#3 of 3 book reviews from our favorite

old Rwanda hand.  Links to

review #1 and

review #2. 

#3 follows.  And don't neglect

Tom's book, either, in the short list of good works on that period.

A review of:

Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide

Linda Melvern, New York: Vasco, 2006

2nd edition.

Reviewed by:

Thomas (Tom) P. Odom

LTC US Army (ret)

Author,

Journey Into Darkness: Genocide In Rwanda

"It is called The General's Book

on Rwanda, and, right, the General is Rwandan Major General Augustin

Ndindiliyimana, who was the head of the

Nationale Gendarmerie during the

period of time in which what has come to be referred to as the "Rwandan Genocide"

of 100 days (7 April to 4 July 1994) took place. And everybody knows the boilerplate

of "800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus slaughtered by extremist Hutus." But, so far

at least, my writing hasn't really been about any kind of personal story of the

General's life. It's about what really happened in Rwanda between 1 October 1990

and sometime after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took over (or "liberated,"

as they would have it) the country on 4 July 1994 -- because the mainstream version

couldn't be further from the truth.

[1]"

Pick

a tragedy and you will almost always find an alternate conspiracy theory to go with

the accurate accounts. Rwanda is no different. The above extract comes from an interview

with Mick Collins who holds that all that happened in Rwanda was due to US greed. 

Mr. Collins is not alone in making that assertion.  Robin Philpot's book

Rwanda 1994: Colonialism dies hard,

as listed on the

Taylor Report is another. 

Keith Harmon Snow is another conspiracy theorist who pushes the US conspiracy

theory as does

Wayne Madsen.   The truly sad thing about these alternate theories--aside

from their use of fantasy as fact--is they lend weight to the Hutu Power's mantra

that they were victims of the second genocide, that the first genocide of 800,000

to one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus was an unfortunate result of war between

them and a foreign aggressor, namely Tutsi "aliens" bent on Hutu destruction..

Linda

Melvern's

Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide handily demolishes those myths

because she documents the intimate planning and meticulous record keeping that went

into execution of the Rwandan genocide.  Note that in 1991 Rwandan Major General Augustin Ndindiliyimana originally proposed creating the self-defense militias that

became monstrous killing machines over the next three years.  That same general

as commander of the National Gendarmerie was a member of the "Zero Network" used

by the conspirators of the genocide.  His case is hardly unusual; there was

nothing spontaneous about the Rwandan genocide.

Even

as the interim government of Rwanda crossed to safety in Zaire in July 1994, Melvern

quotes Prime Minister Kambanda proclaiming, "We have lost the military battle but

the war is by no means over because we have the people behind us."

[2]

That statement and hundreds of pages of government records, testimony at the International

Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and countless first person accounts from the genocidal

killers document what the genocide was all about: continued Hutu political domination

of Rwanda.

Trite

commentators then and today refer to the genocide as tribal conflict, as if it is

a lesser form of warfare for lesser beings. Such statements minimally miss the point

that the Hutus and the Tutsis are not tribes.  Maximally they ignore the reality

that ethnic struggle--especially ethnic struggle on the scale advocated, planned,

and executed by the Hutu Power bloc in Rwanda--is absolutely political and terribly

final in deciding who has power and who does not. The loser dies. Kambanda and his

cohorts sought to use genocide as a final solution to any challenge to their absolute

political power in Rwanda.  Just as the Nazis kept the trains running to the

extermination camps in the failing moments of the Third Reich, Kambanda's government

concentrated on killing Tutsis as they lost their fight with the Rwandan Patriotic

Front. Melvern's book documents that fanatical focus on extermination.

Melvern

does make a couple of errors that are likely to irritate informed readers. 

Most blatant is her referral to the US parachute operation in Mogadishu, Somalia

in October 1993.[3]

Referring to Mogadishu as greatest humiliation to the US military since Vietnam

is needless and inaccurate hyperbole. Another is over emphasizing the effect of

Paul Kagame's brief and aborted sojourn at the US Army Command and General Staff

College.  As a former instructor there, I doubt that many even noticed that

Kagame was leaving until he was gone.  His abilities as a tactician and strategist

owe little to his short stay on the banks of the Missouri River.

But

those are minor faults, mentioned only in the hopes they might be corrected in a

future edition.  I recommend Ms. Melvern's book to all.  It is a balanced

account of a Rwanda unbalanced by war and genocide.  Don't waste your time,

money, or brain cells on the conspiracy theorists.  Read Linda Melvern's work

on how the true conspiracy to commit genocide unfolded.

Introduction and reading list posted here with permission of the author and Proceedings.

John M. Collins began to amass military experience when he enlisted in the Army as a private in 1942. Thirty years and three wars later, in 1972, he retired as a colonel. He spent the next quarter century as the leading analyst on military and defense issues at the Congressional Research Service. Seven years ago, he established the Warlord Loop, a by-invitation-only e-mail forum that fosters voluminous, freewheeling exchanges seven days a week. Resultant brainstorming is roughly equivalent to a graduate education in national security at no cost save time expended.

The Warlord Loop's current reading list features two books apiece that a cross section of 300 cosmopolitan members believe would best enable practitioners at every level to prepare for an uncertain future and concurrently help concerned citizens understand salient issues.

This compilation differs from countless competitive lists because contributors include civilian national security specialists along with Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard representatives who range in rank from NCO stripes to four-stars. Males, females, liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, and nonpartisans touch every point on the public opinion spectrum.

One note -- My two selections were The Village by Bing West and Fiasco by Tom Ricks. Apparently during the editing process, The Village was replaced with Dreams and Shadows by Robin Wright -- a fine book I'm sure -- but not one that I've had the opportunity to read just yet.

Continue on to the 2008 Warlord Loop Reading List.

Since the early 1990s, the defense industry has been talking about the revolutionary technological changes taking place across society. It has worked hard to ensure we know what those changes are and how they are affecting national security. Yet, the industry rarely talks about the fundamental requirement to change the way we think in order to understand the implications of the technological and social changes we face...

...The authors of these works highlight aspects of how the world has changed. This forces us to change how we frame problems, how we organize to deal with them and even how to get the best out of our people. For instance, if one still saw the world as a hierarchy, then one looked for the "leadership" of the Iraqi insurgency in 2003. Yet if one saw the world as a network in which emergent intelligence is a key factor, then one quickly saw the networked insurgent entities as they evolved an emergent strategy in Iraq. Our ability to adjust to the rapidly changing future security environment will, to a large degree, depend on our ability to understand the world as it is rather than as we have been taught to understand it. Reading these 12 books should help.

Continue on to AFJ for TX Hammes' read different reading list.

The second in a promised trilogy of Rwandan reviews from Tom Odom, serial SWJ

contributor and highly regarded Small Warrior. 

Link to review #1.  #2 follows:

A review of:

Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France's Role in the Rwandan Genocide

Andrew Wallis, London: I.B. Tauris &Co Ltd, 2006.

Reviewed by:

Thomas (Tom) P. Odom

LTC US Army (ret)

Author,

Journey Into Darkness: Genocide In Rwanda

As a member of the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization in 1988, I once

spent a week on observation post duty in El Arish, Egypt with a French Army captain

of Vietnamese-French heritage.  I remember that week well because he convinced

me to try Nuc Mong (rotten fish oil sauce).  To my relief, it did not taste

fishy.  Seven years later I attended a diplomatic function in Kigali, Rwanda

where to my surprise my former El Arish comrade was introduced as the newly arrived

second secretary of the French embassy.  Unlike the Nuc Mong in 1987, his arrival

in Kigali in 1995 was most definitely fishy.  He was using a different name

and he pretended not to know when I grabbed his hand and addressed him by what had

served as his first name the last time we met.   This encounter only increased

the sour taste I had in my mouth regarding French activities and policies toward

Rwanda before, during, and after the genocide.

I offer that vignette as a metaphor well suited to introducing Andrew Wallis's

book,

Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France's Role in the Rwandan Genocide.

Wallis offers a wider review of French and Rwandan sources in discussing France's

relationship to the Rwandan tragedy.  His interviews with French and Rwandan

sources, especially members of the former Rwandan military are quite valuable. 

Wallis sets these interviews against a larger examination of the Mitterrand regime

that is in itself damning.  France or at least France as defined by that peculiar

relationship between the French exterior forces and the French presidential cabinet

put as priority number one maintenance of the Francophone African club. In the case

of Rwanda, Mitterrand and company would seek to maintain a repressive regime even

as it plotted and executed a full blown genocide against its own people.  Worse,

France would continue to openly and covertly support and succor that regime as it

lost the war. That support continued after the war ended.  Despite Wallis'

title, France pursued this policy openly and defiantly.  As a survey of this

episode with an attention to French and Rwandan sourced details, Wallis's book does

offer new insights.

On the other hand, Wallis's work is not as well researched as its jacket proclaims. 

First of all he is not revealing an untold story.  Gérard Prunier's

The Rwanda Crisis

and Linda Melvern's

Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide

both walked down this path on the Rwandan genocide.  They remain the standard

baseline for journalistic coverage of the war and genocide.  Prunier was actually

inside Operation Turquoise as an "advisor." Such credentials are hard to match. 

Melvern has done tremendous work in sifting through the available evidence that

has emerged after the clearing of the camps in Zaire and the International Tribunal

in Arusha.  Wallis falls short of matching their work.

Still I recommend this book to all who want to understand what happened in

Rwanda.  I would especially recommend it given current French and

French-proxy efforts to market the "two genocide" pabulum espoused by the

surviving Hutu extremists and their supporters.

Purpose: This policy establishes the foundation for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) cooperation with the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in the areas of joint planning, assessment and evaluation, training, implementation, and strategic communication. This cooperation is designed to facilitate a whole-of-government approach in which U.S. Government (USG) agencies work within their mandated areas of responsibility in a more coherent way to provide a coordinated, consistent response in pursuit of shared policy goals to include, inter alia, humanitarian relief efforts, counter-terrorism initiatives, civil affairs programs, and reconstruction and stabilization efforts.

Such improved cooperation is a critical element of stabilization efforts in fragile states, particularly in pre- and post-conflict environments. This paper clarifies, formalizes, and defines the parameters of USAID's interaction with DoD. It complements the efforts of the Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), to define a broader civilian interagency engagement with DoD. DoD representatives in the field and in Washington do not seek to supplant USAID's role, but rather look to the Agency for guidance in identifying how the military can play a more supportive role in USAID's development activities.

The companion internal document, Civilian-Military Cooperation Implementation Guidelines, further details functional areas for USAID DoD cooperation, provides legal guidance on operational issues, and illustrative approaches for implementing this policy framework.

The present policy is not intended to modify or supplant existing USAID policies regarding disaster response activities. Standard operating procedures of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA), will continue to be used in these situations.

Update: Colonel Dave Maxwell was kind enough to send SWJ a copy of Securing Peace in Mindanao through Diplomacy, Development, and Defense by US Embassy, Manila, Republic of the Philippines.

The Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the United States Government (USG) are pursuing a successful strategy incorporating diplomacy, development, and defense to secure peace and defeat terrorists in Mindanao. This strategy is based on the principle that the threat of terrorism is eliminated only when both terrorists and the ideology that supports their actions are defeated. In Mindanao, the GRP and USG are working in partnership to expand a stable zone of peace and development, thereby denying domestic (Abu Sayyaf Group) and international (Jemaah Islamiyah) terrorists the physical and psychological space they require to survive.

The US Embassy in Manila maintains a strong bilateral relationship with the Philippines based upon a shared history and common goals in today's world. Vibrant economic and political ties between the two countries strengthen governance, spur economic growth, and reduce the threat posed by terrorism in the Philippines.

Development assistance from the American people improves the lives of average Filipinos - Muslims and Christians alike - in the areas of health, education, economic livelihood, and the environment. Finally, US military assistance is enhancing the professionalism of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and strengthening its ability to respond to a range of modern threats, including domestic and international terrorists...

This memo provides a strategic and operational assessment of security operations in Afghanistan.

Full AAR at the link above. Excerpts (emphasis and links by SWJ) follow:

Context

This report is based on a series of briefings and conversations at SHAPE Headquarters in Mons, Belgium and then subsequent field observations in Afghanistan while accompanying General John Craddock SACEUR during his command update visit. I am very appreciative that the JCS Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen approved the trip and gave me his own take on the situation prior to my travel in theater...

This report is also based on continuous personal research, unclassified data provided in-country during this trip, and firsthand observations gained during my many field visits to both Pakistan and Afghanistan during the period 2003 forward to the current situation.

The conclusions are solely my own as an Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at West Point and should be viewed as an academic contribution to the national security debate. No one in NATO-SHAPE or the ISAF Command in Afghanistan has vetted this report.

Bottom-Line: Six Assertions

(1) Afghanistan is in misery. 68% of the population has never known peace. Life expectancy is 44 years. It has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world: One of six pregnant Afghan women dies for each live birth. Terrorist incidents and main force insurgent violence is rising (34% increase this year in kinetic events.) Battle action and casualties are now much higher in Afghanistan for US forces than they are in Iraq. The Afghan government at provincial and district level is largely dysfunctional and corrupt. The security situation (2.8 million refugees); the economy (unemployment 40% and rising, extreme poverty 41%, acute food shortages, inflation 12% and rising, agriculture broken); the giant heroin/opium criminal enterprise ($4 billion and 800 metric tons of heroin); and Afghan governance are all likely to get worse in the coming 24 months.

(2) The magnificent, resilient Afghan people absolutely reject the ideology and violence of the Taliban (90% or greater) but have little faith in the ability of the government to provide security, justice, clean water, electricity, or jobs. Much of Afghanistan has great faith in US military forces, but enormous suspicion of the commitment and staying power of our NATO allies.

(3) The courageous and determined NATO Forces (the employable forces are principally US, Canadian, British, Polish, and Dutch) and the Afghan National Army (the ANA is a splendid success story) cannot be defeated in battle. They will continue to slaughter the Pashtun insurgents, criminals, and international terrorist syndicates who directly confront them. (7000+ killed during 2007 alone.) The Taliban will increasingly turn to terrorism directed against the people and the Afghan National Police. However, the atmosphere of terror cannot be countered by relying mainly on military means. We cannot win through a war of attrition. The economic and political support provided by the international community is currently inadequate to deal with the situation.

(4) 2009 will be the year of decision. The Taliban and a greatly enhanced foreign fighter presence will: strike decisive blows against selected NATO units; will try to erase the FATA and Baluchi borders with Afghanistan; will try to sever the road networks and stop the construction of new roads (Route # 1 -- the Ring Road from Kabul to Kandahar is frequently now interdicted); and will try to strangle and isolate the capital. Without more effective and non-corrupt Afghan political leadership at province and district level, Afghanistan may become a failed state hosting foreign terrorist communities with global ambitions. Afghan political elites are focused more on the struggle for power than governance.

(5) US unilateral reinforcements driven by US Defense Secretary Bob Gates have provided additional Army and Marine combat forces and significant enhanced training and equipment support for Afghan security forces. This has combined with greatly increased US nation-building support (PRT's, road building, support for the Pakistani Armed Forces, etc.) to temporarily halt the slide into total warfare. The total US outlay in Afghanistan this year will be in excess of $34 billion: a burn rate of more than $2.8 billion per month. However, there has been no corresponding significant effort by the international community. The skillful employment of US Air Force, Army, and Naval air power (to include greatly expanded use of armed and reconnaissance UAV's : Predator, Reaper, Global hawk, and Shadow) has narrowly prevented the Taliban from massing and achieving local tactical victories over isolated and outnumbered US and coalition forces in the East and South.

(6) There is no unity of command in Afghanistan. A sensible coordination of all political and military elements of the Afghan theater of operations does not exist. There is no single military headquarters tactically commanding all US forces. All NATO military forces do not fully respond to the NATO ISAF Commander because of extensive national operational restrictions and caveats. In theory, NATO ISAF Forces respond to the (US) SACEUR...but US Forces in ISAF (half the total ISAF forces are US) respond to the US CENTCOM commander. However, US Special Operations Forces respond to US SOCOM... not (US) SACEUR or US CENTCOM. There is no accepted Combined NATO-Afghan military headquarters. There is no clear political governance relationship organizing the government of Afghanistan, the United Nations and its many Agencies, NATO and its political and military presence, the 26 Afghan deployed allied nations, the hundreds of NGO's, and private entities and contractors. There is little formal dialog between the government and military of Pakistan and Afghanistan, except that cobbled together by the US Forces in Regional Command East along the Pakistan frontier.

The Bow Wave of the US Presidential Campaign

Afghanistan has become the good war and Iraq the war with issues. Neither characterization is relevant. Both candidates to be the US Commander-in-Chief have been placed in awkward stances by the political dynamics of the debate. They have been perhaps unfairly caricatured by sound bites of who will send the most reinforcing US Army combat brigades to Afghanistan. Afghanistan will not be solved by the addition of two or three more US combat brigades from our rapidly unraveling Army.

This is a struggle for the hearts of the people, and good governance, and the creation of Afghan security forces. The war theater is principally for the Afghan-Pakistan frontier regions and the control of the four approaches to Kabul (although 29 of 34 provinces had clashes and bombings.) The combatants are tribes, religious groups, criminals, drug lords, and among ethnic groups (Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, and Turkmen). This is an attempt to create a state, not a battle to save one. This is clearly not a war between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is more a war of extremists against a population desperate for peace.

The battle will be won in Afghanistan when there is an operational Afghan police presence in the nation's 34 provinces and 398 Districts. The battle will be won when the current Afghan National Army expands from 80,000 troops to 200,000 troops with appropriate equipment, training, and leadership and embedded NATO LNO teams. (Afghanistan is 50% larger than Iraq and has a larger population.) The battle will be won when we deploy a five battalion US Army engineer brigade with attached Stryker security elements to lead a five year road building effort employing Afghan contractors and training and mentoring Afghan engineers. The war will be won when we fix the Afghan agricultural system which employs 82% of the population. The war will be won when the international community demands the eradication of the opium and cannabis crops and robustly supports the development of alternative economic activity.

NATO

Without NATO we are lost in Afghanistan. The next Administration must have a major diplomatic commitment to strengthen the capabilities and commitment of our 26 NATO allies.

NATO has 70,000 soldiers on three continents with eleven standing NATO military headquarters. The NATO-Russia Council, the NATO-Ukrainian Council, the 24 member nations of the NATO Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialog, and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative--- are all examples of the enormously effective integrative political and military role of NATO.

Current non-US NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan are in many cases woefully inadequate for the task they face. They have serious restrictive caveats to their military employment. They are casualty adverse in a very dangerous and brutal environment. They are in many cases lacking the force enablers that are a prerequisite to effective COIN operations...

Pakistan

Pakistan is a state of four separate nations under a weak federal government. The Pakistani military is the central load-bearing institution of the state. It is the most respected institution in Pakistan. The Army has severe military limitations in its ability to control the FATA and Baluchistan frontier areas.

A major US intervention across the Pakistan border to conduct spoiling attacks on Pashtun and criminal syndicate base areas would be a political disaster. We will imperil the Pakistani government's ability to support our campaign. They may well stop our air and ground logistics access across Pakistan and place our entire NATO presence in severe jeopardy.

This is a 25 year campaign. We must be patient in our expectations. We must do no harm dealing with Pakistan. We clearly can strike directly and covertly across the border in self-defense. We must never publicly put the Pakistani military in political peril with their own people.

Afghanistan: A Narco-State

The Taliban, Al Qaeda, war lords, and Afghan criminal enterprises are principally funded by what some estimate as $800 million dollars a year derived from the huge $4 billion annual illegal production and export of opium/heroin and cannabis. Some 40 principal figures (20+ in Kandahar Province) control this criminal activity which widely corrupts and weakens the governance of the nation.

Production of both opium and cannabis has surged throughout the country...

The international community has been fearful of confronting this issue. Unless we deal head-on with this enormous cancer, we should have little expectation that our efforts in Afghanistan will not eventually come to ruin.

Building the Afghan Security Forces

... We desperately need an additional 2300 police trainers. This is the central effort to win the war in Afghanistan.

The Afghan National Security Forces now have twice the ground combat power of the ISAF forces. There are 63,000 effective soldiers and 79,000 poorly equipped and trained police. The planned force structure is completely inadequate if our goal is US and NATO withdrawal in the coming decade. The ANA is a splendid instrument of national unity with ethnically mixed units and extremely motivated fighters.

The creation of the Afghan Security Forces is still poorly supported by NATO. Most of this is a US effort. Second-hand donated military equipment sits in Europe because NATO cannot find $7 million to pay for transportation. Many allied trainers are forbidden by national caveat from accompanying their Afghan units in the field as liaison elements.

The US is going to have to step up to this challenge...

The US Armed Forces

The combat effectiveness, courage, and leadership of our deployed joint military forces are simply inspirational. The leaders are battle-hardened, show enormous initiative, and can organize anything. They understand the inter-agency role of economic, cultural, intelligence, and information operations on counter-insurgency warfare.

We have never fielded more experienced and aggressive air and ground tactical units. As an example, the superb Marine 24th MEU in Helmand Province has killed 400+ Taliban fighters while losing 4 US killed and 9 wounded. This air-ground task force was in continuous battle for 35 days and DID NOT KILL OR INJURE ONE AFGHAN CIVILIAN. (Note there has not been one Afghan Army or Police unit with the Marines at any time during their battle in the south.)

The elite Army parachute infantry units from the 101st Airborne Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade operating in the north-eastern provinces (RC-East) have done magnificent work at nation-building while fighting aggressive, well-armed and trained foreign fighters and Taliban conducting cross-border attacks out of Pakistan. In June there were 39 Troops-in- Contact battles in Iraq: there were 419 Troops-in-Contact engagements in Afghanistan. This is dangerous work against a cunning and ruthless enemy...

Many of these troops and their leaders through general officer level are on their 4th or more combat deployments since "911." We have suffered 36,000 US killed and wounded. Their families are getting tired. The country is not at war. The Armed Forces and the CIA are at war. We are at the point of breaking faith with our troops.

Much of our ground and air equipment is falling apart. The anemic US Air Force and Naval modernization programs will place us in great risk in the Pacific in the coming decades. The Armed Forces are under-resourced and inadequately sized for the national security strategy we have pursued.

There is a serious mismatch between ends and means. We are going to wreck the US Armed Forces unless Congress and the next Administration address this situation of great strategic peril.

Summary

We cannot allow ourselves to fail in Afghanistan.

NATO is central to achieving our purpose.

This is a generational war to build an Afghan state and prevent the creation of a lawless, extremist region which will host and sustain enduring threats to the vital national security interests of the United States and our key allies.

The DoD released the 2008 National Defense Strategy today. The strategy outlines the national approach to the defense of this nation and its interests.

The NDS is issued periodically and the last one was published in March 2005. It outlines how the Department supports the President's National Security Strategy and informs the National Military Strategy and other subordinate strategy documents. The strategy builds on lessons learned and insights from previous operations and strategic reviews such as the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review.

Balance at Heart of New Defense Strategy, Gates Says

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

(Bolded emphasis and links by SWJ)

WASHINGTON, July 31, 2008 -- Balance is the key word of the new National Defense Strategy, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said during a news conference today.

Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the U.S. military must be prepared to perform the full range of missions.

The Department must be ready to wage a full-out war and handle irregular warfare and humanitarian missions, Gates said.

"Now, the reality is that conventional and strategic force modernization programs are strongly supported in the services and in the Congress," Gates said.

The main fiscal 2009 defense budget is a concrete example of that support. It contains $104 billion in procurement and about $80 billion in research and development funding, heavily slanted toward conventional modernization programs. Funding for the irregular wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas in the world has come from supplemental budgets.

"The principal challenge, therefore, is how to ensure that the capabilities gained and counterinsurgency lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the lessons we learned from other places where we have engaged in irregular warfare over the last two decades, are institutionalized within the defense establishment," Gates said.

The secretary said he does not want the military to forget the lessons that troops have learned at such a painful price. "Looking to the future, we need to find a long-term place in the base budget for [these lessons]," he said.

Conventional modernization plans certainly are important, Gates said, noting they keep the military capable of defending the homeland, deterring conflict, and -- when deterrence fails -- winning the nation's wars. But the most obvious threat the United States faces in the coming years, he said, comes from non-state actors using asymmetric tactics.

"I firmly believe that in the years ahead, our military is much more likely to engage in asymmetric conflict than conventional conflict against a rising state power," he said. "We must be ready for both kinds of conflict and fund the capabilities to do both."

In the past, irregular warfare has not had the support inside or outside the Pentagon that it requires, the secretary said.

"There is no doubt in my mind that the modernization programs will continue to have strong institutional and congressional support," he said. "I just want to make sure that the capabilities we need for the conflicts we're in and most likely to face in the foreseeable future also are sustained long term."

A review of:

A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It

By Stephen Kinzer, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Inc, 2008.

Reviewed by:

Thomas (Tom) P. Odom

LTC US Army (ret)

Author,

Journey Into Darkness: Genocide In Rwanda

President Paul Kagame is a man who inspires a wide range of emotions in those

who meet him. Some like me admire him.  Others despise him. A former US Ambassador

to Burundi described him as "Svengali or perhaps Mephistopheles--some magician or

sorcerer."[1]  Certainly many in

French diplomatic circles see him as the devil clothed in Anglophone robes. 

In the Africanist analytical world, he is either Rwanda's greatest hope or its mortal

danger. Certainly his enemies have reason to fear him even as his friends love him.

Both enemy and friend know that the wise respect him. 

I first met then Vice President and Defense Minister Major General Paul Kagame

in the fall of 1994 when he was struggling to put the shattered country of Rwanda

back together.  Some were want to describe him as a "war lord" even as one

could buy T-shirts with his picture on them with the phrase "Free at Last!" at Kigali's

international airport.  General Kagame was serious, determined, and it was

clear that he was a strong man.  What remained to be seen was whether he would

become another "Big Man" in African politics or rise above that label to be a truly

great African leader.

Like no other author so far, Stephen Kinzer offered us a peek inside the complexity

named Paul Kagame. Kinzer enjoyed unprecedented access to the President of Rwanda

and provided a colorful and insightful biography of the man.  Like any good

interlocutor, Kinzer understands that listening is best technique for the interviewer. 

He offers Kagame's own words to the reader allowing the subject of this biography

to speak on his own behalf. That is not only fair, it is probably critical to understand

this man who spent much of his life fighting the status quo--and ultimately winning.

According to Kinzer, Kagame's early life as a refugee in Uganda hardened him

into the typical angry young man found in a life surrounded by poverty.  Early

on in his youth he became friends with Fred Rwigyema. Together they later would

become co-founders of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.  But first they would join

Museveni's 40-man National Resistance Army in Uganda and overthrow Obote. When Rwigyema

fell in the first few days of the RPF's 1990 invasion of Rwanda, Kagame resigned

from the US Army Command and General Staff College to take command and reorganize

the RPF.  He and the RPF went on to win a military victory they did not really

desire, sparking a genocide for which they could not be blamed.

Despite Kagame's military prowess, I found Kinzer's chapters on the post-war

period from 2000 on to be the most illuminating because they concentrate on Kagame's

role as President of Rwanda.  At the same time, they provide great hope for

the country's future and portents of possible disaster.  President Kagame is

indeed Rwanda's greatest hope.  At the same time, he is his own greatest nemesis. 

With a view to balance, I would offer a few criticisms. First in describing the

Goma portion of Operation SUPPORT HOPE, Kinzer echoes Major General Dallaire in

saying that the US put 4,000 troops on the ground in a matter of days.  Fewer

than 200 US personnel ever landed at Goma, including but a single platoon of airborne

infantry.  The remainder of the troops under then Brigadier General Jack Nix

focused on water purification and transport.

Secondly I would say that Kinzer downplays or misses three key events in 1995

that drove the Rwandan invasions of Zaire in 1996 and 1997. Kinzer does mention

the disastrous camp clearing operation at Kibeho in April 1995.  My RPA counterparts

warned me clearly they would do the same in Goma.  Kagame said the same thing. 

I wished that Kinzer had questioned him more closely about the decision to clear

the camp at Kibeho. Next I would say was the expansion of Hutu extremist attacks

against Tutsis living in Zaire; I have long looked at that as a trigger event for

the decision to go into Zaire in the next year.  Again, I would have liked

to hear from Kagame in that regard. Finally, Kinzer misses the Iwawa Island operation. 

The senior leaders of the RPA saw the clearing of the militia base as proof that

their enemies were rearming.  Kagame must have seen it as the final opportunity

for the world to do something about the camps.  

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Africa, small wars, reconciliation,

and development.  Kinzer's prose is easy to read and entertaining. His narrative

is insightful.   The Paul Kagame I knew came to life when I read this

book.