Blog Posts

Why We Should Get Rid of West Point - Tom Ricks, Washington Post opinion

Want to trim the federal budget and improve the military at the same time? Shut down West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy, and use some of the savings to expand ROTC scholarships.

After covering the U.S. military for nearly two decades, I've concluded that graduates of the service academies don't stand out compared to other officers. Yet producing them is more than twice as expensive as taking in graduates of civilian schools ($300,000 per West Point product vs. $130,000 for ROTC student). On top of the economic advantage, I've been told by some commanders that they prefer officers who come out of ROTC programs, because they tend to be better educated and less cynical about the military...

More at The Washington Post.

Pentagon Jams Web, Radio Links of Taliban - Yochi Dreazen and Siobhan Gorman, Wall Street Journal

The Obama administration is starting a broad effort in Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from using radio stations and Web sites to intimidate civilians and plan attacks, according to senior US officials.

As part of the classified effort, American military and intelligence personnel are working to jam the unlicensed radio stations in Pakistan's lawless regions on the Afghanistan border that Taliban fighters use to broadcast threats and decrees.

US personnel are also trying to block the Pakistani chat rooms and Web sites that are part of the country's burgeoning extremist underground. The Web sites frequently contain videos of attacks and inflammatory religious material that attempts to justify acts of violence.

The push takes the administration deeper into "psychological operations," which attempt to influence how people see the US, its allies and its enemies. Officials involved with the new program argue that psychological operations are a necessary part of reversing the deterioration of stability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Five part National Review video interview with General Jack Keane:

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 1 of 5 - Retired Gen. Jack Keane outlines the origins of the surge in Iraq — the successful military strategy he helped design.

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 2 of 5 - Jack Keane describes why changing the U.S. war strategy in Iraq was such a difficult process.

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 3 of 5 - Jack Keane says President Obama's plan to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq is a good one. And was the war in Iraq worth it? Keane says, "Absolutely, yes."

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 4 of 5 - Can the U.S. military win in Afghanistan, just as it is winning in Iraq? Jack Keane is optimistic - strategy depending.

At War with Gen. Jack Keane: Chapter 5 of 5 - Jack Keane discusses the multiple challenges facing the U.S. military, the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, and more.

SWJ's 13th weekly contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick - is now posted. Topics include fighting terrorism with psychotherapy and who should pay for Somalia's pirates?

Guess which countries are in deep trouble or bordering on the same? Matthew Bandyk at US News & World Report highlights the countries most in danger from the global recession. Countires in deep trouble include Mexico, Pakistan, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Argentina. Countries to keep an eye on include Latvia, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Belarus.

Read Greg Burno and Robert McMahon's interview with General Abdul Rahim Wardak, Minister of Defense of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan at the Council on Foreign Relations. Wardak is "unhappy with the Obama plan".

In northern Iraq Kurds and Arabs are maneuvering ahead of United Nations reports that are expected to propose joint administration of Kirkuk and make a case for the annexation of some districts to the Kurdistan Regional Government. Ernesto Londoí±o at The Washington Post has more.

Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shar at the New York Times are reporting that the Taliban are exploiting class rifts in Pakistan.

Just a taste - add your Friday odds and ends - or an odd or an end in comments below - thanks...

The April issue of the CTC Sentinel is now posted -- The Sentinel is the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point's public face and -- as many are now saying - an essential read. April's edition includes:

Defining the Punjabi Taliban Network by Hassan Abbas

The 2008 Belgium Cell and FATA's Terrorist Pipeline by Paul Cruickshank

President Obama's Overseas Terrorism Challenge by Tom Sanderson

Improving India's Counterterrorism Policy after Mumbai by Paul Staniland

Leveraging History in AQIM Communications by Lianne Kennedy Boudali

AQAP a Rising Threat in Yemen by Brian O'Neill

Role of the UN in Defeating AQ and Associated Groups by Richard Barrett

Recent Highlights in Terrorist Activity

Here's what Tom Ricks at Foreign Policy's Best Defense has to say about the CTC Sentinel:

Overall, I am struck by how quickly the Sentinel has become one of my essential reads. I think this is partly a reflection of the electronic age-they can pull together an issue and publish it almost instantly, with the electrons racing around the globe. It reminds me a bit of Andrew Exum's Abu Muquwama and The Small Wars Journal, which went from start-ups to essentially daily reads almost overnight. It also represents a form of disintermediation, which may be one reason that newspapers are becoming less important. That is, if the experts can publish their own newsletter and make it broadly available, why wait for generalist reporters to re-hash it?

Today at Inside the Pentagon (subscription required) - Iregular Warfare Term Stirs Debate as DoD Prepares for QDR by Christopher J. Castelli. Here are several excepts:

-- A QDR issue paper developed late last month at U.S. Southern Command argues that security cooperation efforts and so-called phase zero missions aimed at preventing conflict should not be described as irregular warfare (IW) because key "interagency and multinational partners" shun the term.

-- Gates has embraced the term "hybrid warfare," which includes low-end and high-end asymmetric attacks.

-- A service official tracking the issue said there is "a very good chance" that a broader continuum spanning security cooperation, contested stability operations, irregular warfare, hybrid warfare and major conventional operations will displace the overly simplistic, bipolar framework that has been in vogue.

-- As ITP reported last month, one of five Pentagon issue teams that will play a key role in the QDR will focus on irregular warfare. InsideDefense.com reported this week that the IW capabilities team will include Garry Reid from the DOD policy shop, Timothy Bright from the program analysis and evaluation shop and Maj. Gen. Bill Troy from the Joint Staff. Cmdr. Jerry Hendrix will be the group's executive secretary.

-- The term "irregular warfare" has been criticized for some time. In a 2007 monograph titled "The Rise of Hybrid Wars," Frank Hoffman wrote, "What we ironically and perhaps erroneously call 'irregular' warfare will become normal, but with greater velocity and lethality than ever before." Foes will eschew rules and use unexpected, ruthless modes of attack, predicted Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. In his recent Foreign Affairs essay, Gates cited Hoffman's contention that hyrbid warfare merges "the lethality of state conflict with the fanatical and protracted fervor of irregular warfare."

The Department of Homeland Security recently disseminated two FOUO reports - Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (7 April 09) and Leftwing Extremists Likely to Increase Use of Cyber Attacks over the Coming Decade (26 January 09) - that are now in the public domain. These two reports - which say absolutely nothing helpful to those on the frontlines of defending our nation - will most certainly stoke partisan bickering.

David Rehbein, National Commander of the American Legion, expressed his concern over such analytical mush as this nugget from the "right-wing" report...

The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.

... in a 13 April letter to Secretary Janet Napolitano at the DHS:

... The best that I can say about your recent report is that it is incomplete. The report states, without any statistical evidence, "The possible passage of new restrictions on firearms and the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."

The American Legion is well aware and horrified at the pain inflicted during the Oklahoma City bombing, but Timothy McVeigh was only one of more than 42 million veterans who have worn this nation's uniform during wartime. To continue to use McVeigh as an example of the stereotypical "disgruntled military veteran" is as unfair as using Osama bin Laden as the sole example of Islam...

The cited DHS report is almost as sad as this Penn State 'instructional video' entitled The 'Worrisome' Veteran.

Penn State University's Office of Student Affairs, in partnership with President Graham Spanier, produced this vignette on "worrisome student behaviors" featuring a stereotypical "aggressive" veteran who threatens his professors.

Update:

US Officials: Recession Could Fuel Right-Wing Extremism - Voice of America

Homeland Security Warns of Rise in Right-Wing Extremism - FOX News

US Officials Warn of Radical Activity - United Press International

Federal Agency Warns of Radicals on Right - Washington Times

Right-wing Extremists Seen as a Threat - Los Angeles Times

Napolitano Defends Report on Extremism - Washington Post

Napolitano Says 'Risks' Monitored, Not Ideology - Reid Wilson, The HIll

Napolitano Defends DHS Report - Politico

Six Things You Should Know About the Homeland Security Report on 'Rightwing Extremism' - Judge Andrew Napolitano, FOX News

Homeland Security Report Characterizing Veterans as Potential Terrorists is "Offensive and Unacceptable" - Congressman John Boehner

Legion Objects to Vets as Terror Risk - Washington Times

Homeland Insecurity - San Francisco Chronicle

Top Dem 'Dumbfounded' by 'Extremism' Report - Washington Times

Republicans Criticize Report on Right-wing Groups - Associated Press

The New McCarthyism: DHS Reports on Right-Wing Extremism - US News & World Report

DHS Report on Right-Wing Extremists Is No Attack on Tea Party Conservatives - US News & World Report

You Might Be A Right-Wing Extremist If... QandO

Charlie Rose Show - A conversation about Somali piracy with Andrew Exum of the Center for New American Security and Robert Kaplan, Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security.

US Takes Afghan Strategy to Villages - Michael Phillips, Wall Street Journal

The deepening US involvement in the Afghan war is forcing villagers to answer a dangerous question: Whose side are you on?

The Afghan government and US military have kicked off an ambitious project to build local opposition to the Taliban, reminiscent of a successful American effort to win over Sunnis in Iraq's once-turbulent Anbar province. For the elders of the village of Zayawalat, a safe haven for insurgents conducting attacks into Kabul, it's time to make the call on whether to join. So far, they have balked...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

In Recruiting an Afghan Militia, US Faces a Test - Dexter Filkins, New York Times

The ambitious American plan to arm local militias in villages across the country was coming down to a single moment.

The American officers sat on one side of a long wooden table; a group of Afghan elders on the other. The pilot program was up and running, but the area's big enclave of Pashtuns -- the ethnic group most closely identified with the Taliban -- had not sent any volunteers. The Pashtuns were worried about Taliban reprisals...

The meeting in Maidan Shahr, Wardak Province's capital, tucked into the mountains about 30 miles southwest of Kabul, concerned one of the most unorthodox projects the Americans have undertaken here since the war began in 2001: to arm, with minimal training, groups of Afghan men to guard their own neighborhoods...

More at The New York Times.

A Nuclear Talibanistan? - Tony Blankley, Washington Times / Real Clear Politics opinion

Our view of Pakistan's role in the war in Afghanistan has undergone an ominous but necessary series of shifts. At the outset of the war, in October 2001, Pakistan correctly was seen as a necessary ally -- both politically and geographically...

Over the years, we came to understand that Pakistan's intelligence service was playing a double game -- helping us but also supporting the Taliban -- while Pakistan's northern area became a safe haven for both the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Thus, Pakistan came to be seen as part of the problem that the Obama administration reasonably has taken to calling the "AfPak" war. Gen. David Petraeus recently told a Senate committee that he sees Pakistan and Afghanistan as "a single theater...

Now another perception shift is starting to take hold: The increasing instability of Pakistan's government makes Pakistan -- more than Afghanistan -- the central challenge of our "AfPak" policy...

More at Real Clear Politics.

Islamic Law Now Official for a Valley in Pakistan - Sabrina Tavernese, New York Times

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan has signed a measure that would impose Islamic law in the northwestern valley of Swat, in a move that was largely seen as a capitulation to Taliban militants.

Mr. Zardari's approval came late Monday, after Parliament voted overwhelmingly for the measure, which would allow militants to administer justice through courts whose judges have Islamic training.

The local government in Swat agreed in February to allow the militants to impose Islamic law in exchange for a cease-fire. The deal came after months of fighting, during which the Pakistani Army was unable to subdue the militants...

More at The New York Times.

US Criticizes Pakistan's Deal On Islamic Law - Associated Press / Washington Post

The Obama administration said Pakistan's imposition of Islamic law in a northwest valley to quell a Taliban insurgency undermines human rights, while a visiting US senator urged the country to "ratchet up" its urgency in the terror fight.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs's comments Tuesday were the most pointed US criticisms of Pakistan's peace efforts in the Swat Valley to date...

More at The Washington Post.

'3 Rounds, 3 Dead Bodies' - Scott Wilson, Ann Scott Tyson and Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post. Three deft sniper shots ended a drama that appeared initially as another example of a muscle-bound US military unable to adapt to today's unpredictable security threats. In the end, US Special Operations Forces easily defeated lightly armed, untrained men in a battle that US officials say will not end piracy.

Moment to Shoot Somali Pirates Had Come - Julian Barnes and Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times. Even as details about the daring rescue were still emerging, US national security officials were trying to assess whether it might lead to an escalation in violent tactics along the Somali coast, and were warning that a surge in pirate activity would be difficult to bring under control. President Obama, in his first public remarks on the rescue, pledged Monday to mount a sustained campaign against the escalating attacks on ships off Somalia.

Obama Signals More Active Response to Piracy - Peter Baker, New York Times. President Obama vowed Monday to "halt the rise of piracy" off the coast of Africa following the dramatic rescue of an American merchant captain, foreshadowing a longer and potentially more treacherous struggle ahead as he weighs a series of problematic options.

US Weighs Tough Action on Pirates - Bryan Bender, Boston Globe. A day after the dramatic rescue of an American sea captain held captive by Somali pirates, US officials said yesterday that they are considering launching attacks on the staging areas from which pirates have hijacked a rising number of international merchant vessels.

Rescue at Sea Sparks Calls for Firepower - Chip Cummins and John Miller, Wall Street Journal. Naval officials and seafaring organizations braced Monday for reprisals from Somali pirates, a day after the US Navy killed three in a high-seas hostage rescue in the Indian Ocean. But many maritime officials said they were encouraged by the military action Sunday, and are pushing governments to send more firepower to the Gulf of Aden and the waters along the east coast of Africa.

Will Pirates Join Forces with Islamist Militias in Somalia? - Scott Baldauf, Christian Science Monitor. The four-day hostage ordeal, with Somali pirates holding a US merchant ship captain in a lifeboat, ended in a hail of sniper fire Sunday and the safe return of the captain to his crew. But the twin rescues this past week by the French and American navies off Somalia are unlikely to end the problem of piracy. Quite the opposite, say analysts. The pirates, they say, are likely to increase their use of violence, and that could lead them into the arms of Somalia's small but powerful Islamist militias for protection and support.

A Solution for Somalia - Washington Post editorial. President Obama said in a statement Sunday that "we must continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, be prepared to interdict acts of piracy and ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for those crimes." Those actions are certainly necessary, and they speak for themselves. But they don't begin to address the underlying problem, which is Somalia's long-standing status as a failed state and the desperation and extremism growing among its Muslim population.

Saving Captain Phillips - Wall Street Journal editorial. The Easter Sunday rescue of cargo ship Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates is a tribute to his personal bravery and the skill and steel nerves of the US Navy. Now the Obama Administration has an obligation to punish and deter these lawless raiders so they'll never again risk taking a US-flagged ship or an American crew.

Killing Pirates - Washington Times editorial. The Navy's bold actions were in sharp contrast to the instinctive waffling of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who promised that the Obama administration was seeking "an appropriate 21st-century response" to the pirates who seized a US-flagged vessel and took its American captain hostage. Thankfully, Vice Admiral William E. Gortney, commander of US Naval Forces Central Command, gets it. He made it clear that "The United States government's policy is to not negotiate." Such a clear statement of resolve was a refreshing change from President Obama's usual "let's talk about it" approach.

The Price of Piracy - Los Angeles Times editorial. First off, it just has to be said: Nice shooting, SEALs. Simultaneously hitting and instantly killing three partly obscured pirates who were holding guns on an American hostage -- and doing it after nightfall, from the deck of a ship in choppy seas -- is a remarkable feat, making us very glad these highly trained and immensely capable naval troops are on our side. Yet, though there's ample reason to celebrate the rescue Sunday of container-ship Capt. Richard Phillips after a five-day standoff with pirates off the coast of Somalia, it comes with recognition that the aggressive US response risks escalating the piracy threat and endangering the lives of more merchant ships' crews.

Securing the Seas - Philadelphia Inquirer editorial. An ultimate solution to piracy, as outlined in a recent paper by Naval War College professor James Kraska and senior Navy lawyer Brian Wilson, requires international cooperation. The United States can't do it alone. Through the United Nations, naval efforts can be coordinated and countries can work together to track down, prosecute, and jail pirates. Until pirates fear justice, they will continue to terrorize the oceans.

Rescue Takes Fight to Somali Pirates - Miami Herald editorial. The US Navy's rescue of ship captain Richard Phillips on Sunday morning put a face and an identity to what heretofore had been brazen but obscure attacks by Somali pirates on merchant ships in the Indian Ocean. The rescue is a turning point in the long-running standoff with pirates who have made shipping channels near Somalia the most dangerous in the world. The fight is now personal, and America is ready to lead the charge.

Convoys Are an Answer to Piracy - Peter Zimmerman, Wall Street Journal opinion. Pirates, like the Nazi submarines of World War II, do not hunt for their targets; they lie across the sea lanes where ships are likely to travel and simply wait for a victim to come over the horizon. And the same tactic which defeated the U-boats can put an end to the majority of pirate attacks. Merchant ships can be ordered to form convoys for their own protection.

How to Solve the Pirate Problem - Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times opinion. Piracy is still a small problem in the scheme of things, but that makes things easier. Cannibalistic serial killers are relatively rare too. That hardly means there's a great mystery about what should be done with them. What remains to be seen is whether this problem was solved despite Obama's instincts or because of them. The SEALs solved a hostage crisis by shooting three pirates. The question is whether Obama will prevent a pirate crisis from emerging by making it easier to shoot even more pirates.

World Needs US 'Goliath' - Rich Lowry, New York Post opinion. President Obama approved negotiations with the Somali pirates holding Phillips, but authorized force should Phillips appear to be in imminent danger. When one of the pirates pointed his AK-47 at Phillips' back, snipers aboard the nearby USS Bainbridge took out the three pirates with three shots -- not a bullet wasted. Suddenly, the headline The New York Times had run about the spectacle didn't seem so apt: "Standoff With Pirates Shows US Power Has Limits."

The Audacity of Rope - Ralph Peters, New York Post opinion. Will our president behave as Clinton did with al Qaeda, simply hoping the problem will disappear? Despite the blessed rescue of Capt, Richard Phillips, the indicators aren't encouraging. It's time for real audacity, Mr. President. But this one takes rope, not hope. Pirates must hang.

Kill the Pirates - Fred Ickle, Washington Post opinion. With the rescue of American Richard Phillips from the hands of pirates yesterday, there was a blip of good news from the Indian Ocean, but it remains a scandal that Somali pirates continue to routinely defeat the world's naval powers. And worse than this ongoing demonstration of cowardice is the financing of terrorists that results from the huge ransom payments these pirates are allowed to collect.

To the Shores of Tripoli - Harlan Ullman, Washington Times opinion. What appears to have been a highly professional dispatch of three Somali thugs and the capture of a fourth was hailed as a major win for the Obama administration. For those who advocate hitting these pirates hard ashore, as the Leathernecks did in 1804, or at sea, this incident provided more evidence for strong action. However, as the US Navy noted, the rescue of brave Capt. Phillips could provoke a greater response by Somali pirates, who number in the thousands. So what should be done to take on this long-standing scourge of the high seas and coastal waters?

Millions for Tribute but not One Cent for Defense? - Information Dissemination. With the rescue of Captain Phillips many people are ready to move on to the business of killing pirates already, or at least do something. Clearly we have arrived at a moment where policy has changed, but before we start down that road, perhaps we should ask why policy has changed?

Admiral Allen on the Worlds Piracy Threat (and opinion) - USNI Blog. And short of having hired security on these vessels, this does indeed seem the norm. ADM Allen's answer was the to take the legal road if viable, which on all accounts one should agree with. However, there also needs to be more drastic measures taken to protect not only US general/cargo vessels transiting high piracy areas, but to sway those from doing this to any nations vessel. My solution? Well, I don't have one. With that being said, we could continue to flex our muscles as we did yesterday by using our Special Ops community to secure the area on a case by case basis. Oh, you didn't hear (that's what happens when living under a rock)?

Here it is, one of the best I've attended...

CNAS Book Discussion - The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen with Guest Speaker David Ignatius.

The Associated Press and others are reporting that Richard Phillips, Captain of the Maersk Alabama, was freed unharmed Sunday in a swift firefight that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa. AP cites the ship's owner and an unnamed US official.

Update: CNN reports that Captain Phillips jumped overboard from the lifeboat where he was being held (see Update 2 note below), and US Navy SEALs shot and killed three of his four captors, according to a senior US official with knowledge of the situation. The fourth pirate was aboard the USS Bainbridge negotiating with officials and was taken into custody.

Update 2: a second overboard adventure is not a part of the current final rescue story, not to be confused with his brief dip earlier in the saga. Safe home, Capt Phillips. Nice shooting, USN. Let's all stay tuned to see what kind of a game changer this becomes in GoA piracy.

The AfPak Challenge - Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer opinion

When Gen. David Petraeus testified on Capitol Hill 11 days ago about the new US policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the story was relegated to the inside pages of major papers. What a contrast to the media circus when Petraeus testified on the Iraq war.

Shell-shocked by the financial crisis, the American public hasn't focused on Obama's war, which calls for 17,000 more combat troops this year, as well as 4,000 new military trainers. Polls show the public is wary about the AfPak conflict, but opposition is more muted than to the war in Iraq. That could change should casualties increase, as is likely over the next year.

So, I sat down with Petraeus in the venerable but far-from-fancy Fairfax hotel in Washington where he was staying, to ask why Americans should support this war, and what it would take to win it...

More at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Civilians Reassert Themselves in US Foreign - Dexter Filkens, New York Times

... The reassertion by civilian leaders is being led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has promised to restore the State Department's centrality in the making of foreign policy. In the first six years of the Bush presidency, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld dominated the administration's interactions with the world, pushing aside Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Likewise, in places like the Balkans and Iraq, the military began undertaking activities once reserved for diplomats, like overseeing reconstruction and development projects. Mrs. Clinton says she not only wants to take back those former responsibilities, but to restore diplomacy's primary role in resolving crises. One of the centerpieces of that effort would be Iran, which the West fears is rapidly developing the capacity to build nuclear weapons.

She has a long way to go. According to an article in the January-February issue of Foreign Affairs by J. Anthony Holmes, there are more musicians playing in military bands than there are diplomats working around the globe. The Pentagon's budget is 24 times larger than the State Department's and Usaid combined, Mr. Holmes found. For the recent trip to the subcontinent, Mr. Holbrooke flew on a Pentagon jet...

More at The New York Times.

The War Within Islam - Jim Hoagland, Washington Post opinion

"Leave me for the moment -- you can beat me again later," a 17-year-old girl begs between sobs in a video airing on Pakistan's private television networks and circulating on the Internet. But the local Taliban commander continues to flog her without mercy as a group of village men watch in silence...

... this video reminds us of another driving force too often neglected or minimized in the analysis and commentary: the desire of Pakistani and Afghan men to be left in peace to deal with their womenfolk as they see fit. There may be no more important recruiting tool for the Taliban and other Islamic extremist organizations...

The realists are right about this: The United States and its NATO partners cannot "win" the war inside Islam. Perhaps all they can accomplish is to buy time for mainstream Islamic forces in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere to organize an effective response to the existential threat in their midst. That will be a costly, and essentially thankless, task for the United States. But it may yet be the least disastrous course to follow...

More at The Washington Post.

Talking to the Taliban - Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic

No matter how much leverage you hold over a country, it is rare that you can get it to act against its core self-interest. The United States has struggled with this dilemma for decades in regards to its relations with Israel and South Korea. Self-interest based on the facts of geography is what makes America's relations with these two close allies particularly fractious. Israel has long refused to scale back settlements in the occupied territories, frustrating U.S. efforts at peacemaking, even as American soldiers die in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conversely, South Korea has, in certain periods, extended an olive branch to the North Korean communists, frustrating U.S. efforts to erect a strong, united front against the Pyongyang regime. Now the U.S. faces the same problem with another of its ostensible allies, Pakistan.

The U.S. demands that Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), its spy agency, sever relations with the Taliban. Based on Pakistan's own geography, this makes no sense from a Pakistani point of view. First of all, maintaining lines of communications and back channels with the enemy is what intelligence agencies do. What kind of a spy service would ISI be if it had no contacts with one of the key players that will help determine its neighbor's future?

Much more at The Atlantic.

SWJ's 12th weekly contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick - is now posted. Topics include - Gates's defense budget refights a very old battle - Governing from the shadows - Is crime part of the spectrum of conflict?

The Battlefield Can Be an Unforgiving Teacher - Janet Maslin, New York Times

The Unforgiving Minute is former United States Army Capt. Craig M. Mullaney's brisk, candid memoir about his education as a soldier. He learned different lessons in different places. As a cadet at West Point he learned to be dutiful, punctilious and unerringly accurate, even about the military method of folding underwear. At Ranger School he learned how to navigate difficult physical terrain and endure grueling tests of mettle. At Oxford, as a Rhodes scholar, he had a teacher who advised: "Read and think. Simultaneously if possible." At home he thought he had learned how to make his father proud — until that father walked out and never came back.

As a reader he learned from writers as diverse as T. E. Lawrence, Rudyard Kipling (from whose poem "If" this book takes its title), Jane Austen and Thucydides. As a traveler he vacationed with buddies, partied heartily and learned that the world is very large. And as an American he was in New Zealand on Sept. 11, 2001, when someone asked if he had seen the news and said, "I'm so sorry." At that point every lesson absorbed by this soldier in training suddenly took on different meaning...

More at The New York Times.

The Good and Bad of Gates's Agenda - Max Boot, Commentary

... He proposed many initiatives that make sense. These include spending an extra $2 billion on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities including 50 new Predator-class unmanned aerial vehicles; $500 million more for helicopter operations; and $500 million for training and equipping foreign militaries to fight our mutual enemies. Other valuable increases include more Special Operations Forces, more cyberwarfare specialists, and more Littoral Combat Ships that are especially useful for operations such as hunting pirates and terrorists.

I am also amenable to some of the cuts he proposed. I have never been convinced of the need to buy both the F-22 and F-35, so I think Gates made a perfectly defensible decision to stop buying more F-22s while increasing and speeding up the acquisition of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. I am also concerned that future Navy ships are ruinously expensive and too vulnerable to low-cost missiles...

Gates described his decision to halt and restructure the Army's Future Combat System as the hardest call he had to make (he said he didn't reach a final decision until this weekend), but I believe it was the right call. The conceit behind the FCS program -- that a single line of lightly armored vehicles could meet all the needs of the army in the future -- was always questionable...

More at Commentary.

Obama and Gates Gut the Military - Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt, Wall Street Journal

... Mr. Gates justifies these cuts as a matter of "hard choices" and "budget discipline," saying that "[E]very defense dollar spent to over-insure against a remote or diminishing risk . . . is a dollar not available to take care of our people, reset the force, win the wars we are in." But this calculus is true only because the Obama administration has chosen to cut defense, while increasing domestic entitlements and debt so dramatically.

The budget cuts Mr. Gates is recommending are not a temporary measure to get us over a fiscal bump in the road. Rather, they are the opening bid in what, if the Obama administration has its way, will be a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop. But what is true for the wars we're in -- that numbers matter -- is also true for the wars that we aren't yet in, or that we simply wish to deter.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

With a hat tip to Galrahn at Information Dissemination - Buy Ford, Not Ferrari by Commander Henry J. Hendrix, U.S. Navy at Proceedings.

... A key tenet of post-9/11 strategic thought is that extremist religious terrorism is avoidable. Societies with infrastructural resources such as electricity, clean water, public education, and some modicum of medical care do not generally incubate extremist groups in their midst. Naval forces that have basic abilities to police the sea lines of communication while also seizing port call opportunities to build the basic communal building blocks of productive life ought to be an important component of the future Navy.

The next step on the Navy's path to a new future should be the creation of "Influence Squadrons" composed of an amphibious mother ship (an LPD-17 or a cheaper commercial ship with similar capabilities), a destroyer to provide air, surface, and subsurface defensive capabilties, a Littoral Combat Ship to extend a squadron's reach into the green-water environment and provide some mine warfare capabilities, a Joint High Speed Vessel to increase lift, a Coastal Patrol ship to operate close in, and an M80 Stiletto to provide speed and versatility.

The Influence Squadron should also heavily employ unmanned technologies to further expand the squadron's reach. Unmanned air, surface, and subsurface platforms could be deployed and monitored by the various vessels, extending American awareness, if not American presence.

These forces, operating every day around the world, would represent the preponderance of visible U.S. naval power. Their understated capabilities would epitomize America's peaceful, non-aggressive intent, and would carry out the new maritime strategy's stated purpose of providing positive influence forward. However, the Influence Squadron, carrying credible firepower across a broad area of operations, could also serve to either dissuade or destroy pirate networks that might seek to prey upon increasingly vulnerable commercial sea lines of communication...

Much more at Proceedings.

And more at Information Dissemination - Influence Squadrons - The Next Evolution

... The "Influence Squadron" should sound very familiar to readers here, because it is essentially the strategic concept forwarded on this blog of what I have previously called Littoral Strike Groups. Essentially, it is a call for an organizational framework of ships to operate IN the littorals instead of conducting operations in the littoral from over the horizon. I particularly like the idea because it leverages coastal patrol vessels (PCs) and small fast boats (M-80s), supported by a combination of a Marine Company (LPD-17), credible firepower (DDG-51), unmanned systems (LCS), and NECC capabilities (JHSV) with credible littoral centric capabilities. I don't really care about the debate regarding the specific platforms, it doesn't matter and is parochial to the discussion, the specific platform should be derived from requirements planning anyway. What is important is the layered blue-green-brown water approach which I believe is strategically solid as a driving requirement for a littoral organizational squadron, and a tactical necessity for any legitimate littoral influence.

My only point would be this. On the coastal patrol vessels and the small, fast boats the payload is manpower, not missiles. Armed with guns, built for endurance and to be sustainable, capable of having crews rotated at sea while equipment can be repaired at sea; this type of sustained organizational task group can establish regional maritime domain awareness by distributing sensors, leverage helicopters and armed UAVs to engage in combat when the task is required, and be the physical presence to uncover opposition forces operating with stealth in the complex human terrain of the littorals. In this type of organization, the Littoral Combat Ships can be C2 nodes for multiple coastal patrol vessels and small, fast boats operating as ink spots on regional seas.

This type of organizational task group becomes the perfect match for all of our desired cooperative partnerships. We know the LPD and JHSV are the desired platforms for our Global Partnership Stations. We have seen the good results with both of those platforms. We also know our littoral forces need the sensors and capabilities the LCS delivers, and we need the warfighter capabilities of our AEGIS ships to protect our organized task forces, so both of those platforms make sense. What we also need though are the low end, small platforms that can work with partners at the level they are comfortable with, the PC and small, fast boat level...

Much more at Information Dissemination - Note: also see the comment section below the blog entry.

Also see Theodore Roosevelt's Naval Diplomacy: The U.S. Navy and the Birth of the American Century by Henry Hendrix.

Theodore Roosevelt's Naval Diplomacy examines President Roosevelt's use of U.S. naval seapower to advance his diplomatic efforts to facilitate the emergence of the United States as a great power at the dawn of the twentieth century. Based on extensive research, the author introduces a wealth of new material to document the development of Roosevelt's philosophy with regard to naval power and his implementation of this strategy. The book relates Roosevelt's use of the Navy and Marine Corps to advance American interests during the historically controversial Venezuelan Crisis (1902 03), Panama's independence movement (1903), the Morocco-Perciaris Incident (1904), and the choice of a navy yard as the site for the negotiations that ended the Russo-Japanese War. The voyage of the Great White Fleet and Roosevelt's initiatives to technologically transform the American Navy are also covered. In the end, the book details how Roosevelt's actions combined to thrust the United States forward onto the world s stage as a major player and cemented his place in American history as a great president despite the fact that he did not serve during a time of war or major domestic disturbance.This history provides new information that finally puts to rest the controversy of whether Roosevelt did or did not issue an ultimatum to the German and British governments in December 1902, bringing the United States to the brink of war with two of the world s great powers. It also reveals a secret war plan developed during Panama s independence movement that envisioned the U.S. Marine Corps invading Colombia to defend the sovereignty of the new Panamanian republic. Theodore Roosevelt s Naval Diplomacy brings new understanding to how the U.S. Navy was used to usher in the American century.

Cdr. Henry J. Hendrix, USN, is a career naval officer currently assigned to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. In his twenty years of active service he has made six operational deployments and earned advanced degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School and Harvard University, as well as a PhD from King s College, London. A Naval Historical Center Samuel Eliot Morison Scholar and the 2006 recipient of the Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement, he is the author of numerous articles in professional journals. He lives in northern Virginia.

Pentagon Chief: Why I Tore Up the Army's 'Future' - Noah Shachtman at Danger Room

Of all the hard choices Defense Secretary Robert Gates had to make in his radical overhaul of the Pentagon's arsenal, the toughest, he tells Danger Room, was the decision to gut Future Combat Systems, the Army's $200 billion effort to design a fleet of next-generation tanks and troop carriers...

Gates: I Expect the Services to Get On Board With My Reforms - Spencer Ackerman at Washington Independent

Pentagon chief Bob Gates and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, held a conference call to talk about their defense budget reforms. I asked whether and how they had secured consensus from the service chiefs for reductions or cancellations of programs that some of them had seriously desired...

Newshour with Jim Lehrer

Interview with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

By Judy Woodruff

7 April 2009

Bolded Emphasis by SWJ

JUDY WOODRUFF: Secretary Robert Gates, thank you very much for talking with us.

SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: My pleasure.

MS. WOODRUFF: As we sit here at the Pentagon in Washington, President Obama is right now in Iraq talking to the troops, meeting with Iraqi leaders. What is his message to the Iraqis?

SEC. GATES: I think, first of all, his message to our troops is one of appreciation and gratitude for their dedication and their service. I think his message to the Iraqis is, almost certainly, keep on doing what you're doing; keep on resolving problems politically; keep on working at reconciliation; get ready for your elections. We are going to keep our side of the bargain in terms of the agreement, in terms of draw-downs of troops and you have to step up to your responsibilities now, too.

MS. WOODRUFF: You've obviously been in Iraq many a time. What would you hope the president would take away from this visit?

SEC. GATES: Well, I hope that he will be successful in encouraging the Iraqi leadership to continue working together. And I hope that he will -- in fact, I am confident that he will come home impressed by the caliber of our men and women in uniform out there.

MS. WOODRUFF: The violence has been escalating recently. In fact, there was a car bomb today, I guess, in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. The U.S.'s pledge to get most of the troops out -- 19 months, most of them will be out by next year. But if this violence were to step up considerably, is there a contingency plan?

SEC. GATES: I think the president always has the authority to, as commander-in-chief, to change his plans. But I think the view of our commanders is that, while there are some of these spectacular attacks, overall, the level of violence continues to be quite low compared with, particularly, 2007 and the first part of 2008, in fact, at levels not seen since 2003.

I think what we're seeing is al Qaeda trying sort of as a last gasp to try and reverse the progress that's been made through these attacks. But these car-bomb attacks generally are the signature kind of thing that al Qaeda in Iraq does.

MS. WOODRUFF: Are they reversing the progress?

SEC. GATES: I don't think so, no. And, in fact, I think it's been quite impressive how people, how resilient people have been in Baghdad, in Iraq in general.

MS. WOODRUFF: President Obama has used part of this overseas trip not only to emphasize he's different from his predecessor, but to reach out to the Muslim world, especially with that speech in Turkey. As somebody who's observed U.S. national security up close for three decades, do you think this is something that's going to pay dividends?

SEC. GATES: I think it will. I think that -- I gave a speech last year in which I made the comment that, how can it be that the nation that discovered public relations is being out-communicated by a guy in a cave? The reality is, I think we probably have not done as well as we should have in terms of reaching out to Muslims and making clear that what we're concerned about are violent extremists. This isn't the war against Islam. And I think the president is communicating that message.

I think the challenge for the rest of the government is to figure out how we do that on a more comprehensive and continuing basis...

Continue on for the entire transcript.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Defense Secretary Proposes Sweeping Defense Budget Changes - Greg Jaffe and Shailagh Murray, Washington Post

Defense Secretary Robert Gates outlined sweeping changes to the defense budget Monday that would shift hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon spending away from elaborate weapons toward programs more likely to benefit troops in today's wars.

The proposal by Gates amounts to a radical change in the way the Pentagon buys weapons. For decades, the US has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on weapons programs striving for revolutionary leaps, but often were delivered years late and billions of dollars over budget. In proposing his 2010 budget, which will likely face stiff resistance from Congress, Gates emphasized that he wanted to change the "priorities of America's defense establishment."

The effort to pare back weapons programs that Gates derided as "truly in the exquisite category" reflects a growing recognition in the Pentagon that the days of soaring defense budgets are over. And it highlights Gates' long-stated desire to increase spending on surveillance systems and other relatively low-tech weapons that are best suited for guerrilla or irregular war, which has traditionally been an industry backwater. "I'm just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table and to institutionalize some of the needs they have," he said.

More at The Washington Post.

Gates Budget Plan Reshapes Pentagon's Priorities - Elisabeth Bumiller and Christopher Drew, New York Times

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Monday announced a broad reshaping of the Pentagon budget, with deep cuts in many traditional weapons systems but billions of dollars for new technology to fight the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The decisions represent the first sweeping overhaul of American military strategy under the Obama administration, which wants to spend more money on counterterrorism and less on preparations for conventional warfare against large nations like China and Russia.

Mr. Gates announced cuts in missile defense programs, in the Army's expensive Future Combat Systems and in Navy shipbuilding operations.

But he proposed, as he has before, spending an extra $11 billion to finish enlarging the Army and the Marine Corps and to halt reductions in the Air Force and the Navy. He also announced an extra $2 billion for intelligence and surveillance equipment, including more spending on special forcers units and 50 new Predator and Reaper drones, the unmanned vehicles that are currently used in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq for strikes against militants.

More at The New York Times.

Pentagon Pushes Weapon Cuts - Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday unveiled a sweeping overhaul of weapons priorities to reorient the US military toward winning such unconventional conflicts as the war in Afghanistan rather than fighting China, Russia or other major powers.

With thousands of jobs at stake, political battles over the proposal are likely to be intense. The defense secretary is seeking a wide range of cuts, affecting pet programs at almost every major US contractor, as well as several high-profile contracts with European companies.

Mr. Gates's proposed baseline 2010 Defense Department budget of $534 billion is up 4% from last year. But it signals a major departure from business as usual at the Pentagon, with a heavy emphasis on overhauling a procurement process that he and congressional leaders have decried as being too heavily influenced by powerful contractors.

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Gates Proposal Reveals His Alienation From Procurement System - R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post

After reading a newspaper article's report that a particular armored vehicle had dramatically cut fatality rates in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other senior defense officials traveled 80 miles northeast to Aberdeen Proving Ground in spring 2007 to see for themselves how the V-shaped hull of the costly Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle deflected the worst blast effects of buried explosives.

Within weeks, and after some pointed demands for the MRAPs from Capitol Hill, Gates decided to make accelerated production of the vehicles his top priority, using a special task force that circumvented the department's normal purchasing methods -- and the initial opposition of the Army and the Marine Corps. The results were not perfect -- an inspector general's report said later that in its rush, the department overspent by tens of millions of dollars -- but they were effective: Thousands of additional MRAPs flooded into Iraq and fatality rates dropped precipitously.

Aides say that the experience was like a baptism for Gates into the wei...of the Pentagon's weapons-procurement system, which experts have long assailed for buying the wrong arms and paying far too much.

More at The Washington Post.

Gates Axes Some Costly Weapons, Emphasizes 'Irregular' Warfare - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor

In a dramatic departure from tradition, Defense Secretary Robert Gates unveiled a Pentagon budget Monday that aims to help the US fight a hybrid form of warfare -- one in which an insurgent with an AK-47 rifle is backed by a sophisticated ballistic missile.

Defense spending traditionally reflects conventional threats, posed by countries such as China or perhaps Iran. But Secretary Gates's $534 billion budget recommends billions of dollars for the counterinsurgency needs of unconventional conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan, while making broad and controversial cuts to weapons programs such as the F-22 stealth fighter that Gates sees as part of an outdated, cold-war mind-set.

"I'm not trying to have irregular capabilities take the place of conventional capabilities," Gates said Monday. "I just want the irregular guys to have a seat at the table."

This "reform budget," he said, is an opportunity "to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements -- those things that are desirable in a perfect world from those things that are truly needed in light of the threats America faces and the missions we are likely to undertake in the years ahead."

More at The Christian Science Monitor and:

Department of Defense Budget Press Briefing - Transcript

Gates Proposes Major Changes - Wall Street Journal

Gates Unveils Broad Changes - Los Angeles Times

Gates Lays Out Budget Recommendations - AFPS

Defense Chief Proposes Weapons Cuts - Washington Times

Pentagon Budget Kills F-22, Pumps Up Special Ops - CS Monitor

Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out - Washington Post

Defense Budget 'Overhaul' Meets Resistance - Washington Times

Defense Chief Proposes Weapons Cuts - Associated Press

Secretary Gates' US Defense Recommendations - Reuters

Pentagon Unveils Large Cuts to Defence Budget - The Times

Gates Plans Radical Weapons Budget Cut - The Australian

Gates Proposes Ending Lockheed F-22, Expediting F-35 - Bloomberg

Gates Unveils US Defence Budget - BBC News

Gates Announces Major Pentagon Priority Shifts - CNN

Pentagon Chief Rips Heart Out of Army's 'Future' - Danger Room

Live Blog of Gates' 2010 Budget Blast - DoD Buzz

The Prominent Dominant - Attackerman

Robert Gates Reshapes DoD Budget Plans - Captain's Journal