The U.S. Army Combined Arms Center has posted the September - October 2007 issue of Military Review. Always a 'must read', links to individual articles follow, enjoy.
Featured Articles
Learning From Our Modern Wars: The Imperatives of Preparing for a Dangerous Future by Lieutenant General Peter W. Chiarelli, U.S. Army, with Major Stephen M. Smith, U.S. Army. Looking beyond the current wars, a former commander of the 1st Cavalry Division and Multi-National Corps-Iraq calls for significant changes to the way we train and fight.
Iraq: Tribal Engagement Lessons Learned by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Eisenstadt, U.S. Army Reserve. As the "Anbar Awakening" suggests, tribal engagement could be a key to success in Iraq. MR presents a useful primer on the subject.
Fighting "The Other War": Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan, 2003-2005 by Lieutenant General David W. Barno, U.S. Army, Retired. The former commander of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan offers his assessment of operations in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.
Linking Doctrine to Action: A New COIN Center-of-Gravity Analysis by Colonel Peter R. Mansoor, U.S. Army, and Major Mark S. Ulrich, U.S. Army. A new tool from the Army/Marine Counterinsurgency (COIN) Center can help bridge the gap between COIN doctrine and real results on the ground.
The Man Who Bent Events: "King John" in Indochina by Lieutenant Colonel Michel Goya and Lieutenant Colonel Philippe Franí§ois, French Marines. Rushed to Hanoi when the French were on the brink of defeat, General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny almost single-handedly turned the tables on Giap and Ho.
A Logical Method for Center-of-Gravity Analysis by Colonel Dale C. Eikmeier, U.S. Army. An Army War College professor prescribes a heuristic to demystify the center-of-gravity determination process.
Medical Diplomacy in Full-Spectrum Operations by Major Jay B. Baker, U.S. Army. Using medical civil assistance programs to win hearts and minds only undermines our efforts to build the Iraqi Government's legitimacy.
The Economic Instrument of National Power and Military Operations: A Focus on Iraq by LTC David Anderson. U.S. Marine Corps, Retired. The economic arm of U.S. national power has been ineffectively and even counterproductively deployed in recent conflicts.
Lessons Learned from the Recent War in Lebanon by Brigadier General Elias Hanna, Lebanese Army, Retired. According to one much-cited commentator, Hezbollah's stunning performance against Israel last July could be a preview of wars to come.
After Fidel: What Future for U.S.-Cuban Relations? by Waltraud Queiser Morales, Ph.D. How should the U.S. react to Fidel Castro's pending demise? Dr. Morales argues that it's time to overcome ideological qualms and special-interest objections.
Battling Terrorism under the Law of War by Colonel David A. Wallace, U.S. Army. A USMA law professor explains the legal issues at stake in the War on Terrorism and argues for adherence to the laws of war.
Chile and Argentina: From Measures of Trust to Military Integration by Lieutenant Colonel Felipe Arancibia-Clavel, Chilean Army. Cooperation and integration in the areas of security and defense are helping Chile and Argentina overcome centuries of mistrust and hostility.
Contest Winners
1st Place, Information Operations
Muddy Boots IO: The Rise of Soldier Blogs by Major Elizabeth L. Robbins, U.S. Army. Far from being threats to operational security, Soldier blogs, or milblogs, are strategic communications assets.
1st Place, MacArthur Award
Leadership in Counterinsurgency: A Tale of Two Leaders by Major Michael D. Sullivan, U.S. Army. T.E. Lawrence and Sir Gerald Templer were in many ways complete opposites, except that both leaders knew how to win at counterinsurgency.
Insights
The Droning of Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy by Robert D. Deutsch, Ph.D. People decode the world symbolically and metaphorically, using emotionally based reasoning. Our strategic communication and public diplomacy leaders have yet to realize this.
Understanding Airmen: A Primer for Soldiers by Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr., U.S. Air Force. If you think Airmen are prima donnas "obsessed with 'things that go fast, make noise, and look shiny,'" think again. We're all on the same side.
Paper and COIN: Exploiting the Enemy's Documents by Major Vernie Liebl, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired. We are ignoring a valuable source of intelligence by failing to search documents, hard drives, and other exploitable detritus found in the course of operations.
Words Are Weapons . . . So Use Them Wisely by Major Michael D. Jason, U.S. Army. The Army's failure to define partner and partnership, two terms widely used in Iraq, has led to unnecessary operational and tactical confusion.
MR Revisited: The Surrender Program by Garry D. Brewer. In this reprint from October 1967, the author describes the amnesty program used in Vietnam to co-opt and repatriate Viet Cong insurgents. Its lessons may be pertinent to Iraq.
Comments
Steve,
Had I written an article on insurgencies or small wars perhaps I would have checked with you. However my article was on Center of Gravity analysis and a logical process for its determination. This is a point you seem to have missed. (Why it is being discussed in SWJ is puzzling, its not a small war or insurgency article.) In the article I used examples to illustrate a process. The process is the subject of the article. One was a valid model of a generic insurgency. It was simple and useful for my purpose illustrating the process I described. So I used it.
Oldthink? Is that an Orwellian term from Academia?
Agree with Dr Metz about Colonel Eiklands piece in Mil Review. And if Colonel Eiklands article reflects "oldthink" by using temporally dated Maoist phases to help deduce a center of gravity, the other article in the current edition of Military Review, "Linking Doctrine to Action: A New Coin Center of Gravity Analysis," by Colonel Mansoor and Major Ulrich, reflects an unhappy and unhelpful "newthink" derived from the American Armys current Coin dogmatism. As I read their article and if i had to apply their method I would need the wisdom of an FDR and the immediate political power of PM Maliki in Iraq to affect the results in a given area that their article suggests is possible.
Major Ulrich was my teacher at the Coin Academy in December 2005 and he was a superb one; articulate, engaging, widely read, and thoughtful. I asked him at the beginning of the course why the people, as a matter of principle, are always the center of gravity in Coin? I asked why, in theory, the center of gravity in coin cant be the enemy force? I think the answer in a boiled down way would have been something like: because Galula says so.
Just wanted to add that I'm aware some of the people in Gitmo are guilty of quite heinous crimes. Re-reading my post above, it looked like I might have been saying none of them were. I'm just saying the vast majority were not, and it is important to give reasonable due process to allow the guilty to be sorted out.
Brian,
Perhaps you're not familiar with Gitmo. That was where hundreds of people from Afghanistan were being held. Overwhelmingly, they were not picked up during a dirty fight.
Some were fighting for the existing government of Afghanistan when they were picked up. Others weren't - they were simply informed on by vengeful neighbors. Some hadn't even done anything during the violent stage of the Afghan War.
Thus, the deeper issue is the old Andrew Jackson issue - does massacring a village of friendly Indians really have a salutary effect on the unfriendlies? Almost everyone who has ever looked at the question in depth says no. Treating prisoners with respect is necessary because most of the time, you've picked up loads of innocents along with a bunch of people guilty of, well, something, just not the horror that you've tried to lump them in with.
If you mistreat these kind of prisoners, you make enemies out of their relatives and friends, and you sacrifice the goodwill of neutral observers, who mark your side as unworthy of support. Jackson got away with it because he faced a vastly inferior foe. Do you want to gamble that way?
Huge amount of reading there. Just went thru the Wallace Laws of War article, and disagree with his contention they should apply to COIN just as in a Geneva-compliant conflict.
But neither is the legal civilian model right. IMO, a new category of "law" is needed. He gives little or no weight to the discarding of Geneva qualifications for combatants, especially the identification with uniforms, etc. An armed subversive insurgency is a covert enemy that has chosen to "fight dirty", and that needs to be taken into account.
So a new set of policies and laws would take that into account. I personally think the Gitmo model (the REAL one, not the calumnious caricature straw man posited by the left) is about right.