stand - the first three downloads are free.

For those who would like to read DoD Directive 3000.07 (Irregular Warfare) in full, Small Wars Journal has posted it here.

For additional background on IW see the Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept. The stated purpose of the IW JOC is to describe how future joint force commanders will accomplish strategic objectives through the conduct of protracted IW on a global or regional scale. It identifies capabilities and capacities required to successfully prosecute IW. Many of the ideas advocated in this JOC are drawn from best practices of current conflicts and history.

Update

US to Raise 'Irregular War' Capabilities - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post

The Pentagon this week approved a major policy directive that elevates the military's mission of "irregular warfare" - the increasingly prevalent campaigns to battle insurgents and terrorists, often with foreign partners and sometimes clandestinely - to an equal footing with traditional combat.

The directive, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England on Monday, requires the Pentagon to step up its capabilities across the board to fight unconventionally, such as by working with foreign security forces, surrogates and indigenous resistance movements to shore up fragile states, extend the reach of US forces into denied areas or battle hostile regimes.

The policy, a result of more than a year of debate in the defense establishment, is part of a broader overhaul of the US military's role as the threat of large-scale combat against other nations' armies has waned and new dangers have arisen from shadowy non-state actors, such as terrorists that target civilian populations.

More at The Washington Post.

Update # 2

Pentagon Steers Toward Irregular Warfare - Westhawk, Westhawk

... When (and if) implemented, this directive will be a sweeping change in the functioning of the entire Defense Department. Naturally, the extent to which the directive's intent is carried out will depend on who leads the Department in the future, on Congressional input and appropriations, and on what actually happens in the world over the next decade (the enemies' votes). As written, the directive establishes the basis for a dramatic change in the US military. An appropriate global context will ensure the completion of this transformation.

Mike Vickers's directive assigns irregular warfare responsibilities and tasks to every corner of the US Defense establishment. All of the under-secretariats inside the Pentagon, the Services, the combatant commands, and the Joint Staff are assigned their homework.

The directive represents a crushing defeat for those who wished to keep irregular warfare doctrine and execution segregated inside a discrete box within the Department. Under this directive, everyone in the Department has a significant part to play. Thus Gian Gentile's nightmare has come true...

More at Westhawk.