Blog Posts

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

Topics include:

1) Did Gates get China to back away from the South China Sea?

2) Can the Pentagon innovate like its small rivals?

Did Gates get China to back away from the South China Sea?

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's appearance at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) defense ministers meeting in Hanoi this week seemed to produce some welcome diplomatic developments. During a meeting with Gen. Liang Guanglie, the Chinese defense minister, Gates was invited to make an official visit to China. Gates had pleaded with his Chinese counterparts to reopen military-to-military contacts, which were cut off last winter after the U.S. government announced new arms sales to Taiwan. A second development, much welcomed by both U.S. officials and ASEAN leaders, was the absence of any renewed territorial claims by China over the South China Sea. Indeed, Liang explained that China's military modernization "is not aimed to challenge or threaten anyone." He did not repeat a recent Chinese claim that its possession of the South China Sea constituted a "core interest." China's demand earlier this year to change the South China Sea from a maritime "commons" to Chinese territory would have forced much of East Asia's commercial shipping to travel through Chinese territory, a demand that alarmed both the United States and countries in the region.

Just a few years ago, ASEAN leaders took pride in the fact that the United States was excluded from their club. But with the rapid buildup of Chinese naval and air power in the area, U.S. policymakers like Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are now warmly welcomed at the group's meetings. Clinton's appearance in July at an earlier ASEAN meeting in Hanoi began the pushback against China's claim to the South China Sea. Gates's follow-up this week may have delivered the desired effect.

An unexpectedly strong backlash in the region may have prompted the Chinese to retreat. Chinese leaders may have been surprised by the resistance of ASEAN's leaders and the sharp response in Tokyo over the recent Chinese fishing boat incident in the Senkaku Islands. Chinese leaders have likely concluded that a tactical retreat is wiser than risking stiffening resistance in the region. China took steps to patch up its relationship with Japan; after Japan released the Chinese fishing boat captain, China released four Japanese workers it had seized. China also unfroze diplomatic contact when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao agreed to meet on Oct. 4 with Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan in Brussels.

The Clinton and Gates visits to Hanoi undoubtedly bolstered the confidence of those in the region who were —to push back against Beijing. But just as Liang attempted to persuade his audience that they should not fear China's intentions, Gates also tried to persuade China's leaders that they should not fear the current Pax Americana in the western Pacific. In his remarks to the ASEAN forum, Gates declared, "The United States has always exercised our rights and supported the rights of others to transit through, and operate in, international waters. This will not change." Thus, Gates assured the Chinese, your maritime commerce is safe with us.

But how likely are China's leaders to be reassured? Three decades of rapid Chinese economic growth is evidence that Pax Americana in the western Pacific has worked for China. But the rapid buildup of Chinese naval and air power, with intentions to project military power beyond Taiwan and deep into the Pacific, is evidence that Chinese policymakers are not satisfied with the U.S. Navy taking responsibility for securing their critical shipping lanes.

Gates hopes that more frequent contacts between U.S. and Chinese military leaders will dilute mutual suspicions. Although such efforts cannot hurt, U.S. policymakers should not expect such contacts by themselves to bring an end to China's naval buildup or the challenge that buildup presents to U.S. alliances and diplomatic efforts in the region. The task for Gates and his successors is to establish a long-term defense program that will continue to reassure U.S. allies and the ASEAN leaders with whom Clinton and Gates have recently had such good results. Leaders in the region will be watching the Pentagon's commitment to its Pacific Fleet and how that commitment rates compared to the expense of the war in Afghanistan.

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Petraeus: Taliban Allowed Into Kabul - Selah Hennessy, Voice of America

Gen. David Petraeus, top U.S and NATO commander (L), and Ambassador Mark Sedwill, NATO Senior Civilian Rep. in Afghanistan address discuss 'The International Mission in Afghanistan', at the United Services Institute in London, 15 Oct 2010.

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, said Friday that Western troops have allowed Taliban leaders into Kabul in order to talk with the government. Petraeus was speaking in London.

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***Thanks to all who attended last night's conversation and book signing with Dr. David Kilcullen. Your contributions to the conversation during Q&A were most appreciated and added a lot to the discussion on counterinsurgency -- both the "little c and the Big C". The Marine Corps Association will be formatting and editing the video from the event and we hope to have it posted in the near future.***

Thursday, October 14, 2010

7:00 to 10:00 pm (EST)

Gari Melchers Home and Studio (Studio Pavilion)

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Please join the Small Wars Foundation, the Marine Corps Association, Noetic, and Caerus Associates for a conversation on counterinsurgency with Dr. David Kilcullen on Thursday, October 14, 2010. Dr. Kilcullen will be addressing contemporary issues in regards to counterinsurgency and taking questions and commentary from participants. A reception (no cost to attendees) and book signing of Dr. Kilcullen's latest book, Counterinsurgency, will follow the conversation. Counterinsurgency will be available for purchase at the event. Space is limited so we ask that you please register early at the event information and registration page.

David Kilcullen is one of the world's most influential experts on counterinsurgency and modern warfare, a ground-breaking theorist whose ideas "are revolutionizing military thinking throughout the west" (Washington Post). Indeed, his vision of modern warfare powerfully influenced the United States' decision to rethink its military strategy in Iraq and implement "the Surge," now recognized as a dramatic success. In Counterinsurgency, Kilcullen brings together his most salient writings on this vitally important topic. Here is a picture of modern warfare by someone who has had his boots on the ground in some of today's worst trouble spots-including Iraq and Afghanistan-and who has been studying counterinsurgency since 1985. Filled with down-to-earth, common-sense insights, this book is the definitive account of counterinsurgency, indispensable for all those interested in making sense of our world in an age of terror.

Dr. Kilcullen is a dear friend and supporter of Small Wars Foundation's Small Wars Journal and is a member of the Foundation's Advisory Board. His Small Wars Journal postings can be found here.

Helmand is dominated by the Helmand River, which runs north-south from the Kajaki dam near Kandahar to Dishu in the south. The population of Helmand lives off and along the river and its canals and irrigation channels. Helmand's border with Balochistan, Pashtun tribes, and poppy dominated economy made it largely Taliban controlled — until recently at least.

The mission of Marines in Helmand is to wrest control of the population centers from the Taliban. This is tough counterinsurgency fighting and the Marines have done amazing work turning the tide in key districts of Helmand, though the fight is far from over. The offensive which began with Marjah in 2009 continued district by district into the key towns of the Helmand including Nad Ali, Musa Q'ala, Garmsir, and now Sangin. Taliban resistance hasn't disappeared by any means (even in Marjah) but don't underestimate the ability of the Marines to clear and hold. With a density of forces now in place and a dismounted force, the results from the population are visible. People are getting out, engaging in commerce, and talking to Marines about needs and concerns.

The build piece will take more time but a key element has been the establishment of village shuras that serve to both recognize traditional governing structures as a bulwark against the Taliban and to serve as a link between the population and the district government. This blending of traditional and official governance may be the best model for a realistic transition plan that effectively denies Taliban control of the south. One senior Marine noted that they see some patterns in what each village and district needs —a government center, a bazaar, a health clinic, a school, and a mosque. Making progress on these key pillars of daily life is a key part of the stabilization effort.

The build phase has a particularly strong partner in the Helmand PRT, based in Lash. Led by a British civilian but strongly staffed with a multinational civ-mil team, we were impressed with the passion and confidence in their capacity building efforts now that security is on the upswing. Such a civilized compound too! Much nicer than dusty Camp Leatherneck.

As I get ready to head back to Kabul, I leave with a heavy respect for the Marines and civilians in Helmand. There is no denying the challenges but I MEF and this PRT are taking Helmand back from the Taliban district by district.

SWJ Editors' Note: Nick Dowling is a small wars policy wonk with experience in OSD, the NSC Staff, NDU, and the contracting sector. He has worked on stability operations for 16 years, most prominently on Bosnia and Kosovo as a Clinton Administration appointee and Iraq and Afghanistan as a DoD contractor. He is currently President of IDS International, a leader in interagency and "soft power" types of support to the US military. He is a graduate of Harvard, got his masters at Georgetown, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

The latest issue of Proceedings summarizes the controversial analysis produced by the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) for the Admiral Gary Roughead, the Chief of Naval Operations. The problem is the gap between the Navy's annual shipbuilding budget and what it costs the Navy's contractors to deliver the ships the Navy orders. In recent years, the Navy's shipbuilding budget has averaged about $13 billion per year. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Navy's shipbuilding plan, which hopes to increase the Navy from about 285 to 313 ships, will cost $19-21 billion per year. Ship retirements are outrunning new additions, causing the fleet to shrink by 20% over the past decade. The CNA analysis predicts a further 20% decline in ship numbers over the next 10-15 years under these conditions.

While the Navy has struggled with its shipbuilding budget, it has increased the tempo of its "stability operations" such as counter-piracy patrols, counter-drug patrols, humanitarian assistance, and cooperative engagement operations with foreign partners around the world. These operations have been a method of coping with declining U.S. ship numbers by attempting to create a "1,000 ship navy" composed of partner navies that have experience operating with the U.S. Navy.

The CNA report (also summarized in the Proceedings article) discusses five future paths for the Navy as it faces a constrained budget and shrinking numbers:

1. 2-Hub Navy: The Navy focuses on high-end combat capability emphasizing forward presence, deterrence, sea control, and power projection in the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf. The Navy would sharply reduce its cooperative engagement operations with foreign partners and other "stability" missions.

2. 1+ Hub Navy: High-end combat capability in the Western Pacific plus low-end stability and cooperative engagement operations in the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean area.

3. Shaping Navy: Focus on global stability operations and cooperative engagement with sharply reduced high-end combat capability.

4. Surge Navy: A powerful high-end Navy that could defeat any adversary but would operate close to home. Such a Navy would support an "offshore balancing" foreign policy and would end the Navy's global forward presence.

The worst choice of all according to CNA would be a Navy that attempts to retain "full spectrum" capability. Without making hard choices about missions and geography, such a Navy would eventually be unable to accomplish any of its missions or maintain a credible global presence.

Just like the Army, the Navy faces the same tradeoffs preparing for both high-end and stability operations. In the Navy's case, the full spectrum of demands on it are current, not hypothetical. Much of world has become accustomed to the Navy patrolling the maritime commons while also backstopping security alliances, especially in the Pacific. And in a decade or so the Navy will face at least one high-end peer competitor. But the Navy is also called on to do its part to address various sources of instability, from Latin American to all sides of Africa. According to CNA, there is a big gap between what policymakers want the Navy to do and what muddling through will bring.

My visit to Kandahar is leg one of a two part trip that will also include RC (SW) and Helmand. The purpose of this southern swing is to see how civ-mil relations are up and down the chain of command... From Kabul/ISAF/IJC to the Regional Commands to the Task Forces to the PRTs and DSTs. Effective civ-mil coordination is a key part of the work we do and a critical tenant of COIN. As part of the civilian uplift, State and AID had now sought to parallel the military structure with civilian counterparts at the Regional Command, Task Force, and Battalion level. Was it working?

Continue on for more traveling with Nick....

Five recent graduates from the first Afghan National Army female officer candidate school reported to the Afghan Air Force for further training Oct. 12.

The female lieutenants reported to the AAF School Pohantoon-e-Hawayee and the Thunder Lab, an English immersion center.

The English language immersion program is designed to prepare the "future eagles" of the AAF awaiting pilot training. The program includes a total immersion program in English, along with aviation and professional skills.

While at the Thunder Lab, the female and male lieutenants will compete on equal terms. Additionally, the male and female officers will train shoulder-to-shoulder with their advisors, but will have segregated living quarters.

"They were all extremely professional, motivated and their English is fantastic. My sense is that these women will serve as an inspiration for other potential female officers, as well as keep the male lieutenants at the top of their game," said U.S. Lt. Col. John Howard, lead advisor for the Thunder Lab.

A typical day for the new lieutenants at the Thunder Lab begins early with physical fitness at 5:15 a.m. After breakfast, students receive three hours of English training or Air Force training. The afternoon is filled with aviation English instruction, followed by military and professional training with an American mentor for two hours. Following prayer and dinner, there is time for the simulator, study, and an evening movie.

"I am excited to be here. It is my big wish, my big dream to join the air force," said 2nd Lt. Mary. "First, I want to be a good pilot -- after that an engineer."

Topics include:

1) Can Obama and Mullah Omar sign a truce?

2) The CIA's secret Afghan army ---- a model for the future?

Can Obama and Mullah Omar sign a truce?

On Oct. 6, the Washington Post reported that Taliban representatives and the Afghan government have begun negotiations on how to end the war. The Post's sources emphasized that actual bargaining between the two sides has yet to begin. Further, only the Quetta Shura branch of the Taliban, led by Mullah Mohammad Omar and based in Baluchistan, is participating. The Haqqani network, located in Pakistan's North Waziristan and thought to have extensive ties with al Qaeda, is not involved. Given U.S. President Barack Obama's well-known eagerness to wind down the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, the prospect of a negotiated settlement must be appealing. The questions now become, what settlement will the United States tolerate and what will be the longer term implications of a truce?

According to article, the Quetta Shura is now "very, very serious about finding a way out" of the war. Why? The article suggests that the Shura's leadership fears that it is losing control of its organization. Mullah Omar and his lieutenants now supposedly fear that "radical elements" -- presumably battlefield replacements -- are taking over the bottom rungs and will someday threaten the top leadership. Under this theory, the Quetta Shura would prefer a truce that would allow it a chance to sort out its internal challenges.

This description of Mullah Omar's motivation for a truce sounds speculative. Of more importance are the Pakistan government's incentives for signing off on the deal. Indeed, the article discusses Pakistan's desire to maintain firm control over any negotiations. An August New York Times article described how the Pakistani government deliberately scuttled a Taliban negotiation effort last January that was bypassing Islamabad. According to that piece, Pakistani officials were in no mood to a permit a negotiation that did not include Pakistan's interests.

The Post piece does not have much else to say about Pakistan's participation in this new effort. According to the Wall Street Journal, a recent Obama administration report to Congress notes that Pakistan's security forces are avoiding action against al Qaeda or its Haqqani supporters and that Pakistan's intelligence service is encouraging the Afghan Taliban to step up their attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The status quo -- low-level open-ended war in Afghanistan -- has been a tremendous windfall for Pakistan. It has allowed the country to emerge from political isolation and to receive a previously unimaginable bounty of gifts from the United States. And the further the United States has ramped up its campaign in Afghanistan, the more dependent it has become on Pakistan, resulting in more U.S. gift-giving. Pakistan's leaders would seem to have little incentive to upset this arrangement.

Could Pakistan change its calculation? Its leaders might soon conclude that Obama administration officials have reached the end of their patience with Pakistan's duplicity. Formerly private U.S. criticism of Pakistan's behavior has now gone public. And U.S. policymakers are now displaying their impatience with orders for sharply increased Predator drone strikes inside Pakistan. Rather than push their luck and risk a dramatic breakup with Washington, Pakistan's leaders may opt to lock in some gains with a truce that would legitimize the status of its Taliban allies in southwest Afghanistan.

How eager is the Obama team for a truce? According to the Washington Post article, the Obama and Karzai governments want the Quetta Shura Taliban to publicly reject al Qaeda, recognize the Afghan government, and give up their weapons. Obama must realize that any Taliban promises on these conditions are unenforceable. But these concessions would provide enough face-saving cover for a settlement. A truce will only be a temporary pause in Afghanistan's seemingly endless war, but Obama will undoubtedly welcome any chance to deescalate the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and reset his strategy, even if it means making a deal with Mullah Omar.

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This development is not a surprise. According to Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars, Jones never established a working relationship with Obama. In addition, Donilon and others from Obama's Senate and campaign staffs did have the ear of the president and frequently bypassed Jones. Finally, according to Woodward, Jones failed to fulfill the role for which Obama selected him, to be an experienced military counterbalance to advice coming from the Pentagon.

For what it's worth, according to Woodward, Robert Gates thought that Donilon would be a "disaster" as national security adviser.

The Los Angeles Times article speculates that Jones could eventually replace Gates at the Pentagon. That would be very surprising.

Check out Inside the War Room: The Final Days by General Hugh Shelton in the On Point section of Command Posts.

On 6 October 2010 President Obama awarded Robert J. Miller, Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry. Staff Sergeant Miller received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his heroic actions in combat on January 25, 2008 in Afghanistan. Remarks by the President awarding the Medal of Honor to Staff Sergeant Miller.

By Fred W. Baker III

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2010 -- An assessment released today of last week's Pakistan border shooting in which two of the country's forces were killed and four were wounded concluded that coalition helicopters likely fired on the troops after mistaking their warning fire for hostile fire.

"We believe the Pakistani border guard was simply firing warning shots after hearing the nearby engagement and hearing the helicopters flying nearby," Air Force Brig. Gen. Tim Zadalis, International Security Assistance Force Joint Command director of air plans and the assessment team leader, said in a release today. "This tragic event could have been avoided with better coalition force coordination with the Pakistan military."

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, ISAF commander, issued his condolences along with the report.

"ISAF offers its deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of those killed and wounded, to the Pakistan military, and the people of Pakistan," Petraeus said. "We deeply regret this tragic loss of life and will continue to work with the Pakistan military and government to ensure this doesn't happen again."

The joint ISAF and Pakistan military report said two coalition helicopters passed into Pakistani airspace several times Sept. 30. The helicopters later fired on a building identified as a Pakistani border outpost, in response to shots fired from the post. The assessment team considered it most likely that the Pakistani troops had fired in an attempt to warn the helicopters of their presence, according to the release. Following the engagement, it was discovered that the dead and wounded were members of the Pakistan Frontier Scouts.

Following the incident, Pakistan shut down the NATO supply route running through the northwestern Pakistan tribal region of Kurram, citing security reasons.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell yesterday called the shooting a "regrettable incident," and said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates "deeply regrets the incident." But, he said, the relationship between the U.S. military and the Pakistani military remains strong and has not been derailed by the incident.

"Throughout this period of tension, if you will ... [military-to-military] relations have proceeded," Morrell said. "There was no disengagement. There were no reprisals in that sense. We have continued to work closely with the Pakistani military throughout the aftermath of this incident."

Two representatives of the Pakistani military were assigned to the investigation team.