Going Out To Lunch With The Republicans

The other day a bunch of Republican congressional wallahs and governors launched a new outfit with the pretentious name of The National Council For A New America. The Geek will ignore his first response which was a question: Just what is wrong with the Old America?" The Geek will even set to one side his doubts concerning the capacity of a motley collection of Representatives and governors, both past and present, to discover the nature of this mythical "New America."

Instead the Geek will restrain himself to considering one of the five agenda items listed by the group as being a suitable topic for discussing in the search for the Land of Newness. The item is captioned, National Security. It comes in dead last after the economy, health care reform, education, and energy policy. Here is the NCNA understanding of national security--

The threats posed to our nation are more varied and evolving more than perhaps at any other time in our history. Modern communications, technology and the proliferation of weapons of all types have empowered our enemies and those who support them. Our national security policy must reflect these realities while allowing us to maintain technological superiority, support the most well-trained and well-equipped military in the world and have the intelligence capabilities to uncover and prevent attacks before they occur.

Sounds like it was recycled from a few hundred pieces of campaign pap left over from past lost elections to the Geek. How about you?

Now history does not lead the Geek or any other half-way aware individual to place a great amount of faith in the perceptiveness of congress wallahs or governors in the matter of defining either American national and security interests or determining the best ways to advance, protect and defend them.

It is sufficient to note that four of the five presidents preceding the present incumbent were governors before planting their rumps in the Oval. Of these only one, the much maligned (and overpraised) Reagan had some real measure of success in the foreign affairs arena. The others, from Carter to W. Bush presided over disasters ranging from the minor to the unbelievably major.

If the records of the non-governors are added to the mix the picture becomes no less bleak. JFK and his overly muscular "pragmatists" brought us the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the start of the Great Vietnam Misadventure. LBJ continued the pattern with his escalation of the Vietnam War thus giving the US the first of its two unnecessary, unsuccessful and arguably counterproductive military adventures. (The other, of course, was the invasion of Iraq.)

The assorted Republicans show no more ability than either the war drum thumpers of late 2002 or their long ago Congressional precursors in 1964-5. The dire threats are either undefined or overdrawn. The military response is given pride of place. No understanding of the military as an instrument of national power is exhibited. A faint odor of blood pervades the entire issue of national security. Worst of all, national security is seen as some sort of stand-alone without links to any or all other features of policy.

It is commonplace that the expenses of each of the two unnecessary wars had profound, negative impact on the overall health of the American economy.

The infamous "stagflation" of the Seventies was a direct product of the Johnson Administration's decision to fight a war without curtailing other categories of expenditure. In this decision the administration was joined at the hip and shoulder by the Democrats of congress.

More recently, the Great Adventure in Regime Change was undertaken in the context of a tax cut and continued, escalating appropriations for all categories of governmental expense. It is not realistic, no matter how politically attractive, to divorce the current economic debacle from the deficits driven by the war in Iraq.

Money blown on unnecessary wars is not available for other purposes such as development of alternative energy sources and technologies. It, and the money spent to fund the deficit, is not there for use in education or health care reforms. Both, self-evidently, will take thwacking amounts of money both public and private. If the money isn't there because it went to war or the associated costs of war which echo for decades after the guns go silent, the plans, no matter how High Minded or worthy, go for nought. Or the economy and the pockets of each of us suffer damage that otherwise might have been avoided.

Now that some of the crucial preliminaries have been (partially) addressed, the Geek wants to get down to it.

Listen up, Republican fonctionnaires and aspirants to Deep Thinking status and get a grip on a couple of basic realities of national security life.

Remember the ancient recipe for rabbit stew which starts, "First, catch your rabbit." Before you run off at the mouth blabbing about the "best trained" and "best equipped" military in the world or prattle about "proliferating" threats, define the threat. Also define how the presumed or perceived threat directly, substantially and materially affects national and security interests.

Is the threat some slippery critter called "terrorism?" Or, is it a political ideology rooted in carefully selected and interpreted features of religious doctrine, such as Islamist jihadism? Does the threat come from all failed or failing states or just some? If the latter, what are the necessities for determining the existence of an actual or potential threat? Do China or Russia present a threat? If so, to what degree and in what manner? Is all nuclear proliferation equally threatening? If not, what are the criteria for determining the degree and immediacy of the threat?

Sure, there are other rabbits to catch, but this list gives a helpful start.

Next, Lads, (the male term is correct judging from both the pictures and names on the NCNA webpage) stop and think about another basic question. What is the nature and character of the military?

That's right, boys, it is an instrument of national power. The instrument of last resort. The ultimate argument of politics in the international arena. It is a tool. As a tool it must be used only for the right job in the right way.

A military, no matter how well trained and equipped is limited in its usage by the nature of both its equipment and doctrine. In the Great Vietnam Misadventure we attempted to use a military which was trained and equipped to fight a high intensity war on a putatively nuclear battlefield against an enemy similarly trained and equipped. Then, in an attempt akin to using a hammer to tighten a bolt, we sent it off to fight a semi-unconventional war where constraint of lethal force and similar concern for the well-being and perceptions of the uncommitted civilian majority was paramount.

We lost.

Our well trained and equipped armed forces were sent to Afghanistan. They accomplished in part the original mission. But, then, in a manner not unlike using a quarter inch ratchet to drive a one inch bolt, the military was told to "build a nation" from the feudal fragments of a rarely cohesive society.

The same tale was told in the wastelands of Iraq. The Americans had no trouble quickly dispatching the conventional forces of Saddam. Then, the day after victory was declared, the real war started. Yes, the Americans learned, or more properly, relearned the lessons of counterinsurgency and ultimately we achieved the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not losing."

Have you political types learned the most important lesson of the wars of America over the past fifty or so years? Have you learned that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all military force, no matter how "well trained" and "well equipped?"

A military must fight with the doctrine to which it has trained and for which it has been equipped if it is to succeed quickly and at a cost in lives which is acceptable to the American public. This means that the military must have guidance as to the nature of the threats it is expected to counter. It must know what sort of wars it will be expected to fight in the near- to mid-term.

In our system that sort of decision is not up to the uniformed people in the Pentagon alone. It is a political view to which the senior civilian leadership must give informed input. Similarly, political decisions determine the relation of the military to all other instruments of national power. That's right, all other instruments.

The military does not operate in a vacuum. It supports the conduct of foreign policy. It supports diplomacy. Its actions, whether warlike or limited to non-violent actions such as humanitarian relief or in-country training, are dictated by the overarching political policy of an administration--and a congress.

The same dynamics are at work with the intelligence and clandestine services of the United States. It is all well and good to aver that the nation needs an intelligence capacity to detect threats before they manifest themselves in dramatic and bloody fashion.

That sort of sentiment is not enough. Not by a Texas mile or two. Intelligence services need guidance as to what the powers-that-be think is a threat. Is it the policy du jour to see drug traffickers as a national security threat? Or, perhaps, purported environmental degradation in Brazil? Do we keep an eye on one country or region or ideology in preference to another?

Money, personnel, computer processing time, must all be prioritised. There is no such thing in the real world of spooks as the all-seeing eye. It is the politicians, the president in particular, who sets the agenda for observation and analysis. It is the politicians who determine the limits of acceptable intelligence and clandestine service methods.

Remember, it was politicians who precluded the use of unsavory foreign nationals as sources. Then it was politicians who damned the intelligence services for not having properly detected and warned against threats. It was the political leadership who demanded robust methods be employed to develop actionable intelligence. And, then damned those who carried out the dictates of the decision makers.

If you stalwarts of the fading Grand Old Party are going to re-invent and re-launch the party (let alone discover this chimera, a "New America") you must first catch a number of rabbits.

To do that you must as a prerequisite drop the addiction to glittering, meaningless generalities. This is hard for politicians whose stock in trade is saying things which sound good but mean nothing. Without considering national interest and national security in cold, concrete and historically valid terms, you are just one more puff of smoke in the strong, cold gales of the real world.

Hezbollah Defines The Latest Threat--Or Not

Two and a half years ago Hezbollah opened a can of Whupass on the IDF. The Israelis entered Lebanon in an ill-considered operation which may have been intended to serve as a re-heated version of the less-than-spectacularly-successful Operation Peace for Galilee a quarter century earlier.

The IDF was in for a big surprise, perhaps because the Government of Israel and the military high command had a very bad case of overconfidence. In any event, the much despised, so-called "terrorist" gang, Hezbollah, fought the Israelis to a stop, inflicting high casualties in the process.

Apologists for the GOI and IDF have argued that Hezbollah did not fight fair. That the Party of God trigger pullers and mortar humpers concealed themselves in the midst of civilian populations so the Israelis had to pull their punch. Many of the same commentators aver that the international media so wrongly portrayed the IDF that Hezbollah had a public relations victory even though the IDF had defeated the terrorists in the field.

There is no doubt that Hezbollah fought very well. For the first time since Jordan's Arab Legion back in the days of Glubb Pasha has an Arab force fought so well in conventional combat. The Party of God fighters inflicted more casualties for the losses sustained than any of the conventional Arab armies in any of the many wars they have waged against Israel.

In their use of terrain, use of supporting and indirect fires as well as their willingness to stand, fight, and hold territory Hezbollah troops showed themselves to be better than the Iraqis in either 1991 or 2003. Overall, except in a few areas such as maneuvering separate forces over distance, the much maligned terrorists of Allah performed at least as well as the conventional Arab armies over the past half century.

Comes now a pair of Deep Thinkers at the US Army's Strategic Studies Institute with a lengthy paper dissecting the 2006 IDF debacle with a particular focus on the skills, strengths, and weaknesses of Hezbollah. The study contains no surprises for anyone who followed the exercise two plus years ago with a close and critical eye.

The intention of the authors seems to be that of giving comfort to those in the American defense community who oppose proposals to reconfigure US ground combat forces for maximum effectiveness in asymmetrical conflicts, those of interventionary operations including counter insurgency and peace keeping. The writers of this analysis seem to be of the view that the Army and Marine Corps have taken the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan too much to heart and as a result they will not be able to fight opponents of greater conventional warfare abilities including non-state actors such as Hezbollah.

There is no argument concerning the initial poor performance of our ground combat forces following the misleadingly successful invasion of Iraq. The same might be said of Afghanistan except for the reality that failure following seeming victory was assured by the "mission leap" and insufficient manpower dictated by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his superiors in the neocon ninnie riddled administration.

The Army in particular, but the Marine Corps as well, had been drinking too long of the mythic waters of conventional war. Wide sweeping armored maneuvers and amphibious operations such as those undertaken or planned in the 1991 Gulf War were the standard not simply the Ideal. Even without the Crimson Tide pawing the ground eager to race through the Fulda Gap, the wet dreams of senior American commanders were those of conventional firepower, movement, and logistics heavy war.

The unspoken mantra of most in senior billets was, "No More Vietnams!"

This is the height of irony since the ground combat forces of the United States demonstrated very high competence in fighting the "mixed state" war which developed in South Vietnam between 1964 and 1967. While the American doctrine of "shoot, move, communicate" so as "to find, fix, and destroy the enemy" was not sufficient to assure victory in the overall conflict of political wills, it was necessary to defeat the enemy in the field.

Defeating the enemy in the field was precisely what the US forces did. Time after bloody time. If the North Vietnamese Army (PAVN) or Viet Cong main force units stood and fought in place, the Americans won. That this was irrelevant ultimately is not important in the present context.

What is relevant is that the PAVN and VC main force units were better in conventional and semi-conventional operations than Hezbollah during the 2006 operation. In all respects PAVN and VC main force formations were very, very good. However, the firepower, movement, and logistics heavy US forces were better--much, much better. At the conventional end of the mixed state spectrum in Vietnam, the US was the ass kicker of the century.

It was at the other end of the mixed state spectrum, the end where psyops, civil affairs, presence oriented patrolling, stability enhancement operations, and assorted not-very-nice special operations rule, that the US forces were not as good. It was at this end of the spectrum, the end where politics, psychology, and constrained lethality military operations come together that the most and the greatest deficiencies of American doctrine, tactics, and operational skill can be found.

The authors of this Strategic Studies Institute study, like senior American commanders over the past several years, chose to ignore the body of experience, successful experience racked up by the US Army and Marine Corps in order to make the case that Hezbollah's competence in semi-conventional war means the US should not bias itself to the low end of asymmetrical conflict. While it is interesting to see how good Hezbollah has become at conventional operations, there is nothing new or very instructive to be gained by the exercise.

No one has proposed that US interests will be best served by turning the Army and Marine Corps into a collection of barely armed social workers and door-to-door salesmen of democracy. Rather, the suggestion has been made that wars of the next decade or two will be either totally asymmetrical or of the mixed state variety combining conventional, semi-conventional, and unconventional aspects.

The US defense establishment is already very good at breaking things and killing people. If the enemy chooses to stand and fight, they will be killed. If the enemy concentrates, it will be obliterated.

What we and our forces have only recently begun to master are the arts of unconventional war. Only recently have we relearned the lessons relevant to what must be done when the opponent does not stand and fight or concentrate in order to fight. Only recently has our doctrine rediscovered lessons learned and re-learned during our less-than-war wars of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries--including Vietnam.

While our forces have been re-mastering the requirements of successful asymmetrical warfare, the American people and government have not yet learned the single most important lesson of all asymmetrical conflicts no matter by what name they are fought. It is the same lesson which was ignored or never learned by the people and government of Israel in 2006.

The lesson?

Simple to state and hard to get a lasting grip on. All asymmetrical wars, those of peace keeping, counter insurgency, counter terrorism, humanitarian intervention, are at their root contests of political will. The political will of the two peoples involved is tested and re-tested until one or the other cracks, breaks, and evaporates.

Killing and being killed is only the means by which political will is tested. In this area the US has come up short time and time again over the past fifty plus years. It was in this area as well that the Israeli public and government came up short in 2006.

Unless and until the American people and government take a firm grip on the nature of asymmetrical warfare, the capacity of our military to fight is of little relevance.

What Can We Snatch From The Jaws Of Defeat?

As has been posted before, the US set its feet firmly on the road to defeat in Afghanistan before the first bomb fell there. Driven by the dictates of idiotically irrelevant ideology, the neocon ninnies generally, and Donald Rumsfeld in particular, rejected the realistic option of a punitive expedition. Instead of doing what could be done--going in and killing as many al-Qaeda leaders and trigger pullers as possible along with their Taliban hosts, the (thankfully) outgoing administration sought the impossible dream of creating a modern nation-state complete with muti-party, secular, liberal democracy, an independent judiciary, and free market capitalism.

They might have well have hoisted a white flag as the first troops put their boots on the ground.

The incoming administration has repeatedly vowed to fight the good fight so that "the good war" might be won. To this end a significant escalation of US and (hopefully) other foreign forces is deemed necessary.

In recent weeks the much maligned Iraqi "surge" has been quoted as the prototype of what must be done to accomplish the goals in Afghanistan. Escalation may be necessary. But, the consequences may well not be the same as seen in Iraq.

The differences between Iraq and Afghanistan are often overlooked by those who see a surge equals victory equation. It is the differences which not only preclude any realistic expectation of "victory" but make even achieving the minimum necessary strategic goal of "not-losing" difficult to achieve.

Iraq may have three nations uneasily coexisting within the confines of a single state, but that puts it far ahead of the more populous geographic expression called Afghanistan. The Afghan population has a long, long history of antipathy--usually expressed violently--between several antagonistic ethno-linguistic-cultural groups. Rarely have the mutual hatreds been overwhelmed by anything less than a major external threat.

That's the first major difference. Iraq is, comparatively speaking, far more coherent than Afghanistan--hard as that is to believe.

The second major difference is in the physical terrain. Afghanistan is a much harder place to wage a counterinsurgency than is Iraq. Take a look at a relief map. If you could flatten out Afghanistan it would be just about the largest country outside of Russia in the world. Of course, you can't flatten some of the roughest mountains on Earth, so you have to learn to, if not love them, at least fight in them.

Also related to terrain is the problem of logistic support. Iraq was easily supported by land from Kuwait and by sea to Kuwait. The road network in Iraq was complete and well laid out from a military perspective. The land lines of supply to Afghanistan are primarily through Pakistan. This road is long and easily interdicted. But, Pakistan is the way to go if the regional support is going to be by sea. The other options are worse, coming through the Central Asian republics. This route is very, very long and susceptible to political closure.

Then there is the small matter of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Yes, Iraq has a common frontier with Iran and Iran is not a cheerleader for American success in Iraq. But, the problems of curtailing hostile traffic across the Iraqi border with Iran or with Syria were nothing compared with interdicting cross-border movement from the FATA to Afghanistan.

Compared with the FATA-Afghan border, the US had no problem sealing the borders of South Vietnam and its neighbors, Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. Pakistan may assist in slowing the movement of hostiles between FATA and Afghanistan, but that is a very, very thin reed on which to place our hope and trust for success.

Another key distinction between Iraq and Afghanistan is the nature of the society, economy, and polity which existed prior to the arrival of the Americans. The Iraqis were a complexly organised society with a long standing economic base and a tradition of self-government in living memory. One aspect of this was the existence of a military tradition and capacity into which the US could belatedly but successfully tap. None of these factors exist in Afghanistan.

Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has never been more than a geographic expression sporadically given some semblance of internal political cohesion by the presence of an outside threat and an indigenous strongman. It has no economic reason to exist as a coherent whole. It has no tradition of so doing. Neither does it possess a military tradition and capacity which can be developed quickly and effectively into a combination national army and "school for citizenship."

Of course, as recent events have made clear, the Afghan government and population exceed even the Iraqis in not wanting us there. Of not wanting to be occupied and uplifted.

All of these factors even more than the Taliban's access to oodles and gobs of money courtesy of opium production militate against any repeat of the Iraq experience.

Still, an escalation of US forces is necessary to assure the highest probability of achieving the minimum necessary strategic goal, that of not-losing. More troops can translate into gaining the initiative whereby the war could be carried to the enemy. This would have two important results.

The first is that our effective casualty rate would be lowered while that of the hostiles would be raised without inflicting higher collateral casualties on the civilian population. It is quite important that we kill more bad guys and fewer civilians. Preferably, we should kill no civilians at all. Leave that to the hostiles to do.

The second result of gaining the clear initiative would be to force Taliban et al to commit more attacks on the softest Afghan targets--the civilian population. By hitting the civilians more and by killing more non-combatants, Taliban would have the unintended result of compelling the Afghan people to look increasingly to both its own government (such as it is) and the outsiders for protection.

The escalation will not bring "victory" in Afghanistan any more than it did in Iraq. What escalation can do, if we are willing to take the time and accept the casualties, is to bring about an endgame where the hostiles cannot claim either military or a political success against us.

Fifteen Thousand Marines To Afghanistan?

There are currently some thirty thousand US troops in Afghanistan. Additionally, there are roughly thirty thousand allied forces, many of them in non-combat roles and relatively safe locations.

The US Marines are bored in Iraq. Long ago the mission of the twenty-two thousand jarheads in Anbar Province shifted from active combat operations taking the war to the black turbans to one of providing civil operations and back-up to the Iraqi security forces.

The possibility of shifting fifteen thousand of these under-employed, offensively oriented personnel to Afghanistan has been under active consideration by the Corps. The notion seems to have gained traction not only among the senior leadership of the Marines but with guys down the food chain, the men who do the killing--and the dying.

At first sight the transfer of the more-or-less out of work Marines to Afghanistan seems to be a good idea. The commanders in Afghanistan have long and correctly called for more boots on the ground. The President-elect has maintained that Afghanistan is the "central front" in the "War on Terrorism."

Then there is the simple, but unpleasant reality that the US and its allies are nowhere near having accomplished the minimum necessary strategic goal, which is "not-losing." The term "not-losing" means the clear demonstration that the enemy, al-Qaeda and Taliban, cannot defeat us either militarily or through the enervation of our domestic political will.

It is important to understand that the concept "not-losing" is not the same as "winning." The underlying reality in Afghanistan is that there is no meaningful way in which an outsider such as the US can hope to "win." The failure which was built in to the American headed invasion of Afghanistan was the notion that we could "win" through the implantation of foreign political institutions such as a secular, pluralistic, liberal democracy in the rocks of Afghanistan.

The willful ignoring of the realities operating on the human terrain of the Afghan population caused by ideological considerations assured that we and those with us would enter the country without a proper political goal, definition of victory, or means of achieving the goal and victory as defined. Since "winning" was an impossible option from the moment the first missile hit or the first US boot touched ground, there have been only two potential outcomes for this adventure in a remote, rugged and hostile land.

The more obvious potential end for the Afghan effort is the one which, at this moment, seems more likely. In a word, losing.

No matter how it might be camouflaged, a withdrawal under pressure from Taliban and al-Qaeda would be seen by the Islamist opposition worldwide as the military defeat of the "Crusader states," most important of which is the US. Foe, neutral, and friend, including many Americans, would see the US exiting Afghanistan under pressure as a military and political defeat. The consequences of this would be large, long duration, and unpleasant from an American perspective.

The only alternative to defeat is that of "not losing," of leaving Afghanistan after having reduced both the military capacities and the ability to use them of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. "Not-losing" means that the Afghan political situation will remain in a state of flux with the final outcome to be determined by the Afghan population. That Taliban will remain as a player in the political sphere is to be expected. The potential of Taliban re-emerging in or even as the government must be accepted.

The "not-losing" option is the one which finally obtained in Iraq following the success of the much debated and often maligned "surge." The final shape of internal Iraqi politics is still in process and at may eventually prove quite unsatisfying from an American perspective.

Whether the final outcome of Iraqi internal politics meets with our approval or not is quite irrelevant. The relevant consideration is simply that the hostile elements in Iraq did not force a military defeat upon us or cost us the totality of our political will to continue the war.

"Not-losing" has been a good enough outcome for US policy in both Korea and Iraq. While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, it is a better end to an effort than was the barely hidden defeat of American political will in Vietnam.


It has been long established that counterinsurgency is a manpower intensive kind of war. When SecDef Donald Rumsfeld tried for victory on the cheap through high tech "shock and awe," he overlooked one of the two most important historically derived principles of interventionary war: It takes a lot of people. People on the ground operating over time is the second of the three pre-requisites for success, even the limited success described by the term "not-losing."

(As a side note, Rumsfeld wrote an op-ed piece in today's NYT. He comes across as though he was a born-again member of Code Pink. The Geek can't help but wonder where his expressed concern for the Afghan people and the necessity of them making the decisions on what sort of government they want might have been hiding back during the days of testicle grabbing mouthings of "shock and awe?")

The shifting of fifteen thousand Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan would provide a very significant increase in ground combat power. Given that the Marine Expeditionary Force includes it own air as well as ground units, the force would be tightly integrated and capable of operating with extreme rapidity and effectiveness to actionable intelligence. This has been shown repeatedly in the past, in counterinsurgency operations stretching back from Iraq to the so-called "Banana Wars" of the Twenties and Thirties.

On the downside of course are the considerations of logistics. While these are solvable, even if it means relying all the more on private Russian contractors operating ancient Soviet era cargo aircraft, the problems of supplying another fifteen thousand personnel are not beyond our capacities.

Indeed, if diplomacy were to be employed effectively, we might be able to regain the lost cooperation of some of the adjacent Central Asian Republics. The current administration lost that cooperation due to its usual inept, heavy-handed efforts at diplomatic coercion over irrelevant matters of human rights. What diplomacy has lost, it should be able to regain.

A far more important downside effect of redeploying the Marines is that to do such would mean an increase in the tempo of combat operations. That means an increase in Americans killed and wounded.

The real risk for the decision makers both in and out of uniform is simply what additional stresses can American political will accept? Given all the bad things happening in our collective life, can We the People take more news of more Americans killed in the pursuit of something so hard to grasp as "not losing?" Or, if Taliban and al-Qaeda inflict enough death upon our troops, if these black turbans cause enough destruction, death and turmoil that success no matter how limited in definition seems impossible, will We the People simply give up and call the troops home?

As the British say, "That is a bit of a poser, what?"

So Much Confusion. So Little Time

Once again it appears that the current neocon ninny regime in and around the White House does not know the difference between feces and shoe polish. Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise.

The current administration has an unsurpassed record at not knowing who or what the enemy in the Great Global War on Terrorism might be. Why shouldn't it keep up its distinguished record?

This time around is a clone of the first. Way back when, We the People thought the goal of military operations was the destruction of al-Qaeda and its sort-of-state sponsor, the Taliban of Afghanistan. With a whoop and a hollar off we went (in horribly insufficient force) as the Great Posse of Justice to bring in Osama and company dead or alive.

Before the posse had done much more than rearrange some real estate in Afghanistan and allow the heavyweights of both "criminal" organisations to head south of the border down Pakistan way, the name of the enemy changed. It wasn't Osama anymore. The new blackest of the black was Saddam Hussein.

A larger posse was formed. The evildoer was toppled, hunted down, interrogated, tried and convicted. Hung. Case closed!

Not bloody likely!

Leaving aside several intervening years, events and deaths, a new villain emerged. Actually, the blackturban had been there all along. For some reason that is too arcane for the Geek to grasp, it suddenly served the current administration to (again) announce his existence.

Enter Iran, skulking with a centrifuge under each arm and an evil grin above the several day growth of beard.

The nuclear ambitions of the Islamic Republic as well as its support of anti-Baghdad and anti-US elements in Iraq to say nothing of its general record as a regional troublemaker are all good and sufficient reasons for the US (and others) to see the mullahocracy as a clear and present danger to both national interests and global tranquility.

Ignoring for now the window of engagement opportunity offered by the Tehran government in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq which was idiotically slammed in the beards of the mullahs by the neocon ninnies, suffice it to say that adding Iran to the mix of unfinished business in Iraq and Afghanistan was ill-advised. No. It was blatantly boneheaded!

Equally gripless was the current administration's continued pretense that Pakistan was a full and effective ally in the Great Global War on Terrorism. Coddling the Islamists in Islamabad, in the Pakistani military, in the Inter Services Intelligence was somewhere between counterproductive and suicidal.

The net result of the shift in "Main Enemies" from the Taliban/al-Qaeda crew in Afghanistan to the Baathists of Iraq, when coupled with the initial failure to put enough boots on the ground in Afghanistan and wilful, continued denial that elements of both the Pakistani National Forces and ISI were complicit with the fugitive blackturbans in the mountains of FATA, was the regrowth of Taliban, the continuation and strenghtening of al-Qaeda and the emergence of a Pakistani version of Taliban as the de facto government in much of the FATA. That's real success.

For a long damn time now anyone and everyone with enough sense to know rocks roll down hill has acknowledged that there was only one way to eliminate the leadership cadre of al-Qaeda and the restrengthened refugee Taliban.

No. Not armed Predators, useful as those machines are. No. Not a major cross-boarder operation by US or Afghan National Forces. Too high visibility. Too complex logistically.

The way?

Employment of US Special Operation Forces in conjunction with CIA "pilot personnel" and their local agents. This approach has been sanctioned by doctrine and used effectively for many, many years.

CIA and other components of the US intelligence community have had highly qualified assets with full linguistic and cultural competence on the ground in the Afghanistan-FATA area of operations. The local agents are in place and (usually) capable. An indication of the pervasiveness and locally presumed effectiveness of the penetration is provided by the periodic reports (and videos) of the blackturbans "executing a US spy."

The special operations forces exist to go on into the mountains and valleys of the FATA and do the job. We the People now know that the plan for doing this has existed for months. We also know that the plan has been disapproved by the current administration.

The ostensible reason for this disapproval is fear of possible negative repercussions should the Pakistani government become aware of what we are doing. Or that the Pakistani government would not authorise our actions.

(See, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/washington/30tribal.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1214846804-MffwRuRYNt7YLQa7pOpq5w)

Oh? Really?

Cut to Iran.

Seymour Hersh who has a long and reasonably distinguished record for investigative reporting in national security affairs has published an account of the US clandestine operations underway in Iran from a base in western Afghanistan. His account appears in the current New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh/?yrail

American Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) assets have been and are being deployed into Iran with a view toward potentiating the efforts of "dissident" ethnic minorities and assisting in destabilising the mullahocracy. Congress has funded the effort to the tune of some four hundred megabucks.

In principle the Geek has no objections to making the mullahs' lives a tad more unpleasant. In practice, the way in which the current administration is seeking to go about the job is--being as kind as possible--wrongheaded.

The groups we are seeking to potentiate are neither reliable nor aligned with longer term US interests in Iran or the region. And, as history well demonstrates, simply funding private wars never brings much a positive national policy result.

Now, walk this through with your friendly tour guide, the Geekmo.

USSOCOM and CIA "pilots" are not numerous. The time and effort necessary to find, select and train such people is extensive. There just aren't that many of them--yesterday or today or tomorrow.

In short, you've got to use them where they will have the most effect, the most positive effect in the accomplishment of national goals. Informed assessments come together on one point.

The point?

Using our linguistically qualified, regionally experienced USSOCOM and intelligence personnel to clandestinely work in FATA is infinitely more likely to pay dividends than frittering them away on the neocon ninny ambition of "quiet" regime change in Iran.

It's way past time to get a grip on this reality. You have to focus on your enemy if you're going to defeat him.

Shifting targets means you miss them all.

Got that, Decider and Commander Guy?

The Higher The Rank, The Smaller The Mind---

--Or so it so often seems to the Geek.

SecDef Gates may have taken a firm grip on reality, but many of the highest ranking officers under him are charter members of the out-to-lunch bunch, uniformed division. The Secretary accepts the unpleasant feature of the world today and into the near-term. The major use of American combat forces will be as it has been for more than a decade now--stability operations.

As the Geek well remembers from his encounters over this subject years ago, the men with stars on their shoulders all-too-often will not march on the sound of reality. They prefer to hang on to the hopes of a conventional conflict.

The most recent outbreak of uniformed nostalgia for the good ole days of War As We Would Like To Know It eluded the mainstream media but was caught by by Wired News. Take a look, http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/some-observers-.html. Further details can be found on http://insidedefense.com/. This latter source can also shed light on internal inconsistencies within the massive military establishment concerning what kind of threat(s) our forces should be preparing to counter.

There is no surprise that the Air Force is particularly unhappy with the idea of stability operations including counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, and counter-terrorism. The majority of senior zoomies such as Lance Smith are jet jocks. The kind of guy who lives to strap on umpteen thousand pounds of thrust between his legs and pull back on the stick.

Experience shows that the fast-movers which are the heart and soul of the Air Force are massively irrelevant and even counterproductive in stability operations except in unusual and narrowly circumscribed applications. That doesn't help come appropriation time.

It doesn't help come promotion time either.

While it is easy to understand why the boys in light blue don't want to be thought of (or think of themselves as) a collection of airborne bus and truck drivers providing dreary logistic support to the actual warfighters, it is a little harder to understand why the upper echelon of the Army is unhappy as well.

Army Chief of Staff George Casey like his predecessor Peter Schoomaker have made mighty groans concerning the possibility that the ground-pounders are "off-balance" and less able to engage in conventional war. Joined by Marine Commandant James Conway, the two have viewed with alarm the tilting of American ground forces toward the requirements of stability operations.

The latest voice in the chorus is that of Admiral Michael Mullen, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Gotta admit that is an impressive constellation of stars, right?

It is that. Impressive amount of tin on the shoulders and braid on the hats. Taken in totality, the pounds of tin and braid mean these men are fine bureaucratic politicians.

Possession of stars, however, does not mean that the individual is an experienced fighter of real wars. Neither does it imply that the man under the stars and braid has a grip on the nature of present and future wars.

The initial blundering in the planning and execution of our adventures in regime change in both Afghanistan and Iraq show two realities quite clearly.

Our senior military commanders were either intellectually bankrupt or moral cowards when they agreed to execute the lamebrained notion of "shock and awe" sponsored by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his neocon ninny brigade. Then, the events on the ground until quite recently demonstrated that our forces were far too heavily tilted toward conventional war with a symmetrical opponent.

American officers of stratospheric rank have never cottoned to guerrilla war. They certainly didn't like the counterinsurgency portions of the Vietnam War. Even way back when, in the late Nineteenth Century, unconventional approaches to defeating the Indians such as practiced by General Crookes were cast aside (as was Crookes) by the senior commanders in favor of less effective, more lethal conventional means.

Generals Smith, Casey et al, and Admiral Mullen are captives to a set of paradigms. Deadly paradigms because they are ill-suited for the world as it is and will be for some while yet.

The buried paradigm is that of war as a pursuit for professionals sharing common world views and values. It is the paradigm of a sand table exercise enlarged to cover thousands of square kilometers. It is the paradigm of Clausewitz with movement and concentration of forces ending in "bloody and decisive combat."

The surface paradigm is that of the post-World War II experience, culminating in the concept of the Air-Land Battle, which has been enshrined in doctrine for two decades and more. It is the paradigm that assured quick and bloodless victory over the hopelessly overmatched opponent in the Gulf War of 1991 and the conventional portion of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Air-Land Battle represents War As We Would Like It To Be to these generals and many like them. It is the kind of war, with its emphasis on breaking things and killing people, at which we are best prepared and equipped to wage.

The paradigms guiding the thinking of these generals (as well as lurking under Rumsfeld's concept of shock and awe) promise quick and decisive victory. Victory fast enough and cheap enough in American lives to assure the end of the war before the political will of We the People is exhausted.

Here is the subtext message upon which to get a grip.

The generals listed as well as Admiral Mullen and many others are desperately afraid of stability operations. They are more afraid of counterinsurgency than they are of death itself.

Why?

Simple. These men are scared of us. They are made fearful, not by any actual or potential enemy, but of We the People.

They are afraid that We the People and our "representatives" will lose the political will to continue the stability operation, the counterinsurgency, the peacekeeping mission, the counter-terrorist campaign when "victory" proves elusive and expensive in time and lives.

When that happens, they will be left holding the same bag as their predecessors following the self-inflicted Vietnam defeat. They will be left with the hollow forces, the empty appropriations, the testimony before hostile committees, the blighted careers.

Where does the fault lie?

It is easy to say it lies with backward looking, intellectually deficient military politicians more worried about careers, promotions, appropriations and glory than about the effective use of the military in support of national interest. That is the easy, attractive way to point the finger.

Or, we can take the harder route. We can look in a mirror.

The present and future reality is that Secretary of Defense Gates is right. Stability operations are and will be the order of the day. This unpleasant fact of life requires both the changes in military doctrine and orientation so recently undertaken.

But, it requires more.

Of our senior military officials, particularly the bureaucratic politicos in uniform, it requires honesty. It requires that they shift the paradigms that have served as pole stars for their entire careers. That is tough--damn tough. But, no tougher than slogging along looking for the ambush or the roadside mine.

Senior military commanders have to both adjust to the new reality of war and insist that We the People do the same.

The ultimate (perhaps unachievable) requirement is that We the People and our "representatives" acknowledge that there are no quick, decisive, and cheap victories in the offing. Wars today and tomorrow are going to be long, indecisive, and quite probably not completely satisfying in their outcome. That is the nature of all stability operations, most particularly counterinsurgency.

Presence on the ground, persistence over time, and patience are the prime requisites. This means the political will of We the People is the foundation for achieving the minimal acceptable outcome of any stability operation.

The minimal acceptable outcome?

Not losing. As the Korean War demonstrated, not losing is both the minimal acceptable and often the only possible outcome of a war.

We are and will be again in situations far more akin to the Korean War than World War II. We best get a grip on that.

Our future administrations had best get a grip on it as well. Getting into war is a lot easier than getting out of it without declaring defeat. Vietnam showed us that. Iraq is showing it again right now as is Afghanistan.

A hint to future administrations from the past: Don't march off to war unless and until you not only have a clear understanding of what is at stake, what is the desired better state of peace, and, most importantly, what is the definition of "not losing?"

Way Too Late, General Sanchez Tells It Like It Was

The mainstream media have been giving wide play to General Sanchez' remarks delivered last Friday to a group of military affairs reporters in Arlington, Virginia. What he said, based on his year commanding our forces in Iraq between June 2003 and 2004, is hot metal on target.

It is also irrelevant, except to historians.

Sanchez, who retired with three stars last year, stated that he realised the situation in Iraq was a "mess" on 15 June 03. If that is true, and the Geek believes it is, a question is called for.

What did General Sanchez, the man with ultimate responsibility for military operations in the theater, the guy on the ground, do about it?

Did he relay his complaints up the chain of command? Did he request more men? More support? An end to the divided command in the theater?

If not, why not?

If he did, what was the response from Central Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, the White House?

Quite explicitly he lays the blame for the "mess" at the feet of his superiors. The Geek thinks that is where it belongs, but that in no way lets General Sanchez off the hook.

If the situation in Iraq according to his best military judgement was hopeless and his superiors refused for whatsoever reason to provide the means to improve it, General Sanchez had two choices. The first, the one he took, was to shut up and soldier, to do the best he could with what he had, including the inept procounselship of Paul Bremer.

Then there was the second option. The course Sanchez didn't take. He could have asked for relief, resigned his commission, and gone public four years ago. When his assessment of the realities on the ground--and in Washington might have done some good.

Not being a psychoanalyst, the Geek is not given to inquiring as to a person's motivations, but he suspects that Sanchez was blinded by stars, particularly the four stars that would have quite probably come with his end of tour package. As a result of career considerations, the general shut up and soldiered, only to become a collateral casualty of the infamous prison torment tapes.

At one point in his remarks, Sanchez says of the political leadership of the United States in both the administration and congress. "They have unquestionably been derelict in in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these types of leaders would be immediately relieved or court-martialed."

The Geek can only wish that was a true statement. In the current wars as in so many previous ones including both the Vietnam and Korean conflicts, inept commanders have been kept in the field, rewarded with Legions of Merit and promotions when relieved, and ultimately protected from accountability.

The same has been true in the political sphere. In the opening days of the Vietnam escalation, leaders of both houses of congress from both parties were far more hawkish than the president, Lyndon Johnson. A few years later, these same figures were among the loudest of the doves.

"Why the change?" You ask.

Simple. The US was not winning. The war was a mess. There was no end in sight.

The same litany as Sanchez sang on Friday.

The reasons for the seeming failure after four or more years in both Vietnam and Iraq are the same. An improper doctrine (or theory of victory.) The lack of a clear definition of victory. The inability to properly appreciate the nature and quality of the human terrain on which the war would be fought. The failure to effectively coordinate military with non-military tools.

Ahh, it all sounds so familiar.

Sanchez' exercise in historical self-exculpation is basically right, and, as said before, irrelevant.

He failed to do the right thing when it would have mattered. Doing it now is not only quite a few days late, it has the potential of doing damage to the greatly improved efforts of the US and its allies to finally clean up the mess.

While the general pays lip service to the reality that a premature withdrawal from Iraq will have have globally disastrous consequences, his overall effect is to give ammunition to the surrender now crowd.

General Sanchez pontificates that the best military force can do is "stave off defeat."

Duhh!

That is belaboring the obvious. In all stability operations including counterinsurgency, that is all that can be expected of armed force. The role of the military is to lower the violence level to a point that normal civilian organizations can effectively provide the necessary services of a state to its citizenry.

Get a grip on this.

The military cannot build a nation. Only civilians can do that.

The military cannot make a government. Only civilians can do that.

The military cannot create an economy. Only civilians can do that.

The military can--and must--defeat hostile armed forces in the field whether these are conventional in their tactics and equipment or not.

Recent changes in doctrine show that our military is aware of what it can and cannot do. Arguably these changes would have come faster if General Sanchez had spoken out four years ago.

The American Problem--High Tech vs Low

The Counterterrorism Blog http://counterterrorismblog.org/, had a post by Douglas Farah focusing on the problem of the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) which are one of the two weapons of choice in Iraq and increasingly in Afghanistan. The other preferred weapon is, of course, the suicide bomber.

Mr Farah in common with so many others who have considered the dilemma of American advanced technology being successfully countered by the opposition's use of "primitive" weapons and tactics tend to focus on the structural difficulties faced by the military services in procuring proper defensive methods.

That is a very real difficulty. No doubt about it. Compared to the Pentagon's procurement "system" the average glacier moves at the speed of light.

However the asymmetry of technology between the US and its enemies is nothing new. It dates back to the earliest of the Indian Wars during the Colonial period. (Don't throw up your hands in disgust, the Geek isn't going to go that far back.)

At the bitter end of WW II in the Pacific our grunts encountered an interesting type of IED. It consisted of a covered hole. In the hole was a Japanese soldier. Between his legs was a thwacking big shell--something like an eight inch or larger naval rifle round. In his hands was a hammer.

The operating instructions?

When the guy in the hole heard a vehicle, preferably a tank, going overhead, he was to smack the nose mounted zero delay fuse smartly with his hammer.

That nifty idea which combines the best features of the IED and the suicide bomber was easily countered. The troops after discovering the first hole and occupant, simply avoided the roads. If necessary they bladed new roads alongside the old.

If we had been forced to invade the Japanese Home Islands, we would have run across thousands of these "primitive" weapons. There would have been other variations as well. All lethal, all low-tech.

In Vietnam our fabled helicopter maneuverability quickly spawned an effective counter. It was simple. It was low tech. It worked.

Here it is. Dig a hole. Bell shaped is best. Place megaphone shaped openings in each ordinal point. Put a Viet Cong in the center of the hole. Connect him to other guys in other identical holes with an old French field telephone. Tell him to keep his ears open.

Triangulation from three or more VC listeners allowed the detection and accurate tracking on both range and azimuth of a helicopter serial at twenty or so klicks. It was just about as good as radar.

Using this information, a map and knowledge of US tactics the local VC or North Vietnamese commander could decide whether to resist the coming US attack or abandon the ground leaving behind only a few snipers and a bunch of mines.

Cool, huh?

Speaking of mines. The Vietnam War was full of them. While the VC and NVN didn't have explosively formed penetrators, they were inordinately creative with mine manufacture, placement and concealment. One result was that the grunts preferred to ride on top of the M-113 armored personnel carriers rather than inside them.

Outside, you might get sniped. Inside you would get dead if the slab sided mound of aluminum hit a mine or was hit by a rocket propelled grenade.

The Vietnam War lasted long enough for the smart lads working at and for the Pentagon to develop some defenses against the IEDs used by the blackhats. They never did. Still, as soon as the grunts took to riding on the top of the M-113s (or walking) mine casualties dropped. A low tech solution to a "primitive" weapon.

The troops in Vietnam had an advantage denied to those today in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were a lot more of them.

The most effective counter to IEDs and suicide bombers is a lot of boots on the ground. As the Geek has written so often, counterinsurgency is the most manpower intensive form of war which exists. While advanced technology can be a potent force multiplier particularly in reconnaissance and surveillance or in precisely engaging a target with minimal collateral damage, it cannot replace boots, trigger fingers and the brains which operate both.

The Geek is strongly supportive of the decision to (finally, three or more years later than should have been the case) acquire the mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicle. But, that new piece of automotive and ballistic inventiveness will not be a panacea. At least initially its presence will be a magnet to the Iraqi insurgents and those who support them to develop and demonstrate ways of taking the big beast out.

It has been a general historical lesson of the many insurgencies over the past three hundred or so years that there is always, repeat, always a low technology solution to any advanced technology capability.

Men on the ground, properly trained, supported by a doctrine that is relevant to the realities of a counterinsurgent war and backed by a resolute leadership are the most effective way to defeat an enemy.

If you get a grip on that reality there is no need to hyperventilate about technology, procurement policies or other attractive irrelevancies.