Blog Posts

Visit It's the Tribes, Stupid.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

Topics include:

1) Will protecting part of Afghanistan's population mean losing the rest?

2) Hezbollah captures the Pentagon's war-planning process.

Much more at DoD Buzz.

As the Army's senior leader on suicide prevention, I would like to add a few comments regarding Robert Haddick's Small Wars Journal post Army's 'suicide watch' report is spineless (SWJ 16 June 2009).

I am glad that we agree on certain points. Congress and the Army should aggressively implement and fund suicide prevention programs. Commanders at all levels must give sincere attention to the issue. We need to prioritize improvements to the welfare of Soldiers and their Families. Attention to suicide, its causes and prevention, are part of force preservation. All of these points appear in the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention (ACPHP), which the Army published on April 16, 2009.

The Army's collection and dissemination of suicide data is intended to be helpful in not only understanding the issue, but also in keeping awareness of the issue at the forefront of our leaders' minds. It is in no way disrespectful or depersonalizing to Soldiers. It is meant to save lives. You may not realize that senior Army leadership receives a briefing, in painful detail, about every Army suicide so that we can learn lessons on what might be done to prevent future suicides. Those briefings occur on a monthly basis, and I attend every one of them. Let me assure you, each suicide represents an anguishing, heartbreaking tragedy. The details of those briefings include personal information about the deceased Soldier that is subject to privacy laws and considerations for next of kin, and so are not released to the public. But they absolutely reinforce the necessity of being transparent in our discussions about suicide and learning from the cases in order to prevent further suicides.

Also, gauging the scope and nature of the suicide problem absolutely requires data collection, including counting the number of suicides. In October, the Army entered into a memorandum of understanding with the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct a longitudinal study to ascertain the factors involved in suicide and to identify effective suicide intervention techniques. Any statistical or epidemiological analysis to assess causation and remedies involves data collection.

I should also mention that the number of suicides is public information that the Army provides to Congress on a monthly basis. Simultaneous press briefings on the subject foster transparency in the Army's approach to the suicide problem and relay lessons learned that may actually help society as it wrestles with the same problem.

The statistical summary never purported to be more than just that -- a summary. We have frequently cited the Army's suicide rate as you suggested and compared it to the like civilian population. The Army's rate for 2008 was 20 per 100,000; however, the latest suicide rate for the demographically adjusted civilian population from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) - 19 per 100,000 - dates from 2006, as their statistics lag by two years. It marked the first time the Army's rate was above the CDC rate. After 2006, no comparison data is yet available from the CDC. It may be that the civilian suicide rate also spiked from 2007 to date. In any case, however one measures the rate, it is unacceptable, and we are committed to bringing it down.

I appreciate your interest about the suicides within the Army, and hope that these comments help address your concerns.

General Peter W. Chiarelli is the Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.

Although U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's keynote address touched on piracy and Afghanistan and included a plea to support Iraq, his remarks left little doubt about the U.S. government's goal for this forum. The U.S. is preparing a containment strategy against Iran and it needs to organize the front line of that containment cordon. The Gulf states will obviously be that front line.

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age

By Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker

My copy just arrived and from a quick scan through the United States (Small Wars Journal discussed here as an example of a public community of practice and our new media discussion several months ago is cited) and United Kingdom chapters - looks very informative and interesting - I will have a detailed review later.

Book Description

The rise of insurgencies and the rise of the Web are two grassroots trends that are operating in tandem to put modern armies under huge pressure to adapt new forms of counterinsurgency to new forms of social war.

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age argues that two intimately connected trends are putting modern armies under huge pressure to adapt: the rise of insurgencies and the rise of the Web. Both in cyberspace and in warfare, the grassroots public has assumed increasing importance in recent years. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Web 2.0 rose from the ashes. This newly interactive and participatory form of the Web promotes and enables offline action. Similarly, after Rumsfeld's attempt to transform the US military into a lean, lethal, computerized force crashed in Iraq in 2003, counterinsurgency rose from the ashes. Counterinsurgency is a social form of war—indeed, the U.S. Army calls it armed social work—in which the local matrix population becomes the center of strategic gravity and public opinion at home the critical vulnerability.

War 2.0 traces the contrasting ways in which insurgents and counterinsurgents have adapted the new media platforms to the new forms of irregular conflict. It examines the public affairs policies of the U.S. land forces, the British Army, and the Israeli Defense Force. Then it compares the media-based counterinsurgency methods of these conventional armies to the more successful methods devised by their asymmetric adversaries, showing how such organizations as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hezbollah use the Web not merely to advertise their political agenda and influence public opinion, but to mobilize insurrections and put insurgent operations into action. But the same technology that tends to level the operational playing field in irregular warfare also incurs a heavy cost in terms of the popularity of insurgencies.

Authors

Thomas Rid is a Research Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations in the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He was a Research Fellow at the RAND Corporation, the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. He organized a conference of the leading exponents of counterinsurgency doctrine from the U.S. Army, the British Army, the Armee de Terre, and the Bundeswehr and directed the foreign policy program of the American Academy in Berlin. He is the author of War and Media Operations and co-editor of Understanding Counterinsurgency Warfare. His articles appear regularly in such periodicals as Policy Review, Military Review, Die Zeit, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, and Merkur.

Marc Hecker is a Research Fellow at the Security Studies Center of the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales in Paris. He is the author or co-editor of a presse francaise et la premiere guerre du Golfe, La defense des interets de l'Etat d'Israel en France, and Une vie d'Afghanistan. He is an editor of Politique Etrangere. His articles appear in such periodicals as Politique Etrangere, Le Figaro, Liberation, Etudes, and Ramses.

More at The New York Times.

Much more at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Much more at The American Conservative.

Also, in the latest issue of Joint Force Quarterly, John Nagl and Gian Gentile continue the COIN debate with letters to the editor.

The Wall Street Journal sent an intrepid reporter to a beach on Kauai to get some thoughts from the locals about the prospect of ICBM bombardment.

President Obama and his national security staff will have to ponder more than just their defensive preparations. Should North Korea make even a failed attempt to strike a Hawaiian island, what practical and political pressures will the President face to retaliate against North Korea?

Also at Foreign Policy, an exclusive interview with Mir Hossein Mousavi's external spokesman describing this week's protests in Iran as another revolution - and Mousavi as Iran's Obama.

But wait, there's more at FP, Blake Hounshell describes war on the streets of Tehran, Daniel Drezner thinks it's pretty clear that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is not going to retrench, Evgeny Morozov discusses the repercussions of a Twitter revolution, Stephen Walt says we shouldn't succumb to the illusion that Ahmadinejad's defeat and Mousavi's triumph would produce a dramatic shift in Iran's foreign policy, and Laura Rozen provides Iran news links.

And in the not at FP category - The New York Time's The Lede blog has "blow by blow" coverage with extensive links to the situation in Iran to include Twitter, Facebook, etc...

Of course, these links are by no means an exhaustive listing of the mainstream and new media reports streaming out of and about Iran - please post your top sources in comments below - thanks much!

The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars

By David H. Ucko

SWJ friend and colleague David Ucko's latest contribution to our community of interest -- to be released in August -- you can pre-order a copy at Amazon. Considering David's previous work -- this should be very good and quite an informative read.

Book Description

Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has recognized the need to "re-learn" counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures?

In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality. Ucko also suggests how the military can better prepare for the unique challenges of modern warfare, where it is charged with everything from providing security to supporting reconstruction to establishing basic governance--all while stabilizing conquered territory and engaging with local populations. After briefly surveying the history of American counterinsurgency operations, Ucko focuses on measures the military has taken since 2001 to relearn old lessons about counterinsurgency, to improve its ability to conduct stability operations, to change the institutional bias against counterinsurgency, and to account for successes gained from the learning process.

Given the effectiveness of insurgent tactics, the frequency of operations aimed at building local capacity, and the danger of ungoverned spaces acting as havens for hostile groups, the military must acquire new skills to confront irregular threats in future wars. Ucko clearly shows that the opportunity to come to grips with counterinsurgency is matched in magnitude only by the cost of failing to do so.

About the Author

David Ucko is a transatlantic fellow at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin, Germany and an adjunct fellow at the RAND Corporation, specializing in counterinsurgency, stability operations, and conflict analysis. He has previously worked as a research fellow at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, and as a deputy defense analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Early Reviews

This is an important book for anyone interested in the U.S. military's effort to learn from contemporary conflict and adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq. Ucko's thorough research and incisive analysis have produced one of the most valuable books on military affairs to appear in recent years.

--H. R. McMaster, Brigadier General select, U.S. Army and author of Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam

This is hot-off-the-press history, an essential look at how the Pentagon has--and has not--changed in response to the Iraq war.

--Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco and The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-08

More at The Times.

by Dr. Nadia Schadlow

I like William Easterly because he's usually right on the money. The respected economist took on the aid-industrial complex in his trenchant analysis of the persistent dysfunctions of the development community, White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. In that book, which is very much worth reading, Easterly carefully documents how decades of aid failed to produce desired outcomes because it ignored local realities, tended to apply utopian" plans, lacked approaches to measure and evaluate actual outcomes (as opposed to money spent), and ultimately, failed to impose any accountability for failure. Thus, literally billions of dollars have been wasted, with few material benefits for the individuals on the ground such aid sought to help.

Nonetheless, on his NYU post, in which Easterly takes on the Army's new Stability Operations manual (FM 3-07) for being too utopian and exemplifying a tendency toward social engineering" gone awry, I think his analysis is mistaken. Easterly is conflating the need for preparation under fire, with the desire to build a colonial Army that would go out and change the world. He argues that The danger is that, if put into practice, such delusions create excessive ambition, which creates excessive use of military force, which kills real human beings, Afghans and Iraqis."

The Army has learned the hard way that the failure to prepare for the intensely political machinations of war can cost both military and civilian lives...

Headquarters

International Security Assistance Force

Kabul Afghanistan

APO AE 09356

Commander's Initial Guidance As of: 13 June 09

To the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Civilians of ISAF,

The situation in Afghanistan is serious. The outcome is important--and not yet decided. Our actions this year will be critical. We must, and will, succeed.

Success will be defined by the Afghan people's freedom to choose their future--freedom from coercion, extremists, malign foreign influence, or abusive government actions.

The outcome will be determined by our ability to understand and act with precision, the values we display, our unity of purpose, and our resolve.

The challenges to Afghanistan are complex and interrelated. Solutions will not be simple. The ongoing insurgency must be met with a counterinsurgency campaign adapted to the unique conditions in each area

that:

- Protects the Afghan people--allowing them to choose a future they can be proud of

- Provides a secure environment allowing good government and economic development to undercut the causes and advocates of insurgency

This effort will be long and difficult--there is no single secret for success. As imperatives we must:

1. Protect and Partner with the People. We are fighting for the Afghan people--not against them. Our focus on their welfare will build the trust and support necessary for success.

2. Conduct a comprehensive Counterinsurgency Campaign. Insurgencies fail when root causes disappear. Security is essential; but I believe our ultimate success lies in partnering with the Afghan Government, partner nations, NGO's, and other to build the foundations of good government and economic development.

3. Understand the Environment. We must understand in detail the situation, however complex, and be able to explain it to others. Our ability to act effectively demands a real appreciation for the positive and negative impact of everything we do--or fail to do. Understanding is a prerequisite for success.

4. Ensure Values Underpin our Effort. We must demonstrate thru our words and actions our commitment to fair play, our respect and sensitivity for the cultures and traditions of others, and an understanding that rule of law and humanity don't end when fighting starts. Both our goals and conduct must be admired.

5. Listen Closely--Speak Clearly. We must listen to understand--and speak clearly to be understood. Communicating our intentions and accurately reflecting our actions to all audiences is a critical responsibility--and necessity.

6. Act as One Team. We are an alliance of nations with different histories, cultures, and national objectives--united in our support for Afghanistan.

We must be unified in purpose, forthright in communication, and committed to each other.

7. Constantly Adapt. This war is unique, and our ability to respond to even subtle changes in conditions will be decisive. I ask you to challenge conventional wisdom and abandon practices that are ingrained into many military cultures. And I ask you to push me to do the same.

8. Act with Courage and Resolve. Hard fighting, difficult decisions, and inevitable losses will mark the days ahead. Each of us, from our most junior personnel to our senior leaders, must display physical, mental, and moral courage. Our partners must trust our commitment; enemies must not question our resolve.

You have my thanks for all that you have done, and will do. I promise to be the best partner I am able to be.

//Original Signed//

STANLEY A. McCHRYSTAL

General, U.S. Army

Commander,

U.S. Forces-Afghanistan /

International Security Assistance

Force, Afghanistan

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

More at The New York Times.

More at The New York Times.

Topics include:

1) Is counterinsurgency a woman's job?

2) Mexico is struggling with more than just drug cartels.

I welcome your feedback in the comments and at Small Wars Council.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei Backs Disputed Election Result - The Times. Iran's Supreme Leader has appealed for calm and attacked enemies" questioning the result of the presidential vote that has sparked the biggest street protests in the Islamic Republic's history. Today the Iranian nation needs calm," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in his first address to the nation since the upheaval began. He said Iran's enemies were targeting the legitimacy of the Islamic establishment by disputing the outcome of the election. Tens of thousands of Iranians had gathered in and around Tehran University to hear the Friday prayer sermon.

As Standoff Deepens, Iran's Leader Urges Return to Faith - Nazila Fathi and Michael Slackman, New York Times. As another day of defiance and uncertainty loomed in Iran's capital, many Iranians looked to an appearance by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who led the national prayer service from Tehran University on Friday. Political analysts said they hoped that the leader would reveal his ultimate intent, indicating a willingness to either appease the opposition or demand an end to protests that followed presidential elections a week ago. He blamed media belonging to Zionists, evil media" for seeking to show divisions between those who supported the Iranian state and those who did not.

Opposition March Mourns Iranians Killed in Protests - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. A huge throng of opposition supporters, many clad in black, took to the streets of Tehran on Thursday to mourn protesters killed by a pro-government militia and back a challenge to the proclaimed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In response to a call by the leading opposition candidate in the presidential election last Friday, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the massive procession streamed toward Imam Khomeini Square largely in silence, then broke into chants against Ahmadinejad and alleged electoral fraud, witnesses said.

Shadowy Iranian Vigilantes Vow Bolder Action - Neil McFarquhar, New York Times. The daytime protests across the Islamic republic have been largely peaceful. But Iranians shudder at the violence unleashed in their cities at night, with the shadowy vigilantes known as Basijis beating, looting and sometimes gunning down protesters they tracked during the day. The vigilantes plan to take their fight into the daylight on Friday, with the public relations department of Ansar Hezbollah, the most public face of the Basij, announcing that they planned a public demonstration to expose the seditious conspiracy" being carried out by agitating hooligans."

Several Scenarios, Not All Bright, Could Result From Iran's Tumult - Gerald F. Seib, Wall Street Journal. It's nothing if not exhilarating to watch young people in Tehran's streets trying to change the nature of the Iranian regime, and to imagine that they are forcing deep and positive changes in the nation that has been America's most implacable foe for a generation. Yet it also would be a mistake to ignore this darker reality: In the short run, the turmoil there could just as easily make Iran more dangerous and harder for the West to deal with. The fact that it's possible to envision such starkly different outcomes illustrates just how remarkable the story unfolding in Iran really is, and how much it is pulling the country and the watching world off into uncharted territory.

Can Iran's Top Clerics Defuse the Crisis? - Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor. Iran's top clerical leadership is taking steps to defuse six days of crisis and violence, as Iranians challenging the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the streets again on Thursday. Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei is due to lead Friday prayers in Tehran - at which conservative factions have vowed a large turnout - and he is expected to deliver a message of unity. The powerful Guardian Council is to meet on Saturday with all three defeated candidates. The council is examining 646 opposition complaints, and has said it will consider a partial recount. But the 12 clerics on the Council have all but ruled out a full recount, never mind a re-run of the election, as demanded by defeated top contender Mir Hossein Mousavi- and the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have rallied for him on the streets this week.

Iranian Leaders to Meet With Challengers - Farnaz Fassihi and Roshanak Taghavi, Wall Street Journal. One of Iran's top oversight bodies said Thursday it will invite the country's three unsuccessful presidential challengers to a meeting to discuss the contested elections, while as many as hundreds of thousands of protesters marched mostly peacefully through the capital's streets. Many protesters wore black and carried candles in mourning for people killed in recent clashes. The move by the Guardian Council was the latest in a series of unprecedented concessions to the losers in disputed June 12 elections that, Iran state media has said, were won in a landslide by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mir Hossein Mousavi and two other presidential challengers have alleged vote rigging, a charge Mr. Ahmadinejad has denied.

Iran Leader's Top Aide Warns US on Meddling - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's top political aide said Thursday that the United States will regret its "interference" in Iran's disputed election. The aide, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, said in an interview that President Obama's comments this week about street demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities will "make things harder" if the Obama administration attempts to engage Iran in talks over nuclear and other issues.

'The Fear Is Gone' - Voices from Iran, Wall Street Journal opinion. Editor's note: The following are firsthand accounts that were solicited by Journal assistant editorial features editor Bari Weiss. Some were translated from Farsi. Surnames have been omitted to protect the writers.

This Is for Real - David Ignatius, Washington Post opinion. What's happening on the streets of Tehran is a lesson in what makes history: It isn't guns or secret police, in the end, but the willingness of hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives to protest injustice. That is what overthrew the shah of Iran in 1979, and it is now shaking the mullahs. This is politics in the raw -- unarmed people defying soldiers with guns -- and it is the stuff of which revolutions are made. Whether it will succeed in Iran is impossible to predict, but already this movement has put an overconfident regime on the ropes.

Fragile at the Core - David Brooks, New York Times opinion. Most of the time, foreign relations are kind of boring - negotiations, communiqués, soporific speeches. But then there are moments of radical discontinuity - 1789, 1917, 1989 - when the very logic of history flips. At these moments - like the one in Iran right now - change is not generated incrementally from the top. Instead, power is radically dispersed. The real action is out on the streets. The future course of events is maximally uncertain.

How Mir Hossein Mousavi Trapped the Supreme Leader - Shahram Kholdi, The Times opinion. What is clear is that the protests are showing no signs of dying out - and that they have spread beyond Tehran and the middle classes to working-class neighbourhoods that were thought to be unequivocally pro-Ahmadinejad. My elderly grandparents' nurse told me of clashes in her working-class town of Pakdasht, a suburb of Karaj. The dispute over the presidential election has pitted neighbours against each other. So how should we understand what is happening? First, Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters are not seeking regime change, but reform of the Islamic Republic. Second, the protests are also not just about the future of Iran, but a battle over the legacy of the 1979 revolution. And third, is that the protesters are not just drawn from a metropolitan elite.

'No Comment' Is Not an Option - Paul Wolfowitz, Washington Post opinion. President Obama's first response to the protests in Iran was silence, followed by a cautious, almost neutral stance designed to avoid "meddling" in Iranian affairs. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan's initially neutral response to the crisis following the Philippine election of 1986, and of George H.W. Bush's initially neutral response to the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991. Both Reagan and Bush were able to abandon their mistaken neutrality in time to make a difference. It's not too late for Obama to do the same.

More at The Washington Post.

In Afghanistan, Halting Civilian Deaths in Strikes is a Tough Mission - David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times.

More at The Los Angeles Times.

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by Dr. David Kilcullen.

I'd like to share with the Small Wars Journal community my review of Dr. David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - recently published in the RUSI Journal.

This author has previously argued that David Kilcullen has done greater wartime service to the United States than any foreign adviser since Polish Colonel Thaddeus Kosciusko helped the fledgling Colonial Army defeat an occupying power that shall remain nameless here. As a friend of Kilcullen and president of the centre where he is a senior fellow, my objectivity on this matter may fairly be called suspect. Nevertheless, that caveat made clear, The Accidental Guerrilla offers incredibly valuable insights on the small wars that scar the face of the planet today and present such difficult challenges to the foreign policy and military establishments of the Western world. If it is read as widely as it deserves to be, this book may be the most important service Kilcullen has yet rendered to his adopted country, and to the world.

The full review can be found here.