Posted by Tom Ricks in today's Washington Post - Looking Toward the Future slide from a briefing presented by General Barry McCaffrey, US Army (Ret.), on 19 March 2008.
Blog Posts
SWJ Blog is a multi-author blog publishing news and commentary on the various goings on across the broad community of practice. We gladly accept guest posts from serious voices in the community.
by SWJ Editors | Sun, 03/23/2008 - 1:44am | 0 comments
The National Youth Choir of Scotland singing "Fight the Good Fight" by John Gardner. With the BBC Scottish Symphony.
by SWJ Editors | Sat, 03/22/2008 - 6:57am | 2 comments
A hat tip to Kip at Abu Muqawama for posting on a story we missed - In Mosul, New Test of Iraqi Army by Solomon Moore of the New York Times.Now, five years into the war, American commanders say that the reborn force is coming into its own. And Mosul, an ethnically mixed city that has been under stepped-up assault by insurgents and where Iraqi Army units far outnumber their American counterparts, offers a possible glimpse into the future. But the Iraqi Army's performance in Mosul so far suggests that while the Iraqi forces are taking on more responsibility and have made strides, there are still troubling gaps.
Kip has more at Wired's Danger Room blog.
Bill Roggio of Long War Journal is currently on an embed in Mosul and provides a quick-look situation update as well an insight on Iraqi Army training.
In Mosul, the Iraqi Army also lives a dual existence. As the Iraqi Army conducts operations to dismantle the terror networks in the city, it also builds for the future. The 4th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division seeks to expand its ranks while developing its noncommissioned officers, the backbone of any modern military. This is a difficult task to manage while fighting a brutal insurgency, but a necessary one as a professional army is required to successfully fight an insurgency.On a related issue, Alexandra Zavis of the Los Angeles Times discusses a byproduct of one counterinsurgency tactic of our strategy in Iraq - as calm returns to some areas, the U.S. military is faced with the question of what to do with the tribesmen it hired to defend their neighborhoods.
After five years of trial and error, the strategy of recruiting tribesmen to help defend their neighborhoods against Islamic extremists has proved one of the most effective weapons in the U.S. counterinsurgency arsenal.But restoring a measure of calm to what were some of the most violent places in Iraq has in turn presented the U.S. military with one of its biggest headaches: what to do with the more than 80,000 armed men whose loyalty has been bought with a paycheck that cannot go on forever.*SWJ Note: SOI (Sons of Iraq), formerly know as Concerned Local Citizens, serve as neighborhood watches and man checkpoints.
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by SWJ Editors | Sat, 03/22/2008 - 6:20am | 0 comments
Charlie Rose Show: A discussion about the war in Iraq on the five year anniversary of the invasion with Richard Perle and Fred Kagan, both of the American Enterprise Institute.
Charlie Rose Show: A discussion about the war in Iraq on the five year anniversary of the invasion with George Packer of the New Yorker.
Charlie Rose Show: A discussion about the war in Iraq on the five year anniversary of the invasion with Richard Engel of NBC News via Baghdad.
Charlie Rose Show: A discussion about the war in Iraq on the five year anniversary of the invasion with Les Gelb, former correspondent for The New York Times and currently President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relation.
Charlie Rose Show: A discussion about the war in Iraq on the five year anniversary of the invasion with Iraqi journalist Ali Fadhil and Sinan Antoon of New York University.
Charlie Rose Show: A discussion about unrest in Tibet with Robert Thurman, Orville Schell, Pico Iyer, and Tashi Rabgey.
by SWJ Editors | Fri, 03/21/2008 - 8:08pm | 1 comment
All week SWJ friend and Intel Dump blogger Phillip Carter and Center for American Progress fellow Lawrence Korb have been debating issues related to U.S. national security over at the Los Angeles Times. Phil also practices government contracts law with McKenna Long & Aldridge in New York City. He previously served as an Army officer for nine years, deploying to Iraq in 2005-06 as an embedded advisor with the Iraqi police in Baqubah.Today, Carter and Korb close their Dust-Up with a discussion on the kinds of conflicts the U.S. military can expect to fight in the future. Previously, they discussed congressional oversight of the armed forces, Adm. William J. Fallon's public disagreement with the administration, the use of evidence gleaned from torture and the Air Force tanker contract.
Carter focuses on a military that can handle all kinds of war...
Historically, the Army has trained for big wars and thought of small wars as lesser kinds of conflict, hoping that the skills for major combat operations would trickle down well to things such as counterinsurgency. Our fighting in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, particularly during their first few years, illustrates the folly of this idea. To paraphrase Army Lt. Col. John Nagl, one of this generation's leading defense intellectuals, counterinsurgency is the graduate level of warfare. It involves a fundamentally different approach, in which the use of force is highly constrained and the support of the local population is the objective (as opposed to the capture of terrain or destruction of the enemy). A military trained for combat operations cannot easily adjust to this modus operandi. The military must rethink its approach to training, organizing and equipping for warfare, and abandon the one-size-fits-all approach.... while Korb discusses building the world's first responder.
After five years of war in Iraq and six-plus in Afghanistan, the United States military is facing a crisis not seen since the end of the Vietnam War. Equipment shortages, manpower shortfalls, recruiting and retention problems and misplaced budget priorities have resulted in a military barely able to meet the challenges America faces today and dangerously ill-prepared to handle the challenges of the future.As operations in Iraq eventually draw to a close, we must plot a new strategic direction for our nation's military. Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, former head of the Army War College, has noted that the current crisis in Iraq presents the "opportunity to transform ourselves as we rebuild." As Phil points out, we have an awful track record of getting it right.Nothing follows.
by SWJ Editors | Fri, 03/21/2008 - 7:49pm | 0 comments
Christian Science Monitor's three part series - Five Years in Iraq.
1. How Will the Iraq War End? By Peter Grier
From the point of view of the US, the Iraq war might be over when a president simply declares an endpoint. To an Iraqi, it might take much longer than that. Iraq today might be only at the midpoint, even the beginning, of a cycle of epic geopolitical change, say some analysts in a Monitor survey of experts in the region as well as in the US. For evidence, look at the Balkans, they say, which is still experiencing the geopolitical aftershocks of its mid-1990s wars.2. Is Life for Iraqis Improving? By Sam Dagher
When asked how they expect things to be one year from now, 45 percent of Iraqis said things would be somewhat better or much better, according to the results of a poll commissioned by the BBC and ABC News and released Monday. That's up from 29 percent six months ago, but lower than in 2005. The poll shows that Shiites and Kurds are more optimistic than Sunnis.3. A Deep Disquiet in the U.S. By Peter Grier
The Iraq war has been perhaps America's bitterest lesson since Vietnam in the realities of war and geopolitics -- profoundly altering ordinary citizens' sense of their country, its essential abilities, and the overall role it plays in the world.The series also includes links to audio slide shows and past CSM war in Iraq coverage.
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by SWJ Editors | Fri, 03/21/2008 - 7:05am | 0 comments
On 20 March, Colonel Daniel Roper, Director of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, particpated in a DoD Bloggers Roundtable to share his views on our COIN efforts in light of his two recent trips to Iraq. The transcript of this roundtable can be found here.
More on this roundtable at Argghhh! - Counterinsurgency: Forest and Trees.
Also on the 20th, Colonel Peter Baker, Commander of the 214th Fires Brigade, particpated in a roundtable to discuss the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq's Wasit province and several programs the PRT has undertaken to build long-term policing, education, medical, and engineering capacities. That transcript can be found here.
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by SWJ Editors | Thu, 03/20/2008 - 9:22pm | 0 comments
Theater Military Advisory and Assistance Group (TMAAG)
By Brigadier General Thomas M. Jordan (USA Ret.)
With the newly released publication of its principal operational manual, FM 3.0, the Army defined the principal conceptual underpinnings which will drive operational concepts over the next 10-15 years. The latest edition recognized the importance of understanding the complexity of the operational environment, and the nature of persistent conflict where the application of the military element of power is just one of the key ingredients necessary to achieve success. In light of this understanding, the Army adapted and raised the importance of stability operations onto an equal footing with combat operations. While the Army has made some important changes in training to implement this idea, the pending HQDA approval and resourcing decision of the Theater Military Advisory and Assistance Group (TMAAG) design and implementation strategy represents a visible and demonstrable investment in resources that reinforces the Army commitment to building partnership capacity (BPC) in an uncertain world. The proposed implementation strategy would establish one TMAAG for USARSO in FY10 (EDATE: 16 Oct 09) as proof of principle (PoP). The PoP would test the concept and make appropriate refinements as part of the overall determination to resource additional TMAAGs.
TMAAG's origin was the Army's "Unified Quest 2007" series of seminar wargames that supported the Chief of Staff of the Army's (CSA's) annual study plan. One of the resulting insights was a potential gap in the Army's ability to meet Combatant Commanders' daily operations requirements regarding theater security cooperation, military engagement, and Building Partnership Capacity (BPC). The CSA directed TRADOC, and in turn, the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas as the lead to develop an operational concept and organizational solution to the perceived gap...
by SWJ Editors | Thu, 03/20/2008 - 6:37am | 1 comment
Wading through all the Iraq five years on commentary plastered across op-ed pages this week? Make sure you don't inadvertently skip over Michele Flournoy's piece in today's Washington Times -- Stabilizing Iraq. Flournoy, president and co-founder of the Center for a New American Security and a former principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, offers up a fair and balanced assessment of where we're at in Iraq and what needs to be done to guard against a backslide in recent hard-won gains.
Where we're at:
... Security in many parts of the country has improved markedly due to a host of factors: the Sunni "Awakening," Moktada al-Sadr's ceasefire, the shift in U.S. strategy to protecting the Iraqi population, the surge of U.S. forces in Baghdad, increasingly effective operations against al Qaeda and greater professionalism among some (though not all) Iraqi military units. Having lived through the sectarian violence of 2006 and early 2007, many Iraqis now feel that Iraq has been given a second chance.But increased security has also created rapidly rising expectations for essential services like electricity, for political reconciliation and open, free and fair elections, for equitable distribution of Iraq's vast oil wealth, and for jobs.These expectations must be met to consolidate recent security gains.We are now in what U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine calls the "build" phase — certainly the hardest phase in which the primary objective is enhancing the legitimacy of the host-nation government in the eyes of the population. The problem is that, to date, improved security has increased our legitimacy, not that of the Iraqi government...What needs to be done:
... Unless we succeed in pushing the Iraqi government to embrace political accommodation and invest in its own country in the coming months, the Bush administration risks not only losing hard-fought security gains but also bequeathing to the next president an Iraq in danger of sliding back into civil war.Read it all and also check out Foreign Policy's graphic representation Iraq by the Numbers - five years on, key indicators paint a picture of a country trying to rise from the rubble.
by SWJ Editors | Wed, 03/19/2008 - 9:47pm | 0 comments
US Military Takes Lessons From Iraq 'Insurgent' War by Gordon Lubold, Christian Science MonitorAs the fight in Iraq drives fundamental changes to the military, it is also forcing a debate on how far those changes should go.Five years of war in Iraq have emphasized how US forces need to be adept at fighting so-called irregular warfare: One moment, troops are conducting full-combat operations, while the next, they're handing out candy and soccer balls. But as the fight in Iraq -- and in Afghanistan and elsewhere -- drives fundamental changes to the military, it is also forcing a debate on how far those changes should go, especially as the Pentagon looks ahead to potential future conflicts.At the center of this debate is a proposal to create a permanent force of 20,000 new "combat advisors." Such a force would position the Army to better train indigenous forces to take on counterinsurgencies for themselves. The idea behind it is that today's wars are not fought with tanks and bombers so much as with hearts and minds, and many officers believe the Army needs to train a generation of soldiers as "warrior diplomats."
More at CSM.
by SWJ Editors | Tue, 03/18/2008 - 7:11am | 1 comment
Boston Dynamics Video of its 'Big Dog' Quadruped Robot
Hat Tip to Sam Liles at SWC
More of 'Big Dog'
Discuss at Small Wars Council
by SWJ Editors | Mon, 03/17/2008 - 7:12pm | 1 comment
Andrew Exum, King's College Ph.D. candidate and former Army officer with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, has an excellent article in the Combating Terrorism Center's Sentinel - Drawing the Right Lessons from Israel's War with Hizb Allah.... It is impossible to gauge the degree to which the U.S. Army's conventional combat skills have been eroded by the focus on counter-insurgency warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is certainly likely that the high operations tempo, endless deployments and shortened training schedules have more to do with any erosion in collective task proficiencies than counter-insurgency manual FM 3-24. Yet, the U.S. military is almost certainly drawing the wrong lessons from the 2006 war if it is used to ignore the hard won lessons of counter-insurgency and revert back to the kind of conventional war-fighting with which the U.S. military has always been more comfortable.Drawing the wrong lessons has happened before...
Again, excellent article and well worth the read.
by SWJ Editors | Mon, 03/17/2008 - 7:14am | 0 comments
24 March issue of Newsweek - Five years on, the war is transforming the American officer corps...
Scions of the Surge by Babak Dehghanpisheh and Evan Thomas
... Many Americans were asking that question last spring and summer. While it's too soon to say Iraq has turned the corner, the violence in Baghdad and most of the country has since declined precipitously. Much of the credit has gone to Gen. David Petraeus, the commander who has changed the way the U.S. Army fights. "You can't kill your way out of an insurgency," Petraeus told Newsweek, in an interview in his Baghdad headquarters last month. He has moved soldiers out of their secure megabases and into small outposts deep inside once alien and hostile neighborhoods, and he has ordered his men out of their armored convoys. "Walk ... Stop by, don't drive by," says Petraeus, reading from a "guidance" he is drafting for his soldiers. The objective, he repeats over and over, is no longer to take a hill or storm a citadel, but to win over the people.But this new way of war needs a new kind of warrior, and it needs tens of thousands of them. Five years into the longest conflict the U.S. military has fought since Vietnam, young officers like Tim Wright have been blooded by multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. They've learned, often on their own, operating with unprecedented independence, the intricacies of Muslim cultures. Faced with ineffective central governments, they have acted as mayors, mediators, cops, civil engineers, usually in appalling surroundings. Most recently, and hardest of all, they've had to reach out and ally themselves with men who have tried and often succeeded in killing their own soldiers. Brought up in rigid, flag-waving warrior cultures that taught right from wrong, black from white, they've had to learn to operate amid moral ambiguity, to acknowledge the legitimate aspirations of their enemies...The Fight Over How to Fight by Evan Thomas and John Barry
... But what if a military must prepare to fight not one war, but two very different kinds of war? That is the challenge facing the world's greatest superpower at the beginning of the 21st century. The American military must continue to ready itself for high-tech warfare; it must still be able to fight "big wars" against rising powers like China. At the same time, it must anticipate what military planners blandly term "low-intensity conflict" but what Rudyard Kipling more aptly called the "savage wars of peace"—small, asymmetrical conflicts against determined partisans with wicked low-tech weapons like IEDs, the improvised explosive devices that have cost America so dearly in Iraq.The tension over which war to prepare for has created a generational divide in the American military, particularly the U.S. Army, between old bulls who want to focus on all-out combat, drowning the enemy in precision firepower, and young upstarts who believe that in today's messy world of failing states, firepower is not enough—it is necessary to win hearts and minds...The Enemy Comes in From the Cold by Larry Kaplow
Hawija is a mean town, decaying and sullen. Not long ago a sniper hit a soldier from Black Sheep Company while he was standing inside a downtown police station. But the company's commander, 32-year-old Capt. Quinn Eddy of the 87th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, speaks without malice of the insurgents taking potshots at his men. "A lot are just triggers who get paid," he says. "They're just trying to survive." Before Iraq, Eddy served a tour in Afghanistan. The enemy in Hawija, he says, is "not the same Al Qaeda that you and I know."...'A Good Way to Spread a Message' by Babak Dehghanpisheh
... Greater cultural sensitivity has long been a goal of the U.S. Army in Iraq, but only lately, as soldiers come back for the second or third time and deploy deeper into Baghdad neighborhoods, has it become a reality. It's paid off. Late last summer, Marckwardt bonded with a soft-spoken university professor named Abu Muthana over their shared love of Spanish. Disillusioned with the insurgency, Abu Muthana now commands a U.S.-supported neighborhood patrol group. "We thought the Americans were our enemy," he says. "But we Iraqis woke up and realized we have a common enemy." That's not all they have in common.'The Fight That We Are in Now' by Larry Kaplow
Capt. Neil Hollenbeck declines to second-guess whether America should have invaded Iraq. What he will say is this: "The reason we invaded Iraq to begin with and the reason we're fighting now are different. We're fighting different enemies now." He pauses to think. "The threat we're fighting now is instability and terrorism." Another pause. "The fight that we are in now is not one of our choosing. It's just one we're choosing not to walk away from." Questions of winning and losing are above his rank, he adds, although he thinks a stable Iraq, with a government that can grow into its responsibilities, is "obtainable."That's why he's here, hunting down the last Al Qaeda in Iraq fighters in the rural Arab Jabour district, south of Baghdad. Hollenbeck and his troops live in an abandoned farmhouse with no running water or electricity, only a generator to run their radios and a light or two. He doesn't mind roughing it; that's part of the strategy. The main thing is to protect the people: you have to live among them, not on heavily fortified bases, as Gen. David Petraeus's counterinsurgency manual says. When the book first came out, Hollenbeck was at Fort Benning, taking classes in conventional warfare between deployments to Iraq. He remembers how good it felt to read something that actually applied to the unconventional conflict he had seen in Iraq...Images of War: Photographic timeline of the five years of conflict in Iraq
Video: U.S. Troops in Their Own Words
Video: Inside an Iraq Preschool
by SWJ Editors | Sun, 03/16/2008 - 8:41pm | 2 comments
Long Hard Road: NCO Experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq - Published by the US Army Sergeants Major Academy.
The call to war is often met by young Soldiers who lack an understanding of what they are about to encounter. These young Soldiers must be trained, prepared, and then led in battle by those with experience and understanding---the Noncommissioned Officer Corps. In an effort to preserve the history of the US Army Noncommissioned Officer and to provide future noncommissioned officers with an understanding of the actions necessary to prepare Soldiers and to lead them in war, the US Army Sergeants Major Academy undertook a program to gather and publish the stories of NCOs who had served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the papers received were from students of the US Army Sergeants Major Course who had already deployed to either Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom. This work highlights a few of those stories. A wide range of topics have been chosen to allow the reader to understand the preparations, training, and actions needed for NCOs to accomplish their missions.
The work is prepared in two sections: the first we call Stories from Afghanistan and the second, Stories from Iraq. Stories from Iraq is further broken down into "Fighting the Iraqi Army" and "Fighting the Insurgency." Each story has a brief introduction to provide the reader with a background and setting for the story. Timelines are also provided to assist the reader in following the stories in relation to other events that are taking place during the same time frame. In addition, maps provide the reader with an understanding of where in Afghanistan or Iraq those events occurred.
To help readers understand many of the acronyms used by the US Army and specific units, a Glossary is made available as well; it is by no means inclusive of all Army acronyms.
Colonel David J. Abramowitz and Command Sergeant Major James E. Dale charged three members of the US Army Sergeants Major Academy staff to put this work together: Jesse McKinney (SGM Retired), School Secretariat Director; MSG Eric Pilgrim, Editor-in-Chief of the NCO Journal and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom; and L.R. Arms, Curator of the NCO Museum and a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran. They were assisted in their efforts by Ms. Melissa Cooper, Museum Specialist, Ms. Jeannie Tapia, Academic Records Technician, and SPC Joseph Edmondson, Graphic Artist. Together they reviewed more then 683 papers to determine which papers would be included in this work. Many of the selected stories were shortened and edited for clarity; however, every attempt was made to remain true to the author's original intent. In the future, the Sergeants Major Academy will hopefully continue to produce works of this nature, ultimately retaining the knowledge and experiences gained in warfare by noncommissioned officers.
L.R. Arms
Curator
US Army Museum of the Noncommissioned Officer
by SWJ Editors | Sun, 03/16/2008 - 8:11am | 0 comments
Colonel John Charlton, Commander of 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, provided an update on ongoing security operations in Iraq on 13 March 2008.
by SWJ Editors | Sat, 03/15/2008 - 8:49am | 7 comments
President John. F. Kennedy - Remarks at West Point to the Graduating Class of the U.S. Military Academy, 6 June 1962
Hat Tip to Buck Elton
by SWJ Editors | Fri, 03/14/2008 - 9:07pm | 0 comments
The Surge in Iraq: One Year Later by Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, Heritage Foundation - 13 March lecture transcript (pdf).
I returned from Iraq a little over two weeks ago, and trust me, it's great to be in Washington and in your company today. After nearly 15 months in Iraq--mostly spent focusing on where we are and where we're going--it's a pleasure to step back and reflect a bit about where we've been. I'd like to speak with you about Iraq in 2007, to include the surge, its implementation, and my assessment of its impact...Talking Points:
- For the government of Iraq, the 2007 surge has provided a window of opportunity. This window will not remain open forever.- In a very real way and at the local level, the surge allowed Coalition and Iraqi forces to hold the hard-earned ground that was wrested from the enemy, while continuing to pursue terrorists as they struggle to regroup elsewhere.
- By November 2007, there were 30 attacks in al-Anbar province during the last week in October; one year prior, there had been over 300.
- To capitalize on the reduction of violence in 2007, Iraqi leaders must make deliberate choices to secure lasting strategic gains through reconciliation and political progress.
- The improved security conditions resulting in part from the surge of 2007 have given the Iraqis an opportunity to choose a better way.
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by SWJ Editors | Fri, 03/14/2008 - 7:55pm | 1 comment
The Charlie Rose Show
A conversation with Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, Commanding General of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas.
by SWJ Editors | Fri, 03/14/2008 - 7:26am | 0 comments
Two quick items from the folks at King's College.
Insurgency Research Group Blog - Kings of War
Some Kings of War readers may have noticed the recent launch of the blog of the Insurgency Research Group (IRG) here at King's. The aim of the IRG is to act as a centre of gravity for the community of British COIN researchers/practitioners which, while relatively sizable, is diffuse and unfocused. The IRG blog, which is being run by King's graduate Will Hartley, is meant as a vehicle for this community to publicize events, share ideas and socialize (virtually, so to speak). It's a bit like KOW only more focussed on insurgency...Counterinsurgency in Iraq - Insurgency Research Group
RAND has released a monograph, entitled Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006), written by Bruce R. Pirnie and Edward O'Connell. The paper provides a useful overview of the conflict, and of the various armed actors involved, before assessing the US COIN campaign, and analysing the flaws in US strategy which contributed to the rapid deterioration in the situation in the first years of the campaign...Nothing follows.
by SWJ Editors | Fri, 03/14/2008 - 7:11am | 0 comments
Abu Muqawama has updated the AM Counterinsurgency Reading List...The gang at Abu Muqawama has put our heads together and updated, once again, our famous Counterinsurgency Reading List. Added to the list are books by Giustozzi and Glubb as well as articles by McMaster, MacFarland, and many others. As usual, everything is hyperlinked. Enjoy!
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by SWJ Editors | Fri, 03/14/2008 - 5:49am | 0 comments
The Long War: A Marine Perspective on the Global War on Terrorism
By Andrew Lubin
The Global Interdependence Center hosted General Robert Magnus, Assistant Commandant, United States Marine Corps, at the University of Pennsylvania Wednesday evening.
Using the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a backdrop, Gen Magnus spoke about using various types of power in order to advance national security and the national interest. "Clausewitz said that you need to understand the war you are in," Magnus explained, "war is an exercise of politics, but by other means."
But having a 'hammer', as he described the Marine Corps and the American military, does not mean that the military should be the primary method of enforcing national strategic interests. There are many ways to utilize the American military, he explained, citing Marine efforts in training Afghan Police, reconstruction efforts in Ramadi, and the Provisional Reconstruction Teams in Iraq who are involved in job creation that ranges from opening shops to vaccinating cows. "If we don't help them find jobs," Magnus commented," then they'll go back to earning money by dropping an IED on our troops."...
by SWJ Editors | Thu, 03/13/2008 - 9:13pm | 0 comments
Drug Intoxicated Irregular Fighters: Complications, Dangers, and Responses by Dr. Paul Rexton Kan, US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 12 March 2008.The presence of drugged fighters is not unknown in the history of warfare. Yet widespread drug use on the battlefield is now part of protracted conflicts largely fought by nonprofessional combatants that take place in an international system characterized by the process of globalization. From marijuana, khat, hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine to looted pharmaceuticals, irregular fighters have found a ready supply of narcotics to consume for a variety of combat purposes. Such consumption has led to unpredictable fighting, the commission of atrocities, and to the prolongation of internal violence. The presence of intoxicated combatants will continue to be a feature of armed conflict and requires a fuller accounting to adequately prepare policymakers and military planners for future conflicts...
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by SWJ Editors | Thu, 03/13/2008 - 8:51pm | 0 comments
What Lies "Beyond Goldwater-Nichols"? by Thomas Donnelly, American Enterprise Institute, 13 March 2008.... Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans and their allies have slowly and painfully come to the conclusion that they are in a Long War to create a new political order in the Islamic world that we can better live with--that is, a region with greater inherent stability of the sort that comes from a legitimate government that is at peace with us, with its neighbors, and with its own people. We have found that we cannot comfortably accommodate, in an age of terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons, what John Quincy Adams called "derelict" states.And so our policy strongly suggests that our strategy imitate the "clear, hold, and build" tactics that underlie the success of the Iraq surge and the progress made in the U.S. sectors of Afghanistan. Strategically, we are attempting to clear, hold (preferably through allies, rather than ourselves directly), and build on a larger level, in an effort often described as a global counterinsurgency. The policy also suggests that it is the "building" that makes for a decisive victory. That is, victory on the battlefield is not the same as victory in the war; military success is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. And a corollary is that the military's tasks--for the military's missions are rightly defined by the nation's needs and by political leaders, not by any internal structure of the armed forces--extend beyond the destruction of enemy forces.Yet the need for "building"--which, at minimum, means state-building--means that there are missions that demand more than military power. And so there has been a lot of effort to mobilize other agencies and other elements of American power, even in cases where these other agencies are poorly suited or highly reluctant to be mobilized. Others with experience of modern counterinsurgencies, such as the Australians, often describe this as a "whole of government" approach. It is an approach that makes great common sense, but one that needs to be correctly translated into an American idiom without inverting the real meaning...
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by SWJ Editors | Thu, 03/13/2008 - 6:48pm | 0 comments
The Charlie Rose Show
An hour with Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 12 March 2008.
by SWJ Editors | Thu, 03/13/2008 - 5:05am | 1 comment
Thom Shanker and David Stout of the New York Times are reporting that Adm. William J. Fallon, commander of US Central Command whose views on Iran and other issues have seemed to put him at odds with the Bush administration, is retiring early, the Pentagon said Tuesday afternoon.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announces the retirement of Adm William Fallon, commander, US Central Command, on 11 March 2008.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Press Conference - Transcript
President Bush Remarks on Admiral Fallon's Retirement - Transcript
More from the Times article:
... despite the warm words from Mr. Bush and Mr. Gates, there was no question that the admiral's premature departure stemmed from policy differences with the administration, and with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq. Mr. Gates acknowledged as much when he said that Admiral Fallon, in asking permission on Tuesday morning to retire, had expressed concerns that the controversy over his views were becoming "a distraction." But the secretary labeled as "ridiculous" any speculation that the admiral's retirement portends a more bellicose American approach toward Iran.Admiral Fallon had rankled senior officials of the Bush administration with outspoken comments on such issues as dealing with Iran and on setting the pace of troop reductions from Iraq — even though his comments were well within the range of views expressed by Mr. Gates...The Times article quotes "officials" as saying the last straw, however, came in an article in Esquire magazine by Thomas P. M. Barnett, a respected military analyst, that profiled Admiral Fallon under the headline, "The Man Between War and Peace."
Tom Ricks, Washington Post, in an article titled Commander Rejects Article of Praise reported that Fallon called Barnett's Esquire piece poison pen stuff that is really disrespectful and ugly. Ricks had more:
Fallon has previously made it clear he has differences with the Bush administration's foreign policy. Some White House aides were said to be unhappy with his decision to dump "the long war" as a phrase to describe U.S. efforts against terrorism. In addition, some White House officials were irked by the persistent friction between him and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. Fallon and Petraeus are known to have disagreed about plans and troop levels in Iraq, but Petraeus, even though technically subordinate to Fallon, appears to have more influence with Bush.Asked about his dealings with Petraeus, Fallon said in a December interview, "That stuff is all overblown. . . . We talk daily." He added, "Dave does internal Iraq. I do the region."Fallon, a career naval aviator and one of the last Vietnam War veterans on active duty, took over as chief of the Central Command in March 2007, becoming the first Navy officer ever to hold that post...American Forces Press Service is reporting that Fallon's deputy, Army Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, will take over as acting Central Command commander until a permanent replacement is nominated and confirmed.
On a likely permanent replacement Ricks reports:
A likely successor to Fallon is Petraeus, some defense experts said. The general could be promoted to the Centcom post and replaced in Baghdad by Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who until last month was Petraeus's deputy in Iraq. Odierno, who has been nominated to become Army vice chief of staff, developed a strong working relationship with Petraeus. Another possible successor mentioned yesterday is Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the head of Special Operations in Iraq. McChrystal recently was nominated to be director of the staff of the Joint Chiefs, a key Pentagon position.More at the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Christian Science Monitor. Commentary by Max Boot at the Los Angeles Times, the gang at Abu Muqawama, Galrahn at Information Dissemination, Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement, Westhawk, Jason Sigger at Danger Room, Blackfive, and Zenpundit.
Tom Barnett has no comment.
Updated Links:
"Fox" Fallon Wasn't Hounded Out - Fred Kaplan, Slate
The Fall of Admiral McFallon - Mackubin Thomas Owens, Weekly Standard
A CENTCOM Chief Who Spoke His Mind - David Ignatius, Washington Post
Fallon: Right Man for Wrong Job? - Bronwen Maddox, London Times
Vice President Fallon? - Frank Gaffney Jr., National Review
The Importance of Fallon's Fall - Michael Barone, Real Clear Politics
Resigned to Reality of This War - Oliver North, Human Events
Demagoguing Adm. Fallon's Departure - Washington Times editorial
Fallon vs. Petraeus - Los Angeles Times editorial
Silence in the Ranks on Fallon - San Francisco Chronicle editorial
Fired for Speaking the Truth - Boston Globe editorial
CENTCOM Commander Resigns - David Betz, Kings of War
Charlie Rose Show - A discussion about Adm. William Fallon's resignation.
Nothing follows.