A Long History of Confrontation

Since the mid-1980s, both the IRGC and the Iranian Navy have been coming to close quarters with the US Navy in the Strait of Hormuz (SOH). The IRGC is an independent paramilitary arm that operates its own bases, personnel and vessels in the Gulf. It supplements the strategic political and military goals of the Iranian government. Operating from the small Iranian islands of Farsi, Sirri, Abu Musah and Larak, the Guard Corps played an aggressors role in many incidents of sabotage and raids during the Iran-Iraq war including attacks on Kuwaiti owned but US flagged tankers, the mining of the major sea lanes near Bahrain and Qatar and direct confrontations with US Navy warships.

During the late 1980s, numerous IRGC small craft and warships were sunk by the US Navy. The hardest to catch and most satisfying to destroy were the Swedish manufactured Boghammar high speed boat operated by the IRGC. The cat and mouse game of high speed naval chase and destroy was known to fleet officers as Bowling for Boghammars.

In 1987, the IRGC was tasked with disrupting the Iraqi oil flow that was being transshipped on tankers from Kuwait. They started tracking and attacking these ships in the western and eastern approaches to the SOH with high speed boats (HSBs). In the SOH itself, the IRGC has nearly always operated like a mini-pirate fleet. Crossing sea lanes, hazarding navigation and interrogating vessels in international waters. Though Oman has patrol authority and navigational control of the SOH, Iran's Pasdaran have been an uncontrollable force. Using HSBs, they zipped in and out from Bandar Abbas and inspected or boarded vessels as they pleased. Once nearby they would video tape or board suspect vessels they thought could be supporting Iraq. Working in conjunction with the Iranian Navy -- a tanker could be inspected in a friendly manner by the Navy the morning but the task of attacking them would fall to the IRGC who would come at dusk and blast away on the ship with its machine guns and anti-tank rockets through the night.

In 1987 and 1988, the IRGC and IIRN suffered losses of Boghammars to a wide variety of special operations and direct naval confrontation. The Iranian Navy supported IRGC operations as well, including using a logistic vessel, the Iran Ajr to lay mines off Bahrain-- it was captured with its crew and hidden mines by Navy SEALs. Nevertheless, the IRGC mining of the sea lanes a year later would result in a US Frigate, the USS Samuel B. Roberts being severely damaged. Iran would come to lose a frigate and two IRGC controlled oil platforms to a wave of US bombs and missiles as well as losing a patrol boat sunk in a ship-to-ship missile duel with a US cruiser in Operation Praying Mantis. It was a small scale surface battle between five Boghammars and the USS Vincennes that resulted in the accidental shooting down of the Iran Air flight 655 as it innocently flew towards Dubai from Bandar Abbas. That incident resulted in the deaths of 290 passengers. Despite the losses, the IRGC saw the value in having hundreds of small high speed craft ready for harassment of tankers and raids on neighboring nation's oil platforms. In the 1990s, the Iranian naval capability increased with the addition of Chinese naval vessels, anti-ship missiles and Russian submarines.

This history of hostility forms the basis of the lessons learned for US commanders as they transit the SOH. From the mid-1980s, US Navy vessels were outfitted with cannons and machine guns for the anti-small boat fight. After the 2000 suicide boat attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 sailors and the open ocean suicide boat attack on the tanker MV Limburg, US Navy Captains became even more wary of any small craft approaching at high speed. Top that with dozens of suicide high speed boat attacks carried out in Sri Lanka against troop transports and other naval craft and you have a base-line for paranoia that is professionally sound. The war in Iraq has also provided reason for caution on the part of the US Navy. Al Qaeda in Iraq carried out a successful suicide boat attack near Umm Qasr that killed and wounded several US Navy sailors.

The Iranians only add to the psychological pressure that makes routine contacts between the two forces tense. The commander of the Iranian Navy recently stated that his forces would carry out suicide missions if necessary. In November 2007, General Ali Fadavi stated to Iranian news that "If necessary, we will use the element of martyrdom-seeking and we will become people of Ashura..." Statements like this coupled with recent trend in maritime suicide bombings and the long history of antagonism between the two navies can make the most innocent contact a potential for an international crisis.

Provocative Iranian Tactics

The IRGC is well aware that the US Navy is overly cautious about high speed craft being used as "maritime suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices" (M-SVBIEDs) of the type used in Iraq, Yemen and Sri Lanka. That is what makes IRGC small boat operations in the SOH provocative and effective as intimidation tools. The recent video footage of the engagement shows multiple IRGC vessels using a "swarming" tactic. This is when a small group of ships surrounds a larger vessel and makes runs direct towards them in an effort to provoke a response. If it were intended as suicide attack, this high speed dash for the side of the ship would be the last thing a US Navy crewman would see before an explosion.

In the January 7 incident, the IRGC vessels broke off their high speed runs approximately 300 yards away from the US Navy vessels. However, for a US Captain to know which vessel is innocent, which is a decoy and which was a waterborne bomb is extremely difficult. Although US strategic and theater intelligence on Iranian Navy and IRGC operations is excellent, there is no way to know at the individual boat level if the next high speed boat run at a US Navy vessel will result in the first of a wave of terrorist attacks.

Iranian Aggression or Bush's Gulf of Tonkin Incident?

Given all the factors and the evidence by both the US Navy and Iranian video, this was a simple harassment and surveillance mission carried out by the IRGC on US Navy vessels as the opportunity arose. The boxes thrown into the water were most likely ammunition packaging as they prepared to be engaged and engage the US ships. For reasons I am sworn to secrecy over I can assure you that Iranian high speed boats do not warn on bridge-to-bridge radio that they are making a suicide attack. No terrorist would. Here are some facts that will clarify matters.

International Bridge-to-Bridge operates on VHF Channel 16 worldwide. It is the one radio channel that is openly broadcast and repeated throughout the length of the Arabian Gulf. Because of the repeater system operated by the Gulf States and Iran, ship captains from Kuwait City to Qatar to Bandar Abbas can generally hear the same communications. Channel 16 is also filled with bored sailors who listen and comment on events as they occur. I cannot tell you how many times on Channel 16 I have heard the famous "Filipino Monkey," a veteran Filipino sailor (or series of sailors) who I can safely assure you operates from the harbor tower at Dubai Port (the strongest transmitter in the Gulf), comment on whatever activity happens to be the most exciting or endless taunting of ship crews about the gymnastic characteristics of the opposite sex. In this incident it was most likely not the Filipino Monkey. The comment "You will explode after some minutes" most likely came from the empty super tanker seen three to five miles away in the distance that could see the whole event and decided to have some fun. In my experience, nothing is more amusing to many bored merchant tanker crews or harbor monitors (like Filipino Monkey) than real time commentary on an incident between two navies. Filipino Monkey once commented at the height of a naval battle in 1988 "Uh-Oh, Ayatollah! The US Navy is kicking your ass!" as reports of burning oil platforms and Maydays from sinking Iranian ships were broadcast from all over the gulf. News reports and commentaries from recent days about the lack of wind or engine noise on a three man high speed boat also correctly indicates that that transmission came from an enclosed bridge. Based on signal strength of the transmission on the US Navy ship's bridge radio, relative to other traffic, the transmitting vessel was probably operating in visual range of the incident and was inserting an unwelcome level of tension that could have proven calamitous.

The situation was not helped by the intense information war between the two nations and which has once again revealed the amateurishness of the US efforts to get a clear message out. The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman promptly stated a fact about these incidents "This is an ordinary issue that happens for the two sides every once in a while and after the identification of the two sides, the issue is resolved."

However, the media pounced on the White house's comment about the incident being "a provocative act." Secretary of Defense Gate's crucial and honest backtracking on the incident led to accusations of a new Gulf of Tonkin incident. Despite the belief by some quarters that the US Navy and Department of Defense would do anything to produce propaganda making the Iranians look bad, the video footage in not only authentic but routine in nature for the SOH.

Beware of Scenario Fulfillment

The transit through the narrow straits puts US warships close to Iranian waters, particularly the Iranian naval base at Bandar Abbas. In addition, a wide variety of Iranian, Omani, United Arab Emirates and western coalition naval vessels transit through, patrol or operate in the area. As a principle tanker route for Iranian, Saudi, Kuwaiti, Iraqi, Emirati and Bahraini ships bringing oil to the western and Asian markets, the SOH is usually a jam-packed narrows.

US Navy commanders have a daunting challenge to ensure that their ships remain safe from state and non-state terrorists while conducting their freedom to operate in international waters. On the other hand, the IRGC have the mission of pressuring that freedom and asserting their nation's ability to operate as they please in a manner, which could appear to be an asymmetric threat. This thin line between the need for defense against a terrorist threat and allowing the Iranians to operate in international waters lends friction to any close encounters in the Strait of Hormuz.

The risk here is that the White House and Pentagon staffers may have a political scenario in their head that will always explains routine incidents such as these in a hostile, dangerous light. As tensions and rhetoric escalates they may fall victim to "scenario fulfillment" (the same group think that the crew of the USS Vincennes experienced in their tragic gunbattle) where the desire to attack the Iranians, who are acting out their role as "evil", is aided by the ease of which Iranian activities, however mundane can be seen as belligerent. To the hawks in the administration, the Iranians want to start a war because they are "Islamofacists" who seek nuclear weapons and the destruction of Israel -- so of course they are trying to provoke us. That group think could translate to an expectation that retaliation is not only necessary, but mandatory in a future incident. The scenario being fulfilled (Iranians provoke a naval battle) is the cassis belli for which many hawks have been praying. In their eyes, a clash of forces can provide an opportunity for armed response that both Bush and Ahmedinejad may use to their own advantage.

Yet, in this incident, it was the cool heads of three Captains of the USS Port Royal, USS Hopper and USS Ingraham that prevailed here. It appears that they took proper defensive precautions, evaluated the threat, made no threatening actions of their own and still exercised freedom of navigation. By all rights, they could have engaged and quickly destroyed the Iranian vessels if they had felt threatened enough. That professionalism should be rewarded.

Step Away and Breath

Both sides of the American political spectrum are playing this incident for all its worth. Once again unqualified pundits range from those who accuse one side of playing down the seriousness of the incident and the other side hysterically claiming the entire incident was manufactured. Neither is correct. The incident was somewhat serious and should be watched carefully. While understanding the lack of credibility the Bush administration has on almost all military and foreign policy matters, the other side cannot go directly to a conspiracy theory to score political points. All parties should really simmer down and objectively assess how a breach of navigational protocol should not be confused as a green-light to start a war or make assertions that the administration is planning a Gulf of Tonkin-like false attack.

Laughing over Tea in the Souq al-Samak

Meanwhile down at the Bandar Abbas fish market, the Iranian boat captains are most assuredly laughing deep, satisfying laughs at the political hysteria that a routine reconnaissance mission could conjure up. The danger is that once they stop laughing someone in the Iranian government could see the value of a naval engagement pumping up the price of Iranian and Gulf oil another $10 per barrel. A small naval loss of four or five boats, provoked by the Americans could give Ahmedinejad a political result that he could take to the bank --a Swiss bank.

By Brent C. Bankus and James Kievit

Despite the apparent preference of many of today's military officers to have some other entity (whether of the US government, the United Nations, or even private contractors?) be responsible for doing so, the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps actually have a long history of establishing and running "governments" in both smaller-scale contingency operations and in the aftermath of major theater war.

An early example began with General Winfield Scott's publishing, during his 1847 48 campaign in Mexico, a theater-wide code of conduct (General Order 20) that spelled out the rules under which both US service personnel and the indigenous population would be governed. Using relatively rudimentary control measures, General Scott instituted a system that would not only govern the local populace fairly -- and thereby, he intended, reduce insurgency incidents --, but also ensure consistent and disciplined interactions by, as well as with, US forces in the region. By most accounts Scott's "firm but fair treatment" paid huge dividends for his Army, which as a relatively small invading force had trouble enough keeping his overextended supply lines working, let alone contending with any potential large-scale insurgency. Of necessity General Scott established direct military administration over many Mexican towns and villages. Upon the capture of Mexico City in September 1847, General Scott appointed Brigadier General John Quitman, whose combined Army and Marine task force had spearheaded the successful combat assault, governor -- military and civil -- of that city...

Continue reading The Army and Marines and Military Government.

Good afternoon. Appreciate your attendance this afternoon. As you all know by now, the President met with and participated in a digital videoconference this afternoon with the Secretary of State and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, our Ambassador in Baghdad, Iraq, to discuss Provincial Reconstruction Team efforts. We're lucky today to have three Provincial Reconstruction Team leaders who are here with us to share their stories and to respond to questions...

Abu Muqawama on Rogers vs. Gentile in the Armed Forces Journal.

... For the rest of us, the real treat in this issue of AFJ is the debate between MAJ Chris Rogers and LTC Gian Gentile on the new counterinsurgency doctrine. Gentile has a big problem with the new counterinsurgency doctrine. Gentile has a big problem with the new counterinsurgency doctrine. In a previous, controversial essay for AFJ, he wrote...

Tom Barnett on Clint Watts' SWJ post Can the Anbar Strategy Work in Pakistan?

Very solid analysis that at once: 1) makes you pessimistic on a repeatable solution for Afghanipakistan; but 2) makes you realize the geographic limits of al Qaeda's staying power and thus more optimistic that, by focusing again more on the source, we're progressing in our overall strategy (both the learning and adjustment that's occurred in Iraq and how developments there enable more focus on back to where it was inevitably headed).

Taliban Now Govern Musa Qala - The Captain's Journal.

Following closely on the heels of British negotiations with mid-level Taliban, the governorship of Musa Qala has been handed over to a Taliban commander...

More from Abu Muqawama - Marines to Afghanistan, Take 2.

The AP is reporting that US Marines are once again preparing to go to Afghanistan, this after Secretary Gates essentially told CMC earlier this fall "over my dead body." ...

Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim: The Great Reconciler? at Westhawk.

Critics of the situation in Iraq always begin their sentences by noting the absence of formal political reconciliation by the Iraqi government. They note the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi parliament and the apparent powerlessness of Mr. Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister.

Looking at Iraq through a Western lens, with a focus on legislation passed, "summit" meetings concluded, and treaties signed, is a sure way of achieving self-deception. In perhaps the most dramatic shift inside Iraq since the days of Saddam's reign, the most important political power in the country is no longer held by men with formal posts in the government. Observers thus need to look elsewhere to see what is actually happening...

Operation Iron Harvest Targets al Qaeda in Miqdadiyah at The Long War Journal...

Coalition and Iraqi security forces have launched Operation Iron Harvest, the latest offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq in Diyala province. "Operations are now being concentrated in Miqdadiyah," according to a press release from Multinational Division Iraq...

.. and Operation Phantom Phoenix Targets al Qaeda Havens.

Despite the recent success in reducing the violence in Iraq, the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq and the Shia extremist terror groups is not over. Coalition and Iraqi forces have launched Operation Phantom Phoenix, a new operation targeting the terror groups throughout Iraq...

Charlie at OPFOR on General Charles Dunlap's NYT op-ed - We Still Need the Big Guns.

... Technology alone is not the answer to our future conflicts, people are the answer. Now, you can use technology to empower those people, much as rifle company commanders in Iraq are empowered by the ability to call in precision air strikes. The issue is that the focus should not be on the aircraft, the munitions, or the technology, it should be on the commander and the soldiers/Marines/airmen/sailors that wield them in the greater scheme of things.

We (in the service) don't get to pick the wars we have to go fight. If so, most would choose a "straight up fight" instead of a "bug hunt." Looking at the world today, and at the threats we face, we have to recognize that missions like foreign internal defense, counterinsurgency, military cooperation agreements, training missions, and counter terrorism are the best ways to deter attacks against our homeland for the near term. The next attack on America won't be planned in some war room by generals of an enemy nation, it will be plotted like the last attack -on the slopes of a mountain in Pakistan, relying on human networks to leverage the most casualty-causing weapon on the weakest point in our target profile...

For decades since the formation of the defense establishment under the 1947 National Security Act, all U.S. cabinet departments, national security agencies, and military services involved in providing for the common defense have struggled to overcome differences in policy and strategy formulation, organizational cultures, and even basic terminology. Post-September 11, 2001, international systems, security environments, U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the greater Global War on Terrorism have confronted civilian policymakers and senior military officers with a complex, fluid battlefield which demands kinetic and counterinsurgency capabilities. This monograph addresses the security, stability, transition, and reconstruction missions that place the most pressure on interagency communication and coordination. The results from Kabul to Baghdad reveal that the interagency process is in need of reform and that a more robust effort to integrate and align civilian and military elements is a prerequisite for success.

By Justin Logan and Christopher Preble

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Senator Richard Lugar argue that "some of the greatest threats to our national security" come from the "brittle institutions and failing economies of weak and poorly governed states." As a result, they argue, the creation of a nation-building office within the State Department is "essential for our national security." This proposal is based on a fundamental misreading of the predicament we face today, and threatens to compound our recent strategic errors.

The experience in Iraq has apparently taught us little. Rice and Lugar propose populating the nation-building office with 250 full-time staffers, who would then draw on a reserve corps of perhaps some 2,000 federal employees, plus another 500-person cadre of think-tankers and civilians.

But the Bush administration has been unable to recruit even a fraction of that number of people from the ranks of those already on the government payroll. As the Post reported in February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was struggling to find six—of 100,000 employees—who wanted to work in Iraq. In May, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez sent an "all hands on deck" email to his entire department, seeking volunteers for deployment to Iraq to work in a PRT. 40 of Commerce's 39,000 employees replied to the email, but the agency refused to reveal how many of them were "yesses." Neither the American public nor the U.S. civil service are committed to supporting foreign policies like those Lugar and Rice have had a hand in crafting.

In addition, the authors' assertion that some of the greatest threats to our national security emerge from failed states is indeed an article of faith in the foreign policy community. It's also wrong. Afghanistan in the late 1990s was both a failed state and a threat, but most failed states are not threats. Beyond the Afghanistan example, the advocates for focusing on failed states are hard-pressed to point to any additional cases in which failed states have actually posed threats to America. "Failedness" is a poor measure of threat.

To the extent that a failed state is threatening, addressing the "failure" does little to attack the danger. To have attacked the threat that resided in Afghanistan would have had basically no effect on the health of the Afghan state. Killing Osama bin Laden and his comrades in 1999 or 2000 would have substantially reduced the threat of an attack on the scale of 9/11; sending in American or international development people would have done nothing. Attacking a threat rarely involves paving roads or establishing new judicial standards.

It is strategic overreach, not the lack of a nation-building office, that has sapped our diplomatic corps and military. But if Secretary Rice and Senator Lugar are un—to reconsider American interventionism, the office they propose is ill-suited to the task they set out for it. The gulf between the office's proposed resources and its mission is enormous. Their proposal is akin to taping a band-aid across a severed limb.

If we really were serious about fixing failed states, we would need to massively expand not just the foreign service, but also U.S. ground forces, because, while most nation-building missions fail, the few successes have required massive numbers of troops —to stay in country for years. We even have a pretty good rule of thumb for how many troops are needed. In 2004, the Pentagon examined the historical experience with post-conflict operations from Roman times to the present. Their conclusion? That American goals "may well demand 20 troops per 1,000 inhabitants...working for five to eight years." In Haiti, that would mean 160,000 troops. In Iraq, it would have meant 500,000 troops. The counterinsurgency manual overseen by Gen. David Petraeus agrees: "Most density recommendations fall within a range of 20 to 25 counterinsurgents for every 1,000 residents in an [area of operations]."

In short, the idea that state failure is threatening is false, the number of people proposed to staff the office would be inadequate, and if we wanted, despite the evidence, to focus on failed states anyway, we would need more diplomats and more soldiers, and they'd need to be prepared for very long-term deployments. What's decidedly unhelpful is pretending that $50 million and a small office at the State Department could adequately take on this Herculean, unnecessary task.

Justin Logan is associate director and Christopher Preble is director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.

From the abstract:

As part of his research for a Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper on the so-called Second Lebanon War of 2006 -- a 34-day conflict fought principally between Israel and the paramilitary forces of Hezbollah -- historian Matt Matthews of Fort Leavenworth's Combat Studies Institute interviewed Brigadier General (Ret.) Shimon Naveh, the founder and former head of the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) Operational Theory Research Institute (OTRI).

Naveh is the man most associated, often controversially so, with what has been described as a major intellectual transformation of the IDF in terms of how it thinks about, prepares for and ultimately wages war. "I read a comment made by an analyst that it was very hard to learn," said Naveh, who also holds a PhD in war studies from King's College, London. "You know," he added, "wars are very hard to fight and yet we go and fight them. If indeed this is crucial and important, it is not an option. We should go and do it.... All you need is some intellectual stamina, some energy. If you're serious about your profession, then you'll go through it."

Indeed, Naveh singles out the IDF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, for significant criticism for his alleged lack of understanding of the doctrine he signed which, as Naveh contends, contributed mightily to what is widely considered a defeat of the IDF by Hezbollah, as did a similar ignorance among the vast majority of the IDF General Staff. One of the leaders actually removed from his position, though, as a result of the defeat -- the Division 91 commander, Brigadier General Gal Hirsch, also a former OTRI student -- was singled out for praise from Naveh as "the most creative thinker, the most subversive thinker and the victim of this entire affair." More broadly, Naveh discusses the "asymmetric dual" that was the Second Lebanon War from both the Israeli and Hezbollah perspectives, explaining why he feels the IDF was "totally unprepared for this kind of operation"; why its post-2000 intifada struggles against the Palestinians had the effect of "corrupting" the force; and why only understanding, embracing and then executing what he calls the "operational art" of war can prevent an army from becoming harmfully "addicted to the present fight." Herein, too, he says, lies a warning for the US military that finds itself at present waging a primarily counterinsurgency fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. At the time of the interview, in fact, Naveh was at Fort Leavenworth in his capacity as a part-time consultant to the US Army's School of Advanced Military Studies.

An excerpt from the Q&A:

Matthews: Now this trap you're talking about, the way I understand this is that Hezbollah basically set up a situation where you could either come at them with an effects-based campaign with air, but they'll continue to fire the rockets, or you could do a land campaign and take your casualties. Is that your understanding of that?

Naveh: Talking about Hezbollah is a different issue, and I've been studying them very carefully.

I've been doing some reading and experimenting with ideas. Hezbollah, over the seven months that preceded this event, made several attempts to ambush an Israeli patrol and kidnap some soldiers. This had to do with the fact that Hezbollah went two times through, I would say, a kind of shock. The first time was when the Israelis withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. All of a sudden they got victory, they won the war, they won the campaign, but this implied that they may need to reframe their entire concepts, ideas and modes of behavior because their old way of thinking, learning, living and operating was very much embedded in the fight against the Israelis, in forcing the Israelis out of southern Lebanon. Once this occurred, all of a sudden the entire world fell upon them because this implied that they may need to change their rationale, their raison d'íªtre.

The second time was when the Syrians withdrew. When the Syrians were forced to withdraw from Lebanon by the new dynamics taking place inside Lebanon, Hezbollah went through their second shock. Their whole existence very much depended on this symbiosis.

It's not an alliance, a formal alliance; it's a very unique kind of infraction between a state that is intervening in its neighbor's state -- I mean, taking over -- and a group of Lebanese patriots. Look, Hezbollah are Lebanese patriots. I don't know if you are aware of it. There are many tensions within the theory. They are Shi'a but they are Lebanese patriots. They pursue their own political and military agenda and yet they are Lebanese patriots. In fact, their entire fight against the Israelis very much served several purposes. One was regaining Lebanese sovereignty over the south, but the other one was to really boost up this duality between being a social-political entity and a militant entity. They're not compatible within sovereign states.

As long as the Syrians remained in Lebanon, Hezbollah, after the withdrawal of Israel, realized that they couldn't maintain this duality. This duality is an anomaly in terms of statecraft. Now once the Syrians pulled out, they could feel that the world was falling upon them because the justification or the conditions that allowed them to maintain this duality were removed. So this is, by the way, the mere logic, the rationale behind their operation against Israel. They don't want to destroy Israel, they know they cannot destroy Israel, and people are often much taken by the rhetoric. "Liberating Jerusalem" -- well, this is nonsense. Their whole idea is to continue this fight against Israel deliberately in order to enable themselves to maintain this duality within the Lebanese state, which enables them to maintain their own sovereignty within the Lebanese state of the south, to pursue other avenues of political and strategic potential, etc. So when they initiated it, they had a pretty good operational concept, which basically argued that if the Israelis would dare to come by ground, they know how they'd do it. They come from the south...

By Captain Timothy Hsia

This past Veteran's day, several politicians and news outlets discussed the current generation of men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as the "next greatest generation." By labeling my peers as the "next greatest generation," politicians and the media seek to applaud and highlight the sacrifices of the young men and women fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the "next greatest generation" is an inappropriate moniker. In reality, many members of my generation do not understand the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This label of the "next greatest generation" is confusing for service members and the American public as a whole because it seeks to describe a generation when in fact it describes only a tiny segment of my generation. The truth is the vast majority of my generation spent their holiday season at the mall oblivious to the war while their military counterparts in the military served in harms way.

Class reunions for most colleges often do not begin until the fifth or tenth year after graduation. However, for my West Point classmates, deployments have served as class reunions. These brief reunions often occur when one's unit replaces another, when they are being replaced by another unit just prior to redeployment home, or in Kuwait when one is either en route back home or heading into combat. Although I have met an abundance of West Point classmates in Iraq, I have yet to meet another soldier who graduated with me from my hometown.

I briefly spent some time with my high school classmates when I returned home two years ago during the holiday season. What struck me the most in my conversations with my peers was that they really did not care or seek to understand what was happening in Iraq or Afghanistan. Granted there are some young men and women who work for NGOs, civil governments, and work as political aides but they are few and far between. The social gap between my peers in uniform and our civilian counterparts seems to have widened due to the war. American young men and women quietly serve and shoulder the brunt of these wars while our civilian counterparts plan their careers and facebook online. Blogs and the internet have enabled those in Iraq and Afghanistan to communicate with their families. However, it has not narrowed the gap between those who are serving in harms way and civilians who live their lives blissfully unaware of IEDs, snipers, and an inability to share the holidays with family.

Hollywood, long seen as a bastion of the left, has actually done more to embrace the ambiguities and complexities of soldiers who have experienced war firsthand than the American people have. Many of the films and television shows produced thus far have sought to be apolitical while also striving to paint a complete portrait detailing the issues, moral tension, and daily difficulties of service members returning from combat. Thus far these war time movies have failed to arouse the American public. Commentators cite the lack of interest in these movies with the rationale that Americans seek to avoid reality when entering the movie theater. In actuality, the real reason Americans have not been drawn by the recent wave of war movies is because the war is not reality. It is as foreign to my generation who are not serving as Bollywood films. Serving in the military is by no means the only way to serve one's country. However, if my generation is to become great, it must shrug off its solipsistic and narrow view of the world if America is to continue as a superpower.

Alan Ginsberg, the voice of the beat generation, will forever be remembered for the observation: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness." I would like to reword that line with the fresh memory of fallen West Point classmates to "I saw the best men of my generation killed while others merely looked on." I hope the Iraq war does not define my generation. For those in my generation in the military, these have not been the best years of our lives. But if the war does become my generation's lasting legacy, then my generation as a whole does not deserve to be called great.

Timothy K. Hsia is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. He is currently deployed on his second tour to Iraq.

Rocky Blogger Major Andrew Olmsted Killed in Iraq - David Montero, Rocky Mountain News.

Army Major Andrew Olmsted, a blogger for RockyMountainNews.com, died Thursday in Iraq. His mission was to teach members of the Iraqi Army how to defend their country and provide security for their people. He was a veteran blogger and he was determined to make a difference in Iraq.

He was the first casualty for 2008 in Iraq. And a small part of Maj. Andrew Olmsted likely would've chuckled at that fact. It would be droll and play into his sense of self-deprecation.

Major Olmsted's Rocky Mountain News Blog -- From the Front Lines

Major Olmsted's final post on AndrewOlmsted.com.

"I am leaving this message for you because it appears I must leave sooner than I intended. I would have preferred to say this in person, but since I cannot, let me say it here."

- G'Kar, Babylon 5

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."

- Plato

This is an entry I would have preferred not to have published, but there are limits to what we can control in life, and apparently I have passed one of those limits. And so, like G'Kar, I must say here what I would much prefer to say in person. I want to thank hilzoy for putting it up for me. It's not easy asking anyone to do something for you in the event of your death, and it is a testament to her quality that she didn't hesitate to accept the charge. As with many bloggers, I have a disgustingly large ego, and so I just couldn't bear the thought of not being able to have the last word if the need arose. Perhaps I take that further than most, I don't know. I hope so. It's frightening to think there are many people as neurotic as I am in the world. In any case, since I won't get another chance to say what I think, I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. Such as it is.

Bound for War, Set to Blog - David Montero, Rocky Mountain News (23 June 2007)

Maj. Andrew Olmsted has had to grow a mustache. He has learned to take off his sunglasses when speaking to Iraqis. But he knows that, despite his training, he'll face the unexpected in Iraq - and he plans to write about it.

Slideshow Tribute to Major Olmsted - Rocky Mountain News