American Forces Press Service

The U.S. Army has published three new handbooks to help soldiers prepare for the first 100 days of combat, officials said on a teleconference with online journalists and "bloggers" yesterday. (Transcript).

Army Col. Steven Mains, director of the Center for Army Lesson Learned, and Milton Hileman, a senior military analyst, explained that there was a small but clear rise in the number of casualties early in a combat deployment, concentrated in the first 100 days.

"It's not a new phenomenon that ... we just figured out and nobody had ever seen before, but it's something we could clearly show was the case in Iraq," Mains said.

"And so it drove us to say, well, what do they know at day 250 that they really need to know during those first 100 days?"

After an extensive interview process with approximately 1700 soldiers, Mains and Hileman said that there were three key elements to surviving the first three months; avoiding complacency, good decisions made by junior leaders, and the efficient staff processes at the battalion and brigade level for commanders.

"When we interviewed the soldiers one on one, we asked them to respond back to us as if they were talking to a fellow soldier," Hileman said.

Overall, the soldiers said they need to stay alert and stay attuned to the environment in order to survive, Hileman said. Avoiding complacency was a reoccurring theme among the soldiers interviewed, he added.

"Soldiers said that complacency in one way or another contributed to every casualty they saw," Hileman said. "It was little things like not following (standard operating procedures), not having all of your kit when you went out the gate on a mission, leaders not doing their pre-combat inspections, and leaders not being adaptive in the way they plan their mission."

Mains explained the original idea was to write one handbook for soldiers, but based on what soldiers told them, it grew into another handbook for junior leaders.

"The decisions the junior leaders make clearly affect survivability and mission accomplishment," said Mains. "And of course, they're not used to making those decisions because they're new in theater as well."

Soldiers expect to have good leadership at every level, Hileman said.

Hileman explained that to a soldier good leadership means willingness to lead from the front and having tactical experience.

"They certainly expect their leaders to share that same level of risk that they shared everyday when they went out on a mission," said Hileman. "They expect their leaders to set standards and enforce the standards every day."

Furthermore, Hileman said the soldiers told him that when they identified a weak leader, they tended to create their own informal chain of command.

The soldiers were also asked if they had the right training, and more than 70 percent said their unit was trained and ready to go.

Mains said that while most military handbooks would publish approximately 20,000 copies, the "First Hundred Days" soldiers handbooks have published more than 200,000 copies.

"We know that four countries are translating it for their own soldiers," said Mains. "And the other two handbooks are really close behind that."

Mains also said the Army is going to publish a handbook focused on transition teams. Transition teams are "not quite as focused on going on patrol and staying alive as a junior soldier might be, but they need to come in quickly and gain rapport with ... the guy that they're advising," he said.

Rethinking Counterinsurgency - John Mackinlay, Alison Al-Baddawy, Rand.

During the period of decolonization in Asia and Africa, the United Kingdom faced more insurgent activity than any other Western power. British government officials and military forces proved proficient at defeating or controlling these rebellions. However, these uprisings were much less complex than the modern jihadist insurgency. Past insurgent movements were primarily monolithic or national in form, had very specific local goals, and derived most of their power from the local population. These limitations made past rebellions vulnerable to strong military responses. In contrast, the modern jihadist insurgency is characterized by its complex and global nature...

Country Reports on Terrorism 2007 - US State Department.

US law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.

Iraq after the Surge I: The New Sunni Landscape and Iraq after the Surge II: The Need for a New Political Strategy - International Crisis Group.

The US military surge contributed to a significant reduction in violence but has reached the limit of what it can achieve. Without fundamental political changes in Iraq, success will remain fragile and dangerously reversible. The second of two companion reports, The Need for a New Political Strategy, analyses reasons for the current deadlock and suggests a way forward.

Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958 - Rand 2006 reprint of 1963 David Galula article.

Thus begins Lt Col David Galula's account of his two years commanding a company of French troops in the Kabylia district, east of Algiers, at the height of the 1954--62 Algerian War of Independence. That uprising against French rule is remembered, if at all, as the last of the immediate post--World War II nationalist struggles waged by a colonized population against its European masters. For that reason, perhaps, France's experiences in Algeria were mostly ignored by other countries, including the United States, which later found itself fighting remarkably similar insurgencies in Southeast Asia and Latin America, and today in Southwest Asia (e.g., Iraq).

Much more at Insurgency Research Group to include recent Small Wars Journal magazine offerings. Hat tip to ya Will.

Lastly, one not on the IRG list - American Counterinsurgency Doctrine and El Salvador by Benjamin Schwarz of Rand.

This report assesses the political and social dimensions of American counterinsurgency policy in El Salvador. It attempts to explain why low-intensity-conflict doctrine has not produced the desired results and to reassess that doctrine's future utility. The author's appraisal of U.S. involvement in El Salvador leads him to conclude that there is a vast disparity between U.S. objectives and achievements there. For a decade, U.S. policy toward El Salvador tried to synthesize liberal and conservative aims: foster political, social, and economic reform, and provide security to a country whose freedom from communism the United States deemed essential. In attempting to reconcile these objectives, however, the United States pursued a policy that used means unsettling to itself, for ends humiliating to the Salvadorans, and at a cost disproportionate to any conventional conception of the national interest.

What if the battles of the future are neither conventional nor irregular, but a combination of both?

The October 1973 Arab-Israeli War featured some of the largest set-piece battles fought since the end of World War II. For American defense planners, the conflict provided a bounty of information on the performance of the latest military hardware from Western and Soviet arsenals that had been sold to the Israeli and Arab armies, respectively. After the war, U.S. defense officials went to Israel and picked over the battlefields, searching out lessons from the fighting.

The United States was busy extricating itself from the disaster of Vietnam, and many in the U.S. military, particularly in the Army, saw the big battles fought on the Golan Heights and in the Sinai as an opportunity to refocus their intellectual efforts away from fighting shadowy guerrillas in jungles and back to the conventional, big battles they preferred. The 1973 war displayed the lethality of new precision weaponry. It was the first war to feature large numbers of guided missiles, launched from both the air and the ground. Egyptian and Syrian troops, for example, used vast numbers of Soviet-built Sagger portable anti-tank missiles to savage attacking Israeli tanks.

Now, in a touch of déjí  vu, American defense planners are examining another Arab-Israeli clash - this one from 2006, when Israel's army faced off against fundamentalist Muslim organization Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. In a war that lasted 34 days, Hezbollah fought the vaunted Israeli Defense Forces, considered one of the most technologically advanced militaries, to a standstill. The outcome sent shock waves through the world's military establishments, particularly the Pentagon. Ever since, Defense Department planners have been trying to discover how Hezbollah guerrillas could have defeated a conventional army outfitted with U.S. equipment.

Much more at Government Executive.

Should Cadet's NFL Status Keep Him Out of Iraq? - Tom Weir and Reid Cherner, USA Today.

.... But [Caleb] Campbell also belongs to another fraternity -- at the U.S. military academy. His selection in the seventh round Sunday made him the first cadet taken in the NFL draft since Green Bay chose quarterback Ronnie McAda in 1997.

Ignoring players from the Army, Navy or Air Force academies is understandable, considering their commitment to serve in the military after completing college. But Campbell could break ground. He could become the first football player to take full advantage of a new rule that allows athletes with pro potential to fulfill their military commitment as an Army recruiter and with time in the reserves...

An Officer and a Linebacker for the NFL by Judy Battista, New York Times.

... The Army's hope is that talented people, like elite athletes or musicians, can help promote the service and boost recruiting. But the Army has also found itself defending the policy, which drew little attention before Sunday. Before this year, five former West Point athletes were accepted into the program. In the next few days, Campbell will join two Army teammates who signed free-agent contracts at N.F.L. minicamps. They are beneficiaries of a policy that allows them to start their playing careers sooner than they would had they played for Air Force or for Navy.

If he makes the Lions' roster, Campbell will most likely spend his off days and the off-season recruiting for the Army in the Detroit area. But his real job, he said, will be playing football. And that is enough to satisfy the Army...

Discuss at Small Wars Council

By Jill Russell

I have known Bob Bateman several years through our mutual participation in H-War, another internet forum, and from that experience I have great respect for him. However, I must disagree with his dismissive critique of David Barstow's New York Times article. To the contrary, I would argue that the muted tones of the piece belied problems far deeper than would be inferred from his recent blog post. That retired officers are acting as the puppets of DoD in their role as network and cable news military analysts is troubling when examined within the historical context of the Vietnam War's effect upon the credibility of military officers and the subsequent decades-long effort to restore their reputation for integrity. Thus, if the NYT article deserves criticism (1) , I would submit it's for missing the real significance, in big historic terms, of the military "analyst" story.

It may seem almost heretical to suggest, but the single greatest casualty of the Vietnam War for the American military was not the damage done to cohesion and morale, or training and readiness. These are actually fairly common occurrences in the aftermath of any American war, successful or not. (2) Rather, the real tragedy of that war was the American public's loss of faith in the credibility of the military leadership. And although there is constant scholarly (and other) jousting as to the outcome and ramifications of the Tet Offensive, what cannot be disputed is that it was at this point in the war that the American people began to doubt the veracity of what they heard from their nation's officers. The constant repetition that the "light at the end of the tunnel" was in sight, that the war's successful conclusion was just around the corner, could not be squared with the events of '68.

Over the course of the three decades that followed the end of the Vietnam War, the armed forces worked mightily to improve their reputation with the American public. Consider the institution most damaged by this effect of the Vietnam War, the Army. According to John Brinsfield's 1998 Parameters article, "Army Values and Ethics: A Search for Consistency and Relevance," "no other army improved itself as extensively in the eyes of the public as an organization worthy of trust and support as did the United States Army between 1968 and 1991." Later in the article, he provides a measure of the distance traveled by the Army in regaining the public's confidence:

"A 1973 Harris poll had revealed that by the end of the Vietnam War, the American public ranked the military only above sanitation workers in relative order of respect. (And some said that the sanitation workers had gotten a bum rap.) By 1989 a Harris survey found that Americans ranked the military above big business, organized labor, the medical community, banks, newspapers, Congress, television, newspapers, and even the Supreme Court in trust."

Another work, David King and Zachary Karabell's The Generation of Trust: Public Confidence in the U. S. Military Since Vietnam, chronicles this development in even greater detail across all of the services.

The success of these efforts continues to this day. A 2007 survey by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government shows that the military retains the public's highest level of confidence. Even four years into an unsuccessful war, when the administration's reputation has been ravaged by the course of events, the military's status as a trustworthy institution has not even faltered.

Given this standing, the American public is prepared to put great faith in the pronouncements of military personnel, whether they are on active duty or are retired. The uniform, the legacy of service, the short haircut and ramrod posture, etc., all combine to form a powerful image of the individual's respectability. When they speak, people listen.

We must also remember that the audience's perception of these "military analysts" is that they are speaking to the American people based upon their professional expertise. This is clearly how they are marketed in their appearances. After all, "Pentagon Puppet" does not appear under their names when they are on air. Speaking from their professional expertise, their opinions would likely have been accorded a great deal of weight with the audience. And according to the article the administration appreciated the pride of place these analysts held in their incarnations as media pundits. The following excerpts from various points in the article make this clear:

"The analysts, they noticed, often got more airtime than network reporters, and they were not merely explaining the capabilities of Apache helicopters. They were framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media."

"Mr. Di Rita, no longer at the Defense Department, said in an interview that a 'conscious decision' was made to rely on the military analysts to counteract 'the increasingly negative view of the war' coming from journalists in Iraq. The analysts.... and the combination of their TV platforms and military cachet made them ideal for rebutting critical coverage of issues like troop morale, treatment of detainees, inadequate equipment or poorly trained Iraqi security forces. 'On those issues, they were more likely to be seen as credible spokesmen,' he said."

"An internal memorandum in 2005 helped explain why [the military analysts had such access to DoD's power center]. The memorandum, written by a Pentagon official who had accompanied analysts to Iraq, said that based on her observations during the trip, the analysts 'are having a greater impact' on network coverage of the military. 'They have now become the go-to guys not only on breaking stories, but they influence the views on issues,' she wrote."

Furthermore, the burnished reputation of retired officers has been such that they are often used to speak on any matters related to the armed forces, whether their expertise warranted it. One example of this that I recall was a segment done by CNN with one of their "analysts," a retired Army General, whose charge it was to discuss how something done by Sen. Reid was harming the morale of the families of deployed personnel. (3) I sat there watching in disbelief, the family member of a Marine deployed to Fallujah, and I just wanted to crawl through the TV screen and throttle the man. Not only was he completely wrong about what affected my morale, but who was he to speak to the issue as an expert? I hate to break it to you military folks, but the experience of the family left at home is not your bailiwick. To turn the tables and make my point, consider: My husband has been to war -- does that make me competent to speak to what it's like to be shot at? However, I have no doubt that to many folks such a comment from a general, so shiny and pretty, must have had an effect on their thinking about the issue. I can just hear the conversation between John and Jane Q. Public over morning coffee: "Honey, I think Sen. Reid is correct, but what about the military families?" "No, we can't hurt them, think of their sacrifices!" "Yes, we'll have to rethink our opinion, because we care." "Yes, we wouldn't want people to think we don't support the troops!"

My original response to the piece was personal; I was peeved at having this general misrepresent my struggle and hardships. In light of Barstow's article, however, I have had occasion to rethink this episode. Given the administration's use of the "Support the Troops" mantra to blunt any public or official contradiction of the party line, the general's comments must be reconsidered. I am now left to wonder whether he was not broadcasting a DoD talking point meant to sway public opinion against Reid. After all, possibly the worst offense to the Yellow Ribbon Policy would be to harm military personnel via the demoralization of the families left behind. I feel dirty and badly used.

And this is the crux of the real tragedy of this story. The American public was being peddled the administration's positions as if they were the opinions of independent analysts. The audience had an expectation that these officers were providing them with a professional's view of information about the war, strategy, operations, tactics, etc. And that trust was betrayed.

Don't get me wrong. I think the networks deserve a swift kick in the head for allowing themselves to be the unwitting Johns to DoD's pundit pimping. And this certainly won't help their reputation with the public. But, in the end, the media is not my primary concern.

The real threat, however, is to the reputation of the armed forces and its current and future leaders. There is no separation between these retirees and the active duty folks -- the latter are affected by the actions of the former. The reputation of all officers will be tarnished if the public feels they were deceived by these analysts. Does anyone think it would be good for the country to return to the days when the military did not hold the esteem or trust of the public?

Alternatively, and far more scary, is the prospect for a more serious criticism of the officer corps at large. To be blunt, what do these activities say about the character of senior military officers? If they were —to betray the quality of their professional opinions in favor of scripted talking points, access to the powerful, and a fatter wallet, then what can be concluded about the development of integrity and character within the officer corps? I'm not at the point of being pessimistic in my answers to these questions. But I can't help asking them.

Jill Russell holds an MA from SAIS and is a doctoral candidate in Contemporary American Military History at The George Washington University. She is currently working to complete her dissertation, a socio-cultural history of morale and food and dining traditions in the American military. She has also worked as a defense contractor in Washington, DC.

Endnotes

(1) Quite frankly, I could care less about the money issue. To borrow Bob's mock horror, ooooh, someone tried to parlay prior government service to line their pockets after retirement, I'm so shocked. (I would prefer if they'd use their power for good, but that's another rant.) Nor am I bothered -- or surprised -- that the administration pursued developed such a program.

(2) I've just been reading a 1998 article by Brian Linn about the frontier Army of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and he chronicles similar problems at that time as well. We all know what came of that -- victory in two world wars. I would provide a link to the article, but it is not freely available. However, those with access to JSTOR or similar databases of journals should be able to access it. "Long Twilight of the Frontier Army," Western Historical Quarterly, Summer 1996.

(3) A good indication of how utterly unimportant Reid's alleged perfidy was to my morale at the time is the fact that I can't even remember what Reid was being pilloried for in the first place. The same cannot be said for the general's comments.

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Discuss at Small Wars Council

The Associated Press reported that he actually went on to say:

"As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it's fine with me, and I hope it would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al-Qaida is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day."

The ad makes no distinction between sustained combat and other operations that require a much smaller US force footprint -- a training and advisory role comes to mind here. Here is the ad - you be the judge:

I agree with the RNC on this one.

An honest survey of post-Cold War national security policy exhibits a dangerous strategy deficit. The word "strategy" is overused. The concept, too, is poorly applied. It is many things to contemporary policymakers except, well—strategy. In the current environment, strategic communications and strategy have become synonymous. Strategic communications is the carefully crafted but overly general and widely consumable articulation of key political messages—"assure, deter, dissuade, defeat"; "as they stand up, we'll stand down"; "clear, hold, build"; "phased strategic redeployment"; etc, etc, etc. It is strategy by faí§ade versus strategy through effective, deliberate investment of intellectual, temporal, material, and human capital in pursuit of well-defined outcomes. Real strategy is the reasoned determination of specific, minimum essential objectives, rationalized with suitable ways to achieve them and the necessary means for success. No careful observer of executive decisionmaking since the end of the Cold War believes the latter high bar to be the norm...

The second item was recently published by the Center for a New American Security - Sustainable Security: Developing a Security Strategy for the Long Haul by Jim Thomas.

The inability of many states in the developing world to govern and police themselves effectively or to work collectively with their neigh­bors to secure their regions represents a global security capacity deficit that can threaten U.S. interests. Effectively addressing this security deficit will require a new approach, one that is more preventive and indirect in its nature, that seeks to husband American power, and that reconciles America's values, interests, and commitments with its finite resources over the long haul...

Both are well worth reading.