A Very Short Review of an Important New Essay on the Vietnam War

By Colonel Gian P. Gentile

Historian Andrew J. Birtle has written a very important new essay in the current issue of the Journal of Military History* that I recommend as a must-read to Small Wars Journal readers, Council members and the greater reading public who pay attention to matters of history and current defense policy and actions. Of note the Journal of Military History is considered the flagship journal for American historians of military history. Its standards of scholarship are impeccable and it is a "peer-reviewed" scholarly journal; which means that anytime an essay is published in it the essay is anonymously reviewed by usually 3-4 other historians who are experts in a given field. Often times, proposed essays for the Journal that go through this peer-review process are rejected for publication if they do not meet standards of scholarship, originality, quality of argument, etc.

Andrew Birtle is one of the leading historians in the country on the history of American Army counterinsurgency doctrine and operations. He has two books out on the subject and his scholarly work has received very strong reviews by such noted counterinsurgency experts as Dr Conrad Crane (primary author of FM 3-24) and Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert Cassidy.

Birtle's essay, PROVN, Westmoreland, and the Historians: A Reappraisal is an in-depth historical analysis of the well known US report making recommendations for strategy and methods for the conduct of the Vietnam War written in 1966 titled A Program for the Pacification and Long-Term Development of South Vietnam. But Birtle's essay is more than just a close historical analysis of the PROVN report. As Birtle's title hints the essay directly and rightly refutes the abuse of the PROVN report by historians over the last thirty years.

Essentially Birtle's essay demolishes a deeply flawed historical caricature of the Vietnam War that historians like Guenther Levy, Andrew Krepinevich, and Lewis Sorley (among others) have constructed over the years. The flawed historical caricature can be reduced to a simple set of sentences (remember, what follows is the flawed caricature and not truth):

1. The United States Army did not have a Coin doctrine prior to Vietnam and had no clue how to do Coin either.

2. In 1965 General William Westmoreland did not understand classic counterinsurgency theory and was a knuckle dragging artilleryman who only wanted to fight the Normandy campaign again in the Central Highlands using search and destroy missions.

3. THE PROVN report proposed a radically different way that focused on Galula-style coin, but Westmoreland didn't "get it," dismissed it, and even covered PROVN up.

4. But then, after almost three long years under Westmoreland not getting it, the Coin Cavalry comes to the rescue under General Abrams who does get it, understands the secrets within PROVN, unlocks those secrets and deploys them.

5. Abrams, therefore, immediately brings about a radical change in approach and method from his predecessor Westmoreland by applying PROVN

6. Abrams was winning the war with his new approach and if the American people had not lost their will the war could have been won.

This, in its essence, is the FLAWED historical caricature that Birtle's essay finally and thankfully demolishes. What he convincingly shows in his essay is that Westmoreland's strategy was for the most part in line with the recommendations by PROVN; that PROVN acknowledged that before pacification could go forward the United States military in Vietnam had to continue its large scale conventional operations to defeat a real-world and substantial VC and NVA regular threat in South Vietnam. Westmoreland, in fact, agreed with most of PROVN's conclusions. The important point is that the in 65 Westmoreland and the US Army did understand classic counterinsurgency theory and practice and the strategy that Westmoreland came up with was a reasonable one.

Birtle also shows through meticulous historical research and documentation that when Abrams took over from Westmoreland in 68 he did not radically alter strategy at all; there was a shift in priority with Abrams toward pacification but that was primarily because Abrams could shift priorities after Tet in 68 when much of the South Vietnamese communist main force units were crushed. Arguably, if Westmoreland would have stayed in command through 1968 he would have done exactly what Abrams did.

Consider this quote from Birtle's essay that sums up quite well the essentials of his argument:

By putting PROVN in its proper historical context, we can better understand not just the document itself but the [Vietnam] war more generally. As we have seen, the assertion that there was fundamental difference between Westmoreland's strategy and that advocated by PROVN and implemented by Abrams is INCORRECT [caps mine]. Rather than representing antithetical concepts, Westmoreland's and Abrams's approaches to the conflict were cut of the same cloth, and we should not allow minor differences to mask this fundamental truth.

The truth about PROVN that Birtle brings out in his essay is especially important now as we try to understand the recent past of the Iraq War and where we are headed in the future. Since the flawed historical caricature of PROVN, Westmoreland, Abrams, and Vietnam is often deployed to argue as a juxtaposed historical case study of the purported extreme differences between the pre-Surge and Surge Army units in Iraq. The flawed caricature is deeply ingrained in the current Iraq War triumph-narrative. For example, Iraq War writer Tom Ricks has gone so far as to label a "pre-Surge" Army as a failure and a newly transformed "Surge" Army as successful in Iraq; just like the flawed caricature of Westmoreland being the "loser" and Abrams the savior in Vietnam.

So it is important now to decouple flawed understandings of the history of the Vietnam War from our current understanding of the Iraq War so that we can get at a more accurate assessment of what has happened in Iraq over the past 6 years to guide us into the future.

*The Journal of Military History does not offer open access to its articles on line; recommend those interested in reading it in is entirety go through a library source to get it.

Colonel Gian Gentile commanded 8-10 Cavalry armored reconnaissance squadron for three years until his posting to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He commanded his squadron during a deployment to western Baghdad in 2006.

Network Works to Help Interagency Crisis Response

By Fred W. Baker III

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2008 -- As a reserve affairs soldier serving in Iraq in 2005, Andy Castro saw a problem.

Fresh drinking water systems took too long to set up, there was little standardization, they produced poor water quality and often failed quickly for a lack of maintenance, he said.

So, Castro returned to the United States, quit his full-time job, worked with the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter to raise money, teamed with a handful of guys who could help him design a solution, and started a business called Alrafidane, an Arabic word meaning "between two rivers."

Today, in the Pentagon courtyard, Castro set up and demonstrated a system that he said can produce thousands of gallons of clean water every day, cheaply, quickly and reliably.

"It takes me 20 minutes to set up. I push the green button, and I walk away," Castro said. "It's designed to be simple. It's designed to be user-friendly, so anyone can operate it."

Castro is part of about a dozen companies gathered in the Pentagon courtyard for a STAR-TIDES research demonstration that runs through tomorrow.

STAR-TIDES stands for sustainable technologies, accelerated research - transportable infrastructures for development and emergency support. The program is headed by the National Defense University and serves as a worldwide network of defense leaders, educators, and technical experts and civic and industry executives who work to match experiences and technologies to aid relief efforts for people suffering in areas ravaged by war, disaster or poverty.

Today's U.S. national defense strategy calls for the Defense Department to work harder at working better with the civilian agencies with which it inevitably finds itself sharing battle space, either in combat or in humanitarian missions. Also, in recent years the U.S. military has taken a forward-leaning approach toward the use of its "soft power," or using humanitarian and other types of aid to build trust with other countries in hopes of preventing or shaping future conflicts.

"The reason why this is of interest to the military is we can't do it all ourselves," said Linton Wells II, distinguished research fellow and force transformation chair at the university. Wells leads the STAR-TIDES program. "We've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and in the tsunami and [Hurricane} Katrina -- that it has to be a partnership between business and government and civil stakeholders."

STAR-TIDES and its network hopes to provide solutions to make the civil organizations work more effectively, Wells said. And it hopes to help the military fit more seamlessly with the other organizations. STAR-TIDES also hopes to leverage technologies to lower the costs of rendering aid for both civilian and military organizations, Wells said.

One of the single greatest obstacles to overcome when several different agencies deploy to the same location is simply being able to communicate, said Brad Barker, president of The Halo Corp. Every agency operates its own specific types of radios, cell phones and computer networks, he said.

"Everybody's scratching their head going, 'What kind of connector or what kind of standard are you on?'" Barker said.

In the Pentagon courtyard, Barker rolled up what appeared to be a simple white trailer hitched to the back of a truck. In fact, it was a mobile wireless center that pulls a broadband signal from a satellite and connects the communications equipment of all agencies -- even military units -- operating in the area.

"Remember the old-school, downtown Mayberry operators? ... We're, in essence, doing that type of connectivity," Barker said.

The trailer has its own power source, provides Internet and phone service, and manages all of the radio frequencies within range.

"This unit comes into play after a man-made or natural disaster when all critical infrastructure is wiped out," Barker said. It also works in third-world countries that have no infrastructure, he said.

"It's a cell phone company. It's an [Internet service provider]. It's video surveillance, and it's all interoperable no matter what agency," Barker said. "All this thing has to do is be around. ... All you have to do is push to talk."

Remarkably, the system he has put together was not designed as a single system by defense contractors or corporate engineers. All of the components to the system can be bought off the shelf at electronics and computer stores, he said.

Solar Stik demonstrated a solar generator its makers said would replace the need for portable gas-powered generators in the field and eliminate the need for the logistics support to fuel and maintain the generators.

Solar panels charge battery packs that then store the power for when it is needed. This is more efficient and less costly, Brian Bosley, the company's chief operations officer said.

First, no fuel is needed, so there is no ongoing cost to keep the generators running. Also, a typical generator is capable of outputting much more energy than is required, yet it consumes the same amount fuel regardless.

"Nine times out of 10, the gas generator is not supplying all of its capable power to the connected appliances," Bosley said. "You may be using 10 to 20 percent."

Using the solar generators, only the energy required is drawn. The system stores the power and supplies it on demand. The system is rugged, can be air-dropped into remote locations, and is "plug-and-play," so set-up takes only minutes, Bosley said.

This is good for powering field medical clinics, emergency communications equipment, lighting and other requirements in an area where there is no electricity, he said.

Retired Army Col. Albert Zaccor, also with Solar Stik, said the system is maintenance free, self-sufficient and requires no logistics support.

"[The United States doesn't] want to give people systems ... that are going to demand a lot of follow-on support, because they are probably going to look to us for it," Zaccor said.

While the upfront cost for the solar generator is more than that for a gas generator, the savings is made up over time in fuel costs, Zaccor said. And taking U.S. servicemembers driving fuel trucks off of dangerous, bomb-ridden roads pays a much higher dividend than fuel cost savings, he noted.

"It's not just money. Think about every guy who is driving a fuel truck hitting an [improvised explosive device]," Zaccor said. "Every guy that we don't have in a fuel truck hitting an IED is one less casualty we have to worry about.

"We're not counting dimes, but we are counting lives," Zaccor said.

Related Site: STAR-TIDES

Related Article: Program Sets Shape for Future Humanitarian Operations

Pushes for Stronger International, Interagency Relationships

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2008 -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said last night he's struck by universal interest in bridging stronger ties with the United States in the roughly 50 countries he's visited since taking office, and that allowing the evolving U.S.-China relationship to unravel would be a huge strategic mistake.

Gates also offered assurance that the military has no interest in dominating in operations best left to other departments and nongovernmental agencies.

Responding to questions at the U.S. Institute of Peace's first Dean Acheson lecture, Gates called insights he's gained during meetings with his international counterparts one of his biggest surprises during his 22 months at the Pentagon.

"Every single one of these countries wants to have a better relationship with the United States, wants to have a stronger relationship, wants to increase our military-to-military relationships," he said following his address.

Gates said these countries view the United States as "the last, best hope."

"They want to have a better relationship with us, and we just have to open our arms and welcome them into that relationship," he said.

That acceptance extends to China, Gates said, noting progress in the U.S.-Sino defense relationship he insisted must continue.

"China is a competitor, but it is not necessarily an adversary," he said in response to a question from the audience. "We are increasing our military-to-military relationship with the Chinese, we have opened the strategic dialogue with them in terms of where they think they are headed and what are their worries about us.

"I think there is absolutely no reason in the world for China to be a strategic adversary to the United States," he said.

Gates conceded that the circumstances or politics in either country could reverse the positive trend lines and create an adversarial relationship. "And I think that would be a tragic mistake," he said.

Meanwhile, Gates assured a questioner that as he pushes for stronger coordination among the military, diplomatic and economic elements of U.S. national power, he doesn't see the military dominating in roles best assumed by others.

Gates referred to former U.N. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjí¶ld's assertion that "peacekeeping is not a soldier's job, but only a soldier can do it," and said the military is happy to relinquish nonmilitary responsibilities to organizations trained to conduct them.

He pointed to the provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, where, although the military is a big player due to the security situation, "there is never any question that the civilians in the PRT are leading the effort."

"The military really doesn't want to be in the lead in these areas," he said. "We have to have the military and the civilians working together, and the reality is in these PRTs, it is the civilians who are in charge, and it is the civilians who are leading the way. And I can tell you, that gives comfort to the military."

Link: U.S. Institute of Peace

Biography: Robert M. Gates

Related Article: Gates: U.S. Toolbox to Confront Threats Requires More Than 'Just Hammers'

As with other professions, journalism favors its own. Bill Murphy benefited from working for Bob Woodward, the reporter famous for persuading top Washington officials to divulge their secret yearnings along with nasty gossip about their peers during the Nixon administration.

Promising it will move the reader to tears, Woodward and other luminary journalists conferred celebrity status upon In A Time of War. Indeed, the concluding paragraphs in several chapters do stir grief--along with anger and frustration at the apparent stupidity of the mission in Iraq.

Although the book lacks a preface that explains the author's purpose, its subtitle is The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002. The book, however, is not about the class of 192 women and 1,054 men. Nor is it about the legacy and values of West Point. Instead, it is a description of a handful of lieutenants, how they fell in love, where they served and how their spouses bore up.

One is left with the image of savage combat against untrustworthy Iraqis in a frustrating war that exacted sacrifices equivalent in scale and loss to the Greatest Generation of World War II. Yet this war is less intense by orders of magnitude than Vietnam, and Vietnam was far less intense than World War II. Although this does not mitigate the sorrow or sacrifice of each family that lost a loved one, it is helpful to the reader when a nonfiction writer lays out his frame of reference...

Bill Murphy responds (also at Forbes) in Bing West Was Wrong About My Book.

Bing West deserves respect for his military service in Vietnam and for the passion of his commitment to Iraq. But he got so many basic facts wrong in his review of my new book that I have to set the record straight. Readers inclined to decide for themselves might start at www.inatimeofwar.com, where the first chapter of In a Time of War: The Proud & Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002 is available for free. You'll also a find a three-minute video that introduces some of the main characters.

I'll address the worst of West's factual errors in turn:

First, when West writes that two of the main characters in In a Time of War "were previously profiled in newspapers and books," he is almost certainly referring to a 2007 article in The Washington Post. Click the link, and you'll see a byline that reads: " By Bill Murphy Jr., Washington Post Foreign Service." (Yes, I'm that Bill Murphy Jr.) I wrote the profile about then-captain Drew Sloan after interviewing him many times over several years starting in the summer of 2005, and after I had shadowed him in Iraq for about four days. I did not, as West implies, simply pick up on somebody else's work.

A second main character, Todd Bryant, who gave the ultimate sacrifice for his country in Iraq, was not profiled in a major newspaper that I am aware of. However, he was one of several soldiers whose letters home were featured in a series of articles in The New York Times. I first learned about this from Todd's widow, Jen, in 2006, well into my reporting for this book. (For a transcript of part of the first long interview I did with Jen, click here, and go to the second page of the article.)...

Much more by West here and by Murphy here.

By John J. Kruzel

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15, 2008 -- The Army will activate its first company of native linguists-turned-soldiers next week to act as interpreters and translators, representing a new phase in the service's reinvigorated approach to foreign language.

This unit of "heritage speakers" -- known as the 51st Tico Company -- comprises members of the service's most recently added military occupational specialty, 09L, referred to as "09 Limas." In addition to holding the Army's newest job, this cadre of native linguists trained at Fort Irwin, Calif., also reflects a change in Army recruiting strategy.

"We've found it's easier to train a linguist to be a soldier than to train a soldier to be a linguist," said Army Brig. Gen. Richard C. Longo, director of training in the Army's Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Training.

Since cultivating a working knowledge of foreign language and culture is time- and labor-intensive, the Army is unable to "surge" a group of linguists in the same way it has in the past with combat troops. This is why when the Army was tasked by the Office of the Secretary of Defense in February 2003 to establish a pilot program that focused on recruiting native and heritage speakers of Arabic, Dari and Pashto to meet critical foreign language requirements, it launched 09L.

The program became an specialty three years later, and the Army now recruits speakers of Arabic, Kurdish, Dari, and Farsi, with hopes to expand to African languages in coordination with the recent standup of the U.S. Africa Command, Longo said.

About two-thirds of 09 Lima soldiers are legal permanent residents of the United States, with the remainder entering the program as U.S. citizens, according to the Army's Web site. In addition to receiving a signing bonus, these native speakers also are offered an expedited path to citizenship.

The 09L program is one of several initiatives the Army has created to help harness foreign language as part of its arsenal. To date, the service has narrowed down 14 "critical languages" --Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Korean, Swahili, French and others, in addition to those aforementioned -- and has a growing list of training programs to achieve broad proficiency.

Longo, who said he spends roughly half his time in his current post focusing on language, noted the Army hopes to provide rudimentary training to all soldiers. The programs will aim to instill a balance of linguistic and cultural training.

"If you speak the language, then you know what they're saying," Longo said at an Army roundtable earlier this month. "But if you know the culture, than you know what they mean."

Army Col. Sue Ann Sandusky, commandant of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, Calif., said that about 80,000 soldiers responded to a recent voluntary survey inquiring about language skills, and about 50,000 reported having some foreign language skill. Of these reported skills, the majority probably was referring to Spanish language, said Longo, adding that the statistics are immature at this point. Achieving a force-wide assessment of soldiers' foreign language skills is one of the current Army goals.

Meanwhile, the Army has increased the number of foreign area officers -- military officers with regional and linguistic expertise -- embedded in combatant commands, and the Defense Language Institute, or DLI, has doubled the number of Arabic students and tripled the enrollees of its Urdu program.

Among rank-and-file soldiers, about 178,000 have taken language lessons through the popular commercial supplier Rosetta Stone, and DLI has shipped a million language survival kits to troops overseas.

Linguistic training also is finding wider appeal on college campuses. Language curriculum is now mandatory coursework at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and universities that implement language training that intersects with the National Security Education Program can receive grants. A dozen schools already have received funding, and a dozen others are in the early phases of adopting the NSEP curriculum.

The Army estimates that roughly 60 percent of all West Point cadets will take at least one semester of a foreign language. About half of the cadets currently enrolled in language training have completed a semester of a critical language. As of August, cadets who participate in these programs can earn up to $100 to $250 extra per month.

The Army also has taken advantage of melding language with emerging technology. Using a portable music player, soldiers can listen to their proficiency enhancement program almost anywhere at any time. And at DLI, classroom sizes have been slashed, allowing professors to pay greater attention to students, with an average of about six per class. The general force also can receive tuition assistance -- a separate benefit from their GI Bill education incentives -- to further their own foreign language skills, Longo said.

The Defense Department is one of many federal agencies working with Congress and the White House on spearheading linguistic initiatives. This broad, cooperative effort underscores the increasingly prominent role language skills play in U.S. missions at home and abroad.

"Deficits in foreign language learning and teaching negatively affect our national security, diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence communities and cultural understanding," a National Security Language Initiative fact sheet on the State Department Web site says. "The NSLI will dramatically increase the number of Americans learning critical need foreign languages ... through new and expanded programs from kindergarten through university and into the work force."

Related Sites:

Description of 09L Interpreter/Translator Military Occupational Specialty

Fight Club by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Monthly book reviews

In the latest Washington Monthly - Washington Post military correspondent Tom Ricks (Fiasco) reviews two recent additions to the war in Iraq library - Warrior King: The Triumph and Betrayal of an American Commander in Iraq by Nathan Sassaman, with Joe Layden and Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story by Ricardo S. Sanchez, with Donald T. Phillips.

On Warrior King:

About eighteen months ago, the US Army produced an important new manual on counterinsurgency that, when implemented last year in Iraq, helped American troops greatly improve the security situation there. Retired lieutenant colonel Nathan Sassaman's recent memoir, Warrior King, is the mirror opposite of that document - it is, effectively, the anti-manual. And it should be required reading for anyone who is deploying to the war in Iraq, or who wants to know how we dug so deep a hole there in 2003 and 2004.

Warrior King is a blueprint for how to lose in Iraq. Of course, that's not how it is presented by Sassaman, who commanded a battalion of the 4th Infantry Division in the Sunni Triangle during the war's first year. (Full disclosure: I am mentioned, neutrally, in the book.) In Sassaman's mind, he's a winner who understood that prevailing in Iraq meant breaking some furniture. A former West Point quarterback, he tended to see the civilian population not as the prize in the war, but as the playing field on which to pound the enemy...

On Wiser in Battle:

A companion volume to Sassaman's is retired Army lieutenant general Ricardo Sanchez's Wiser in Battle, a defense of his time as the US commander in Iraq in 2003--04. He is scathing in his criticism of the Bush administration, but about two years too late to be newsworthy, since it is now widely accepted that the handling of the war from 2003 through 2005 was a fiasco.

Sanchez's volume is another report from the old, pre-"surge" US Army that never really understood what it was doing in Iraq and believed that whatever the problem, the answer probably was more firepower. (I'm also mentioned in Sanchez's book - negatively, as supposedly emblematic of an incompetent and biased media in Iraq.) Sanchez is, however, more self-aware than Sassaman. He has a clearer understanding of what went wrong during his time in Iraq. Most notably, he doesn't just blame civilian leaders, and sees that his army was part of the problem.

Even so, he doesn't really get it either. Sassaman writes, "Force was the only thing that seemed to work ... the only thing the Iraqis seemed to understand." Sanchez comes to a similarly wrongheaded conclusion: "Force seemed to be one of the few things that Iraqi insurgents clearly understood." But these are the voices of ignorance. Neither man seems to understand that when force is the only way American forces can communicate, it will be the only thing Iraqis will hear...

Much more on both books at Washington Monthly.

Future Face of Conflict: The U.S. Army's Doctrinal Renaissance by Jack Kem

This month's release of Field Manual 3-07, "Stability Operations," marks a milestone for the United States Army. With it, the Army acknowledges and codifies a dramatic change in thinking: No longer does the mission of the military stop at winning wars; now it must also help "win the peace." ...

Stability operations have a precise doctrinal definition, and differ from traditional warfighting concepts of offensive and defensive operations, which emphasize the use of lethal combat power against an enemy force. Stability operations instead focus on providing a foundation for conflict transformation. The emphasis is on reestablishing security and control so as to enable other instruments of national power (diplomatic, information, and economic means) to facilitate transition to civilian control by the host nation. They involve a variety of military missions and tasks, and are conducted in coordination with civil instruments of national power to "maintain or reestablish a safe and secure environment, provide essential governmental services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief."

For the Army, offensive and defensive operations rely on the destructive capabilities of military forces; stability operations rely on the constructive capabilities of the military. The reality of today's operational environment is that these actions take place simultaneously; what you break and destroy today, you may have to rebuild tomorrow...

Future Face of Conflict: Human Terrain Teams by Paul McLeary

... For a variety of reasons -- cultural, political, and economic -- the American armed forces have become all things to all people in the prosecution of American foreign policy. There is the obvious deterrent component that a globally-dispersed American force projects. But even when it comes to humanitarian missions, reconstruction projects, and low-level cultural outreach in the more dangerous corners of the world, you'll likely find a mix of soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen working on the problem before you'll find a member of the State Department.

And this is where the Human Terrain Teams come in. Or at least that's the long-term plan. Right now, the teams are wholly focused on extricating American forces from the tribal stews of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Montgomery McFate, one of the architects of the $130 million program and senior social science adviser to the Army Human Terrain System (HTS), says that in the early days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, "nobody was looking" at cultural issues. When units rotated out, there would be a tremendous loss of knowledge concerning the complex tribal and cultural webs these societies represent. "People would come back with information in their head and shoe boxes full of CDs, Power Point slides, sticky note cards, and they really [had] nobody to give that information to," McFate explained. "And so much of it was tacit, it was in their head."

This loss of knowledge upon unit rotation meant that the unit rotating in "knew they needed to know something but they didn't know what they needed to know, so they'd get close to an answer but they couldn't find the answer."

The HTTs -- which were stood up in Afghanistan in February 2007 and in Iraq in August of the same year -- are tasked out at brigade level, meaning that they're out in the field with the grunts and the young lieutenants, captains and lieutenant colonels...

Weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, a small team of Green Berets was quietly sent to the Philippine island of Basilan. There, one of the world's most virulent Islamic extremist groups, Abu Sayyaf, had established a dangerous haven and was seeking to extend its reach into the Philippine capital.

But rather than unleashing Hollywood-style raids, as might befit their reputation, the Green Berets proposed a time-consuming plan to help the Philippine military take on the extremist group itself. Seven years later, Abu Sayyaf has been pushed out of Basilan and terrorist attacks have dropped dramatically.

"It's not flashy, it's not glamorous, but man, this is how we're going to win the long war," said Lt. Gen. David P. Fridovich, the Army officer who designed the Philippine program.

Fridovich is part of a quiet but significant transformation taking place within the most secret of the US military's armed forces, the Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, which encompasses the Green Berets, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Delta Force and similar units from the Air Force and the Marines...

Much more at The Los Angeles Times.