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Does the CIA have Plan B for Afghanistan?
by Robert Haddick | Thu, 07/29/2010 - 9:39am | 29 comments
The United States strategy for succeeding in Afghanistan relies heavily on its ability to turn security responsibilities over to competent Afghan national security forces. An article in today's Wall Street Journal ("Drug Use, Poor Discipline Afflict Afghanistan's Army"- subscription required) repeats the well-known difficulties U.S. and ISAF trainers endure as they attempt to build an Afghan army and police force. According to the article, Afghan special forces units are doing very well. Older veteran Afghan soldiers in the regular army also show promise. But the new recruits continue to be trouble. Many are unable to take to discipline, are mired in drug abuse, and are abusive to the population when they get to the field. And that is the good news. The police continue to be a corrupt mess and the one of the Taliban's best recruiting tools.

If it is not possible to establish effective national security forces in Afghanistan within a relevant period of time, does the U.S. have a Plan B for Afghanistan? Also in today's Wall Street Journal (and also subscription only) is an op-ed by Jack Devine, a former deputy director of operations at the CIA and chief of the CIA Afghan task force in 1986-1987.

In his first paragraph, Devine dismisses any chance of victory under the current program. He unfavorably compares the current U.S. strategy to the Soviet campaign in the 1980s which he helped defeat. Devine recommends planning now for the worst case scenario. His solution is a large CIA covert action in support of the remnants of the Karzai regime, tribal leaders, and other warlords whose interests in the region overlap with the U.S. government's.

Devine's recommendation gives up on the idea of supporting Afghanistan as a functioning nation-state. He also discusses the requirements of an effective CIA covert action: a clear Presidential Finding (required by law), bipartisan congressional support, U.S. public support, competent indigenous partners, and sound policy objectives.

Could President Obama, the Congress, and the American public support a large CIA program that directed cash, weapons, and air support to anti-Taliban tribes and warlords? The result would be U.S. complicity in Afghanistan's continuing chaos, a policy that would seem to be a political non-starter. A non-starter unless all other U.S. plans had failed, the Taliban and al Qaeda were again on the march, and the U.S. found its back against the wall.

Afghanistan Needs Local Politics, Not Local Militias
by SWJ Editors | Thu, 07/29/2010 - 8:56am | 3 comments
Afghanistan Needs Local Politics, Not Local Militias - Joshua Foust and Paul Meinshausen, World Politics Review.

As Gen. David Petraeus takes over the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, he is right to continue a strategy of counterinsurgency and to strengthen it with a plan that seeks to give local Afghan communities the means to defend themselves. However, both the recently announced local defense plan, which pays community members to don a rifle and police uniform, and the over-arching counterinsurgency of which it is a part take the wrong path to reducing violence in Afghanistan.

As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in 2008, the U.S. "cannot kill its way to victory." Yet, the Pentagon has emphasized "providing security to the people," in counterinsurgency parlance, primarily by defending them or, in the case of this new local defense force, by arming them. This is not enough to resolve the problems that have allowed insurgents to thrive in the first place, which require political solutions that change the very conditions that facilitate the insurgency. However, there is one initiative that, because it does focus on the social and political factors that drive insecurity, shows the most promise for permanently ending the insurgency: the Local Defense Initiative.

Since the conflict's earliest stages, coalition forces have attempted to deal with Afghanistan's insurgency through locally focused programs. Whether supporting tribal militias or creating new ones like the Afghan Public Protection Program, these programs have all been based on a fundamental misconception: that additional fighting is the answer. But Afghanistan does not need any more armed groups. They only make conflict worse, not better...

More at World Politics Review.

Imminent Fury Update
by SWJ Editors | Thu, 07/29/2010 - 8:25am | 0 comments

Imminent Fury Update - Bill Gertz, Washington Times' Inside the Ring. For more background on recent light attack aircraft news see:

Secret Program Works to Field SEAL Plane - Defense Tech

U.S. Eyes Super Tucano for SpecOps Work - Defense News

Imminent Fury Needed - Washington Times

JFCOM Likes Navy IW Plane - DoD Buzz

AT-6 Flies as Air Force Thinks Light Armed Recce - Aviation Week

Taliban to Attack Civilians, Afghan Women
by SWJ Editors | Wed, 07/28/2010 - 8:48pm | 1 comment
Mullah Omar Orders Taliban to Attack Civilians, Afghan Women - Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, Long War Journal.

The battle for hearts and minds in Afghanistan has taken a new turn in the past two months. The Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Omar, has ordered his forces to kill or capture any civilians, including Afghan women, who cooperate with Coalition forces. Omar's latest directive contradicts his marching orders from just one year ago, when he told his Taliban commanders to refrain from harming civilians working with the Coalition.

Omar reportedly issued his latest order in June. NATO announced that it had recovered a copy of the directive in July. Since then, Afghan press outlets have published a translation of Omar's five-point order.

The Long War Journal has received a translation of Omar's order, as it appeared in the Afghan press, from US intelligence sources. Senior US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal say the order is most likely genuine...

Much more at Long War Journal.

USSOUTHCOM Live Web Cast on 29 July
by SWJ Editors | Wed, 07/28/2010 - 5:05pm | 0 comments
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is live webcasting a Military Strategy Forum on Thursday, July 29, at 9:15am. General Douglas M. Fraser, Commander, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), will provide opening remarks on key issues for SOUTHCOM followed by an expert panel moderated by Ambassador Peter DeShazo, Director of the Americas Program at CSIS.

Watch this event live at 9:15am (EST)

The Military Strategy Forum, a series developed by CSIS and sponsored by Rolls-Royce North America, welcomes senior defense leaders to present their vision and insights on the direction of U.S. defense policy and military strategy. This series attracts an audience of select Washington-area senior officials and officers, corporate executives, defense journalists, the media, and expert analysts.

Admin Note on the COIN Guidance
by SWJ Editors | Wed, 07/28/2010 - 3:58pm | 1 comment
The COMISAF Counterinsurgency Guidance was prematurely released. It has been requested that the COIN Center remove the Guidance and the associated post from their web site. Small Wars Journal has decided to do the same. We hope to bring you the final version once released into the public domain.
Don't Miss These Bits
by SWJ Editors | Wed, 07/28/2010 - 8:49am | 0 comments

Excerpt from Newsweek's review of Dr. David Kilcullen's Counterinsurgency:

... Last call for Kool-Aid. In decades past, many have criticized the military-industrial complex for not only being insular, but also refusing to accept criticism. Iraq changed that. Though some brass and certainly then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were slow to publicly admit the real magnitude of the insurgency in the early years of the Iraq War, by early 2006 a movement was transforming the way the military thought about itself. The RAND Corporation (a government think tank) launched an Insurgency Board. Minds at Small Wars Journal ran "something of an underground network for the [counterinsurgency] community, connecting key players, quietly prompting change, and providing a forum for discussion" (page 21). In addition, generals like David Petraeus, Peter Schoonmaker, and William S. Wallace cast off hubris and opened themselves up to criticism and rethinking firmly held positions. It not only sparked a radical shift in the way soldiers would be fighting on the ground, but it fundamentally altered the course of the war...

... There's one massive problem with counterinsurgency: it's not colonialism, so when you win, the domestic government has to take over. Which means that backing unreliable, cranky, or corrupt regimes (images of Hamid Karzai spring to mind) can very easily mean immeasurable amounts of blood and treasure being spent in vain. Kilcullen acknowledges the fact that "counterinsurgency mirrors the state" (pages 154--161), but any policymaker reading this book has to stop and think that geopolitical strategy must precede the tactical guidance that Kilcullen offers. Because no matter how successful counterinsurgent soldiers prove to be, the real endgame will always be played by the locals. And in many cases, that's one hell of a wild card...

Much more at Newsweek.

Taliban Responds to WikiLeaks
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 07/27/2010 - 7:35pm | 3 comments
Taliban Responds to WikiLeaks - Mushtaq Yusufzai, The Daily Beast.

Responding to WikiLeaks' release of tens of thousands of pages of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, a high-ranking Taliban commander rejected reports that the Taliban had any links with Pakistan's spy agency.

"Look, we're at war and would like to get aid from anyone to fight against the U.S. and its allies who invaded our homeland," Sirajuddin Haqqani, a senior leader of the Haqqani network, told The Daily Beast on Monday, denying any existing links with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, known by its acronym ISI...

Haqqani, who spoke by phone from an undisclosed location, is the oldest son of veteran Afghan Taliban leader Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network, a violent Taliban faction that U.S. officials allege is operating both in Kabul and the Pakistani province of Waziristan. The younger Haqqani has a $5 million bounty on his head. The commander said the group had learned about the leaked documents through the media...

More at The Daily Beast.

MES at MCU Newsletter: MES Insights - Vol 1, Issue 3
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 07/27/2010 - 7:06pm | 0 comments
Middle East Studies (MES) at Marine Corps University (MCU) has established an occasional paper and newsletter series entitled "MES Insights". MES Insights is available at the MES website.

Included in this issue is a piece by Dr Amin Tarzi, Director of MES at MCU, entitled "The Kabul Conference" and a piece by Adam C Seitz, Senior Associate for MES at MCU, entitled "The Role of History in Afghanistan's Future."

Effective and Efficient Training and Advising in Pakistan
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 07/27/2010 - 6:35pm | 1 comment
Effective and Efficient Training and Advising in Pakistan -- Major Jason A. Johnston and Stephen C. Taylor, Naval Postgraduate School Master Thesis.

When we think of Foreign Internal Defense (FID), we most often think of conducting missions "by, with and through" a Partner Nation's government and patrolling alongside partner nation security forces who are embroiled in yet another conflict in a "bad" region of the world. But, in some conflicts, this very direct method of training and advising is inadvisable at best, and foolhardy at worst. In Pakistan right now, "by, with and through" represents just such a foolhardy approach.

This thesis will not only substantiate that assertion but by presenting the "menu" of training and advisory choices the United States and other nations have will point to a "third way"- a method of training and advising that should not be as unfamiliar as it seems to be, since the United States used it very effectively just thirty years ago, and in the same general vicinity.

Download the full thesis.

Perspectives on Reconciliation Options in Afghanistan
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 07/27/2010 - 4:41pm | 0 comments
Perspectives on Reconciliation Options in Afghanistan - U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Tuesday, July 27, 2010.

Senator John Kerry - Download Statement

Senator Richard Lugar - Download Statement

The Honorable Ryan C. Crocker -- Download Testimony

Ms. Zainab Salbi - Download Testimony

Dr. David Kilcullen - Download Testimony

Security Experts Urge Reconciliation with Insurgents -- CNN News.

Key U.S. Senator Downplays Afghan War Documents Leak - Cindy Saine, Voice of America.

... A former U.S. ambassador to Iraq and Pakistan, Ryan Crocker, said a long-term counterinsurgency strategy is needed in Afghanistan, but that it requires time and patience - two things, he said, that are in short supply in America. "Our friends are unsure of our commitment and hedge their bets; our enemies think they can outlast us. We need to make it clear to both that our determination is equal to theirs," he said.

David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency analyst at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security, said it is important for Afghan reconciliation to try to include rank and file members of the Taliban. He also said it would be wise to try to negotiate from a position of strength. Kilcullen added that international and Afghan forces need a big, tactical hit on the Taliban. "We need to kill a lot of Taliban, and we need to disrupt their organization. And it is unpleasant, but it is just unavoidable. You have to do that kind of damage to a terrorist organization before it becomes —to talk," he said. Kilcullen said history shows that it is very difficult to defeat a counterinsurgency and that time and patience are essential.

Senator Kerry expressed some frustration with the lack of progress after almost 10 years of U.S. operations in Afghanistan, saying he believes Afghans need to realize that it is their fight, and that the American people are not —to have combat troops in the country indefinitely...

More at Voice of America.

The Afghanistan War Logs Update
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 07/27/2010 - 8:00am | 0 comments
Sunday night's post: NYT: The Afghanistan War Logs

The Pentagon Papers they're not. The New York Times and the Guardian, among others, are touting the massive leak of 92,000 classified documents relating to the Afghanistan War, which was unearthed by the Wikileaks website. What bombshells do these secret memos contain? Pretty much none, if you are an even marginally attentive follower of the news. In fact, the only new thing I learned from the documents was that the Taliban have attacked coalition aircraft with heat-seeking missiles. That is interesting to learn but not necessarily terribly alarming because, even with such missiles, the insurgents have not managed to take down many aircraft - certainly nothing like the toll that Stingers took on the Red Army in the 1980s.

-- Max Boot

A swelling chorus of voices is pondering the roles of New and Old Media in the Wikileaks disclosure, with its effect being compared to that of Tet and the Pentagon Papers (see here, here, here, and here, for example). These analogies are overblown - wildly so, in my view - but there is nevertheless an important New/Old Media dynamic to watch in this case. The question in the coming days will be whether the Old Media - of which Time, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, et al. are members - can establish a counterfactual narrative and make it politically decisive. Will Congress, for example, consider itself bound to accept the narrative that this massive leak amounts to a set of game-changing revelations? I predict not. Although John Kerry has stated already that the leaked documents "raise serious questions about the reality of America's policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan," my sense is that there is simply too much knowledge of that reality, both in Congress and among the public, for the political gambit to go anywhere. Much credit for that knowledge must go to New Media - independent online reporters like Michael Totten, Michael Yon, and Commentary's Max Boot, websites like Long War Journal and Small Wars Journal - which has labored to bring the war to the average reader in a level of detail unimaginable even two decades ago.

-- J. E. Dyer

Anyone who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I'm a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that's the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper.

-- Andrew Exum

Just because some documents are classified doesn't mean that they're news or even necessarily interesting. A case in point is the cache of 92,000 secret documents about the Afghanistan war that someone leaked to WikiLeaks, which passed them on to the New York Times, Britain's Guardian, and Der Spiegel in Germany. All three published several of these documents - presumably the highlights - in today's editions. Some of the conclusions to be drawn from these files: Afghan civilians are sometimes killed. Many Afghan officials and police chiefs are corrupt and incompetent. Certain portions of Pakistan's military and intelligence service have nefarious ties to the Taliban. If any of this startles you, then welcome to the world of reading newspapers. Today's must be the first one you've read.

-- Fred Kaplan

A huge leak of U.S. reports and this is all they get? I know of more stuff leaked at one good dinner on background. I mean, when Mother Jones yawns, that's an indication that you might not have the Pentagon Papers on your hands. If anything, the thousands of documents remind me of what it is like to be a reporter: Lots of different people telling you different things. It takes awhile to learn how to distinguish the junk from the gold.

-- Tom Ricks

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has compared his organization's latest leak of almost 92,000 U.S. military documents relating to the war in Afghanistan to "opening the Stasi archives" in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He also compared the leak to Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers. Both claims are a bit difficult to swallow. The Stasi were famous for creating a total surveillance state and gathering comprehensive evidence of political "crimes" against their own citizenry; the Pentagon Papers revealed Kennedy's involvement in the overthrow of Diem, and Nixon's decision to illegally bomb Cambodia and Laos. The WikiLeaks archive is... daily incident reports. Incident reports can be revealing, if they say something new. But these don't.

-- Joshua Foust

By now it isn't news that Wikileaks has leaked tens of thousands of war records in what they call the Afghanistan War Diary. It consists of a catalog of thousands of daily incident reports (each incident of an IED, contact with the enemy, casualties, etc., is summarized in an incident report). The reports make for a choppy and stilted read, but for those who are —to endure it, there is information here and there that compromises operational security. Joshua Foust points out that the names of certain collaborators are in these reports, but that likely doesn't matter to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. All of the information is classified and it should not have been released.

-- Herschel Smith

Longtime readers of The Long War Journal will not be shocked by these reports. For years, Tom Joscelyn and I have been documenting the involvement of the Pakistani military and intelligence services with various terror groups. See Pakistan's Jihad and Analysis: Al Qaeda is the tip of the jihadist spear for summary reports from 2008 and 2009. Also, Hamid Gul has long been known to support the Taliban and al Qaeda. For a summary of the activities of Hamid Gul and others, see US moves to declare former Pakistani officers international terrorists.

-- Bill Roggio

Longtime Afghanistan watchers are diving into Wikileaks' huge trove of unearthed U.S. military reports about the war. And they're surfacing, as we initially did, with pearls of the obvious and long-revealed. Andrew Exum, an Afghanistan veteran and Center for a New American Security fellow, compared the quasi-revelations about (gasp!) Pakistani intelligence sponsorship of Afghan insurgents and (shock-horror!) Special Operations manhunts to news that the Yankees may have lost the 2004 American League pennant. It's a fair point, but it conceals what's really valuable about the leaked logs: they're a real-time account of how the U.S. let Afghanistan rot.

-- Spencer Ackerman

"The War Logs" (Continued)

Leaks Add to Pressure on White House Over Strategy - New York Times

Bin Laden Among Latest Wikileaks Afghan Revelations - BBC News

Afghanistan War Logs - Time

The AfPak Papers - Wall Street Journal

WikiLeaks Disclosures Unlikely to Change Course of War - Washington Post

'War Logs Could Shatter Hopes of Success in Afghanistan' - Der Spiegel

'Weeks to Assess' Afghan War Leak - BBC News

Leak Leaves White House Defensive About War Policy - Los Angeles Times

White House Blasts Wikileaks for Documents Leak - Washington Times

Document Leak May Hurt Efforts to Build War Support - New York Times

New Fodder for War Critics - Philadelphia Inquirer

Tensions Increase After Revelation of More Leaked Files - The Guardian

Afghan War Leak Sets Off Effort to Control Damage - Wall Street Journal

Documents Cause Little Concern over Public Perception - Washington Post

The Fallout of the Afghanistan Files - New York Times

Pentagon Assesses Leaked Documents - American Forces Press Service

Huge Leak of Secret Files Sows New Afghan War Doubts - Agence France-Presse

Pentagon Eyes Accused Analyst Over WikiLeaks Data - Wall Street Journal

U.S. Military Investigates Leaked Afghan War Documents - Voice of America

U.S. Hunts For Leaker Of Afghan War Documents - Reuters

Task Force 373 and Targeted Assassinations - Der Spiegel

Is WikiLeaks the Pentagon Papers, Part 2? - Washington Post

Not the Pentagon Papers - Slate

WikiLeaks Founder Defends Releasing U.S. Documents on Afghanistan - VOA

Afghan, Pakistani Reactions at Odds Over Leaked U.S. Documents - VOA

Pakistan Decries Release of Documents on Afghan War - Washington Post

Pakistani Spy Agency Denounces U.S. Intel Docs - Associated Press

Analysis: Leaks Only a 'Snapshot' of Afghan War Effort - Voice of America

Analysis: WikiLeaks Fuels Negative War Debate For Obama - Reuters

Who Is Pvt. Bradley Manning? - ABC News

WikiLeaks Emerges as Powerful Online Whistle-blower - Los Angeles Times

A Reading List to Put the WikiLeaks 'War Logs' in Context - ProPublica

WikiLeaks: Group Vows to Put More Documents Online - Associated Press

Documents Explosive, But No Pentagon Papers, Yet - Christian Science Monitor

Reaction to Disclosure of Military Documents on Afghan War - New York Times

Wikileaks' Reports on War Reveals Not Much - Washington Post

WikiLeaks Wasn't Wrong - Los Angeles Times

Pakistan's Double Game - New York Times

This Was Secret? - Washington Post

Getting Lost in the Fog of War - New York Times

Telling Us the Obvious - Washington Post

What's New About the WikiLeaks Data? - Columbia Journalism Review

Wikileaks, Insignificant - Commentary

Wikileaks and the Final Defeat of Tet - Commentary

Underwhelmed by Wikileaks Leaks - Best Defense

The Wikileaks Document Dump Changes Nothing - Shadow Government

Wikileaks and the Afghanistan War Diary - Captian's Journal

On Wikileaks & the Pakistan Memos - The Long War Journal

Are the WikiLeaks War Docs Overhyped Old News? - Danger Room

Does My Leak Look Big in This? - Kings of War

Getting Lost in the Fog of War
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 07/27/2010 - 7:15am | 4 comments
Getting Lost in the Fog of War - Andrew Exum, New York Times opinion piece concerning the WikiLeaks release.
Want to save on Pentagon overhead? Close down JFCOM
by Robert Haddick | Mon, 07/26/2010 - 6:39pm | 9 comments
So recommends the Defense Business Board, an official advisory board that reports to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The news of the board's pending recommendations came in a Defense News story. Here are some excerpts:

An influential Pentagon advisory board will recommend that Defense Department Secretary Robert Gates slash the civilian work force by more than 111,000 people and drastically pare the military's combatant command structure as ways to save billions of dollars.

The Defense Business Board task force also will urge Gates to initiate a hiring freeze for the Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD), all Joint Staff directorates and all combatant commands. It also is calling for DoD to shut down OSD's Networks and Information Integration (NII) directorate and the contractor-heavy U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM).

According to the Defense News article, the Defense Business Board task force has focused its efforts on finding contractor positions within OSD and at the combatant commands which it believes are redundant or wasteful. The goal of the task force is to cut at least $100 billion over the next five years in overhead expenses, savings that the Congress would redirect to weapons acquisitions. To reach this savings target, the task force aims to eliminate over 111,000 of the Defense Department's 743,388 civilian billets.

What are the odds of such savings occurring? One can find precedents in history to argue either way. Regarding the alleged bloat in the intelligence community, I recently argued that such bloat (if it really is bloat) is understandable because of the American tendency to spend whatever it takes to save lives. Thus, when it comes time to consider such ideas as shutting down Joint Forces Command or winding up program offices or staff positions during wartime, such efforts could run into resistance if the condemned billet-holders can convincingly show how they save American lives on current or future battlefields.

We have recently witnessed the consequences when stock market and real estate bubbles burst. Is there a defense contractor bubble worthy of bursting? Many of us know some of these contractors, who are real people doing serious and sometimes dangerous work. A lot of their work we would not consider to be a bubble. Perhaps some is. If the Defense Business Board and Secretary Gates get their way, some of us will watch friends and their families suffer personal and financial pain, in the name of a stronger defense and national solvency.

The Assange Leaks
by SWJ Editors | Mon, 07/26/2010 - 6:11pm | 8 comments
The Assange Leaks: What's New About the WikiLeaks Data? - Joshua Foust, Columbia Journalism Review.

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has compared his organization's latest leak of almost 92,000 U.S. military documents relating to the war in Afghanistan to "opening the Stasi archives" in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He also compared the leak to Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers.

Both claims are a bit difficult to swallow. The Stasi were famous for creating a total surveillance state and gathering comprehensive evidence of political "crimes" against their own citizenry; the Pentagon Papers revealed Kennedy's involvement in the overthrow of Diem, and Nixon's decision to illegally bomb Cambodia and Laos. The WikiLeaks archive is... daily incident reports. Incident reports can be revealing, if they say something new. But these don't...

Assange's justification for putting hundreds of lives at stake—"All of this material is more than seven months old, so it has no operational significance... there is no danger"—is as false as it is naí¯ve. Many of the operations he details through these leaks are still ongoing, and many of the people involved in them are still there, hoping these leaks don't make them into targets for assassination. Indeed, Adam Serwer, a staff writer for The American Prospect, tweeted this morning, "Former Military Intelligence Officer sez of wikileaks, 'Its an AQ/Taliban execution team's treasure trove.'" ...

Much more at Columbia Journalism Review.

NYT: The Afghanistan War Logs
by SWJ Editors | Sun, 07/25/2010 - 7:33pm | 14 comments
The War Logs: "An archive of classified military documents offers an unvarnished view of the war in Afghanistan" - New York Times.

More

Massive Leak of Secret Files Exposes Truth of Occupation - The Guardian

Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It - Der Spiegel

Leaked Files Lay Bare War in Afghanistan - Washington Post

90,000 Classified Documents Revealed - Daily Telegraph

U.S. Documents Leaked Online Give Inside Look at War - Associated Press

Leaks 'Reveal Afghan War Details' - BBC News

Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010 - WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks Drops 90,000 Secret War Docs - Wired

The Big Leak - Politico

Reports From the Ground in Afghanistan - New York Times

In Disclosing Documents, WikiLeaks Seeks 'Transparency' - New York Times

Wikileaks New Approach in Latest Release of Documents - Washington Post

White House Responds to Disclosure - New York Times

White House Decries WikiLeaks' Release - Los Angeles Times

Afghan War Logs: Inquiry Launched into Source of Leaks - Daily Telegraph

U.S. Denounces Publication of Classified Documents - Bloomberg

Jones Lashes Out at Wikileaks for Putting Lives at Risk - The Hill

Strategic Plans Spawned Bitter End for a Lonely Outpost - New York Times

Afghanistan War Logs: Shattering Illusion of a Bloodless Victory - The Guardian

Afghanistan War Logs: Secret War Along the Pakistan Border - The Guardian

The Secret Enemy in Pakistan: Problems with an Supposed Partner - Der Spiegel

Pakistan Spy Service Aids Insurgents, Reports Assert - New York Times

Pakistan Secretly Helping Taliban - Reuters

Pakistan Denies Wikileaks Reports it 'Aided Taliban' - BBC News

Afghanistan War Logs: Iran's Covert Operations in Afghanistan - The Guardian

Afghanistan War Logs: Fear Taliban Could Tap Mobile Phones - The Guardian

Afghanistan War Logs: Taliban Listening in to Top-secret Phone - The Guardian

Afghanistan War Logs: 'Green on Green' Fights - The Guardian

Afghanistan War Logs: CIA Paramilitaries' Role in Civilian Deaths - The Guardian

Afghanistan War Logs: Civilians Caught in Firing Line - The Guardian

Task Force 373 : The Secret Hunters - Der Spiegel

German Naivety : Growing Trouble in the North - Der Spiegel

The Flaws of the Silent Killer: When Drones Fail - Der Spiegel

Intelligence Agents Drowning in Data - Der Spiegel

WikiLeaks' Afghan Documents and Me - Mother Jones

Reaction to Disclosure of Military Documents on Afghan War - New York Times

Mullen: Time to Execute
by SWJ Editors | Sun, 07/25/2010 - 7:06pm | 0 comments
Top US Officer Says It's Time to Execute Afghan Plan - Al Pessin, Voice of America.

The top U.S. military officer is on a visit to Afghanistan, where he says the coalition effort is in its execution phase, after months of preparation to implement President Barack Obama's new strategy. With the U.S. government and the military facing criticism for not achieving dramatic results in the eight months since the president announced his strategy, Admiral Mullen spent part of his day appealing for patience, at least until the end of the year.

He told diplomats at the U.S. embassy that he and the new U.S and NATO commander here, General David Petraeus, agreed it is time to start delivering. "Where he and I believe we are now is we are in execution. We know what we need to do. We know how to do it. We have the people, the resources. Now we have to execute, and it is where we are. And this next 12 months, from my perspective, will be as critical a 12 months in terms of turning this around as any," he said.

A December review is designed to ensure the strategy of sending more troops and taking control of civilian areas from the Taliban, is at least beginning to show results. By next July, President Obama says he will begin what is expected to be a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops. The admiral says the key dates can be met, and he has been reassuring every audience he has spoken to on this trip that the United States will not run for the exits next year...

More at Voice of America.

Afghanistan: A COIN Tale of Nawa and Marja
by SWJ Editors | Sun, 07/25/2010 - 2:59pm | 0 comments
In Afghanistan, Why Does Counterinsurgency Work in Some Places But Not Others? - Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post. Concerns COIN efforts in Nawa and Marja.
Petraeus Scraps Plan to Secure Kandahar
by SWJ Editors | Sun, 07/25/2010 - 7:20am | 0 comments
The International Herald Tribune and Daily Telegraph are reporting this morning that General David Petraeus "has decided that a full-scale military encirclement and invasion of Kandahar was not an appropriate model to tackle the Taliban". Via the Daily Telegraph:

... Gen McChrystal had planned a summer conquest of the Taliban in Kandahar to reinvigorate the battle against the Taliban. But the operation has been repeatedly delayed by concerns that it would not adequately restore the confidence of city residents in the security forces.

Gen Petraeus is reported to believe that the operation must be a broad-ranging counter-insurgency campaign, involving more troops working with local militias. The plan he inherited was criticised for placing too much emphasis on targeted assassinations of key insurgent leaders and not enough on winning over local residents. Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said yesterday that the US-led strategy in southern Afghanistan was undergoing sweeping changes...
The Great Myth: Counterinsurgency
by SWJ Editors | Sun, 07/25/2010 - 5:27am | 20 comments
The Great Myth: Counterinsurgency - Conn Hallinan, Foreign Policy in Focus.

There are moments that define a war. Just such a one occurred on June 21, when Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry helicoptered into Marjah for a photo op with the locals. It was to be a capstone event, the fruit of a four-month counterinsurgency offensive by Marines, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, and the newly minted Afghan National Army (ANA) to drive the Taliban out of the area and bring in good government.

As the chopper swung around to land, the Taliban opened fire, sending journalists scrambling for cover and Marines into full combat mode. According to Matthew Green of the Financial Times, "The crackle of gunfire lasted about 20 minutes and continued in the background as a state department official gave a presentation to Mr. Holbrooke about U.S. and U.K. [United Kingdom] efforts to boost local government and promote agriculture in the town."

The U.S. officials were then bundled into armored cars and whisked back to the helicopter. As the chopper took off, an enormous explosion shook the town's bazaar.

When it was launched in March, the Marjah operation was billed as a "turning point" in the Afghan War, an acid test for the doctrine of counterinsurgency, or "COIN," a carefully designed strategy to wrest a strategic area from insurgent forces, in this case the Taliban, and win the "hearts and minds" of the local people. In a sense Marjah has indeed defined COIN, just not quite in the way its advocates had hoped for...

More at Foreign Policy in Focus.

GEN McChrystal Retires from the Army (Updated)
by SWJ Editors | Sat, 07/24/2010 - 5:26pm | 5 comments

"Caution and cynicism is safe, but soldiers don't want to follow cautious cynics. I'd do somethings in my career differently, but not many. I believed in people, and I still believe in them. I trusted, and I still trust. I cared, and I still care. I wouldn't have had it any other way."

Casual Send-Off for an Army Maverick - Julian Barnes, Wall Street Journal.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander in Afghanistan, retired from the military Friday evening at a ceremony that replaced the pomp of military honors with a certain informality long cultivated by the general. In a nod to the way he spent much of his career on the front lines of two wars, Gen. McChrystal eschewed the Army dress blues. He instead chose to wear his fatigues—as did the ceremonial Old Guard...

There was little in Gen. McChrystal's speech, delivered at the Fort McNair parade grounds in Washington, that made direct reference to how his career ended. But he said that in his career he had learned that people don't want to follow overly cautious leaders. He trusted his people and would continue to trust them, he said. He said his service "did not end as I would have desired."

"I left a mission I feel strongly about, ended a career I loved that began over 38 years ago," Gen. McChrystal said. "And I left unfilled commitments I made to many comrades in the fight, commitments I hold sacred." ...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's Retirement Ceremony Marked by Laughter and Regret - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's farewell to the Army began Friday evening with a confession. "This has the potential to be an awkward, even sad, occasion," he said. A month earlier, McChrystal resigned from his command in Afghanistan after a Rolling Stone magazine article quoted him and his aides making derogatory remarks about senior Obama administration officials. The sunset ceremony, held at Fort McNair on the Anacostia River, marked McChrystal's retirement from the military after 34 years. "With my resignation, I . . . left unfulfilled commitments I made to many comrades in the fight, commitments I hold sacred," McChrystal said. "My service did not end as I would have wished."

The general used his goodbye to thank Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and President Obama, who forced him to leave the military and his command in Afghanistan. With those brief remarks, McChrystal seemed to go out of his way to reaffirm the principle of civilian control over the military. Mostly, though, McChrystal's speech - which was disarmingly funny, personal and often wistful - poked fun at himself, paid homage to the troops who fought for him and offered thanks to his wife...

More at The Washington Post.

McChrystal Ends Service With Regret and a Laugh - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal retired on Friday with the full pageantry of a 17-gun salute, an Army marching band and an emotional send-off from the secretary of defense, but with his own acknowledgment that he was not leaving the military on his own terms. "Look, this has the potential to be an awkward or even a sad occasion," he told 500 guests on the historic parade ground of Fort McNair, in his first public comments since he was fired by President Obama. He added, "My service did not end as I would have wished." ...

"I have stories on all of you, photos on many," he told his old friends in the crowd. Then he suggested that he had just the method for making those stories public, adding, "And I know a Rolling Stone reporter." The crowd broke into laughter, then applause. Originally planned as a much smaller gathering, the ceremony expanded as many in the military asked to attend...

More at The New York Times.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal Retires from Army - David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said goodbye to the Army on Friday in a poignant ceremony that paid tribute to his three decades of military service and barely mentioned his firing by President Obama for insubordination. It was McChrystal who alluded most directly to his own precipitous fall, standing at the podium and looking out at formations of soldiers and former comrades. "Service in this business is tough and often dangerous, and it extracts a price for participation, and that price can be high," McChrystal said. "If I had it to do over again, I'd do some things in my career differently, but not many."

McChrystal's remarks were the first in public by the former top commander in Afghanistan since he was summoned back to Washington in June and relieved of duty over remarks in a Rolling Stone article in which he and several aides seemed to mock and criticize civilian officials. McChrystal was replaced in Afghanistan by Army Gen. David H. Petraeus. The farewell ceremony was held on a sweltering early evening on the parade ground at Ft. McNair in Washington, a few miles from the Pentagon and adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery. Dressed in combat fatigues rather than dress uniform, McChrystal was joined on the reviewing stand by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, as well as McChrystal's wife, Annie. In the crowd of several hundred were soldiers, many now retired, with whom McChrystal had served in the Rangers, the 82nd Airborne Division and other units...

More at The Los Angeles Times.

McChrystal Retires Amid Praise for Career - Michael J. Carden, American Forces Press Service.

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who most recently commanded all U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, retired today in a ceremony here near his Fort McNair home. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called McChrystal one of America's greatest warriors and a treasured friend and colleague. "We bid farewell to Stan McChrystal today with pride and sadness," Gates said. "Pride for his unique record as a man and soldier; sadness that our comrade and his prestigious talents are leaving us.

"This consummate ranger possessed one of the sharpest and most inquisitive minds in the Army," the secretary continued. McChrystal's contributions to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were groundbreaking, Gates said, as the general "employed every tool available" to create success on the battlefield. "Over the past decade, no single American has inflicted more fear and more loss of life on our country's most vicious and violent enemies than Stan McChrystal," he said. "Commanding special operation forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, Stan was a pioneer in creating a revolution in warfare that fused intelligence and operations." And when violence in Iraq seemed almost unstoppable in 2006 and 2007, McChrystal and his special operators all but "crushed al-Qaida," Gates said...

More at American Forces Press Service.

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General McChrystal's Retirement Ceremony

In fact, over the past decade, arguably no single American has inflicted more fear, more loss of freedom and more loss of life on our country's most vicious and violent enemies than Stan McChrystal.

--Secretary Of Defense Robert Gates

Remarks by Secretary Gates, General Casey, and General McChrystal - Transcript

U.S. Army Recognizes Gen. McChrystal's 34 Years of Service - Slideshow

Gen. McChrystal's Retirement Ceremony - Nancy Youssef, Nukes and Spooks

McChrystal Says Goodbye - Gordon Lubold, Politico

Army Says Farewell To Gen. McChrystal - Spencer Ackerman, Wired

Female Suicide Bombers - The New Threat in Afghanistan
by SWJ Editors | Sat, 07/24/2010 - 1:58am | 3 comments

Female Suicide Bombers

The New Threat in Afghanistan

by Matthew P. Dearing

Amidst the disarray following General McChrystal's interview with Rolling

Stone, a much less reported but profound event marked the course of the

insurgency in Afghanistan. The recent female suicide operation in eastern

Afghanistan reveals not only a paradigm shift in Taliban insurgent tactics, but

also a mutation of the organization's founding ideology.

On June 20, dressed in a long-flowing burqa, Bibi Halima walked up to

American and Afghan soldiers on patrol in the Sheltan area of Shegal district in

Kunar province with the intention of detonating explosives attached to her body.

In recent months, soldiers have had reason to be skeptical of burqa-clad

pedestrians. Many of the Haqqani Network's fedayeen tactics in eastern

Afghanistan have included men disguised in burqas, allowing them to approach or

breach heavily cordoned buildings and district centers prior to opening fire or

detonating explosives.  But as NATO and Afghan counterinsurgency experience

heightened, security forces became well adept at reading bodily gestures and

cues that distinguished a man from a woman underneath the large Afghan dress.

Until June 20th, this was a valuable force protection measure since not one of

the over 430 suicide attacks in Afghanistan since 2001, was perpetrated by a

woman.  In comparison, women have executed nearly one in ten suicide attacks in

Iraq.  Until June 20th, NATO troops could rest assured that of the many

insurgent tactics adapted from Iraq to Afghanistan, female suicide bombings was

one that would likely never emerge. 

This Week at War: China's Foolish Fight Over the Yellow Sea
by Robert Haddick | Fri, 07/23/2010 - 10:22pm | 16 comments
Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:

Topics include:

1) China picks a foolish fight over the Yellow Sea.

2) The Army's next nightmare scenario

China picks a foolish fight over the Yellow Sea

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in South Korea on July 21 to display their commitment to that country's defense. In March, a North Korean torpedo sank the South Korean corvette Cheonan, killing 46 sailors. Last month, South Korea took its case to the U.N. Security Council but was unable to get much satisfaction -- China, with North Korea's stability its paramount concern, blocked the Security Council from explicitly naming North Korea as the perpetrator.

China had hoped that the Cheonan incident would simply disappear, keeping the strategic situation in northeast Asia in the frozen state it prefers. After the Security Council's non-action, Chinese leaders should have anticipated that the United States and South Korea would take their own actions to reinforce deterrence against the North. China's handling of this affair will end up costing it and brings Beijing's judgment into question.

With South Korea's attempt at justice having come up short, the U.S. and South Korean governments have arranged for a showy two-part display of solidarity. Part one was the arrival of Clinton and Gates, with a photo-op at the demilitarized zone and a meeting with their South Korean counterparts. Part two will be a large U.S.-South Korea military training exercise, involving 8,000 troops, 100 aircraft (including the first deployment of F-22s to South Korea), and the USS George Washington carrier strike group.

Having dug itself into a hole by energizing the U.S.-South Korea military alliance, the Chinese government continued digging: On July 21 its Foreign Ministry spokesman warned, "We resolutely oppose any foreign military vessel and planes conducting activities in the Yellow Sea and China's coastal waters that undermine China's security interests."

The U.S. government has made no commitment to send the USS George Washington carrier strike group, the most ostentatious display of U.S. military power, to the Yellow Sea. But with the Chinese government now having thrown down the gauntlet over the U.S. Navy's right to sail in international waters, the United States will have to respond with a significant display. Anything less than a transit of the Yellow Sea within the next few weeks by USS George Washington and its escorts will come off as a loss of face by the United States.

This tussle between China and the United States over prestige is alarming. Why has China suddenly decided to pick a fight over the Yellow Sea? The USS George Washington carrier strike group last made a routine transit of the Yellow Sea in October, which few noticed or cared about. If the Chinese government is interested in stability in northeast Asia, it should have stayed quiet and allowed the Korean training exercises to proceed uneventfully as they have for many decades.

What is disturbing is the newfound lack of judgment by China's decision-makers. China's gauntlet-throwing has given a boost to the U.S. military alliances in the region. And China's troubling misjudgment in this case does not bode well the next time a real crisis in the region occurs.

Click through to read more ...

Admiral Mullen: Afghanistan Can 'Turn' by Obama Deadline
by SWJ Editors | Fri, 07/23/2010 - 2:34am | 0 comments
Admiral Mullen: Afghanistan Can 'Turn' by Obama Deadline - Al Pessin, Voice of America.

The top U.S. military officer says critics who claim it will take years to even have a chance to defeat the Afghan insurgency ignore the fact that a similar counterinsurgency strategy turned around a similarly difficult situation in Iraq in 2007. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, spoke to reporters traveling with him to South and Central Asia Thursday.

Admiral Mullen acknowledges that it may take years to fully defeat the Afghan insurgency. But he says that is not what the United States expects to accomplish by this time next year, when President Barack Obama has said he will begin to withdraw U.S. troops. But Mullen says the year-and-a-half the president allowed for the new strategy to prove itself is adequate.

"Insurgencies last a long time," said Mullen. "But, as you look at how long it took to turn Iraq around, it was about 18 months. Now, we're about two-and-a-half years later, and we're still working in Iraq. But it was sort of that period of time where it really turned. Turning it doesn't end it, [but] you've got to turn it to get it moving in the right direction."

The admiral says the situation in Iraq seemed impossible to resolve a few years ago, and, although the two countries are very different, and progress in Iraq is not a guarantee of progress in Afghanistan, it does give him reason to be hopeful about Afghanistan - even during the current period of heavy violence and, at best, slow progress.

"There are similarities and differences between Iraq and Afghanistan, and I understand that," added Mullen. "But I don't accept the fact that, just because it takes insurgencies a long, long time [to be defeated], that we're not at a point where it can't be turned, because I think it can. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy. But, I think it can be [turned] over the period of time that we're talking about."

U.S. officials acknowledge that, even if the situation in Afghanistan begins to turn during the next 12 months, the U.S. withdrawal will likely be very gradual, and some number of international troops will be needed in Afghanistan for many years to come...

More at Voice of America.

Counterinsurgency and Its Discontents
by SWJ Editors | Thu, 07/22/2010 - 6:15pm | 23 comments
Counterinsurgency and Its Discontents - David Ucko, Kings of War.

As I hear more voices join the chorus against counterinsurgency, both its theory and its practice, I get the sense that the 'counterinsurgency era' that began some time after the invasion of Iraq is now reaching its end. Yes, NATO will retain a presence in Afghanistan for years to come, but there is little enthusiasm for the idea of counterinsurgency or hope that the lessons of FM 3-24 might help, either in Afghanistan or elsewhere. In fact, mentions of FM 3-24 and of counterinsurgency are increasingly likely to invite sniggers, tired sighs or outright hostility ('how dare you theorise about hearts and minds when there's a war going on?').

It might be interesting to trace how an idea so welcome less than four years ago has since fallen from grace. Was it the perceived confidence with which the concept was rolled out? Was it the perceived automacity of its widespread acceptance? Is it anger at the arguably simplistic explanation that counterinsurgency, and counterinsurgency alone, won the day in Iraq? Or is it due to a perception of counterinsurgency experts gaining power and prestige in DC by peddling a theory that is not working so well in Afghanistan?

What follows is an attempt to address some of these issues: how did we get here, are the critics right, and is there anything in this bathwater that should be saved? This is hardly an exhaustive take on the topic, which would require much more than a blog post, but just a few thoughts...

Much more at Kings of War.

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