Journal

by Bob Tollast

Download the Full Article: Obama's Pledge: A Responsible End to War in Iraq?

At the beginning of May, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan presented CWC report 4 to Congress, detailing the forthcoming State Department mission in Iraq. It lays bare the challenges in what will be an historic mission, in uncharted waters. It also raises serious questions about Obama's pledge to bring the war to a responsible end, and whether this will be fully resourced.

Download the Full Article: Obama's Pledge: A Responsible End to War in Iraq?

Robert Tollast is an English Literature Graduate from Royal Holloway University of London, and he is a periodic contributor to Small Wars Journal.

Book Review by Frank G. Hoffman

Download the Full Review: Transforming Command

In the Foreword of this well executed book, Brigadier General H.R. McMaster, USA warns that American thinking about defense transformation and Revolutions in Military Affairs up until Iraq and Afghanistan had begun to eclipse the doctrine or command philosophy called "mission command." "The orthodoxy of defense transformation," he notes, "considered war as mainly a targeting exercise and divorced war from its political, human, psychological and cultural dimensions." He goes on to associate the neglect of mission command with negative impacts on U.S. and coalition efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as Israeli efforts in Southern Lebanon in 2006.

Thus, Transforming Command is certainly timely. Partly in response to the effects of the transformation agenda promoted by former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and partly in recognition of the leadership challenges posed by operations against today's adaptive adversaries, the requirement for empowered and decentralized leadership is once again being recognized in the United States. The U.S. Army's latest capstone concept, developed by General McMaster stressed "Future operations...must remain grounded in the Army's long-standing concept of Mission Command defined as the conduct of military operations through decentralized execution based upon mission orders for effective mission accomplishment." The Army goes on to emphasize disciplined initiative and prudent risk taking based on commander's intent as key elements of mission command.

Likewise the U.S. Marine Corps has updated its Marine Operating Concepts with a chapter on Mission Command. It defines it as "A cultivated leadership ethos that empowers decentralized leaders with decision authority and guides character development of Marines in garrison and combat." For the Marines, Mission Command "promotes an entrepreneurial mindset and enables the strong relationships of trust and mutual understanding necessary for decentralized decision making and the tempo of operations required to seize the initiative..."

Download the Full Review: Transforming Command

Frank G. Hoffman is a Senior Research Fellow at National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies. He is a retired Marine Reservist and frequent contributor to Small Wars Journal.

by Octavian Manea

Download the Full Article: The Iraqi COIN Narrative Revisited: Interview with Douglas A. Ollivant

How would you see today the rationale behind the 2007 Bagdad surge? To act as a buffer between the Iraqi sectarian, ethnic pressures and ontological (group extinction) fears? To protect a Sunni population that could not be protected by the formal Iraqi security forces (either because of weakness or because the Sunnis didn't trust them) and setting the stage for the next level-a rational political space?

Protecting the population is important. But the sad fact is that by early 2007 in Baghdad, the Sunni groups had been pushed back to small enough enclaves that it was fairly easy to protect them, save in Southern Baghdad, where the cleansing continued well into the fall of 2007. The continued cleansing in South Baghdad made me skeptical that things were working until very late in 2007, despite the obvious reduction in violence elsewhere in the city as of late summer.

So yes, protecting the population is important. But I don't think that we could have done much to protect them in mid-2006. The civil war had to burn itself out—the Sunnis had to realize that they had lost and the Shi'a had to realize that we had won—before a settlement could be reached.

I do think that the presence of additional U.S. troops in the urban areas tamped down the end of the civil war faster than it might otherwise have happened. U.S. forces worked with the local trend to accelerate it, and did not impose a totally foreign agenda. Had we started the "surge" plan in Sadr City, for example, I think the outcome might have been much less favorable. I have come to a more tempered view of what military forces are able to accomplish, as I tried to lay out in my Washington Post piece on the "three wars" in Afghanistan.

Download the Full Article: The Iraqi COIN Narrative Revisited: Interview with Douglas A. Ollivant

Douglas A. Ollivant is a Senior National Security Fellow with the New America Foundation. He most recently spent one year as the Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to the Commander, Regional Command-East at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, returning to Washington this spring. He served in Iraq as the Chief of Plans for MultiNational Division Baghdad in 2006-2007 and he led the planning team that designed the Baghdad Security Plan, the main effort of what later became known as the "Surge." An expanded view of his thoughts is presented in Countering the New Orthodoxy-Reinterpreting Counterinsurgency in Iraq.

Octavian Manea is Editor of FP Romania, the Romanian edition of Foreign Policy.

Evolving the COIN Field Manual: A Case for Reform

by Carl Prine, Crispin Burke, and Michael Few

Download the Full Article: Evolving the COIN Field Manual: A Case for Reform

Nearly a decade removed from 9/11, United States military forces remain entrenched in small wars around the globe. For the foreseeable future, the United States Government (USG) will continue to intervene in varying scale and scope in order to promote democracy and capitalism abroad. While many made efforts to describe small wars and methods of coping with them, our field manuals have not kept up with the wealth of knowledge and wisdom learned on the ground.

In order to prepare for the future, we must first understand where we have been moving beyond individual articles of best practices and lessons learned. The intent of this essay is to provide the critique in order to promote an evolution in our thinking. The purpose is to better prepare those who will follow in our footsteps. Finally, we believe that this reform is a duty required from those who directly observed the costs of today's small wars.

Download the Full Article: Evolving the COIN Field Manual: A Case for Reform

Carl Prine is a former enlisted Marine and Army infantryman who served in Iraq. Currently, he serves as a reporter at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and blogs on national security affairs for Military.com.

Captain (P) Crispin Burke is an active duty aviator who commanded in Iraq. Currently, he is the unmanned aviation observer controller at the Combined Maneuver Training Center at Hohenfels, Germany, and he blogs on national security affairs at Wings over Iraq.

Major James Michael Few is an active duty armor officer who served multiple tours to Iraq in various command and staff positions. Currently, he serves as the editor for Small Wars Journal.

Dealing with the U.S. Military

by Colonel Gary Anderson

Download the Full Article: Dealing with the U.S. Military

Many of the civilians who gravitate to counterinsurgency (COIN) work for the Departments of State and Justice have some knowledge of the military or have served in uniform. But many people from other agencies will not have such a background. Suddenly living among the military on a daily basis, and often depending on them totally for security can come as a culture shock that is almost as great as that experienced by stepping into a host nation's culture. It helps to come somewhat prepared. The Provincial Reconstruction Team classes given by the State Department's Foreign Service Institute are good but short, and they give out excellent advice, but it would help if you do homework on your own. This piece will attempt to give some background and perspective.

Download the Full Article: Dealing with the U.S. Military

Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps Colonel who served as a Special Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense on Counterinsurgency from 2003-05. He served on an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq in 2009-10, and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Relations.

by Octavian Manea

Download the Full Article: Future of Pakistan up in the Air: Interview with Bruce Riedel

In early 2009 you were pivotal in directing and elaborating the basic strategic framework that it is still at the core of the current operations. How would you assess the progress in destroying AQ sanctuaries in the AfPak region since then? Did ISAF break the Afghan Taliban's momentum?

The death of Usama bin Laden is a major success for the American strategy as is the pressure the al Qaeda core is under from the drone program. Both those operations required bases in Afghanistan. The surge forces have also broken the Taliban's momentum in southern Afghanistan and prevented a catastrophic collapse of Afghan authority there. The progress we made is still fragile and reversible which suggests that a significant and rapid drawdown of the NATO forces in Afghanistan would be very dangerous and foolish at this point.

Download the Full Article: Future of Pakistan up in the Air: Interview with Bruce Riedel

Bruce Riedel is senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. A former CIA officer, he was a senior advisor to three U.S. presidents on Middle East and South Asian issues. At the request of President Obama he chaired an interagency review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan for the White House that was completed in March 2009. Riedel's latest book is Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of Global Jihad.

Octavian Manea is Editor of FP Romania, the Romanian edition of Foreign Policy.

by Mark Kukis

Published by Columbia University Press (May 4, 2011),

240 pages, ISBN-10: 0231156928

Reviewed by Michael Few

Download the Full Article: Book Review: Voices From Iraq: A People's History, 2003-2009

Ultimately, the American intervention in Iraq is one small trajectory along the arc of nation and state development in the land that claims the birthplace of civilization. As with every human endeavor, this arc is fraught with tragedy, triumph, violence, resistance, and hope. The current history of the intervention remains American-centric examining what United States forces and their allies did and failed to do following the regime change of Saddam Hussein. In Voices From Iraq: A People's History, 2003-2009, Mark Kukis presents the Iraqi voice drawing from over seventy interviews conducted in 2009. This book is a must read as it adds to the comprehensive historiography of the past decade; moreover, through the personal narratives, the reader is given a glimpse into the emotional and physical costs of small wars.

Download the Full Article: Book Review: Voices From Iraq: A People's History, 2003-2009

Major James Michael Few is an active duty armor officer with multiple tours in various command and staff positions in Iraq. Currently, he serves as the editor of Small Wars Journal.

by Jimmy A. Gomez

Download the Full Article: The Targeting Process: D3A and F3EAD

Since October 2001, combat operations in the Afghanistan Theater of Operations have presented the U.S. Army with constant evolution of complex situations that have routinely highlighted shortfalls in current doctrinal solutions. At every echelon, the Army has adapted to the complex situations within the Operational Environment (OE) by revising doctrine to reflect the adaptive responses to the ever-evolving spectrum of threats. The spectrum of threats within the operational environment range from smaller, lower-technology opponents using more adaptive, asymmetric methods to larger, modernized forces able to engage deployed U.S. forces in more conventional, symmetrical ways. In some possible conflicts (or in multiple, concurrent conflicts), a combination of these types of threats could be especially problematic to a one-dimensional, all inclusive Targeting Process.

Download the Full Article: The Targeting Process: D3A and F3EAD

CW4 Jimmy Gomez is currently the Course Manager and Senior Instructor for the Field Artillery Warrant Officer Instruction Branch at Fires Center of Excellence, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He served with the 25th Infantry Division Staff in Afghanistan 2004-2005 and in Iraq 2006-2007.

Pakistan's Military Industrial Complex and Existential Crises of National Identity

by Patrick J Christian

Download the Full Article: Sleeping with the Enemy

In a May 2011 Wall Street Journal article, reporter Bret Stephens suggests that Pakistan is undergoing existential crises of national identity. The truth of this observation is sobering because Pakistan is at the heart of two very different, but deadly conflicts; an inter-state contest of nuclear will with India and an intra-state conflict in Afghanistan. Understanding Pakistan's existential crises of identity may well be the only way that the international community will keep these two separate conflicts from spiraling out of control into the next multi-continent war.

Patrick J Christian is a doctoral student at NSU Department of Conflict Analysis & Resolution with an emphasis on psycho-cultural identity and ethnic based conflict.

Narco-Armor in Mexico

by John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus

Download the Full Article: Narco-Armor in Mexico

Known alternatively as "narco-tanks" (narcotanques), "Rhino trucks," and "monster trucks"(monstruos), the crude armored vehicles emerging in Mexico's cartel war are evidence of a changing tactical logic on the ground. "Narco-tanks" are better characterized as improvised armored fighting vehicles (IAFVs)—portending a shift in the infantry-centric nature of the cartel battlespace.

Narco-tactics have been, for the most part, infantry-centric—consisting of small raids, blockades, and gun battles. The use of armored sport utility vehicles for transportation, raids, and tactical in-battle maneuver is largely an extension of the small unit infantry operations that characterize the tactical logic of the cartel war. The presence of armored vehicles ups the ante.

Download the Full Article: Narco-Armor in Mexico

John P. Sullivan is a career police officer. He currently serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST). He is co-editor of Countering Terrorism and WMD: Creating a Global Counter-Terrorism Network (Routledge, 2006) and Global Biosecurity: Threats and Responses (Routledge, 2010). His current research focus is the impact of transnational organized crime on sovereignty in Mexico and elsewhere.

Adam Elkus is an analyst specializing in foreign policy and security. He is Associate Editor at Red Team Journal. He is a frequent contributor to Small Wars Journal and has published at numerous venues including The Atlantic, Defense Concepts, West Point CTC Sentinel, Infinity Journal, and other publications. He blogs at Rethinking Security.

by Lieutenant Colonel Cliff W. Gilmore

Download the Full Article: Molding Perceptions: A Response

In his Small Wars Journal article titled "Molding Perceptions: American Engagement with the Media after the bin Laden Raid", Marno de Boer identified a basic problem associated with U.S. public communication in the days immediately following the bin Laden operation: "During the first 48 hours after the raid," he states, "U.S. officials did not yet have a complete picture of what had happened inside the Abbottabat (sic) complex." This statement raises several significant questions, including:

- Why was U.S. public communication about the raid jumbled and frequently inaccurate?

- Why did U.S. public communication about the raid originate from the top of a hierarchy geographically removed from the event?

- Why was comprehensive, deliberate, timely public-communication not an integral part of planning for the raid?

Finally why, when closing on an established long-term goal following more than a decade of persistent warfare in which public perception plays an increasingly critical role, was the U.S. unprepared to shape the strategic narrative?

Download the Full Article: Molding Perceptions: A Response

Cliff W. Gilmore is a doctoral researcher in the field of organization management and leadership with Capella University and a 2010-11 Fellow with MIT's Seminar XXI on Foreign Politics, International Relations and the National Interest. The topic of his ongoing dissertation is principle-based communication as a leadership practice. He is an active duty U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel assigned as Special Assistant for Public Communication to the 8th Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The opinions expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Marine Corps.

by Bob Tollast

Download the Full Article: Interview with Roger Hardister: The Global Partnership for Afghanistan

Since 2004, Global Partnership for Afghanistan has worked with Afghan farmers for sustainable agribusiness including horticulture, forestry and water management. Working across twelve provinces including Paktya, Paktika, Wardak, and Logar as well as supporting training facilities in Kabul and Kapisa, GPFA provides a package of tree stock, seeds, training and supplies so that farmers can invest their land and labor to produce higher annual incomes. Since 2004, GPFA has overseen over 15,000 farm enterprises, planting over 9,000,000 trees and seen the income of many farmers increase significantly. Additionally, GPFA runs the Women Working Together Initiative, which aims to boost the neglected but crucial contribution from women to Afghan farming. Supporting widows and the illiterate, this programme has expanded since its inception in 2005 and like other GPFA projects, has increased modern farming practices such as cold storage and horticultural training among long neglected communities, so that there are now a significant number of women run farms.

Download the Full Article: Interview with Roger Hardister: The Global Partnership for Afghanistan

Roger Hardister is the Executive Director of the Global Partnership For Afghanistan.

Robert Tollast is an English Literature Graduate from Royal Holloway University of London, and he is a periodic contributor to Small Wars Journal.

by Gregory Conti and David Raymond

Download the Full Article: Leadership of Cyber Warriors: Enduring Principles and New Directions

Leadership is a core competency of the officers, warrant officers, and non-commissioned officers across the military services. A principle tenant of leadership is competence in the domain of operations. However, until recently, the defense of computer networks and the conduct of network warfare were treated as ancillary functions by the military services. The increasing cyber warfare threat against the United States, the creation of United States Cyber Command and the designation of cyberspace as a warfighting domain now necessitate study of the attributes of successful cyber warfare leaders and the leadership techniques required to successfully lead cyber warriors. In particular, we must develop an understanding of where traditional kinetic leadership paradigms succeed, where they fail, and where new techniques must be adopted.

Download the Full Article: Leadership of Cyber Warriors: Enduring Principles and New Directions

LTC Gregory Conti is Military Intelligence Officer and Director of West Point's Cyber Security Research Center.

LTC David Raymond is an Armor Officer and Assistant Professor in West Point's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Here at last, Small

Wars Journal Vol. 7, No. 6 is now available.

Click here for the

full issue, or directly on the titles below for single articles. In this issue:

by Jamsheed K. Choksy

Download the Full Article: A Sino-Persian Grab for the Indian Ocean?

China and Iran are constructing a series of strategically placed harbors -- their strings of salt water pearls -- partially for independent strategic reasons but equally to ensure maritime commerce in oil, gas, other licit resources, and illicit technologies between both nations can continue uninterrupted. Those ports provide facilities for the two countries' warships as well, extending their military power into a region hitherto dominated by the U.S., Britain, and India. To ensure the Indian Ocean's vital transportation lanes continue remaining accessible to all nations and transfer of prohibited items does not occur, the U.S and Britain need to remain actively engaged in building political, social, and economic relations with several nations in South Asia. Diminishment in access to Indian Ocean ports will have serious long-term consequences for American and British military and commercial operations in a troubled yet important region of the world.

Download the Full Article: A Sino-Persian Grab for the Indian Ocean?

Jamsheed K. Choksy is professor of Central Eurasian, Iranian, Indian, Islamic, and International studies, and former director of the Middle Eastern studies program at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is also a member of the National Council on the Humanities at the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities. The views expressed are his own.

by Grant Martin

Download the Full Article: A Tale of Two Design Efforts

Trying to be a "good neighbor" to the Afghans

One Friday morning not too long ago I sat facing a row of ISAF officers assigned to one of their many information offices. Maybe Strategic Communications (STRATCOM), I wondered. No, I thought, the new director of STRATCOM had changed their name, but to what I could not remember. Maybe they were from the Public Affairs office. On my side of the table a jumbled mix of staff officers from other sections of ISAF talked in low voices waiting for the lead planner to begin the meeting. A brand-new School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) graduate walked in and sat down confidently, his assistant clicking on the ubiquitous power point title slide that begins every gathering in the U.S. Armed Forces today from Washington, D.C. to Kabul, Afghanistan.

Download the Full Article: A Tale of Two Design Efforts

Major Grant Martin is a U.S. Army Special Forces officer. He recently returned from Afghanistan where he worked as a planner in the CJ5 at NTM-A/CSTC-A. He is currently assigned to the U.S. Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School (Airborne). The comments in this article are the author's own and do not constitute the position of NTM-A/CSTC-A, ISAF, the U.S. Army, DoD, or USAJFKSWCS(A).

Challenges Ahead in the Middle East

by A. Lawrence Chickering

Download the Full Article: Challenges Ahead in the Middle East

Two decades ago, flying with a friend over Cairo's City of the Dead, Hosni Mubarak pointed to the forest of TV antennas below and remarked, "This is why I no longer control Egypt as I once did."

Although the United States knew the events were coming that have swept through the Middle East, it was utterly unprepared for them. These events, protesting dictatorships and promoting democracy in a number of countries, will disturb the region for as long as it takes to complete the revolution and transition to stable democracies. If U.S. policy is to support this transition and promote change, it must consider differences in internal conditions leading up to the unrest within each country. But underneath the differences are much deeper social and cultural similarities that represent the real challenge. Unfortunately, these similarities are now being largely ignored.

Download the Full Article: Challenges Ahead in the Middle East

A. Lawrence Chickering is a social entrepreneur and writer who designs and implements civil society strategies in public policy.

by John D. Johnson

Download the Full Article: Prospects for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Will the Arab Spring turn into an Israeli-Palestinian Winter? Judging by the recent icy meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, there is a significant chance it may. Also, the proposed vote for recognizing a Palestinian state in the UN General Assembly this fall may well be the critical turning point in the seasons of Middle East politics.

As has happened many times before, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in the news recently as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu met with President Obama in the Oval Office, Egypt brokered a unity agreement between Palestinian groups HAMAS in the Gaza Strip and Fatah in the West Bank, and Israel celebrated its Independence Day while Palestinians marked what they call the "catastrophe" where many Palestinians circa 1948 left or were removed from their homes in present-day Israel, to name just a few headlines.

Download the Full Article: Prospects for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

Lieutenant Colonel John D. Johnson is a U.S. Army Officer. He has served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of the Army Staff, U.S. Army Europe, Multi-National Forces-Iraq (Baghdad), III Corps, U.S. Division South-Iraq (Basra), the 1st Infantry Division, the 1st Cavalry Division, the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade (Korea) and most recently at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. The views expressed here are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Army or Defense Department.

by Ethan B. Kapstein

Download the Full Article: Military Metrics

How do governments know whether they're winning or losing a military campaign? That question is devilish enough in the context of conventional wars with pitched battles, as conflicts often take surprising twists and turns en route to their endgame. It was more than sheer bravado that led Charles De Gaulle, who knew a thing or two about military operations, to declare in June 1940, "France has lost the battle, but France has not lost the war."

Precise knowledge of a conflict's progress is perhaps even more difficult when it comes to the counterinsurgencies now being fought in Afghanistan and, somewhat more surreptitiously, in places like Yemen. How do military leaders and policy-makers ascertain if they are "winning the hearts and minds" of the local population? What are the indicators of success?

Military history suggests that generals and public officials have often looked at the wrong data—the wrong metrics—for information and insight about what's really happening on the ground. The Vietnam War provides a poignant example (Nagl 2002; Kilcullen 2010). As late as the summer of 1974, a study group from the U.S. House of Representatives boldly asserted that "it is unlikely that the North Vietnamese can win a military victory" and it shared the view of the American Ambassador to Saigon, Graham Martin, that South Vietnam was now on the verge of an "economic 'takeoff' similar to those which have occurred in South Korea and Taiwan." The congressional group drew this conclusion from the lopsided difference in military casualties between North and South Vietnamese forces—the infamous "body counts"—which cast doubt on the ability of Hanoi to sustain the constant pummeling much longer. Needless to say, Saigon would fall to the North within nine months of that study's publication, with Ambassador Martin departing by helicopter from the U.S. Embassy's rooftop.

Download the Full Article: Military Metrics

Ethan B. Kapstein is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a professor of public policy and business at the University of Texas at Austin. A retired naval reserve officer, he has served as an Academic Advisor to the Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team at ISAF Headquarters in Kabul. His most recent book (with Nathan Converse), is The Fate of Young Democracies. The views expressed here are strictly his own and do not represent the opinions of any organization with which he is or has been affiliated.

by Wm Gawthrop

Download the Full Article: Dogmatic Basis of Jihad And Martyrdom

The dogmatic basis for jihad and martyrdom attacks (Sunni Tradition) are the core values and themes in Islam's doctrinal texts: The Quran and the Hadiths. Islamic dogma gives rise to a world view postulating perpetual, but not necessarily constant, war facilitated by the twin doctrines of jihad and martyrdom. The ultimate goal of Islam is its domination over other ideologies and the means for achieving that goal includes "jihad" at the individual collective and personally obligatory level.

Zakat, as a systemic and dedicated funding mechanism, combine with multiple forms of jihad (Jihad of the Tongue [speech], Jihad of the Pen [writings], Jihad of Wealth [financial support]) to feed and fuel Jihad of the Sword (combat, combat support and combat service support operations).

The themes of jihad and martyrdom, flowing directly from the core doctrinal sources, are amplified rather than moderated by the four schools of Sunni law. Absent a moderating interpretation of the world view, funding practices, and incitement to jihad, these themes will continue to attract new generations of responsive, autonomous, self actualizing believers.

Download the Full Article: Dogmatic Basis of Jihad And Martyrdom

William Gawthrop received his Masters of Science, Strategic Intelligence, from the National Defense Intelligence College and his Bachelor of Science, Law Enforcement, from Sam Houston State University, Huntsville Texas. He is also a graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College and the United State Marine Corps Command and Staff College and served in Vietnam (Co H, 75th Infantry, First Cavalry Division). He is currently a Supervisory Intelligence Analyst with the United States Government.

by Basil Aboul-Enein and Youssef Aboul-Enein

Download the Full Article: A Theoretical Exploration of Lawrence of Arabia's Inner Meanings on Guerrilla Warfare

The concept of guerrilla warfare dates back as far as ancient times. Since the earliest days it has been a tactic of war used by every class of man against those defined as invaders and oppressors. Hannibal Barca's early victories against Rome are owed considerably to how he acted unexpectedly by taking an impossible route through the Alps to ambush the Roman armies. His ruses were so constant, his stratagems so subtle that the Romans felt constantly insecure, off-balance, and on edge. Hannibal was stymied by Quintus Fabius Maximus, who turned the Roman army into virtually a guerrilla force. His forces shadowed Hannibal's marches, harassed his foragers, cut off stragglers, nipped off stray patrols, but Maximus never allowed himself to be drawn into a full-scale fight.

Download the Full Article: A Theoretical Exploration of Lawrence of Arabia's Inner Meanings on Guerrilla Warfare

Capt Basil Aboul-Enein, USAF is stationed at Columbus AFB in Mississippi and recently completed his Masters in Military History with Norwich University. His brother Commander Youssef Aboul-Enein is Adjunct Islamic Studies Chair at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and author of "Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat," (Naval Institute Press, 2010). Both brothers share a passion for educating America's military leaders on Islam, Islamist Political Theory, and Militant Islamist Groups. They wish to thank Ms. Dorothy Corley, who recently graduated with her B.A. in International Relations from Boston University, for her edits and discussion that enhanced this work.

Against US World Retrenchment:

An Interview with A. Wess Mitchell

by Octavian Manea

Download the Full Interview: Against US World Retrenchment

Has Russia really changed? There are some voices that argue the Georgian war was not a game-changer for European security, but highlighted instead the end of the imperial mindset.

Today, I think it is plausible that current Russian elites are less inclined to embark on Georgia-like adventures than they were before, in part because of constrained resources, in part because of the potential that a move like that could mess up the really good deals they've gotten from the reset.

While that argument may be plausible, I think ultimately this would require faith on our part, a faith in the current Russian political elites that they are fundamentally uninterested in continuing the agenda they set out to complete. I am not inclined to put that kind of faith in a regime that has shown its desire to fundamentally revise the European security order - in open violation of almost every major treaty obligation it is party to. It is plausible, but I am very skeptical, because the Russians have seen the game board shifting very much in their favor. I don't think they see the Georgian war as a coda or as a period to that process, but as one of the many instruments at their disposal for accomplishing their aims. The key to understanding Russian behavior is that as a classic revisionist power what Russia wants is low cost revisionism. Russia is not looking for war, especially in the current state -- it would be disastrous. It wants revisionism at the margin. I don't worry about Russia as a resuscitated military power. I do worry about Russia as having a last burst of negative energy. Russia is the dying supernova of the previous order.

Russia doesn't have enough constructive potential to deal with real world power, but it has that last burst of negative energy to create disorder. In this context, the fundamental objective of US strategy, in this part of the world, should be to permanently tie off Central and Eastern Europe as an active security and strategic concern or open the possibility for Russian adventurism in any shape or form. It shows the need not to have a two-tiered alliance and to permanently and fundamentally reassure Central Europe.

Download the Full Interview: Against US World Retrenchment

A. Wess Mitchell is President of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington, where he leads in the conceptual and strategic development of the institute, manages day-to-day operations and conducts research and writing on US-Central European security relations, NATO and the US-Europe-Russia triangle. An expanded view of his thoughts is presented in The Vulnerability of Peripheries.

Octavian Manea is the Editor of FP Romania, the Romanian edition of Foreign Policy.

by Paul Rexton Kan

Download the Full Article: Mexico: The Accidental Narco?

The Obama Administration's National Security Strategy clearly makes the case: "Stability and security in Mexico are indispensable to building a strong economic partnership, fighting the illicit drug and arms trade, and promoting sound immigration policy." For the National Security Strategy, it was the first time that the words "stability and security" were used in association with Mexico. President Barack Obama himself was clearer: "I think it's unacceptable if you've got drug gangs crossing our borders and killing U.S. citizens. I think if one U.S. citizen is killed because of foreign nationals who are engaging in violent crime, that's enough of a concern to do something about it." But doing something about it is proving to be exceptionally thorny.

With the escalation of drug cartel and gang violence in Mexico directly and indirectly affecting US interests, the US government's response has been to bolster border security and support Mexican president Felipe Calderon administration's efforts to break the cartels and strengthen the institutions of the Mexican state. This approach can be labeled as "contain and consolidate"—contain Mexico's violence within that country while helping Mexico consolidate its government reforms to better combat corruption and tackle the cartels. The centerpiece of this approach is the multi-year, billion dollar Merida Initiative that was initiated in 2008 by the Bush Administration and re-authorized and expanded in 2010 by the Obama Administration. The Merida Initiative is at its core a joint security plan with four pillars: 1) Disrupting organized criminal groups; 2) institutionalizing the rule of law; 3) building a 21st century border; 4) building strong and resilient communities.

Download the Full Article:

Paul Rexton Kan is currently an Associate Professor of National Security Studies and the Henry L. Stimson Chair of Military Studies at the US Army War College. He is also the author of the book Drugs and Contemporary Warfare (Potomac Books 2009) and was recently the Visiting Senior Counternarcotics Advisor for CJIATF-Shafafiyat (Transparency) at ISAF Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. He recently completed field research along the US-Mexico border for his forthcoming book, Cartels at War: Mexico's Drug Fueled Violence and the Threat to US National Security (Potomac Books).

Cartel Next: How Army Design Methodology Offers Holistic and Dissimilar Approaches to the Mexican Drug Problem

by Ben Zweibelson

Download the Full Article: Cartel Next

This paper is a theoretical exercise that attempts to deliver one possible Army Design solution to the narco-terrorism cycle affecting Mexico and the Western Hemisphere. If readers are unfamiliar with Army Design Methodology, they should refer to U.S. Army Field Manual 5-0, Operations, Chapter 3 or Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency, Chapter 4. Design proposes different systems of logic for making sense of the world and understanding how to better influence a complex system. This article makes suggestions on how the military and the overarching web of government agencies and international actors could approach Mexico's current issues- however, this is a purely theoretical product and merely demonstrates just one approach to a complex and dangerous scenario.

Download the Full Article: Cartel Next

Major Ben Zweibelson is an active duty Infantry Officer in the US Army with over 17 years of combined service. He has a Masters in Liberal Arts from Louisiana State University, a Masters in Military Arts and Sciences in Theater Operations from the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), and a Masters in Military Operational Arts and Sciences from the United States Air Force (Air Command and Staff College Program). A veteran of OIF 1 and OIF 6, Ben is currently deployed to Afghanistan where he is serving as an Action Officer in the Commander's Action Group (CAG), NATO Training Mission Afghanistan (NTM-A).

From the Hindu Kush to the Shores of Tripoli

by Tony Corn

Download the Full Article: The Atlantic Alliance and the Sino-Islamic Nexus

Of all the theses and sub-theses put forward by Samuel Huntington in his seminal article on The Clash of Civilizations (1993), none turned out to be more controversial than his assertion concerning the emergence of a Sino-Islamic nexus based on an "arms-for-oil" quid pro quo, and composed of three core states: China, Pakistan and Iran. Yet, in less than two decades, the Sino-Islamic nexus has both broadened and deepened well beyond anything imagined by Huntington.

Download the Full Article: The Atlantic Alliance and the Sino-Islamic Nexus

Dr. Tony Corn taught European Studies at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute and worked in public diplomacy in Brussels and Washington. The opinions expressed here are the author's own and do not represent the views of the U.S. Department of State.

An Interview with Martin van Creveld

by Octavian Manea

Download the Full Interview: The Age of Airpower

It is stated that Operations Rolling Thunder in Vietnam was the wrong way of using airpower in order to break the will of an opponent. Why? And which is the right way?

As Jesus once said, by their fruit will thou know them. Given the vast cost of Rolling Thunder, and the meager results it yielded, there can be no question that it was a foolish waste of resources. It was only made possible by the fact that it was carried out by the richest nation in history at the very peak of its economic power and psychological hubris.

The real question is, had the "gradual approach" been replaced by a short, sharp, all-out attack, would it have worked any better? To my mind the answer is almost certainly negative. Look at "Shock and Awe" as carried out both in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Both of these offensives employed weapons infinitely more sophisticated, and in many ways much more powerful, than the ones the Americans used in Vietnam almost forty years earlier (though some aircraft, notably the venerable B-52s, may well have taken part in both campaigns). Both depended their success, if indeed one can talk of success, on the presence of troops of the ground. Vietnam, though, was primarily a guerrilla war. Expanding ground operations into North Vietnam, as some in Washington DC demanded, would merely have made things even more difficult for the Americans.

Download the Full Interview: The Age of Airpower

Martin van Creveld is an internationally recognized authority on military history and strategy. The author of 22 books that were translated into 20 languages, he has lectured or taught at many strategic institutes in the Western world, including the U.S. Naval War College. Born in the Netherlands, he holds degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and London School of Economics. He lives near Jerusalem.

by Colonel Gary Anderson

Download the Full Article: The Closers Part VI: NGOs and IOs

Nongovernmental and International Organizations (NGOs and IOs) will likely be present during counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. Learning to deal with them effectively is a required skill. They can be helpful, benign, or present problems depending on how they are approached and how they are dealt with by the local commander and Reconstruction Team leadership. As in dealing with anyone from a different culture, some attempt needs to be made to understand where they are coming from and their motivations. Make no mistake, they are coming from a different culture from the military, and will likely have a different mindset from most Reconstruction Team civilian employees who will tend to come from a more bureaucratic culture than the NGOs are used to.

Download the Full Article: The Closers Part VI: NGOs and IOs

Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps Colonel. He was the Senior Governance Officer for a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq from 2009-10. He is an Adjunct Professor at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.

Ten Years Gone

by Stanton S. Coerr

Download the Full Article: Ten Years Gone

In Afghanistan, there is no road for the American war...there is only the path we make by moving forward. We have, however, moved down a path like this once before. President Barack Obama is proceeding in Afghanistan in 2011 by pushing down the same national strategic path John F. Kennedy took fifty years earlier when he began main force intervention into Vietnam, and we are headed for the same failures. In providing neither coherent overall foreign policy nor a crisp and specific national strategic endstate for the campaign in Afghanistan Obama, like Kennedy before him, leaves foreign policy to military officers on the ground to invent as they go.

As in Vietnam, the war in Afghanistan was lost before it was begun: it is lost because it cannot be won. Again our massive and superior military force is losing a campaign to a tough insurgent force. Again we are spending tens of billions overseas, and collapsing under our own weight in the field. Again our strength is being used against us. And again, by providing military answers to political questions, we are in quicksand in the developing world.

Download the Full Article: Ten Years Gone

Stan Coerr is a veteran of ground combat in Iraq, and he is a former commanding officer. He is now in the civil service, and lives with his wife and three sons in Mclean, Virginia.

by Jimmy A. Gomez

Download the Full Article: The Assessments Process in Contemporary Operating Environment

It sometimes seems as if the internal politics of Kabul are easier to understand than the latest doctrinal changes in our Field Manuals. However, as our doctrine evolves it continues to lag behind the reality and complexity of our operations in the Central Command (CENTCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR). As the security agreements and strategic objectives are changed, the Rules of Engagement (ROE) continue to evolve with them. This increases the degree of interactive complexity of any given situations within a unit's AOR and the staffs vision, understanding and execution of the operation.

Download the Full Article: The Assessments Process in Contemporary Operating Environment

CW4 Jimmy Gomez is currently the Course Manager and Senior Instructor for the Field Artillery Warrant Officer Instruction Branch at Fires Center of Excellence, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He served with the 25th Infantry Division Staff in Afghanistan 2004-2005 and in Iraq 2006-2007.

Making "Non-Traditional" into "New Traditional" for the JTF Commander

by Martin J. Lindenmayer

Download the Full Article: Civil Information and Intelligence Fusion

Since the publishing of MG Mike Flynn's controversial admission that current intelligence programs, policies and doctrine did not meet the needs of Commander's fighting today's conflicts, there has been an attempt to point to ongoing efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere while to defend the status quo. The problem has become that several innovative and agile senior leaders and front-line organizations have instituted piece-meal changes that address immediate issues without fully developing long term, programmatic changes to or development of, new doctrine.

Download the Full Article: Civil Information and Intelligence Fusion

Martin Lindenmayer is a Senior Intelligence Officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency and a retired Navy Captain specializing in intelligence support to Special Operations.

Ordinary Men and Abhorrent Behavior

by Christopher S. Knott

Download the Full Article: Ordinary Men and Abhorrent Behavior

Although the world has seen many horrible events which defy explanation and simply boggle the mind, none has equaled the unparalleled cruelty of World War II's Eastern front and Pacific theater. The intensity and sheer brutality inflicted, not only on soldiers, but civilians, has horrified the world. Who should be blamed for the Holocaust is still an open question. Was it only Hitler's plan? The SS officers who gave the orders? Their subordinates who obeyed them and did the actual killing? Why were Japan's forces so cruel and bereft of humanity in Nanking? How did the Marines in Peleliu spiral into barbarity? These are questions that may never be answered to satisfaction but, more important questions bubble to the surface, reaching beyond blame; how does a soldier reconcile the sadistic killing of unarmed civilians and what did it take for the U.S. marines to become inculcated to the environmental hardships and battlefield horrors they faced?

Download the Full Article: Ordinary Men and Abhorrent Behavior

Christopher S. Knott is an Air Force retiree that is now attending Graduate School at the University of Pennsylvania. My current research is in Global Studies and Conflict.

Mexico: A Mosaic Cartel War

by Paul Rexton Kan

Download the Full Article: Mexico: A Mosaic Cartel War

A situation of high-intensity crime does not mean that a war is not occurring in Mexico. But it is a war of a different kind. In fact, there are several conflicts occurring at once that blend into each other. There is the conflict of cartels among each other, the conflict within cartels, cartels against the Mexican state, cartels and gangs against the Mexican people and gangs versus gangs. When combined, they form a mosaic cartel war that creates an atmosphere "somewhere between Al Capone's Chicago and an outright war". It is not an irregular or regular war; neither is it a small war nor a general war, nor a limited war, nor a total war, nor any of the familiar appellations given to armed conflicts fought by conventional militaries. And, finally it is not "a war about nothing." It is a multidimensional, multiparty and multi-location armed conflict fought among criminal groups over what are essentially criminal goals; the groups are resisted by the state while their goals are rejected by it, making the state a party to the conflict.

Download the Full Article: Mexico: A Mosaic Cartel War

Paul Rexton Kan is currently an Associate Professor of National Security Studies and the Henry L. Stimson Chair of Military Studies at the US Army War College. He is also the author of the book Drugs and Contemporary Warfare (Potomac Books 2009) and was recently the Visiting Senior Counternarcotics Advisor for CJIATF-Shafafiyat (Transparency) at ISAF Headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan. He recently completed field research along the US-Mexico border for his forthcoming book, Cartels at War: Mexico's Drug Fueled Violence and the Threat to US National Security (Potomac Books).

by William Doyle

Download the Full Article: The CIA's Secret Victory in Iraq

Editor's Note: This essay is based on research conducted from the author's recently released book, A Soldier's Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq.

The success of the bin Laden raid represents an exceedingly rare public triumph for the CIA, but the agency had a mostly unknown contribution to another recent American success that holds major significance for America's position in the Middle East -- its role in incubating and launching the Awakening of Iraq.

Interviews with government officials and U.S. military documents consulted during the research for my book reveal a vital supporting role played by the CIA at several crucial moments in the birth of the Awakening. The CIA, it turns out, was a midwife to the Awakening.

The Iraq War began turning around in large part in Anbar Province in 2006, when the previously obscure Sheik Sattar abu Risha, a suspected gangster, declared war on the existentially brutal local rule of al Qaeda in Iraq. He was given crucial help by a young Army Special Forces and Afghan combat veteran named Captain Travis Patriquin, an Arabic-speaking, Koran-studying tribal affairs expert, and his army and marine colleagues based in the provincial capital of Ramadi. Patriquin's charismatic personality was a key to his effectiveness with Sattar and his fellow sheiks. "My God," one Iraqi told me, "there is no one who made a deeper connection with the Iraqi people than Travis. They adored him."

Download the Full Article: The CIA's Secret Victory in Iraq

William Doyle is a New York based writer and also author of Inside the Oval Office: the White House Tapes and An American Insurrection: James Meredith and the Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962.

A Strategy for Mexico?

by Johnny M. Lairsey Jr.

Download the Full Article: A Strategy for Mexico?

For over a century, United States foreign policy was guided by the Monroe doctrine. Then, around 1890, a nascent concept of American Imperialism was popularized and served to shift foreign policy away from the Monroe Doctrine. Since then the United States has exercised many different forms of foreign policy. The current United States foreign policy as evinced by the United States Secretary of State proclaims that United States freedom and prosperity is linked to the freedom and prosperity of the rest of the world. The approach the United States Department of State uses to preserve our freedoms and prosperity includes building and maintaining international relations and protecting ourselves and our allies against transnational threats. Given the existing conditions in Mexico and the United States current approach to foreign policy the United States should assert its national powers to defeat transnational criminal organizations and help to improve the conditions in Mexico. However, before taking action the United States must clearly articulate the purpose of why it is taking action in a foreign country.

Download the Full Article: A Strategy for Mexico?

Mr. Johnny Lairsey is DA Civilian serving as a Plans Specialist at US Army North, the Army Service Component Command to US Northern Command and is a recent graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies. He has over five years of experience as a plans specialist in an operational headquarters and has extensive experience working with other US Government agencies. The views expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on US Traditional Alliances from Protectorates to Partnerships

by Octavian Manea

Download the Full Article: Interview with Jim Thomas

How did the US end up with a network of informal protectorates and free riders and not real allies per se?

Well, America's alliances were/are quite real, but they differ from a number of historical alliances in that the preponderance of military power was invested in the US military. The fragility of post-war economies in Europe and Northeast Asia limited what those states could do for their own defense, and led to their dependence on the US military to provide for their security. Consequently, they became to all intents and purposes protectorates of the US; that is, they became dependent on the US for their protection from the Soviet Union. What is troubling is that even in the aftermath of their economic recoveries and the dissolution of the Soviet empire, these states have not increased defense spending, but have in fact further reduced such spending and become even more dependent on the US to protect their interests, especially out of area.

Download the Full Article: Interview with Jim Thomas

Jim Thomas is Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). Prior to joining CSBA, Jim served for thirteen years in a variety of policy, planning and resource analysis posts in the Department of Defense, culminating in his dual appointment as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Resources and Plans and Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy. In these capacities, he was responsible for the development of the Defense Strategy, conventional force planning, resource assessment, and the oversight of war plans. He spearheaded the 2005-2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and was the principal author of the QDR Report to Congress. An expanded view of his thoughts is presented in From Protectorates to Partnerships.

Octavian Manea is the Editor of FP Romania, the Romanian edition of Foreign Policy.

Appendix to Accompany CRS Report 41817 "Building the Capacity of Partner States through Security Force Assistance"

by Thomas K "Doc" Livingston

Download the Full Article: Security Force Assistance: Just Do It

In February 2009, a sudden ice storm blanketed Washington D.C. and Andrews Air Force Base significantly complicating military and commercial traffic into and out of D.C. On the eve of the 4-star irregular warfare (IW) summit--the culmination of 6 months of effort from the cross-MAJCOM IW task force--Major General Stephen Mueller (now LTG) found himself fielding a call from one of the MAJCOM commanders who asked, "Why are we having this meeting? It is really even necessary?" The weather adequately reflected this commander's frosty interest in the Air Force endeavor to "institutionalize" IW. Unfortunately, his candor represented a majority disinterest of the MAJCOM commanders and Air Staff leadership that attended the summit. Over two years later, the AF, while wholeheartedly supporting the ongoing counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan, has only marginally developed an enduring capability to prepare itself to counter irregular threats through the security force assistance (SFA). Getting the Air Force to embrace SFA as an enduring mission today is akin to the Navy shifting from the battleship as the lead in surface warfare circa 1940.

Download the Full Article: Security Force Assistance: Just Do It

Col Thomas K "Doc" Livingston recently completed the Air Force Fellowship program while serving as a Research Analyst for the Congressional Research Service. Prior to the fellowship, he served on the Air Staff as Division Chief in the Air Force Irregular Warfare Requirements office and has a career background in Air Force Special Operations.

This addendum accompanies the paper written for the Congressional Research Service to fulfill the academic requirements of the Air Force Fellows program for 2011. It is provided to include opinions and recommendations gleaned from the research associated with the CRS report. As a matter of policy and legislation, and in a fashion to ensure unbiased and non-partisan analysis, CRS reports are absent of recommendations and opinion. This appendix reflects the opinions of the author and is not representative of the Congressional Research Service, Air Force Research Institute, Air University, or the United States Air Force.

These are not the droids you are looking for

by Michael C. Sevcik

Download the Full Article: Army Learning Concept 2015

In the profession of arms, the scientific and technical approach is appropriate for learning basic and repetitive skills. Technical and mostly unimportant problems lend themselves to this scientific approach to learning found the recently released Army Learning Concept 2015 (ALC 2015). Unfortunately, our Soldiers rarely operate in the high ground where the scientific and technical approach is appropriate. Our Soldiers conduct of full spectrum operations, face uncertainty, ethical dilemmas and ill structured problems both in garrison and during combat operations. A meaningful and relevant learning strategy should descend into the challenging and messy environment of ambiguity and face the complex leadership, team-building and moral/ethical issues. These problems simply do not lend themselves to the "technical approach" to learning found in ALC 2015.

Download the Full Article: Army Learning Concept 2015

Michael C. Sevcik is an instructor at the School for Command Preparation, US Army Command & General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He served for 32 years as a Soldier, retiring in 2007.

by Colonel Bob Killebrew

Download the Full Article: Colombia's Gamble

While everybody is watching the dramatic events in the Middle East and the allied campaign in Afghanistan, a nation to our South is quietly writing new chapters in counterinsurgency practices. That state is, of course, Colombia, coming back from the brink of dissolution a decade ago. With great effort it has succeeded in halting and reversing the threat of guerrilla movements that once threatened its civil life. But as a consequence of success, its government and security services are now grappling with another challenge -- to wind the war down and in the process to rebuild a stronger civil society.

No responsible Colombian would claim today that the war is over. Though the main guerrilla group, the Fuerzas Armedas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), which is deeply involved in the narcotics trade, has been substantially defeated and no longer threatens the government, it still retains capability to terrorize and dominate remote areas. Additionally, a new class of violent criminal bands, variously called "Bandas Criminales" or "Bacrim," has emerged from the breakup of right-wing militias in the '90s to join the drug trade and ally themselves with the Mexican cartels. Colombian police now consider the Bacrim to be a more significant threat to Colombia than the FARC. Additionally, a Colombian defense official recently noted that, in some ways, this stage of the counterinsurgency campaign is tougher since the various guerrilla and criminal groups, now under increasing pressure from government troops and police, are operating in smaller, more hard-core bands and present more fleeting targets for police and military forces. Military and police strategies are adapting to these new conditions, but at this point it is not the military's operations per se that are especially remarkable; both the military and police have evolved into professional, competent services. What is remarkable is the manner in which Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) has become such an integral part of Colombia's military strategy for ending its long-running insurgency.

Download the Full Article: Colombia's Gamble

by Youssef Aboul-Enein

Download the Full Article: Current Books on Pakistan, Shiism, and Saudi Arabia: Thinking Beyond Usama Bin Laden

I spend a significant amount of time conducting seminars on Islam, Islamist Political Theories, and Militant Islamist Groups to units deploying to the Middle East, as well as to leaders attending the National Defense University. Part of the benefits of teaching, is a requirement to keep current on books recently published about the region. I hope to give you an overview of books I enjoyed and others that were much more challenging and do not garner my immediate recommendation. Three current books will be featured in this review essay, one each on Pakistan, Shiism, and Saudi Arabia. Let us begin with a book that gets my vote as required reading for 2011, Anatol Lieven's new book on Pakistan.

Download the Full Article: Current Books on Pakistan, Shiism, and Saudi Arabia: Thinking Beyond Usama Bin Laden

Commander Aboul-Enein is author of "Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat," (Naval Institute Press, 2010). He is Adjunct Islamic Studies Chair at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) and Senior Counter-Terrorism Advisor at the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism. Commander Aboul-Enein wishes to thank the National Defense University Librarians for directing him to a few of these books. Good teaching demands great librarians. Finally he wishes to thank his ICAF colleague CAPT Chan Swallow, USN for his edits that enhanced this review and more importantly his discussion of these books.

by Lewis H. Gann

Published by Hoover Institution Press, 1971, 99 pages, Stanford, CA. Out of print, ISBN: 081793281X

Reviewed by Mike Mourouzis

Download the Full Article: Book Review: Guerrillas in History

Guerrillas always win -- at least that was the popular narrative that created an era of infatuation with guerrilla uprisings during the 1960s and 1970s. Consequently, Lewis Gann wrote his monograph on "small wars" to dispel the growing myth that partisan warfare was romantic or novel. His work, Guerrillas in History, follows guerrilla warfare from Biblical times to the book's publishing in 1971. Gann describes the similarities of guerrilla warfare across time and details how guerrillas often lost, a relevant subject given today's threat environment.

Download the Full Article: Book Review: Guerrillas in History

Major Mike Mourouzis is a U.S. Army Special Forces officer and is currently studying Irregular Warfare at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He has previously conducted operations in the CENTCOM and PACOM AORs.

Lewis H. Gann passed in 1997. An expert on Colonialist Africa, his New York Times obituary can be found here.

by Michael Gallagher

Download the Full Article: Human Intelligence in Counterinsurgency: Persistent Pathologies in the Collector-Consumer Relationship

In the realm of counterinsurgency (COIN), the currency is intelligence. In other words—as the Counterinsurgency Field Manual succinctly puts it—intelligence drives operations. "Good" intelligence provides precision, helping the counterinsurgent eliminate insurgents from the populace "like surgeons cutting out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact." Within this surgical effort, Human Intelligence (HUMINT) proves uniquely valuable; it can obtain information that more technologically-oriented assets cannot. Thus, while all counterinsurgents collect operational reporting as they perform their daily functions—what is frequently termed "passive" collection—HUMINT requires "active" collectors who are specially trained to conduct military source operations and interrogations.

Download the Full Article: Human Intelligence in Counterinsurgency: Persistent Pathologies in the Collector-Consumer Relationship

Michael Gallagher is a Captain in the Marine Corps and currently a fellow in the Junior Officer Strategic Intelligence Program. He deployed twice to Iraq as a Human Intelligence Exploitation Team Commander.

by Michael Trevett

Download the Full Article: Census Operations

Mao explained that the guerrilla or insurgent swims among the sea of people. Consequently, thoroughly knowing the population is the best method of identifying, finding, and fixing the insurgent. Only after identifying the insurgent, does it become possible to isolate and kill him and protect the population. From the perspective of the counterinsurgent, these are the fundamental purposes of census operations, a subset of populace and resources control (PRC) measures, which, when attained, significantly contribute to the elimination of an insurgency and the establishment of civil governing control.

Download the Full Article: Census Operations

LTC Michael F. Trevett is a Military Intelligence Officer with 29 years of service. He has deployed to 23 nations and territories, training or operating with civilian, military, and police forces on antiterrorism, counterdrug, counterinsurgency, law enforcement, and search and rescue issues and operations. Forthcoming in 2011, he is publishing Isolating the Guerrilla, a book on counterinsurgency. He is a graduate of the Army CGSC and holds an MS in Strategic Intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College.

by Michael Noblet

Download the Full Article: U.S. Pacific Command Engagement with Indonesian Kopassus

For a variety of security, economic, and diplomatic reasons, the U.S. - Indonesia bilateral relationship is increasingly important to both countries. Indonesia's transition from authoritarian to democratic rule and its subsequent military reforms have precipitated a corresponding increase in military to military engagements between U.S. and Indonesian armed forces.

U.S. military engagement with the Indonesian Special Forces, more commonly known as Kopassus, has been seen by many as a "barometer" for the overall state of bilateral U.S.-Indonesian relations. For many years, U.S. military engagement with Kopassus was prohibited in response to human rights violations committed by its forces.

A strategy of gradual re-engagement with Kopassus, conditioned upon continued Indonesian military reform, is important to U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) theater security and U.S. strategic interests. Such a relationship provides increased opportunities to strengthen bilateral relations, incentivize positive action, and build a credible special operations partner that could play an important role in future counterterrorism, peacekeeping, and disaster response operations in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Download the Full Article: U.S. Pacific Command Engagement with Indonesian Kopassus

Michael Noblet is a Professional Staff Member with the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services and a student in the U.S. Naval War College Distance Education program. The opinions expressed are the author's and are not sanctioned by the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services or U.S. Naval War College.

Mentoring Host Nation Interagency Operations

by Colonel Gary Anderson

Download the Full Article: Mentoring Host Nation Interagency Operations

Governments get in trouble when they don't provide needed services to their populations. Insurgents take advantage of this. The kind of situation is what we tend to be trying to rectify in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. Insurgents try to make these governments look even worse than they are. Many of the problems that insurgencies pose require interagency solutions; and when we intervene in such situations, we need to remember that we represent an American governmental system that is not always a model of interagency cooperation itself. There were times that I tended to want to echo Casey Stengel's question when he was coaching the lamentable New York Mets -- "doesn't anyone here know how to play this game?" Someone smarter than I remarked a few years ago that -- "if this stuff was rocket science, we'd have won in Iraq years ago." The same can be said of Afghanistan and Libya. This is tough stuff.

In this portion of the series, I'm going to try to outline some successes and failures that I experienced and observed in Iraq -- and derive some potential lessons learned from them. The point that I'll try to make is that the creation of interagency cooperation is hard for us, and we are now expecting a much less mature form of governance to do something that we don't necessarily do well ourselves. This requires hard work and a great deal of patience. Interagency cooperation at any level involves a shared vision and a commitment from all partners. Without that, no organization chart or process diagram, however sophisticated, can succeed.

Download the Full Article: Mentoring Host Nation Interagency Operations

Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps Colonel who served as a Senior Governance Advisor with an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq from 2009-2010.

by Colonel Julian Dale Alford and Major Daniel Zappa

Download the Full Article: Afghan Advise and Assist Group

Successful International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan necessitate a strategic paradigm shift for the future of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). ISAF strategy should move away from wide-ranging, asset intensive counterinsurgency and towards a security cooperation paradigm, reorganizing and down-sizing its structure to create cadres of capable professionals and enduring enablers, specifically manned, trained and equipped to advise and assist the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). This change in method and structure provides not only an appropriate and sustainable way to continue the gains made over the last several years, but also represents a viable exit strategy.

A realistic exit strategy is at the core of the discussion over the future of the military mission in support of OEF. The debate must focus on what is really required to end the insurgency and what defines an acceptable and sustainable security situation in Afghanistan. To that end, the ANSF must truly become the main effort. Afghan security forces are increasingly ready to take the central role in the security of their country - a role which will only increase the legitimacy of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) in the eyes of its population. Building the capability of friendly networks is a basic tenet of COIN doctrine. The Afghans understand best how to address their needs and the threat. Enduring success will be achieved when the GIRoA has the capacity to provide for Afghans' basic needs, especially security.

Many factors suggest a new design is necessary to resolve the Afghanistan War. The Afghanistan mission continues to progress along the counterinsurgency continuum. As the mission succeeds, ISAF must reposition its forces to best support the end state. This further allows the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces to better face the unstable global security environment and remain ready to respond in other theaters of operations.

Download the Full Article: Afghan Advise and Assist Group

Colonel Julian Dale Alford commanded 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines from March 2004 to May 2006 and deployed in support of both OEF and OIF. He subsequently served as the Director, Joint Advanced Warfighting Program, Institute for Defense Analysis. Colonel Alford is currently the Commanding Officer of The Basic School, Quantico, VA.

Major Daniel Zappa served as the Executive Officer of 1st Battalion, 6th Marines in Iraq. He has 15 years experience as a Marine Corps infantry officer, in combat and peace. Major Zappa is currently an Operations Analyst with the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, VA.

The 2000-2005 Palestinian Armed Rebellion

by A.E. Stahl

Download the Full Article: The 2000-2005 Palestinian Armed Rebellion

In spite of the differing characteristics it embraces, the varying shapes that it takes on, and the differing parlance or speculations that are applied to it, all violence fought for the ends of policy represents "war". War will continue shifting and shaping society; it will influence all political entities; it will create new communities whilst aiding in the collapse of others; it will destroy peace but it will also construct an even better era than had previously existed — all of which is a result of the use of force for policy ends, as this is what war is, why warfare is waged, and this has always been war's purpose.

Despite the historical treasure chest of evidence and knowledge about war and warfare, the development of ineffective — even unrealizable — military doctrine and the constant invention of terminology have caused many to stray. It can be argued that new doctrine, taxonomies, and terminologies are not a result of the changing character of war but rather represent a type of disagreement over what constitutes war, as well as a disagreement over what warfare is supposed to do. Rather than utilizing history to make today's case, there seem to be attempts at redefining what war is, what it should be, and resultantly how warfare should be waged. Even agreeing on a definition of war continues in earnest, despite a near-perfect observation made in the nineteenth century.

A prime case where typological error is in abundance is in the description of violence between Israelis and Palestinians between 2000-2005. The purpose of this article is to bring greater clarity to the violence of 2000-2005, to both academics and military professionals. For the military professional, it is vital not to avoid being taken in by buzzwords but rather to stay on the path that over 2,500 years of history has offered. For academics, it is important to refrain from being hyper-analytical, which can result in the teaching of incorrect information about war and warfare. The key is to focus less on entertaining the invention of new terms and focus more on examining what is known, understood, and that which has stood the test of time.

Download the Full Article: The 2000-2005 Palestinian Armed Rebellion

A.E. Stahl is the co-founder and publisher of the strategy magazine, Infinity Journal. He is a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT, Israel) and a doctoral candidate in War Studies at King's College London.

Small Wars Journal

Vol. 7, No. 5 is now available. 

Click here for the

full issue, or directly on the titles below for single articles. In this issue:

by Philip K. Abbott

Download the Full Article: United States-Haitian Relations from 1791 to 1810: How Slavery And Commerce Shaped American Foreign Policy

In 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, Saint-Dominque (Haiti) was arguably the most valuable colony on earth. It was "an integral part of the economic life of the [agricultural] age, the greatest colony in the world, the pride of France, and the envy of every other imperialist nation." Producing more sugar than all the British Caribbean islands combined, Haiti supplied over forty percent of the world's sugar. For the United States, colonial Haiti was the second largest foreign trading partner, superseded only by Great Britain. As John Adams wrote in 1783, "[Haiti] is a part of the American system of commerce, they can neither do without us, nor we without them." As a national commercial interest, trade with Haiti was especially important for New England merchants, where the French colony purchased sixty three percent of the dried fish and eighty percent of the pickled fish exported from the United States. It not only provided a dynamic outlet for American goods to keep the sugar plantations running, but many producers as well as shippers in America grew dependent on the island market.

Download the Full Article: United States-Haitian Relations from 1791 to 1810: How Slavery And Commerce Shaped American Foreign Policy

Colonel Philip K. Abbott, U.S. Army, is currently the Chief, Americas Division on the Joint Staff, J5 Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate. He received a B.A. from Norwich University, an M.A. from Kansas University, and an M.S. from the National Defense University. He served in various Command & Staff positions in the United States and Europe and worked extensively throughout Latin America as a Foreign Area Officer.

by David N. Santos

Download the Full Article: What Constitutes Terrorist Network Resiliency?

Since the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001 there have been numerous discussions on the issue of terrorism and terrorist networks, such as al Qaeda, within the media and the intelligence community. At times these discussions have created an image of the terrorist phenomenon as one of a monolithic and unstoppable menace continuing to spread around the world unabated. Lost in these discussions is a basic understanding of what any organization needs to continue to exist. What are its basic needs? What are its sources of strength and resiliency? Most organizations, whether terrorist or not, rely on some basic essential elements that are used to help define, guide and maintain the organization. These elements allow an organization to develop strength in its structure as well as its cause in order to maintain a resilient mindset. These elements of strength and resiliency enable the organization to experience periods of adversity, look critically at the outcomes of those experiences and take the lessons learned to improve the organization's performance.

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Major David N. Santos is an active duty Army Intelligence Officer currently attending the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College.

by Steven Rotkoff

Download The Full Article: Introspection and Emotional Vulnerability as Leader Development and Team Building Tools

All of us have gone through the process of changing stations and being confronted with the question "tell me a little about you". Invariably our answer revolves around some form of our military resume, "I've served here, had these jobs, worked for these bosses, have this education and by the way I'm married, have 2.1 kids and a dog named fluffy." While this approach conveys a lot of information in reality it tells someone almost nothing about what you believe, how you lead, or who you truly are. There is another more effective way of having this conversation. It is called 'Who am I?' (WAI).

Download The Full Article: Introspection and Emotional Vulnerability as Leader Development and Team Building Tools

COL (Ret.) Steven Rotkoff served as an S-2 or G-2 at every level from Infantry Battalion through Army G2 and commanded both Military Intelligence battalion and brigade as part of III Corps.