As we consider requirements for advisors in the future I think it is important to look at the doctrinal missions of the US military both past and present and see if there is anything that is relevant to the future of advisory operations.

While most are agreement that the advisor mission is critically important in Iraq and Afghanistan I think it is important to consider the current missions there as well as those both currently outside of OIF and OEF and what we forecast might happen in the future.

I think the most important assumption we have to consider is whether we are likely to be faced with future situations such as Iraq and Afghanistan where we completely depose totalitarian governments, destroy or disband all indigenous security forces as well as the government bureaucracies and are forced to rebuild a nation virtually from scratch. If you see this in our future then I recommend that you pay attention to Dr Nagl's writings and how he believes the Army should organize for the future.

If you do not believe that is a likely scenario then there are two others that must be considered. First is how we will organize for continued operations in Iraq after US combat forces begin to draw down as well as how to organize to deal with the challenges in Afghanistan. Second is how the US will engage throughout the world after OEF and OIF transition to supporting operations that require a minimal presence of US combat and general purpose forces. For the second and third scenarios I believe there is historical doctrine that would be a useful starting point to develop organizations to support our friends, partners and allies in their quest to bring stability and security to their countries and in particular ungoverned and under governed spaces within their sovereign territories. In addition these sovereign nations may need and request assistance in dealing with trans-national threats as well.

Many will say that Special Forces is the force of choice to conduct advisory operations and provide support to counter-insurgencies because of its Foreign Internal Defense (FID) mission. Many will also argue that because FID is a SOF/SF mission that the General Purpose Forces need a new mission to define what it is they are now doing. These have taken various names recently such as Security Force Assistance (SFA), Train, Advise, and Assist (TAA), and Stability Operations, just to name a few. And of course many will say (and I strongly concur) that there is not enough SF/SOF to conduct all the advisory and training requirements in OIF and OEF. But I think it is important to debunk a couple of myths about Special Forces.

First, although FID is a Title 10 SOF core mission by Joint doctrine all Services have the responsibility to provide trained forces for the conduct of or support to FID (I think I have mentioned this a time or two before on SWJ). It is not an exclusive SOF or even SF mission. Whether units choose to add it to add it to their Mission Essential Task List is a function of their mission analysis but the fact is FID is not a SOF exclusive mission.

For reference here is an excerpt from Joint Pub 3-0 (change 1 dated 13 FEB 2008)

(2) FID programs encompass the diplomatic, economic, informational, and military support provided to another nation to assist its fight against subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency. US military support to FID should focus on the operational assistance to HN personnel and collaborative planning with OGAs, IGOs, NGOs, and HN authorities to anticipate, preclude, and counter these threats. FID supports HN internal defense and development (IDAD) programs. US military involvement in FID has traditionally been focused on helping a nation defeat an organized movement attempting to overthrow its lawful government. US FID programs may address other threats to the internal stability of an HN, such as civil disorder, illicit drug trafficking, and terrorism. These threats may, in fact, predominate in the future as traditional power centers shift, suppressed cultural and ethnic rivalries surface, and the economic incentives of illegal drug trafficking continue. US military support to FID may include training, materiel, advice, or other assistance, including direct support operations as authorized by the SecDef and combat operations as authorized by the President, to HN forces in executing an IDAD program. While FID is a legislatively mandated core task of SOF, conventional forces also contain and employ organic capabilities to conduct limited FID.

For further guidance on FID, refer to JP 3-07.1, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Foreign Internal Defense. For further guidance on SOF involvement in FID, refer to JP 3-05, Doctrine for Joint Special Operations, and JP 3-05.1, Joint Special Operations Task Force Operations.

From Joint Pub 3-07.1 (dated 30 April 2004):

a. Commensurate with US policy goals, the focus of all US foreign internal defense (FID) efforts is to support the host nation's (HN's) program of internal defense and

development (IDAD). These national programs are designed to free and protect a nation from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency by emphasizing the building of viable institutions that respond to the needs of society. The most significant manifestation of these needs is likely to be economic, social, informational, or political; therefore, these needs should prescribe the principal focus of US efforts. The United States seeks to promote the growth of freedom, democratic institutions, and fair and open international trade. We also support the security, stability, and well-being of our allies and other nations friendly to our interests. The United States will generally employ a mix of diplomatic, economic, informational, and military instruments of national power in support of these objectives. As part of this effort, friendly nations facing threats to their internal security may receive intelligence, materiel, and training assistance from the United States. It is through FID, as an important element of US foreign policy, that this needed assistance is provided. FID is the participation by civilian and military agencies of a government in any of the action programs taken by another government or other designated organization, to free and protect its society from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency.

I think the last sentence sums up what we need to be able to do in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as with our friends, partners, and allies around the world who face complex threats.

Many have said that SF is engaged solely in Direct Action (DA) operations in OIF and OEF. That is not the case. The truth is they are engaged in enabling host nation forces in conducting direct action operations in defense of their country. This is the essence of the SF operations whether in FID or Unconventional Warfare (UW) -- the ability to work "through, by, and with" indigenous forces to contribute to accomplishing US strategic objectives. It is what SF has always been focused on. While everyone has their snapshot in time of their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan the facts are that US SF have rarely conducted a unilateral DA mission since April 2007 in Afghanistan and January 2006 in Iraq. Yes, there was a large requirement for SF unilateral or direct action operations when there were no viable security forces with which to partner in Iraq and Afghanistan but today nearly all SF operations are partnered operations. Again, as we know, the breadth of the advisory mission is beyond the capability of SF to conduct entirely on its own. However, here are a few more facts for your consideration; most important is to note that SF remains engaged around the world in advisory missions.

While SF continues to support the main effort in CENTCOM with the bulk of our forces (4 active duty SF groups doing a 7 month in country and 5 month out rotation, with a battalion being taken out of the rotation 18-24 months -- and the last SF group rotates battalions to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the Philippines -- one is in Iraq now and one is in the Philippines) SF continues to conduct FID missions around the world. In fact SF directly supports six named operations worldwide plus ARSOF (SF and Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations forces) provides other support to some 30 US country teams and MILGRPs/JUSMAGs. Right now, including operations in Iraq and Afghanistan SF ODAs are partnered with some 97 battalion level equivalent infantry, commando, or national level CT forces in 23 countries around the world on a near permanent basis. When all the annual theater security cooperation plan (TSCP) events are added in the number of battalion level equivalent forces that SF is training and advising doubles to nearly 200 in 57 countries (considering there are only 270 active duty ODAs ("A Teams") in the force that is a pretty efficient usage). (SF will grow by a battalion annually between now and 2014) Note also that in that 5 months out of OIF/OEF those groups are deploying ODAs to their assigned region of the world conducting TSCP events as well as conducting advanced schooling, and then conducting 6 weeks of pre-mission training (PMT) before they deploy back to OIF/OEF for another 7 months (and of course trying to take some leave in that time as well).

Again, I think we all can agree that we need an advisor capability beyond what SF can provide as we execute OIF and OEF but I would like to ensure that the facts about the contribution SF is making and the fact that SF is not conducting unilateral direct action missions except in very rare instances is understood. A lot of people like to speak for SF but I think it is important that ground truth is laid out there for everyone's situational awareness.

As stated up front I think it is useful to look to the past as a start point for how we might organize for the future. If we are interested in designing organizations I suggest looking to our history. The below is an excerpt from the 1963 FM U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Forces. The organization below was virtually repeated in 1981 FM 100-20 Low Intensity Conflict with the exception that the Special Action Force (SAF) was renamed the Security Assistance Force (SAF). As we look beyond the scope of OIF and OEF requirements and if we think they are going to be beyond the capability of Special Forces then I suggest we consider adapting from (rather than creating something new) the below organizations.

Note also that it outlines much of what Bob Killebrew argues for in regards to MAAGs (of which I fully agree with Bob).

I wrote about this indirectly in monograph in 1995-96 as an organization for how we might support UN operations as well as COIN. I also wrote about this in a thesis I wrote in 1994-95 "Special Forces Missions: A Return to the Roots for a Vision of the Future." I mention this because of course back then COIN was not regarded as important and few paid any attention despite the ongoing conflicts in the Balkans and in lesser locales around the world.

Below is the excerpt that I mention. Chapter 4 and 5 go into some detail on the responsibilities for organic units of most all disciplines in the Army from Infantry and Special Forces to Military Police, Engineers, Military Intelligence, Medical and Aviation just to name a few as well as the back-up combat and combat support units required for successful COIN. I think that the 1963 doctrine (or at least the 1981 version of the Low Intensity Conflict manual (FM 100-20) is at least a start point with the Special Action Force (SAF -- 1963) or Security Assistance Force (SAF--1981).

And one final point. We have many soldiers who are not SF conducting outstanding advisory assistance missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US Soldier, Sailor, Airmen and Marine are all quite capable of conducting advisory assistance and as per FID doctrine they need to be able to do it. The issue, as Dr. Nagl correctly points out is how to best organize the forces to conduct COIN and advisory assistance missions. I would offer the below historical doctrine offers a point of departure for developing such organizations. Rather than reinventing the wheel let's see if we just can change the tire and update it to current requirements. And of course the rice bowls can be heard breaking if one ever considers subordinating General Purposes Forces to SOF/SF.

Part Two - Responsibilities and Organization

Chapter 3 - U.S. and Indigenous Counterinsurgency Forces

Section I.

20. Purpose

This chapter delineates Army responsibilities and describes the organization and functions of elements of the U.S. Army for counterinsurgency operations. It includes an explanation of the relationships of U.S. Army Counterinsurgency Forces to MAAG's/Missions and other joint or unified commands and the indigenous forces being supported.

21. Army Organization

a. The counterinsurgency role assigned the U.S. Army by the Joint Chiefs of Staff includes the following:

(1) Organize, equip, and provide army forces for joint counterinsurgency operations and for support of country counterinsurgency programs.

(2) Develop, in coordination with the other services, the doctrine, tactics, procedures, techniques, and equipment employed by the Army and the Marine Corps ground forces in counterinsurgency operations. The Army shall have primary interest in the development of counterinsurgency doctrine, procedures, tactics, techniques, and equipment which are employed by the Army and the Marine Corps, but excluding related doctrines, tactics, techniques, and equipment as are employed primarily by landing forces, in amphibious operations for counterinsurgency purposes, for which the Marine Corps shall have primary interest.

(3) Develop language trained and area oriented United States Army forces as necessary for possible employment in training, or providing operational ad- vice or operational support to indigenous security forces.

b. Structurally, the U.S. Army has three tiers of forces upon which the commanders of unified commands, the chief^ of MAAG's/Missions, or in some cases the army attaches, as appropriate, may draw to support or conduct counterinsurgency operations. In the majority of cases, the U.S. elements described below will be employed in an advisory/training role to indigenous forces.

(1) The first tier consists of U.S. Army Special Action Forces (SAF) developed by the Army to support commanders of unified commands. These forces, strategically located, can be provided with trained replacements from a Base Special Action Force in the Continental United States (CONUS).

(2) The second tier is composed of over-seas general purpose TOE units, to include brigade-size backup forces consisting of infantry, armor, armored cavalry, artillery, engineer, psychological warfare, signal, civil affairs, intelligence, military police, aviation, Army Security Agency, medical, and essential support units, which have been designated as back- up forces for the SAF's. Area-oriented, partially language and fully counterinsurgency trained, these backup forces-provide mobile training teams and operational units of sizes and capabilities consistent with mission requirements. Generally, their elements are committed when the capabilities of the MAAG/Mission and/or the SAF are exceeded by the requirements of the country concerned.

(3) The third tier consists of CONUS-based U.S. Army forces, including the base SAF which serves as a rotational base for deployed elements. In consonance with contingency planning, area-oriented and counterinsurgency trained brigade-size backup forces are designated for employment in specific areas as required to assist in pre- venting or defeating insurgency. The third tier satisfies requirements that exceed those of the first and second tiers.

Section II. The Special Action Force (SAF)

22. General

The SAF is a specially trained, area-oriented, partially language-qualified, ready force, avail- able to the commander of a unified command for the support of cold, limited and general war operations. SAF organizations may vary in size and capabilities according to theater requirements.

23. Organization

A SAF consists of a special forces group and selected detachments, which may include civil affairs, psychological warfare, engineer, medical, intelligence, military police, and Army Security Agency detachments. Within the SAF, most of the capabilities of the army as a whole are represented on a small scale in a form specifically designed for counterinsurgency operations. Elements of the SAF are deployed as an advisory/training task 'force to a host country in accordance with requirements stated in the country internal defense plan or to meet the exigencies of an escalading insurgency situation.

24. Command/Control

The organization of the special forces (SF) group is provided with a flexible command and control system which facilitates administration, logistical support and, as required, operations of all elements in the SAF. The SF group headquarters, and the SF operational detachments B and C, each possessing a unit staff, plan and conduct operations as directed within their capabilities. The SAF is commanded by the SF group commander who in turn may be regarded by the commander of the unified command or army component command as his senior counterinsurgency specialist. The SAF augmentation elements, when employed in support of SAF activities, will be either in the SAF chain of command or directly under the MAAG. The establishment of a Special Forces Operational Base (SFOB) with its attendant communications center facilitates operational control of the widely dispersed subordinate elements of the SAF.

25. Characteristics of SAF

a. The SAF is specially trained and specifically available for special warfare missions including unconventional warfare, psychological and counterinsurgency operations. It is area- oriented and partially language trained.

b. It is maintained in a state of operational readiness.

c. Its members are prepared, from the standpoint of training and psychology, to work in remote areas with foreign personnel, including primitive groups, under conditions of relative hardship and danger.

d. It provides a pool of resources from which training assistance and operating teams and forces can be combined on a task force basis to meet the widely varying requirements of counterinsurgency operations.

e. It represents a regional repository of experience in counterinsurgency operations.

f. See FM 31-22A.

Colonel David S. Maxwell, U.S. Army, is a Special Forces officer with command and staff assignments in Korea, Japan, Germany, the Philippines, and CONUS, and is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth and the National War College of the National Defense University. The opinions he expresses in this paper are his own and do not represent any US Government, Department of Defense, or US Army Special Operations Command positions.

The Army's growth plans and the demands of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are contributing to a shortfall of thousands of majors, critical mid-level officers whose ranks are not expected to be replenished for five years, according to Army data and a recent officers survey.

Majors plan and direct day-to-day military operations for Army battalions, the units primarily responsible for waging the counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Throughout the Army, majors fill key roles as senior staff members, putting together war plans, managing personnel and coordinating logistics.

The gap in majors represents about half of the Army's current shortage of more than 4,000 officers, and officials say there are no easy solutions to the deficit. "We need more officers, and we are pulling every lever we can," said Col. Paul Aswell, chief of the Army's personnel division for officers.

The Army's plan to expand its ranks by 65,000 active-duty soldiers by 2012 - to a total active-duty force of 547,000 - is increasing the service's demand for captains and majors. The Army is currently about 15 percent short of its goal of 15,700 majors, and the gap is expected to surpass 20 percent in 2012, according to Army data...

Much more at the Washington Post.

Russia's victorious military blitz into the former Soviet republic of Georgia brought something old and something new - but none of it was impromptu, despite appearances that a long-frozen conflict had suddenly turned hot.

The Russian military borrowed a page from classic Soviet-era doctrine: Moscow's commanders sent an absolutely overwhelming force into Georgia. It was never going to be an even fight, and the outcome was predictable, if not preordained.

At the same time, the Russian military picked up what is new from the latest in military thinking, including American military writings about the art of war, replete with the hard-learned lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan.

So along with the old-school onslaught of infantry, armor and artillery, Russia mounted joint air and naval operations, appeared to launch simultaneous cyberattacks on Georgian government Web sites and had its best English speakers at the ready to make Moscow's case in television appearances.

If the rapidly unfolding events caught much of the world off guard, that kind of coordination of the old and the new did not look accidental to military professionals...

Much more at the NYT.

Special Forces are the best US troops at conducting the Foreign Internal Defense mission, but there aren't enough of them to train the IA, IP, ANA, and ANP, so most of the FID mission has fallen on conventional Army soldiers who are not organized, trained, or equipped to conduct the FID mission. Faced with a problem requiring organizational adaptation, the Army has adopted a series of ad hoc measures to select, organize, train, employ, and demobilize its advisors, despite numerous statements from senior Army leaders that testify to the essential nature of the advisory task in enabling our exit strategy in two wars.

I have previously advocated the creation of an Advisory Corps, in which combat troops would be assigned to standing advisory units ("A Team 1st Battalion 1st Advisory Brigade 1st Advisory Division") for a three-year tour of duty just as they now rotate through other line units. I believe that it is even more important to create standing advisory units now that we are increasing the size of the ANA and focusing more on the advisory effort to the IA while drawing down US units in Iraq. Standing units have history, lineage, and traditions; who wants to serve in Unit Rotating Force 1134 (as Transition Teams of Advisors are currently designated), especially if URF 1134 is disbanded four days after redeploying from combat?

If the Army can't or won't build standing units, at the very least it should designate someone below the level of the Chief of Staff of the Army who is responsible for all aspects of the advisory mission. Once named, the head of Advisor Command should establish a permanent advisory schoolhouse, get doctrine written, get the organization of the advisory teams right, be responsible for their training and employment, and ensure that advisors are given proper credit for their service. There are a number of Lieutenant Generals in the Army; I would submit that none has a more important mission than heading up such an Advisor Command with the possible exceptions of the MNC-I and MNSTC-I commanders.

Pete Dawkins wrote his doctoral dissertation at Princeton on the advisory effort in Vietnam; he called it "The Other War." I am confident that some bright and bitter Captain will do the same for the advisory effort in Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

Here are several excerpts from the full review.

... The Strongest Tribe is the first overview of the entire course of the Iraq war to be published since Gen. David Petraeus implemented a change in strategy...

... presents a biting analysis of the muddled strategy that marked the war's second and third years, when the United States rushed to hand over control to an Iraqi military that was not ready to assume such responsibility.

... change in how the troops conceived of their mission was far more important than the relatively small increase in the number of troops that the "surge" label overemphasizes.

... A large number of senior (mostly Army) generals come in for scathing reviews in The Strongest Tribe, but West reserves his most critical assessments for politicians and journalists.

... Instead, the soldiers and Marines who do the fighting and the dying endure repeated tours of duty because we have more war than our too-small Army and Marine Corps can handle. West tells the story of their sacrifices better than anyone else, with an infantryman's keen eye for combat and a father's love for those who engage in it.

... The consequences of defeat in Iraq, West argues, are similarly severe, entirely foreseeable and preventable at an increasingly bearable cost. "Reducing the US force in Iraq can be done prudently, as long as we don't promise a total withdrawal that signals America has given up," he writes. "That makes no sense given the progress that has been made." Looking through the prism of my own experience, I find it hard to disagree.

In it to Win - Washington Post, 17 August 2008.

SWJ Interview with Bing West - (Part 1)

SWJ Interview with Bing West - (Part 2)

Purchase The Strongest Tribe - Amazon.com

First, there's no illusion about who's running Russia. Vladimir Putin is clearly the effective head of state, flying from the Beijing Olympics to southern Russia to oversee military operations and to dominate Russian TV. The return of strongman rule to Russia, and particularly one who regards the demise of the Soviet Union as a historic catastrophe, is now a fact of international life to which we will all have to adjust to.

Second, Putin and his government are attempting to establish the legitimacy of a Russian sphere of influence that looks very much like a reestablishment of the old Soviet empire. This is the core of an enormously sophisticated information campaign that is having some success -- at least around Washington -- in appealing to the realpolitik crowd who look for excuses for inaction in the case of a Russian invasion of their democratic neighbor. The invasion of Georgia was accompanied by an information campaign based on the idea that Russia has a right to intervene anywhere that the "dignity" of Russian minorities is threatened. Since there are Russian minorities in every former Soviet state of the old empire, this is an attempt to establish a "sphere of influence" precedent that must chill newly independent states still struggling with democracy.

From a military perspective, the first impression is that the Russians laid an effective "strategic ambush" for Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvilli, inciting anti-government attacks in South Ossetia by local militias and then responding to the Georgian offensive with a well-planned and rehearsed offensive of their own. Even when viewed through the imperfect lens of news media scrambling to catch up to events, military experts understand that the joint and combined-arms attacks Russia staged in the opening hours of the war were anything but spontaneous. For historians, a retrospective on Nazi Germany's offensive to "protect" the Sudaten Czechs shows a striking similarity of purpose and method.

The Georgian armed forces were obviously not prepared for the Russian counteroffensive. Having recently purged older, Soviet-trained officers from its top commands, the Georgian military lacks doctrine, cohesion and experience; U.S. military assistance has been focused on preparing Georgian soldiers for duty alongside U.S. forces in Iraq, not in larger-scale, combined-arms warfare, and it shows. At this writing, the Georgian armed forces have virtually disappeared, their patrol boats sunk at their docks and their infantry collecting somewhere near the capitol city; Russian forces have broken contact and breakaway militias are rampaging in areas in and around South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

To observers familiar with the sight of Russian troops riding to battle on the back decks of BMPs, the Russian campaign looked like previous warfare in Afghanistan and Czchneya. But in this case, the familiar Soviet-style, firepower-intensive armed campaign was preceded by a sophisticated cyberattack against Georgian information systems and, more ominously, a prelaid global information campaign that both advanced the Russian argument for its right to intervene and fed both the news media and wavering Western politicians with trumped-up details of Georgian atrocities. Look for the information campaign to intensify as Russian troops settle into positions in Georgia, where their location will become negotiable in the next phase, which will clearly be to drive the pro-Western Saakashvilli government from power. The Russians have "got" modern war, however outdated their "kinetic" operations may appear. In their operational concept, the information war preceded, and is superior to, actual combat operations on the land and sea. Western military authorities, whose ability to influence information operations of this type are nonexistent, can only look on in frustration.

What does this mean for the U.S. and for U.S. strategy? The first, obvious, lesson is that great-power competition is back, and it is not only with a remote and only vaguely challenging trading partner like China. Russia is now an active menace. Whether "old Europe" quite understands the problem is for the moment moot -- the newly-formed ex-Soviet democracies have the message loud and clear, as their timely and courageous support for the Saakashvilli government shows. As scholar Fred Kagan said recently, there is a "new axis" of anti-Russian democracies around the edge of the old Soviet empire. Supporting those states and securing their future must be a top priority for the U.S. and NATO, while Russia passes through the Putin phase and perhaps into a more benign future -- the encouragement of which should be the top priority for U.S. and Western diplomacy. If this sounds like containment, well, it is.

For military strategy, the U.S. should immediately revamp its foreign military assistance programs to those countries, including a post-invasion Georgia. The intent of U.S. aid now should not be aimed not only at preparing forces for low-intensity conflict -- because most of these states have their own problems with breakaway militias and extremist terrorism -- but also at deterring Russian high-intensity, combined-arms attacks. Advanced integrated air-defenses (the Georgians had none), antitank munitions, precision weapons all must be provided so that Russia can no longer plan a walkover like the one we have witnessed. Military assistance groups should be stationed in frontline states, and m military exercises conducted calibrated to bolster the defensive capabilities of local armies. The Russians will cry foul, but their military authorities will understand what they are seeing -- no more easy campaigns. Military aid must include methods and training in our best techniques for computer network defense, a move that -- given the global nature of computer networks -- will integrate our allies' defenses with ours.

Finally the U.S. government, even in this time of political transition, must be steadfast in exposing for the world's media the true story of what is happening here. This is not a time to surrender the information field to the Russians in a futile effort to "protect sources" or surrender to reflexive classification. The war for history has started, and the Russians are already leading by several laps. Given the nature of an inquisitive and pervasive worldwide news media -- that the Russians so far have manipulated brilliantly -- the truth will eventually out, but only if the Western democracies insure that the facts are out there.

Bing West, author of The Village, The March Up and No True Glory was kind of enough to be interviewed by Small Wars Journal on the occasion of the release of his latest book The Strongest Tribe.

Francis J. 'Bing' West, originally from the Dorchester section of Boston, served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. A warrior-scholar, West authored an extremely influential study while a Visiting Research Associate at the Rand Corporation (1966 - 1968) entitled: "The Strike Teams: Tactical Performance and Strategic Potential". He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan administration. He is a graduate of Georgetown University (BA) and Princeton University (MA), where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He is currently president of the GAMA Corporation, which designs wargames and combat decision-making simulations. West is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, appears on The News Hour on PBS and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. West has been to Iraq on 15 trips since 2003, embedding with over 60 battalions.

Small Wars Journal interview with Bing West (Part 1 of 2)

Small Wars Journal interview with Bing West (Part 2 of 2):

5. You have a long history of advocacy for combat advisers. Why the skepticism about our current and potential future adviser program?

We do not have consistent goals, rigorous selection and training or a set of measures and expectancies. From the start, the role of advisers in Iraq was ill-defined. In Vietnam, advisers were valued because they were the link to fire support. In Iraq, fights requiring fire support were rare. Some adviser teams improved Iraqi staff planning functions, while others set the combat leadership example by daily circulation on the battlefield. I saw some adviser teams where the rule was to be out on two patrols a day; I saw other teams where the rule was to coach the Iraqis on staff procedures and not leave the wire with less than four humvees.

The aggressiveness of adviser teams varied broadly because there was no shared standard about their proper role. In late 2006, the Iraq Study Group recommended replacing US brigades with a corps of advisers embedded in Iraqi units and supported by US firepower. Since that was the road not taken, the Iraq War provides few clues whether advisers with indigenous troops can substitute for US conventional units, assuming the advisers have a role in deciding promotions.

It is unclear whether the US command envisions advisers remaining with Iraqi units. It seems that as US combat units pull back, so will the advisers. The absence of advisers runs the risk that deterioration may creep in from the bottom up - fewer arrests, fewer patrols, taxing drivers at checkpoints, etc. But with the war winding down, Iraqi officials do not want the daily presence of pesky Americans. By removing advisers from the level where the insurgency is fought, the risk of American casualties will decrease, as will the supervision that limits corruption, inspires aggressive operations and provides a warning when conditions are falling apart.

Iraqis marvel at advisers who stride into IED-infested areas without blinking and raise holy hell when they catch anyone stealing or abusing civilians or jundis. The physical and moral fortitude of a protean adviser impresses hundreds of Iraqis and sets a standard they seek to emulate. It would be a grave mistake to pull out the advisers too early.

6. You were tough on the generals in The Strongest Tribe, but you really lit into Iraq war critics, citing the Haditha incident as an example. Why this critique?

The martial values of our society have deteriorated. During World War II, the press scarcely mentioned and never photographed the dozens (over 140 in all) of public hangings of American soldiers, and never mentioned the shootings of German civilians or captured prisoners. The press considered such stories to be out of bounds. In Iraq, the killings of civilians in Haditha, trumpeted as a massacre, received vastly more press attention than any valorous action in the war. The hue and cry was not motivated by a thirst for justice; when investigations exonerated most of the Marines involved at Haditha, the press wrote little and said less.

In World War II, our nation highlighted courage and quietly accepted mistakes. Today, we highlight mistakes and quietly accept valor. On Iwo Jima in 1945, almost six thousand Americans died, many more than in five years in Iraq. Iwo Jima was a strategic blunder. Today, the press and Congress would be apoplectic about such a blunder. Courage, Aristotle said, is the virtue that makes all other virtues possible. Geopolitical wisdom is admirable, but martial valor is essential to sustain a democracy. American society takes courage for granted, and the press ignores it. When we fight the next war, this attitude will poorly serve the nation. Will soldiers risk their lives, if society ignores courage?

In place of valor, the 400 prisoners at Guantanamo received remarkable pro-bono legal attention and lavish press coverage. "Elite political culture," CIA Director Michael Hayden said, "seems to be squeezing, at least psychically, that operational space; ... its (CIA) legitimacy is being questioned by certain segments of the population."

If the press and Congress extended to the prisoners in Iraq the same legal protections and front-page stories as is the case with Guantanamo, the military legal system would grind to a halt.

There were 400,000 prisoners of war imprisoned in the States during World War II. Had they not been wearing uniforms, their cases would still be pending in state and civilian courts. An enemy who wears a uniform while fighting Americans is foolish. By wearing civilian clothes, he can hide among the population and, if detained, demand an array of civil rights beyond the capacity of the United States judicial system to administer.

In five years of war, the president asked for no sacrifice by the American people. "I think a lot of people are in this fight," Bush said. "I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night." Terrible images weren't sacrifice; instead, they turned viewers against the war, making it easy for politicians to repudiate their earlier votes authorizing the invasion. Without sharing in any sacrifice, the voters had scant stake in the war.

Conversely, there was no evidence American society was —to sacrifice, whether the issue be Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else. As measured by casualties or costs in terms of the gross domestic product, Iraq was not a major war like Vietnam, let alone World War II. Society is disconnected from the military. Less than one in a hundred high school graduates serves in the infantry mentioned throughout this book. Three-quarters of high school graduates do not meet the military physical or mental entry standards, while Ivy League graduates no longer feel an obligation to serve a tour in the military before getting on with their careers.

Although sacrifice on a national scale is not required for every conflict, a healthy society does not treat war as an extension of domestic political competition. Secretary of Defense Gates took the post at the Pentagon intent on bringing Democrats and Republicans together on Iraq, where he said steady progress was being made. Far from promoting reconciliation in the States, progress in Iraq increased the bitterness at home.

"I say to our soldiers," Odierno told me, "you're finishing it so it wasn't in vain for those who came before." Despite Odierno's sentiment, some politicians did insist the sacrifices were in vain. Senator Harry Reid's comment in 2006 that the "war was lost" disgraced America. Another senator cited polls questioning the military's support for the war. Had a poll reported low morale on the beaches of Normandy in June of 1944, would the senate have voted to end the war?

National security cannot be sustained when domestic party affiliation and ideology determine the support for a war. Iraq was a symptom, not the cause of the ideological polarization of American society. The American public holds an unrealistic expectation that the next war will be fought with few fatalities and with extraordinary health care. And if the focus of the press is as intense in showing each casualty, maintaining support for the war will be difficult.

7. You conclude The Strongest Tribe by listing your ten counterinsurgency lessons / principles. Missing are principles that address what some call the essence of counterinsurgency. Why did you exclude rule of law and nation-building?

Morality does not change, but governments frequently change the rules of war. In Iraq, the Counterinsurgency Manual stated that a key goal was establishing the rule of law, to include: "a government that derives its powers from the governed, sustainable security institutions and fundamental human rights." That mission was beyond the skill set of soldiers and did not match the conditions on the ground. On the one hand, Iraq as a sovereign nation wracked by corruption did what it pleased. On the other hand, American soldiers had to act as arresting officers subject to strict rules of evidence, while Iraqi judges, US review boards and the Iraqi National Assembly flouted "the rule of law" and let prisoners go whenever it suited them.

Eight out of ten insurgents sent to prison were released within ten months. The high command claimed that only between one and nine percent of those sent to jail were ever re-arrested. That statistic alone was proof of terrible police work, given that the violent crime rate in Iraq - murder, kidnapping, robbery - was staggering. Insisting upon the liberal American rule of law resulted in a catch-&-release cycle that prolonged the war and angered the troops. Imprisoning insurgents for less than a year in the course of a multi-year insurgency did not make sense.

Nation-building should not be a primary military mission. It is too overwhelming. We don't know how to do it. If the essence of a rebuilding a nation is the imposition of our democratic processes and values, then State should have the lead -- and good luck. But that's not what we're doing. We have the worst of two worlds. We espouse democratic ideals, and let the host nation rule itself as a sovereign and sacrosanct entity, even though our soldiers are dying because that government has screwed up.

The Marine Corps Small Wars Manual, based on decades of combating insurgencies, stressed the selection of competent combat leaders in the host nation. That central lesson was not heeded in Iraq. When sovereignty was handed back in 2004, the coalition did not insist upon a role in promoting or firing Iraqi commanders. As a result, sectarian and incompetent Iraqi leaders prolonged the war. President Bush conflated sovereignty with sanctity, refusing to interfere in supposedly Iraqi affairs. But a nation incapable of defending against internal threats is not truly sovereign. As long as the coalition remained responsible for Iraq's security, it had a legitimate right to sanction incompetent or malign Iraqi security leaders. That did not happen on a large enough scale.

8. You've been to Afghanistan. What is your take on the calls for an Iraq-like surge there?

Let's take a deep breath and assess conditions, goals and then means. Let's select the proper forces for the proper missions, not armor for the mountains. The Marines have volunteered to take much of the mission, and that is the proper direction. But before we assign more forces, let's untangle the C3 mess, decide what we will and won't tolerate from other NATO countries, decide our red lines for dealing with the Afghan government (semi-sic), decide our role and determination re drugs and decide how we build an Afghan army.

Afghanistan is harder and longer than Iraq. Nation-building in Afghanistan will take decades. Let's not overpromise.

9. Many in the Small Wars Journal community of interest rate your book The Village as a classic on counterinsurgency in Vietnam. We've asked you this before and will keep pressing. Any chance of a film based on this account?

The producer Michael Shamberg and Harrison Ford have met with my son Owen (two Iraq tours) and me several times about a film centering on Fallujah based on my book No True Glory, with Ford in the role of General Jim Mattis. We wrote a script and went over it in detail with them. The studio is wary because the Iraq films to date have crashed (as they should have, because they were political diatribes, not drama). Generation Kill was a good depiction of the march to Baghdad, with the confusion, lack of sleep, determination and tragedies. Our Soldiers and Marines deserve an honest film about the insurgency that followed.

Concerning The Village, it -- like Iraq movies today -- ran into Hollywooditis. Hollywood is an insider's game with a massive bias toward portraying America and its leaders as evil or bumblers, or both. In The Village, one squad stuck it out, alone, among 5,000 Vietnamese. That does not fit the Hollywood image of Vietnam.

10. The Strongest Tribe is your third book on Iraq. What's next?

I'm looking at either exploring battlefield courage today -- both the individual soldier and the society that shapes him -- or Afghanistan, a war more complex than Iraq. It may go on, though, and on and on and on. A critical element of any book is persuading a publisher to take a chance on the public mood (willingness to buy a military book) two years from the time the contract is signed. My last book took a dozen trips to Iraq over three years (after No True Glory) and 1700 interviews. Writing is a commitment, like running a marathon that never ends. So it's best to make sure the publisher is on board first!

Bing West, author of The Village, The March Up and No True Glory was kind of enough to be interviewed by Small Wars Journal on the occasion of the release of his latest book The Strongest Tribe.

Francis J. 'Bing' West, originally from the Dorchester section of Boston, served as an infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. A warrior-scholar, West authored an extremely influential study while a Visiting Research Associate at the Rand Corporation (1966 - 1968) entitled: "The Strike Teams: Tactical Performance and Strategic Potential". He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan administration. He is a graduate of Georgetown University (BA) and Princeton University (MA), where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He is currently president of the GAMA Corporation, which designs wargames and combat decision-making simulations. West is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, appears on The News Hour on PBS and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. West has been to Iraq on 15 trips since 2003, embedding with over 60 battalions.

Small Wars Journal interview with Bing West (Part 1 of 2)

1. You assessed that the Iraq war turned around for the better prior to General David Petraeus assuming command of Multi-National Force -- Iraq. Please explain this assessment.

As we look toward changes in Afghanistan, it's important that we understand why the Iraq war turned around, lest we think changing top commanders is the critical variable.

There are two broad views of history. By far the more popular is the "Great Man" view that nations are led from the top. Leaders like Caesar and Lincoln shape history. Most accounts of Iraq subscribe to the Great Man view. The books about Iraq by senior officials like Paul Bremer, George Tenet, Tommy Franks and Ricardo Sanchez have at their core a wonderful sense of self-worth: History is all about them.

The other view of history holds that the will of the people provides the momentum for change. Leaders are important, but only when they channel, or simply have the commonsense to ride the popular movement. "Battle is decided not by the orders of a commander in chief," Tolstoy wrote in War and Peace, "but by the spirit of the army."

Iraq reflected Tolstoy's model. Events were driven by the spirit, or dispirit, of the people and tribes. It took four years of sending the same units back to the same areas, getting to know the local leaders, to give the tribes enough reassurance that they rebelled against al Qaeda. Sheik Sattar, a tremendous leader, would never have stepped forward had it not been for his close relations with the local Americans. (A tank was parked on Sattar's front lawn.)

Anbar was the heart of the insurgency. The Sattar and the Sunni tribes in Anbar turned before General Dave Petraeus and the surge troops arrived. In February of 2006, I listened as General Jim Mattis told the troops in Ramadi that they had won; the tribes -- including the former resistance gangs - were aligning with the American battalions and al Qaeda was on the run. The next day, Mattis flew to Baghdad for Petraeus's change of command.

Iraq wasn't a "Great Man" or a general's war, although General Petraeus certainly was the right and key leader. Transcending that, though, the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are bottom-up movements. They must be defeated at the local level by deploying thousands of Americans who believe in their cause and stick at it, year after year. Washington politicians must avoid the trap of believing that the selection of the right general is a shortcut to success. That attitude enables the rest of us to avoid commitment by leaving it up to the generals, while we turn against the war when we tire of reading about it. By understanding what really occurred in Iraq, we better prepare for Afghanistan, where we are in for a long fight.

The basic premise of counterinsurgency (COIN) is that once the population feels secure, they inform on the insurgents (assuming the government force is seen as legitimate and the insurgent cause as illegitimate). That's a huge assumption, of course.

In 2003-2004 the Sunnis, especially in Diyala, Ninewah and Anbar, invited in al Qaeda fanatics, or at least were in sympathy with their promise of restoring Sunni dominance. By the end of 2004, US operations in Iraq had been rough enough to antagonize the Sunni population, without imposing the Draconian methods armies habitually employ to control a population.

By the spring of 2006, the coalition was losing on the two major fronts that accounted for most of the fighting. In Anbar to the west, Al Qaeda controlled the population; in Baghdad to the east, Shiite death squads were driving out the Sunnis, while al Qaeda's suicide bombings continued.

Yet the conditions had already been set for a turnaround without precedent in combating an insurgency. In less than three years, two giant institutions steeped in 200 years of traditions - the Army and Marines - adopted new doctrine and turned around a losing war. This was equivalent to General Electric and Ford starting afresh in new business lines and turning a profit in three years.

The western front in Iraq turned first from the bottom up, due to partnerships between local leaders and US battalions. Half a year later, the eastern front turned, due to strategic change at the top that enabled partnerships at the bottom.

Back in 2004, the Sunni tribes in the west had welcomed al Qaeda with its call to jihad - though a small minority, AQI quickly dominated these tribes by ruthlessness. Anbar, according to conventional wisdom, would be the last province to be pacified, if ever.

The conventional wisdom didn't factor in that the Marines were sending the same battalions (Mullen, Jurney, etc.) back to the same cities on seven-month tours. Over the years, the American and Iraqis grew to know one another, while Marine tactics improved. They persisted in small patrols as the population went through a cycle of opposing them (2004), resenting them (2005) and seeking their protection (2006) after experiencing al Qaeda's reign of terror.

The key to the turnaround on the western front was bottom-up partnership between local leaders and US battalion commanders. The locals knew who were AQI; the Americans brought the hammer. The public face of the turnaround was Sheik Sattar, leader of the Sunni Awakening. His partner was Colonel Sean McFarland. In Talafar, the partnership was between Colonel McMaster and Sheik Najim; in Haditha, between Tracy and Police Chief Farouk; in Qaim, between Alford and Sheik Kirdi; in Ramadi, between Lieutenant Colonel Mullen and Police Chief Faisal. By the fall of 2006, such local partnerships were springing up across the west.

In one sense, General George Casey has gotten a bad rap when cast as the father of the FOB (Forward Operating Base). In late 2005, he spent a day in al Qaim with Lieutenant Colonel Dale Alford, one of the best battalion commanders in Iraq in five years. Alford had spread his battalion into 16 outposts, each with about 100 jundis or shurtas. Casey praised the concept. Alford urged him to order battalions across Iraq to do the same. Casey in effect said, I can suggest to corps to talk to divisions, but I don't tell battalion commanders what to do.

Yes, we can argue forever about different leadership techniques, and yes, the brilliance of Petraeus lay in one sentence: don't commute to work. But still, how does one explain that the units in Anbar, way out west in an economy of force posture, could persist in small patrols without FOBitis and those near Baghdad did not persist?

There were intervening levels of command -- brigade, division, corps -- that influenced tactical choices. There may have been a systemic reason. Certainly the road systems and distances played a role, as did the homogeneous composition (Sunni) of Anbar. In any event, the west swung first, many months before the east.

The turnaround on the eastern front followed in 2007. The same bottom-up partnerships eventually emerged, shaped by three decisions at the top. First, President Bush sent 30,000 more troops, mainly to control Baghdad. Second, General Ray Odierno chose to deploy most of them in belts around the capitol in order to crush al Qaeda countrywide. Third, inside Baghdad, Petraeus moved his soldiers off the large bases and into neighborhoods, especially along the fault lines where the Sunnis were being driven out or where al Qaeda was in control.

Petraeus was impressed that thousands of Sunnis were joining tribal units in Anbar, with many accepted into the police or the army. He authorized battalion commanders across Iraq to recruit similar irregular forces. By 2008, US battalions were paying 90,000 Iraqis, mostly Sunnis, who had volunteered for neighborhood watch groups. Al Qaeda fled and Shiite death squad attacks greatly diminished. These bottom-up partnerships placed Americans in daily contact with local leaders who complained about poor services. In turn, the Americans pressured the government to respond to local needs.

In sum, on both the western and eastern fronts, bottom-up partnerships caused the war to turn around. The antecedent was a change in attitude of the Sunni population that had experienced al Qaeda's whip hand.

2. You just returned from your latest trip to Iraq, what is your take on the current situation and assessment for the future?

The major fighting involving Americans is over. The war has wound down, with five US fatalities in July. The two principal reasons were the Sunni alignment with American forces and the collapse of the Jesh al Mahdi.

Re the Sunnis, for instance, Sheik Ali Hatim of the al Jabouri tribe around Ramadi told me that 477 allies or members of al Qaeda in Iraq in his large tribal area had "confessed" since September of 2006. He was silent about what happened to them. Ali Hatim and other sheiks credit the Americans with aiding the people and pressuring Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to reach an accord. The Iraqi Islamic Party that took the lion's share of the tiny Sunni vote in 2005 is discredited. Hatim and others call the IIP thieves. The sheiks in Anbar told Senator Barack Obama during his recent visit that to withdraw the Americans would be to invite warfare.

Petraeus has authorized payment of $300 per month for each member of the Sons of Iraq, 90% Sunni. Maliki and his ministries for the past year have thrown up roadblocks against bringing even 20% of the Sons of Iraq (SOI) into the regular security forces. It costs the US about $300 million a year to support the SOI movement that has crushed al Qaeda. (AQI is down to two redoubts -- Diyala and Ninewah, esp. Mosul, where Shiite and Kurdish sectarianism are preventing services and cooperation with the Sunni population). In both cases, the trends point to another year or 18 months of gradual US-led pressure to root out AQI and persuade the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to reach a modus vivendi.

In essence, the Sunni resistance and its two dozen-odd splinter groups have stood down, with many joining the SOI. In turn their pressure upon the AQI is enabling our special forces to gather more intelligence.

The worrisome aspect is the martial overconfidence of Maliki and his sectarian inner clique. Treating SOI with neglect is bad enough; but any decree from the government to disband them would precipitate a serious dispute with the coalition.

The second threat to stability -- the Jaysh al Mahdi (JAM) - has also been hammered by body blows. Wild rumors surrounded Maliki's precipitous decision to rush to Basra in March and initiate an offensive against the JAM. Unfortunately, the British who had pulled back to the airbase ten miles outside town had been in discussions with JAM leaders. This led to widespread suspicion that the British wouldn't stand up to the JAM. When Maliki's hasty attack floundered, Petraeus sent in the special forces, air, intelligence assets and advisers at every level. (Maliki was operating from one location with two cell phones and several Iraqi generals were across the city with eight cell phones, scarcely a model for C3.)

JAM attempted a strategic counterattack from Sadr City launching points with rocket attacks upon the Iraqi portion of the Green Zone. US Ambasador Ryan Crocker rallied a spectrum of Iraqi politicians to stand behind Maliki. SWJ readers know exactly what happened when UAV video imagery during the day and thermals at night hovered overhead near fixed lines. Several sources told me more than 700 JAM fighters were killed in Sadr City along the southern T-wall barrier alone. The result in both Basra and Baghdad was that by the end of April the JAM senior leaders had fled. An estimated 500 are now in Iranian camps for terror training.

Some argue that the rank and file of JAM can always make a comeback, when ordered by the Atari-loving Sadr who is holed up in Iran. But the mafia-type stranglehold the JAM imposed via taxes and extortion has been broken. As the senior JAM leaders attempt to re-infiltrate, they face changed conditions, not least being who will inform on them.

The third threat to stability is, of course, Iran, that is presently re-assessing its options. The Sadr/JAM card hasn't played well. ISCI, with Badr Corps militia members in positions inside the security forces especially in the south, is a separate card. But it isn't clear to what extent ISCI wants to be Iran's cat's paw.

In sum, the military dimension in Iraq has had a string of successes and is not now the main effort. The perseverance of our troops over the past five years, despite strategic mistakes, has paid off, and the military leadership current (Petraeus) and expected (Odierno) has a sound strategy. The major unknown variable is Maliki, who often appears resentful and dismissive of the pesky Americans. What concerns our senior officers is his erratic impulsiveness, combined with secretiveness, distrust and overconfidence based upon ignorance of the fundamentals underlying the fragility of the current stability. His terms for the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) set timelines that in private he says are only goals needed to get the SOFA through the Assembly. Of course, to remain prime minister he needs allies among the Shiite parties. He is focused on amassing power prior to the national election at the end of 2009, that must be preceded by the provincial elections both entrenched Shiite and Sunni politicians are putting off because many of them will not be re-elected. When the SOFA is finally signed, it will reduce US leverage in Iraq and will lead to the withdrawal of other coalition members that won't put up with negotiating with Maliki-appointed personages who don't care whether they stay or leave.

As for the argument about pulling out all 15 combat brigades by the beginning of 2010, that domestic political issue should be finessed by substituting names but not ruling out combat missions. For instance, the 3rd Brigade of the 101st currently has three maneuver battalions spread among five Iraqi brigades (supplemented by 20,000 Sons of Iraq) across 1300 square kilometers holding 150,000 Shiites and 450,00 Sunnis. Colonel Dominic Carracilo's plan is to gradually pull out two battalions, leaving a composite battalion he calls a Transition Task Force. Projected on a countrywide scale, this trims down the US force from 15to 5 brigades over the next few years -- and changes the name, allowing a face-saving exit for politicians who have argued for a withdrawal of all combat units.

3. You were quite critical of President Bush and several senior administration officials in The Strongest Tribe. Why?

They did not address glaring inconsistencies. The clear difference between the Pentagon and the White House strategies persisted until the end of 2006. There was no reason for this, except mental laziness and poor National Security Council work in laying out contradictory plans.

There was the lock-step agreement among the top generals. General Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, retired in September of 2005, having for two years consistently supported General John Abizaid's (Commander, US Central Command) view that American soldiers were an antibody in an Arab culture. Abizaid insisted the counterinsurgency mission belonged to the Iraqis. "It's certainly our goal," he said, "that in 2006 the Iraqis are out in front in counterinsurgency operations." Rumsfeld was in agreement, announcing a drawdown of US forces, with "a smaller footprint to avoid antagonism and dependence", while responsibility for security shifted to the Iraqis. The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the head of the Central Command and the top generals in Iraq were all telling President Bush the same thing.

Both Abizaid and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used the analogy of riding a bicycle. Sooner or later, you had to take off the training wheels, remove the hand from the seat and let the new rider fall a few times. In other words, as American forces pulled out, the Iraqis would fall on their faces a few times, or never learn how to ride the bike. Risk happens.

The White House strategy, articulated by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and National Security Advisor / Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was to achieve victory before withdrawal. Kissinger, a close adviser to Mr. Bush, opposed Casey's plan to withdraw 30,000 troops after the December 2005 elections, arguing that would whet the insatiable Congressional appetite for more withdrawals. "Victory over the insurgency," Kissinger wrote in an influential op-ed in the Washington Post, "is the only meaningful exit strategy."

Like the generals, the White House knew the Iraqis, if forced to do more, ran the risk of falling apart. Pursuing victory without substantial risk required that American soldiers clear and then hold the Sunni cities. That meant committing American forces in larger numbers for an indefinite amount of time. Secretary Rice endorsed this clear & hold strategy unequivocally, saying that "our political-military strategy has to be to clear, hold and build: to clear areas from insurgent control, to hold them securely, and to build durable, national Iraqi institutions."

Rumsfeld reacted with consternation, both because the Secretary of State was enunciating military strategy and also laying out a long-term commitment that he opposed. From the start of his tenure in 2001, Rumsfeld had stated clearly that his goal was a light, agile force, with speed and agility replacing weight and mass, relying on high technology to find the enemy's central nerve system and destroy it with a devastating combination of weapons. What was then to be done with a country whose government and armed forces had been shattered was left unaddressed. Rumsfeld wanted a military to win battles and get out. He insisted repeatedly that nation-building was not a military mission.

Casey was equally outspoken in opposing Rice's approach, insisting that an American occupation would fail due to the antibody theory. "The perception of occupation in Iraq," he told the Congress, "is a major driving force behind the insurgency."

Abizaid was the intellectual guru of the antibody theory. "Reducing the size and visibility of the coalition forces in Iraq," he said, "is a part of our counterinsurgency strategy." That contradicted the essential counterinsurgency doctrine of protecting or separating the population from the insurgents who live among them. You can't be pulling the force back to FOBs - Rumsfeld's strategy - if that same force is to hold the Sunni cities while building durable Iraqi institutions - Rice's strategy.

The president and his secretary of state were proceeding from a different frame of reference than the military commander on the ground. Within the military, risk management was bungled. To use business terms, Casey was the Chief Executive Officer. Myers and Abizaid were overseeing the effort, as members of the Board of Trustees. On a corporate board, they would be charged with monitoring risk to insure the CEO did not run too large a gamble. The CEOs of Citibank and Merrill Lynch lost tens of billions of dollars when they ran excessive risks because their boards had not provided proper oversight.

Similarly, the roles of Myers (and later General Peter Pace) and Abizaid were to provide expert oversight and flag for the president the chasm between his views and those of Casey. They failed to flag high risk. Rice and the Pentagon - civilians and military alike - were in basic disagreement. The difference between the two objectives - transition to Iraqi lead with high risk or reduce risk by undertaking counterinsurgency operations with Americans in the lead - was obvious. Rice had a theory; Abizaid and Casey had the forces. They were headed in different directions.

The president, whom Senator John McCain described as "not intellectually curious" and Senator Carl Levin referred to as "intellectually lazy", did not resolve the contradiction. He talked of a victory that eschewed risk, while the military pursued a transition that increased risk.

The senior level simply did not do its job. Any number of sergeants, colonels and generals could have explained the problem.

4. You dismissed the Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrine manual with faint praise. Why?

Incomplete, rather than faint praise. When the military took on governance as well as security tasks, it confused itself. We tried to do too much and to shove too many theories into one document. The purpose of the new COIN manual was to provide a framework so that senior officers could understand the type of war they were fighting. Published at the end of 2006, Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24 was the most academically influential FM never read in military history. While the prime readership was intended to be battalion commanders, it was difficult to find more than a few who had read the entire document. At 150,000 words, the FM was as long as two books. This was the normal palimpsest expected from two enormous staffs (Army and Marine) charged with researching a century of warfare and deriving axioms about the interactions among politics, security, government services, economic development, ideologies and insurgencies.

Part sociology and part catechism, the FM stressed honorable behavior, based on the premise that a population - if provided security, respect, government services and economic opportunity - will cease to support an insurgency.

Applied to Iraq, however, some points in the FM were vexatious. First, the FM criticized "the natural tendency to create forces in a US image. That is a mistake." It was an unsuccessful practice to "build and train host-nation security forces in the US military's image." But Generals Casey and Petraeus had designated the Iraqi Army, shaped in the mirror image of the American army, as the linchpin in defeating the insurgency. While the FM said indigenous forces "should move, equip and organize like insurgents", the Iraqi army tended to stay on the defense inside bases and checkpoints. The FM said the proper focus should be upon police forces. But in Iraq, due to bureaucratic hurdles, the police were ignored until mid-2006. Left to their own devices, the police became the tool of the Shiite militias that almost wrecked Iraq and Casey.

Second, the FM defined COIN as "a competition to mobilize popular support", requiring the government to provide a "single narrative to organize the people's experience" and serve as the rallying cry to defeat the insurgents. In Iraq, the insurgents incessantly chanted "allahu akbar", or God Is Great, thus tying Islam to their cause. On the government side, two narratives were in conflict. The Sunni narrative stressed bitterness about disenfranchisement, while the Shiites stressed consolidating their dominance so that Sunni Baathism could never arise again. The Americans stressed a narrative of reconciliation that the government ignored.

Reconciliation was the only narrative that could avoid a Thirty Year War, and yet the fractious government installed by Americans could not reach a compromise. The government was not cooperating with the basic tenet of the FM.

Regardless of inconsistencies between the theory of COIN and the realities of Iraq, the manual's basic message - don't be a prick - was of enormous importance in modifying the behavior and attitudes of young men who had volunteered to be grunts and had been trained to shoot and kill. Indeed, so justly proud were the infantry of their prowess that they often referred to others as POGs, or Persons Other than Grunts. An infantryman can be tough, too tough. The FM didn't tell the commanders how to adjust the attitudes of their warriors. It did tell them they had to be the designers who defined what they expected their troops to do.

Petraeus pulled together a first-rate team that combined intellect with command experience - Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl, Colonel Peter Mansoor, Dr. David Killcullen, Colonel Conrad Crane. The FM supporters argued that criticism missed an essential point. "Name me another general," Mansoor, one of the chief writers, said, "who could co-opt both Harvard and Ralph Peters." He was making the key point that liberals and conservatives - Peters was a hard-nosed conservative commentator - had commended the COIN manual. Its authors, invited onto talk shows, gained adherents by elucidating about an enlightened military that won hearts and minds rather than shooting insurgents. The manual appealed to bloggers, academics and military intellectuals. Everyone had a theory, and there wasn't any blood or shit when you turned the pages. Stress was laid upon winning popular support, not killing terrorists.

With counterinsurgency presented as behavioral science, the manual gained supporters in unlikely quarters. Liberals could find little to criticize in a document that scarcely mentioned police, let alone military tactics - although whether they would support the war was another matter. A Harvard professor praised it in the New York Times Book Review - certainly a first for a military manual. Most football commentators had played the game; most counterinsurgency commentators had never faced an insurgent or advised a unit under fire. Counterinsurgency became an intellectual pop fad, attracting military and civilian authors that had never tasted the grit from a grenade, or walked down a road at night braced for the inevitable hit, or heard metal gates clang as neighbors sounded a warning to the insurgents.

The problem was that the grit of police work and snap firefights and running informants (and keeping them alive) and dealing with arrest procedures, etc. were not described in practical terms. It wasn't a standard field manual a platoon commander could study it for techniques to organize a local council, develop intelligence, arrest insurgents or patrol the streets. While the manual didn't tell him how to do his job, it did explain that he was a guest in a country where people deserved to be treated with the same respect as at home. If he acted as a bully, he was recruiting for the insurgents.

The "rest of government" produced nothing equivalent to the counterinsurgency manual. The State Department never adopted the military's capacity for brutal self-assessment. The sectarian ministries and the fractious National Assembly were the major problems. Petraeus knew up and down the Iraqi chain of command which officers had to be relieved, and American colonels and generals applied the pressure. Our Foreign Service officers lacked this killer instinct. They were trained to be diplomats who worked out solutions through compromise. They weren't accustomed to evaluating the officials in foreign ministries, let alone judging when and why they should be fired.

The counterinsurgency manual was valuable as a proselytizing document. It was a good beginning, not an end.

Part 2 tomorrow...

In Iraq, the Surge has helped secure freedom, with all its attendant uncertainties.

By Joel Arends

This article was originally published on 11 August at National Review Online and is posted here with permission of the author and NR.

Baghdad, Iraq - Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the World War II battlefields of Monte Cassino, the Rapido River, and Anzio in southern Italy. Those were just some of the places that America's Greatest Generation fought and where many died in order to break through Hitler's vaunted Gustav Line in the eventual March to Rome. Today I'm in Baghdad going back to the battlefields where I fought with the Army's First Cavalry Division, where some of my comrades died, and where America's next Greatest Generation is currently doing battle. I've returned to Baghdad after three years as an embedded correspondent for NRO to observe the situation for myself.

The battle for Iraq today is not so dissimilar to the Italy campaign waged by the Allies in WWII. Into the late winter of 1943 - two years into the war - the Allies did not have a strategy for victory. Likewise, America did not have a strategy for victory in Iraq until January 2007 when President Bush announced the Surge.

In 1943, Churchill had determined that breaking the back of the German Army in Italy would lead to the eventual downfall of the Axis powers in Europe. His theory went that a March to Rome would siphon off enough German troops to allow the Allies to effectively overwhelm the enemy at Normandy. At the time, Prime Minister Churchill's theory was controversial, and while President Roosevelt signed off it on, military leaders in the Mediterranean were initially skeptical. General Mark Clark, commander of American forces in Italy, at first resisted Churchill's notion that a full-out assault on the most powerful army in the world would lead to anything but disaster. Clark thought the plan was nothing less than death by stupidity.

Similarly, many in Washington were not convinced that a plan as bold as the Surge would work. Of course, the major difference between WWII and now is that today's strategy came from the military, while the skepticism about that strategy came from the politicians. Some in Washington called the Surge an escalation of the war; others called it a quagmire and likened our efforts in Iraq to Vietnam. But General David Petraeus was convinced that if the number of troops available to him was increased and if he were able to effectively deploy them, his counter-insurgency strategy would pay off.

So far, the raw data suggest that security gains created by the surge are working. Attacks on civilians are down 90 percent, IED attacks on our soldiers are down 75 percent and almost three thousand families in the Karhk district alone have migrated back to their homes after initially fleeing militia-led religious cleansing. Further, on Friday, while I was standing less than a half-mile away from Sadr City, Moqtada Al Sadr ordered his militia to disarm itself.

Still, there is cause for concern with recent events at the tactical level that may have international repercussions. Explosively formed penetrators, EFP's, have been killing and wounding our troops. Intelligence reports inform us that EFP's can be traced back to Iran along with other munitions that have been used against our troops. Furthermore, Moqtada Al Sadr's relationship with Iran and the Quds force is troubling and reports show that special groups targeting American soldiers and Iraqi Army forces have been trained by Iranians. Additional concerns have been raised about the quality of Iraqi Security Forces and the level of training they have received.

While here in Baghdad, I intend to pose tough questions to our top commanders on the ground, the lieutenants and sergeants fighting this war and their Iraqi counterparts. The fundamental question for me is whether or not we have a workable plan to sustain a strategy for victory in Iraq today. The people of Iraq have a window of opportunity, and we need to help them take advantage of it. I intend to find out if that is happening.

On the road from Baghdad to the airport is the beautifully optimistic statue of Abbas ibn Farnas, the Iraqi Icarus. He stands with one leg taking a step, arms outstretched and wings spread full in mid-flight; the expression on his face is one of pragmatic hopefulness. Farnas knew full well that his experimental flight may end in death, which it eventually did, but was worth taking the risk.

Flying Man, as he's affectionately called by many in Iraq, has seen both his fair share of optimism and destruction as he looks toward Baghdad along the five mile stretch of road called Route Irish by the US Army. Traveling on Route Irish - once the most dangerous trip in the world - the sight of Flying Man gave one relative comfort, signaling the route would soon end within the barricaded confines of the airport, where travelers would be shielded from IEDs and homicidal car bombers.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to find during my time in Baghdad, but it's my hope that Flying Man is looking over a more optimistic and peaceful Iraq today. Just as Farnas knew that freedom has its risks as well as rewards, I hope the people of Iraq understand the same.

Joel Arends served with the Army's First Cavalry Division in Baghdad and is currently the executive director of Vets for Freedom. Captain Arends also serves in the US Army Reserve.

The full C-SPAN video of the panel discussion can be found here.

Also see the Center for American Progress report How to Redeploy: Implementing a Responsible Drawdown of US Forces from Iraq by Lawrence Korb, Sean Duggan and Peter Juul. The link has the full report plus a video produced by CAP on the report. Excerpt summary follows:

Some have asserted that a US military withdrawal from Iraq will take two years or more, but we believe it is not only possible, but necessary, to conduct a safe and responsible redeployment of US forces from Iraq in no more than 10 months. Our military can accomplish such a task, should it be assigned, if it uses all elements of US military power, focused on our land forces' proficiencies in maneuver warfare and logistics.

There is significant disagreement and confusion about the time necessary to withdraw all US military forces from Iraq. Proponents of an indefinite US military presence in Iraq have asserted that a withdrawal of over 140,000 American troops and equipment would be fraught with risk, uncertainty, and overwhelming logistical complications. According to a recent ABC News piece, several commanders in Iraq stated that there was "no way" a withdrawal of one to two brigades per month could work logistically - although none of them agreed to be quoted on the record.

The debate over how to conduct an American withdrawal has gravitated back and forth between those arguing that there must be either a rapid, precipitous withdrawal, and those advocating for a long, drawn-out redeployment. Many who argue for an extended redeployment over several years do so simply in order to "stay the course" in Iraq, and cherry-pick logistical issues to make the case for an extended US presence.

Deciding between a swift or extended redeployment, however, is a false choice. Both options are logistically feasible, but this report will demonstrate that an orderly and safe withdrawal is best achieved over an 8 to 10 month period. This report, written in consultation with military planners and logistics experts, is not intended to serve as a playbook for our military planners; it is a guide to policymakers and the general public about what is realistically achievable. A massive, yet safe and orderly redeployment of US forces, equipment, and support personnel is surely daunting - but it is well within the exceptional logistical capabilities of the US military...