Today's Guardian article ("Military Chiefs Give US Six Months to Win Iraq War") misrepresents the Baghdad advisers. So much so, it makes me doubt the reliability of the single, unidentified source responsible for much of the article's reporting.

I hope SWJ colleagues will forgive this more "personal" post than usual, but as Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser I have a duty to set the record straight on this.

There is a real country called Iraq, where a real war is going on, with real progress but very real challenges. We are not going to "win the war" in six months -- nor would anyone expect to. But the Guardian seems to be describing some completely different, (possibly mythical) country, and some imaginary group of harried and depressed advisers bearing no resemblance to reality. As counterinsurgency professionals, we take an evidence-based approach and we are well aware of the extremely demanding task we face. That makes us cautious realists -- but we are far from pessimists, as the Guardian's anonymous source seems to imply.

The article is littered with inaccuracies:

• The "advisers" are not bunkered down in the Green Zone, but in another location, and frequently out on the ground.
• The article (incorrectly) describes me as a serving military officer -- I'm a civilian diplomat, as any source truly familiar with the team's thinking would be well aware.
• While recognizing the severity of the challenge, the team's mood is far from pessimistic. Success will take months or years, not weeks or days, and although early signs are somewhat encouraging it's really far too early to say how things will play out. The war has been going for four years, the new strategy for less than four weeks. Give it time.
• The State department is not failing to meet its personnel targets. On the contrary, more than 90 % of civilian positions in Iraq are filled, and we will grow to 20 Provincial Reconstruction Teams soon.
• The coalition is far from disintegrating -- British redeployment from the South reflects improved security, not lack of will, and the same day the British announced their move the Australians announced a force increase in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The plan is not "unclear" or "constantly changing" -- we all know exactly what the plan is. The article seems to be mistaking the freedom and agility which have been granted to us, allowing us to respond dynamically to a dynamic situation, for vacillation.

Yes, of course, there are still car bombings. But several recent bombings have been Sunni-on-Sunni, rather than sectarian, with extremists targeting moderates to discourage them from cooperating with the government. That means sectarian violence, overall, is down, and that extremists are worried they are losing support from their base -- both good things, despite the appalling violence against innocents we have come to expect from these extremists.

And yes, there is a risk that home-front political will might collapse just as we are getting things right on the ground. Given some commentators' overall negativity, one suspects that their efforts may be directed to precisely that end. You may not like the President, you may be unhappy about the war. But whose side are you on? The Iraqis trusted us, and this is their fight. They deserve our support.

Buried in the article, though, are some references to real-world progress:

• Progress has been made on oil-wealth sharing legislation -- a major development.
• Joint operations are beginning in Baghdad, and are going well so far.
• Iraqi community leaders are reporting somewhat improved morale and public confidence among the civilian population, though this is tempered by previously unmet expectations.
• Numbers of political murders have fallen (precipitously) since the operation began, though these are still too high in absolute terms.
• Iraqi forces are turning up, and performing well, though not always at 100% strength
• In al-Anbar, tribal leaders have realized extremists have nothing to offer them -- a huge development, as influential community leaders have "flipped" from AQ's side to support the Iraqi government.
• Regional diplomatic efforts, including with Iran and Syria, are apparently underway.

Unfortunately most of these developments are buried in the last paragraph of a long article.

The Guardian is entitled to its own view of the war, and reasonable people can differ on these issues. But the Guardian's view is not ours, and the anonymous source misrepresents our views. It is really too soon to tell how things will play out, though early signs are encouraging so far, and the advisers as a group remain cautious realists, not pessimists.

(As ever, though I have "permission to post", these are my own personal views and were not screened or vetted by anyone).

[Note: While I have received official approval to offer personal comment at SWJBlog, the following post has not been vetted or screened in any way. It represents personal opinion only, and is strictly Unclassified and based solely on open source material.]

It has been a busy few weeks. Operation Fadr al-Qanoon (which the media calls the "Baghdad security plan") is shaping up. Progress is measurable, but this is a marathon, not a sprint, and it's still too early to know how it will turn out.

The message for all of us, as professionals who do this for a living, is patience, patience, patience. The war has been going for nearly four years, the current strategy less than four weeks. We need to give it time.

It will take time to provide security to the population. To do this right, we need to build trust with the people, engage community leaders closely, develop intelligence and trusted networks, then work our way in and compete with the insurgents and death squads to deny them access to their targets -- their own people, whom they cynically exploit and kill. All these things we are doing, but the process cannot be rushed, and requires detailed local understanding: so we move at the pace the Iraqis can sustain.

Patience and stamina are vital. Political reconciliation -- at the grass roots -- is what will make this work, with security as breathing space. Needless to say, we are not leaving this to chance: some commentators have focused on the troop surge, but the main effort is the political effort, by Iraqis with our support, to reconcile at the local level. This is going to be a lot like heavy peace enforcement or police work, not so much like classical counterinsurgency, let alone conventional combat.

Our task is to stay alert and read the situation, ready to modify our approach as things develop. In outline (and at the unclassified level, of course) these are the major trends:

Muqtada al-Sadr has run off to Iran, leaving some of his people scratching their heads and wondering if they have been Persian stooges all along.

Iraq outside Baghdad remains relatively quiet, as it has been for much of the past year. At least half the incidents in Iraq still happen within Baghdad city limits.

Al Qa'ida in Iraq is increasingly marginalized, with alliances of local Sunni leaders, and some other jihadist groups, opposing its brutality or contesting its self-styled leadership.

Increased targeting of helicopters has led to several shoot-downs (out of hundreds of flights every day) -- a Baghdad helicopter ride is still safer than a cab ride in some major cities, but this is a trend to watch carefully.

Security in certain key neighborhoods of Baghdad shows signs of improving, as Americans and Iraqis partner at the grass roots to reduce violence and insurgent influence.

Terrorists have used car bombs against innocent bystanders in several markets and public places -- a sign that they know where the danger lies (loss of influence with the population) and are trying to sink the "surge" using negative publicity.

Some sectarian and insurgent groups have "come out of the woodwork" to attack outposts, local communities working with the government, and security forces.

This last trend is the most professionally interesting. In counterinsurgency killing the enemy is never difficult, if only you can find them. But finding them, and distinguishing them from the innocent population, can be forbiddingly difficult. By shifting our approach away from directly hunting down insurgents, and towards protecting the population, we have undercut their influence -- they know it, and their options are to flee, wait us out, or come into the open to contest control of the neighborhoods. The fact that some are coming into the open suggests they realize that waiting us out is not an option. It also makes the job of finding the enemy far easier. This is encouraging, as long as we can protect the people.

On this score, again, it's too early to say for sure but initial signs are encouraging. One indicator that's not very useful is car bombs -- we can expect these to be one of the last insurgent tactics to diminish, for two reasons. First, it takes an entire community partnering with its own local security forces to defeat a clandestine suicide bomber, and it will take a while to build effective networks to do this. Secondly, insurgent tactics are driven by the need to make a media splash, and nothing does this better than a big bomb. So the enemy will cling to this method as long as the news media reward it.

Overall, then, though early signs are encouraging, prudence and professional judgment counsel patience. There will be tough days ahead; the problems remain immense, complex and deeply embedded in the social and political structures we deal with. The violence will ebb and flow, and there will be lethal "spikes". But over time, if the strategy works, we should see a downward trend in violence and an increase in trust and reconciliation at the street level -- while remaining ready, as we certainly are, to refine our approach if needed.

The one thing we must not do is to confuse the real country of Iraq, where there is a real war, a real population, and a real obligation to protect them, with the parallel-universe "quagmire Iraq" of popular imagination. As professionals we have a duty to be clear-headed, to analyze and constantly re-assess the situation in a hard nosed fashion, adapting our approach as needed. And we have a duty of care to our people, their families, and the Iraqis, to give this time, take it carefully, and not rush either to judgment or failure. Insh'Allah together with the Iraqis we will run this race to its finish.

I'll lead off with two short excerpts from the new Army Counterinsurgency (COIN) Field Manual, FM 3-24 and Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5:

- Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Thus, COIN operations always demand considerable expenditures of time and resources.

- At the strategic level, gaining and maintaining U.S. public support for a protracted deployment is critical.

Which leads us to an excerpt from a 21 February NY Post article that appeared on the DoD Current News (Early Bird) and linked to from the Small Wars Council discussion board - America Says Let's Win War by Andy Soltis:

In a dramatic finding, a new poll shows a solid majority of Americans still wants to win the war in Iraq - and keep U.S. troops there until the Baghdad government can take over.

Strong majorities also say victory is vital to the War on Terror and that Americans should support President Bush even if they have concerns about the way the war is being handled, according to the survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies.

The poll found that 57 percent of Americans supported "finishing the job in Iraq" - keeping U.S. troops there until the Iraqis can provide security on their own. Forty-one percent disagreed.

By 53 percent to 43 percent they also believe victory in Iraq over the insurgents is still possible...

And brings us to the beginning (hopefully) of a debate at the Small Wars Council:

Tequila - Note that POS (illustrative acronym) is a Republican house polling firm that often does "push polling" as well as normal opinion polling. The NY Post is a right-wing Rupert Murdoch rag that is widely regarded as the worst newspaper in the NY market, exceeded only in its hackery by the neocon-favoring NY Sun. More details on the poll here.

John T. Fishel - If you look at the information about the poll and the questions asked, it is both pretty solid and quite conventional. The questions are clear. The same thing is asked several times in a variety of ways and the answers are consistent. And the margin of error is stated relatively conservatively. As one who has done some survey research, I have no problem with this.

Tequila - That's why I included the poll data itself, so folks can judge. I thought some of the questions betray some push-poll stuff, and also the demographics of the poll lean heavily white, but otherwise not terrible. Nonetheless the origins of the poll are worth noting.

Merv Benson - Actually party polling is usually kept in house and is considered much more accurate than newspaper polls, because more is at stake. One of the problems with most of the media polls is they tend poll "satisfaction" instead of what results people want. Similar misleading polling was done after the Tet offensive, and when more details were added it turned out that a majority were either "satisfied" with the war policy or wanted a more aggressive policy. Those who wanted to lose were in a minority. I think that is still the case with the Iraq war. My poll question would be real simple -- "Do you want to lose the war in Iraq?"

Tequila -- Merv, there are two types of polling done. One is normal opinion polling, whose goal is to ascertain the true state of public opinion. The other is "push polling", where questions are asked similar to the one you ask, whose goal is to elicit a defined response and shape opinion rather than understand it.

Stratiotes - Such results are not uncommon in time of war. Similar results were often obtained to the very end of the Vietnam war. Few will go out on a limb and say they'd like to just give up.... even if they did not agree with the war to begin with.

John T. Fishel - The first thing to note about the demographics of the sample is that it is of "likely" voters. This means that there will almost certainly be some deviation from the percentages of selected groups among the population as a whole. In this case, blacks are represented fairly closely to their proportion of the population at large, but Hispanics are seriously underrepresented as, it appears, are Asians. But, then, Hispanics have been much less likely to vote, hence the over-representation of whites. The upper income groups and more highly educated are also over-represented but again, they are more likely voters.

As I indicated earlier, I did not see questions that appeared to predispose the respondents toward a particular answer and, more importantly, because there were multiple questions seeking to get at the same variables I am comfortable with the results.

It is interesting that the polls taken post-Tet showed general dissatisfaction with the course of the war but when the questions asked what people wanted to do about it, they were all over the map. If I recall correctly, however, the bottom line was do what it takes to win or get out now. "Deja vu all over again"?

What say you? Comment here or join the discussion at the Small Wars Council.

Here's a generous offer from Council member Tom Odom over on our discussion board...

An Offer to Potential Authors

To many, the idea of writing is harkens back to memories of dental work; it is painful and it leaves you numbly speechless. Over the past 6 years or so I have repeatedly asked hundreds of Soldiers the question: "How many of you liked your high school English teacher?" Soldiers being soldiers, the handful of positive responses to that question had nothing to do with the subject of English. That almost instinctual aversion to the idea of writing is therefore understandable. Writing like any other skill takes practice, patience, and not a little determination to develop. I would encourage all to set improvement of their written communication skills as a worthy goal. But I will also say that what counts most in writing are the ideas communicated; writing is the delivery means.

For the past six years I have focused on ideas as the platform for the writing program at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC). Simply stated I tell Soldiers if they can jot notes on a box top, I can turn it into a useful article. Our publication record through the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) validates my approach.

The Small Wars Journal (SWJ) community is a community of experience. I will make the same offer to this community that I make to Soldiers at the JRTC. If you have ideas and you want to publish, jot those notes on the digital box top we call email and send them to me. Once the article is ready SWJ will look at it for relevance and quality. If SWJ publishes, I will again look at it for use with CALL. If SWJ does not take it for publication, I will still look at it for publication with CALL. Concurrent publication on 2 fronts is a good deal for those looking to write.

I welcome all potential authors; I will tell you up front that I will give priority to those serving in uniform, using a ".mil" email. Common sense rules apply on subjects and security.

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From the SWJ:

That's a very generous offer from Tom, a published author, frequent contributor to SWJ / SWC / et al, and already the encouraging / enabling force behind even more authors' contributions.

Small Wars Journal is totally aboard with Tom's effort and potential collaborative publication with CALL.

CALL is well established and respected within its domain. CALL has a commanding presence within its market, which is of necessity but unfortunately, narrow (in their distribution, not in their scope) due to its access constraints.

SWJ is not (yet;-) the force that CALL is, but we are broad and inclusive where they are constrained to be narrow and deep. So together, we can be a mile deep AND a mile wide.

So has it been said. SO LET IT BE WRITTEN. And so let it be published!

BREAK

And while we are on the subject of writing and for those that may have missed it - Volume 7 of the Small Wars Journal online magazine is now posted. Volumes 1-6 are available in the back issues area. Volume 8 is already taking shape....

Posted to the Small Wars Council by Jedburgh...

Headquarters

Multi-National Force - Iraq

Baghdad, Iraq

APO AE 09342-1400

February 10, 2007

Office of the Commanding General

To the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Civilians of Multi-National Force-Iraq:

We serve in Iraq at a critical time. The war here will soon enter its fifth year. A decisive moment approaches. Shoulder-to-shoulder with our Iraqi comrades, we will conduct a pivotal campaign to improve security for the Iraqi people. The stakes could not be higher.

Our task is crucial. Security is essential for Iraq to build its future. Only with security can the Iraqi government come to grips with the tough issues it confronts and develop the capacity to serve its citizens. The hopes of the Iraqi people and the coalition countries are with us.

The enemies of Iraq will shrink at no act, however barbaric. They will do all that they can to shake the confidence of the people and to convince the world that this effort is doomed. We must not underestimate them.

Together with our Iraqi partners, we must defeat those who oppose the new Iraq. We cannot allow mass murderers to hold the initiative. We must strike them relentlessly. We and our Iraqi partners must set the terms of the struggle, not our enemies. And together we must prevail.

The way ahead will not be easy. There will be difficult times in the months to come. But hard is not hopeless, and we must remain steadfast in our effort to help improve security for the Iraqi people. I am confident that each of you will fight with skill and courage, and that you will remain loyal to your comrades-in-arms and to the values our nations hold so dear.

In the end, Iraqis will decide the outcome of this struggle. Our task is to help them gain the time they need to save their country. To do that, many of us will live and fight alongside them. Together, we will face down the terrorists, insurgents, and criminals who slaughter the innocent. Success will require discipline, fortitude, and initiative--qualities that you have in abundance.

I appreciate your sacrifices and those of your families. Now, more than ever, your commitment to service and your skill can make the difference between victory and defeat in a very tough mission.

It is an honor to soldier again with the members of the Multi-National Force-Iraq. I know that wherever you serve in this undertaking you will give your all. In turn, I pledge my commitment to our mission and every effort to achieve success as we help the Iraqis chart a course to a brighter future.

Godspeed to each of you and to our Iraqi comrades in this crucial endeavor.

//Signed//

DAVID H. PATRAEUS

General, United States Army

Commanding

All organizations must be concerned with the growth, retention, and utilization of their best and brightest. Call them what you will -- the Iron Majors, the Strategic Corporals, the go-to desk officers and field operators -- they are the backbone and future of all of our organizations, and our aces-in-the-hole for the Long War.

Our bright and dedicated professionals have a passion to fight to win. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm, flexibility, and innovation often collides with the inertia of the status quo, which is frequently manifest in legacy attitudes, organizational rice bowls, and careerism and bureaucracy that linger amongst the establishment. Today's personnel systems at best fail to support employing all of our manpower in ways that our missions require, and at worst impair our up-and-comers who somehow find a way to contribute anyway in the arena where needed, rushing to the action while others stay comfortable.

In times of great organizational stress like we have today, there is increased tension between the old and the new. It is a fine line between over-indulging the new breed, and resting too comfortably or defensively on our old laurels. Sometimes we mature the next generation, sometimes we squash its innovation and drive it under a rock or out the door in either acquiescence or frustration. When the latter happens, we lose our most valuable assets, our skilled and dedicated people, just at the time when they are most needed. Wake up calls are never easy for organizations.

That brings us to the following e-mail we received from one of those young Turks, someone who is well known to us and has a history of serious professional contributions. This is professional hope and frustration, not idle gossip or whining. We publish it here at the author's request under the pseudonym Epictetus, but only after verifying that Epictetus was in a position to experience first-hand the issues commented upon, and that there is an issue to raise here rather than just an axe to grind. This case involves the DIA, but it could be any of many of our organizations struggling with their new realities.

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"Interest in supporting the warfighter stops at the Lieutenant Colonel level"

-- Former DIA Iraq Analyst

If the outcome of the mid term elections were a wake up call for the Bush administration, the Iraq Survey Group report was a wake up call for the Defense Intelligence Agency. The report singled out the agency's Iraq office as an example of what was wrong with the intelligence effort in Iraq. Sadly, it is not the first such wake up call for this troubled agency.

The first wake up call came in the fall of 2005. For the first time since the Vietnam era, the agency was forced to resort to an internal draft system to fill its deployment requirements to Iraq and Afghanistan. This draft prompted another policy change that allowed personnel to bypass their supervisors to volunteer for deployments. Supervisors, reticent to lose personnel to these deployments, respond with threats of retaliation against volunteers. To stop their offices from losing personnel, mid level managers threatened their subordinates with poor evaluations if they volunteered to deploy. Amazingly, analysts volunteered anyway. DIA's lukewarm support for deploying its personnel is not surprising. The last few heads of the Iraq office had never been to Iraq before being given the job.

The second wake up call came the following spring when the results of the annual Human Capital Survey were released. Less than a quarter of all employees agreed with the statement "Morale is high at DIA." Most disturbingly, the most dissatisfied employees were "Class of 9/11" analysts, the crop of entry level intelligence officers hired in the wake of 9/11. These analysts, some working full time with high level security clearance before they could buy beer, were often sent to Iraq at the first opportunity with less than a month of training. Analysts who had never fired a rifle before were given loaded machine guns and told to look for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The next wake up call came in October of 2006, when the online journal On Point published an editorial detailing the continuing problems in the Iraq office, including a shortage of computers that reduced analysts to reading newspapers in Pentagon coffee shops . While the ISG lamented that only 30 out of the 1,000 personnel at the US Embassy in Baghdad spoke any Arabic, DIA's Iraq office was employing its Arabic linguists vacuuming offices. While it was quietly passed around some of DIA's corridors, the article went largely unnoticed by the agency's leadership.

The coup de grace came when the ISG reported that DIA had less than ten analysts who had more than two years studying the insurgency. "Agencies must have a better personnel system to keep analytic expertise focused on the insurgency. They are not doing enough to map the insurgency, dissect it, and understand it on a national and provincial level." This was the wake up call the agency's leadership could not ignore.

DIA's official response to the report was as depressing as it was predictable. They "clarified" that instead of the 10 analysts who had studied the Iraq insurgency for more than two years, the number was closer to 20. It also mentioned the "300 dedicated analysts" they had focusing on Iraq. This response was met with cynicism and disbelief by some of the Iraq office's analysts. As one Iraq analyst lamented in an online forum shortly after the ISG report was published "If there are 300 analysts, I never saw them." He had worked in the Iraq office for six months. Another echoed the words of the tragic Vietnam figure, John Paul Vann; describing DIA's response as "one of the bright shining lies."

Morale has become bad enough in the Iraq office that DIA has had to drop the requirement for analysts who deploy to Iraq work in the office after they return. In the last several months, the office has experienced an exodus of many of its veteran analysts. The office remains critically undermanned and short of computers. Analysts have begun to apply for jobs with local county police departments.

DIA's current director, Major General Michael Maples, was the head of the Army's artillery school at Fort Sill when the school was rocked by a cheating scandal exposed by the late Col David Hackworth. General Maples' response was a witch hunt to find out who had leaked the damning information to the press. DIA's situation, however, is much direr. As the war enters its fourth year and with American causalities over three thousand, now is not the time for bureaucratic damage control. It is time for bold and decisive action.

If General Maples cannot overhaul this troubled agency, the administration must find someone who can. Anything less would be a disservice, not only to DIA's many brave and dedicated personnel, but to the military that it serves.

Odom, Thomas P. Journey Into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. (Price - $18.96 Paperback on Amazon.com)

Review by Council member Major Adam Strickland, USMC.

Marine officers are taught that the two most important components of any operations order are the commander's intent and mission statement. Above all else, each statement should be clear and concise so as to leave the recipient with no doubt as to what must be accomplished. In 1994, at the height of a humanitarian crisis in Goma, Zaire, US Army LTC Thomas Odom, an Africa Foreign Area Officer, was told by his superiors -- "We must stop the dying," and thus tasked to "stop the dying." Though clear and concise, these provided little true guidance as he tried to assess the needs of over one million Rwandan refugees escaping violent retribution in front of the steadily advancing Rwandan Patriotic Front as it consolidated its victory in the Rwandan Civil War. Did his superiors really want him to provide humanitarian assistance to the former Rwandan Army that had just been defeated, yet was still heavily armed? Was he to provide relief to the Interhamwe or Impuzamugambi militias and their collaborators who had just raped and murdered in excess of 800,000 Rwandans? Was he required to disarm the groups as a precondition to assistance? And finally, how was he to complete his mission without creating the perception of providing aide and comfort to thousands who just committed genocide? In his book Journey Into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda, Thomas Odom provides a first-person account of the planning difficulties and selected courses of actions associated with Operation Support Hope (Goma, Zaire 1994) and follow-on operations associated with the Rwandan Genocide.

Over the past several years, we in the military have witnessed what some have labeled "a new-type" or "irregular" warfare, one in which there are multiple non-state competitors on the battlefield, the environment and root causes of grievance poorly defined and understood, and one in which religious, ethnic, and tribal affiliations matter more and more. However, Odom demonstrates that all of these and other problems that confront us today in Iraq or Afghanistan, whether interagency difficulties, the presence of militias, or the absence of necessary infrastructure, were present in Rwanda and Zaire in 1993-1994. By detailing the efforts that reconciled the limited means at his disposal with the policy goals or ends of Operation Support Hope, Odom makes this book a must read for all attempting to better understand operational art, planning, and the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Not only is Journey Into Darkness an easy and compelling read, but at 277 pages, one can finish it over a weekend. For a more complete understanding of operational art in the context of the Rwanda Genocide and United Nations Assistance Mission Rwanda (UNAMIR), Odom's book is a wonderful complement to Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire's Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. Journey Into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda is a must read for all planners, foreign area officers, and those attempting to better understand the Great Lakes Region of Africa.

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You can read Chapter Five: Operation Support Hope in the Small Wars Journal online magazine, Volume 3 - October 2005.

This is the second installment of "posts of note" from the Small Wars Journal's discussion board - the Small Wars Council. Poster JCustis, a long-time Council member, is a Marine infantry officer with two tours in Iraq under his belt. Where a military acronym is used I have inserted an explanation. For starters, the 'battle captains': the S-3 is the Operations Officer and the 'A' or Alpha is his assistant, the AirO is the Air Officer, the FSC is the Fire Support Coordination Officer, the FAC is the Forward Air Controller, the TF IO is the Task Force Information Operations Officer, and the SJA is the Staff Judge Advocate (legal).

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RTK has written on his experiences using the framework of Dave Kilcullen's Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency and I felt that same framework could be used to offer some lessons learned on the battle captain system that my unit applied during its 2004-2005 rotation.

I can't lay claim to any degree of enlightenment, but I'd like to think that towards the end of our deployment, our "council of captains" (S-3A, AirO, FSC, FAC, and SJA) had gotten into a sustainable groove.

Article 1: Know your turf -- LtCol Kilcullen makes reference to developing a mental model of your area of operations. Try as we might to study imagery, review the maps and gain situational awareness, it took us in excess of three months to realize that battle captains need to physically see the battlespace with the naked eye. We eventually caught helos which flew over the turf, or went out when the battalion commander went forward to check on the companies.

Article 2: Diagnose the problem -- A battle captain's problem is not the same tactical problem a company or platoon faces. He needs to move information (reporting) as quickly as possible, have a clear understanding of what needs to happen when a CCIR (Commanders Critical Intelligence Requirement) is tripped, when he must roust the QRF (Quick Reaction Force) out of the ready room, and which means of communication to use in order to expedite a CASEVAC (Casualty Evacuation) request. Battle captains have to share lessons learned and offer ideas, and get the rest of the COC (Combat Operations Center) staff in synch so that they do not add to the friction when troops are in contact.

Article 3: Organize for intelligence -- The critical detail here is that COC staff needs to be organized to maximize the capture of information for analysis. Do not let the S-2 (Intelligence) staff stray out of reach of your daily battle rhythm. Because current operations and intelligence sections often report what should be the same information, up two separate paths, patrol, raid, and contact debriefs must be conducted with S-3 and S-2 representation. The patrol leader may conduct a more detailed debrief later with the intelligence rep, but ops has to reserve the right to final review of follow-on reporting offered up by the S-2. I've been queried by the night Regimental-level battle captain on significant events tidbits that the Regt S-2 briefed, but Regt Ops did not know. It is an unnecessarily painful experience.

Article 4: Organize for interagency operations -- Even if the battle captain doesn't organize anything regarding interagency ops, he should know where these folks live, and stop by for a chat when they are on the FOB (Forward Operating Base). A fellow battle captain and TF IO officer introduced me to the civil affairs HQ responsible for our AO. A couple of visits helped us explain matters to the company commander who was justifiably frustrated that his recommended pump house project hadn't seen movement for several weeks.

Article 5: Travel light and harden CSS (Combat Service Support) -- All I can speak to is the travel light piece, and you've got to maintain the ability to revert to pens, maps, and acetate to fight the fight. For hardening, don't let digital communications rest on a single point of failure. Test back-up systems regularly.

Article 6: Find a political / cultural advisor -- I found that the contract linguists are a remarkable source of ground-truth information, if you only listen to them. A lot of what they say has to be taken with a grain of salt, because they love rumors, but after you're done with the shaker, they still provide a lot of context. You'd be surprised what you can pick up over a cigarette and cup of tea.

Article 7: Train the squad leaders, then trust them -- Get your COC people to as much formal and informal training as possible, even if it means foregoing multiple COC exercises. The Battle NCOs may think that steady state ops are mind-numbing, but when you have rockets impacting around the COC, troops in contact, and a developing CASEVAC situation, a properly trained NCO truly shines. My battalion had an ops idiot savant who amazed me daily with his ability to pull in COP feeds, re-wire the COC after displacement, and sense when things needed to happen. He was a graduate of an operations specialist course, and it paid off during both deployments.

Article 8: Rank is nothing, talent is everything -- See article 7. If the square peg won't fit into the round hole, keep searching until you find a fit.

Article 9: Have a game plan -- Treat the deployment as a marathon, not a sprint. Rehearse your actions in garrison and develop a rough plan to support ops in the AO (Area of Operations), but don't become enamored with that plan. Don't be afraid to employ tricks you pick up during the RIP/TOA (Relief in Place / Transfer of Authority). It wasn't until we'd been in country for over four months and had fought Fallujah v.2.0 that our battle captain system really started to click and run smoothly. During a RIP in Ramadi, we even stole some TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) from the Army.

Article 10: Be there -- As a battle captain, you can't be there if you are exhausted. Those days will come for sure, but the companies outside the wire deserve better, and if you are starting a 12 hour watch after only fours hours of sleep because you were playing Xbox, then you are simply negligent. Build a duty rotation like Marine Security Guard duty. Try to give the battle staff time off, if possible. At one point when we were in Ramadi for a few months, our rotation had it where the battle captain and his NCO could have 36 hours off, after a 3-day duty period. It keeps everyone rested and maintains their sanity. You will need it when the worst days come. Another component to "being there" is to have a semblance of depth. My TF had to split to support the Fallujah fight, and we learned the hard lesson that we did not have enough well-trained battle captains to do so without incurring more risk than we needed to. The senior personnel went forward and the junior guys did a stellar job, but they had to violate the first point in this paragraph.

Article 11: Avoid knee jerk responses to first impressions -- I'll trump RTK a bit and say that initial reports are wrong 99% of the time. Every time you press an RTO for more details, the urge to embellish creeps in and reporting morphs into speculation. Give the unit 30 minutes to submit a follow-up report, and preferably after the senior man on the scene has made his assessment of just what the hell happened. In a running gunfight, remember that silence on the net probably means the commander has a helmet fire going on. He is busy...give him some space.

Article 12: Prepare for handover from day 1 -- Not much to add here.

Article 13: Build trusted networks -- This goes back to Article 4. You are nothing more than a one-trick pony if you don't know what the current IO theme is, where CAG (Civil Affairs Group) elements are operating, or don't go down to the company areas every now and then to break bread. When you get the chance to go forward to "see" the battlespace, try to discuss current ops with a squad leader. It's a little thing, but it goes toward building trust that you can get the dust-off bird in because you are not just another Fobbit.

Articles 14 and 15: Start easy and seek early victories -- The RIP/TOA will be the first challenge, but if you can hit a homerun there, you should be okay. There are really no easy and early victories, but rehearse your staff's actions so they flow like water when a casualty requires evacuation to a higher echelon of care. Be the smooth operator when you pick up the handset, and if you can handle the stress of a troops-in-contact situation like a radio DJ, you will instill confidence in the guys on the ground.

Article 16: Practice deterrent patrolling -- Deterrent patrolling is high-level math, in terms of the battle tracking and coordination required. Check and double-check to make sure that adjacent units know what is going on. Sit down with the patrol leaders whenever possible, and don't just know what the route looks like, but ask him where he expects to make contact. Know what his SOP (Standing Operating Procedure) is for breaking contact or going firm, and how he would prefer to make link-up with the QRF. You owe him that much, so don't be the distant voice in a box that has to develop situation awareness through multiple radio calls.

Article 17: Be prepared for setbacks -- Bad things do happen, but the battle captain needs to internalize his emotions until he is off watch. It doesn't matter if you have a KIA who was your number one NCO when you were a company commander. You've got to help the company clear the contact. Take a deep breath, throw in a dip or light up a Marlboro... Do anything to stay focused until the patrol is back inside the wire.

Article 18: Engage the women; beware the children -- When it's 2 am and you get a call from a company, reporting that their attached HET (HUMINT [Human Intelligence] Exploitation Team) has an informer who is ready to give the 411 on a local and active IED cell, but she wants to be relocated or placed into protective custody with her four children, you need to have a script/plan or the moment will slip away.

Article 19: Take stock regularly -- Regardless of what the battle captains and NCOs are doing, pull them in for a daily update brief. Too much gets lost between multiple change-over briefs. Ask the S-3 to attend and give his take on the current and future ops picture. Even better, invite the CO. You may be surprised how much information he can confirm or deny based on his rounds outside the wire

Article 20: Remember the global audience -- Nothing to add here, other than that this should be common sense. If you have greater access to the NIPRNET (Internet) in the COC, keep your peers informed.

Article 21: Exploit single narrative -- Although you won't have a narrative to worry about, you will be expected to be in the know, based on your proximity to the unit's planners. Provide context on ops to your peers when appropriate, but if you simply don't know anything more that what you heard in the OPORD (Operations Order), don't embellish.

Article 22: Local forces should mirror enemy, not ourselves -- If you don't know what coalition partners are doing within your AO or in adjacent battlespace, you've violated Article 16. Fire yourself and seek a position monitoring the clearing barrel at the entry control point.

Article 23: Practice armed civil affairs -- Even if your unit doesn't have a supporting CA (Civil Affairs) element, or the one you do have is over-tasked, work the interagency theme and appreciate what the CA folks like to know. Try to glean relevant information during the debriefs, and make sure it gets to the people who can act on it. If you aren't sure if that's within your lane, clear it with the S-3, but don't sit on your thumbs and expect it to occur by magic.

Article 24: Small is beautiful -- For the battle captain, small details are beautiful. Be the duty expert at conducting a good debrief.

Article 25: Fight the enemy's strategy, not his forces -- The enemy's strategy is to wear you down. If you can implement elements of the points listed above, you will help the companies to get inside of his loop.

Article 26: Build your own solution, attack only when he gets in the way --

"Combat operations do not win COIN. For a company, since combat operations are what we've trained for, they're our comfort zone. CMO (Civil-Military Operations), IO, economic development, and the sustainment of security forces are all bigger moneymakers in COIN than combat operations. It's tough to get to work, but more productive once you do." -- RTK.

If you don't understand some of the finer points of non-kinetic ops, you may actually be a hindrance to the guys outside the wire. This should be part of your continuous PME (Professsional Military Education), and actually long before you stepped in country.

Article 27: Keep extraction plan secret -- Self-explanatory and nothing to add here.

Article 28: Keep the initiative -- Collaborate with your counterparts, battle NCOs, and the Ops Chief to get better every day. If you think you've developed the smoothest COC going, remember that the day may come where all previous watch rotations pale in comparison to the hell that breaks loose. Do your best to be prepared for it.

The following excerpt is from a draft 'think piece' -- work in progress -- on an issue that is a recurring theme in much of the work I've been involved in over the last several years. I am not the author -- but did participate in many of the discussions concerning Strategic Compression and its implications for coalition forces that fed the content of the paper. It is presented to provoke thought, help frame a debate, and be a catalyst for further discussion.

What is Strategic Compression?

Strategic Compression is the forming of unexpected causal relationships and breaking of expected causal relationships among the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of conflict. Furthermore, Strategic Compression occurs due to the rapidity of information transmission and Blue actors' lack of understanding of pre-existing and emergent trends and social appetites both within the local area of operations and within the world-wide audience. As such, the levels of war seem to compress in time and in causal linkages.

The chain of command system is an example of a pre-existing organizational scheme that is intended to aid in command and the distribution of information and allow for purposeful and coordinated operations in attaining strategic objectives. Mechanisms such as lines of operations formed in the campaign planning phase are tailored to accomplish strategic and operational objectives through a collection of tactical and operational actions. Strategic level guidance requires crafting a suitable response that is tempered by the forces available. While contingency planning can aid in advance preparations each event demands a fresh look at situations and objectives as every crisis or event has its own unique characteristics that need to be acknowledged and accounted for. In both cases, military planners rely on assumptions of pre-existing and developed causal relationships in dealing with new situations.

In Strategic Compression, there are two major types of changes to causal relationships. The first is where an entirely new, unexpected causal relationship forms at any level of war that causes a change in another level of war. The second is one that breaks or negates an otherwise existing and expected causal relationship. Both result in changes in the operational approaches in the levels of conflict. The formation of a new causal relationship or the destruction of an existing causal relationship can be either top-down (strategic ---> operational ---> tactical) or bottom up (tactical ---> operational ---> strategic).

How Does Strategic Compression Work in the Current Security Environment?

In dealing with conflict in the current world system, the number of actors and factors one has to account for is overwhelming. The dense overlay and dynamic interweaving of social, political, and economic interactions produce the situation on the ground. Pulling the layers apart in order to find critical nodes or mechanisms that can be leveraged to accomplish strategic and operational objectives is a daunting task. The complexity of the environment is such that all actors are continuously interacting, reacting, and adapting to each other in a fluid and evolving setting. If one group of insurgents is dismantled, another takes its place. If one social problem is alleviated, such as food distribution, another can appear, such as sanitation. Obvious solutions to problems do not always work. Even if a problem has been largely solved, other problems or difficult situations appear which diminish or negate positive effects already created. Furthermore, the uniqueness of each problem due to the complex interaction of social factors is such that lessons learned are not transferable to the next problem. Each attempt to solve the problem changes the underlying nature of the problem. In such complex interactive systems, it is impossible to predict -- and also to repeat -- effects and results.

One of the great paradoxes of Small Wars is that terrorists are regularly able to leverage Strategic Compression -- use tactical actions to create strategic effects -- yet great powers seem unable to. Terrorists and insurgents regularly fight through using asymmetric engagement: using tactics, equipment, and resources that generate disproportionate effects. While asymmetric engagement is the method in which asymmetric actors wage war against the U.S., it is a term distinct from Strategic Compression. Strategic Compression is specifically leveraged by insurgents and terrorists when actions are undertaken with the intent to influence public opinion through the media (traditional and non-traditional) towards specific aims. The tactical actions of killing a few U.S. soldiers or destroying U.S. vehicles are just a means of achieving the greater goal of eroding support or enraging the domestic and local AO populations, respectively.

In Iraq, this has happened in instances where insurgents have taken positions in hospitals and mosques. By drawing the U.S. into fights in these areas, the insurgents are specifically trying to leverage Strategic Compression against the U.S. Any battle with insurgent forces in a sensitive area would cast the U.S. in a bad light as uncaring or worse, disrespectful of Islam. The goal of the insurgents is not so much to kill soldiers or destroy vehicles but rather to affect the perceptions of the local and global public audience. Media, if involved would likely capture brutal images of death and destruction of Iraqis and religious buildings respectively. If media was not present to capture images, other images would likely appear through non-traditional sources showing the effects or for example the collapsed roof of a mosque. The underlying message would presumably be that the U.S. was responsible. Furthermore, regardless of traditional or non-traditional media action, the local population would have a visible reminder and it would possibly be portrayed as an example of how the U.S. does not care about the people of Iraq, is an occupier, etc.

The wide-spread presence of photo and video cameras, the proliferation of communications devices and technology, and the availability of new web services (blogs, Youtube, etc.) has opened the doors to the global instantaneous "rumor mill." True or not -- pictures, video footage, and reports of incidents can be rapidly transmitted around the world. Even if this data is 'true' in the loosest sense, it is not necessarily grounded in its proper context. Images of soldiers firing on a crowd might not show insurgent perpetrators in the crowd. In the current environment, news is as likely to be carried by mainstream media as it is to be propagated by new and non-traditional means (i.e. camera phones and the aforementioned Youtube). In leveraging public opinion through Strategic Compression, America's enemies will make use of both new and old modes of communication. However, it is important to point out that technology is an enabler and an accelerator of Strategic Compression, but it is not the cause. Strategic Compression is rooted in the unpredictable interaction of complex systems and is not dependent on technology per se.

The proliferation of images, videos, and reports filtered through traditional and non-traditional media allows terrorists, insurgents, and unsympathetic members of the public to convey a story is either false or selective with the truth. An alarming characteristic of current information technology is that images, pictures, and quotes can be sent to the worldwide audience without any contextual information. This allows actions or results of actions -- real or perceived to be --used in information warfare by insurgents against the United States. Images of soldiers firing into a crowd could in reality be coordinated shots at insurgent snipers. Regardless of reality these images could give the impression that American forces kill indiscriminately. Al-Sadr's staging of rallies next to the hotels in which foreign journalist stay can give the impression that the entire city of Baghdad is falling rapidly into anarchy.

While they give the viewer an impression of understanding the reality on the ground, these previously mentioned images are in fact just raw data. This raw data can be easily spun in a certain way to espouse a certain view point. Even worse, in an age where images are easily manipulated they could be also be completely false and have no basis in any real event. Furthermore, in the absence of context, those watching the images tend to superimpose their own opinions and beliefs on them. If there is a natural predisposition towards one view point or another, the raw data can become further 'fuel for the fire'.

Some Thoughts on the Future of Strategic Compression

The unexpected linkages created amongst the levels of war are unlikely to diminish. Inexpensive, readily available cameras and the ability to post images and video on the internet by amateur reporters will increasingly contribute to this phenomenon. Sources of news will likely proliferate and instances of media responding to tactical mistakes are likely to grow. Other causal linkages are likely to become more apparent or emerge. All of these factors will result in placing greater emphasis on General Krulak's strategic corporal idea as tactical actions should be expected to receive hyper-scrutiny in the future. The CNN effect will play an increasingly important role in Small Wars relative to major combat operations (MCO), because unlike the enemy in MCO, the two major centers of gravity in small wars -- the occupied population and the American public -- depend upon news media to gain information and formulate opinions about military actions. Ensuring that tactical actions are well understood by both audiences is essential. Small wars are also likely to be increasingly fought in urban environments. The likelihood that collateral damage will occur during operations and be documented by international and non-traditional media is dramatically increased. As such, Strategic Compression is exacerbated when American forces are operating amongst urban civilian population centers.

Discussion of the new Iraq strategy, and General Petraeus's recent Congressional testimony have raised the somewhat obvious point that the word "counterinsurgency" means very different things to different people. So it may be worth sketching in brief outline the two basic philosophical approaches to counterinsurgency that developed over the 20th century (a period which I have written about elsewhere as "Classical Counterinsurgency"). These two contrasting schools of thought about counterinsurgency might be labeled as "enemy-centric" and "population-centric".

The enemy-centric approach basically understands counter-insurgency as a variant of conventional warfare. It sees counterinsurgency as a contest with an organized enemy, and believes that we must defeat that enemy as our primary task. There are many variants within this approach, including "soft line" and "hard line" approaches, kinetic and non-kinetic methods of defeating the enemy, decapitation versus marginalization strategies, and so on. Many of these strategic concepts are shared with the population-centric school of counterinsurgency, but the philosophy differs. In a nut-shell, it could be summarized as "first defeat the enemy, and all else will follow".

The population-centric approach understands counter-insurgency as fundamentally a control problem, or even an armed variant of government administration. It believes that establishing control over the population, and the environment (physical, human and informational) in which that population lives, is the essential task. Again, there are many variants within this approach, including some very hard-line methods and some softer approaches, but the underlying philosophy is "first control the population, and all else will follow".

(Note that we're talking about classical counter-insurgency theory here, not modern counter-insurgency practice, so much. Also, I'm not suggesting one school is always right and the other always wrong -- both can be well-done, and both can be hopelessly counterproductive if done badly. The key to "good counterinsurgency practice" is the agile integration of civil and military measures across security, economic, political and information tracks -- and this is something that has to be done regardless of which approach you adopt, and is just as necessary in both).

Now, some people are quite committed to one or the other school of thought (Galula, for example, flatly states that the population-centric approach is always correct, and the new FM 3-24 takes a similar but less absolute stance). But my experience has been that both are applicable in varying degrees in most insurgencies, and at different times in the life of any one insurgency - since, over time, the nature of insurgencies shifts.

The real art is to "read the battle" and understand how it is developing, fast enough to adapt. Neither the enemy-centric nor the population-centric approaches are always or universally appropriate -- there is no cookie-cutter, and no substitute for situation-specific analysis informed by extremely deep local area and cultural knowledge.

As an example of the need to read the battle and adapt, I hope you will forgive a brief personal anecdote. In Timor in 1999 I worked closely with village elders in the border districts. I sat down with several of them one afternoon to discuss their perception of how the campaign was progressing, and they complained that the Australians weren't securing them in the fields and villages, that they felt unsafe because of the militia (the local term for cross-border guerrillas) and that we needed to do more to protect them. In actual fact, we were out in large numbers, securing the border against infiltration, patrolling by night, conducting 14 to 21-day patrols in the jungle to deny the militias a chance to build sanctuaries, and working in close in the villages to maintain popular support. There had not been a single successful attack by the insurgents on the population for more than two months. So, "objectively", they were secure. But -- and this is the critical point -- because our troops were sneaking around in the jungle and at night, staying out of the villagers' way and focusing on defeating enemy attempts to target the population, they did not see us about, and hence did not feel "subjectively" secure. This was exacerbated by the fact that they had just experienced a major psychological trauma (occupation, insurgency, mass destruction and international intervention) and as a society they needed time and support for a degree of "mental reconstruction". Based on their feedback (and that of lots of other meetings and observations) we changed our operational approach, became a bit more visible to the population and focused on giving them the feeling, as well as the reality, of safety. Once we did that, it was fine.

In other words, we had to shift from a more enemy-centric approach to a more population-centric approach to adjust to the developing situation. My personal lesson from this experience was that the correct approach is situation-dependent, and the situation changes over time. Therefore the key is to develop mechanisms that allow you to read the environment, to be agile and to adapt, as John Nagl showed so brilliantly in Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife.

So, in summary, two broad philosophical approaches in classical counterinsurgency (and remember it's classical 20th century counterinsurgency we're discussing here) -- population-centric, and enemy-centric. Both have merit, but the key is to first diagnose the environment, then design a tailor-made approach to counter the insurgency, and - most critically - have a system for generating continuous, real-time feedback from the environment that allows you to know what effect you are having, and adapt as needed.