Administration officials said the White House could start to debate the future of the American military commitment in both Iraq and Afghanistan as early as next month. Some Pentagon officials are urging a further drawdown of forces in Iraq beyond that envisioned by the White House, which is set to reduce the number of combat brigades from 20 to 15 by the end of next summer. At the same time, commanders in Afghanistan are looking for several additional battalions, helicopters and other resources to confront a resurgent Taliban movement.

Administration officials say the White House has become more concerned in recent months about the situation in Afghanistan, where grinding poverty, rampant corruption, poor infrastructure and the growing challenge from the Taliban are hindering U.S. stabilization efforts. Senior administration officials now believe Afghanistan may pose a greater longer-term challenge than Iraq.

According to NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) there are currently 41,700 troops (including National Support Elements) in Afghanistan. However, as the Post reports, Britain, the Netherlands, Canada and Australia have assumed the heaviest part of the combat burden alongside U.S. troops.

U.S. Army Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, is asking for an additional three battalions of troops from NATO countries -- the equivalent of another brigade combat team -- but colleagues believe that would not be enough. U.S. officials are doubtful that allies will provide all the requested troops, and predict Bush will be faced with a request for even more U.S. troops, possibly after attending a NATO summit in April in Bucharest, Romania.

U.S. officials said Bush may also consider revamping the current military structure in Afghanistan, which has McNeill serving alongside a four-star NATO commander. Restrictions by NATO members on how their troops can be used -- Germany, for instance, limits where its forces can be deployed -- have made it difficult to mount a coherent response to the Taliban resurgence. U.S. forces, which have been largely confined to a small part of the country in the east, have little presence in the south, where much of the insurgency has taken hold.

General Anthony Zinni (USMC Ret); experienced in the theory, planning, and conduct of Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) as well as a leading proponent of cultural intelligence; developed the following considerations for humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping, and peace enforcement operations. The successful conduct of operations in Iraq extends well beyond 'taking down Saddam'. The end state we achieve in Iraq - and how we achieve it - will have a direct and serious impact on all future operations in the conduct of our war on terrorism.

They are presented here as helpful guidelines on winning the peace before, during, and after the dust settles in Baghdad and other Iraqi urban areas.

• Each operation is unique. We must be careful what lessons we learn from a single experience.

• Each operation has two key aspects - the degree of complexity of the operation and the degree of consent of the involved parties and the international community for the operation.

• The earlier the involvement, the better the chance for success.

• Start planning as early as possible, include everyone in the planning process.

• Make as thorough an assessment as possible before deployment.

• Conduct a thorough mission analysis, determine the centers of gravity, end state, commander's intent, measures of effectiveness, exit strategy, and the estimated duration of the operation.

• Stay focused on the mission. Line up military tasks with political objectives. Avoid mission creep and allow for mission shifts. A mission shift is a conscious decision, made by political leadership in consultation with the military commander, responding to a changing situation.

• Centralize planning and decentralize execution of the operation. This allows subordinate commanders to make appropriate adjustments to meet their individual situation or rapidly changing conditions.

• Coordinate everything with everybody. Establish coordination mechanisms that include political, military, nongovernmental organizations, and the interested parties.

• Know the culture and the issues. We must know who the decision-makers are. We must know how the involved parties think. We cannot impose our cultural values on people with their own culture.

• Start or restore key institutions as early as possible.

• Don't lose the initiative and momentum.

• Don't make unnecessary enemies. If you do, don't treat them gently. Avoid mindsets or words that might come back to haunt you.

• Seek unity of effort and unity of command. Create the fewest possible seams between organizations and involved parties.

• Open a dialogue with everyone. Establish a forum for each of the involved parties.

• Encourage innovation and nontraditional responses.

• Personalities are often more important than processes. You need the right people in the right places.

• Be careful whom you empower. Think carefully about who you invite to participate, use as a go-between, or enter into contracts with since you are giving them influence in the process.

• Decide on the image you want to portray and keep focused on it. Whatever the image; humanitarian or firm, but well-intentioned agent of change; ensure your troops are aware of it so they can conduct themselves accordingly.

• Centralize information management. Ensure that your public affairs and psychological operations are coordinated, accurate and consistent.

• Seek compatibility in all operations; cultural and political compatibility and military interoperability are crucial to success. The interests, cultures, capabilities, and motivations of all parties may not be uniform; but they cannot be allowed to work against one another.

• Senior commanders and their staffs need the most education and training in nontraditional roles. The troops need awareness and understanding of their roles. The commander and the staff need to develop and apply new skills, such as negotiating, supporting humanitarian organizations effectively and appropriately, and building coordinating agencies with humanitarian goals.

General Zinni offers basic, common-sense guidelines here. Unfortunately, many of these guidelines are left behind at our military think-tanks and schoolhouses once the first round goes downrange. We are reaching critical mass and can ill-afford to relearn lessons from such places as Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, and elsewhere. It is time to start winning wars instead of battles - winning hearts and minds instead of temporary respite. With that we will win the peace.

That South American country's egomaniacal, "Socialism or Death" dictator Hugo Chavez was narrowly defeated in the carefully contrived December 2, 2007 referendum which would have enabled him to follow in Fidel Castro's "President for Life" footsteps. So, a genuine "Hooray For Our Side!!" is very much in order.

But tempering this good news is the fact that this tyrant's current term in office extends all the way to 2012. And almost surely, this supposed "fool" and "buffoon" -- who is anything but funny in his impatient quest for dictatorial powers -- will be trying again in the near future to turn the Venezuelan Constitution on its head. Already, in fact, he has proclaimed: "For me, this is not a defeat. It is [merely] for now."

The next time around, the increasingly repressed, intimidated, brainwashed and "bought" people of that oldest of Latin American democracies may not have the fortitude and the election day turnout to repeat their recent pro-liberty, anti-Communist verdict of "Venezuela Si, CUBAzuela No."

And even if these good people do manage again to hold their ground at the ballot boxes and in the vote-counting, Horrible Hugo will for many years remain a deadly threat to US national security and a round-the-clock fomenter of instability throughout Central and South America.

Even if left to his grandiose pretenses of a so-called "Bolivarian Revolution," this would be a very serious matter. But the situation becomes far more deadly when we note that this oil-rich tyrant is now openly and aggressively allied with several "Death to America" regimes and terrorist-designated organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Notice, please, that when he and Iran's apocalyptic President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are together, they walk around literally holding hands!! In this state of mutual admiration, all of the raging religious differences between radical Islam and Chavez's avowed Christianity are set completely aside -- as long as their common pseudo-religious fervor is one of Hate Bush and of Death to America.

A de facto "CUBAzuelan Empire?"

In the US media, it is significant that even before this interfaith love affair developed in recent months, the highly influential Washington Post noticed storm clouds in Latin America. A January 27, 2007 editorial in the Post, which is normally oblivious to Leftist and "Progressive" threats to US national security, was boldly entitled "Venezuela's Satellites."

Correctly, it painted a highly worrisome picture of the rabid anti-Americanism which has spread in recent years from communist Cuba to at least three other neo-Stalinist regimes in South and Central America -- Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia.

With Fidel and Raul Castro's 50-year-old tyranny still serving as their ideological base but with Hugo Chavez's Venezuela now serving as the BIG OIL financier of this fascist-Left foursome, the Post's excellent editorial might well have been titled "CUBAzuela's Empire" -- comprised of the Cuban motherland and the copy-cat (and the newly renamed) client states of Hugo Chavez's Cubazuela, Daniel Ortega's Cubaragua and Evo Morales' Cubalivia.

Even in "peaceful" times this would be troubling news. But far worse during a life-and-death Global War on al Qaeda-style Terrorism is the fact that all of these regimes have brotherly relationships with the murderous likes of Iran, Syria, North Korea, al Qaeda, Hizballah and every other anti-Western entity on the planet. And add to this dark cloud the large weapons purchases and trade agreements now being made from and with both Russia and China, as well.

And recall, please, how very close Mexico came last year to electing still another self-declared "Socialist" government in the region -- and how much on that same slippery slope Argentina, Equador and Peru already seem to be. While none of the latter three are openly Castroite or Chavista, all are being pulled, cajoled and even "brainwashed" in that same statist, command-economy and anti-capitalist direction.

And what is that direction?

As "President For Life" Fidel Castro prepares to exit the scene after almost 50 long years of single-party tyranny, he leaves a 70-percent Black Cuban dystopia of egalitarian poverty and silent suffering -- except, of course, for his and half-brother Raul's communist nomenclatura (Party bigwigs) whose all-White, well-fed ruling junta is still the Soviet-style Politburo.

As Fidel's "People's Paradise" baton is passed to Comrade Chavez, Horrible Hugo's own "Socialism or Death" and "President for Life" and "Death to America" and "Bush is the Devil" rantings are setting the scene for his people to suffer exactly the same torments that a half century of Fidelismo has brought to Cuba -- where thousands of political prisoners have languished and died in what is at long last becoming known derisively as the "Gulag Guevara" it has always been in fact.

Eye-opener -- The Cuba-Chile Comparison

The extent of this socio-economic and civil liberties tragedy for the Cuban people since 1960 can best be understood by a detailed comparison between what has happened in Cuba and in Chile during these almost five decades.

From a roughly equal standing in most relevant factors (gross national product, personal income, housing, retirement security, property ownership, capital investment, human rights, manufacturing, agriculture, trade and commerce, etc.) a free-enterprise and quasi-welfare-state Chile has achieved three or four times the socio-economic standing of a "Socialism or Death" Cuba.

Those naí¯ve souls who excuse this half century of brutality and deprivation by citing Cuba's grassroots literacy program and broad-based (but largely rudimentary) health services should be forced to admit that two of Nazi Germany's major prewar energizers involved the lockstep efficient education of "Hitler Youth" and the physical fitness of the entire German population -- all the better to serve the anticipated "Thousand Year Reich," of course.

As Dr. Enrique Canton and Dr. Sergio de Paz of the Florida-based Commission of Studies for the Freedom of Cuba have observed: "... education and health are used in the island-prison as implacable instruments of ideological, mental and psychological control of the unfortunate citizens."

These same deadly comparisons would in due course apply to a socialist and increasingly communoid (communist-like) CUBAzuela, as well -- though the process of deterioration might be masked and delayed by that former democracy's enormous "nationalized" income from oil exports.

Steady Spread of the "Cubazuela" Label

Finally, there is an easy way to confirm both the accuracy and the street-corner viability of the newly coined "Cubazuela" label for this beleaguered Latino democracy -- which is even now being ruled almost entirely (and "legally" so, according to a unanimous vote of the lapdog Congress) by Presidential Edict, which is nothing but a euphemism for dictatorship.

Simply take time to Google-search the new label and observe how persuasively and how widely this frame of reference is already spreading in both English-language and Latino commentary.

In due course, the list of truthfully negative new labels and slogans by which the people of Central and South America can readily condemn their (and the late, great Latino nationalist Simon Bolivar's) clearly internationalist and largely "Bolchevista" enemies should include:

• Venerzuela Si! CUBAzuela NO!!

• Nicaragua Si! CUBAragua NO!!

• No a la Revolucion "Chavista-Bolchevista"

• En Cuba: Abajo El Gulag Guevara

• Viva Una Teologia de LIBERTAD

• Abajo El Fascismo de la Izquierda

• El Fascismo, El Comunismo -- Son Lo Mismo !!

• Socialismo O Muerte?? (Viva La Muerte !!)

• En CUBAragua: Abajo Las "Stalinistas"

• No Al "CommieCzar" Chavez

While such slogans and labels do not constitute a magic wand for destroying the enemy outright, each of them is a simple way to tell the truth about who these enemies of the people really are -- rather than the "voice of the people" and the "populists" they so deceitfully pretend to be.

Socialist Superstars -- both Left and Right

Finally, when Comrade Chavez and others of his ilk speak of "21st Century Socialism," he tries to put a human face on a demonic force which -- in the patently false names of "People Power" and "Progressive Movements" and "Wars of National Liberation" -- has been led for almost a century by such other Fascist-Left and fascist-Right SOCIALIST role models as:

• V.I. Lenin (USSR)

• Joseph Stalin (USSR)

• Adolf Hitler (Germany)

• Benito Mussolini (Italy)

• Mao Tse-Tung (China)

• Pol Pot (Cambodia)

• Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)

• Kim Il-Sung (North Korea)

• Kim Jung-Il (North Korea)

• Idi Amin (Uganda)

• Moammar Qadhafi (Libya)

• Ayatollah Khomeini (Iran)

• Fidel Castro (Cuba)

• Hafez al-Assad (Syria)

• Mingistu Haile Miriam (Ethiopia)

• Nicolae Ceausescu (Hungary)

• Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia)

• Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)

• Hugo Chavez (Venezuela)

• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Iran)

Of course, the history of geopolitics boasts of still other thugs and tyrants: among them, Tito of Yugoslavia, Marcos of the Philippines, Ortega of Nicaragua, Pinochet of Chile, Nasser of Egypt, Peron and "The Generals" of Argentina, "The Colonels" of Greece, and Duvalier of Haiti. But these unsavory characters are really second-stringers, even bench-warmers, when compared to the real Superstars of World Socialism.

These "Superstars," as history is our tearful witness, have presided over the wholesale murder of perhaps as many as 250 million (250,000,000) of our fellow human beings -- to say nothing of the starvation, the torture, the political imprisonment, the death marches, the enslavement, the forcing into exile, and the daily repression (a.k.a. "social justice" and "people's democracy") they have showered upon literally hundreds of millions more.

And for those naí¯ve souls who persist in the fantasy that "Communist" and "Fascist" varieties of socialism are inherently different, let us end such nonsense with a quotation from none other than Adolf Hitler, reflective of the glory days of his infamous Friendship Pact with Joseph Stalin:

"The petit bourgeois social democrat and trade union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communist always will... There is more that unites us than divides us from Bolshevism... above all the genuine revolutionary spirit."

The point is that Comrade Chavez is both a communist and a fascist. The bottom line is that the "Forces of Socialism" are themselves the dreaded Forces of Fascism, as well -- or as President Ronald Reagan once labeled them in their Soviet incarnations, "the Focus of Evil in the modern world."

Jim Guirard is a DC-area attorney, writer, lecturer and anti-Terrorism strategist -- and was longtime Chief of Staff to former US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His TrueSpeak Institute and TrueSpeak.org website are devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.

Lieutenant Colonel Gian P. Gentile

I propose a consideration to adjust the Principles of War as accepted by the American military since J.F.C. Fuller first came out with them in the early 1920s and the American Army's use of them in the majority of its major doctrinal manuals. I do not propose radically new principles of war like Lieutenant Commander Christopher Van Avery did in a recent summer Armed Forces Journal article. His proposal of very different Principles seemed too "new-ageish" for me and in my mind wrongly assumed that the information revolution of the 1990s produced a concomitant revolution in military affairs (a still debated and contested notion by scholars). Too, with regard to Avery, I do not accept his historical premise of now as the time to radically adjust the Principles of War because of the so called recent RMA; one could easily make the argument that we should have produced new Principles of War shortly after August 1945 and the advent of atomic war and Bernard Brodie's classic The Absolute Weapon.

So my recommendation is much less radical than Avery's, more conservative and still generally accepting of the classic list that Fuller gave us shortly after World War I. But I also want to embrace the evolution of our thinking on war and embrace certain changes of approach and emphasis over the last five years; specifically the war on terror and new doctrinal writings within the American Army and Marine Corps on counterinsurgency (COIN). I also premise my proposal on the notion that the Army's new COIN doctrine has become the Army's defacto operational doctrine.

And finally we should make things challenging in such a proposal; that we limit ourselves to 9 Principles since that was the original number that Fuller gave us. This limit is more than formulaic; its intent is to force us to make hard choices over the Principles since in the months and years ahead we will be making hard choices about the structure of the American Army and the types of wars we think we will be fighting.

With that in mind, here are my proposed changes with brief explanations next to the specific Principles that I believe we should consider changing.

1. Mass (no change)

2, Surprise (no change)

3. Simplicity (no change)

4. Economy of Force (no change)

5. Unity of Command (no change)

6. Objective (no change)

7. Offensive (no change)

8. Security; Here I propose replacing the Principle of "Security" with a new Principle, "Protection of the People." Since so much of our operations today are COIN based and we know as our doctrine tells us that through protecting the people our own security will emerge out of that protection, then it seems to me that we no longer need Security as a Principle of War because if we protect the people accordingly security will come in due course.

9. Maneuver; I propose replacing this Principle of War with "Tactical Success Guarantees Nothing." Obviously this new Principle is taken directly from the Paradoxes of the new COIN manual, FM 3-24. Since in modern war as we experience it today and in the future our soldiers all need to be "strategic corporals" then we should indoctrinate our Army to understand that tactics in and of themselves mean nothing as the paradox tells us. Maneuver as a Principle in the original list had to do primarily with the maneuvering of military forces in the field at the tactical and operational levels of war. Since one of the bedrocks of "maneuver" was tactics, and since the COIN paradox tells us that tactics in and of themselves are not that important unless they are linked to other lines of operations and higher objectives then replacing Maneuver with that paradox eliminates deadwood, so to speak, from the original Principles list.

So there it is; a modest proposal to adjust the Principles of War by replacing two from the original list with two derived from our more recent experience with war and what we might expect in the future.

Lt. Col. Gian Gentile, an active Army lieutenant colonel, commanded an armored reconnaissance squadron in west Baghdad in 2006. The views in this article are his own and not necessarily those of the Department of Defense.

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SWJ Editors Links

The Dogmas of War: A Rigid Counterinsurgency Doctrine Obscures Iraq's Realities by Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile, Armed Forces Journal.

Discuss at Small Wars Council

The U.S. military in Iraq is undergoing its biggest changeover in senior commanders since Gen. David Petraeus launched a new counterinsurgency strategy nearly a year ago.

The high-level shifts come at a particularly delicate stage in the war as U.S. troop levels begin to decline, Iraqis are handed more security responsibility and Petraeus seeks to ensure that the gains achieved over the past several months continue...

With the exception of Petraeus, senior commanders generally arrive and depart with their units, which means most of those now leaving or preparing to leave have been there for up to 15 months.

Command changes / status:

Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno (Multi-National Corps-Iraq) is scheduled to leave in February and will be replaced by Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of 18th Airborne Corps. Odierno commands 3rd Corps.

Maj. Gen. Jeffery W. Hammond is scheduled to assume command of Multi-National Division Baghdad on 19 December, replacing Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil of the 1st Cavalry Division. Hammond is now commander of the 4th Infantry Division.

In western Iraq, Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly (I Marine Expeditionary Force FWD) will replace Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin (II Marine Expeditionary Force FWD) in February at Multi-National Forces - West.

In northern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling (1st Armored Division) replaced Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon (25th Infantry Division) in late October at Multi-National Division - North.

South of Baghdad, Multi-National Division-Central will not change commanders. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, will remain until next summer.

The December '07 issue of Armed Forces Journal contains two commentary pieces that are harbingers of a debate brewing "inside and outside the beltway" concerning Counterinsurgency (COIN) / Irregular Warfare (IW) operations "after Iraq." While the two AFJ articles focus on Army and Marine Corps COIN doctrine approved last December and its execution in Iraq, the issues the authors raise will most certainly carryover into a larger debate that will shape our National Security Strategy and military capabilities for decades to come.

The first article, Dishonest Doctrine by Ralph Peters, accuses the Army and Marine Corps of selective use of history in writing FM 3-24 / MCWP 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency. Arguably the most damning of Peters' claims is his accusation that the primary authors took an "academic approach" -- formulating conclusions up-front in the writing process and conducting biased research in search of historical examples that supported those conclusions.

The troubling aspect of all this for the Army's intellectual integrity comes from the neo-Stalinist approach to history a number of the manual's authors internalized during their pursuit of doctorates on "the best" American campuses. Instead of seeking to analyze the requirements of counterinsurgency warfare rigorously before proceeding to draw impartial conclusions based on a broad array of historical evidence, they took the academic's path of first setting up their thesis, then citing only examples that supported it.

The troubling aspect of Peters' claim is his questioning the intellectual and personal integrity of the primary authors. As someone who has professional and personal relationships with many of those authors I can only write that off as an unfortunate by-product of Peters' in-your-face adversarial and controversy-driven writing style. That said, it does anger me that he took such an over-the-top and deceitful approach.

What Peters neglects to mention is the true primary authors were Army General David Petraeus and Marine Generals James Amos and James Mattis. He makes scant reference to Petraeus "signing off" on the doctrine, leaving an impression that FM 3-24 was just another in a long line of documents that briefly cross a general's desk in need of the official rubber stamp. This is seriously misleading as all three generals took keen personal interest in the production of FM 3-24 - offering up time and resources to see the process through. Petraeus and Mattis in particular, as commanders who led ground units in a COIN environment in Iraq and as serious students of the art of war, placed high priority in filling a doctrinal gap and "getting it right".

While not a contributing author to FM 3-24, I am well aware of the great pains both the Army and the Marine Corps took to be inclusive in taking all comers during the writing process -- hardly a month went by when a draft copy of the FM or a request for information did not arrive in my (and many, many others') "day-job" e-mail inbox soliciting critical comment. It's hard to imagine that anyone; military, government or otherwise; who had a vested interest and desire to contribute to this doctrine was not given an opportunity to participate.

But I'll defer to the insights of someone who was a primary contributor -- Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl in his SWJ post The Evolution and Importance of Army/Marine Corps Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency.

... To take lead on perhaps the most important driver of intellectual change for the Army and Marine Corps—a complete rewrite of the interim Counterinsurgency Field Manual—Petraeus turned to his West Point classmate Conrad Crane. Crane, a retired lieutenant colonel with a doctorate in history from Stanford University, called on the expertise of both academics and Army and Marine Corps veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq...

The tight timeline was driven by an unprecedented vetting session of the draft manual held at Leavenworth in mid-February 2006. This conference, which brought together journalists, human rights advocates, academics, and practitioners of counterinsurgency, thoroughly revised the manual and dramatically improved it. Some military officers questioned the utility of the representatives from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) and the media, but they proved to be the most insightful of commentators. James Fallows, of the Atlantic Monthly, commented at the end of the conference that he had never seen such an open transfer of ideas in any institution, and stated that the nation would be better for more such exchanges.

Then began a summer of revisions that bled over into a fall of revisions as nearly every word in the manual was argued over by the military, by academics, by politicians, and by the press, which pounced upon a leaked early draft that was posted on the Internet. The final version was sharper than the initial draft, finding a balance between the discriminate targeting of irreconcilable insurgents and the persuasion of less committed enemies to give up the fight with the political, economic, and informational elements of power. It benefited greatly from the revisions of far too many dedicated public servants to cite here, most of whom took on the task after duty hours out of a desire to help the Army and Marine Corps adapt to the pressing demands of waging counterinsurgency more effectively. Among them was Lieutenant General James Amos, who picked up the torch of leading change for the Marine Corps when Mattis left Quantico to take command of the I Marine Expeditionary Force...

But I surmise that some of Peters' annoyance comes from the fact that non-military professionals, in concert with their military counterparts, had a hand in the production of FM 3-24 as he takes exception to the doctrine's use of the General Chang Ting-chen 20 / 80 percent quotation.

To wit, the most over-cited bit of nonsense from the manual is the claim that counterinsurgency warfare is only 20 percent military and 80 percent political.

Anyone looking objectively at the situation in Iraq could hardly claim that it's only 20 percent military and 80 percent diplomatic. Even the State Department doesn't really believe that one — or they would've kept a tighter leash on their private security contractors.

Wishful thinking doesn't defeat insurgencies. Without the will to establish and maintain security for the population, nothing else works.

Peters misses the mark here by misrepresenting FM 3-24's intent of presenting the 20 / 80 "rule of thumb" as a metaphoric means of conveying that political factors are primary during COIN.

General Chang Ting-chen of Mao Zedong's central committee once stated that revolutionary war was 80 percent political action and only 20 percent military. Such an assertion is arguable and certainly depends on the insurgency's stage of development; it does, however, capture the fact that political factors have primacy in COIN. At the beginning of a COIN operation, military actions may appear predominant as security forces conduct operations to secure the populace and kill or capture insurgents; however, political objectives must guide the military's approach. Commanders must, for example, consider how operations contribute to strengthening the HN government's legitimacy and achieving U.S. political goals.

This means that political and diplomatic leaders must actively participate throughout the conduct (planning, preparation, execution, and assessment) of COIN operations. The political and military aspects of insurgencies are so bound together as to be inseparable. Most insurgent approaches recognize that fact.

Military actions executed without properly assessing their political effects at best result in reduced effectiveness and at worst are counterproductive. Resolving most insurgencies requires a political solution; it is thus imperative that counterinsurgent actions do not hinder achieving that political solution.

While using the current situation in Iraq as an example Peters conveniently neglects to acknowledge (or does not believe) that we paid dearly for not implementing a strategy of political primacy early in the execution of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Instead, we had a Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) responsible for the non-military elements of national power. The CPA and its Chief Executive L. Paul Bremer were a disaster -- inexperienced and political ideologues in critical jobs, disbanding the Iraqi Army, "de-Ba'athification" and the hate-hate relationship between the CPA and the military's Combined Joint Task Force 7 (later Multi-National Force-Iraq) are but a few examples of what can be called a classic case study in how to create and fuel an insurgency due to political neglect.

Peters' is also off the mark in implying the Department of State does not believe political factors are primary during COIN. That is simply not true - Peters' ignores the efforts by State and other non-military government departments and agencies to correct their budget, manpower, organizational, doctrinal and other shortfalls that preclude their fulfilling the political requirements of COIN. Moreover, he wrongly equates all political solutions as residing with non-military organizations. Dr. David Kilcullen (until recently the senior COIN adviser to General Petraeus) pointed out in a September COIN seminar that this equation is misleading as many of the military's roles and missions as well as a large proportion of military spending are invested in political related programs and efforts and are in support of political objectives.

Turning to COIN doctrine and its practice in Iraq, Peters implies that General Petraeus set aside FM 3-24 due to its irrelevance in the "real world" and concentrated on the "missing" kinetic-centric enemy-focused approach to counterinsurgency.

Entrusted with the mission of turning Iraq around, Petraeus turned out to be a marvelously focused and methodical killer, able to set aside the dysfunctional aspects of the doctrine he had signed off on. Given the responsibility of command, he recognized that, when all the frills are stripped away, counterinsurgency warfare is about killing those who need killing, helping those who need help — and knowing the difference between the two (we spent our first four years in Iraq striking out on all three counts). Although Petraeus has, indeed, concentrated many assets on helping those who need help, he grasped that, without providing durable security — which requires killing those who need killing — none of the reconstruction or reconciliation was going to stick. On the ground, Petraeus has supplied the missing kinetic half of the manual.

By focusing solely on Iraq and implying the doctrine was written with only Iraq in mind, Peters misses the bottom-line purpose of FM 3-24 and the leeway it affords commanders and leaders on the ground.

Doctrine by definition is broad in scope and involves principles, tactics, techniques, and procedures applicable worldwide. Thus, this publication is not focused on any region or country and is not intended to be a standalone reference. Users should assess information from other sources to help them decide how to apply the doctrine in this publication to the specific circumstances facing them.

Peters is himself guilty of selective citing in his focus on the non-kinetic / non-security related aspects of COIN best practices while omitting mention of the holistic approach FM 3-24 presents -- to include use of force. Nor does he adequately acknowledge the complexities and unique nature of the COIN environment that dictate constant evaluation and adjustment of tactics, techniques and procedures -- sometimes day to day and block to block. Examples from the Foreword and Chapter One include:

Foreword: A counterinsurgency campaign is, as described in this manual, a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations conducted along multiple lines of operations. It requires Soldiers and Marines to employ a mix of familiar combat tasks and skills more often associated with nonmilitary agencies.

The balance between them depends on the local situation. Achieving this balance is not easy. It requires leaders at all levels to adjust their approach constantly. They must ensure that their Soldiers and Marines are ready to be greeted with either a handshake or a hand grenade...

Chapter One, 1-131: The cornerstone of any COIN effort is establishing security for the civilian populace.

Chapter One, 1-141: Any use of force generates a series of reactions. There may be times when an overwhelming effort is necessary to destroy or intimidate an opponent and reassure the populace. Extremist insurgent combatants often have to be killed. In any case, however, counterinsurgents should calculate carefully the type and amount of force to be applied and who wields it for any operation. An operation that kills five insurgents is counterproductive if collateral damage leads to the recruitment of fifty more insurgents.

Chapter One, 1-142: In a COIN environment, it is vital for commanders to adopt appropriate and measured levels of force and apply that force precisely so that it accomplishes the mission without causing unnecessary loss of life or suffering. Normally, counterinsurgents can use escalation of force/force continuum procedures to minimize potential loss of life.

Chapter One, 1-148: The principles and imperatives discussed above reveal that COIN presents a complex and often unfamiliar set of missions and considerations. In many ways, the conduct of COIN is counterintuitive to the traditional U.S. view of war—although COIN operations have actually formed a substantial part of the U.S. military experience. Some representative paradoxes of COIN are presented here as examples of the different mindset required. These paradoxes are offered to stimulate thinking, not to limit it. The applicability of the thoughts behind the paradoxes depends on a sense of the local situation and, in particular, the state of the insurgency. For example, the admonition "Sometimes, the More Force Used, the Less Effective It Is" does not apply when the enemy is "coming over the barricades"; however, that thought is applicable when increased security is achieved in an area. In short, these paradoxes should not be reduced to a checklist; rather, they should be used with considerable thought.

Chapter One, 1-49: Ultimate success in COIN is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force. If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents. Aggressive saturation patrolling, ambushes, and listening post operations must be conducted, risk shared with the populace, and contact maintained.

Chapter One, 1-50: Any use of force produces many effects, not all of which can be foreseen. The more force applied, the greater the chance of collateral damage and mistakes. Using substantial force also increases the opportunity for insurgent propaganda to portray lethal military activities as brutal. In contrast, using force precisely and discriminately strengthens the rule of law that needs to be established. As noted above, the key for counterinsurgents is knowing when more force is needed—and when it might be counterproductive. This judgment involves constant assessment of the security situation and a sense of timing regarding insurgents' actions.

Apparently, the use of military force as part of the larger COIN effort was not good enough for Peters as he zeroed in on a COIN case study he believes was unfairly neglected in FM 3-24.

The manual's worth revisiting a bit longer to underscore the dishonesty of the selective use of history. Citing a narrow range of past insurgencies — all ideological, all comparatively recent — the authors carefully ignored parallel or earlier examples that would've undercut their position. For example, the British experience in Malaya is cited ad nauseum (although it's portrayed as far less bloody than it was in fact), but the same decade saw a very different and even more successful British campaign against the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya. After realizing (a bit ploddingly) that the Mau Mau could not be controlled by colonial police forces, the British took a tough-minded three-track approach: concentration camps for more than 100,000 Kenyans; hanging courts that sent more than 1,000 Mau Mau activists and sympathizers to the gallows; and relentless military pursuits that tracked down the hardcore insurgents and killed them. It worked. A few years later, British rule ended in Kenya — but only because Britain had decided to give up its empire. And the thousands of British citizens who remained behind in Kenya weren't massacred.

However, citing the British experience in Kenya wouldn't have been politically correct — no matter that it worked after gentler methods had failed. The COIN manual's authors weren't concerned with winning but with defending their dissertations.

Say again? Not advocating concentration camps and hanging courts is somehow politically correct? How about American core values correct? Sure, I'll concede that such a strategy and its accompanying tactics might provide some short-lived battlefield success but I submit that the temporary tactical success such a strategy might provide would succumb eventually to strategic defeat of epic proportion. Dr. Steven Metz sums up the dilemma of sure-win vs. reality-based COIN doctrine on a Small Wars Council thread concerning Peters' article.

As always, I'm green with envy over Ralph's way with words. But this hasn't shifted me from my long held position: in the broadest sense, there are two approaches to counterinsurgency. Treat it like war and either kill or cow those who oppose you (call it the "Roman" method). Or try and minimize the extent to which it is like war, stress the political and economic, and try and win support thereby undercutting the insurgency (call this the "British" method).

My feeling is that history suggests that the Roman method is more effective. The British method takes much longer and has a lower probability of success. But American strategic culture has simply taken the Roman method off the table for us. Where, I think, Ralph and I diverge is that I don't believe that even the most articulate national leadership can sell the American public on it. The British were able to deviate from their own method--South Africa and, to some degree, Kenya--specifically because their public was not as engaged in the course of colonial wars as our public is in small wars. American strategic culture may be a terrible impediment, but we cannot wish it away. So we're left with the British method even given all of its complications and shortcomings.

In summation, FM 3-24 was intended to compliment, not replace, existing U.S. doctrine such as FM 3-0 Operations. In the same SWC thread as the Metz post, Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile sounds a cautionary note.

We don't need an alternative for COIN doctrine because the new FM 3-24 as I stated up front in my "Eating Soup with a Spoon" [AFJ, Sept. 2007] piece is excellent doctrinal writing. As counterinsurgency doctrine it has its place. But the point I have been trying to make is that now its place in the Army is that it has become our FM 3-0, operational doctrine. And it has come to this without serious question or thought, which is why I have been making thread postings like this one. The American Army needs to acknowledge that we have become a counterinsurgency only force, and then we need to seriously debate this issue and where it is taking us in the future.

Point well taken and maybe something I missed the boat on because in my mind FM 3-24 is a doctrinal publication that addresses pressing needs not met elsewhere. Ensuring FM 3-24 "stays in its doctrinal lane" is a leadership, education and training problem; not a deficiency in the doctrine or its intent. Moreover, Counterinsurgency should be viewed as a guide on how to think about and not what to think concerning COIN. The FM is up-front in stating that its intent is to provide guidelines not addressed elsewhere and encourages users to assess information from other sources in deciding how to apply COIN doctrine to specific circumstances. In short, the FM enjoins and encourages COIN students and practitioners to be constantly learning, flexible and adaptive -- accepting nothing at face-value in a dynamic and difficult environment.

The second AFJ article, The Dogmas of War: A Rigid Counterinsurgency Doctrine Obscures Iraq's Realities by Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile, will be addressed in a follow-on SWJ posting.

Links

Uses of History in the Debate Over COIN - ZenPundit

Ave Caesar! - Defense and the National Interest

Why We Hate the New Counterinsurgency Manual - War Historian

Thoughts on the Counterinsurgency Campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan - The Captain's Journal

Discuss at Small Wars Council

Fully engaged in the Information War, al-Qaeda in Iraq continues to put forth its message in Iraq under the umbrella of a notional Islamic State of Iraq and employing an Iraqi actor to fill the fictitious shoes of its purported Iraqi leader, "Abu Omar al-Baghdadi." While al-Qaeda in Iraq is in dire straits in Iraq - as evidenced by the content of "al-Baghdadi's" latest al-Qaeda-prepared speech - its information campaign has kicked back into gear in earnest, deriding the "apostates" of the Iraqi Awakening movement (Sahawah al-Iraq or SAI) and announcing a new campaign through the end of January. The United States needs to engage in more creative means of participation in this Information War, exploiting al-Qaeda's faults and weaknesses beyond dry news releases and press conferences.

In a continuation of its PSYWAR campaign, al-Qaeda in Iraq's (AQI) strategic and operational effort to maintain battlefield morale and to consolidate its leadership of the broader insurgency, AQI's al-Furqan Media released a 46 minute long audio file (MP3) onto the Internet late Monday night. The recording features a speech by the notional emir of AQI's umbrella organization, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). An Arabic-language transcript, in Word, Adobe PDF, and Flash, was posted shortly after the appearance of the audio...

Much more at ThreatsWatch.