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I always find it interesting when two sets of researchers look at the same data and arrive at completely different conclusions.

Earlier this week, Dave posted an essay on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan from the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Written by Larry Goodson and Thomas Johnson (professors at the Army War College and Naval Postgraduate School, respectively), the essay asserts that the United States is mimicking Soviet practices in Afghanistan and will thus suffer the same disastrous fate.

Goodson and Johnson believe that a population-centric security strategy is inappropriate for largely rural Afghanistan, that the Afghan government is too unpopular to achieve legitimacy, and that it is unrealistic to build useful Afghan security forces within a relevant period of time. According to Goodson and Johnson, the U.S. will do no better than the USSR at implementing these practices. Small Wars Journal readers have already engaged in a vigorous discussion of this essay, which I recommend.

But was the Soviet strategy, which Goodson and Johnson blame the U.S. for following, really a failure? In "Follow the Bear," an essay published in February 2010 by Proceedings, four field-grade U.S. officers (three of whom served in Afghanistan) claim that the Soviets improved their tactics around 1986 and by the end were implementing many practices now found in FM 3-24. The authors assert that the Soviet end-game exceeded expectations, that the Soviets departed Afghanistan on their own terms, and that they left behind a friendly government that had the potential to last -- and did in fact outlast the Soviet Union itself (I have cited "Follow the Bear" elsewhere). They conclude that "following the Bear" is a good idea.

Here they are, one set of facts of the Soviet end-game in Afghanistan, two sets of analysts, and two different conclusions. I encourage readers to compare and contrast the two and to discuss their findings in the comments. Policymakers formulating the American end-game in Afghanistan might benefit from the discussion.

Parallels with the Past--How the Soviets Lost in Afghanistan, How the Americans are Losing

Follow the Bear

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Comprehensive National Security Review Unlikely To Produce Significant Changes To The Military by Dr. Daniel Goure, Lexington Institute's Early Warning Blog.

"... the President announced that the defense cuts would be based on a comprehensive review of national security."

"It would be remarkable, actually unlikely to the point of implausibility, for the review to produce a significant change in the roles, missions, structure or posture of U.S. Armed Forces..."

Comprehensive National Security Review Unlikely To Produce Significant Changes To The Military

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Time for a Grand Strategy Board? By Mark Safranski at Zenpundit.

"It would be a useful corrective for the better conception and execution of US policy, for the President and the Congress to create a special board for grand strategy that could give presidents and key officials frank assessments and confidential guidance to help weave their policy ideas into a durable and overarching national strategy. One that might last beyond a few days' headlines in The New York Times."

Time for a Grand Strategy Board?

... the USNI Blog for Best of Navy and Wings over Iraq for Best of Army at the 2011 Milbloggie Awards. Vote here, now.

The Sarposa Prison Break (Kandahar, Afghanistan, 2008) by Captain Nils N. French, Canadian Army, Canadian Army Journal, Summer 2008.

"Prison breaks have been used as an insurgent tactic on other occasions. Examples from the last few years include the release of 23 prisoners from a jail in Yemen in February of 2006, 33 prisoners from a prison in Muqdadiyah, Iraq in March of 2006, 49 prisoners from a prison in Cotabato, Philippines in February of 2007, and 300 freed from a facility in Chattisgarh, India in December, 2007."

The Sarposa Prison Break (Kandahar, Afghanistan, 2008).

The BBC interviewed me again for its "The World Today" program. I discussed the financial cost of the war in Libya. In the interview, I got one figure wrong; I said the Pentagon's Fiscal Year 2012 budget request for overseas contingency operations was $112 billion. The DoD actually requested $117.8 billion for FY2012.

The discussion begins at 10:40 and runs to 14:20.

Click here to access.

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Are Drones a Technological Tipping Point in Warfare? by Walter Pincus, Washington Post.

"Debates are growing at home and abroad over the increasing use of remotely piloted, armed drones, with a new study by the British Defense Ministry questioning whether advances in their capabilities will lead future decision-makers to 'resort to war as a policy option far sooner than previously.'"

Are Drones a Technological Tipping Point in Warfare?.

After Gates: Asymmetric Threats by John Nagl, Defense News.

"... much remains to be done by whoever replaces Gates later this year. His successor's overarching objective will be to maximize U.S. national security in an era of increased budget constraints and decreased certainty about the shape of future conflict. In other words, he or she will need to spend less money to prepare for a wider range of threats. The most serious of these threats will be asymmetric in nature - that is, they will target American weaknesses to circumvent its conventional superiority."

After Gates: Asymmetric Threats.

NATO's Last Chance by Andrew A. Michta, The American Interest.

"As spring 2011 bursts into bloom, the NATO alliance finds itself withering on the vine. An alliance that was once the quintessential expression and spearpoint of the Transatlantic security relationship is now at risk of undermining it. Notwithstanding the adoption of a New Strategic Concept and Critical Capabilities Initiative at the November 2010 Lisbon Summit, internal differences over Afghanistan and a widening Transatlantic gap in defense spending are fast overshadowing the larger imperative of Euro-American security cooperation. All signs point to accumulating distress."

NATO's Last Chance.

How the Soviets Lost in Afghanistan, How the Americans are Losing by Larry Goodson and Thomas H. Johnson, Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Note.

"This article assesses the startling and unsettling similarities between Soviet strategies and tactics in Afghanistan during their Afghan war of 1979-1989 and American coalition strategies and tactics in Afghanistan since October 2001. It concludes with the implications of this dynamic. These similarities are extremely disturbing and, we believe, should be the focus of national attention and debate. While numerous significant similarities exist, this article will center on just three of the most important."

How the Soviets Lost in Afghanistan, How the Americans are Losing.

Carl continues to explain the history of hearts and minds theory over at Line of Departure.

Easter Uprisings

by Carl Prine

This is a meditation on three words -- "hearts and minds."

Many modern scholars believe that the phrase is from Templer, but it isn't.

It's from Paul and the literal translation from the Greek is exactly what the words imply, the psychological division of a man's soul betwixt that which is emotional, the heart, and the thoughts that circulate in the brain.

It appears in Chapter 4, Verse 7 of Paul's epistle to the Philippians: "And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

To Paul, the words are designed to show that God and his church, like soldiers guarding the gates of a city, shall remain committed to defending their spiritual revolution against Roman persecution.

Entrusting his smuggled letter to Epaphroditus, Paul uses the language of war to describe the messenger, calling him a "fellow soldier."

That's not unusual. Paul's epistle is suffused with the language of battle and revolution, which is appropriate because he considers Philippi-- a military town garrisoned with Roman warriors — worthy of subversion, and his battle against Rome's empire is akin to war, a war that shall kill him several years later.

Much more over at Line of Departure

See also SWJ's own Dave Dilegge's 2007 entry Hearts and Minds

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The Mission for the New Defense Chief - Yochi J. Dreazen, National Journal. BLUF: "As he prepares to step down this summer, the Defense chief has a new mission: shaping the terms of the coming debate over how much the Pentagon's budget should be cut to help close the nation's yawning deficit."

Cops in the Corps by Alex Olesker, Insurgent Consciousness. BLUF: "The United States Marine Corps is planning to implement a special reserve law enforcement battalion, according to a speech by Commandant Gen. Jim Amos on Friday, April 15. Born out of a need for unique police skills, this battalion would be different from the Military Police, which primarily deals with enforcement among military personnel. Rather, they would perform tasks similar to policing and investigations in a counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency setting."

A New Way Forward: Rebalancing Security Assistance Programs and Authorities by Gordon Adams and Rebecca Williams, Stimson Center.

As the Arab world struggles to emerge from oppressive, generations-old autocracies, America's robust program to train and equip foreign militaries has become a focus of attention. The impact of US security assistance to the region is ambiguous, at best. Providing military equipment and training has helped keep autocrats in power but may have also provided us with a vital communication link to the Egyptian military as the crisis evolved in that country.

The Stimson Center's Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program released a timely new report on security assistance. The report argues that US security assistance programs are now at a turning point, given the drawdown of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and the events in the Middle East, and that now is the time to reevaluate the purposes of such assistance and the framework which has defined them for the past six decades.

A New Way Forward proposes that the expansion of security assistance programs at DOD be reversed and that future programs be focused in a broader goal of governance. The report provides a list of guiding principles for rebalancing US security assistance programs, recommendations for the executive and legislative branches, and a transition strategy.

A New Way Forward: Rebalancing Security Assistance Programs and Authorities.

More: Report: Return U.S. Security Assistance Role to State Dept. by Kate Brannen, Defense News.

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Is NATO —to pay what it will cost to take out Qaddafi?

Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:

Topics include:

1) The cost of getting serious in Libya

2) Mexico's drug cartels try to control the message -- and spark a media insurgency

The cost of getting serious in Libya

A pattern has emerged in the Libyan conflict. Every setback to the rebels' prospects has resulted in an escalation of military activity by NATO. The alliance's initial intervention five weeks ago began when a powerful pro-Qaddafi armored column approached Benghazi, the rebel capital. This week, nasty house-to-house fighting in Misrata compelled Britain, France, and Italy to each send about ten military advisors to Benghazi. President Barack Obama did his part this week when he dispatched two Predator drones to Libya's skies. The NATO advisors sent to Benghazi are the vanguard of what is likely to be many more Western "boots on the ground" in Libya.

It is now clear that the Western policymakers who opted for intervention in Libya underestimated the resilience and adaptability of Qaddafi's military forces. These Western leaders -- perhaps led astray by the apparent ease with which air power alone compelled Serb leaders in Belgrade to abandon Kosovo in 1999 -- similarly overestimated what air power could accomplish against Qaddafi. The result is, at best, a military stalemate, assuming Misrata can hold out.

Libya's rebels, now openly supported by NATO, are far from accomplishing the de facto objective of the campaign, the removal of the Qaddafi family from Libya. The rebels and Western leaders had hoped that Qaddafi would quickly flee or be overthrown by a palace coup or an uprising in Tripoli. These may yet occur. But hoping for them is not a strategy. If anything, a month of combat has toughened Qaddafi's troops and his remaining inner circle. With Western prestige now heavily committed, what will it actually take to get rid of Qaddafi?

Assuming that Western leaders have ruled out a ground invasion of Libya, the only other course of action around which NATO can build a campaign plan is to prepare the rebel forces in Benghazi for the long march down the coast road to Tripoli. Such a course of action will provide NATO with an organizing concept and give the alliance the initiative. Anything less is just hoping for the best.

Click below to read more ...

General David Petraeus by Robert Gates. BLUF "A decade of war has produced one of the most battle-tested, adaptive and innovative generations of military leaders the United States has ever known. At the pinnacle of that group is U.S. Army General David Petraeus."

Hillary Clinton by Joseph Nye Jr. BLUF: "When Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State, she pledged a "smart power" policy that meant striking up a close working relationship with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates while reshaping the State Department to emphasize development and people-powered diplomacy."

98 more of the good, the bad, and the ugly at Time Magazine.

United States Naval Institute: An Open Letter by Raymond Pritchett - Information Dissemination.

The Board's intent in proposing that we revise the Mission Statement is to take the first important step in a strategic plan that will move the Institute to a stronger, more relevant future with increased financial stability.

- Steve Waters, Chairman, United States Naval Institute Board of Directors

"On February 25, 2011 Major General Thomas L. Wilkerson, USMC (Ret.) announced on the United States Naval Institute blog that "the Board of Directors has recommended an historic change to the Mission of the Naval Institute to 'advocating the necessity of global seapower.'" Nearly three weeks later a letter from Steve Waters, Chairman of the United States Naval Institute Board of Directors, was posted to the Naval Institute blog with the intent to address the criticism and concerns being expressed by USNI membership. In his letter explaining the mission statement change, Chairman Steve Waters highlighted three specific challenges facing USNI that included financial instability, decline in membership, and a trending loss of relevance. The emphasis by Steve Waters in all conversations has been on the first issue, financial instability, but I personally believe the second and third issues are far more serious problems."

Raymond then examines each issue in detail.

It's been a while since we linked to a post by Ex over at Abu Muqawama and that's an oversight on our part. That said, his post today, Insurgents, Counterinsurgents, and the Provision of Social Services, is well worth the read as are many of the linked items. Also see Gulliver's post at Inks Spots and Carl's post at Line of Departure for more on this issue.

Yesterday, I participated in an interview on BBC 4's "The World Tonight" program. We discussed the war in Libya. The discussion begins at 17:05 and runs to 22:35.

Click here to access.

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