American's armed forces are growing bigger to reduce the strains from seven years of war, but if the US is confronting an era of "persistent conflict," as some experts believe, it will need an even bigger military.

A larger military could more easily conduct military and nation-building operations around the world. But whether the American public has the appetite to pursue and pay for such a foreign-policy agenda, especially after more than five years of an unpopular war in Iraq, is far from clear.

Last week, the Army released a new manual on "stability operations" that outlines for the Army a prominent global role as a nation-builder. The service will maintain its ability to fight conventional land wars, but the manual's release signals that it expects future conflicts to look more like Iraq or Afghanistan than World War II. While Defense Secretary Robert Gates has not publicly supported expanding the force beyond what is already planned, he has said the United States must prepare for more counterinsurgency wars like the ones it is fighting now - a hint that a larger military may be necessary.

Some analysts are certain of that need...

Much more at The Christian Science Monitor.

Kidnapping and other forms of terrorist violence have developed into a significant form of asymmetric conflict, according to a new US Army manual (pdf) that describes the theory and practice of kidnapping with numerous case studies from recent years.

"This document promotes an improved understanding of terrorist objectives, motivation, and behaviors in the conduct of kidnapping," the 168 page manual states...

Manual Has Terrorist Kidnapping Theories - United Press International

A US Army manual has incorporated evidence from case studies on terrorist organizations that use kidnapping as a threat tactic.

The Army counter-terrorism instructional series titled "A Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century" now features theories on kidnapping and other asymmetric warfare tactics deployed by terrorists and other militants, Secrecy News reported.

The section of the manual titled "Kidnapping and Terror in the Contemporary Operational Environment" is written for official use only. However, officials at Secrecy News, a Federation of American Scientists project on government secrecy, obtained a copy....

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter R. Mansoor, Yale University Press, 2008, 376 pgs, $28.00.

Before the Surge, and After - Mark Moyar, Wall Street Journal book review

... When Gen. David Petraeus set out to rescue a seemingly hopeless Iraq in February 2007, he brought Col. Mansoor back to Iraq and into his inner circle. Like Gen. Petraeus, Col. Mansoor was a scholar as well as a soldier, having earned a doctorate in military history and written a book about World War II before leading the 1st Brigade Combat Team against Iraq's insurgency.

Thus in "Baghdad at Sunrise," Col. Mansoor displays the knowledge of a soldier alongside the narrative gifts of a true historian, weaving dramatic events together, capturing the thoughts and emotions of street-level fighters, and describing Iraqi society as it tries to emerge from the maelstrom of war.

The war was certainly grim during Col. Mansoor's first tour, in part because the Iraqis were only just learning to fight the insurgency themselves. In April 2004, Col. Mansoor's brigade received orders to escort 200 Iraqi soldiers from Baghdad to Fallujah, where the butchering of four Blackwater contractors had sparked the war's fiercest fighting...

Much more at The Wall Street Journal.

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy, Henry Holt and Co., 2008, 384 pgs, $27.50

The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.

Today's Long Gray Line - Andrew Exum, Washington Post book review

... One constant through the years, however, has been the unique fraternity of officers produced by our nation's military academies. Each summer, some 1,200 cadets enter the US Military Academy at West Point; after four years of arduous training, about 1,000 graduate and are commissioned as junior officers in the army. Amid this perpetual rhythm, the graduating class of 2002 stood out in two ways: Its graduation coincided with the 200th anniversary of West Point's founding, ensuring extra attention for its members, nicknamed the "golden children." And the class of 2002 was the first since Vietnam to emerge, as President Bush noted in his commencement address, "in a time of war." Bill Murphy Jr. takes that phrase as the title for his group portrait, which he assembled from hundreds of interviews with members of the class and those with whom they served in combat.

The story Murphy has written is alternately inspiring and heartbreaking. It's inspiring because the US military continues to attract some of the nation's brightest talent, accomplished young men and women who yearn to serve their country in difficult circumstances. (If the class of 2002 was valorous for leaving West Point at a time of war, one wonders, what about the class of 2006, which entered at a time of war?)...

Much more at The Washington Post.

Hat tip to Charlie at Abu Muqawama.

Mahmoudiya, a town south of Baghdad, was part of the area long known as the "Triangle of Death" because of the extraordinary number of Sunni insurgent attacks against coalition forces and Iraqi civilians it suffered -- often half a dozen daily in 2006. Today, with violence down to only a few ineffective attacks in any given week, it has earned the moniker "Triangle of Love."

The progress there is due in part to the new US strategy. It involved living among the local population to break the hold of the insurgents and now focuses more on partnering and empowering local Iraqi forces than depending on US troops to target and capture enemies.

This switch in Mahmoudiya has spurred economic growth in the area and sheds light on how to manage a drawdown of US forces without sacrificing the hard-won security gains of the past 18 months.

It's clear that the ultimate success of our counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq requires not just a reduction in all types of enemy activity, but also an increase in the capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces and the local governing councils...

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

3 BCT - 101st Airborne Division (AASLT) - Rakkasans - Transition Task Force Brief

Here's a free piece of advice to President Barack Obama or President John McCain: There's no need to look for a new secretary of defense. You already have the best man in the job.

The Obama campaign in particular seems to have noticed the virtues of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. It's a little head-spinning to see senior Democrats lauding a Bush cabinet officer in the heat of the campaign, but earlier this month, Richard Danzig, the former Navy secretary who has become one of Obama's closest national security aides, said that many of Gates's pragmatic policies at the Pentagon "are things that Senator Obama agrees with and I agree with." Danzig added that Gates could do "even better" if he stayed on the job in an Obama administration.

The case for Gates goes beyond the obvious question of assisting the next president in handling Iraq, which Gates has helped haul back from the brink of total collapse. But he has also been instrumental in launching a sweeping revolution in US national security...

Much more at The Washington Post.

Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor

This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.

The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West

From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson

After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key U.S. and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War's endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward

Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.

We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy

The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.

Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz

Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post--Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem "developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework." He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America's worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America's role in the world, Dr. Metz's important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.

This April, 1962 symposium was held at a time when Kennedy Administration officials were focusing increasingly on the growing communist insurgency in Vietnam and on the verge of radically expanding the numbers, roles, and types of US military forces in that country. The purpose of the symposium was to distill lessons and insights from past insurgent conflicts that might help to inform and shape the US involvement in Vietnam and to foster the effective prosecution of other future counterinsurgency campaigns.

To gather these lessons and insights, Rand brought to the same conference table twelve US and allied officers and civilian officials who had expertise and a proven record of success in some aspects of guerrilla or counterinsurgency warfare. As their biographies will testify, the accomplishments and backgrounds of the symposium's formal participants gave their views significant credibility. Each participant could claim firsthand experience with guerrilla or counterinsurgent operations in one or more of the following post-World War II conflicts: Algeria, China, Greece, Kenya, Laos, Malaya, Oman, South Vietnam, and the Philippines. Three of the participants had led or operated with anti-Japanese guerrilla or guerrilla-type units in Burma and the Philippines during World War II.

During five days of meetings, the participants exchanged views on a wide spectrum of topics relating to the political, military, economic, intelligence, and psychological measures required to defeat insurgencies. Convinced that the fundamental verities of effective counterinsurgency policy and practice that were elucidated by the participants remain as valid today as they were 44 years ago, Rand decided to republish the symposium proceedings.

Among the insights that emerged from the discussions, the reader will find a number of counterinsurgency best practices that seem especially germane to the insurgency challenges confronted today by the United States and its allies.

Formal Participants

Charles T.R. Bohannan, Lieutenant Colonel, AUS-Ret.

Wendell W. Fertig, Colonel, USA-Ret.

David Galula, Lieutenant Colonel (French Marine Corps)

Anthony S. Jeapes, Captain (British Army)

Frank E. Kitson, MBE, MC, Lieutenant Colonel (British Army)

Edward Geary Lansdale, Brigadier General, USAF

Rufus C. Phillips, III

David Leonard Powell-Jones, DSO, OBEY Brigadier General (British Army)

John R. Shirley, OBE, Colonel (British Army-Ret.)

Napoleon D. Valeriano, Colonel (formerly with the Armed Forces of the Philippines)

John F. White, Colonel (Royal Australian Army)

Samuel V. Wilson, Lieutenant Colonel, USA

Counterinsurgency: A Symposium, April 16-20, 1962 - Rand report.

While military operations may neutralize immediate "kinetic" threats, enduring change comes from stabilizing the unstable and building capacity to self-govern where there is none. Security, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, and development are critical for ultimate democratization, but more importantly, for peace and security locally and globally. Without competent and comprehensive engagement in these areas of "soft power," tactical "hard power" operations are simply a waste of time, money, and life.

This week the US Army released a new field manual, FM 3-07 Stability Operations, to adapt the military to these requirements of the modern age. The manual "represents a milestone in Army doctrine," writes LTG Bill Caldwell in the foreword.

It is a roadmap from conflict to peace, a practical guidebook for adaptive, creative leadership at a critical time in our history. It institutionalizes the hard-won lessons of the past while charting a path for tomorrow. This manual postures our military forces for the challenges of an uncertain future, an era of persistent conflict where the unflagging bravery of our Soldiers will continue to carry the banner of freedom, hope, and opportunity to the people of the world.

FM 3-07 elevates capacity-building to be co-equal with traditional offensive and defensive military operations of Big Army. This doctrinal shift is not new, but also found in the updated Operations Manual for the Army, FM 3-0, Caldwell also oversaw earlier this year.

This field manual is more than a revision to Army thinking and training of future officers. It is a linchpin in effective global engagement by the United States.

Much more at MountainRunner.

The White House has launched an urgent review of Afghanistan policy, fast-tracked for completion in the next several weeks, amid growing concern that the administration lacks a comprehensive strategy for the foundering war there and as intelligence officials warn of a rapidly worsening situation on the ground.

Underlying the deliberations is a nearly completed National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan and the Pakistan-based extremists fighting there. Analysts have concluded that reconstituted elements of al-Qaeda and the resurgent Taliban are collaborating with an expanding network of militant groups, making the counterinsurgency war infinitely more complicated.

As the US presidential election approaches, senior officials have expressed worry that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is so tenuous that it may fall apart while a new set of US policymakers settles in. Others believe a more comprehensive, airtight road map for the way ahead would limit the new president's options.

Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, President Bush's senior adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, has told Pentagon, intelligence and State Department officials to return to the basic questions: What are our objectives in Afghanistan? What can we hope to achieve? What are our resources? What is our allies' role? What do we know about the enemy? How likely is it that weak Afghan and Pakistani governments will rise to the occasion?

More at The Washington Post.

US Study Is Said to Warn of Crisis in Afghanistan - Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, New York Times

A draft report by American intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a "downward spiral" and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there, according to American officials familiar with the document.

The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence by militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan.

The report, a nearly completed version of a National Intelligence Estimate, is set to be finished after the November elections and will be the most comprehensive American assessment in years on the situation in Afghanistan. Its conclusions represent a harsh verdict on decision-making in the Bush administration, which in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made Afghanistan the central focus of a global campaign against terrorism.

Beyond the cross-border attacks launched by militants in neighboring Pakistan, the intelligence report asserts that many of Afghanistan's most vexing problems are of the country's own making, the officials said.

More at The New York Times.

Gates Seeks European Troops for Afghanistan - Peter Finn, Washington Post

US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Wednesday asked defense ministers from southeastern Europe to send more troops to Afghanistan, a message that he is likely to forcefully echo at a meeting with other NATO defense officials this week.

"As the situation on the ground in Iraq continues to improve, I urge you to consider sending your military forces to Afghanistan, where there is an urgent need for trainers as they expand their army," Gates said at a meeting of the South-Eastern Europe Defense Ministerial, a 12-member organization composed of NATO members and countries such as Macedonia that want to join the military alliance.

More at the Washington Post and New York Times.

No Afghan-Taliban Peace Talks, For Now - Anand Gopal, Christian Science Monitor

The Taliban are not engaged in peace talks with the Afghan government, despite recent reports to the contrary, say sources close to the insurgents and the government.

Instead, meetings held last month in Saudi Arabia - which brought former Taliban officials together with members of the Afghan and Saudi governments - may be an attempt by Kabul to start negotiations with the current Taliban.

"The meetings signal that the Afghan government is weak and is desperate for a solution," says Waheed Muzhda, a political analyst in Kabul and former official in the Taliban government.

They've come at a time when the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan is reaching unprecedented heights, causing some analysts to doubt that the militants will be interested in making peace.

Moreover, the former Taliban members who participated in the Mecca meetings may not have much sway in persuading current militants to come to the table. "These people don't represent the Taliban," Mr. Muzhda says. "Most of the people have almost no standing with the current Taliban leadership."

More at The Christian Science Monitor.