Blog Posts

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaking at the Conference of European Armies, 26 October 2007.

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May 2007 General Accounting Office Report: Actions Needed to Improve DOD's Stability Operations Approach and Interagency Planning...

Major General Benjamin Mixon, Commander of Multi-National Division-North and the 25th Infantry Division, providing an update on ongoing security operations in Iraq, October 26, 2007.

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By Bill Putnam

The presidential primaries are quickly approaching and yet no candidate has put forward an innovative plan for salvaging the Iraq crisis. Mr. or Mrs. Presidential Candidate, peace in Iraq is possible, but only if true national reconciliation occurs. US-led Coalition efforts to build national unity have thus far produced limited results. Future attempts at this should be —to adopt more unconventional concepts and focus on the few bonds that still connect Iraq's different groups. One of these links is the Iraqis' love for soccer and their national team.

Charlie Rose Show - General Michael Hayden, Director Central Intelligence Agency (Part 1)

Charlie Rose Show - General Michael Hayden, Director Central Intelligence Agency (Part 2)

Yesterday morning I was participating in an e-mail discussion when, in passing, the term "hearts and minds" came up. As these counterinsurgency (COIN) components are oft misunderstood or misrepresented -- here are several notations on what hearts and minds actually means...

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Colin Kahl, an Assistant Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and a Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, writes in the November / December issue of Foreign Affairs on while Counterinsurgency -- US Army Field Manual 3-24 / Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 33.3.5 is a long overdue step in the right direction, a look back at the history of counterinsurgency offers a sobering reminder of how low the odds of success are regardless of doctrinal excellence...

Charlie Rose Show - John Negroponte, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State

SWJ just received by e-mail this introductory edition of Kabul Direct.

Dear Friend of Afghanistan (and to our foes too, should we still have any left!)

Attached please find the first edition of Kabul Direct, the first English-language journal produced by Afghans in Afghanistan.

In this introductory issue, we have three exclusive in-depth interviews with:

* The former Taliban foreign minister and personal spokesman for Mullah Omar;

* The first elected leader of Afghanistan's other leading insurgent party, Hizbe-Islami; and,

* Afghanistan's own Al Qaeda expert and former official in the Taliban's foreign ministry

Find out why all of these close observers and former associates of the insurgents in Afghanistan believe that peace negotiations will succeed and should have started yesterday. Also learn why they think Afghanistan will never dissolve into a sectarian conflict like Iraq has.

Christian Lowe at Military.com reports that Marine Corps commanders in Iraq are asking the Pentagon to slow down the deployment of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. Corps commanders were quoted as saying they needed more time to figure out how to best employ the vehicle as they are four-times heavier than up-armored Humvees and may require a whole new set of tactics to operate effectively in a counterinsurgency environment.

Lowe quotes analysts with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA):

The MRAP has yet to prove its place in future service equipment plans. The gas-guzzling MRAP could impose a strain on logistics, suck funding away from needed vehicle upgrades in the future and could run counter to the intent of counterinsurgency doctrine, which stresses close contact with the population.

But retired Army Colonel Robert Killebrew, a former Special Forces officer and Department of Defense consultant disagrees:

I generally agree with the purchase of MRAPs in large numbers... I find unpersuasive the argument that MRAP will have some kind of doctrinal impact on the conduct of the war in Iraq.

It will have no effect at all on the current tactics of putting troops out on the beat and on their feet taking on insurgents in Baghdad and elsewhere...

Of IEDs and MRAPs: Force Protection In Complex Irregular Operations co-authored by Andrew Krepinevich and Dakota Wood was released by CSBA on 17 October.

About the report:

Simple solutions to complex problems are inherently attractive and almost always wrong. So it is with the Pentagon's recent decision to enter into "crash" production of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles, or MRAPs. Political and military leaders are currently grappling with this problem, which can be summed up as: How much to invest in a new system that appears to provide enhanced protection for troops against the most common, lethal threat in Iraq, without undermining either the ability of the force to conduct the current mission set before it, or the ability to remain effective across the range of missions and operating environments it will also have to be ready for in the years ahead?

This paper's purpose is not to offer a definitive answer to this question; rather, it seeks to ensure that the issues relevant to arriving at a good decision are given proper consideration. Those readers seeking a specific recommendation regarding the overall mix of armored vehicles in the US military's ground force structure will not find it here. However, those who are interested in how to think about the issue in their efforts to reach their own conclusions will hopefully find what follows to be useful.

Last week, the Washington Post reported that a bid by the Marine Corps to take responsibility for the primary U.S. military mission in Afghanistan generated a heated debate inside and outside the Pentagon, with some senior officers arguing that the Marines are ideally suited for the Afghan war while others contending that the move would undermine the counterinsurgency strategy there.

Yesterday, Inside Defense reported that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has nixed that proposal:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates today shot down Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway's proposal to shift Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan, which would leave the Army to handle operations in Iraq.

Gates dismissed the idea when asked about it at a Pentagon media briefing.

"I have pretty much literally, up until this point, heard one sentence about it, that they were thinking about it," he said. "So I would say that if it happens it will be long after I'm secretary of defense." ...

Blackwater USA - Public / Private Partnership in Peacekeeping Conference

This theme will look at those areas where the military and government can use private sector expertise to successfully accomplish security and reconstruction operations. To most effectively and efficiently accomplish stability and reconstruction missions requires using the most appropriate skill sets. Frequently those skill sets reside in the private sector. To best use the taxpayer's resources may require leveraging the private sector.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007 7:30 AM - Wednesday, December 5, 2007 5:00 PM

Ronald Reagan Bldg & International Trade Center

1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20004

Academic Military or Government $295.00 for a limited time ($395.00 original price)

Industry $395.00 for a limited time ($495.00 original price)

View Event Summary

View Event Agenda

Charlie Rose Show: An Hour with Erik Prince, Chairman, CEO and Founder, Blackwater USA.

RADM Jake Shuford, ADM Gary Roughead, Gen James Conway, and ADM Thad Allen speaking at the International Seapower Symposium's Combined Service Chief Maritime Strategy Presentation.

Download A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower

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To Raise Them Up. Part 1: The Lesser and Greater Insurgencies of the Philippines by B.A. Patty at The Long War Journal

B.A. Patty was recently embedded with the Armed Forces of the Philippines. In part one of his three-part series, Patty examines the roles of organizations such as Abu Sayyaf and MNLF in the insurgency and what Filipino and US troops are doing to squelch terrorist activities.

Debating Iraqi Federalism is Pointless by Westhawk at Westhawk

Howls of protest greeted a recent non-binding resolution passed by the U.S. Senate. That resolution, which received a bipartisan 75-23 approval, called for a "soft partition" of Iraq into Sunni, Shi'ite, and Kurdish regions, while retaining Iraqi sovereignty under a weak central government.

Prime Minister al-Maliki, leading Sunni politicians, U.S. Ambassador Crocker, and the U.S. State Department in Washington all shouted down the Senate resolution.

Why is the Use of Anthropology a Contentious Issue? By Marcus Griffin, Ph.D., at From an Anthropological Perspective

The debate in a nutshell is as follows. The general objection to anthropologists working with the military is that research will be used to facilitate the capture, torture, and killing of Iraqis. The professional code of ethics we abide by states that we must not conduct research that will cause harm to research subjects or the subject population. This code came out of the Vietnam War experience whereby some anthropologists used social network analysis to identify tribal leaders that the CIA apparently then assassinated. The second objection is that by using the anthropological perspective, US Forces will be in a position to more effectively prolong their "illegal occupation of Iraq." I am embarrassed to say that academia is taking this issue very seriously, with some anthropologists writing in the blogosphere to get the national association to consider certain sanctions that include denying the publication of any research conducted in association with the military. That is serious because it leads to ignorance generally and specifically denies faculty like me avenues to measure scholarship and service for purposes promotion and merit pay...

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By Wayne Mastin

More and more, America is witnessing an outcry from its military members about the competence and responsibility of its leadership. The beginning of this current crop of critical analyses seems to have been an article entitled "A Failure in Generalship" in the May 2007 issue of Armed Forces Journal by Army Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling. Another example is the piece entitled, "The War as We Saw It," by several young soldiers from the 82d Airborne Division that the New York Times published on August 19, 2007. Now retired General Ricardo Sanchez has added his voice to the clamor...

Marshall Sahlins on Anthropologists in Iraq - "Open Letter to the NYT" at Savage Minds.

You decide - read the letter and all the self-righteous comments that follow. Seems these guys and gals believe anthropology as a social science exists for anthropologists' feel-good, feed at the public trough sake. Unbelievable, to say the least...

The Good, The Bad, and The Replace Media with Concerned Anthropologists

Cox and Forkum

General Creighton Abrams fought in several long wars. As a result of his last, he directed a reorganization of the U.S. Army, an effort some called the Abrams Doctrine. This doctrine was subsequently converted into the Weinberger Doctrine and / or Powell Doctrine. All were subtle attempts to avoid the evils and problems of counterinsurgency (COIN) by influencing political masters in national government.

All failed as world events overtook best of intentions. We are now told we are in a long war. Possibly, but we must insure we are not, yet again, preparing for the wrong war. It is fairly obvious that for the next decade or so that commitments, if any, may -- note that, may -- be focused on nation building and COIN or similar missions. To focus on these missions by adding a large and dedicated foreign advisory training capability would create a large, rank heavy and most certainly unwieldy bureaucracy -- in other words -- a capability searching for a mission...

The COIN and Irregular Warfare in Tribal Society Pamphlet is designed to assist staff officers, non-commissioned officers, soldiers and Marines in conducting counterinsurgency and irregular warfare operations in a tribal society.

This pamphlet provides a general overview of tribal society and behavior to gain an appreciation of the cultural operating environment. The pamphlet is based on the premise that the key component of COIN and irregular warfare is to effectively communicate intent within the cultural frame of reference of the target audience.

Recommendations for improvements to this pamphlet are encouraged from commands as well as individuals.

The Great Escape

At an Army School, Blunt Talk on Iraq -- Elizabeth Bumiller, New York Times

Here at the intellectual center of the United States Army, two elite officers were deep in debate at lunch on a recent day over who bore more responsibility for mistakes in Iraq — the former defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, or the generals who acquiesced to him.

"The secretary of defense is an easy target," argued one of the officers, Maj. Kareem P. Montague, 34, a Harvard graduate and a commander in the Third Infantry Division that was the first to reach Baghdad in the 2003 invasion. "It's easy to pick on the political appointee."

"But he's the one that's responsible," retorted Maj. Michael J. Zinno, 40, a military planner who worked at the headquarters of the Coalitional Provisional Authority, the former American civilian administration in Iraq.

No, Major Montague shot back, it was more complicated: the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the top commanders were part of the decision to send in a small invasion force and not enough troops for the occupation. Only Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, the Army chief of staff who was sidelined after he told Congress that it would take several hundred thousand troops in Iraq, spoke up in public.

"You didn't hear any of them at the time, other than General Shinseki, screaming, saying that this was untenable," Major Montague said.

As the war grinds through its fifth year, Fort Leavenworth has become a front line in the military's tension and soul-searching over Iraq. Here at the base on the bluffs above the Missouri River, once a frontier outpost that was a starting point for the Oregon Trail, rising young officers are on a different journey — an outspoken re-examination of their role in Iraq...

Well, this debate has to take place, so here it is - í  la L. Paul Bremer III, retired Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez blasted the Bush administration at the Military Reporters and Editors conference Friday for a "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan" and denounced the current "surge" strategy as a "desperate" move that will not achieve long-term stability...

I ran across this post at the King's College Kings of War blog - Pedagogy for the Long War.

The posting links to a paper that Dr. David Betz, King's College Department of War Studies, will be presenting at the upcoming USMC Pedagogy for the Long War conference.

A Real Revolution in Military Affairs: On-line Continuous Learning for the Operational Warfighter

This paper begins from the premise that continuous change is the new norm of the strategic and operational environment in which military activities take place. That being the case the most vital war-winning qualities to develop in our military forces are adaptability and flexibility. These are a function of mindsets and skill sets not weapons suites and materiel. Therefore, the first step to addressing the maladaptation of our armed forces, whose institutional DNA is rooted in the wars of the Industrial Age, to the needs of the wars of the Information Age is the creation of an appropriate training and educational regime. But this task is complicated by the hard facts that, first, training and education must be continuous throughout the career at a time when, second, operational tempo is such that sending officers and men to school for extended periods, which was never easy to manage, is even more difficult. Solution: if the soldier cannot go to the school then the school must go to the soldier.

If providers of training and education to the military were able to achieve such a transformation of the way in which they operate that would indeed be revolutionary. As this paper will show, not only is it possible, it is in fact already a reality on a small scale for 58 serving officers (of 112 current students), 47 of whom are British army, 3 RAF, 3 US, 3 Danes, 1 Swede, 1 Canadian, and 1 Australian navy commander, all students on the on-line MA War in the Modern World programme offered by the renowned Department of War Studies at King's College London...

Betz: Anyway, in the spirit of building the 'Learning Community' that is Kings of War's corner of the Blogosphere I post my paper for any who may find it interesting. Comments and suggestions welcome.

On the conference:

The Conference Steering Committee for Pedagogy for the Long War: Teaching Irregular Warfare invites paper submissions for a conference to be held 29 October through 1 November 2007 at the General Alfred M Gray Research Center, in Quantico Virginia...

Building upon recent lessons of the US and international community of military educators, Pedagogy for the Long War: Teaching Irregular Warfare focuses on shifting the concepts, curricula, and methods of military training and education for general purpose forces, in order to better prepare service people at every stage in their career for the diverse tasks unique to current and projected operating environments over the next twenty years. It is a conference which focuses on pedagogy both as a topic for deliberation and as an activity animating participation.