Blog Posts

Department of Defense Budget Press Briefing - As Prepared for Delivery by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Arlington, VA, Monday, 6 April 2009.

Today, I am announcing the key decisions I will recommend to the president with respect to the fiscal year 2010 defense budget. The president agreed to this unorthodox approach -- announcing the department's request before the White House submits a budget to the Congress -- because of the scope and significance of the changes. In addition, the president and I believe that the American people deserve to learn of these recommendations fully and in context, as the proposed changes are interconnected and cannot be properly communicated or understood in isolation from one another. Collectively, they represent a budget crafted to reshape the priorities of America's defense establishment. If approved, these recommendations will profoundly reform how this department does business.

In many ways, my recommendations represent the cumulative outcome of a lifetime spent in the national security arena and, above all, questions asked, experience gained, and lessons learned from over two years of leading this department -- and, in particular, from our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. I reached the final decisions after many hours of consultations with the military and civilian leadership of the department. I have also consulted closely with the president. But, I received no direction or guidance from outside this department on individual program decisions. The chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are in complete accord with these recommendations. The chairman is traveling abroad but he has provided a statement that we will distribute at the end of the briefing...

Department of Defense Budget Press Briefing

The New Balance: Limited Armed Stabilization and the Future of US Landpower - Nathan P. Freier, Strategic Studies Institute

The author takes a critical look at the mission assignment and orientation of US landpower. He calls for an unconventional revolution in US land forces that optimizes them for intervention in complex and violent crises of governance and security in states crippled by internal disorder. In the end, he argues that the armed stabilization of states and regions in crises will be not just equivalent in importance to traditional warfighting in future land force planning but instead the primary land force mission for the foreseeable future.

The New Balance: Limited Armed Stabilization and the Future of US Landpower

The Army's Strategic Role - US Army Strategic Studies Institute - 2 through 15 April 2009.

In this first debate, Mr. Nathan P. Freier, CSIS/PKSOI, and Dr. Steven Metz, SSI, discuss the future strategic role of the US Army.

Short '06 Lebanon War Stokes Pentagon Debate - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post

A war that ended three years ago and involved not a single U.S. soldier has become the subject of an increasingly heated debate inside the Pentagon, one that could alter how the U.S. military fights in the future.

When Israel and Hezbollah battled for more than a month in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the result was widely seen as a disaster for the Israeli military. Soon after the fighting ended, some military officers began to warn that the short, bloody and relatively conventional battle foreshadowed how future enemies of the United States might fight.

Since then, the Defense Department has dispatched as many as a dozen teams to interview Israeli officers who fought against Hezbollah. The Army and Marine Corps have sponsored a series of multimillion-dollar war games to test how U.S. forces might fare against a similar foe. "I've organized five major games in the last two years, and all of them have focused on Hezbollah," said Frank Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico...

More at The Washington Post.

Rewired For War: Militant Operating Environments

By Michael Innes, Cross Post from CT Lab

I just came out of a conversation with an editor at a major magazine, in which I was embarassingly incapable of intelligently relating my own alleged expertise on insurgent and terrorist sanctuaries to an open discussion that just threaded its way through the blogosphere over the last few days. The conversation forced me to think hard about what my issues were with the debate, which earn said editor an acknowledgments whenever I get my damn book on the subject written. What initiated all of this was Andrew Exum's (a.k.a. Abu Muqawama) short article entitled "No Place To Hide" in The New Republic. Ex made a lot of smart points about safe havens, and as I wrote in an email to him, it's good that he's addressed this publicly and sparked some straight thinking. No one has seriously addressed the problem of militant sanctuaries in years -- really, not since the post-911 Bush Administration's first term, when it was still all about hunting down Al Qaeda honchos and "smoking them out of their holes."

Unfortunately, Ex's write-up, which took the Obama Adminstration's new policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan to task for its "obsession" with physical sanctuary (among other things), was also heavily flawed, for reasons I'll get into below. I've always maintained that most of the policy on denying sanctuary to terrorists has been distracted and partisan, and the scholarly literature, with few exceptions, too misguided or constrained by disciplinary stovepipes to be useful. Likewise any popular understanding of what havens, much less the safe kind, actually mean. All sorts of aphorisms and buzzwords have been bandied about, withouth much consideration to whether they actually apply to the specifics we have to deal with in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a few other trouble spots. I'm highly skeptical, for example, that slapping some pomo jargon or sexed-up architectural theory on the problem will help fix things. I'm equally skeptical that a classical COIN model of sanctuary can be faithfully applied to transnational terror groups without some sort of adaptation...

Gates Planning Major Changes In Programs, Defense Budget - R. Jeffrey Smith and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is expected to announce on Monday the restructuring of several dozen major defense programs as part of the Obama administration's bid to shift military spending from preparations for large-scale war against traditional rivals to the counterinsurgency programs that Gates and others consider likely to dominate US conflicts in coming decades.

Gates's aides say his plan would boost spending for some programs and take large whacks at others, including some with powerful constituencies on Capitol Hill and among influential contractors, making his announcement more of an opening bid than a decisive end to weeks of sometimes acrimonious internal Pentagon debate.

Among the programs expected to be heavily cut is the Army's Future Combat Systems, a network of vehicles linked by high-tech communications that has been plagued by technical troubles and delays; with a price tag exceeding $150 billion, it is now one of the most costly military efforts...

More at The Washington Post.

SWJ's 11th weekly contribution to Foreign Policy - This Week at War by Robert Haddick - is now posted. Topics include - Plan for two wars? Or plan for endless war? - and - How to cope with bad generals.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams: How Do We Know They Work? - Dr. Carter Malkasian and Dr. Gerald Meyerle, Strategic Studies Institute

Over the past 6 years, provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) have played a growing role in the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. PRTs are one of several organizations working on reconstruction there, along with civilian development agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, numerous nongovernmental organizations, and the Afghan government's National Solidarity Program. Perhaps unsurprisingly, something of a debate has emerged over whether PRTs are needed. The authors argue that civilian reconstruction agencies cannot do the same job as the PRTs. While these agencies remain essential for long-term economic and political development, the PRTs conduct reconstruction in ways that help create stability in the short term. Absent the PRTs, the "build" in clear-hold-build efforts deemed essential to effective counterinsurgency would fall flat. Based on over 2 months of field research in 2007 and 2 months in 2008 by a CNA team with 4 different PRTs—Khost, Kunar, Ghazni, and Nuristan—plus interviews with the leadership of 10 others, the authors recommend that the United States give the PRTs the lead role in reconstruction activities that accompany any surge of military forces into Afghanistan.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams: How Do We Know They Work?

Washington Post Presents Mexican Drug War Series

The Washington Post today introduces the first installment in an on-going series, "Mexico at War: On the Front Lines," about the increasingly violent Mexican drug war. Post reporters Steve Fainaru, William Booth and video producer Travis Fox spent months traveling throughout some of the most dangerous areas and interviewed top officials about their military strategy (a selection of quotes is below). The Post's series will continue throughout the year.

As Mexico Battles Cartels, the Army Becomes the Law - By Steve Fainaru and William Booth

No Place to Hide - Andrew Exum, The New Republic

When the Obama administration announced the results of its review of Afghanistan and Pakistan policies on Friday, reporters quizzing the review's authors seemed confused. They wondered whether the recommendations announced by the president amounted to an abandonment or endorsement of the kind of population-centric counter-insurgency strategy employed in Iraq in 2007. Were we embracing a more limited counter-terror mission? Or were we committing ourselves more fully to nation-building?

The aims of the strategy are quite modest: to deny transnational terror groups the ability to use physical space to plan and prepare for attacks on the United States in the way that al-Qaeda used Afghanistan in the years before the 9/11 attacks. And the central problem of the post-Cold War era is that these staging grounds are often in ungoverned spaces like the Pashtun belt straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border...

More at The New Republic.

... by Mark Safranski at ZenPundit.

Thursday, in a statement that was issued in part for public diplomacy purposes, DNI Adm. Dennis Blair, dismissed any strategic implications regarding the strength of Mexico's drug cartels that the Mexican government is struggling to suppress...

While it might be tempting to ask what the good Admiral is smoking, Blair is neither a naif nor a fool but a very experienced and saavy intelligence manager who is engaged in pushing a political line of the Obama administration, in deference to the wishes of the government of Mexico. The line is being peddled on many fronts; Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has just declined offers for increased appropriations for improving border security in favor of "surging" Federal agents on a temporary basis (i.e. a political show that will accomplish nothing)...

Much more at ZenPundit.

White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group's Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan

The United States has a vital national security interest in addressing the current and potential security threats posed by extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Pakistan, al Qaeda and other groups of jihadist terrorists are planning new terror attacks. Their targets remain the U.S. homeland, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Europe, Australia, our allies in the Middle East, and other targets of opportunity. The growing size of the space in which they are operating is a direct result of the terrorist/insurgent activities of the Taliban and related organizations. At the same time, this group seeks to reestablish their old sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Therefore, the core goal of the U.S. must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan.

The ability of extremists in Pakistan to undermine Afghanistan is proven, while insurgency in Afghanistan feeds instability in Pakistan. The threat that al Qaeda poses to the United States and our allies in Pakistan - including the possibility of extremists obtaining fissile material - is all too real. Without more effective action against these groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan will face continuing instability...

White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group's Report on U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan

Obama Unveils Strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan - Voice of America

President Barack Obama has announced his plan to send about 4,000 more US troops to Afghanistan and increase diplomacy with Pakistan. He said his strategy has a clear and focused goal.

"To disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: We will defeat you," said the president.

Mr. Obama said, for Americans, the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan is "the most dangerous place in the world," where those who planned the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States are plotting further attacks.

The estimated 4,000 new troops would join 17,000 additional combat and support troops the president wants in Afghanistan in the coming months. By October, the overall force level should reach 59,000.

The new plan shifts the emphasis of the U.S. mission to training and increasing the size of the Afghan security forces, so they can eventually take responsibility for their country's security.

CBS News: Saying war in Iraq distracted from the effort in Afghanistan, President Obama announced his strategy to combat the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents.

More:

Obama Announces New Afghanistan, Pakistan Strategies - Transcript

President Unveils Afghan-Pakistan Strategy Review - AFPS

US Defines New Afghan Strategy - Wall Street Journal

Obama Announces Plans for More Funding for Afghan War - Washington Post

Obama Sounds Cautious Note as He Sets Out Afghan Plan - New York Times

Obama: Taliban and al Qaeda Must Be Stopped - Washington Times

Obama Pledges More Troops for Afghanistan - Los Angeles Times

Afghan Plan Adds 4,000 US Troops - Boston Globe

Obama's Strategy for Afghanistan - Christian Science Monitor

Obama Zeros in on Afghanistan - Washington Times

Obama Pumps $5bn Into Pakistan - The Times

Obama Vows to 'Dismantle and Defeat' al-Qaeda - Daily Telegraph

Afghanistan 'On Brink of Disaster' - The Australian

Barack Obama Pushes for Afghanistan Result - The Australian

Obama Takes Aim at Taliban and Al Qaeda - Associated Press

Obama sets Qaeda Defeat as Top Goal in Afghanistan - Reuters

US Rethinks Afghanistan Strategy - BBC News

Barack Obama Offers New Strategy to Tame Pakistan - The Times

White House Debate Led to Plan to Widen Afghan Effort - New York Times

Pakistani, Afghan Leaders Welcome Obama War Strategy - Voice of America

Afghan-Pakistan Strategy Emphasizes Need for Counterinsurgency Fight - AFPS

New Afghan Program Supports Community-based Approach to Security - AFPS

New Afghan Approach More Likely to Succeed, Gates Says - AFPS

Mullen Praises Regional Approach of Afghan-Pakistan Strategy Review - AFPS

Trainers 'Critical' to Obama's New Afghan-Pakistan Plan, Mullen Says - AFPS

New Strategy 'Refocuses' Mission in Afghanistan, Flournoy Says - AFPS

Holbrooke, Petraeus Weigh In on New Afghan-Pakistan Plan - PBS

The Price of Realism - Washington Post editorial

The Remembered War - New York Times editorial

Mr. Obama's Surge - Wall Street Journal editorial

Obama vs. Al Qaeda - Boston Globe editorial

Obama's Afghan Plan - Christian Science Monitor editorial

A New Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan - Commentary opinion

Defusing Afghanistan - Washington Post opinion

The Right Strategy? - Washington Post opinion

Why Pakistan is a Stumbling Block - The Times opinion

'Lower Your Sights' is the Wrong Vision - Los Angeles Times opinion

... on 26 March before the Senate Armed Services AirLand Subcommittee.

Dr. Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., President, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

... The Army's leadership has rightly concluded that it needs a force capable of performing across the full spectrum of conflict at a high level of effectiveness. But in its attempts to become equally effective across a range of conflict types, it risks becoming marginally competent in many tasks, and highly effective at none. In attempting to increase the size of the Army to field forces large enough to deal with a range of contingencies, the Service risks becoming incapable of creating the needed scale by building up the capabilities of America's allies and partners, a key part of the defense strategy. It also risks a catastrophic leadership failure of a kind not seen since the late stages of the Vietnam War, a failure that took the Army over a decade to repair.

Dr. Peter Mansoor, Raymond E. Mason, Jr. Chair in Military History, The Ohio State University

... The transformation of American land power for the wars of the 21st century remains incomplete. In Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, Allan Millett lays out three prerequisites for effective military innovation: revised doctrine, changes in professional military education, and the creation of operational units that meet real strategic needs. The U.S. Army has met the first two fundamentals, but not yet the third. Although bulky divisions have given way to smaller, modular, more easily deployable brigade combat teams, these units remain largely configured for conventional combat -- and imperfectly at that. Brigades that are tailored for counterinsurgency operations would include more infantry; a full engineer battalion; a large intelligence section built mainly around human and signals intelligence, with significant analytical capability; military police, engineer, civil affairs, information operations, and psychological operations cells; a contracting section; adviser and liaison sections, with requisite

language capabilities; human terrain teams, with the capability to map tribal and social networks; explosive ordnance demolition teams; and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets—particularly armed reconnaissance units that can engage the people and fight for information, along with armed unmanned aerial vehicles and ground sensors. The need for more infantry and engineers is especially critical, so much so that the Army should forgo the creation of additional brigade combat teams until existing units are reconfigured with the addition of a third maneuver battalion. The paucity of the current brigade combat team structure has forced brigade commanders to attach armor and infantry companies to the reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition squadron, which is otherwise too lightly armed to act as a combat force. A triangular organization would be more effective not just in counterinsurgency warfare, but would give our maneuver commanders the resources they need to fight more effectively in conventional conflicts as well.

And at the House Armed Services Committee, Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee:

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Senior Managing Director, Enterra Solutions LLC

... the U.S. Navy faces severe budgetary pressures on future construction of traditional capital ships and submarines. Those pressures will only grow as a result of the current global economic crisis (which--lest we forget--generates similar pressures on navies around the world) and America's continued military operations abroad as part of our ongoing struggle against violent extremism. Considering these trends as a whole, I would rather abuse the Navy--force structure-wise--before doing the same to either the Marine Corps or the Coast Guard. Why? It is my professional opinion that the United States defense community currently accepts far too much risk and casualties and instability on the low end of the conflict spectrum while continuing to spend far too much money on building up our combat capabilities for high-end scenarios. In effect, we over-feed our Leviathan force while starving our SysAdmin force, accepting far too many avoidable casualties in the latter while hedging excessively against theoretical future casualties in the former. Personally, I find this risk-management strategy to be both strategically unsound and morally reprehensible.

Thomas Donnelly, a Resident Fellow in Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, appeared today before the Senate Armed Services AirLand Subcommittee. SWJ has posted a transcript of his prepared remarks and an excerpt of his bottom line follows:

...Creating an adequate land force will not be cheap. But it's a price we're already paying now: when adding the Army's "baseline" budget to the constant and predictable cost of mobilizing reserve personnel and doing back-door procurements in the supplementals, the United States is paying about $200 billion per year for Army land forces. The costs of the Marines, which include weapons systems and other items included in the Navy budget is harder to estimate. And in fact, Marine costs can and should remain relatively constant; the difference is and should remain in Army expansion. But it would be far better to continue to grow and modernize the Army under a long-term plan rather than on an annual, ad hoc basis through supplemental appropriations and unending reserve call-ups. In very rough terms, I would estimate the cost of a large-enough Army to be about $240 billion per year. By 2016 -- the time it would take to expand, equip and configure the force we need, and if President Obama's economic projections are correct -- that would account for just 1.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. A million-man land force would be a third of 1 percent of the U.S. population.

Without doubt, this is a force we can afford. Conversely, the strategic costs of not rebuilding America's land forces would be very great indeed. We cannot expect to exercise leadership in the international community if we are unable to guarantee the stability of the greater Middle East; in addition to the economic value of the region's resources, the political volatility of the Islamic world, and the prospects for jihadi terrorism, make it a cockpit for many conflicts -- not just regional, but potentially between global great powers. Nor can we expect, at this juncture, to stabilize the region by "offshore balancing." That moment has passed, both militarily and geostrategically; the clock cannot be turned back. Land power is not the answer to every problem, but it is an essential answer to this problem.

Tom Donnelly is the author of The Military We Need and coauthored Ground Truth and Of Men and Materiel with Frederick Kagan and Gary Schmitt respectively.

CT or COIN? - Fred Kaplan, Slate

With just a week until President Barack Obama flies to Strasbourg, France, for his first NATO conference, his top advisers are still divided over what U.S. policy should be on the summit's No. 1 issue: how to fight the war in Afghanistan.

It's a debate that the Bush administration never seriously had in the seven years following the post-9/11 invasion. Now, by contrast, in the wake of three major strategic reviews, Obama is extending and deepening the discussion of Afghanistan, because the outcome of this debate may set the course of American foreign policy for the remainder of his presidency...

More at Slate and a H/T to Fred for the shoutout:

"For the best summaries of COIN doctrine and strategy, spelled out by officers, consultants, and private scholars, see the Web site Abu Muqawama, the Small Wars Journal, Gen. David Petraeus' Army and Marine Corps field manual on counterinsurgency (or my summary of it), David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla, and John Nagl's Learning To Eat Soup With a Knife."

Expert Lauds Obama's Afghanistan Approach - National Public Radio's All Things Considered - 25 March 2009.

David Kilcullen, a former senior counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, says the U.S. must change its policy in Afghanistan from chasing the enemy to protecting the people.

"We need to get into the business of making people feel safe and making them feel —to participate in a political process that doesn't involve violence," Kilcullen says...

"The review that the new administration has gone through has been a very detailed and sensible approach to what is an extremely difficult problem," Kilcullen says. "We need to make some fairly significant changes if we do want to win it."

Listen to the entire broadcast at All Things Considered.

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

A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.

The new issue of the US Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center Colloquium has been released and can be found at the COIN Center Blog.

From the COIN Center - two articles of potential interest to academicians, policy makers, and practitioners alike:

In From Lebanon to Gaza: A New Kind of War, Ariel Siegelman draws on first-hand experience in Lebanon and Gaza to describe a new kind of war, in which "the enemy cannot hope to match Western technology, so he operates in a way to make the technology relatively meaningless." Siegelman, who served in the Israel Defense Force (IDF), Special Forces, as a counter terror operative, counter terror sniper and counter terror instructor, argues that the 2006 Lebanon War exemplifies "the wrong way to confront... this new kind of war," but that the recent IDF operations in Gaza demonstrate that Western militaries can appropriately prosecute such conflicts. This new kind of war, however, requires Western militaries to define success in a new way, one that recognizes that violence may ebb and flow, but that the conflict is never truly over.

In The Business of War: How Criminal Organizations Perpetuate Conflict and What To Do about It, Brock Dahl argues that "attacking criminal organizations is an essential element of the COIN fight." Without confronting organized criminal organizations, it is much more difficult to stabilize transitional societies. Mr. Dahl, who served for the US Department of the Treasury in Baghdad and on the Afghanistan Interagency Operations Group from 2006 to 2008, and who is now studying law at The George Washington University, investigates the legal and policy considerations of US military forces supporting law enforcement activities overseas.

Saving Afghanistan - Robert Kaplan, The Atlantic

Afghanistan is about to spike in the news this summer, as 17,000 more marines and soldiers arrive from the United States and pour into the southern Kandahar region. They will advance down roads and river valleys where American troops have never ventured in eight years of war here, and deliberately stir up a hornet's nest of Taliban strongholds in Mullah Omar's backyard. This incursion will lead to fighting and attendant casualties perhaps on a scale that Americans have not seen since the early days of the surge in Iraq. It will be part of an ambitious effort whose scope American commanders here dare not name or admit to, even to themselves: nation-building on a grand scale. To succeed, they must overcome the Afghan landscape itself: a sprawling expanse of high desert wrinkled with tortuous hills and wave upon wave of cathedral-like mountain ranges that segment the population into countless valleys and separate regions. Indeed, for the first time since the U.S. invaded here in late 2001, Americans are about to lead a great battle against culture and geography...

More at The Atlantic.

Afghanistan Made Easy - Jules Crittenden, Forward Movement

To get, not to do. Enough with the hysteria/doom-and-gloom mongering. War correspondent Robert Kaplan, who has been around the block a couple of times in Afghanistan and with the United States military, with a note of reason on the evolving campaign, what that campaign is fundamentally about, why we can win it, and why we have to...

More at Forward Movement.

Command Releases New Irregular Warfare Vision

U.S. Joint Forces Command has released an irregular warfare vision designed to help develop joint forces that are as effective in conducting irregular warfare as they are in conventional warfare.

U.S. Joint Forces Command Commander Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis has released the command's irregular warfare (IW) vision.

The vision provides guidance on how USJFCOM will respond to the threats posed by irregular adversaries. The vision prioritizes specific efforts necessary to achieve the objectives and guidance of the Department of Defense directive on irregular warfare.

Mattis said the command is determined to lead the way in achieving a balanced joint force where IW is a core competency and will lead DoD in the collaborative effort to deploy joint forces that are as effective in conducting irregular warfare as they are in conventional warfare. USJFCOM will partner with interagency, multinational, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff, combatant commands, services and intelligence community partners in order to achieve this vision.

The vision outlines a timeline and expectations from directorates and subordinate commands. Over the next six to 12 months the command will focus its IW efforts in concept development and experimentation, capability development/joint integration and interoperability, training and education, joint provision/global force management and external engagement.

Several areas of effort include:

• Work closely with U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and the services to update the IW Joint Operating Concept to improve its relevance and utility to the general purpose force, interagency and our multinational partners.

• Standardize and optimize network enabled capabilities and services provided by DoD's Global Information Grid computer network in support of small units at the tactical edge conducting IW.

• Develop joint doctrine that guides and enables joint force commanders to plan and execute IW across the four categories of military activity: combat, security, engagement, relief and reconstruction.

• Identify tracking requirements for critical skills and experiences relevant to IW.

• Capture, analyze and disseminate IW lessons learned and best practices.

The vision states USJFCOM will work with its partners to identify the most important challenges the U.S. is facing in IW, develop concepts and evaluate capabilities solutions to address those challenges.

The Joint Irregular Warfare Center (JIWC) will prioritize efforts, proactively coordinate activities, provide subject matter expertise and collaborate closely with multinational and interagency partners in executing the IW vision.

The IW vision is available for download by clicking here.

The End of the Global War on Terror - Al Kamen, Washington Post's In The Loop

The end of the Global War on Terror -- or at least the use of that phrase -- has been codified at the Pentagon. Reports that the phrase was being retired have been circulating for some time amongst senior administration officials, and this morning speechwriters and other staff were notified via this e-mail to use "Overseas Contingency Operation" instead...

More at The Washington Post.

Army's New Breed of Officers in Iraq Earn Their Spurs in Line of Fire - Michael Evans, The Times

Operation Telic in Iraq was supposed to be about liberating a repressed people and rebuilding a nation, but it turned into a war of attrition that put the Northern Ireland experience in the shade. The impact on the British Army has been profound. Every assumption made by senior military commanders based on the prevailing intelligence and political judgment at the time was turned on its head.

As a consequence, the doctrine of warfare taught at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and at the staff colleges had to be rewritten, and the Ministry of Defence was forced to beg for funds from the Treasury to provide equipment off the shelf to cope with the unexpected and unprepared-for surge of violence in southern Iraq.

Sandhurst went from being a renowned academy that prepared young officer cadets for regimental life, big-picture wars and peacekeeping operations to a production line for almost instant deployment to Iraq once the Sovereign's Parade was over.

More at The Times.

Pentagon to Show Softer Side to the World - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor

After seven years of war, American foreign policy has become nearly synonymous with the brawny side of its military. But the US armed forces may now be moving to show a different face to the world.

Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended an admiral better known for humanitarian and diplomatic initiatives than for muscle-flexing to assume a critical command post in Europe.

Adm. James Stavridis is an unusual choice to fill a job usually held by the Army. In his two years overseeing US military operations in South and Latin America, he has built a reputation for running a different kind of command -- deploying hospital ships and soccer teams while contending with drug trafficking and corruption. Stavridis may be able to bring that balance to Europe, where deliberations over Afghanistan over the next few years will be critical to that mission's success.

More at The Christian Science Monitor.

Statement of General James N. Mattis, USMC

Commander, United States Joint Forces Command

Before the House Armed Services Committee

March 18, 2009

Thank you for the opportunity to report on United States Joint Forces Command. As one of 10 combatant commands in the Department of Defense, U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) oversees a force of 1.16 million Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserve Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines. The command is uniquely structured to provide agile forces to geographic combatant commanders as directed by the Secretary of Defense to prevail in current operations and to ensure we are not caught flat-footed in future battles. The command works closely with other government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and allied and coalition partners. We are as focused on coalition issues as we are on joint issues, and we provide a critical link to NATO through our co-location in Norfolk, Virginia with NATO's Allied Command Transformation, the only NATO Headquarters on U.S. soil.

My testimony will focus primarily on the future following a short update on accomplishments over this past year. I will do so with a dose of realism and a sense of urgency. I will present the way forward for Joint Forces Command as it supports the current fight and prepares the nation's military for future operations. The forward-looking emphasis of my remarks reflects the command's mission statement: To provide mission-ready, joint-capable forces and support the development and integration of joint, interagency and multinational capabilities to meet the present and future operational needs of the joint force.

Today, our nation is involved in major conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it faces a number of threats and opportunities around the globe. For Joint Forces Command, we are focused on the current threat environment for two reasons. First, we are the Joint Force Provider for the Department of Defense. We must do as much as possible to support current military operations. The second reason addresses the focus of this statement: "the future of the joint force." Simply put, much of what we see in the cities of Iraq, the mountains of Afghanistan, and the foothills of southern Lebanon, I believe we will see again in the future. I say this knowing there is much we do not know about the future, and there is much more that will surprise us no matter how well we prepare .. How many people expected a conflict in Georgia would keep cartographers busy in 2008? That said, the conflict in Afghanistan, and other conflicts will sharpen USJFCOM's activities as we give traction to Secretary Gates' principle of balancing our force to fight conventional, irregular, and hybrid threats of the future.

We know the nature of future wars will not differ from current wars. History teaches us that the character of each individual war is always different and most certainly will change, but the enduring nature of war as a human endeavor will remain largely unchanged. Just like today, future enemies will force us to adapt as they adapt-and they will attack our vulnerabilities when and where they can. Just like today, they will attack our values and misrepresent our intentions in the "battle of competing narratives," theirs versus ours. Thus, in many respects, today's warfare is the future of warfare as demonstrated over the past 25 years since militant extremists first attacked our embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon. The "irregular" methods our enemies use today will be employed against us tomorrow. We are already facing many of the threats prognosticators once labeled as "future" threats - cyber war and economic terrorism being just two examples....

Continue on for the entire transcript to include General Mattis' statements concerning making irregular warfare a core competency, enhancing joint command and control, improving as a joint force provider, accelerating efforts toward a whole of government approach, and training and education.

The Future of Public Diplomacy

By Matt Armstrong - Cross Posted at MountainRunner

The world increasingly operates on perceptions created by the "Now Media" environment. Governments must fully take into account these perceptions in the forming and conducting of foreign policy. From the perspective of the United States, the simple and essential fact is that everything we say and do both at home and abroad, as well as everything we fail to say and do, has an impact in other lands. This isn't a new idea but an observation originally made by a certain general running for president in 1952.

Just a few short months ago, the election of Barack Obama generated a lot of enthusiasm at the promise of the return of smart foreign policies based on understanding global publics. Call it public diplomacy, strategic communication, or simply global engagement, the President has already shown an innate appreciation and aptitude for connecting directly with people around the world. From his television interview with Al-Arabiya to his "YouTube Diplomacy" with Iran, he clearly "gets it."

The same can be said for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Between her recent trips to Asia and Europe and her expansion of so-called "e-diplomacy" initiatives using Web 2.0 technologies and practice, Clinton shows that she too could be a force for mobilizing individuals and groups.

However, public diplomacy does not have an auto-pilot. Leaving the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs unoccupied creates a government-wide leadership vacuum at a critical time. As we approach the 100-day mark since the President's inauguration, there has been little, if any, substantial progress by the Government in the areas of public diplomacy and strategic communication, even as many have touted its resurgence. This is troubling considering the broad and global struggle the United States is engaged in against terrorism, insurgency, poverty, deprivation, and disease.

The combined personal diplomacy of the President and the Secretary of State will only go so far in a global information environment where ideas and news are subjected to accidental misinformation as well as intentional lies and distortions by our adversaries. If it were as simple as having a President or a Secretary of State who is effective at public engagement in the global struggle for minds and wills, then there would never have been a need for cultural and educational exchange programs, government broadcast facilities, or the United States Information Agency.

Where is public diplomacy today? Although Judith McHale, the former CEO of Discovery, was Clinton's #1 pick for Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (one of four Under Secretary openings that remain unfilled) since about Clinton's nomination hearings before inauguration, the Secretary of State has yet to nominate her.

Three conclusions can be drawn from the lengthy delay in moving forward with public diplomacy. The first is that the State Department's role in public diplomacy is being questioned. Arguments abound that the Department is irreparably broken and some responsibilities, including public diplomacy, should be removed. This "let it bleed to death" scenario is dangerous and wastes talented human and technical resources. This scenario usually includes empowering the National Security Council to do some of what had been previously done by the United States Information Agency.

The second conclusion is Ms. McHale is not viewed as the optimal candidate. But this is unlikely because after two months of vetting, the word on the street is that her nomination is "imminent."

The third conclusion is public diplomacy is not a priority. Sadly, this is the most likely case because if the President and the Secretary of State fully appreciated the value of global engagement as a means to support foreign policy, there would have been substantial action in this area to leverage and expand upon their personal outreach. Without invigorating and empowering America's public diplomacy, the leadership and the charisma of the President and the Secretary of State will be wasted.

The first and third conclusions lead to severe consequences. If the Secretary of State fails to acknowledge her Department's leadership responsibility in engaging global populations, she will continue the trend of ceding power and authority to the Defense Department, the only vertically integrated element of the Government that can provide the services necessary in a world of state and non-state actors. The Defense Department will, by default, become the hub of government engagement with the world. We have already seen the Secretary of Defense make policy statements that arguably should come from the Secretary of State. America's public diplomacy must not continue to wear combat boots.

To be relevant in the modern struggle of minds and wills, the Secretary of State must have an empowered Under Secretary coordinating America's public diplomacy and global engagement. Failure to act risks not only the future of the State Department but America's national security in general.