For years, the military has been roiled by a heated internal debate over what kind of wars it should prepare to fight.

One faction, led by a host of senior officers, favors buying state-of-the-art weapons systems that would be useful in a traditional conflict with a nation like Russia or China. The other side, which includes Defense Secretary Robert Gates, believes the military should prepare for grinding insurgencies that closely resemble the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The dispute has long been largely academic, since the soaring defense budgets in the years since the September 2001 terror attacks left plenty of money for each side's main priorities.

That is beginning to change, a casualty of the widening global financial crisis. With the economy slowing and the tab for the government's bailout of the private sector spiraling higher, Democratic lawmakers are signaling that Pentagon officials will soon have to choose which programs to keep and which to cut. In the long and unresolved debate about the military's future, a clearer vision of how best to defend America will emerge -- but not without one side ceding hard-fought ground.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Fight Harder

by Joseph Collins, Small Wars Journal Op-Ed

To Further Afghan Reconciliation: Fight Harder (Full PDF Article)

It's official. Everyone from the Pentagon to Saudi Arabia thinks that reconciliation between the Taliban and the Karzai government is a good idea and a step toward settling the conflict in Afghanistan. A few deluded analysts even see dealing with the Taliban as the Afghan equivalent of the Sunni Awakening in Iraq. One wonders whether war weariness, success with reconciliation in Iraq, and a lack of familiarity with the Afghan context may not be pushing us toward a tactical error or worse, an endless round of talking with an illegitimate adversary that believes it has the upper hand.

Reconciliation in Afghanistan is fraught with complications. For one, there is no Taliban per se. In the south we have Mullah Omar's "old" Taliban, but in the East, the toughest fighters come from the Haqqani network and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezbi Islami, both of which work closely with Al Qaeda. Complicating the issue even more, there is now a multi-branch Pakistani Taliban, some of whom operate in both countries. Ironically, the Afghan Taliban and its friends seem to be well tolerated by Pakistani authorities who are now in conflict with their own Taliban.

To Further Afghan Reconciliation: Fight Harder (Full PDF Article)

Everyone's talking about talking to the Taliban. But before we jaw-jaw, there will be more war-war.

Don't even ask Mullah Sabir about peace talks. There's nothing to talk about, says the tall, burly Afghan, one of the Taliban's highest-ranking commanders. "This is not a political campaign for policy change or power sharing or cabinet ministries," he tells Newsweek at a textiles shop on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. "We are waging jihad to bring Islamic law back to Afghanistan." The refusal to negotiate comes straight from the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, says Sabir, who did not want his full name used: "The tone of his rejection has been so strong from the first that no one would dare to raise the subject with him." The trouble is, Sabir hasn't seen Mullah Omar in years, and he doesn't know of anyone who has. Internet posts released in Mullah Omar's name on Muslim holy days are the only hint that the one-eyed Commander of the Faithful is still alive. All the same, Sabir says he and thousands of other Taliban won't stop fighting until they're back in power.

Everyone seems eager to talk peace in Afghanistan - except the only people who can turn the wish into a fact. The Taliban's brutal insurgent ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has endorsed the idea of negotiations; so has the US defense secretary, Robert Gates. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah personally hosted an exploratory discussion in Mecca between Afghan and Pakistani officials and former Taliban members during Ramadan, and last week Afghan and Pakistani tribal elders and politicians held a two-day meeting in Islamabad. But Mullah Omar's fighters aren't about to quit while they're on a roll. The number of Coalition deaths in Afghanistan since May has exceeded US deaths in Iraq for the first time since the invasion of Iraq. The Afghan insurgency, which seemed as good as dead in 2004, has come back strong.

More at Newsweek.

A few weeks ago, as the U.S. financial crisis was causing ripples of anxiety throughout world markets, I was on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington as it sailed into the Japanese port it will be calling home for the next few years. As the immense ship pirouetted around its axis in the middle of Yokosuka Harbor before backing up to its berth, it occurred to me that there are few manifestations of American power more awe-inspiring than an aircraft carrier. I've seen many other examples of America's military reach—from Kosovo to Central Asia, Guam to Iraq—but the George Washington takes the cake. It has 5,200 members on board, and its galleys serve 18,000 meals a day. It is home to an entire Navy air wing of 60 to 70 planes altogether. It's as tall as a 24-story building. And thanks to its nuclear reactors, it can stay out at sea, well, pretty much forever.

Conventional wisdom has it that the George Washington is soon to become an empty symbol. According to everyone from Hamas to Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, the American Empire is over. The era of U.S. hegemony is done for, finito. The reason is simple enough: the financial and economic crisis is already tipping the United States into recession. The huge amounts of money now being spent on reviving the banking system will crimp America's leading role in the world. Whoever the next president is, he'll find it hard to push-through dramatic tax increases; and without additional revenue, the already huge U.S. budget deficit can only get bigger. Aircraft carriers like the George Washington cost $4.5 billion a pop, and keeping them afloat isn't much cheaper. In 2007, the Department of Defense budget was about $440 billion—and that didn't include additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which add more to the bill. Surely the sheer lack of cash will end up restraining Washington's ambitions to remake the world.

There's just one problem with this thesis: The United States was short on cash long before this latest crisis hit, but that didn't stop it from continuing to build up the world's most formidable military...

More at Newsweek.

Mark your calendar for January 13, 2009. That is the confirmed date for "The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948: Past, Present, and Future", a symposium to discuss the legislation on which America's arsenal of persuasion is anchored.

The one-day event will be hosted in Washington, D.C., with the location and co-sponsor all but confirmed. The format is four 90 minute panels and will emphasize Q&A, discourse, and debate and not presentations or monologues. The four panels will focus on past, present, future, what to do, respectively.

Panelists will be drawn from practitioners (State and Defense Departments), academics, Congress, and the media. The event is free and open to the public but registration will be required.

This is a first of its kind in-depth discussion into the legislation that continues to set the parameters of our global engagement. Enacted at the beginning of the First War of Ideas, it is long past time to discuss it ten or more years into the Second War of Ideas, a struggle that goes beyond terrorism and insurgency and into economic and financial power.

Underscoring the importance of the event are the two confirmed keynotes - Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Jim Glassman will give the morning keynote, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy Mike Doran will give the lunchtime keynote. A report will be published based on the discourse at the event.

More details to come, including registration information, so check MoutainRunner for updates or contact Matt to be put on an email distribution for updates.

Gen. David H. Petraeus took charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq today, promising to tackle both immediate and long-term security challenges as he was sworn in as head of US Central Command.

Until last month, Petraeus was the top US commander in Iraq. Now, as the top regional commander, Petraeus will continue to oversee that war, but at Centcom, his most urgent task will be helping to craft a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan.

The conflict in Afghanistan has grown more violent this year. In its closing days the Bush administration, led by the National Security Council, has initiated a broad review of the current strategy in Afghanistan. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also have a broad planning effort underway, designed in part to present options to the next administration. But in addition to those efforts, Petraeus is working on his own campaign plan for Afghanistan.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Petraeus Steps Into New Role as Head of Central Command - Thom Shanker, New York Times

Under a sparkling South Florida sun, thousands of miles from the deserts of the Middle East, Gen. David H. Petraeus took charge of the Central Command on Friday with responsibility for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the region.

General Petraeus becomes responsible not only for overseeing military operations in Iraq, where he still views recent gains as extremely fragile, and in Afghanistan, where violence has increased markedly, but also for a strategic crescent that includes Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates stressed that while it would be a primary task for General Petraeus to "keep us on the right path in Iraq," an immediate challenge was "bringing coherence to our own strategy" in Afghanistan.

More at The New York Times.

As the scale of the economic crisis becomes clear and comparisons to the Great Depression of the 1930s are tossed around, there is a very real danger that America could succumb to the feeling that we no longer have the luxury of worrying about distant lands, now that we are confronted with a "real" problem that actually affects the lives of all Americans. As we consider whether various bailout plans help Main Street as well as Wall Street, the subtext is that both are much more important to Americans than Haifa Street.

One problem with this emotion is that it ignores the sequel to the Great Depression -- the rise of militaristic Japan marked by the 1931 invasion of Manchuria, and Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933, both of which resulted in part from economic dislocations spreading outward from the U.S. The inward-focus of the U.S. and the leading Western powers (Great Britain and France) throughout the 1930s allowed these problems to metastasize, ultimately leading to World War II.

Is it possible that American inattention to the world in the coming years could lead to a similarly devastating result? You betcha.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

H/T Mike Few.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the World Policy Journal, the highly respected and widely cited publication on global issues. Our Fall, anniversary issue, due to hit stands this week, is dedicated to examining our world as it may look 25 years in the future. Experts, thought leaders, and commentators from around the world ranging from Russia to Iran, the Middle East to the Middle Kingdom, and beyond, examine compelling issues including terrorism and Islam, global population growth and international diplomacy, the melting of the Tibetan glaciers and diamonds mined in Africa. We are delighted that from now through the end of November the issue will be entirely free for downloading from our official site and our blog.

An article in this issue that might be of interest to you and your Small Wars Journal Blog is Theodor H. Winkler's "The Shifting Face of Violence." In it, Winkler (the director of the Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces in Geneva with the rank of ambassador and previously served as head of the Division for International Security Policy of the Swiss Department of Defence) addresses non-traditional warfare and future conflict, terrorism and WMDs, and war for resources. With your commitment to facilitating and supporting the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, it seemed fitting to contact you and let you know about this issue of the World Policy Journal and the caliber of articles inside. If you find the material appropriate for your site and your readers, please feel free to link to any of our web addresses, as the material is free for a limited time.

Here are the web addresses again, for your reference:

Main site: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/wopj

World Policy Journal blog: http://worldpolicy.org/wordpress/

Link to our 25th Anniversary, Fall 2008 issue: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/wopj/current

And the following P.S., too:

Another World Policy Journal article that might also be of interest to you and your Small Wars Journal could be Nicolaus Mills' "A Marshall Plan for the Middle East." In it, Mills (a professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College) addresses rebuilding Iraq and the Middle East, economic statecraft, and the future of the Middle East.

Happy Birthday! We hope MIT is throwing you a nice bash, and wish you at least 25 more good years.

Rampant piracy is the latest, strangest and by far the most lucrative survival technique employed by Somalia's desperate populace, which has struggled without a functioning government since 1991. Seizing boats on the high seas along this lawless Horn of Africa nation is turning once-quiet fishing villages such as Haradhere into Mafia-style dens of greed and vice.

As the men file out of the room, their wallets fat, they are swarmed by prostitutes, gin hawkers and peddlers of khat, a leaf that people chew for its amphetamine-like stimulant. Special bragging rights go to the young man who can blow through $2,000 in a single evening.

"One night I got $1,000 from a pirate," a prostitute from Djibouti said. "But the luckiest is to sleep with the group leader. You get $3,000."

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Somalia's Pirates Flourish in a Lawless Nation - Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times

This is the story of Somalia's booming, not-so-underground pirate economy. The country is in chaos, countless children are starving and people are killing one another in the streets of Mogadishu, the capital, for a handful of grain.

But one particular line of work - piracy - seems to be benefiting quite openly from all this lawlessness and desperation. This year, Somali officials say, pirate profits are on track to reach a record $50 million, all of it tax free.

"These guys are making a killing," said Mohamud Muse Hirsi, the top Somali official in Boosaaso, who himself is widely suspected of working with the pirates, though he vigorously denies it.

More at The New York Times.