Thursday's reading links - in no particular order:
Hybrid vs. Compound War - Frank Hoffman, Armed Forces Journal.
Over the past two years, the hybrid threat construct has found some traction. It appears in official government reports and has been cited by the defense secretary in articles and speeches. In addition, it was referred to in the new Joint Capstone Concept for Joint Operations, in Joint Forces Command's Joint Operational Environment 2008 and in the latest Maritime Strategy.
However, it is not clear this usage is based on a common understanding of what a hybrid threat or hybrid warfare entails. Hence, this article details an array of definitions and debates their merits and an alternative concept - compound war. It also provides a preliminary overview of ongoing historical study related to this issue...
Illusions of Victory - Douglas Macgregor, Defense News.
... Our large and pervasive military presence in Iraq alienated both the Sunni and Shiite Arabs while giving the Kurds an addictive taste of independence, a development with ominous consequences for their future survival in close proximity to Turkey. Our impact on Afghanistan is similar with even more profoundly negative strategic effects in Pakistan.
Anyone sitting in the Kremlin must be delighted. After watching the United States squander a trillion dollars in Iraq while grinding its ground forces into ruin, Moscow can now celebrate the diversion of precious US military and economic resources into Afghanistan while it turns its attention to the goal of controlling Ukraine and returning Russian military power to NATO's eastern border...
No Reason to Quit - Joseph Collins, Armed Forces Journal.
... It is easy to see why the American people tire of this war. It appears that the more we do, the less we have to show for it. Americans are also concerned for their men and women in uniform, who have endured tour after tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. In August, the majority of Americans in an ABC News-Washington Post poll for the first time said that the war in Afghanistan was not worth fighting.
The pundits and scholars are also restless. Columnist George Will has called for withdrawal and an "offshore" strategy. Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich questions the depth of our basic interests there. Richard Haas of the Council on Foreign Relations despairs that Afghanistan, once a war of necessity, has become a war of choice superimposed on an Afghan civil war. Ralph Peters questions both the aim of the effort and the value of victory...
Return of the Jedi - MG Robert Scales, Armed Forces Journal.
It's that time again. About once a decade, the military services attempt to reform how they educate officers. This time, the catalyst is a series of Senate and House hearings on how well the services educate officers. The Defense Science Board will begin a study on military education reform soon. The defense intellectual blogosphere is electric with calls for reform. Other creative ideas for reform will follow in the coming days. And all will fail.
They will fail because the services will not be able to attract the brightest and groom them through proper schooling for positions of responsibility unless the intellectually gifted are rewarded with selection for promotion and command. Unless intellectual excellence is tied to the services' personnel systems, true reform is impossible...
Too Few - COL Robert Killebrew, Armed Forces Journal.
... At a time when we're throwing billions at banks and car companies, though, the US continues to be strangely parsimonious with its Army. At the end of the Vietnam War, the Army mustered 1.5 million soldiers in the active force; subsequent reductions and "peace dividends" brought it down to 480,000 at the beginning of the "war on terror." Today, after grudgingly increasing manpower through eight years of war, the service will be allowed to grow to 569,000 in the active force, with another 550,000 Reserve and National Guard troops - and it's still not enough. Career soldiers and reservists alike still will face repeated combat tours at a rate that would have staggered the Cold War force. They are the ones paying the price for pinching Defense Department pennies...
Much more at Armed Forces Journal.
Afghanistan, September, 2009 - Great, nay, outstanding collection of 43 images at the Boston Globe.
... the first of a new regular feature on the Big Picture: a monthly focus on Afghanistan. Collected here is a one-month collection of photos related to Afghanistan for September, 2009.
Here's one sample (reduced in size here):
Frontline in Afghanistan - Andrew Exum, Abu Muqawama.
A reader alerted me to the fact that I am in this PBS Frontline feature on Afghanistan. If you do not know the work of Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith, you should, because their team - producers and cameramen and everyone else -- has done some of the very best journalism of this war. Enduring, legendary, Bernard Fall-type stuff, really. Just watch some of this footage.
Enemy Reactions to the US Strategy and Force-Sizing Options - Frederick Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, American Enterprise Institute and Institute for the Study of War.
As the Obama administration considers its strategic approach and future resource levels in Afghanistan, CTP Director Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan (Institute for the Study of War) have produced a second report, Enemy Reactions to the US Strategy and Force Sizing Options, considering how enemy groups and other stakeholders in Afghanistan and Pakistan would respond to several US Policy scenarios...
Resourcing an Afghan Strategy - Greg Bruno, Council on Foreign Relations.
In his assessment of the Afghan conflict, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, painted a dire picture and is recommending an infusion of US forces on top of the sixty-eight thousand Americans already allocated. But six months after unveiling a new objective for the Afghanistan-Pakistan region - focused on protecting the public and preventing al-Qaeda from reconstituting in Afghanistan - President Barack Obama is reportedly reconsidering the US commitment to the fight amid mounting Democratic opposition to a surge of US forces.
Six analysts - Peter R. Mansoor, Andrew J. Bacevich, Amin Tarzi, Thomas E. Ricks, Candace Rondeaux, and John A. Nagl - offer a range of strategic choices for US planners in Afghanistan.,,
Forces Available for an Afghan Troop Increase - Wesley Morgan, Institute for the Study of War.
This document describes the American forces available for deployment to Afghanistan as ground-owning brigades in the coming year. It begins by detailing American brigades currently in Afghanistan, followed by brigades with orders to deploy and then provides details on brigades available for deployment in late 2009/early 2010.
Securing Helmand: Understanding and Responding to the Enemy - Jeffrey Dressler, Institute for the Study of War.
... Success in Helmand requires a comprehensive population-centric counterinsurgency campaign that is properly resourced and executed. Such a campaign seeks to maximize the net effect of limited resources in critical areas by protecting and positively influencing the population. Coalition forces cannot be everywhere and prioritizing objectives is essential.
Given limited resources, coalition efforts must focus on the critical population centers. For the enemy and indeed, the coalition, the most critical population centers in the province are Lashkar Gah, Gereshk, Nad Ali, Nawa, Garmser, Sangin, Musa Qala, and Kajaki...
Latest GOP Stunt on McChrystal Testimony Fails, and the GOP Is Lucky It Did - Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent.
An amendment to the defense appropriations bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to compel Gen. Stanley McChrystal to testify before Congress by mid-November has failed on a party-line vote of 59 to 40. It was an escalation of a gambit most recently backed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to cleave McChrystal from President Obama. But funny thing: the GOP might have ended up in a worse position if it got McChrystal to testify ahead of Obama's decisions on Afghanistan strategy.
To understand why, really listen to McChrystal's remarks to London's Institute for International and Strategic Studies. The New York Times piece doesn't do McChrystal's performance justice. McChrystal reiterated his position that Afghan population security is necessary for a strategy to defeat al-Qaeda, but not at all in the thumbing-his-nose-at-Joe-Biden way that the Times portrays...
USMC Battling for the Future - Vago Muradian and Kris Osborn, Defense News.
The US Marine Corps is fighting for the future of Afghanistan overseas, but back at home, officials are battling for the Corps' future in the Quadrennial Defense Review. Virtually everything important to the service's future is up for grabs, from its core amphibious assault missions to its vehicle, ship and aircraft programs, current and former Marines say. And it's all happening as the Pentagon responds to intense budget pressure that has already forced the cancellation of several high-profile weapon programs belonging to its sister services.
Perhaps no program is bigger - or more controversial - than its $14 billion Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a tank-sized amphibian Marine leaders see as essential to preserving its core amphibious assault mission. Long-delayed, expensive and seen as vulnerable to roadside bombs, EFV is viewed by some as a symbol of ineffective program development, but by others as a key to advancing the Marine Corps into the future...
And one for the road:
