This is a great article in the first email about the implications of constructing doctrine – I particularly enjoyed the quote:
“The issue of doctrine is huge,” says P.W. Singer of the Brookings Institution. “Choose the right doctrine and you’ve found the blitzkrieg of the 21st century; choose the wrong doctrine and you’ve come up with the Maginot Line.”
I have also attached American scholar Williamson Murray’s testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. It focuses on the value of professional military education and is an excellent read. Murray provides a great deal of support to an integrated PME structure focused on broad-based cognition in a complex environment.
Regards to all this holiday weekend. Howard.
Paul McLeary
“Everything in war is very simple,” wrote Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz. “But the simplest thing is difficult.” Put another way, a soldier’s job in combat is to kill or capture the enemy, but how a soldier goes about this is rarely simple, and with new battlefield technologies, the ways in which this goal can be accomplished have expanded–and been complicated –tremendously.
Take the case of Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He was killed in 2006 when U.S. Air Force pilots in F-16Cs dropped guided munitions on a house in which he was hiding. Zarqawi was tracked, located and killed. Simple enough. But consider the events behind the attack. They began when Jordanian intelligence agents received a tip that Zarqawi was seeking the advice of a religious leader, information they passed on to the Americans, who tasked unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to monitor the cleric. Eventually the UAVs followed Zarqawi to a farmhouse. Once confirmation of his presence was made, the F-16Cs attacked.
Numerous factors made the strike successful–human intelligence, data analysis, deployment of conventional air and ground assets, use of advanced technology–and some might say the events leading up to the strike are less important than the result. But to the services that are fighting for what is sure to be a smaller slice of the Pentagon’s budgetary pie in coming years, it’s critical to know which tactics are most effective in winning the irregular wars that dominate regional and local conflicts.
For the U.S. Army, which has embraced the realities of irregular warfare and rapidly exploited emerging technologies, the transformation has been painful at times, creating deep fissures between those who want to use the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan to radically remake the force, and those who worry that traditional combined arms skills will fall by the wayside in the rush to embrace stability and counterinsurgency (COIN) operations.
At the heart of this is doctrine, and the Army has been in front on this, too, releasing new doctrine papers on COIN and stability operations in recent years. The next step in this, which will look beyond COIN, is being undertaken by Training and Doctrine Command, which has assigned Brig. Gen. H.R. McMaster to retool the service’s Capstone Concept, a document that fleshes out how it will fight future wars.
Heading up a 20-person team, McMaster hints at what the concept might look like in a statement that his team is “recognizing some of the limitations in technologies that were designed to improve situational understanding and situational awareness.” He added that “we understand now how enemy countermeasures can place what we need to know about the enemy and what we need to know about the situation outside the reach of technology.”
“The issue of doctrine is huge,” says P.W. Singer of the Brookings Institution. “Choose the right doctrine and you’ve found the blitzkrieg of the 21st century; choose the wrong doctrine and you’ve come up with the Maginot Line.” One of the major tasks for the Army is to try to articulate, to itself as well as to members of Congress who fund procurement, how it plans to exploit their greatest advantage emerging manned and unmanned systems and new communication and intelligence technologies. As Singer says, “the Army is trying to figure out how to use technology as an enabler” and create the conditions under which it retains tactical battlefield dominance.
Although the use of technology in Iraq and Afghanistan has produced undeniable tactical successes, it has yet to be tied to an overall strategy or doctrine. But that’s coming. Examples of how the Army will transform itself in the future include the increasing use of lethal UAVs–the Army recently launched its first missile from a UAV in Afghanistan–as well as employment of the Land Warrior communications suite that platoon leaders in Stryker units in Iraq and Afghanistan have worn, better video feeds that can be passed quickly around the battlefield and non-lethal technologies. And all of those will have to start to shape organizational behavior, Singer says, from “tactics to doctrine to laws, ethics, questions about accountability, leadership within the force, personnel systems, you name it. And that is a ripple effect.”
While this ripple has been working its way though the service, the debate over it is nothing compared to the emotional battle being waged over how much emphasis the Army should place on COIN and stability operations, versus keeping its edge sharpened in combined arms warfare.
One outspoken participant in the debate is Col. Gian Gentile, who commanded the 8/10 Cavalry armored reconnaissance squadron in Iraq and is now a history professor at West Point. Gentile has written widely over the last several years about how he believes the Army’s ability to practice combined arms warfare “has atrophied” due to the focus on COIN. He fears that some in the Army, as well as influential voices outside it, are pushing too hard to remake the service into a counterinsurgency force.
Gentile tells DTI that the Israel-Lebanon war in the summer of 2006 is an example of what happens when an army focuses too much on counterinsurgency and stability operations, while paying less attention to combined arms warfare (see p. 33). Prior to 2006, Israel spent a lot of time in Gaza doing a form of COIN, but after its messy incursion into southern Lebanon, “they changed focus and got themselves back to the basics of fire and maneuver at the company and platoon level.” The result, borne out in studies by the Israel Defense Forces and independent analysts, was the more efficient drive into Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009.
Gentile doesn’t support the idea (floated over the past several years by military analysts like Andrew Krepinevich, Jr., and John Nagl) to stand up training and advisory brigades in the Army to handle contingencies like those the Army confronts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s not saying the Army shouldn’t learn lessons from the fights it is in, but that some observers might be overlearning lessons the army is taking to heart. Maars robot has lethal and non-lethal weapons. The Army has rapidly added advanced technology to its tactics.
“In my mind, it would be a whole lot better to have a slew of brigades trained in the basics,” says Gentile, meaning combined arms warfare, so when they are deployed it would only take “a little bit of education about the area, the culture, the language and other things to sharpen knowledge of the ‘human terrain,’ while not losing their ability to seize and retain the initiative when it’s time to fight.”
Krepinevich, of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, sees things differently. He outlines for DTI a vision of an Army that has “two wings” to it. “One is oriented primarily toward irregular warfare, and one is oriented primarily on conventional warfare, so that if you have a major contingency, you surge one wing of the force, and if it looks like the conflict is going to be protracted, the other force would have 12-15 months before you had to rotate out the first group. . . . I feel right now the force is over-weighted in favor of traditional operations.”
One small irony, perhaps, is that while some call for more trainers and advisory brigades, and others for more focus on combined arms skills, both sides see the benefit of investing in revolutionary technologies. As Singer says, “while irregular warfare is often cast as a human-to-human, boots-on-the-ground operation, Iraq and Afghanistan have driven the demand” for more advanced battlefield technologies.
Shadow UAV photo credit: U.S. Army
Copyright ? 2009 Aviation Week, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies.
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The Aerogram post on Friday 14 August containing Major Brad Boetig’s “The 800-Pound Gorilla: The Interrelationship of Culture, Economics, and Security in Afghanistan,” attached and available at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/08/the-interrelationship-of-cultu/ has received some feedback. There were a number of positive commentaries and also critiques. Dr. Chuck Oliviero, of Kingston, Ontario, has provided permission to post his review. Chuck suggests: “This Major’s attitude is the reason that the US has so much trouble in its international relations (armed and otherwise) today. There are plenty of countries where large portions of the population are disenfranchised by our standards and yet we deal with them anyway. Saudi Arabia comes to mind; Japan does not exactly cherish their women and while I am at it the Southern US is hardly an enlightened social enclave. It has always fascinated me to watch Americans support Wilsonian self-actualization while insisting that their client states need to create a society that mirrors the US.
It is nonsense at best and dangerous at worst. This Major needs to study more history. Quoting Thomas Jefferson may be clever but he was out of step even with the other Founding Fathers and as far as Douglas MacArthur re-writing the Japanese constitution is concerned, he was doing so from a position of ABSOLUTE power. The emperor himself agreed that he was not semi-divine (a contradiction of terms in itself) and was smart enough to realize that America was Japan’s ONLY hope of survival. The only smart idea in the entire article is the comment by professor Rifaat Hussain when he said that the Taliban are “mountain barbarians”. But let us not forget that prof Hussain lives in a country that itself has problems treating women with dignity and equality. Let us stop pretending that the West can somehow solve Afghanistan’s problem; the American Revolution was not won by French troops who went to the aid of the rebellious colonies — it was won by the blood and self-sacrifice of the farmers and townspeople of the colonies themselves. We must help Afghanistan but they are the only ones who can destroy the Taliban and they are the only ones who can re-build (I say again RE-build) their once vibrant society.” Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Hunt, also of Kingston forwarded these comments and the attached “Afghanistan Report No. 1: Kunar and Nuristan – Rethinking US Counterinsurgency Operations” and the following blog in response to that post. “Howard: some useful reading for those concerned with learning about the cultures we engage with. A good follow on to the 800 lb gorilla article. I have not seen a copy of the book mentioned “Military Orientalism: Eastern War Through Western Eyes (Critical War Studies) (Paperback) by Patrick Porter (Author) but suggest it might make good reading. I have adjusted the [Canadian Land Forces Command and Staff College] estimate format to include a bigger section on Human Terrain (vice the current demography) in the hopes that it will focus the idea that learning about culture is a vital aspect of how we think through our OPP [Operational Planning Process] (not to mention higher strategy).” http://kingsofwar.wordpress.com/category/afghanistan/ “Culture: sticky, not stuck By Kenneth Payne One of the themes that comes out loud and clear in Patrick’s excellent new book, Military Orientalism is that cultures change, and that one of the reasons they do is the pressure of warfare. This is an important counter to those who see the Afghan badlands as populated by unchanging primitives whose wily and barbaric ways have thwarted enemies for centuries, and who conclude from this that our cause there is hopeless. Inscrutable, possibly barbarous Orientals? The idea that culture is capable of change, and sometimes quite dramatic ones, is surely right. Large parts of the world have undergone radical changes in their encounter with modernity. The idea that war sorts the wheat from the chaff also has great merit – adapt or die. It’s not always true, of course: some cultures adapt too slowly to survive their existential wars. At the same time though, there’s a balance to be struck on the ‘cultural realist’ spectrum that Patrick sets out. Pragmatic strategic adaptation may indeed profoundly affect what it means to be part of a given culture – one moment the Taliban frown on suicide bombing as haram, next, your son is strapping on the belt with their blessing; one moment your daughter is banned from the classroom, next the Taliban are opening girls schools in a bid to win your heart and mind. But culture has residue too – there are continuities with the past, as well as changes. Wars seem to me most likely to change the parts of culture associated with fighting – I’m reminded of Asterix in Britain, when the crafty Romans repeatedly attack during the Britons’ 5pm tea break. But identity, including cultural identity, goes broader than that – shaping why groups fight, as well as how. On his first page, Patrick notes that ‘armed conflict is an expression of identity as well as a means to an end’. That’s got to be right – but I would argue too that sometimes identity is the end. Plenty of groups go down swinging. There are limits to how far Taliban can tack to the moderate centre-ground and retain a cohesive ‘Taliban’ identity. Several themes fall out from all of this: not least that a shifting, multifaceted culture is a poor predictor future behaviour. Second – we stereotype at our peril, and the manner in which we do often says more about us than the culture we are ostensibly observing. But the theme that interests me most is this: If we conceive of culture as a consensus among any group (h/t Clifford Geertz); or, similarly, if we accept that people adopt different social categorizations according to the particular issue they are confronting (h/t John Turner and friends), then we agree that culture is contested. It is, to this extent, the dependent variable, not the independent one. That’s an optimistic thought, I think – even if it opens a can of worms about how you construct alternative identities, and indeed whether it’s worth the effort trying in Afghanistan.” My thanks to Chuck, Ian and all others who responded to last week’s post. Regards. Howard. @
This e-note from Strategic Forecasting examines the foundations of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “personal” power and looks at some possible geopolitical trends regarding Iran’s future global engagement.
All my best. Howard.
This Aerogram has been sponsored by the Canadian Forces Aerospace Warfare Centre
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—————————
WESTERN MISCONCEPTIONS MEET IRANIAN REALITY
By George Friedman
In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.
The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch’s modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years — Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn’t speak Farsi all that well.
The second group of Iran experts regarded the shah as a repressive brute, and saw the revolution as aimed at liberalizing the country. Their sources were the professionals and academics who supported the uprising — Iranians who knew what former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believed, but didn’t think he had much popular support. They thought the revolution would result in an increase in human rights and liberty. The experts in this group spoke even less Farsi than the those in the first group.
Misreading Sentiment in Iran
Limited to information on Iran from English-speaking opponents of the regime, both groups of Iran experts got a very misleading vision of where the revolution was heading — because the Iranian revolution was not brought about by the people who spoke English. It was made by merchants in city bazaars, by rural peasants, by the clergy — people Americans didn’t speak to because they couldn’t. This demographic was unsure of the virtues of modernization and not at all clear on the virtues of liberalism. From the time they were born, its members knew the virtue of Islam, and that the Iranian state must be an Islamic state.
Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization — a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook “iPod liberalism,” the idea that anyone who listens to rock ‘n’ roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran — a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago.
There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand — but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.
Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with about two-thirds of the vote. Supporters of his opponent, both inside and outside Iran, were stunned. A poll revealed that former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was beating Ahmadinejad. It is, of course, interesting to meditate on how you could conduct a poll in a country where phones are not universal, and making a call once you have found a phone can be a trial. A poll therefore would probably reach people who had phones and lived in Tehran and other urban areas. Among those, Mousavi probably did win. But outside Tehran, and beyond persons easy to poll, the numbers turned out quite different.
Some still charge that Ahmadinejad cheated. That is certainly a possibility, but it is difficult to see how he could have stolen the election by such a large margin. Doing so would have required the involvement of an incredible number of people, and would have risked creating numbers that quite plainly did not jibe with sentiment in each precinct. Widespread fraud would mean that Ahmadinejad manufactured numbers in Tehran without any regard for the vote. But he has many powerful enemies who would quickly have spotted this and would have called him on it. Mousavi still insists he was robbed, and we must remain open to the possibility that he was, although it is hard to see the mechanics of this.
Ahmadinejad’s Popularity
It also misses a crucial point: Ahmadinejad enjoys widespread popularity. He doesn’t speak to the issues that matter to the urban professionals, namely, the economy and liberalization. But Ahmadinejad speaks to three fundamental issues that accord with the rest of the country.
First, Ahmadinejad speaks of piety. Among vast swathes of Iranian society, the willingness to speak unaffectedly about religion is crucial. Though it may be difficult for Americans and Europeans to believe, there are people in the world to whom economic progress is not of the essence; people who want to maintain their communities as they are and live the way their grandparents lived. These are people who see modernization — whether from the shah or Mousavi — as unattractive. They forgive Ahmadinejad his economic failures.
Second, Ahmadinejad speaks of corruption. There is a sense in the countryside that the ayatollahs — who enjoy enormous wealth and power, and often have lifestyles that reflect this — have corrupted the Islamic Revolution. Ahmadinejad is disliked by many of the religious elite precisely because he has systematically raised the corruption issue, which resonates in the countryside.
Third, Ahmadinejad is a spokesman for Iranian national security, a tremendously popular stance. It must always be remembered that Iran fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s that lasted eight years, cost untold lives and suffering, and effectively ended in its defeat. Iranians, particularly the poor, experienced this war on an intimate level. They fought in the war, and lost husbands and sons in it. As in other countries, memories of a lost war don’t necessarily delegitimize the regime. Rather, they can generate hopes for a resurgent Iran, thus validating the sacrifices made in that war — something Ahmadinejad taps into. By arguing that Iran should not back down but become a major power, he speaks to the veterans and their families, who want something positive to emerge from all their sacrifices in the war.
Perhaps the greatest factor in Ahmadinejad’s favor is that Mousavi spoke for the better districts of Tehran — something akin to running a U.S. presidential election as a spokesman for Georgetown and the Lower East Side. Such a base will get you hammered, and Mousavi got hammered. Fraud or not, Ahmadinejad won and he won significantly. That he won is not the mystery; the mystery is why others thought he wouldn’t win.
For a time on Friday, it seemed that Mousavi might be able to call for an uprising in Tehran. But the moment passed when Ahmadinejad’s security forces on motorcycles intervened. And that leaves the West with its worst-case scenario: a democratically elected anti-liberal.
Western democracies assume that publics will elect liberals who will protect their rights. In reality, it’s a more complicated world. Hitler is the classic example of someone who came to power constitutionally, and then preceded to gut the constitution. Similarly, Ahmadinejad’s victory is a triumph of both democracy and repression.
The Road Ahead: More of the Same
The question now is what will happen next. Internally, we can expect Ahmadinejad to consolidate his position under the cover of anti-corruption. He wants to clean up the ayatollahs, many of whom are his enemies. He will need the support of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This election has made Ahmadinejad a powerful president, perhaps the most powerful in Iran since the revolution. Ahmadinejad does not want to challenge Khamenei, and we suspect that Khamenei will not want to challenge Ahmadinejad. A forced marriage is emerging, one which may place many other religious leaders in a difficult position.
Certainly, hopes that a new political leadership would cut back on Iran’s nuclear program have been dashed. The champion of that program has won, in part because he championed the program. We still see Iran as far from developing a deliverable nuclear weapon, but certainly the Obama administration’s hopes that Ahmadinejad would either be replaced — or at least weakened and forced to be more conciliatory — have been crushed. Interestingly, Ahmadinejad sent congratulations to U.S. President Barack Obama on his inauguration. We would expect Obama to reciprocate under his opening policy, which U.S. Vice President Joe Biden appears to have affirmed, assuming he was speaking for Obama. Once the vote fraud issue settles, we will have a better idea of whether Obama’s policies will continue. (We expect they will.)
What we have now are two presidents in a politically secure position, something that normally forms a basis for negotiations. The problem is that it is not clear what the Iranians are prepared to negotiate on, nor is it clear what the Americans are prepared to give the Iranians to induce them to negotiate. Iran wants greater influence in Iraq and its role as a regional leader acknowledged, something the United States doesn’t want to give them. The United States wants an end to the Iranian nuclear program, which Iran doesn’t want to give.
On the surface, this would seem to open the door for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Former U.S. President George W. Bush did not — and Obama does not — have any appetite for such an attack. Both presidents blocked the Israelis from attacking, assuming the Israelis ever actually wanted to attack.
For the moment, the election appears to have frozen the status quo in place. Neither the United States nor Iran seem prepared to move significantly, and there are no third parties that want to get involved in the issue beyond the occasional European diplomatic mission or Russian threat to sell something to Iran. In the end, this shows what we have long known: This game is locked in place, and goes on.
This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com.
Copyright 2009 Stratfor.
@Dear Colleagues,
Attached you will find a new CFC product from the Justice & Reconciliation Sector — Developments in Justice & Reconciliation — covering the period 29 March-11 April 2009. If you have already received this email, please excuse the duplication.
If you would like to receive Justice products like this on a regular basis, please send a request to the Justice & Reconciliation Knowledge Manager, Ms. Althea Rivas at althea.rivas@cmo.act.nato.int. Feel free to forward this to colleagues or contacts who might find it useful to their work.
In addition to Justice and Reconciliation in Afghanistan, the CFC/CMO also covers Governance & Participation, Social Well-being, Security, Infrastructure, Economics and Humanitarian Assistance. If you would like to explore the webportal, please go to www.cimicweb.org and sign up for an account.
Jonathan C. Hadaway
Afghanistan Fusion Manager
Civil-Military Fusion Centre/Civil-Military Overview (CFC/CMO)
NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT)
@Asia Society Task Force Report “Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan” (April 2009)
Asia Society Task Force Report “Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan” (April 2009). This report “outlines a comprehensive strategy for the new U.S. administration to pursue a dramatically different course in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Both countries are now struggling to limit the spread of violent insurgencies, curb losses in public confidence, and address major weaknesses in governance while being faced with a growing economic crisis. These trends threaten not only the loss of control by the Afghan and Pakistani governments but also the spread of terrorist safe havens in the region.” More information concerning the Asia Society is accessible at http://www.asiasociety.org/about/
http://www.asiasociety.org/taskforces/afpak/Afghanistan-PakistanTaskForce.pdf
My thanks to Major Dave Beyer, a Canadian Forces exchange student currently attending the Staff College at Quetta, for sharing this report with us.
@An interesting PBS interview, posted 1 April, concerning the topic of command and control in Afghanistan is below – many are interviewed for this piece, including Canadian Colonel Ian Hope. The transcript is below. There is a particular emphasis on the need for “unity of command” and concomitant challenges with integrating special operations activities. The PBS website also contains a number of Afghanistan resources.
My thanks to Major Sean Wyatt, currently serving in Kingston, Ontario, for sharing this with us.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/asia/afghanistan/jan-june09/afghanpod_04-01.html
@Attached is the March edition of the Intelligence Security Diary and a synopsis is provided below.
“Our daily entries continue to reflect issues of International importance.The Diary has been in the forefront of discussion on “Operation Orchard” – the Israeli attack on Syria. In our 2 Mar entry this month we reference our past OSINT on that subject.
Readers interested in Economic Int would be interested in the 31 Mar entry – United States Banking System.
The editors thank those readers who have written to us and continue to welcome your comments.”
Editing by GEORGE HOLDRON and DAVID RUBIN
Please see the information in the first email for a précis of this month’s ssrbulletin. Noteworthy is the discussion of security issues in Pakistan.
“The twenty-seventh edition of ssrbulletin, the monthly newsletter from the Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR), can be accessed at: http://www.ssrnetwork.net/ssrbulletin/index.php
In this edition you will find:
- Information about the new GFN-SSR regional guide on Security Sector Reform in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe
- A look at SSR in Pakistan with extracts from the recent GFN-SSR seminar on the subject at DFID
- An introduction to the new DFID White Paper on International Development
- An overview of the ‘Global Consortium on Security Transformation’
- Job Opportunities in the SSR-related field
- A look at upcoming events
- An overview of the latest resources on www.ssrnetwork.net” http://www.ssrnetwork.net/ssrbulletin/index.php
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is pursuing comprehensive transformation from a mass army designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to one capable of fighting and winning short-duration, high-intensity conflicts along its periphery against high-tech adversaries – an approach that China refers to as preparing for “local wars under conditions of informatization.” The pace and scope of China’s military transformation have increased in recent years, fueled by acquisition of advanced foreign weapons, continued high rates of investment in its domestic defense and science and technology industries, and far-reaching organizational and doctrinal reforms of the armed forces. China’s ability to sustain military power at a distance remains limited, but its armed forces continue to develop and field disruptive military technologies, including those for anti-access/area-denial, as well as for nuclear, space, and cyber warfare, that are changing regional military balances and that have implications beyond the Asia-Pacific region.
The PLA’s modernization vis-à-vis Taiwan has continued over the past year, including its build-up of short-range missiles opposite the island. In the near-term, China’s armed forces are rapidly developing coercive capabilities for the purpose of deterring Taiwan’s pursuit of de jure independence. These same capabilities could in the future be used to pressure Taiwan toward a settlement of the cross-Strait dispute on Beijing’s terms while simultaneously attempting to deter, delay, or deny any possible U.S. support for the island in case of conflict. This modernization and the threat to Taiwan continue despite significant reduction in cross-Strait tension over the last year since Taiwan elected a new president.
The PLA is also developing longer range capabilities that have implications beyond Taiwan. Some of these capabilities have allowed it to contribute cooperatively to the international community’s responsibilities in areas such as peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and counter-piracy. However, some of these capabilities, as well as other, more disruptive ones, could allow China to project power to ensure access to resources or enforce claims to disputed territories.
Beijing publicly asserts that China’s military modernization is “purely defensive in nature,” and aimed solely at protecting China’s security and interests. Over the past several years, China has begun a new phase of military development by beginning to articulate roles and missions for the PLA that go beyond China’s immediate territorial interests, but has left unclear to the international community the purposes and objectives of the PLA’s evolving doctrine and capabilities. Moreover, China continues to promulgate incomplete defense expenditure figures and engage in actions that appear inconsistent with its declaratory policies. The limited transparency in China’s military and security affairs poses risks to stability by creating uncertainty and increasing the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation. The United States continues to work with our allies and friends in the region to monitor these developments and adjust our policies accordingly. (p. I)”
“He [Obama] described the need for a comprehensive strategy in the two countries, including a ‘standing, trilateral dialogue among the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan.’ The President expressed his profound respect for the Pakistani people and their history, and pledged that the United States would so all it could to help Pakistan fight against the terrorists who have so often attempted to destabilize the country, including with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
So too did he express his admiration for the people of Afghanistan, before going on to describe the shift coming on the ground there as well:
‘Our troops have fought bravely against a ruthless enemy. Our civilians have made great sacrifices. Our allies have borne a heavy burden. Afghans have suffered and sacrificed for their future. But for six years, Afghanistan has been denied the resources that it demands because of the war in Iraq. Now, we must make a commitment that can accomplish our goals.
I’ve already ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops that had been requested by General McKiernan for many months. These soldiers and Marines will take the fight to the Taliban in the south and the east, and give us a greater capacity to partner with Afghan security forces and to go after insurgents along the border. This push will also help provide security in advance of the important presidential elections in Afghanistan in August.
At the same time, we will shift the emphasis of our mission to training and increasing the size of Afghan security forces, so that they can eventually take the lead in securing their country. That’s how we will prepare Afghans to take responsibility for their security, and how we will ultimately be able to bring our own troops home.
For three years, our commanders have been clear about the resources they need for training. And those resources have been denied because of the war in Iraq. Now, that will change. The additional troops that we deployed have already increased our training capacity. And later this spring we will deploy approximately 4,000 U.S. troops to train Afghan security forces. For the first time, this will truly resource our effort to train and support the Afghan army and police. Every American unit in Afghanistan will be partnered with an Afghan unit, and we will seek additional trainers from our NATO allies to ensure that every Afghan unit has a coalition partner. We will accelerate our efforts to build an Afghan army of 134,000 and a police force of 82,000 so that we can meet these goals by 2011 — and increases in Afghan forces may very well be needed as our plans to turn over security responsibility to the Afghans go forward.
This push must be joined by a dramatic increase in our civilian effort. Afghanistan has an elected government, but it is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people. The economy is undercut by a booming narcotics trade that encourages criminality and funds the insurgency. The people of Afghanistan seek the promise of a better future. Yet once again, we’ve seen the hope of a new day darkened by violence and uncertainty.
So to advance security, opportunity and justice — not just in Kabul, but from the bottom up in the provinces — we need agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers. That’s how we can help the Afghan government serve its people and develop an economy that isn’t dominated by illicit drugs. And that’s why I’m ordering a substantial increase in our civilians on the ground. That’s also why we must seek civilian support from our partners and allies, from the United Nations and international aid organizations — an effort that Secretary Clinton will carry forward next week in The Hague.
At a time of economic crisis, it’s tempting to believe that we can shortchange this civilian effort. But make no mistake: Our efforts will fail in Afghanistan and Pakistan if we don’t invest in their future.’
I would like to thank Ms. Lorraine M. Allen, of the United States Army Armor School Research Library, at Fort Knox, Kentucky, for sharing this release with us.
Attached is the United States Capstone Concept for Joint Operations Version 3.0 (15 January 2009):
“The Capstone Concept for Joint Operations is the most fundamental of all U.S. military concepts. It therefore speaks in terms of broad precepts and assertions that apply across a wide range of possible situations. It will be further elaborated in subordinate joint and Service operating concepts, which will apply its broad ideas to more specific situations. It is not a ‘how-to’ manual prescribing detailed methods of execution and does not establish authoritative doctrine.
The concept progresses from describing an operational problem set to envisioning an operational solution to those problems to exploring the institutional implications of adopting that solution. Sections 1-3 envision why and under what conditions the joint force of the future will be employed. These sections reflect the Joint Operating Environment, [available at http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2008/JOE2008.pdf] a separate but companion document. Sections 4-6 describe what the joint force will do and, in broad terms, how it will do it. These sections are the core of the concept. Sections 7 and 8 explore the institutional implications and risks associated with operating this way. These sections are intended directly to guide the capabilities development process.(iv)”
My thanks to Colonel (Retired) Alain Pellerin Alain Pellerin, Executive Director, Conference of Defence Associations-Conference of Defence Associations and Institutes for sharing this document.
U.S. Capstone Concept for Joint Operations Version 3.0 (15 January 2009)
Attached is Stephen J. Mariano and Charles B. O’Brien “US Army Africa: Smart Power in Action.” This short and readable article examines the comprehensive approach used by the US Army component of the Africa Command team. It provides a great discussion regarding the differing elements of power that must be orchestrated to achieve effectiveness in a complex environment.
My thanks to Colonel Steve Mariano, currently serving in Africa Command, for sharing this article with us.
US Army Africa: Smart Power in Action (15 March 2009)
@The United States Army Heritage Education Center Digital Media Archives for the Brooks E. Kleber Memorial Readings in Military History, and the Perspectives in Military History Lecture Series are available below. These archives contain a number of interesting presentations from notable military researchers and academics.
I would like to thank Matt Trudgen, of Queen’s University, for sharing this with us.
Digital Media Archives for the Brooks E. Kleber Memorial Readings in Military History, and the Perspectives in Military History Lecture Series (February 2009)
@Attached is this month’s edition of the Australian Land Warfare Studies Centre Senior Officer Professional Digest. Of note is the synopsis of Huba Wass de Czege, ‘Unifying Physical and Psychological Impact During Operations’, Military Review, Vol. XXXIX, No. 2, March–April 2009, pp. 13–22, http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20090430
_art005.pdf
This month the Editors of the Senior Officer Professional Digest recommend ten articles drawn from professional and academic journals on subjects of interest to military and strategic professionals.
Contents:
- Unifying Physical and Psychological Impact During Operations
- Information Operations Do Not Equal Tactical Messaging
- Cultures are Different
- Testing Galula in Ameriyah
- The United States and counterinsurgency
- Doctrine and Reality in Afghanistan
- The Way Forward in Afghanistan
- Clash of Organisational Cultures?
- Motives for Martyrdom
- Fighting Piracy
Senior Officer Professional Digest #69 – March Edition (March 2009) Australian Land Warfare Studies Centre
@Today’s bulletin from the Council on Foreign Relations (http://www.cfr.org/index.html) notes that:
“France’s parliament today holds a confidence vote on President Nicolas Sarkozy that likely will also serve to signal popular support for the country’s return to a full membership in NATO, more than forty years after French President Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance in 1966. The BBC reports the vote amounts to a confidence vote in current President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government–the piece notes that France already is among the top five contributors to NATO and has nearly three-thousand troops in Afghanistan. http://m1e.net/c?87118859-P8VkFJ.T6rGyU%404074273-tB19fipVSM.MM The vote is expected to succeed, TIME reported last week when Sarkozy announced his plans, noting that French public opinion has recently swung in favor of the move. http://m1e.net/c?87118859-avAki1nPfHHfg%404074274-vUp3a1TS6z9gE
The move could have strategic implications on several fronts. Foreign Policy reports Sarkozy has edged closer to Washington partly in an effort to broaden Paris’ influence internationally and to reaffirm what the French president calls “the family of the West.” http://m1e.net/c?87118859-1DfWnB4Y6ijrM%404074275-WfVMa/oNLeK/M Concretely, the article says, this has led to French support for a tough line against Iranian nuclear development and pledges of support behind U.S.-led military efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Interfax Ukraine examines what the implications of France’s decision might be for Russia, noting that the Kremlin has yet to speak out on France’s reintegration into a bloc that Moscow has often seen as antagonistic.http://m1e.net/c?87118859-aM0FoZMG81cJc%404074276-n54mZSka6EFOM“
Below is a backgrounder on France’s military strategy and this possible move towards reintegration with NATO.
French Military Strategy and NATO Reintegration (12 March 2009) By MICHAEL MORAN (Executive Editor, CFR.org)
@ My thanks to Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin Tyler, a Canadian Forces officer currently serving in Afghanistan, for sharing this recent New York Times article with us.
How to Surge the Taliban (12 March 2009)By MAX BOOT, FREDERICK KAGAN and KIMBERLY KAGAN (Co-ed Contributors, The New York Times)
“Perhaps one of the greatest threats the Saudis pose to al Qaeda is the threat to its ideological base. As STRATFOR has long argued, there are two different battlespaces in the war against jihadism — the physical and the ideological. For an ideological organization such as al Qaeda that preaches persecution and martyrdom, losses on the physical battlefield are expected and glorified. The biggest threat to the jihadists, therefore, is not a Hellfire missile being dropped on their heads, but an ideological broadside that undercuts their legitimacy and ideological appeal.”
Examining the clash outlined in this Stratfor analysis provides perspectives on the nature of the moral plane of 21st Century warfare, as well as an idea of strategic interests in the Middle East and South Asia.Pakistan: A Bogus Threat and the Bigger Picture (11 March 2009) By SCOTT STEWART and KAMRAN BOKHARI (STRATFPR Global Intelligence)
@This Foreign Policy Research Institute e-note provides a synopsis of a conference held in early February – “DEFENSE SHOWSTOPPERS: NATIONAL SECURITY CHALLENGES FOR THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION.” This summation provides a different perspective than the norm on American strategic military issues, defense management and economics, recruiting and retention, as well as the nature of the contemporary environment. A number of these ideas are well-worth further research, thought and debate from a broader international audience, as they have implications for Alliance and coalition operations. Defense Showstoppers: National Security Challenges for the Obama Administration A Conference Report (11 March 2009)
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