Several items from the latest edition of Armed Forces Journal:
New Answers to Hard Questions: Properly structured adviser teams are key to winning the Long War by 1st Lieutenant Brian Drohan and Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl.
Today's strategic realities outline a world in which many states face internal and transnational threats from terrorist organizations and other violent groups. The past five years in Iraq and Afghanistan present a number of stark lessons, but perhaps chief among them is the need to help our friends and partners provide for their own security. In the words of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, success in the Long War "will be less a matter of imposing one's will and more a function of shaping behavior — of friends, adversaries, and most importantly, the people in between." The Defense Department must create specifically designed force structure optimized for adviser and assistance missions to successfully engage partner nations at all levels, from the institutional to the tactical, and help them build the capacity to win the Long War...Assessing the Surge by Ralph Peters.
U.S. commanders with whom I spoke in Anbar province in August were worried — worried that their Marines would get bored in the absence of combat action. Enlisted Marines on return tours of duty expressed surprise verging on bewilderment that cities such as Fallujah, long wracked by insurgent violence, were calm and open for business. Foreign terrorists who once ruled the streets still launched minor attacks, but had been marginalized across the province. And last year's Sunni-Arab enemies were busily scheming how to profit from the American presence...The Fight for Friends by Chet Richards.
Polls show that most non-Kurdish Iraqis blame the U.S. for the condition of their country and believe that their situations will improve after we leave. If, some five years after the invasion, this describes the mood of those we came to help, it suggests that we and the Iraqi people will obtain — at best — an Iraq that is worse off than it was before our occupation and one that could provide a breeding ground of resentment against American interests for as long into the future as we can imagine. At worst, our withdrawal from Iraq could result in hundreds and possibly thousands of additional American casualties, the abandoning of billions of dollars of equipment, and the emergence of powerful and determined entities allied with Iran in the case of the Shiites, or with the most regressive political and social forces in the Middle East in the case of Arab Sunnis...Hope and Skepticism: Iraqis at home and displaced weigh changes in Baghdad by Christopher Griffen.
Last April, this column described initial responses by Iraqi bloggers to the "surge" of American troops in their country. Writing from shattered Baghdad and exile in Damascus, they recorded hopeful auguries as families returned to reclaim their lives in such one-time combat zones as Baghdad's Haifa Street. But such hope was tempered by long-sewn despair: One blogger noted in February 2007 that he didn't know whether to feel happy because the violence was dissipating, afraid that it may return or "sad because deep inside I think I know it will." One year later, Iraq's growing community of milbloggers reports continued improvement, citing both the success of the surge and the growth of "awakening councils" that comprise former Sunni insurgents who have worked with coalition forces to expel tyrannical al-Qaida terrorists...The Long Haul: Leaving Iraq will be a logistical nightmare by Captain Timothy Hsia.
The recent push by the White House to negotiate a pact with the government of Iraq concerning the long-term presence of U.S. service members in the country surprised many Americans but served as coda for Army logisticians. The fact is, the military continues to build and stockpile thousands of containers full of equipment in Iraq, despite the unresolved political infighting in Washington concerning whether U.S. troops will leave...Hedging Strategies: UCAVs, budgets and improbable threats by Group Captain Peter Layton.
Unmanned air vehicle development has sharply accelerated in recent years principally because UAVs can overcome a major shortcoming of manned aircraft — limited persistence — while offering better range, payload and stealth performance. Improved capabilities, though, are important only if they are strategically relevant and affordable. For the foreseeable future, the major strategic drivers appear to be winning the long struggle against global terrorism and hedging against the re-emergence of a major state-based threat. Although unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) are relevant to both circumstances, this article discusses the strategic, budgetary and technological case when considering hedging against a future peer competitor...Hoisted by its Own PR: Israel's gamble on high-risk ops hastened self-defeat in Lebanon by Barbara Opell-Rome.
Obscured amid the failures of Israel's 2006 Lebanon War was the extent to which Tel Aviv's wartime leaders were —to wager on speculative, strategically dubious, image-boosting operations. Part of the Israeli military's quest for "narrative superiority," these so-called "consciousness operations" ranged from relatively simple public relations efforts to boost homeland morale to complex psychological, special forces missions designed to trigger strategic change in the Lebanese theater...Nothing follows.