Responding to this challenge requires changes in our approach to warfare. The one thing we can change now does not require resources -- just a change in attitudes and the organizational culture in our Army. Recent experiences in Iraq illustrate how important it is to address cultural change and also how very difficult it is to change culture: After MNF-I broke through the bureaucratic red-tape and was able to start posting on YouTube, MNF-I videos from Iraq were among the top ten videos viewed on YouTube for weeks after their posting. These videos included gun tape videos showing the awesome power the US military can bring to bear. Using YouTube -- part of the new media -- proved to be an extremely effective tool in countering an adaptive enemy. Here are some areas that our Army will need to address if we are going to change our culture with respect to this critical area:

First, we need to Encourage Soldiers to "tell/share their story". Across America, there is a widely held perception that media coverage of the War in Iraq is overwhelmingly negative. We need to be careful to NOT blame the news media for this. The public has a voracious appetite for the sensational, the graphic and the shocking. We all have a difficult time taking our eyes off the train wreck in progress - it is human nature. Walter Cronkite once said "If it's extraordinary, and it affects us deeply, it's news." Knowing this, we, as a military, owe it to the public to actively seek out and engage the media with our stories in order to provide them with a fuller perspective of the situation. When Soldiers do this, the media is very open and receptive. The public may have an appetite for the sensational, but when it comes to their men and women in uniform, they also have a very strong desire to hear their personal stories. They want to know what it is like, what the Soldiers are experiencing, and how the Soldiers feel about their mission. That is why we must encourage our Soldiers to interact with the media, to get onto blogs and to send their YouTube videos to their friends and family. When our Soldiers tell/share their stories, it has an overwhelmingly positive effect.

Just playing lip service to encouraging Soldiers is not enough. Leaders need to not only encourage but also Empower subordinates. A critical component of empowering is underwriting honest mistakes and failure. Soldiers are encouraged to take the initiative and calculated risk in the operational battlefield because we understand the importance of maintaining the offensive. However, once we move into the informational domain, we have a tendency to be zero defect and risk averse. Leaders have to understand and accept that not all media interactions are going to go well. Leaders need to assume risk in the information domain and allow subordinates the leeway to make mistakes. Unfortunately, the culture is such that the first time a subordinate makes a mistake in dealing with the media and gets punished for it, it will be the last time ANYONE in that organization takes a risk and engages with the media.

Hand in hand with encouragement and empowerment is Education. If Soldiers are better educated to deal with new media and its effects, they will feel more empowered and be encouraged to act. We need to educate Soldiers on how to deal with the media and how their actions can have strategic implications. They need to know what the second and third order effects of their actions are. I believe that most people want to do a good job. There are very few Soldiers out there who would intentionally harm the mission or intentionally do something to reflect poorly on their unit or the Army. When many of these incidents occur, and we have all seen them, it is because they just don't know that it is going to have that kind of effect and cause that kind of damage.

Finally, we need to Equip Soldiers to engage the new media. If we educate them and encourage them, we need to trust them enough to give them the tools to properly tell/share their stories. The experience of trying to gain YouTube access in Iraq and even back in the United States is a prime example. A suggestion for consideration might be equipping unit leaders with camcorders to document operations but also daily life. The enemy video tapes operations and then distorts and twists the information and images to misinform the world. What if we had documented video footage of the same operations which refuted what our enemies say? By the way, that is not enough, we have to get our images out FIRST! The first images broadcast become reality to viewers. If we wait until we see the enemy's images, we are being reactive and we have already squandered the opportunity.

Frontier 6 is Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, Commanding General of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, the command that oversees the Command and General Staff College and 17 other schools, centers, and training programs located throughout the United States. The Combined Arms Center is also responsible for: development of the Army's doctrinal manuals, training of the Army's commissioned and noncommissioned officers, oversight of major collective training exercises, integration of battle command systems and concepts, and supervision of the Army's Center for the collection and dissemination of lessons learned.

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Update: SWJ Editors Links

Small Step in a Different Direction - Ray Kimball, Military.com

A Message From Frontier 6 - Badgers Forward

Let Soldiers Blog, Post YouTube Videos - Greg Grant, Government Executive

Top General: Let Soldiers Blog - Noah Shachtman, Danger Room

General Supports Milbloggers - CJ, A Soldier's Perspective

Score One for Soldier Blogs - Mike Gilbert, News Tribune

Milblog Buzz - Top General: Let Soldiers Blog - MilBlogging

More War Blogging - Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent

The World May Be Flat... - An Unofficial Coast Guard Blog

Let Troops Blog - The Raw Feed

Let Soldier's Blog - Retired Reservist

"Let Soldiers Blog, Post to YouTube" - NetAge Endless Knots

Required Reading 01/31/2008 - Michael Goldfarb, Weekly Standard

Discuss - Small Wars Council

1. Ben Shephard, War of Nerves. I must confess, this is one of my favorite works of history on a couple of different levels. On the first, and most obvious, it is a favorite because it is damned fine academic work. Shephard digs into primary sources, and traces the history of the IDEA of combat trauma from the period immediately preceding the First World War through the mid-1990s. I also love this book because it exemplifies why military historians cannot afford to be snobs. Shephard is not a military historian, but a historian of psychiatry. Although the book leans heavily towards British developments in WWI and WWII, this is understandable since he himself is British. His chapters on the political/psychological mélange which resulted in the DSM diagnosis of "Post Vietnam Syndrome" (later renamed Post Traumatic Syndrome, or PTSD) are instructive in a way that only a non-American could write about without strong bias.

2. Peter Leese, Shell Shock. This book is narrow, focusing exclusively upon the WWI syndrome (which it should be noted was different from things which went before, and came after...a point to ponder) of "Shell Shock" is a good foundation for understanding what Shephard was talking about. Namely, that it appears that often the behavioral reaction to extreme stress (of combat) is somewhat socially induced. "Shell Shock" syndrome closely paralleled the late 19th C and early 20th C phenomenon of "hysteria," as it was reported in the contemporary press...in other words (gulp) journalists are both the reporters of, and partial creators of, the reaction to combat. The source material is excusively British.

3. David Gerber, ed., Disabled Veterans in History. Not an easy book to find, despite it being a relatively recent publication. It is an edited collection of academic papers dealing with the title topic. The essays herein start with the mid-19th C, and continue through Vietnam. They cover issues such as physical disabilities (and the developing belief that the State was responsible to compensate veterans for wounds suffered for the State), as well as the fights to extend this definition of "wounded" to psychological casualties. (And State resistance thereof, mostly on financial grounds.) Academic but readable with patience.

4. Eric Dean, Shook Over Hell, PTSD in the Civil War. I like this book, despite my reluctance to allow retro-active diagnosis. Dean gives solid case study examples of PTSD in Civil War veterans, but he also over-reaches, lumping all psychological reactions to combat under the rubric of PTSD, which is ahistorical. But Dean is a military historian, writing before Shephard. One would hope that if the book is ever reprised, he might present a more nuanced understanding of psychological reactions to combat. In any event, he backs up our historical "start date" to the Civil War, which could therefore fairly easily be extrapolated backwards at least through the military historian's period the "Age of Limited War" (roughly 1648-1793).

5. Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam and also Odysseus in America. Full disclosure: I know and am a personal friend of Jonathan's. These two books are a labor of love. Jonathan is a psychiatrist who has worked with PTSD claimants in the VA system for at least 20 years. The books are his attempt to get the military to do what is right, in training and preparation, to minimize psychological casualties. Jonathan's credentials are solid. Some of his sources, in the first book, are not. (See next.) That being said, I think Jonathan's work is on the correct track.

6. B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley, Stolen Valor. Again full disclosure: I know BG, and Glenna, and find their work crucial and critical. In fact, I use this book as another exemplar about why we military historians cannot be snobs, because BG is a stockbroker and Glenna is a journalist. Yet using FOIAs (a tool practically unknown among academic historians) they demonstrated that huge numbers of traumatized Vietnam Vets were neither traumatized nor veterans. In the course of this they damage Shay's work, Achilles in Vietnam fairly convincingly, or at least his case studies. This is a book about fakes. Fake veterans of Vietnam who claimed PTSD for the VA benefits, or personal sympathy, or notoriety. They expose more than a hundred cases where journalists were taken for a ride because they did not check the story of a "veteran" who made claims about the horrible things he saw or did in Vietnam. Some were veterans, but served in the States or Germany. Some were not even that. More than a few were complete scam artists. And journalists fell for all of them. Towards the end Burkett's personal politics (which incline to the right) come through a little too clearly, but in general it is THE cautionary tale which all journalists dealing with stories of PTSD must read before they write. Burkett even explains, in detail, how to check on the status of a "veteran."

7. Peter Barham, Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War. A solid work of history by a non-traditional historian. Barham is a psychologist. But his work is a solid recounting of the "People's Lunatic" and the fight for compensation for British soldiers who had "lost their minds" through fighting for their country in WWI. It traces the interwar (1918-1939) evolution in the UK and tracks alongside Shephard's book. Two extremely useful (if short) appendices, and more than 40 pages of source notes and documentation which meet (and exceed) academic standards.

8. Robert Bateman (uh, that's me), No Gun Ri: A Military History of the Korean War Incident. This book is divided into two parts. The first half tells the history of what happened in July 1950 at No Gun Ri, South Korea. The second half tells the "Story of the Story" and how journalists writing about the event fell victim to a complete and total fraud of a "witness", one Edward Daily. Daily claimed to have been a machine-gunner in the 7th Cav, who later won a battlefield commission to Second Lieutenant, was captured by the North Koreans, escaped, won the Distinguished Service Cross (second only to the Medal of Honor) and three Purple Hearts. In reality, Daily was a jeep mechanic, and made up his account of No Gun Ri from whole cloth. In the process fooling the AP (though they won a Pulitzer at least partially based upon his account.) Daily went to prison in 2002, shortly after my book came out, when the government prosecuted him for fraud. You see, Daily had been collecting 100% disability payments for PTSD stemming from his horrific experiences in Korea. Daily had been, in reality, a jeep mechanic, far behind the lines and was never in combat.

9. Jean-Yves Le Naour, The Living Unknown Soldier. This is, in a way, the French version of Forgotten Lunatics of the Great War. Le Naour tells the story of a French soldier who showed up in a train station one day in Feb 1918, with complete amnesia. He was obviously a combat veteran, but had no idea who he was. Over the ensuing two decades various families claimed he was a long-lost brother/husband/son (over 50 families initially responded to an add asking, effectively, "Do you know this man?"). Woven into this is the story of how France dealt with combat traumatized victims.

Read these nine books and you'll be as close to an expert to the broader situation, historically speaking, as it is possible to be at this time.

Bob Bateman

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SWJ Editors Links

Combat Trauma Bibliography - Kings of War

Post-Traumatic Presidency - Jules Crittenden, Forward Movement

History of Combat Trauma Bibliography - Actually, I Thought I Was Helping...

Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D

The attached paper is the pre-conference discussion draft that will be presented at the Stability Operations & State-Building: Continuities & Contingencies Conference at Austin Peay State University on February 13-15th, 2008. The editors of the Small Wars Journal have graciously agree to post it so that people will have an opportunity to read it before the conference.

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that warfare and "peace building" are forms of communicative action in Habermas' sense of the term. Drawing on Canadian Communications Theory, Symbolic Anthropology and the work of Bronislaw Malinowski, this paper examines three main areas of military operations in terms of communicative action -- communication about global policy, communication in the operational environment, and communication in terms of narrative-mythic structures -- and uses them to pose specific operational questions.

Rather than distinct modes of war, we will face "Hybrid Wars" that are a combination of traditional warfare mixed with terrorism and insurgency.

Conflict in the 21st Century: The Rise of Hybrid Wars, by Research Fellow Frank Hoffman, summarizes the background and analysis of the changing character of warfare in our time. Examining the debate over the past decade about the evolution of modern warfare in the post Cold-war world, several thinkers have claimed that we were in the midst of a "Revolution in Warfare." Hoffman takes this discussion to a new and much more mature level by recognizing that we are entering a time when multiple types of warfare will be used simultaneously by flexible and sophisticated adversaries. These adversaries understand that successful conflict takes on a variety of forms that are designed to fit one's goals at that particular time—identified as "Hybrid Wars" in Conflict in the 21st Century.

Hoffman notes that it is too simplistic to merely classify conflict as "Big and Conventional" versus "Small or Irregular." Today's enemies, and tomorrow's, will employ combinations of warfare types.

Non-state actors may mostly employ irregular forms of warfare, but will clearly support, encourage, and participate in conventional conflict if it serves their ends. Similarly, nation-states may well engage in irregular conflict in addition to conventional types of warfare to achieve their goals. The monograph lays out some of the implications of the concept. Clearly the United States must be prepared for the full spectrum of conflict from all fronts and realize that preparing our forces for only selected types of conflict will be a recipe for defeat.

This concept builds upon and is contrasted with alternatives including "New Wars," "Wars Amongst the People," Fourth Generation Warfare, and Unrestricted Warfare. It absorbs useful elements from many of these concepts, and incorporates the best of foreign analysts as well.

Potomac Institute Chairman and CEO, Michael S. Swetnam remarked that "Frank Hoffman's work on Hybrid Wars is a masterpiece of enlightened thinking on conflict in our time. It should be required reading for all students and practitioners of modern warfare."

Hoffman is an accomplished defense analyst who is highly sought after for his insights on historical analyses of the past and on the character of future conflict. He lectures frequently here and abroad on long-range security issues. His areas of expertise include military history, national strategy, homeland security, strategic planning, defense economics and civil-military relations.

The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is an independent, not-for-profit public policy research center that identifies key science, technology and national security issues, and aggressively follows through with focused research and policy advice. From this research and subsequent public discussions, the Institute has a track record for developing meaningful policy options and assisting their implementation at the intersection of both business and government.

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SWJ Editors Links

Warfare Now is Both Asymmetrical and Asynchronous - Thomas P.M. Barnett

Lazy Sunday Reading... - Abu Muqawama

Discuss at Small Wars Council

Gang, the most important debate this past week was not the one between McCain and Romney or the one between Obama and Clinton. The most important debate this week was the debate, still ongoing, within national security circles on how we manage commitments in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan Study Group Report - General James Jones, USMC (Ret), and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, The Center for the Study of the Presidency

Afghanistan stands today at a crossroads. The progress achieved after six years of international engagement is under serious threat from resurgent violence, weakening international resolve, mounting regional challenges and a growing lack of confidence on the part of the Afghan people about the future direction of their country. The United States and the international community have tried to win the struggle in Afghanistan with too few military forces and insufficient economic aid, and without a clear and consistent comprehensive strategy to fill the power vacuum outside Kabul and to counter the combined challenges of reconstituted Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a runaway opium economy, and the stark poverty faced by most Afghans.

Afghanistan Study Group Report Released - Steve Schippert, ThreatsWatch

The Center for the Study of the Presidency has released their Afghanistan Study Group Report (PDF), warning that gains made in Afghanistan beyond Kabul against al-Qaeda and the Taliban risk being lost without an influx of forces and a unified international approach.

More in Afghanistan - Max Boot, Commentary

Even as the situation in Iraq has been improving, things seem to be getting worse in Afghanistan. The Karzai government looks weak and ineffectual (hence the rumors that America's Afghan-born ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, is exploring a run to succeed Karzai), while the Taliban and Al Qaeda are looking stronger thanks to their sanctuaries in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

NATO is having a hard time meeting its responsibilities in the south because so few of its members are —to fight. The Canadians, British, Australians, and Dutch are welcome exceptions, but attempts to get the Germans and other nations to step have gotten nowhere. Even the Canadians and others who are —to fight are having trouble doing so because of equipment shortages. This Financial Times article gives a good overview of the parlous state of the south.

Afghanistan Report Warns of 'Failed State' - Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times

The international effort to stabilize Afghanistan is faltering and urgently needs thousands of additional US and coalition troops, an influential group of American diplomatic and military experts concluded in a report issued Wednesday.

The independent study finds that the Taliban, which two years ago was largely viewed as a defeated movement, has been able to infiltrate and control sizable parts of southern and southeastern Afghanistan, leading to widespread disillusionment among Afghans with the mission.

NATO on the Edge - Max Boot, Commentary

The increasingly worrisome situation in Afghanistan is of concern not only for what it portends about the future of that country but also the future of NATO which is in charge of pacifying that country. This is NATO's first "out of area" mission, and by all accounts it is not going all that well. Tensions are rising among members of the alliance, as seen in the furor in Germany last week after Defense Secretary Bob Gates asked Germany to send its troops where the action is—down south. If NATO fails in Afghanistan, the alliance will not survive, at least not as a credible military force.

Wheels Coming off NATO's Afghan Mission? - David Betz, Kings of War

As we've discussed already on this blog much of the heavy lifting in Afghanistan is being done by a handful of NATO members: the US, UK, Canada, Netherlands, and Denmark. All, including the US, are overstretched but perhaps none more so than the Canadian Forces. Canada has superb, professional light infantry but the country basically started to claim its Cold War peace dividend about two and a half decades before the Cold War actually ended. It's a small force, chronically overstretched and underfunded. I'm not sure if it's starting to crack or Prime Minister Harper is bluffing--maybe both, actually.

US Afghan Stand-off Puzzles NATO Allies - Caroline Wyatt, BBC

The recent attempts by the US to urge its allies to boost their combat roles in southern Afghanistan has both puzzled and antagonised some NATO members, who see it as unconstructive and driven mainly by America's domestic politics.

In a rather testy answer to US Defence Secretary Robert Gates' demands for more combat troops, Germany has made it clear it is doing all it can in northern Afghanistan.

Afghanistan in Trouble - David Axe, Danger Room

... at a time when Canada -- one of the ass-kickingest members of the Afghanistan coalition -- is threatening to pull out its troops if other NATO members don't pony up more soldiers, choppers and cash. Such a move by Canada could undermine NATO's relevance in a post-Soviet world, some say. The US is promising a few thousand extra Marines, but as The Netherlands proved this summer, a battalion-sized commitment and a handful of deaths are all that many NATO nations will tolerate.

Afghanistan a Failed State (Again?) - Abu Muqawama

The US tried to goad NATO into sending more troops and ended up sending 3000 of its own Marines. Last Charlie checked, that's not an option for Canada. Will NATO call their bluff, too? If so, we might just have to relegate them to the Warsaw-Pact-dustbin-of-history. Because, man, they are so not worth the trouble.

The NATO Emerging in Afghanistan - Victoria Nuland, Washington Post

It's sometimes easy to take our allies for granted or to wonder if they are up to the challenge in a place such as Afghanistan. Today, 25 NATO allies and 14 other nations contribute to the mission there alongside American and Afghan troops. Three years ago, only a handful of us were fighting the Taliban. The 28,000 non-US forces and 13 non-US Provincial Reconstruction Teams in place across Afghanistan have allowed American and Afghan forces to focus on the fierce battlegrounds in the east. The war is tough, but without allied help it would be much tougher.

US Strategy on Taliban Attacked - Daniel Dombey, Demetri Sevastopulo and Jon Boone, Financial Times

The Bush administration's stance on Afghanistan is coming under increasing domestic criticism, as legislators from both US parties and a retired Nato general hit out at what they say is a failing effort to defeat the Taliban.

The debate shifted yesterday to the US Senate, where senior administration officials defended themselves against the findings of a high-profile report co-authored by General James Jones, who until the end of 2006 was supreme commander of Nato's forces and so responsible for troops in the country.

US 'Surge' Could Sweep Canada out of Afghanistan - Iain Hunter, Times Colonist

One of several think- tanks that have dumped all over the Bush administration this week for failures in Afghanistan is called the Center for the Study of the Presidency.

What I find interesting about the report and that of other bodies testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is that this conflict is being increasingly recognized as a US conflict, just like the invasion of Iraq.

Germany Rebuffs US On Troops in Afghanistan - Craig Whitlock, Washington Post

Germany on Friday rejected a formal request from the United States to send forces to war zones in southern Afghanistan, the latest setback to the NATO alliance as it tries to scrape together enough troops to battle resurgent Taliban forces and stabilize the country.

A Toxic Cocktail: Pakistan's Growing Instability - J Alexander Thier, US Institute of Peace

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed, predominantly Muslim nation of 165 million, has experienced a dramatic rise in political turmoil and violence in the last year. Following the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007, analysts have raised serious concerns about Pakistan's stability and the possibility of a collapse of the federation.

Putting the Pressure on Musharraf - Westhawk

We have known for some time now that President Musharraf turned down the US request for a higher level of US military involvement inside Pakistan. So what is the new news in this article?

The purpose of the article, from the perspective of those in the US government who spoke on background with the New York Times, is to increase the pressure on Mr. Musharraf. These US government officials want everyone to know that they have tried to get aggressive about the problems in Pakistan (and by extension, Afghanistan), that they have proposed new ideas about the Pakistan problem, and that they have tried their best to cooperate with Mr. Musharraf and his government.

Top al-Qaida Figure Killed in Pakistan - Robert Reid and Pamela Hess, Associated Press

A missile from a US Predator drone struck a suspected terrorist safehouse in Pakistan and killed a top al-Qaida commander believed responsible for attacks on US forces and the brazen bombing during a visit last year by Vice President Dick Cheney to Afghanistan, a US official said Thursday.

Militants' Entrenchment Exposed in Pakistan - Associated Press

The US missile strike that killed a top al-Qaida commander just over a mile from a Pakistani military base shows how entrenched Islamic militants are in the lawless tribal regions, where extremists have launched increasingly bold attacks.

The targeting of Abu Laith al-Libi also suggests American intelligence is improving and that President Pervez Musharraf is —to turn a blind eye to attacks along the Afghan border if they avoid civilian casualties.

Operations in South Waziristan Halted for Peace Talks - Bill Roggio, The Long War Journal

Just 10 days after the Pakistani military launched an offensive to clear the Taliban from South Waziristan, the fighting has been put on hold to conduct peace talks. Meanwhile, the Taliban is conducting internal negotiations with Mullah Nazir for all pro-Uzbek Taliban leaders to return to South Waziristan.

US Intelligence Failures: Dual Taliban Campaigns - Herschel Smith, Captain's Journal

In Taliban Campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we analyzed the Asia Times report that "Mullah Omar has sacked his own appointed leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, the main architect of the fight against Pakistani security forces, and urged all Taliban commanders to turn their venom against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces." Mullah Omar hasn't forgotten about Afghanistan, and his ultimate aim is to govern her again. The focus on Pakistan internal struggles by Baitullah Mehsud is to Mullah Omar a distraction from what the real aim of the Taliban should be,

Senior Pentagon leaders said yesterday that Gen. David H. Petraeus's call for a pause in troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer represents only one view on the issue -- albeit an important one -- and that they would recommend that President Bush also consider the stress on U.S. ground forces and other global military risks when determining future troop levels.

The Debate To Which You Should be Paying Attention - Abu Muqawama

Gang, the most important debate this past week was not the one between McCain and Romney or the one between Obama and Clinton. The most important debate this week was the debate, still ongoing, within national security circles on how we manage commitments in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

We Are Winning. We Haven't Won. - Max Boot, Council on Foreign Relations

Nine months ago, when I was last in Iraq, the conventional wisdom about the war effort was unduly pessimistic. Many politicians, and not only Democrats, had declared the surge a failure when it had barely begun. Today we know that the surge has succeeded: Iraqi and American deaths fell by approximately 80 percent between December 2006 and December 2007, and life is returning to a semblance of normality in much of Baghdad. Now the danger is that public opinion may be turning too optimistic. While Iraq has made near-miraculous progress in the past year, daunting challenges remain, and victory is by no means assured.

There are a number of issues and assumptions that received general agreement. These included that we are in an era of "persistent conflict" and that there will be a requirement for some level of security force assistance (train, advise, and assist, or TAA) to be provided for at least the next decade and beyond. There was also an acknowledgement that "stability operations" are a core mission of the military on par with offensive and defensive operations -- a concept from DOD 3000.05 and incorporated in the new FM 3-0 that will roll out in February 2008. The importance of joint and multinational operations and interagency participation in a "whole of government" was also embraced, although there are huge issues in the capacity and ability of the non-DOD agencies to make this happen in the near term.

There are two big issues that are yet to be resolved -- although the conference provided a great forum to throw the issues on the table and discuss them in detail:

1) Should there be a "security force proponent," and, if so, who should it be? Drilling down further, if there is a "security force proponent," what exactly would its role be -- doctrine, force generation, coordination, or more?

One of the rationales for not having a single proponent is that there isn't a centralized proponent for "offense" or "defense" -- these are missions that are accomplished by all of the services; generating forces to accomplish these missions are inherent in the Title X responsibilities. One criticism of this argument is that we don't generally create forces to focus solely on offense or defense -- most of our forces, especially land forces, have offensive and defensive capabilities and have to be able to transition between the two different missions (and, as our doctrine shows, normally do a combination of offensive and defensive missions simultaneously).

There are, however, some forces that do focus on stability or security force missions as their primary mission -- in a nutshell, "train, advise, and assist" is a mission to enable others to do a wide variety of the offensive, defensive, and stability operations. This reality lends itself to having at least level of centralized proponency for the security force assistance mission.

2) How do we structure for "security force assistance" and the TAA mission?

This is, in my opinion, the crux of the issue. Should we create a separate "advisor corps" (Nagl) or "SysAd" force (Barnett) to focus on these missions -- a separate structure and career path? Or, should we focus on having the so-called General Purpose Forces having a 'full spectrum operations" capability -- able to run the gamut from major combat operations to long-term advisor missions?

The answer to this question probably is best found in a balance -- just how much of our structure should be dedicated to the primary mission of advising in terms of force design? In many ways, SF and other SOF units are designed to the TAA mission -- but the demand for this type of detailed advising and security force assistance exceeds the supply. Under the ARFORGEN model, units can be trained and "retooled" to focus on the TAA mission, but that is at the cost of losing that unit for its designed mission... and a force design that attempts to incorporate all potential missions may create "Frankenstein" MTOEs that are designed to do everything and not able to do anything well.

Unfortunately, cost and force structure are independent variables -- we simply don't have enough money or forces to create a full set of all potential capabilities... there has to be some acceptance of risk and hedging our bets. Designing a force for "the fight we are fighting today" will no doubt be the wrong force for the "fight we'll fight tomorrow." One of the speakers at the conference provided this comment:

...the idea that we can have two Armies with two officer corps, one for regular fighting, and one for security force assistance, is a snare and a delusion. Educate our officers to think, not just to follow recipes, and they will rise to the situation and adapt, whatever comes.

It all comes to the issue of balance -- how to create the right mix of generalists (full spectrum forces) and specialists (SF and SOF) to handle the issues of today and tomorrow. There are no easy answers, but the conference did a great job in identifying the questions that must be addressed.

Dr. Jack D. Kem is the Chief of the Combined Arms Center (CAC) Commander's Initiatives Group (CIG), Fort Leavenworth, KS. As the CIG Chief, Dr. Kem assists the CAC Commander by developing ideas and initiatives, conducting strategic planning,and conducting independent and unbiased analysis of the CAC Commander' areas of interest. Dr. Kem also hold a concurrent appointment as a Supervisory Professor in the Department of joint, Interagency, and Multinational Operations in the US Army Command and General Staff College.

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SWJ Editors Links

One Eye Open - The Belmont Club

Discuss at Small Wars Council

Letter From the Co-Chairs:

Afghanistan stands today at a crossroads. The progress achieved after six years of international engagement is under serious threat from resurgent violence, weakening international resolve, mounting regional challenges and a growing lack of confidence on the part of the Afghan people about the future direction of their country. The United States and the international community have tried to win the struggle in Afghanistan with too few military forces and insufficient economic aid, and without a clear and consistent comprehensive strategy to fill the power vacuum outside Kabul and to counter the combined challenges of reconstituted Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a runaway opium economy, and the stark poverty faced by most Afghans.

We believe that success in Afghanistan remains a critical national security imperative for the United States and the international community. Achieving that success will require a sustained, multi-year commitment from the U.S. and a willingness to make the war in Afghanistan -- and the rebuilding of that country -- a higher U.S. foreign policy priority. Although the obstacles there remain substantial, the strategic consequences of failure in Afghanistan would be severe for long-term U.S. interests in the region and for security at home. Allowing the Taliban to re-establish its influence in Afghanistan, as well as failure to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a failed state, would not only undermine the development of the country, it would constitute a major victory for al-Qaeda and its global efforts to spread violence and extremism.

The "light footprint" in Afghanistan needs to be replaced with the "right footprint" by the U.S. and its allies. It is time to re-vitalize and re-double our efforts toward stabilizing Afghanistan and re-think our economic and military strategies to ensure that the level of our commitment is commensurate with the threat posed by possible failure in Afghanistan. Without the right level of commitment on the part of the U.S., its allies, and Afghanistan's neighbors, the principles agreed upon by both the Afghan government and the international community at the 2006 London Conference and the goals stated in the Afghanistan Compact will not be achievable. Additionally, recent events in Pakistan further emphasize that there can be no successful outcome for Afghanistan if its neighbors, especially Pakistan, are not part of the solution.

The efforts of the Afghanistan Study Group to help re-think U.S. strategy comes at a time when polls indicate a weakening of resolve in the international community to see the effort in Afghanistan through to a successful conclusion. The Pew Global Attitudes Survey of June 2007 reported that the publics of NATO countries with significant numbers of troops in Afghanistan are divided over whether U.S. and NATO forces should be brought home immediately, or should remain until the country is stabilized. In all but two countries, the U.S. and the United Kingdom, majorities said troops should be withdrawn as soon as possible.

Moreover, recent polls in Afghanistan reflect a downward turn in attitudes toward the ability of the Afghan government and the international community to improve those conditions the Afghan people identify as the most critical problems facing the country: insecurity, weak governance, widespread corruption, a poor economy and unemployment.

What should the United States and the international community do to address the many obstacles to success in Afghanistan? Many efforts to assess what needs to be done at this point have included an analysis of the mistakes that have been made -- and the opportunities lost -- since the Taliban were removed from power in late 2001. While we acknowledge that mistakes have been made, the Study Group focuses its attention on the future -- analyzing the current situation with a view to what is needed to match our strategies with our goals and the required resources.

After offering its assessment of the current situation in Afghanistan, the Study Group addresses six critical issues to revitalize the U.S. and international effort in Afghanistan -- international coordination, security, governance and the rule of law, counter-narcotics, economic development and reconstruction, and Afghanistan and its neighbors. Policy recommendations of the Study Group on each of these issues are found in italics.

In addition to the recommendations on these six issues, the Study Group offers three overarching recommendations to bring sharper focus and attention to Afghanistan -- within the U.S. government and within the broader international community. The first is a proposal for the Administration and the Congress to decouple Iraq and Afghanistan in the legislative process and in the management of these conflicts in the Executive branch. The second is to establish a Special Envoy for Afghanistan position within the U.S. government, charged with coordinating all aspects of U.S. policies towards Afghanistan. The third is to propose an international mandate to formulate a new unified strategy to stabilize Afghanistan over the next five years and to build international support for it.

At the most recent NATO Defense Ministerials, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said: "We need to lift our sights and see what is required for long-term success." In this regard we strongly commend the efforts now underway within the U.S. government and other national governments; NATO, the EU and the UN; non-governmental organizations; and, most importantly, Afghanistan itself to address the many shortcomings in current strategies and policies.

It is in this spirit -- and with the hope of elevating the dialogue of the critical importance of succeeding in Afghanistan -- that the Afghanistan Study Group offers this report and its recommendations.

s/

Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering

General James L. Jones, USMC (Ret.)

Read the entire report.

His comment follows: "Trying to predict behavior through the lens of traditional community and Pashtunwali requires one to see cultures as static and unchanging. That is a recipe for failure."

I, of course have to respectfully disagree with a number of implicit assumptions embedded in the comment. Afghanistanica's implicit assumptions are revealed in the following words: "predict" i.e. predict behavior, "traditional" i.e. traditional community and Pashtunwali, "requires" i.e. requires one to see and "static and unchanging" i.e. to see culture as such and finally "failure".

The cultural operating codes and coordinating messages "lens" or social codes as expressed in Pashtunwali is not intended to predict in the sense I believe Afghanistanica understands the term. The cultural operating codes and coordinating messages model is intended as a framework to structure the analysis. What does this mean? The "lens" is a tool for us to recognize patterns not predict individual or group behavior. I take great pains not to advertise this model as a predictive tool in the sense that Afghanistanica's comments seem to imply. Afghanistanica and I differ because I accept intuitively that effects resulting from all individual and group interactions are "determined not simply by preceding causes but are part of a continuous process of evolution. These complex interactions are too numerous to predict, identify and observe as they manifest themselves in their various end states along the historical timeline." I do very much believe that our behavior is governed by intrinsic codes of behavior and not strictly by reason or rational design. The Ten Commandments would be an example. It doesn't really matter whether you are a Hebrew, Christian or Muslim; do not commit murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, or do not accuse anyone falsely are very effective codes of conduct to follow if you wish to live in a civilized community. In this example the emergence of complex behavior of the hundreds of thousands of individual decisions and actions taken daily based on these simple rules would logically create and shape the community in question. What is the difference between the Ten Commandments and Pashtunwali aside from the perception of primitiveness by those that might believe that rational thinking can create better and more appropriate rules of conduct to guide and maintain stability within a communal group? I just can't bring myself to imagine that someone in the distant past woke up one day and exclaimed that "tolerance" is a good thing. Then attempted to impose the idea of "tolerance" on others who wouldn't even know what the word meant. Our present-day western concept of tolerance, in my opinion, is the result of cultural evolution, lots of trial and error and associated bloodshed and there isn't an argument based on rational constructs of group behavior in existence today that has persuaded me so far to think otherwise. I apologize for my primitive outlook on the human condition and readily accept that my position might be anathema to those that embrace the idea that reason and rational thinking is the only mechanism to create a social order. I therefore want to strongly reinforce the point that the model is not an attempt to predict individual or group behavior but an attempt to recognize patterns of behavior and why this pattern may exist.

I do not seek to dwell on the merits of tradition. Suffice it to say that I believe that the age of reason has done much to influence our present attempts to marginalize and demean the role and function of tradition in cultural evolution. If I believed that rational thinking is the solution to all our ills, I too would do my best to discredit the concept. Implied derogatory words such as static come to mind.

On the other hand, I can't disagree more with the insinuation that the lens "requires" one to see culture as static. It is as if I was told that a given professional football game is static because the players follow a set of simple rules. The game remains the same but the actions expressed on any given game day certainly do not.

Lastly, I'll address failure. Different mental models provide differing lenses for how we perceive the world and many an unquestioned assumption cause us to respond reflexively in our own stylized forms of diplomacy as reflected in this exchange of ideas. The proof is in the pudding and in this case only time will tell whose mental model is more appropriate in the end.

Thanks for the opportunity to respond. I leave you with the following quote from Montaigne: "All I say is by way of discourse. I would not speak so boldly if it was my due to be believed."