Blog Posts

The New Aztecs: Ritual and Restraint in Contemporary Western Military Operations.

From the Director

The AIWFC is a new Army Organization which the Army recently started to integrate the various components of IW, in particular to benefit both General Purpose Forces and SOF who are called to conduct IW tasks and missions mutually.

The central idea behind the AIWFC is to have a repository of expertise in key IW functions and from which important actions are coordinated and implemented that benefit the force, particularly those that affect doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leader development, personnel, and facilities. The IW Fusion Cell has a small, permanent structural network of on-site subject matter experts in the IW functions that utilizes larger, established communities (both formal and informal) to reach out to gain further expertise, collaboration, and insight into the doctrine, history, and application of IW.

The Combined Arms Center constructed the AIWFC this year in what the Army calls a—resourced informed|| way. In other words, it did not get millions of new dollars from the Department of the Army to organize yet another new office. Instead, CAC looked across its own organization and took advantage of existing expertise in IW and brought them together under one roof. It also called on other Army organizations to participate by establishing permanent liaison officers within the AIWFC. These liaison officers have functional expertise in IW and also have direct ties to their organizational higher headquarters for reachback support and additional subject matter expertise. AIWFC mission accomplishment is also helped by its immediate higher headquarters, the Mission Command Center of Excellence, which develops capabilities that advance both the art and science of mission command. To learn more about the Army IWFC, see this link in the Fort Leavenworth Lamp.

This SITREP may look familiar, since it is adopted from what we used to send each month from the Army COIN Center. The intent is the same -- to share information, but our horizon-level has been raised to include other aspects of irregular warfare. Let us know what you think.

Colonel Chad Clark

Click here to read the report.

Nothing follows.

"To the question "Why do the terrorists hate us?" Americans could be pardoned for answering, "Why should we care?" The immediate reaction to the murder of 5,000 innocents is anger, not analysis. Yet anger will not be enough to get us through what is sure to be a long struggle. For that we will need answers. The ones we have heard so far have been comforting but familiar. We stand for freedom and they hate it. We are rich and they envy us. We are strong and they resent this. All of which is true. But there are billions of poor and weak and oppressed people around the world. They don't turn planes into bombs. They don't blow themselves up to kill thousands of civilians. If envy were the cause of terrorism, Beverly Hills, Fifth Avenue and Mayfair would have become morgues long ago. There is something stronger at work here than deprivation and jealousy. Something that can move men to kill but also to die."

Much more at Newsweek

by Andy Bloxham

The Telegraph

BLUF. British soldiers who spot Taliban fighters planting roadside bombs are told not to shoot them because they do not pose an immediate threat, the Ministry of Defence has admitted. They are instead being ordered to just observe insurgents and record their position to reduce the risk of civilian casualties.

A key part of the MoD's counter-insurgency theory holds that it is more important to win over civilians by not killing innocent people than it is to eliminate every potential insurgent.

Much more at The Telegraph

by Carmen Gentile

Special for USA TODAY

The chief intelligence officer in this rustic town has reason to worry. Fareed, who like many Afghans goes by a single name, sat on the floor of his office and described the myriad armed gunmen operating in this part of Nangarhar province, an economically vital region of Afghanistan.

Nangarhar is home to a critical stretch of Highway 7, running between the town of Torkham on the Afghan-Pakistani border and the Afghan capital, Kabul. It serves as the main conduit for goods such as fuel and food from Pakistan to much of eastern Afghanistan and is the target for regular insurgent attacks.

U.S. forces and their Afghan allies are trying to keep the road open and secure.

Much more at USA TODAY

Past international speakers include General (British Army, ret) Rupert Smith (The Utility of Force), Joe Galloway [We Were Soldiers Once...and Young and soon-to-be recipient of the 2011 Doughboy Award], BG H.R. McMaster, LTG (USA, ret) Tom Metz, and many other notables. This year the slate is no less impressive and includes the following in addition to an equally impressive group of Israeli speakers:

- LTG Joseph Votel, commander of Joint Special Operations Command

- MG (USA, ret) Paul Eaton (former Commandant, U.S. Army Infantry School and commander of the initial Iraqi security forces training effort)

- BG Sean MacFarland (BCT commander in Anbar Province, Iraq during The Awakening)

- COL Keith Sledd, who will be discussing logistics support operations based on his combat experiences in Iraq

- BG JB Burton, commander of 2nd Brigade CombatTeam/1st Infantry Division in western Baghdad during the critical 2007 timeframe

- Raoul Bittel of the International Committee of the Red Cross who will be presenting on nongovernmental organization operations during irregular warfare contingencies

- The British Army's Lt Col Lee Daley, who will be reviewing the impact of recent counterinsurgency operations on British logistics doctrine and operations

- LTG (USA, ret) Malcolm O'Neill, the just retired Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology)

- Ms. Heidi Shyu, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology)

For those interested in attending, please check out the conference information and registration website at the Institute of Land Warfare Studies, which includes the full agenda. Previous years' proceedings are available for free download at ILWS Conference papers.

Here is the latest edition of my column at Foreign Policy:

Topics include:

1) As a civilian, Petraeus will soldier on, in Pakistan

2) China's message to its neighbors: don't count on the United States

As a civilian, Petraeus will soldier on, in Pakistan

U.S.-Pakistani relations, under redoubled strain after the May raid on Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, are only getting worse. This week, the Obama administration announced it would withhold $800 million in military aid to Pakistan, more than a third of Washington's annual allotment. The proximate cause of this reprimand was the apparent betrayal by Pakistani officials of plans to attack Afghan Taliban bomb-making sites inside Pakistan -- the bomb-makers, who undoubtedly have the blood of many U.S. soldiers on their hands, escaped.

Meanwhile, the security outlook in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan has darkened. In retaliation for the blocked U.S. aid, Pakistan's defense minister threatened to withdraw some of his soldiers from the badlands, including over 1,100 border checkpoints. This would come on top of a previous decision to throw out over 100 U.S. Special Forces soldiers who had been training the Frontier Corps. As it attempts to scare U.S. officials by threatening to cede territory to the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani government didn't hesitate to take action against its own insurgents -- over the past six weeks, the Pakistan army has fired over 760 rockets and artillery shells into three Afghan provinces, killing at least 60 people.

The decision to finally impose a penalty on Islamabad for the duplicity of some of its officials will no doubt further worsen the relationship in the short-run. Policymakers in Washington will have to assess whether the relationship is a viable candidate for a "reset."

If not, the United States will have to tally up its options for expanded unilateral action against militants in the region. If it comes to that, President Barack Obama will undoubtedly turn to his incoming CIA director Gen. David Petraeus to implement more quasi-military operations.

Click below to read more ...

by Mike "Starbaby" Pietrucha

Since 1995, the USAF has gone from an organization that had not a single, operational Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) to its name to a service that has fielded several kinds of RPAs in squadron strength. The utility of the RPA has been definitively proven in the ISR mission, and a limited precision attack capability has provided stunning results on the battlefield. However, the success of the RPA should not blind us to the limitations that come along with it. Predators, Reapers and Global Hawks are still aircraft, and like all aircraft, they are not capable of being the best choice for every possible mission that may be necessary. In an Irregular Warfare environment, we run the risk of putting too many eggs in the unmanned basket and blinding ourselves to the capabilities that have been demonstrated worldwide, by aviators, in manned aircraft in almost a century of military service in a variety of conflicts around the world. The question arises: "In Irregular Warfare, what can a manned aircraft do that a RPA cannot?

Lt Col Michael "Starbaby" Pietrucha is a USAF Reserve Officer with 156 combat missions in the F-4G and F-15E and two ground combat deployments (one each in Iraq and Afghanistan) in the company of US Army infantry, military police and combat engineers. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not represent the views of the Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or any element thereof.

by Mark Munson

The events of 2011, including the rapid spread of democratic social movements in the Middle East and the dramatic death of Osama bin Laden in a US special operations raid, provide insight into the state of global non-proliferation efforts and why possessing the nuclear option may seem even more rational today for the world's dictators than in the past. The continued security relevance of nuclear weapons to states has been identified by figures as varied as AQ Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear program, and Bing West, former Reagan administration Defense Department official and author, who both recently argued that there would have been no military intervention against a nuclear-armed Libya (Khan presented his views in a May Newsweek column, West at a Center for New American Security conference in June).

Lieutenant Commander Mark Munson currently serves as the Intelligence Officer for Naval Special Warfare Group FOUR. He has previously served onboard USS ESSEX (LHD 2) and at the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Entitled "Counterinsurgency Mission Command" the brief will discuss the "how to" of the day-to-day management of multiple forces and organizations conducting combined COIN operations. The brief includes a review of the mechanics of executing a unity of effort for various commands and organizations involved in combating an insurgency and the key organizational and procedural constructs for the day to day management of the campaign.

His online briefing is scheduled for Thursday, 21 July 2011 at 10:00 CDT (1100 EDT, 15:00 ZULU).

Those interested in attending may view the meeting online at https://connect.dco.dod.mil/coinweb and participate via Defense Connect Online (DCO) as a guest. Remote attendees will be able to ask questions and view the slides through the software.

by Stéphane Taillat

Foreign Policy

BLUF. The last two days have been murderous for the French contingent in Afghanistan; four paratroopers were killed in a suicide attack in the Surobi district, while a Special Forces soldier was killed during operations in the Alasay Valley, in the province of Kapisa.

The timing of these incidents was hardly accidental: The goal was to strike France and its army during the commemoration of the national and military holiday that is the "14 Juillet" known as Bastille Day in the Anglophone world. But these deaths also illustrate the growing engagement of French units in Afghanistan in more intense kinetic operations. The reconquest of Kapisa, a particularly sensitive region situated on a strategic axis and marked by 30 years of war, has been a particularly costly and difficult task, one that has required French forces to put into practice their tactical knowledge and understanding of "contre-insurrection" or what Americans call COIN.

Much more at Foreign Policy

Joint Interagency Task Force--South: The Best Known, Least Understood Interagency Success.

Starbuck is Wrong by Carl Prine at Line of Departure. BLUF: "Starbuck is wrong. And in his drive to keep getting it wrong, he's trying to rewrite FM 3--24, the military's chief doctrinal publication on counterinsurgency. But that just makes him more wrong. He's wrong about me. He's wrong about what I believe. He's wrong about the literature that informs FM 3--24. He's wrong about what the manual says and he's wrong about what it left out. He's wrong about historiography. He's wrong about how a caste of top officers and diplomats came to understand "strategy" in the wake of the occupation of Iraq."

Tuesday, August 30, 2011 - Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Gray Research Center

2040 Broadway Street

MCB Quantico

Quantico, VA 22134

Marine Corps University, in partnership with the Defense Intelligence Agency Center for Language, Regional Expertise and Culture and the Marine Corps University Foundation, is pleased to announce its August 2011 Emerald Express Strategic Symposium, entitled "Shaping for Successful Transition in Afghanistan". The two-day conference brings together military and civilian practitioners, U.S. academics, Afghan policymakers and regional experts to propose and discuss current, as well as alternative, road maps for successful transition of responsibility from NATO-ISAF to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan starting in 2012. General James Mattis, USMC, Commander US Central Command, will ignite the discussion with the day one morning keynote address.

More information and registration can be found here.

Obama Awards Medal of Honor to Army Ranger

By Lisa Daniel

American Forces Press Service

President Barack Obama today [Tuesday] awarded the country's highest military honor to Sgt. 1st Class Leroy A. Petry, an Army Ranger who was shot in both legs and had his hand blown off while saving his fellow soldiers during a firefight in Afghanistan.

Petry became only the second living veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to receive the Medal of Honor, which Obama presented during a White House ceremony attended by Petry, his wife and four children, and more than a hundred of his family members, mostly from his native New Mexico.

Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. James E. Cartwright, Army Secretary John M. McHugh and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Martin E. Dempsey also attended the ceremony, as did the members of the legendary Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, with which Petry served.

Calling Petry, 31, "a true hero," Obama recounted how the soldier was on his seventh combat deployment in Afghanistan on May 26, 2008, when he took part in a high-risk daytime operation to capture an insurgent leader in a compound in Paktia province, near the Pakistan border...

More:

Rare White House Ceremony for Medal of Honor - NYT

Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry Awarded Medal of Honor - WP

Obama Awards Medal of Honor to Army Ranger - AFPS

Remarks by the President in Presenting the Medal of Honor - White House

Exclusive Interview with Army Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry - S&S

Afghanistan Veteran Leroy Petry Awarded US Medal of Honor - BBC

Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry, Live Action Hero - WP

US Army Medal of Honor - Official Web Page