Blog Posts

The scrimmage should be as hard as the game.

By General Martin E. Dempsey, US Army

General Gordon R. Sullivan, US Army Retired

President, Association of the United States Army

Win, Learn, Focus, Adapt, Win Again

The Department of Defense released today the updated the Unified Command Plan (UCP), a key strategic document that establishes the missions, responsibilities, and geographic areas of responsibility for commanders of combatant commands. Unified Command Plan 2011, signed by the President on April 6, assigns several new missions to the combatant commanders.

Every two years, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is required to review the missions, responsibilities, and geographical boundaries of each combatant command and recommend to the President, through the Secretary of Defense, any changes that may be necessary. As in past years, the 2011 review process included the combatant commanders, service chiefs and DoD leadership.

A revised map of the combatant commanders' areas of responsibilities can be found at http://www.defense.gov/news/d20110408map.pdf . Significant changes made by UCP 2011 include:

- Giving USNORTHCOM responsibility to advocate for Arctic capabilities.

- Codifying the President's approval to disestablish U.S. Joint Forces Command.

- Expanding U.S. Strategic Command's responsibility for combating weapons of mass destruction and developing Global Missile Defense Concept of Operations.

- Giving U.S. Transportation Command responsibility for synchronizing planning of global distribution operations.

UCP 2011 continues to support U.S. defense security commitments around the world while improving military responsiveness to emerging crises.

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

Topics include:

1) How to play the stalemate in Libya

2) Afghan skeptics prepare to take over in Washington

How to play the stalemate in Libya

This week, Libya's rebels attempted to storm Brega, the oil port about 200 kilometers south of Benghazi. The attack failed, making it even more clear that the conflict has now become a stalemate, a conclusion reached by Gen. Carter Ham who until recently was commander of the Libyan operation. The rebels, lacking military training, battlefield leadership, or many armored vehicles, are unable to advance along the coast road toward Tripoli. But neither can Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi's troops emerge from the built-up areas where they are hiding from coalition air power. The question now, for both sides, is how best to play the resulting standoff.

Qaddafi's field commanders must be pleased with how well they have managed to neutralize the advantage the coalition's air supremacy previously afforded the rebels. Qaddafi's forces have either abandoned their military vehicles or kept them in urban areas, protected from air strikes by human shields. Their use of pick-up trucks and other civilian vehicles has confused the coalition pilots attempting to provide air support for the rebels; an accidental NATO missile attack on a rebel convoy outside of Brega on April 7 killed 13 rebel fighters. It was the third such misguided air attack in the past week. NATO air commanders are now caught between increasingly strident rebel demands for air support and fears that either more errant strikes or civilian bombing deaths will cripple support for the air campaign. The result is likely to be a further wind-down in military operations by all sides.

Click below to read more ...

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' Q&A with soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division's 4th Advise and Assist Brigade working in U.S. Division North.

Continue on for related articles.

Dr. Moyar joined Orbis Operations as Director of Research in July 2010 after serving as a professor at the Marine Corps University. He travels to Afghanistan regularly to undertake research and consulting for the ISAF COIN Advisory/Assistance Team and USCENTCOM. Dr. Moyar is the author of A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq.

"Leadership in COIN" is 0900-1000 CDT (1000 EDT, 1500 ZULU), 14 April.

"Development in Afghanistan's Counterinsurgency: A New Guide" is 1030-1130 CDT (1130 EDT, 1630 ZULU), 14 April.

As a reminder, don't forget Dr. Sarah Sewall's webcast presentation on Friday, 15 April, 1000-1100 CDT.

Those interested in attending may view the meeting online at https://connect.dco.dod.mil/coinweb and participate via Defense Connect Online (DCO) as a guest. Remote attendees will be able to ask questions and view the slides through the software.

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2011 -- The Defense Department is hopeful that a government shutdown will be averted, but is releasing guidance to help plan for an orderly process if a shutdown becomes necessary, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said in a memo issued today.

"The president and the [Defense] Secretary [Robert M. Gates] know that the uncertainty of the current situation puts federal employees in a difficult position and are very much aware that a shutdown would impose hardships on our military and civilian personnel as well as our military families," Lynn wrote.

Operations and activities essential to safety and to protect human life and property will not be shut down, he wrote.

Addressing duty status, Lynn wrote that military personnel are not subject to furlough and should report for duty during a shutdown. Civilian personnel performing excepted activities will continue to work during a shutdown, he wrote.

The Defense Department will continue to conduct activities in support of national security, Lynn wrote, including operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Japan, as well as Libya-related support operations and other activities essential to national security.

Continuing operations include the following, Lynn wrote:

-- Inpatient and emergency outpatient care in DOD medical treatment facilities and emergency dental care;

-- Dining facilities and child-care activities;

-- Some legal activities, and contracting and logistics operations supporting excepted activities;

-- Some education and training activities, including Department of Defense Education Activity schools, and some financial management activities.

"In the absence of appropriations, non-excepted activities that have not already been fully funded will need to be shut down in an orderly fashion," Lynn wrote.

He will issue more detailed guidance to the department regarding specific activities that are considered excepted or non-excepted. Lynn wrote that he understands the military departments, defense agencies and individual commanders must tailor this guidance to many different situations around the world.

"Therefore, should there be a government shutdown, DOD personnel will be informed through their chain of command about how a shutdown may affect them personally," he wrote.

On the topic of military, civilian and retiree pay, Lynn said if the government shuts down because of a lack of funding, DOD will have no funds to pay military members or civilian employees for the days during which the government is shut down.

But military and civilian personnel will receive pay for time worked before the shutdown, he said, and military personnel and civilians in excepted positions will be paid retroactively for their work during the shutdown once the department receives additional funding.

"Congress would have to provide authority in order for the department to retroactively pay non-excepted employees for the furloughed period," Lynn wrote.

Benefits for military retirees and annuitants should continue without interruption, he added.

More:

Potential U.S. Government Shutdown - DOD Web Page

Message to DOD Workforce on Potential Government Shutdown - DOD

Potential Impact of a Lapse in Appropriations on Federal Employees - OPM

Officials Discuss DOD's Government Shutdown Plans - AFPS

Agency-by-Agency Shutdown Details - Washington Post

Shutdown 2011: What to Expect - Washington Post

Shutdown Could Affect Young Troops Most, Gates Says - AFPS

No Agreement on U.S. Budget Deal Day Before Government Shutdown - VOA

Progress on Budget Fight, but No Deal Yet - New York Times

No Deal After Latest White House Budget Talks - Washington Post

Troops' Pay Would be Withheld Until Shutdown Resolved - Stars and Stripes

Budget Fight Could Delay Troops' Pay - New York Times

Shutdown Weighs Heavily on Off-base Residents - Stars and Stripes

Gates Tells Troops in Iraq Paychecks May Not Come - Stars and Stripes

Government Shutdown: How it Will Affect Veterans - Stars and Stripes

Over the past year or so, U.S. military commanders in eastern Afghanistan opted to abandon their efforts to pacify a variety of remote mountain valleys such as Korengal, Pech, and others. The high costs of maintaining outposts in these valleys were deemed to exceed the strategic importance of the terrain. In addition, commanders concluded that local populations who resisted so fiercely were effectively neutral in the conflict between the coalition and the Taliban. They figured that conceding the valleys back to local control would not necessarily mean turning the terrain over to the Taliban or al Qaeda since it was assumed that many of these locals would equally resist the presence of the coalition's adversaries.

According to the Wall Street Journal, that assumption is not coming to pass:

Click below to read more ...

Those interested in attending may view the meeting online at https://connect.dco.dod.mil/coinweb and participate via Defense Connect Online (DCO) as a guest. Remote attendees will be able to ask questions and view the slides through the software.

Former Petraeus Adviser Kilcullen: U.S. Should be 'Air Referee,' Avoid Arming Rebels, in Libya by Rick Klein, ABC News. BLUF: "Kilcullen, an author and former adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, said the U.S. should think about its role as 'kind of like the air referee. Oversee what's going on on the ground from the air and ensure that nobody, regardless of what their political orientation is, takes it out on civilians...'"