By Michael Innes - Cross-posted at CTLab

On 3 July, The New Republic's TNR Conversation with Josh Patashnik hosted the Brookings Institution's Benjamin Wittes, author of the recently released Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in an Age of Terror (Penguin Press, 2008), and the New America Foundation's Andrew McCarthy, author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books, 2008).

There's a crisp transcript of the discussion that's nice and readable, but for the full flavor, listen to the audio, which is much longer and captures much more of the respective authors' responses and elaborations. It kicks off on the recent case of a Chinese Uighur Muslim held at Guantanamo, resolution of which revealed "no evidence that would qualify him as an enemy combatant."

Among other things, TNR's three-way gets into the political context of and for jus ad bellum after 2001, and the politicization of the recent Boumediene Case on habeas corpus rights. The most telling line in the encounter, from Andrew McCarthy: "Rather than having what is probably a not-very-useful argument over what the parameters of the battlefield are, we probably should be much more focused on who it is that we're fighting and under what circumstances they should be brought into the system."

Good on the complexity of battlespace parameters. Bad on suggesting that defining it's probably not useful. Tell it to those who get caught in the "middle", wherever that might be these days. There's a big difference between useless and difficult, the latter hardly a justification for not bothering. That's not what either author's arguing, but they miss an important implication of their own work: the spatial variables that shape and inform the physical disposition of insurgents and terrorists are central to battlespace regulatory regimes.

Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt

Remarks at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

Future Land Warfare Conference

12 June 2008

The Land Environment -- Moving Towards 2018

May I start this morning by adding my welcome to that of our Chairman, and in particular thank Professor Michael Clarke, the Director of RUSI and Lieutenant General Ted Stroupe, the Vice President of AUSA, for hosting and putting together this important Conference. May I also thank our many sponsors, too, for their generous support. I believe that our discussions and conclusions over the next two days could prove to be a significant turning point in the way that we address Land Warfare over the next decade or so. There are key questions to be addressed and I welcome this opportunity to exchange ideas and aspirations.

In that spirit I particularly welcome our contributors from overseas, and would like to formally welcome:

(US) Gen Hondo Campbell

(Kenya) Gen Jerry Kianga

(Canada) Lt Gen Andrew Leslie

(Pakistan) Lt Gen Masood Aslam

(France) Maj Gen Jacque Le Chevallier (representing Gen Cuche)

Now to get our proceedings under way in a substantive sense, my aim this morning, over the next 20 minutes is to give you an indication of the direction of travel for the British Army over the next ten years. Now I should caveat this by saying that I am only speaking on my vision for the Land Environment and that elements of wider Defence policy are still being discussed and formulated, but this is where I, and my senior Army colleagues, would like to see the Army moving within that Defence context. This direction has been formulated following what I would describe as a very lively and spirited debate across the Army as to what the force of the future should look like, particularly after our experience on current operations. We have recognised in recent months that we are at, what we could call a Question Four Moment, - that moment that occurs occasionally when the Mission hasn't changed, but the situation and circumstances around it have -- and so a new plan is needed. We believe that our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere have called us to question whether our previous assumptions regarding current practice and future development have been right -- and we have looked at all the issues very carefully.

After what has been this very constructive debate I believe that we now have a wide understanding and consensus certainly at the top end of the Army about what we consider the likely shape of the land environment to be in ten years time and how we need to adapt to meet these new challenges. So our internal debate is over, and our conclusions will now hopefully better inform the overall defence discussion as we move towards the future.

Context

Before I set out the specifics of the Army vision, I think it is important that I comment on the baseline context for our debate, as there must be some underpinning assumptions. That said, it is always difficult for defence planners to fix assumptions with certainty, but we must try and at least agree on the nature of the future operational challenges that are likely to confront us.

First of all, we must be clear that the Army in 2018 will be shaped by our current campaigns; we have no clean sheet of paper from which to work and we cannot go back to where we were in terms of equipment or capability in 2003. We know too much about the future now. But equally, we will be constrained in our development for the future by the need to succeed on our current operations. There is no point in developing grand sounding future concepts if we fail to resource and structure to the required standard to deliver success today. If we do not succeed, the future for Defence will look pretty bleak.

Secondly, the National Security Strategy and all that I hear from government and other political parties leads me to believe that there is a continuing national acceptance of the need to continue to conduct discretionary military operations in support of policy -- liberal interventionism has wide support -- and within those interventions land operations will be the decisive element. Even though the differences between the different lines of operation, including military force, have become increasingly complex and in some ways blurred, I am convinced that Clausewitz's philosophy on the need to be constantly guided by the political aim remains extremely relevant: (Slide)

"If we keep in mind that war springs from political purpose, it is natural that the prime cause of its existence will remain the supreme consideration in conducting it. That does not imply that the political aim is a tyrant. It must adapt itself to its chosen means, a process that can radically change it; yet the political consideration remains the first consideration. Policy, then, will permeate all military operations, and, in so far as their violent nature will admit, it will have a continuous influence on them." (Clausewitz)

We must also make the assumption that the British Army -- indeed all elements of Defence - of the future must remain relevant. By relevant I mean several things. I mean that we must have capabilities that are highly likely to be needed and used in the foreseeable future. We need relevant capabilities so that we can both intervene, and contribute to stabilisation. I also mean that we must be relevant to our Allies, and bring the kind of capabilities that they need. Our primary ally is, of course, the US with whom we have a bond forged through the blood spilled together in the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan -- a bond which is stronger than any policy guidance -- but we must focus on operating with the US, and not necessarily as the US. It is my belief that the US looks to us to do two principal things in a Coalition of the Willing -- to bring a manoeuvre capability of some size under a Divisional Headquarters -- and to put boots on the ground until overall success in the Campaign is achieved! However, in addition to allies and partners, we must remain relevant to the needs of our own Government and across Whitehall. We, the military, do not own the Comprehensive Approach, we are but one element and we must ensure that we are organised to be able to help Other Government Departments deliver overall success. This, again, places a particular premium on the relevance of our Land capabilities.

The Use of Force

Underpinning all of this consideration of relevance and of capabilities is the need to be clear about the purpose of military force over the next ten years for the Land Environment. I am afraid that there is a tendency in the Army to think in terms of binary responses, - it is either left or right, it is on or off, it is all or nothing - and this equally applies to the nature of war. We also have a tendency to like what JFC Fuller referred to as "empty catchphrases" as they allow us to try to capture essentially very complex issues in a small number of words or on a PowerPoint slide. But, conflict is complex and thus cannot be captured in this zero-sum manner. At the risk of going against the flow of public opinion, I do not agree with Rupert Smith when he says: (Slide) "A paradigm shift in war has undoubtedly occurred....the old paradigm was of interstate industrial war. The new one is the paradigm of war amongst the people". In accepting what Rupert said we run the risk of a binary response -- and life is not so straight-forward.

I would argue that the position in which we find ourselves now is nothing new, in fact the debate about what the Army should look like in order to fight current and future campaigns has been with us since at least Cardwell in the late Nineteenth Century. On the two occasions I have met General Masood Aslam in his role as Commander XI Corps of the Pakistan Army operating in the North West Frontier Province and in the FATA, he has said to me "We have learned the lessons of your fathers and grandfathers -- have you?". Well I am not sure that we have up to now -- at least not sufficiently. So forgive me, if I now spin off into a history lesson, but it is contextually important for our current operations.

From the 1880's the British Army was structured to operate as both a colonial police force, involved in so-called "Small Wars", whilst simultaneously maintaining a smaller Continental Standing Army to be able to meet major contingencies. Prior to the 1930's it was entirely clear that the resources would go to the Imperial tasks first, as these were the current operations in the national interest that could not be lost. One of the lessons of the 1st World War was that the balance had swung too much in favour of the colonial force and as a result a great deal of understanding of the higher levels of warfare had been lost over the generations -- a subject to which I shall return. Later, as we withdrew from Empire, I think there were two critical factors that still impact on us today. The first is that the balance of resources and priority in thinking shifted dramatically to the Cold War and to defence in a possible war of national survival. Insurgencies still occurred as we withdrew from Empire, but as the Army became smaller, so these operations (less Northern Ireland) took on a second priority as far as national defence priorities were concerned. Our policy was to disengage and return from East of Suez. So even our residual 'Out of Area' capabilities needed to be dual-roled. Additionally, in a desire not to be considered to be still colonial, I sense that we lost the mindset and skills across Government that our fathers and grandfathers instinctively understood and there was perhaps -- and still is in some quarters -- a reluctance to do anything that appeared to be colonial in nature.

Colonel Calwell wrote his excellent work on 'Small Wars' in 1906, which I think were made even more relevant by Major General Sir Charles Gwyn in his work 'Imperial Policing' written in 1934. He divided operations into three categories:

First, he described Small Wars where there is a large amount of freedom of action for the military, as they prepare the way to establish civilian control. These are very much the wars of Empire, but perhaps could be compared to the early stages of Iraq or Afghanistan.

Second, he described Campaigns where civil control has broken down to such an extent that the military needs to fulfil the roles of civil control, at least for a while. The situation we find in parts of Iraq and Afghanistan today - very much the stabilisation task.

And third he talked about Campaigns of giving aid to an existing military power by reinforcing police forces -- very much what we would call capacity building more widely, today.

Gwyn assessed that in the 1930s the second type of operation -- the Stabilisation task - was the most likely and I could not provide a better description for the type of operation we currently face.

So what I am trying to demonstrate is that there is no new type of war -- we are in a continuum - we have been in that continuum for several generations. What has changed is the distinction between the different types of warfare. We can no longer be prescriptive about taking part in either Major Combat Operations or Stabilisation Operations, the boundary between them has become increasingly blurred -- the antithesis of the beloved binary response. I cannot envisage a conflict where there will be no role for stabilisation operations, but equally stabilisation is highly likely to involve combat as it does today. But more importantly the Army does not subscribe to the view that major combat operations are a thing of the past. I am quite clear that as an Army, we must play our role within national defence as well as provide security. The man who looks ten years out and says he knows what the strategic situation will look like, is, frankly the Court Jester. Look how foolish those who claimed the end of history in 1991 look now. Defence is about an insurance policy as well as the ability to conduct current operations -- and we do not throw away our home insurance policies just because crime statistics are down in our neighbourhood.

Let me return to our binary tendency. I have heard during our debate that we should think about structuring and equipping ourselves for either Major Combat Ops or for Stabilisation Ops, when of course the reality is that the line between them will be extremely imprecise. Even these definitions are too precise. There is an entire spectrum between on the one hand, traditional 'empty battlespace' warfighting and, on the other hand, terrorism, with a vast array of irregular activities in between. The problem is identifying exactly what type of conflict we face at any one moment in time. And to make it even more complex these activities may be either sequential or simultaneous. Reality defies neat definitions -- but neat definitions can lead to precise solutions -- in which case you are in trouble.

So I do not accept that we should be either one thing or the other. But before I go to specifics about the future, I want to go back to the context.

The reality is that Defence has some significant challenges in trying to balance the traditional highly desirable capabilities with the absolutely essential. Even in the Land environment there are additional challenges in meeting the demands of being able to succeed on current ops, whilst simultaneously preparing to structure ourselves for Major Combat Ops and Stabilisation Ops of the future. I am realistic enough to know that -- especially with the current national economic position -- Defence is unlikely to get all that it wants and the budget is highly unlikely to increase substantially under any government. But what we must recognise is that wars are great forces for change and innovation. Much of the equipment and capability that we have available now in Iraq and Afghanistan is first class, but it cannot be uninvented -- we cannot go back to the 2003 capability, our soldiers will not accept it -- and nor will I. We know too much now. Particularly in discretionary operations we have the legal and moral duty to put soldiers into the field with the equipment that we now know we need. If this is the case, then we must provide this equipment in greater depth to a far greater degree so that it becomes the norm to give our people the modern equipment of our current operations across all our training more generally. You cannot transform in contact, and regress back in barracks. This is an important context for our debate.

The Future

So if that is the context of the debate, where do I, and my fellow Generals, want the Army to go over the next ten years? Critically, the start point of this journey is firmly rooted in the present. We will not be setting our aspirations for 2018 in a far flung technological age or in an ill defined strategic context. In a break from traditional defence planning, we would like to see planning go from today as the start point and work forward. This may seem slightly at odds with current practice, but we must be flexible enough to take account of shifting current operations and to veer and haul our capabilities and resources accordingly. We must get away from blue skies thinking and from programmes that take a generation to introduce -- current pressures do not give us that luxury.

So let me focus on our key conclusions - which is that the Army of tomorrow must retain the capability to fight MCO and Stability Ops, both simultaneously and sequentially. We have reached the point now where the most likely operations are amongst the most demanding. Our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have clearly demonstrated that even with integrated technology and systems, the mass and footprint given by numbers are an essential element of the future Army -- in other words we cannot get any smaller and I would argue strongly that we need to be bigger and to fully integrate our Regular and Territorial manpower focussed on most likely tasks.

Although we must maintain our ability to be expeditionary, the Army is moving away from the short lived doctrine that all campaigns can be short in duration. "Go First, Go Fast, Go Home" had a very short shelf life as a policy aspiration. We must have an increasing capacity to endure, which implies not only greater mass of people, but enough depth in joint enablers to allow wider concurrency together with greater endurance. In order to do this, I need a structure that is capable of the wide range of tasks in great numbers, which means that we will not be going down the path of a two tier specialised Army. We might need 30,000 for an MCO operation, but equally Stabilisation might require even more in certain stages. And I think it is also important to consider the inescapable fact that some Stabilisation Operations could be greatly shortened if large numbers are deployed. I have taken a lesson of the past 5 years of conflict that if you have an economy of force operation it will take far longer to reach your endstate -- it is therefore a false economy.

It does not mean that we cannot have specialisation. I think that there is a place in the future orbat for specialist stabilisation units -- to which I will return later -- but more critically, I think specialisation is the key area where the Two Star Divisional HQ level of command plays a critical role.

There is also an absolute requirement to retain a capability to manoeuvre at Divisional level. But let me be clear by what I mean by manoeuvre. In Army Land Operations doctrine, it is defined as "to gain a position of advantage relative to the enemy", which I believe is far more applicable to the entire spectrum of operations than we perhaps currently understand -- it is not just about armour out manoeuvring other armour. So, I am hard over that we must retain deployable 2-star Divisional headquarters that are capable of the command and control of manoeuvre within a variety of environments. The Division is the basic level of command that must be capable of both planning and conducting MCO and Stabilisation Ops at all levels simultaneously in order to be able to out manoeuvre our enemies in thought, time and space. However, perhaps there is a debate about how we optimise our divisions -- and this is a piece of work that we are looking at in more detail. I would like to see the 3 deployable divisional structure (1st Armd, 3rd and 6 Divs) endure, with a cycle of optimisation, which would include structures and resources allowing a spine of Major Combat Operations expertise while routinely doing Stabilisation. I am certain that we must retain -- and indeed enhance - our 2-star Divisional HQs to ensure they have the ability to orchestrate manoeuvre in the widest sense. Essentially, it is back to that question of relevance, and what others want from us.

I would take this argument one stage further. The 3-star level of command through the ARRC is a capstone Land capability. Not only does this allow for an institutionalised NATO assigned, national HQ that is able to operate routinely at the Operational level of command on NATO, EU, Coalition or National Land-focussed operations, but it allows us to nurture future generations of officers in the higher levels of manoeuvre. I go back to my point that we lost the capacity to think at the highest levels during our Small Wars experience prior to the 1st World War - I do not want us to lose again our capacity to think at this level. The Reichswehr kept the flame alive in the 1930s. So, later this year I am running a Staff Ride to be attended by our bright up and coming Colonels, to consider just this point. We will study the "War that Never Was" by considering the Soviets 3rd Shock Army and NATO Northern Army Group planning of the 1980s using the experience of retired officers who commanded and operated at the higher levels of command. Hopefully we will implant their lessons into the next generation of senior officers of the British Army -- who in the last five years have almost exclusively focussed on High Intensity Counter Insurgency, and Stabilisation Operations, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, moving from the conceptual to the physical, under the Future Army Structures work of four years ago, we structured the Army on the basis of the most likely type of operation and as I have already said this has almost certainly become the most demanding in terms of complexity. Therefore, the only logical deduction is that we must continue with the direction of travel to optimise the One Star Brigade level for Stabilisation Operations, whilst being able to task organise to conduct Major Combat Operations within readiness and within a Divisional framework. This is the very heart of the Army Transforming in Contact.

So what does that mean? I think that the past few years have taught us that the days of specialising the ground manoeuvre brigades as either armoured or mechanised, may be at an end. The emerging concept of homogenous, or identical, brigades means that we can develop dedicated organic capabilities at Brigade level. This gives us the advantage of being able to train as we fight -- we must start to equip our brigades routinely with the capabilities that they use on current operations. Now this does mean that we will have to spread some of our heavier elements more thinly across the brigades, but not only will that reduce our logistic drag, but our increased confidence of delivery of effect from the air and the potential for major force enhancement of grouping aviation with any of our brigades will offer huge opportunities. These brigades with an organic balance of heavy, medium and light capabilities optimized for intervention and stabilisation operations must also be capable of training for MCO and retask organising rapidly within readiness to provide a range of force structures for any particular enemy scenario.

Now, there is a huge amount of detail still to be developed about what these brigades might look like and what the balance of capability will be, and there will be down arrows as well as up. We are working on the implications of this -- but the outcome will be a package, and not one in which I will allow the savings to be cherry-picked while the rest stagger on!

So, I hope you will see that I want to continue the shift towards balanced and capable brigades optimised for stabilisation -- but I stress that these are still generalist organisations.

I mentioned earlier that there was a role for specialisation (ACGS Venn Diagram slide). There will be a requirement for niche capabilities that cannot be attributed to any major combat ops task in the land environment -- but they need to be force drivers in Stabilisation. It is clear to me that we must start to develop in Defence niche capabilities against what is now being called Military Assistance, Security and Development tasks -- MASD -- and this is a new, emerging Military Task.

In support of the Defence Strategic Guidance 08 work, I have directed an Army study to look at the feasibility of forming permanent cadres of stabilisation specialists. These small units would specialise in the training and mentoring of indigenous forces -- the type of tasks conducted by OMLTs in Afghanistan or MiTTs in Iraq. But I see these organisations as being far more. My vision is that they would form the spine of our enduring cultural education and understanding. I can envisage a multi-disciplined and inter-agency organisation that would be capable of both fighting alongside local forces, and delivering reconstruction and development tasks in areas where the civil agencies cannot operate. I believe we should develop a career path that would see an officer spending a tour with indigenous forces, followed perhaps by an attachment to DFiD overseas, or a local council at home or a police force in Africa or elsewhere. Perhaps, this is where we start to embed our deep language and cultural training, not just for our current areas of operation, but potential future conflict zones. This is the stuff of our grandfathers and great uncles but, as I have argued, we are in a continuum, not in a new paradigm -- so these skills are still very relevant.

I think at this point, it important in passing, that we make a differentiation between civilians delivering effect and delivering civil effect itself. There will be times when the security situation will not allow other elements of Whitehall to deploy people on the ground, or in the numbers needed. We must not allow inter agency misunderstanding from preventing any kind of necessary activity within a Comprehensive Approach, but we must equally ensure that we do not send poorly prepared soldiers to do the work of specialists. Hence I see a role for specialists -- not necessarily under the direction of the military, but contributing to the delivery of civil effect - and I think there is a major role here for the reserves, too.

So, I think the development of the MASD tasks and specialisation is fundamental to the lessons of the past few years, but most importantly it ensures that we continue to adapt to the future security situation to ensure that we give the government options for relevant military forces.

Conclusion

I am afraid that this has been a canter through some very detailed developing work. What I want to leave you with is the sense that the British Army is determined to continue to adapt and develop from our start point on current operations. We have spent the past 5 years transforming to meet the demands of our current wars and the potential conflicts of the future, but I do not believe that anything I have outlined changes the course of that transformation in contact; it is merely a clarifying of the endstate. The developing concurrent nature of both Major Combat Operations and Stabilisation Ops means that the most likely is the most demanding. Therefore -- and this is key to what I am saying - we must continue to optimise for the most likely -- which is Stabilisation Operations -- whilst maintaining our ability to dual role and meet the demands of Major Combat Operations -- while remembering that at the lowest level fighting can be very intense whatever label you have applied to the operation.

Our current experiences tell us that we cannot uninvent the massive leap forward in capability forced on us by an ever adapting threat and the increased demands of operations. We are morally and legally bound to ensuring that this capability is delivered across the force, as a matter of policy.

And it is this which provides the logic for the strap line for this conference of Sustaining the Force -- Soldier First. We have to have an Army that is capable of sustained Stabilisation Operations but capable of adapting to Major Combat Operations, within readiness, but at the heart of that Army are the fighting people and their families which make up our overall capability. And, in all our discussion about concepts and structures, we must never lose sight of the fact that the constant between all types of warfare is that it is a brutal human activity. No amount of technology or capability will change that factor and it must be at the forefront of our minds when we conduct our defence planning. We need the right number of people -- Regular and Territorial -- who are motivated, supported, rewarded and recognised for the key work they do.

I am also conscious that I have only talked about the Land Environment and the Army in particular, but the land environment is more than just the Army. This is a joint and increasingly inter-agency activity and I would welcome the widening of what has been a largely Army debate to include the role that all environments can have in these most demanding and likely of operations. As I have said, I am sure that we will end up with some down arrows in our existing resource requirement in the Army, and I am ready for that debate right across Defence, where I expect to see other down arrows. Overall, we must recognise that we are unlikely to have enough to do all that we would like -- we must now look seriously at what we really, really need.

This is why the debate about taking the Military Assistance, Security and Development tasks seriously is so important. This is at the heart of properly enabling our key Stabilisation tasks without completely eroding our ability to adjust to MCO at readiness. It is essential that the military continue to adapt to ensure that we are relevant to policy ends. If we fail to continue to adapt -- if we fail to make ourselves relevant in the modern world to the needs of government policy then we will simply develop a self serving military machine with no rationale based on realistic policy -- Clausewitz was right to say that "the political consideration remains the first consideration", but we must remember that after the military intervention, however short or protracted that may be -- it is to politics that we return.

New MH-53M Helicopter Exhibit Opens

By Rob Bardua, National Museum of the US Air Force

Several high ranking officials from Air Force Special Operations Command, industry and the community recently joined personnel from the National Museum of the US Air Force for the official opening of the museum's new MH-53M Pave Low IV helicopter exhibit.

Air Force special operations forces used the Sikorsky MH-53M to covertly enter enemy territory. Capable of operating at day or night or in bad weather, these helicopters conducted long-range, low-level missions to insert, extract, and resupply special operations forces.

The museum's MH-53M Pave Low IV helicopter, serial number 68-10357, carried the command element during the mission to rescue American prisoners of war from the Son Tay prison camp near Hanoi, North Vietnam in 1970.

After Vietnam, it flew in many more combat engagements including Operation DESERT STORM and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. After 38 years of service, its final flight was a combat mission in Iraq on March 28, 2008.

From Iraq, the aircraft was transported to the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

"It's fitting that this aircraft's last mission was flown in combat before it was placed on permanent display at the museum," said Lt. Gen. Donald C. Wurster, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command and an MH-53 pilot. "These machines are born to combat and have proven themselves time and time again."

Flown in nearly every contingency since the Vietnam War, the MH-53 has proved to be extremely durable and highly decorated.

"We checked the records and found that this fleet of only 72 aircraft has racked up a combat record of 140 Silver Stars; an average of two Silver Stars per airframe over their lifetime," said Lt. Gen. Wurster. "It is hard to believe that any other aircraft in Air Force history could have such a remarkable and compelling story of heroism."

National Museum of the US Air Force visitors will be able to learn more about the MH-53M's heroic story now that the aircraft is on permanent display in the museum's Eugene W. Kettering Cold War Gallery.

According to museum director Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Charles D. Metcalf, it is only appropriate that the MH-53M have an honored place within the museum.

"The MH-53M stands as a representative of not only its own rich history, but also as a record copy off which we will launch countless stories of the men and women who have built, flown, crewed and maintained these aircraft," said Metcalf. "We are honored and privileged to have this responsibility."

In September 2008, the remaining MH-53s in the Air Force inventory will be retired, completing this helicopter's long and distinguished Air Force career.

History-making Helicopter Lands at Ohio Museum

By James Hannah, Associated Press

It flew on a daring but unsuccessful raid to free US POWs in North Vietnam in 1970. Thirty-eight years later, after subsequent tours in Bosnia and Iraq, helicopter No. 357 is being retired - with honor.

The 88-foot-long special operations chopper has made its final landing at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, where it went on permanent display Monday.

"It's been a busy aircraft," said museum historian Jeff Underwood. "It absolutely encompasses US military history for the fourth quarter of the 20th century and carries into the first quarter of the 21st century."

No. 357 - nicknamed "Magnum" after the gun - flew for 38 years. It is the last to remain of the handful of helicopters used in the Son Tay raid in Vietnam. Its final flight was a combat mission in Iraq on March 28.

There were originally about 70 MH-53s. There are still 12 in service, but the last of those will be retired in September. The fleet will be replaced by the Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft...

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SWJ hat tip to Barry Dwyer and Warlord!

Here's some starter questions, but don't limit yourself:

1) What was helpful/useful in FM 3-24?

2) What is missing in FM 3-24?

3) What needs amplification?

4) What needs de-emphasis?

5) What is flat wrong or needs removal?

6) Does the manual strike the balance between specific, applicable knowledge and theory of operations?

7) How does the manual hold up in application in Iraq/Afghanistan, and does its principles hold up outside of Iraq/Afghanistan?

Join the discussion at Small Wars Council - Revising FM 3-24: What needs to change?

David McCullough has been widely acclaimed as a "master of the art of narrative history," "a matchless writer." He is twice winner of the National Book Award, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize. In December 2006 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award.

His books have been praised for their scholarship, their understanding of American life, their "vibrant prose," and insight into individual character. Mr. McCullough's most recent book, 1776, the number one New York Times national bestseller in both hardcover and paperback, has been called, "brilliant...powerful," "a classic." There are three million copies in print, while Mr. McCullough's previous work, John Adams, remains one of the most critically acclaimed and widely read American biographies of all time. It is presently in its sixty-third printing.

John Adams, was filmed as a seven-part mini-series on HBO. Produced by Tom Hanks, it stars Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney.

In the words of the citation accompanying his honorary degree from Yale, "As an historian, he paints with words, giving us pictures of the American people that live, breathe, and above all, confront the fundamental issues of courage, achievement, and moral character."

Mr. McCullough's other books include The Johnstown Flood, The Great Bridge, The Path between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, Brave Companions, and Truman. His work has been published in ten languages and, in all, nearly 9,000,000 copies are in print. As may be said of few writers, none of his books has ever been out of print.

David McCullough is as well twice winner of the prestigious Francis Parkman Prize, and for his work overall he has been honored by the National Book Foundation Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award and the National Humanities Medal. He has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has received more than forty honorary degrees.

He has been an editor, essayist, teacher, lecturer, and familiar presence on public television -- as host of Smithsonian World, The American Experience, and narrator of numerous documentaries including The Civil War. His is also the narrator's voice in the movie Seabiscuit. He is also one of the few private citizens to speak before a joint session of Congress.

His current project is a book about Americans in Paris, from the 1830's to 1930's.

By Captain Timothy Hsia

News today in Iraq is centered on contracts currently being negotiated between the Government of Iraq and major oil companies. This has occupied much of the attention of America and the rest of the world as the price of oil continues to skyrocket. However, Iraqis for the vast majority are not only interested in the future of their oil but also concentrated on another pressing natural resource problem, the scarcity of water.

Sandwiched between Baghdad and Mosul is the Diyala River Valley (DRV), and within the DRV is a region known as the Breadbasket of Iraq. Farmers have worked the land here since Biblical times. Baqubah, the capital of Diyala, is Arabic for Jacob's house. The region historically has been so abundant agriculturally that the produce from this area has been able to not only sustain the local region but also vast parts of Iraq. Today however, the way of life of these farmers has become imperiled for one simple reason: there is simply not enough water for their crops. Drought like conditions now exist in many regions of the Diyala River Valley and potable water is scarce. When Iraqi kids encounter soldiers on patrols they not only ask for soccer balls but also water bottles.

Wars and conflict have come and gone, but the farmers in the DRV have remained. Their way of life is simple; they farm and work the land. Saddam Hussein poured government funds into this resource rich region because of its ability to produce high agriculture yields. Consequently, today the region is renowned as not only an agricultural power house but also a region with latent Ba'athist sympathies.

Under Saddam, waterways were centrally planned and water usage was highly regulated. Farmers upstream were not allowed to divert the flow of water and hence waterways were preserved for farmers located downstream. The collapse of the Saddam government brought an end to the highly regulated water system along with an absence of maintenance of manmade waterways. As a result of the lack of central control exerted by the government today, it is difficult if not impossible to limit water usage as the Columbia River is in America. In an act of defiance, the Sunni farmers in the region boycotted the provincial elections in early 2005. This proved to be a costly decision as the Shia dominated Iraqi government has yet to provide any meaningful governmental assistance to the Sunnis in Diyala.

In many of the farmer's perspectives, little progress has been made since the collapse of Saddam's government. It is interesting to note that the notorious terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in the Diyala province. The farmers in the region harbored Zarqawi because of their dissatisfaction with the ability of the government to provide essential services such as addressing the continuing water woes. These farmers way of lives has become endangered as the amount of available water has dwindled. As the farmer's yields have dropped, their ability to pay back loans to the Iraqi Agricultural Bank has diminished and many farmers in the DRV have begun defaulting on their loans.

Today's water woes in the DRV are not due solely to the ongoing war or the Iraqi government's lack of ability to address essential services. The Diyala River and Hamrin Lake are the two main sources of water in the region. However, the water level in both these bodies of waters is directly impacted by Iran. The Hamrin Lake used to store up to two billion cubic meters of water. If one were to reference the lake in any map of Iraq it stands out as one of Iraq's largest lakes. However, today its existence is in serious jeopardy and instead of crossing a bridge to get across the lake, one can simply drive thru what once was a lake. Mufawaq Howar, a Water Resource Department expert states that "Hamrin Lake contains only 20 percent of its capacity." There is a great chance that this body of water will simply disappear in the coming summer months. Iranians have diverted water to the lake to fill their own dams for energy purposes. The Diyala River suffers a similar fate as water from the river is also being diverted by the Iranians for hydroelectric power and irrigation for their own agricultural industry. In Iraq a thin line exists between what in the West constitutes two separate crises, the energy and food crises.

Iraq's water woes also affect US military personnel as servicemen living at Forward Operating Bases in the Diyala region rely on the same water sources for the majority of its water needs. Thus far, there has been little effort on these bases to conserve water despite the fact that water is a precious commodity outside of these bases. American bases should seek to moderate their water intake in order to assist the locals who live in the region. American servicemen can indirectly contribute to defeating the insurgency by limiting unnecessary water usage on these bases.

America's exit strategy will begin when the government of Iraq can begin providing its people with essential services such as fair and equitable access to water. However, the United States and the Iraqi government cannot do this alone as the water crisis in the Diyala River has indicated. Iraq's neighbor, Iran needs to act like the friendly neighbor which its leaders rhetorically trump. Iraq's leaders must confront Iran concerning the vitality of its waterways. Iraq's future will hinge not only on the United States but also its regional neighbors.

US Army Captain Tim Hsia is currently serving in Iraq with the 2nd Stryker Calvary Regiment.

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesmen and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking.

--Clausewitz

On October 23, 1983 the world turned upside down for the U.S. Marine Corps. The deaths of 241 sailors, soldiers, and Marines in a concrete slab building in Beirut, Lebanon at the hands of a suicide bomber marked the beginning of the end of an era - an era where the enemy was a Soviet motorized rifle regiment and where Marines stood guard duty without magazines inserted because the United States was not "at war." In retrospect, the Beirut bombing was a seminal event, heavily influencing subsequent Marine Corps organization and culture and ushering in the kind of profound change that seldom takes place in large organizations without the stimulus of a significant emotional event.

Orders were quick to follow: All Marines will walk post armed; Marines will not starch their utilities; Marines will not spit shine their combat boots; Marines will read professionally. These changes did not occur overnight, but looking back from today's vantage point, it is hard not to marvel at the profound changes that have transformed the Corps.

If there can be a silver lining to a tragedy as great as Beirut, it is that the Marine Corps began a great awakening to a new way of warfare fully two decades before her sister Services. There was recognition that Marines must prepare differently, both physically and mentally, for the new challenges posed by terrorism, transnational threats, and the more dynamic security requirements of the post-Cold War world. In attempting to discern the nature of this changing security environment and to develop appropriate courses of action, some were quick to say, harkening back to the Corps' small wars legacy, "been there, done that."

But is it just a question of back to the future? Or, is conflict in the new millennium fundamentally different? The short answer is yes to both. Meaning, while many small wars fundamentals remain unchanged, there are significant threats and challenges that are without precedent. It is the intent of this work to examine these emerging threats and convert the challenges they present into opportunities for improving our capabilities to provide for the national defense.

This "yes to both" answer also means that the Small Wars Manual of 1940 remains a relevant work worthy of our attention. Thus, this volume does not supercede the original, but builds upon its solid foundation to examine those important new characteristics arising from the historically unprecedented threats of the 21st century.

Small Wars Defined

We must start by defining our terms. What is war and its derivative - small war? In its most elemental form, Clausewitz defined war as "an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." (1) Clausewitz further elaborates this simple formulation by explaining that compelling an adversary to do one's will is thus the object of war, while the means used to accomplish this object is physical force. (2) In small wars, just as in large-scale conventional wars, the object remains compelling the adversary to do one's will. Unlike conventional wars, however, in small wars the means available to compel ones adversary into compliance varies across a broader range of means from pure diplomacy reinforced by the credible threat of force, to large-scale conventional combat operations. In Clausewitz's lexicon, "the political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose." (3) It is because war is an extension of politics by other means that this political objective is always paramount.

The corollary to this proposition is that the military provides the violent physical means necessary to prosecute the war and thereby extend politics by other means. However, a fundamental shift has taken place that requires expansion of this corollary. Military forces of the 21st century provide a wider range of policy options than Armies and Navies of Clausewitz's day, being capable of a broad spectrum of actions to include engagement activities, information operations, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and conventional combat operations (see Appendix A "Types of Small War Operations"). Small wars are thus an extension of warfare by additional means, providing political leaders with a range of military options beyond just physical violence with which to further political objectives. One need only review a sample of major operations of the 1990s to appreciate this increased range of operations: domestic support for the Los Angeles riots, western firefighting, and response to numerous natural disasters; peace operations in Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo; counter-drug operations in Latin America and along the U.S. - Mexican border; national assistance for humanitarian de-mining operations in Cambodia and Laos; and humanitarian assistance in areas as diverse as Somalia, Bangladesh, and Rwanda; all these missions bracketed by major combat operations against Iraq in 1990 and 2003. This range and frequency of military operations is unprecedented in our history.

Small wars are most often waged between asymmetrically empowered adversaries -- one larger and more capable, one smaller and less capable when measured in traditional geostrategic or conventional military terms. This is not to say that small wars necessarily involve limited resources and small units. For example, Vietnam was a small war, a conflict in no way "small" in the conventional sense of the term. Paradoxically, small wars can be quite big when measured in terms of size of formations employed, numbers of personnel involved, numbers of casualties sustained, or amounts of resources expended. It is thus the political/diplomatic context in which the war is fought that determines whether it is a "small war" and not the size and scope of resources expended, or the specific tactics employed. Additionally, the political/diplomatic context in which the small war is set determines the conflict's characteristics far more than the theoretical or actual military capabilities possessed by the participants.

Conventional wars can transition to small wars, and small wars can escalate into full-scale conventional wars when the strategic/diplomatic context changes. This distinction has practical implications and is not just an exercise in academic labeling and classification. If such a hybrid war was anticipated and planned for, military planners might choose to consider the initial conventional combat phase as the shaping phase, rather than the decisive phase. In such a case, the stability phase might then be planned as the decisive phase. In short, if our political objectives can only be accomplished after a successful stability phase, then the stability phase is, de facto, the decisive phase. Recognizing the potential for such radical phase changes from conventional war to small wars would enable planners to better anticipate force requirements and to construct more agile strategic plans. A seamless transition from one phase to the other should be the goal, regardless of whether this can always be realized in the field.

In small wars, survival interests of the greater power are not immediately at stake, although it is certainly possible that a small war unsuccessfully prosecuted could lead to a more serious situation where survival interests do become involved. Thus, small wars must not be viewed as somehow less important than big wars. Any activity that entails the use or credible threat of force must be handled with the utmost seriousness of purpose and resolve.

Significantly, because of the asymmetry between the opponents, the "lesser" power will of necessity adapt to ensure the conflict is not conducted in a manner where mass, scale, and superior economic output can easily defeat it. Adversaries will avoid fighting on terms that would allow them to be attrited into submission by overwhelming force - the prototypical American way of fighting conventional wars - or by the transitory effects of a rapid precision strike campaign. Thus, small wars are potentially long wars, making pre-determined exit strategies and rigid timetables unrealistic and counterproductive.

In contrast to typical large-scale conventional wars, diplomatic and political imperatives maintain a clearly ascendant role over the military, thus demanding especially close coordination amongst all relevant governmental agencies -- especially between the State Department and the Department of Defense.

Small wars may be protracted because diplomacy remains operative, necessarily circumscribing the level of violence and destruction. The objective is often a coming to terms - an agreement - rather than complete collapse or unconditional surrender, making a more modulated approach essential. The increased likelihood of protracted operations in small wars contrasts sharply with warfighting concepts that anticipate smaller, lighter, technologically empowered forces conducting rapid and decisive operations. Persistence may very well be more important than speed in small wars, where resolve and the tangible commitment of boots on the ground are more important commodities than raw firepower. This politically constrained application of force is the primary reason for the term "small" war.

Small wars typically do not involve a declaration of war.

Small wars are more common than state-on-state conventional wars. While the United States was involved in four big wars in the last century, it participated in well over 60 small wars and lesser contingencies. (4)

While every small war is unique, in important respects significant to the military planner, there are common attributes that justify categorization under the collective term -- small wars. These common attributes dictate that small wars must be prepared for, planned for, and conducted differently than large-scale conventional wars.

ENDNOTES

(1) Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans., Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 75.

(2) Ibid., 75.

(3) Ibid., 87.

(4) John Collins, America's Small Wars (New York: Brasssey's, 1991), 13.

By David J. Haimsky

The ongoing, peace talks between Israel and Syria have been relatively underreported in the news media, and are surprisingly seldom discussed in policy circles in Washington, despite the fact that their potential success will drastically change the political landscape in the Middle East in Washington's favor. That is why the Bush Administration's lack of involvement in this process is all the more puzzling.

President Bush is widely perceived as a "lame duck" president. His recent European tour failed to bring out crowds of protesters that have greeted him every time he stepped foot on the continent in the past, not because people have warmed up to his policies, but simply because they regard his tenure in office as effectively over. His popularity ratings at home and abroad remain at an all-time low and people on both sides of the political spectrum are waiting anxiously for January's changing of the guard. Bush, however, is determined to go down in history as the president who had taken on terror networks and rogue states in defense of democracy worldwide. The prospect of an Israeli-Syrian peace provides an historic opportunity for him to at least partially meet that objective, while reversing some of the policy setbacks of his administration.

Why Now?

Israeli-Syrian peace efforts are not a new occurrence. During the mid-1990s, the Clinton Administration attempted to mediate between the two sides before and during the implementation of the Oslo Accord. However, the Israelis' reluctance to part with the entire territory it captured from Syria in 1967, coupled with the lack of political will on the part of the Hafez al-Assad government to compromise led to the collapse of the talks.

Despite recurring tensions, however, the two sides avoided open conflict for 35 years. Even when Israeli warplanes blew up a purported nuclear site in the Syrian desert, Damascus did not respond militarily, in part because it was embarrassed over its alleged violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and wanted to avoid further scrutiny on this issue, and in part because it regarded the cost of retaliation to be greater than any potential benefits thereof. Therefore, an uneasy détente has continued to rule the day. Why then, is there now a pressing need to alter the status quo?

The answer lies in the complex political interplay between numerous state and non-state actors, the most significant of which are the US, Israel, Syria, Iran, Lebanese Hizballah (LH), Hamas, and to a lesser extent, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Syria has been a major sponsor of Hizballah, the Lebanese Shia organization that has waged a war of attrition against Israel for two and a half decades. It has also played host to just about every Palestinian organization fighting Israel and provided varying degrees of arms, training, as well as financial and logistical backing to these groups, which justified its designation by the US as a state-sponsor of terrorism. Syria's alliance with Iran, by far the biggest supporter of Hizballah, also helped facilitate transfers of arms, money, and personnel through its borders, serving as a sort of lifeline between the patron state and its client organization. Furthermore, this alliance helps Tehran mitigate the effects of international isolation, in response to its nuclear program and emboldens the theocratic regime to take on an increasingly more confrontational stance towards the US and the international community. In short, Syria's policies continue to destabilize the region and have effectively derailed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process numerous times.

Israel, for its part, has actively sabotaged Syrian initiatives by undercutting its influence and credibility abroad. The aforementioned attack on Syria's perceived nuclear facility, as well as the alleged involvement of Mossad in the February 13, 2008 assassination of Imad Mugniyah (Hizballah's top military commander) in Damascus serve as recent examples of such efforts.

As this game of tit for tat drags on, both sides have failed to achieve their main objectives—Syria has been unsuccessful in regaining the territory it lost during its 1967 war with Israel, while Israel has fallen short of preventing Syrian-sponsored extremist groups from penetrating its borders. If the two sides have not accomplished their goals in the past 35 years, there is no reason to believe they will realize them in the future by maintaining the status quo. Pursuing their objectives by renewing open conflict has been all but ruled out, since it's considered far too costly and extremely risky for both sides. Mutual compromise, on the other hand, is the only remaining viable alternative out of this deadlock.

Any comprehensive peace deal, however, would have to entail painful concessions from both sides: Israel must be prepared to return the Golan Heights to Syria, a move that two-thirds of the Israeli public opposes. In return, Damascus would be expected to satisfy Israeli (and US) security concerns by designating the returned territory as a demilitarized zone, breaking with the terrorist groups it has supported over the years (including Hizballah, Hamas, and PIJ), and distancing itself from Iran. Such an exchange would, in theory, enable both sides to achieve their political goals, while fostering greater regional stability.

What's in it for the US?

If the Camp David Accord is to be regarded as a model for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, then any deal would have to have the blessing of the US, which would essentially translate into billions of dollars in aid and other economic incentives for both sides. What would make such a colossal allocation of taxpayer dollars a good investment?

1. It would isolate Iran

2. It would deprive Hizballah of one of its biggest sponsors

3. It would curtail the entry of foreign fighters from Syria to Iraq

4. It would prevent Syria from developing nuclear capabilities

The Way Forward

Of course, a peace deal that would deliver the aforementioned strategic advantages for all sides rests on the brazen assumption that, as rational actors, the US, Syria, and Israel will eventually come to regard their mutual interests in non-zero sum terms. It is also based on the notion that they will find the political will to make painful sacrifices in order to meet their long-term goals. Whether such an assumption is valid can only be determined by putting it to the test. The US, for its part, can increase the chances of success by playing an active role in the process and offering both sides substantial inducements for reaching an agreement, while raising the costs of failure to do so. In this effort, America is, at least initially, likely to have much more success with the Israelis than with the Syrians, given its longstanding strategic partnership with the former. Nonetheless, the government of Bashar al-Assad knows that it stands to gain much more from close ties with Washington than with Tehran and thus, will be hard-pressed to meet the conditions of peace, even if it means betraying its ally.

Despite its shortcomings, the Bush Administration proved capable of reaching accommodations with its former enemies in the past. The renewal of diplomatic ties between the US and Libya in the summer of 2006 illustrates that the Administration is not beyond compromising with those whom it regards as adjuncts of the "Axis of Evil." Libya's strongman, Mu'amar Qaddafi, eventually succumbed to American and European pressure to suspend his nuclear program, renounce terrorism, and take responsibility for his government's role in sponsoring the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, by compensating the families of the victims. However, the US did not obtain those concessions by demands alone. A complex and intricate engagement process was under way for years, which included congressional delegations to Tripoli and high-level talks that were based on mutual interest, rather than competing positions. This process provides valuable insight into how we can effectively engage Syria without compromising the tenets of our national security strategy.

Like Libya, Syria is a police state run by an authoritarian dictator that has no interest in the spread of democracy. However, both leaders have proven to be pragmatic enough to weigh the costs of non-compliance vis-í -vis the benefits of cooperation with the international community. The challenge lies in presenting Syria with concrete and well defined policy alternatives to the status quo that are in line with its own national interests. Syria's strategic importance to the US is much greater than Libya's, which is why President Bush would be well advised to engage Damascus diplomatically during his remaining months in office, rather than continuing to lambaste it as a belligerent state-sponsor of terror. In our struggle to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions and cement peace in the Middle East, Syria is the wildcard that the US ought to play at this critical juncture.

David Haimsky is a civilian analyst with the US Department of Defense. He holds a M.A. in Political Science from San Diego State University and specializes in Middle East affairs. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent the policies or opinions of the U.S. Government.

SWJ Editors' Links:

Intermezzo - Richard Fernandez, The Belmont Club

Since 1922, Military Review has provided a forum for the open exchange of ideas on military affairs. Subsequently, publications have proliferated throughout the Army education system that specialize either in tactical issues associated with particular Branches or on strategic issues at the Senior Service School level. Bridging these two levels of intellectual inquiry, Military Review focuses on research and analysis of the concepts, doctrine and principles of warfighting between the tactical and operational levels of war.

Military Review is a refereed journal that provides a forum for original thought and debate on the art and science of land warfare and other issues of current interest to the US Army and the Department of Defense. Military Review also supports the education, training, doctrine development and integration missions of the Combined Arms Center (CAC), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Military Review is printed bimonthly in English, Spanish and Portuguese and is distributed to readers in more than 100 countries. It is also printed in Arabic on a quarterly basis. Widely quoted and reprinted throughout the world, it is a readily available reference at most military and civilian university libraries and research agencies.

Here is the July - August 2008 lineup:

Interagency Reform: The Congressional Perspective by Congressman Geoff Davis, speech given at PNSR/ROA Luncheon, 8 May 2008

Congressman Davis explains why we need to reform the interagency process in regard to national security and what must be considered in future legislation on this pressing issue.

Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations: Upshifting the Engine of Change by Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV, U.S. Army, and Lieutenant Colonel Steven M. Leonard, U.S. Army

This FM will institutionalize a whole-of-government approach to combating insurgency and sustaining success in an era of persistent conflict.

Darfur and Peacekeeping Operations in Africa by Lieutenant Commander Patrick Paterson, U.S. Navy

The crisis in Darfur, which the United States has labeled "genocide" and the United Nations has called "the world's gravest human rights abuse," has revealed glaring weaknesses in the African Union's ability to conduct peacekeeping operations.

Salvadoran Reconciliation by Major M. Chris Herrera, U.S. Army, and Major Michael G. Nelson, U.S. Air Force

A brutal 12-year civil war in El Salvador ended in 1992. The conflict killed more than 75,000 mostly innocent civilians and left 8,000 missing. Reconciliation has been difficult to achieve.

A Troubled Past: The Army and Security on the Mexican Border, 1915-1917 by Thomas A. Bruscino Jr.

The tempestuous historical border relationships between the United States and Mexico have always been complex.

Persuasion and Coercion in Counterinsurgency Warfare by Andrew J. Birtle, Ph.D.

Much confusion remains over the roles that persuasion and coercion play in rebellions and other internal conflicts. What is the relationship between force and politics?

After Iraq: The Politics of Blame and Civilian-Military Relations by George R. Mastroianni, Ph.D., and Wilbur J. Scott, Ph.D.

Competing post-Iraq narratives may lead to a broadening of sociological divisions between military professionals and the civil society they defend.

Legitimacy and Military Operations by Lieutenant Colonel James W. Hammond, Canadian Forces

In America's rush to war it forgot that legitimacy, whether real or perceived, is everything. The author argues that to achieve success, the U.S. must conduct all military operations with legitimacy in mind.

Twelve Urgent Steps for the Advisor Mission in Afghanistan by Captain Daniel Helmer, U.S. Army

Without major and rapid changes to structure and execution, the advisory effort in Afghanistan will fail to arrest the growing insurgencies.

Burnout: Staff Exhaustion by Major Stephen H. Bales, U.S. Army

Commanders can proactively take initiative to mitigate conditions that cause their staffs to lose their peak effectiveness. Imaginative management can help prevent staff burnout.

Reaching Out: Partnering with Iraqi Media by Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. DeCarvalho, U.S. Army; Major Spring Kivett, U.S. Army; and Captain Matthew Lindsey, U.S. Army

Using Iraqi news reporters can the increase chances that good news stories will resonate favorably in Iraq. An expert lays out the particulars of an important dimension of the information war.

Why the U.S. Should Gender Its Counterterrorism Strategy by Lieutenant Colonel Miemie Winn Byrd, U.S. Army Reserve, and Major Gretchen Decker, U.S. Army Reserve

Gender prejudices and traditional assumptions belie an increasing threat from radicalized women. It is time to consider gender issues in designing counterterrorism strategies.

Knowledge Management by the Generating Force by Lieutenant Colonel (P) E.J. Degen, U.S. Army

The accelerated operational tempo of the War on Terrorism has forced us to take an honest, in-depth look at how we collect, analyze, debate, codify, write, and disseminate doctrine.

The Sole Superpower in Decline: The Rise of a Multipolar World by Shri Dilip Hiro

A widely published author asserts that we are witnessing the rise of a multipolar world in which new powers are challenging different aspects of American hegemony.

Book Reviews by multiple authors

Contemporary readings for the professional.