Blog Posts

DOD News Briefing with Gen. McChrystal from the Pentagon - 13 May 2010

... I'm pleased to be here this week to participate in President Karzai's visit to the United States. It's been a productive visit, and I thought it would be good if I spent a few minutes with you this morning, to share my thoughts with our ongoing efforts in Afghanistan. I know most of you have been covering this for years. So I'll try and measure my remarks with that in mind.

Our strategic priority is the development of Afghan national security forces. While both the army and police have demonstrated considerable growth, significant challenges remain. The bottom line is, there's much more work ahead to mature Afghan security forces. But I'm pleased with the progress made thus far.

While our strategic priority remains building the ANSF, our operational priority lies in securing the southern part of Afghanistan, an area that includes Kandahar, the spiritual center of the Taliban, and Helmand, an economic hub for the insurgency and for Afghanistan overall.

Ten months ago, we began a series of operations into Taliban-controlled parts of the central Helmand River valley, expanding the Afghan government's influence in key areas.

There's been considerable progress in security and governance. But as is expected in counterinsurgency, progress is often slow and deliberate.

This reflects the challenge of changing not only the dynamics of security, governance and development but also the attitudes of a population long pressured by insurgents.

As additional forces flow into Afghanistan, we'll -- we will reinforce ongoing efforts to secure Kandahar, an environment that's uniquely complex and will require a unique solution. This effort is being led by the Afghans and will focus on the complex political and governance aspects of Kandahar.

I suspect you'll have several questions regarding Kandahar, but I also want to make a point that there will be considerable efforts in other areas of the country as well that I'd be happy to discuss further.

Ultimately, our efforts across Afghanistan are about changing the perceptions of people. Afghans believe more of what they see than what they hear.

This is a process that takes time. It will demand courage and resilience. We should expect increased violence as our combined security forces expand into Taliban-controlled areas. Over time, security responsibilities will transition to Afghans...

Read the full transcript here.

Anyone who's spent a day on a deployment knows how prevalent rumors can be.

Sometimes, rumors can be informative - in fact, more than one soldier has discovered his unit was deploying based on a rumor or a news article. More often, though, rumors create undue anxiety and anger.

Fortunately, Jeff Schogol of Stars and Stripes is here to confirm and debunk all sorts of rumors in a new blog. His first post served to dispel the rumor that the Army was getting rid of the term "battle buddy", and replacing it with "combat companion". Too bad we didn't have Jeff around when those rumors of "stress cards" were going around.

If you've got a rumor you'd like Stars and Stripes to debunk, just contact Jeff at [email protected].

Pentagon Rethinking Value of Major Counterinsurgencies - Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers.

Nearly a decade after the United States began to focus its military training and equipment purchases almost exclusively on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military strategists are quietly shifting gears, saying that large-scale counterinsurgency efforts cost too much and last too long.

The domestic economic crisis and the Obama administration's commitment to withdraw from Iraq and begin drawing down in Afghanistan next year are factors in the change. The biggest spur, however, is a growing recognition that large-scale counterinsurgency battles have high casualty rates for troops and civilians, eat up equipment that must be replaced and rarely end in clear victory or defeat.

In addition, military thinkers say such wars have put the U.S.'s technologically advanced ground forces on the defensive while less sophisticated insurgent forces are able to remain on the offensive...

Much more at McClatchy Newspapers.

Distrust of Afghan Leaders Threatens U.S. War Strategy - Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times.

Nearly a year into a new war strategy for Afghanistan, the hardest fighting is still ahead, but already it is clear that the biggest challenge lies not on the battlefield but in the governing of Afghanistan itself.

That has been the early lesson of the American-led offensive in February in Marja, in Helmand Province, where most Taliban insurgents either were beaten back or drifted away. Since then, Americans and Afghans have struggled to establish a local government that can win the loyalty of the Afghan people, something that is essential to keeping the Taliban at bay.

The success of the far larger offensive in the coming weeks in Kandahar, the Taliban heartland, may well depend on whether Afghans can overcome their corrosive distrust of President Hamid Karzai's government.

Mr. Karzai was confronted with that issue when he met with American officials this week, including President Obama on Wednesday. The two leaders seek to repair months of badly strained relations and come together at a crucial moment, both for the NATO countries involved in the fighting and for Afghanistan itself. Mr. Obama plans to begin withdrawing American forces a little more than a year from now...

More at The New York Times.

Continue on for the full transcript of prepared remarks and the Q&A, such as it was...

Operation Moshtarak: Lessons Learned - The International Council on Security and Development.

NATO‟s Operation Moshtarak, launched in February 2010 in Helmand province, was the first deployment after the beginning of the much-debated surge of 30,000 additional US troops. It was billed as the largest military operation since the invasion of 2001. The planning for the operation emphasised the needs of the Afghan people, and the importance of winning hearts and minds as part of a classic counter-insurgency operation. However, the reality on the ground did not match the rhetoric. Welcome improvements in the size and conduct of military operations were undermined by a lack of sufficient corresponding measures in the political and humanitarian campaigns.

This report reviews the local perceptions of the operation from more than 400 Afghan men from Marjah, Lashkar Gah and Kandahar, interviewed by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) in March 2010.

Click through for more or download the full report at ICOS or the full report, an "about" summary of the report, and an overview brief at Small Wars Journal.

From Kandahar, View of a 'Counterproductive Counterinsurgency' - Spencer Ackerman, Washington Independent.

Later this morning, Presidents Obama and Hamid Karzai will meet at the White House. Karzai will present to Obama his proposal for a peace offer to the Taliban leadership. Obama will extend U.S. support for the people and government of Afghanistan over the long term.

All this happens as thousands of U.S., NATO and Afghan forces are moving into the city and surrounding environs of Kandahar. Senior officials in charge of shaping the operation have cautioned against viewing Kandahar as an iconic invasion campaign. Unlike the February operation in Marja, where 15,000 NATO and Afghan troops invaded and a governance structure of unproven capability was essentially airlifted into an area under Taliban control, the approach to Kandahar involves bolstering governance and economic efforts in parts of Kandahar currently under government control and expanding them outwards into Taliban-held territory. That will require intense and persistent coordination between NATO militaries, NATO civilians, their governments back home, Afghan security forces, local Afghan government officials and national Afghan government officials. A source in Kandahar considers it all a pipe dream.

That source passed on the following assessment of how counterinsurgency efforts across Afghanistan are shaping up, over a year after Obama embraced them at the strategic level and nearly a year after Obama tapped Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Amb. Karl Eikenberry to implement them. The source's reluctant viewpoint, which is making its way through official channels in Afghanistan, is that the coordination necessary for successful counterinsurgency between civilian and military forces is not in evidence. Neither is the coordination between NATO and Afghan forces. Lumbering bureaucracy inhibits the rapid application of services and economic aid after military forces clear an area...

More at The Washington Independent.

Afghanistan's Karzai to Urge Caution as U.S. Pushes to Empower Local Leaders - Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post.

The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is built around the belief that all good counterinsurgency is local. In recent months, American officials have focused their plans on pushing power and money down to district, tribal and village leaders.

But those plans have not sat well with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has argued that any weakening in his position could fracture the central government and undermine his ability to woo Taliban fighters away from the insurgency.

Karzai, who is set to meet with President Obama on Wednesday, plans to stress that the U.S. search for local governance solutions cannot come at Kabul's expense, sources close to his delegation said. The challenge for U.S. officials will be to convince Karzai that ceding power and control to local leaders will in the long run strengthen his hold on office...

More at The Washington Post.

The Surge of Ideas

COINdinistas and Change in the U.S. Army in 2006

By General David H. Petraeus

General David H. Petraeus received the 2010 Irving Kristol Award at AEI's Annual Dinner. His prepared remarks, delivered at the National Building Museum on May 6, 2010, follow.

Good evening to you all. Thanks for that warm welcome. And thanks, Arthur, for that very kind introduction.

Earlier today, as I was talking with my wife about tonight's speech, she reminded me of a story about a young school boy's report on Julius Caesar. "Julius Caesar was born a long time ago," the little boy explained. "He was a great general. He won some important battles. He made a long speech. They killed him..." I'll try to avoid Caesar's fate. But this is the Irving Kristol lecture--and I do need to say something meaningful.

Well, needless to say, it's an enormous honor to be with you this evening especially given the many distinguished guests here this evening--Vice President Cheney, Governor Allen, Members of Congress, Ambassadors, serving and former cabinet officials, and many, many others--including a number of wounded warriors as well.

Indeed, I'm particularly pleased to have this opportunity because it gives me a chance to express my respect for AEI, an organization whose work I know not just by reputation--but also through first-hand experience.

One recent AEI effort, of course, stands out in particular. In the fall of 2006, AEI scholars helped develop the concept for what came to be known as "the surge." Fred and Kim Kagan and their team, which included retired General Jack Keane, prepared a report that made the case for additional troops in Iraq. As all here know, it became one of those rare think tank products that had a truly strategic impact...

Read the entire text at AEI.

"Winning Hearts and Minds?" Understanding the Relationship between Aid and Security in Kenya - Mark Bradbury and Michael Kleinman, Feinstein International Center.

This case study on Kenya, researched and written by Mark Bradbury and Michael Kleinman, is the first in a series of publications presenting the findings of a two-year FIC comparative study on the relationship between aid and security in northeastern Kenya and in five provinces of Afghanistan. The overall study has focused in particular on trying to determine the effectiveness of aid in promoting stabilization and security objectives, including by helping to "win hearts and minds" of local populations. (For more information and links to publications related to the study see the Aid and Security project page.)

Since the late 1990's Kenya's large and thinly populated northeastern region bordering Somalia has become a focus for US government efforts in Africa to counter terrorism, mitigate violent extremism and promote stability and governance. This paper examines the effectiveness of one aspect of those efforts, namely the aid projects implemented by US Civil Affairs teams deployed from the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) in Garissa and Wajir districts in North Eastern province, and Lamu district in Coast province. The paper argues that these activities were useful at a tactical level in terms of facilitating the US military's entry into regions of potential concern, and in helping them to acquire local knowledge and connections. However, it also highlights some of the limitations at a strategic level of using foreign aid as a tool for countering terrorism or insurgencies and promoting stability and security. For example, the research found that these small-scale and scattered projects did little to win hearts and minds or change perceptions of the US in the communities where the projects were implemented. There was also little evidence that the projects had contributed to improved security by addressing some of the perceived underlying causes of terrorism and violent extremism in the region.

Read the entire report at the Feinstein International Center.

Politics is the blind spot in America's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, according to a report released on 6 May by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Leverage: Designing a Political Campaign for Afghanistan, by CNAS fellow Andrew Exum, notes that America's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan has focused more on waging war at the operational and tactical levels at the expense of the strategic and political levels.

"In the end, by having so vocally and materially committed to the Karzai regime, the United States and its allies are tied to its successes and failures. The goal, then, should be to maximize the former and minimize the latter through focused application of U.S. leverage," writes Exum. "Designing a political campaign minimizes the role luck plays in whether the United States and its allies are successful."

By drawing on research conducted through hundreds of interviews with U.S. and NATO military officers and diplomats, policymakers and NGOs in Afghanistan, Exum offers recommendations to design an effective political strategy:

1. President Obama should convene another strategic review to assess the civilian strategy in Afghanistan. The President should ask his secretaries and envoys to answer some tough questions like he expected of General Stanley McChrystal in his fall 2009 review. What are the political ends the U.S. and its allies are fighting to realize? What are key points of U.S. and allied leverage? Is the U.S. effectively organized to carry out the president's strategic initiatives in Afghanistan?

2. Build a functioning relationship with Hamid Karzai and demonstrate to the Afghan president that he has an enduring partner in the United States and its allies.

3. Use U.S. and allied leverage to press the government of Afghanistan to either hold elections for district governors or appoint competent governors from Kabul. Effective local governance is a prerequisite for U.S. and allied forces to institute aid and development projects that are essential to addressing the factors driving conflict and violence at the local level.

Download Leverage: Designing a Political Campaign for Afghanistan here.

Life and Death and Life in Iraq - Thom Shanker, New York Times.

This is a soldier's story, a tale of life and of death and of life's return.

It is the story of one soldier, Capt. Joshua A. Mantz, who was shot in Iraq. Technically, he was dead, a flat-liner for a full 15 minutes - long past the time many doctors use as their mark for ordering a halt in life-saving efforts, since brain damage can start within just a few minutes without vital signs.

But it also is the story of how Captain Mantz will journey to Washington this week, where he will speak of the battlefield physicians who brought him back to life, and thank the counselors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who balanced discipline with empathy and pushed him through rehabilitation...

Much more at The New York Times.

Is the Army Innovative? - Tim Kane, Christian Science Monitor.

David Brooks thinks so.

Five years ago, the United States Army was one sort of organization, with a certain mentality. Today, it is a different organization, with a different mentality. It has been transformed in the virtual flash of an eye, and the story of that transformation is fascinating for anybody interested in the flow of ideas.

Brooks is writing about the emergence of counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, godfathered by General David Petraeus. I agree this is an important development, even that it should be celebrated, but I have some questions...

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

The "Death Hour" in this case being the period after lunch, when students are required to pay attention to a learned instructor.

Here is Defense Secretary Robert Gates's introduction to a lecture he delivered last Friday to students at the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas:

Good afternoon. Thank you, Kevin, for the introduction. I can tell you it is good to be out of D.C. and back in my home state -- at least for a short visit.

However, I realize that it is Friday, and after lunch, so I will be content with thanking you for staying awake, or trying to anyway.

Of course, falling asleep in a leadership class or here is one thing. Falling asleep in a small meeting with the president of the United States is quite another. But it happens. I was in one cabinet meeting with President Reagan where the president and six members of the cabinet all fell asleep.

In fact, the first President Bush created an award to honor the American official who most ostentatiously fell asleep in a meeting with the president. This was not frivolous. He evaluated candidates on three criteria -- first, duration -- how long did they sleep? Second, the depth of the sleep; snoring always got you extra points. And third, the quality of recovery -- did one just quietly open one's eyes and return to the meeting, or did you jolt awake -- and maybe spill something hot in the process? Well, you will appreciate that the award was named for Air Force Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, who was the national security adviser at the time. He was, as you might suspect, the first awardee, and, I might add, won many oak leaf clusters.

The rest of Gates's speech discussed the merger of conventional and irregular warfare and the implications for strategy, officer education, and doctrine.

Click the link above for the transcript.

Report Details Depravity of SEALs' Accuser - Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times.

The just-concluded military trials of three exonerated Navy SEALs showed the terrorism suspect at the center of the case to be one of the most dangerous men in Iraq. Ahmed Hashim Abed initially was described as the insurgent who planned the killings of four Blackwater security guards in Fallujah in 2004, with two of their charred bodies infamously hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. But the three SEALs who captured Abed - and were court-martialed afterward - nabbed a far more notorious figure, according to trial testimony and an intelligence report.

Abed is thought to have committed a series of killings, including beheadings, in western Anbar province as a leading al Qaeda operative. He remains in an Iraqi prison awaiting trial in that country's criminal court system. A SEAL team captured Abed in Iraq in September. The team's post-capture report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, said Abed had in his possession a loaded pistol, nearly $6,000 in U.S. cash, five identification cards and one passport...

More at The Washington Times.

How to Manage Karzai - Stephen Biddle, Washington Post opinion.

This week's state visit by Afghan President Hamid Karzai almost wasn't going to happen. The Obama administration, unhappy with Karzai's attempt to pack the Afghan Electoral Commission with supporters —to ignore voting fraud, briefly held the visit hostage this spring. This striking move also followed Karzai's threat to join the Taliban. In the ensuing brouhaha last month much of Washington wondered, loudly, whether Karzai was an adequate partner. This is the wrong question.

Local partners are almost never adequate at the outset -- this is why they face insurgencies in the first place. Almost by definition, counterinsurgency implies a problematic host government. If the local leadership were effective already, there would be no insurgency to fight. Nor is the leader the problem. Americans often want to "fix" things by replacing the leader...

More at The Washington Post.

U.S. Military Runs into Afghan Tribal Politics after Deal with Pashtuns - Joshua Partlow and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post.

U.S. military officials in eastern Afghanistan thought they had come up with a novel way to stem the anger and disillusionment about government corruption that fuels the Taliban insurgency here. Instead, their plan to empower a large Pashtun tribe angered a local power broker, provoked a backlash from the Afghan government and was disavowed by the U.S. Embassy.

The struggling U.S. military effort to give the Shinwari tribe more voice in its affairs shows the massive challenges the United States will face this summer in Kandahar province, as it prepares to launch what is being touted as one of the largest and most important military campaigns of the nine-year-old war. One of the main U.S. goals in Kandahar is to reduce the influence of local power brokers, widely seen as corrupt, and to give tribal alliances a stake in how the province is governed and how development contracts are parceled out...

More at The Washington Post.

COIN Confusion - Michael Innes, Foreign Policy.

The ongoing discussion of the attempted Times Square bombing in New York has been unsurprisingly colorful. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg invoked the old saying that terrorists only need to be lucky once, while their opponents need to be lucky every time -- and this time, we were "very lucky." The New Republic's Jonathan Chait and former NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism Michael Sheehan noted the incompetence of most plotters: Chait with the memorable assertion "terrorists are basically dolts," Sheehan suggesting that "lone wolves" are generally "as incompetent as they are disturbed."

Luck and incompetence are interesting concepts, especially hard on the heels of al Qaeda's failed underpants bomber, but they're hardly substitutes for good counterterrorism planning. Indeed, for Sheehan, chance favors the prepared. He lauded the NYPD for its counterterrorism acumen: "No other city even attempts to do what New York has accomplished," he wrote, conceding that "money and political risk" limit how far most cities can go when it comes to preventing what, at the end of the day, is a marginal phenomenon. But there are some obvious limits to the logic of Sheehan's point, and as the investigation into the attack deepens and more of Faisal Shahzad's suspected terrorist associates are rounded up inside and outside the United States, things start to get murky.

Case in point: the debate, early in Gen. Stanley McChrystal's tour as top commander in Afghanistan, over whether violence in Afghanistan is best addressed using counterterrorism (CT) or counterinsurgency (COIN) methods. Last fall, when the Obama White House was trying to decide how best to proceed in the region, pundits and policymakers alike were positively animated over the two and how they might be combined to mitigate the twinned challenges of al Qaeda and Afghanistan. Vice President Joe Biden pushed for a "counterterrorism plus" option, and Obama "dithered," finally settling on a compromise plan, the principal rationale of which was to neutralize al Qaeda. Michael J. Boyle, a lecturer in international relations at the University of St. Andrews, provides a highly readable account of the deliberations in a recent issue of the journal International Affairs. The title says it all: "Do Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency Go Together?" ...

Much more at Foreign Policy.

The Evolving Situation in Afghanistan and Some Brass Tacks - Shrinivasrao S. Sohoni, Hardnews.

Intriguingly, the international community is not addressing itself to the core issues that are responsible for the situation in Afghanistan.

"How is the situation there?" is a question one is not infrequently asked about Afghanistan from outside. The situation being grim, the answer, "Quite serious" often works to close out talk on the subject. But sometimes, depending on the locus standii of the questioner, there are further queries, and then, time and mood being suitable, a discussion could ensue -- involving geopolitics, regional and super power aims and policies, international narcotics trade, Afghan domestic politics, Islam, more so: radical militant Islam, NATO military strategy, tactics and operations, and Taliban guerilla warfare and propaganda, et al.

The fact of the matter is: things are really quite serious, and getting worse each day - as seen from the viewpoint of someone interested in peace in Afghanistan, - not the icy peace of a morgue or a 'peace' enforced by the edge of the sword, but a meaningful peace engendering progress and human happiness.

Almost nine years since October 2001 when it expelled from Afghanistan the Taliban regime of Mullah Omer, the US, leading a 43 nation coalition, appears unable to suppress Al Qaeda or the Pakistan-based armed insurgency - funded by Saudis and the narcotics trade. Even as insurgency now actually has grown and menaces all of Afghanistan, more than ever, and is making inroads also into Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirghizstan, public opinion in the countries forming the coalition is turning increasingly averse to continued military involvement in Afghanistan...

Much more at Hardnews.

The U.S.-Afghan Partnership - Hamid Karzai, Washington Post opinion.

Nearly nine years ago, terrorists killed thousands of civilians and destroyed iconic symbols of American prosperity and progress. Before that, the same terrorists had taken Afghanistan hostage and had killed and tortured our people for years. These terrible conditions brought our two nations together in a partnership. As in any genuine partnership, this has not been an easy ride. We have had our share of disagreements over some issues and approaches. What has kept us together is an overriding strategic vision of an Afghanistan whose peace and stability can guarantee the safety of the Afghan and the American peoples.

The many sacrifices of both Afghans and Americans have led to tremendous achievements. We are grateful for America's contributions and will always remember your resolve in standing by us. Now and during my visit to Washington this week, I hope to convey my deepest condolences to families of those who lost their lives in Afghanistan.

When I began my second term as president, I put forth a vision for our nation of Afghan leadership, sovereignty and full ownership of providing security, governance, justice, education, health and economic opportunity. That is a vision I know that President Obama shares...

More at The Washington Post.

Reasons to be Anxious About Afghanistan - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion.

The Obama administration's strategy for Afghanistan is to gradually transfer responsibility to the Afghans, starting in July 2011. But on the eve of President Hamid Karzai's visit to Washington, there's little evidence so far to demonstrate that this transfer process will actually work.

The much-touted offensive in Marja in Helmand province in February succeeded in clearing that rural area temporarily of Taliban insurgents, at least by day. But plans for the Afghans to provide more security and better governance there are off to a shaky start, officials at the State Department and Pentagon say.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal's boast in February that "We've got a government in a box, ready to roll in" to Marja now sounds wildly over-optimistic. A senior military official concedes that this phrase "created an expectation of rapidity and efficiency that doesn't exist now."

The official Pentagon line, after a White House review Thursday, is that there's "slow but steady progress" in Afghanistan. But the senior military official cautions that 90 days after the offensive, "Marja is a mixed bag," with parts of the area still controlled by the Taliban and Afghan government performance spotty. A top State Department official agrees: "Transfer is not happening" in Marja...

More at The Washington Post.

The Military Tries Nation-building in Afghanistan - George Will, Washington Post opinion.

When asked whether nationalism is putting down roots in Afghanistan's tribalized society, Gen. David Petraeus is judicious: "I don't know that I could say that." He adds, however, that "we do polling" on that subject. When his questioner expresses skepticism about the feasibility of psephology - measuring opinion - concerning an abstraction such as nationalism in a chaotic, secretive and suspicious semi-nation, Petraeus, his pride aroused, protests: "I took research methodology" at Princeton. There he acquired a PhD in just two years: His voracious appetite for knowing things is the leitmotif of his career.

Petraeus thinks he knows that President Hamid Karzai is widely viewed as "the father of the new Afghanistan." Although there was widespread fraud in the election last August that extended Karzai's presidency by five years, Petraeus says "ordinary people are not seized with anxiety about electoral corruption." Besides, "there is a democratic culture in these tribal councils," which are "like caucuses, if you will."

Perhaps, but the limitations of this culture are evident in Petraeus's belief that part of the Taliban's appeal, where it has had appeal, has been its ability to offer "dispute resolution" that is sometimes harsh but at least is rapid. And, Petraeus adds, with an inconvenient candor, the Taliban are sometimes "less predatory" than the Afghan security forces. Although strengthening the central government is a U.S. goal, that government's corruption and brutality might make the localities less than eager for it to be strengthened...

More at The Washington Post.

Gates: Cuts in Pentagon Bureaucracy Needed - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates vowed Saturday to lead an effort to cut as much as $15 billion in overhead costs from the Pentagon's $550 billion budget and warned that without the savings, the military will not be able to afford its current force.

Under Gates's plan, the billions taken from the Pentagon's vast administrative bureaucracy would be used to pay for weapons modernization programs and the overall fighting force in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gates also hinted that additional cuts to major weapons programs would probably be necessary in the coming years.

The Pentagon's budget has almost doubled over the past decade, but the faltering national economy and surging U.S. debt will impose new austerity on the military, Gates warned...

More at The Washington Post.

Report on Counterinsurgency Capabilities

Within the Afghan National Army

Afghan National Army Lessons Learned Center

This report includes input from members of a Collection and Analysis Team (CAAT) from the Afghan National Army Lessons Learned Center and the US Center for Army Lessons Learned.

22 February 2010

This report brings together two very important military capabilities: Counterinsurgency Operations, and Lessons Learned. Counterinsurgency operations are how we fight. The Lessons Learned process allows us to change how we fight by showing the Amy what works, and what doesn't work on the battlefield. The battlefield we fight on today is our own backyard. We are fighting an enemy who has the nerve to bring the fight to the streets, villages, and cities of Afghanistan. We must be able to call upon our countrymen to support our security forces as we fight for the protection of our country.

One of the main tenants of counterinsurgency operations is the cooperation of the people. The people are our countrymen. They are our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. If we lose them as allies, we have truly lost.

MG Salem

General Director

Doctrine & Concepts Directorate

Afghan National Army Training Command

Read the entire report here.

Is President Obama's Afghanistan Strategy Working? - Washington Post opinions.

With Afghan President Hamid Karzai visiting Washington this week, The Post asked experts whether the surge in Afghanistan was working. Below are contributions from Erin M. Simpson, Gilles Dorronsoro, Kurt Volker, John Nagl, Thomas H. Johnson and Andrew J. Bacevich.

Simpson: Any discussion of the effectiveness of the surge must begin with two observations. First, counterinsurgency is an exercise in competitive governance, meaning the troops "surged" to Afghanistan are only part of a very complex equation. Second, less than half the troops that President Obama authorized in December have arrived here. It's far too early to tell whether the so-called surge has "worked." ...

Dorronsoro: The surge in Afghanistan is not working. The only place where the counterinsurgency strategy has been tried so far is in Marja, where its results have been disastrous. The Taliban is still there, and the population neither supports the local government nor collaborates with U.S. forces. The Taliban has enough spies to kill people suspected of aiding the Americans, while the local Afghan government has no political capital...

Volker: ... Reversing the Taliban's military momentum: on track. Fighting smarter, to engage the local population: making progress, thanks to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's counterinsurgency approach. Pressuring the Taliban inside Pakistan: surprisingly successful. Training more and better Afghan security forces, so they can lead: lagging. Strengthening civilian efforts, including governance, anti-corruption policies and the economy: real problems here, especially in the relationship with President Hamid Karzai. Hopefully his visit will get us all on the same page. Implementing a regional political and economic strategy to help make Afghanistan sustainable: still on the drawing board. Our biggest liability is that regional actors and NATO allies believe we will pull out beginning in July 2011...

Nagl: The counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan that President Obama committed to twice over the course of 2009 is beginning to take hold. This strategy, like the one adopted in Iraq in 2007, is much more than an additional commitment of troops and civilian experts; it focuses on protecting the local population in order to provide a secure space within which political solutions to the underlying problems driving the insurgency can develop...

Johnson: A peaceful, stable and secure Afghanistan will never be realized merely through the provision of more U.S. combat troops. In reality the "surge" has had no impact on reversing a series of serious past American and Afghan political and military policy failures. Our experience in Vietnam is worth remembering: The United States and its allies had more than 2.2 million security forces, including 535,000 Americans, and lost in an operational area smaller than Afghan's Regional Command South. Merely to have the same troops-per-square-mile density we had in Vietnam, we would need 8.8 million security troops in Afghanistan...

Bacevich: In making Afghanistan the centerpiece of its retooled war on terrorism, the Obama administration overlooked this fact: The global jihadist threat has no center. "Winning" in Afghanistan, however defined, will neither eliminate nor even reduce that threat. What's more, past Western military forays into the Islamic world served chiefly to exacerbate violent jihadism. This pattern persists today. For evidence, look no further than neighboring Pakistan...

Read it all at The Washington Post.

Gates Notes Convergence of Conventional, Irregular War - Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service.

As the Army moves forward, differences between conventional and irregular warfare are becoming less important, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told students and faculty at the Army Command and General Staff College here today.

"To some extent, much of the debate between low-end and high-end [warfare] misses the point," Gates said. "The black-and-white distinction between conventional war and irregular war is becoming less relevant in the real world." ...

The U.S. military has overwhelming conventional military dominance over any potential adversary in the world, but experience has shown that isn't enough, given the threats America faces, Gates said...

"Possessing the ability to annihilate other militaries is no guarantee we can achieve our strategic goals -- a point driven home especially in Iraq," he said. "The future will be even more complex, where conflict most likely will range across a broad spectrum of operations and lethality -- where even near-peer competitors will use irregular or asymmetric tactics, and nonstate actors may have weapons of mass destruction or sophisticated missiles."

The Army is working to institutionalize the lessons learned from counterinsurgency operations, Gates said, but the students and faculty at the staff college also must be at the forefront of thinking ahead to future conflicts that will traverse that broad spectrum of operations.

"You must develop the analysis, doctrine, strategy and tactics needed for success in 21st century conflicts that are likely to be very different from 20th century conflicts -- and different from conflicts we are in now," he said. "You must continue to be the visionaries, the pathfinders, the intellectual cutting edge of the Army."

The Army must modernize equipment for future conflicts and identify technologies that will continue U.S. military dominance, the secretary said. "Advances in precision, sensor information and satellite technologies have led to extraordinary gains that will continue to give the U.S. military an edge over its adversaries," he told the students and faculty. "But no one should ever neglect the psychological, cultural, political, and human dimensions of war or succumb to the techno-optimism that has muddled strategic thinking in the past." This is especially true for the Army and Marine Corps, which will lead -- and bear the brunt of -- irregular and hybrid campaigns in the future, he said...

More at American Forces Press Service.

Casey Says Army Needs Counterinsurgency Capabilities - Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service.

Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said it is unfair that the press has portrayed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates as having to pressure the Army and its leaders to adopt counterinsurgency as a necessary capability.

"I spent 32 months in Iraq," Casey said here yesterday during a Defense Writers' Group breakfast. "I get it."

The chief said that when he served as commander of the 1st Armored Division in 1999 to 2001, he thought that if a division could handle conventional war it could handle anything below it on the scale of conflict.

"After 32 months in Iraq, I don't believe that anymore," the Army Chief of Staff said. Casey said he now believes the Army has to posture itself and train to operate across the spectrum.

In 2008, he said, the Army came out with a new full-spectrum doctrine that said Army formations will simultaneously "apply offense, defense and stability operations to seize the initiative and achieve the desired results."

"It is not an easy intellectual shift to move away from the idea that the Army is supposed to fight other armies," Casey said. "It takes a decade to fully ingrain a doctrine in an organization the size of the Army."

But, no one in the Army appears to be arguing with the need. "I don't find there are a lot of dinosaurs out there that say, 'We gotta go defeat the 8th Guards Tank Army [a major unit of the Red Army during the Soviet years],'" Casey said. "Most of the four-star generals in the Army have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. We understand it."

Still, some critics say the Army is concentrating too much on counterinsurgency doctrine and is not paying attention to conventional warfare. Casey said that this is because the time between deployments for soldiers is still too short.

If soldiers get two years between deployments, they will get the chance to train for all aspects of conflict. Right now, it is important that they train for the missions that confront them now.

In the future, the scenarios will be even more different...

More at American Forces Press Service.

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

Topics include:

1) Gates lectures the Navy. Next, he should lecture himself.

2) There is no Gulf of Tonkin in Korea.

Gates lectures the Navy. Next, he should lecture himself.

On May 3, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a stern message to Navy: The branch should not count on a taxpayer bailout to fix its shipbuilding problems. Virtually every recent shipbuilding program has been plagued with mismanagement and alarming cost overruns, resulting in a shrinking fleet and longer and more stressful deployments. Gates's advice to a gathering of naval officers and contractors was that they should break with the traditional and instead entertain some "outside the box" thinking. He assured his audience that there would be no increases in the Navy's procurement budget.

Gates's grim fiscal message for Navy planners comes at what might be an important inflection point in global naval power. There is no question, as Gates noted in his speech, that the U.S. Navy possesses overwhelming superiority. But the trends are not so friendly. While U.S. naval contractors struggle to put new affordable hulls in the water, China's fleet continues to rapidly expand. In recent testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Robert Willard, commander of Pacific Command, made note of China's preparations for "area denial," a strategy that concentrates anti-ship firepower to deny an adversary's access to a specific part of the ocean. According to Willard, China now has the world's largest conventionally powered attack submarine fleet, continues its testing of long-range, anti-ship, cruise and ballistic missiles, and will launch its first aircraft carrier in two years. During a recent visit to China, two Obama administration officials were told by their Chinese hosts that China would not tolerate any interference in the South China Sea.

In his speech, Gates denounced the Navy's response to the adverse trends Willard described. According to the secretary, the Navy's unimaginative answer is to replace its old warships with newer, more complex, and grossly expensive versions from the same family tree. As the costs of the new ships have exploded, the Navy has been unable to afford one-for-one replacements. The result has been a shrinking Navy and greater stress on the remaining ships and sailors.

Gates called for innovations in the Navy's thinking and design that would bypass the area denial strategy. The first of his suggestions was to greatly increase the Navy's striking range. For example, operating long-range unmanned strike aircraft from aircraft carriers would safely pull the valuable flat tops away of the most dangerous contested waters, negating an adversary's area denial plans. Gates also lauded the new "air-sea battle" concept -- an effort by Navy and Air Force planners to integrate their forces to achieve operating synergy. Such an approach could also provide another technique for bypassing an adversary's area denial strategy.

What is ironic is that Gates himself has stood in the way of his own solutions.

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