FX-Based

Random (and Very Personal) Observations and Some Tips for Operating in "Developing" Countries

2006-08-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

I admit the title of this post is awkward. The following observations and some tips are based on recent experience (meaning early 1990s to the present day) traveling in what some might still call the Third World, some call "the Gap", and some call "developing countries". The last thing I want to do is lump all this countries into one big pile. Each country (and each region within each country) is unique. I might narrow down my focus to particular areas in the future, but for now (partly due to OPSEC) I want to stay way from mentioning specific countries. My observations are based on "official business" and vacation trips, informal interviews with colleagues and some perspective that comes from growing up outside of the US. For the most part, these are not hard and fast rules and variations apply depending to where you go. These observations apply to areas where there is no actual combat, but where warfare is never far in terms of time and space.

Treating people with respect is paramount. This of course applies to life in general, but I like to stress if you are working outside of the US and possibly training or operating with foreign troops. This is particularly important in you are either training or operating in close cooperation (face-to-face) with allies from these countries. Arrogance is universally reviled. Calm confidence is universally admired. I have never heard anyone say, "God they love arrogant pricks over there!" Competence breeds respect. Arrogance breeds resentment. Something is not "done right" simply because "that's the way we Americans do it". In other words, the American way is not the only right way. Ask how they do it, learn from it, and offer to teach them a new way. Basically, don't fit a square peg in a round hole.

FX-Note: One of my favorite activities is scuba diving. When you dive, you always need to keep in mind that you are operating in a foreign and potentially hostile environment. Look at yourself: you are clumsily swimming wearing fifty pounds worth of gear while all the fish are swimming freely and without gear. You and your other human buddies are the only ones that need air tanks down there and you are vastly outnumbered by the fish, other sealife and, possibly, sharks. No matter how fast you can swin, you can't outswim a shark. He will get to you. The shark has been there since he was born and will probably die in the ocean. You are there for only a few minutes and you probably don't want to die there. Most sealife will not attack humans if you treat them with respect. Don't poke sticks at the fish and they probably won't bite you. Sharks are usually loners and very independent creatures, but once they smell blood in the water, they will all go after the blood together as if they have been planning the attack for years.

All politics is local. If you go into a village and there is no electricity or running water, chances are the "central government" does not have a lot of authority over the population. The central government might be dominated by some other ethnicity; the seat of government might be located hundreds of miles away from the village and might not care to exercise authority (in a peaceful way) or to provide basic services. Bottom line, talk to the local leaders/authorities. Use your local guide to help you find the people in charge. Leadership might be based on religious, ethnic, or clan affiliation.
Get a local guide. No matter how well you think your American linguists (or yourself) speak the local language, they are still outsiders (with an accent) and might not be familiar with the particularities of a region, especially when it comes to regional dialects and customs. Try to get a guide from the same predominant ethnicity of the area in which you'll be working. Having a guide from a "rival" ethnicity might actually be counterproductive.

FX-Note: If possible have an "undercover interpreter", a trusted guy in your group who knows the language but fakes ignorance of the language. He might be useful in letting you know of any inconsistent translations if you don't really know your guide that well. Also, he might get a chance to listen to the locals speaking among themselves thinking that nobody knows what they are saying. What they say among temselves might be vastly different from what they are telling you.

Get used to see poverty and suffering on a new level. Malnourished children, old men with missing limbs, women with their kids, they are all regular sights in some of these regions. They will see you and beg for your money. This is heart breaking, but giving money to one might incite a crowd of more beggars. A dangerous crowd. Trust me. Don't run from them but walk away briskly. If you want to help out, give your contribution directly to a local charity, a school or an orphanage. Try not to give money. Ask them what they need. They might need school supplies that you can help them acquire. You can teach them some English, play with the kids, or fix something that is broken. While your main concern back in the States might be whether or not to switch car insurance companies or which plasma TV you are going to get when you get back, some of the people you come in contact with are dealing with starvation, Malaria, AIDS, Cholera, Tuberculosis, unmentionable illnesses, systematic rape, daily warfare, genocide, the death of their children, crippling wounds, etc, etc. On the flip side, you will see riches and power beyond what you normally see in the US (unless you are a fan of The Apprentice or MTV Cribs). The rich drive custom-made Land Rovers while the majority of the population gets by with donkey carts, cutthroat "public transportation", bikes, and just plain old walking a long haul.
Leave the area in better shape than how it was when you first go there. This might actually include getting medical assistance to the locals. Watch out for areas in disrepair, ask what needs fixing. Try to take care of the kids first. Chances are, they need shoes and new clothes. The local leaders can help you identify what's needed, but try to talk to other people (without disrespecting the leader) and get their take. All of this, of course has to be done within the boundaries of your mission or stay in the area. Don't overpromise.
Get ready for white knuckle driving. It's pretty much every man for himself when it comes to driving in the city and the few highways that you might encounter. Use your guide wisely. Keep in mind that your guide might not know how to drive. And if he does, you might not want him driving. Traffic signs (when they exist) are often treated as "suggestions" more than something that you actually have to obey. A blacktop is sometimes just another available or suggested driving surface. Be ready to drive off the main road and into the sand (in Road Warrior fashion), dirt or mud in order to avoid incoming traffic coming at you from the "wrong" direction. Avoid driving coupes, sedans or anything that can be easily bumped off the road. Street signs are rare or non-existent. You'll probably have to navigate based on landmarks (e.g. turn right when you see the blue four-story building; if you value your life don't drive north of the big soccer stadium and if you do, do a U-turn as soon a possible, etc.). The local "maps" depicting the city or town might look like they were drawn by a third-grader in art class. "Not-to-scale" is taken to a whole new (sometimes dangerous) level. In some countries (particularly East Asian countries that are on their way "up"), the "law of the bigger ride" applies, meaning if your ride is big and mean, you'll get the right of way. In some countries (the really screwed up ones), even this law might be meaningless; motorciclists might act like they will fare well against a large SUV. Traffic jams in the States usually have some logic to it. Traffic jams in the so-called "Gap" are sometimes indecipherable or the product of stubborness, meaning "I got here first and I am not moving until you move" type of deal. Note: The Punjab Police are bad ass and experts at getting things done. They can take care of traffic jams (and other things) fairly easily. If you are riding with them and they get out of the convoy in uniform, rows of cars part before your eyes like the Red Sea letting you drive through. Every country usually has some sort of special police unit that's well respected or down-right feared, mainly because they have power and are not afraid to use it, sometimes in violent ways. Also, driving an SUV through an "Indiana Jones-style" suspension bridge is not fun.
You are being watched at all times. Assume the enemy is watching you at all times. Your patterns. Where you go. At what time. What you do. How you do it. The absence of open combat does not mean that the enemy is not looking for an opening to harm you and your mission. Your friends in the host nation will be watching you too. More closely than you ever think. Every word you say. Every breath you take. Every gesture. You might be the only American they have seen in years or ever. Don't blow it by being a jackass.
Watch your mouth. As a general rule, avoid talking about religion, politics, imperialism, colonianism, sex, or any controversial topics. Talk about you family back in the States, show them pictures of your kids, wife or ("safe for work", not the ones in the schoolgirl outfit) pics of your girlfriend. The weather is usually a good subject. The local food, but not in a derisive way; keep in mind that starvation and malnutrition might be part of the daily routine. Sports is okay, but keep in mind that they probably don't care about the latest NFL quarterback controversy, the Mets' pitching staff or the point spread for the Miami vs. FSU game. Most of the time, you might be "talking shop" or looking at maps and talking about the local geography. Often times, the guys you are trianing will have great stories based on their own war experiences. Let them talk. You'll learn.
Safe sex. A very touchy and complicated subject and it varies widely from region to region. AIDS is rampant in many of these places. Abstinence is the best policy as far as I am concerned. But we are all humans. Keep in mind that you might offend local sensitivities just by looking at the local women especially in Muslim countries. Not so much in SE Asia and Latin America. On a semi-related note: if someone offers to sell you one of their teenage daughters (particularly in SE Asia), tell them you appreciate the offer but politely decline and make up some "plausible excuse" like "sorry sir, but my wife does not want any more women in the house." Also, some women in certain South American countries can be very aggressive (and possessive)...use your judgement and come back alive, in one piece, and in good health.
Don't take sides with one group if you don't have to or the mission does not require it. Some groups have been fighting each other for decades if not centuries. They are not going to wake up one day and all sing Kumbayah around the campfire just because you showed up and told them to stop the "bullshit" and get along.
Bring "wholesome" entertainment that you can share. This is minor stuff, but sometimes the small things make life more bearable. On several occasions I had to spend the night with the local troops in their headquarters waiting for "something to happen". My laptop and DVD collection came in handy. I spent several nights on the "watch" watching movies until the wee hours with the locals. Leave any controversial, "downer" films (Passion of the Christ, Fahrenheit 9/11, Munich, Syriana, etc.) or anything with gratuitous sex scenes behind. Big action movies are always a big hit: Predator (huge in Central America), Spider Man 1 and 2, X-Men, Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, any Michael Bay flick, etc. Stay away from chick flicks too.
Bring unit patches, pins, insignias, mugs, t-shirts and other distinctly American souvenirs. In some countries, they love those small tokens of appreciation. If their government requested our help training their troops, it's because Americans are admired as noble warriors and professionals. Seemingly small gestures count a lot. They will remember you every time they see your "small" gift. One time on a follow-on trip, I saw a guy wearing his uniform flight cap with a pin I gave him (some countries have very liberal uniform regulations) the year before on our first trip. Goodwill is priceless.
Learn as much as possible about the culture of your host nation. I can't stress this enough. The PowerPoint presentations you get before leaving are not enough. Read several books from different authors and perspectives. Read literature from local authors is possible. Learn key phrases in their language if you are not a fluent speaker. Your efforts will be rewarded. Never criticize their culture or religion. I say again, never criticize their culture or religion. Individuals in some of these areas see themselves in terms of their groups: family, clan, tribe, ethnicity, civilization. Criticize the group and you are criticizing the individual.
American women. Depending on the region, they might not listen or take orders from the females in your group. Good/bad news (depending how you see it): some of these countries or regions are used to having female soldiers/warriors in their ranks and they are usually more open to following directions from a woman. Find out what's the situation before you go and be ready to adapt. Women marry young in most of these countries. A late-twenties, or thirty-something, unmarried woman is an anomaly for them and they usually have derisive words to describe these women. Or they might hit on them. To avoid unwanted attention, consider having all the single women in your group posing as married or at least engaged. Experiences may vary on this one.

Other stuff:

The Law. Based on personal experience (unfortunately): getting apprehended (wrongfully in my case) and handcuffed by the police in the US is a humbling experience; getting apprehended (wrongfully too) and handcuffed in "the Gap" is a humbling, shocking and traumatizing experience and can involve (at least) several slaps in the face before they even put you in their vehicle and take you to their police headquarters (in all fairness, they did not know I was American, I think it would have been a different story if I was white). I'll leave it at that. The embassy people can tell you what to do in case you get in an car accident (as an American it is very likely that you will be considered the guilty party and it might involve just paying the guy off on the spot, particularly if you are driving a POS acquired in the local economy, which most times is not encouraged or allowed if you are on official business).
Alcohol. Okay in Latin American and SE Asia. Not okay in some Muslim countries. This tends to be more liberal in North African Muslim countries like Tunisia. Drink but never get drunk. I say again, never get drunk. This applies even if you go out drinking with the local forces. Actually, it applies especially if you go out drinking with the locals.

In Defense of EBO - Part 4

2006-07-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

FX-Based Note: Why no postings for over a month? Work was a factor. I am in a new job and working pretty much outside of my comfort zone. I am still finding my bearing and trying to do my best not to f5(k things up too much. So far so good. Outside of work, I have taken some time to spend it with my family and friends, something I don't get to do enough. Yes, you can blog and still do other things. Busier people than me do it all the time. Bottom line, I just did not feel like blogging for a while.

On to the post.

Previous posts on this subject here, here and here.

Ralph Peters wrote in the April 06 issue of Armed Forces Journal an article titled Bloodless theories, bloody wars; Easy-win concepts crumble in combat.

The so-called "bloodless theory" he's alluding to is effects based operations or EBO.

This is part 4 of my defense of EBO or more appropriately an effects-based approach to operations (EBO for short).

First, my writings reflect the way I see things. They don't represent the position of any group or organization, much less the US Air Force or any other government agency.

Second, here's my quick opinion on "theories of war". No theory should weigh us down in the form of needless attachments. Trying to accommodate every phenomenon we see into our neat theories and formulas is a sure recipe for disaster. We should study the past, but act according to the present situation. Many times we are tempted to do things using the same "proven" (but really worn-out) techniques. After all, it is easier to stay in the comfort zone of "doing what we do best". This has its utility; however, sometimes we have to mercilessly drive ourselves to take new courses, even if they are less safe. Seemingly risky paths can open new possibilities. No strategy, theory, or formula can be effective if we don't accept reality and act according to the current reality. No strategy, theory or formula can save you if you fail to recognize what is going on around you and act accordingly.

Peters writes:

"Although there were many exceptions to the "mannerly war" school of that long 18th century — such as Marshal Turenne's scorched-earth campaigns in the Rhineland and the life-or-death battlefield ferocity of Frederick the Great — many of the period's conflicts within Europe were "cabinet wars" about slight alterations to frontiers."

Ralph Peters has probably forgotten more about land warfare during the 18th century that I'll ever be able to learn, so no argument from me on this topic. I would say that even though borders didn't change much during the 18th century in Europe, that century witnessed the decline and eventual collapse of the previously dominant French monarchy, the arrival of Russia as a serious European power, the Seven Years' War, the beginning of England's dominance over India, and the American Revolution. This 18th century events ultimately had more impact in our history than any European temporary frontier modification brought by a decisive battle.

Another factor we need to consider when studying 18th century warfare is how expensive the professional armies had become for their rulers. Serious losses were risked only under extraordinary circumstances. Prior to the 18th century, warfare in Europe was dominated by provisional armies employed for a single campaign. During the 18th century, kings loathed to use their costly professional armies in actual battles and many times preferred schemes that would place troops between the enemy and his supply depots, thus compelling him to withdraw.

Peters writes:

"Napoleon revolutionized European warfare with his strategic vision, his ruthlessness and his disregard for the accepted rules."

Agree 100%. Part of Napoleon's success can be attributed to the fact that his opponents fought him repeating methods that had worked in the past, but were inadequate to their present circumstances. This is what happened to the Prussians during the Jena campaign in 1806. The Prussian army that faced Napoleon's army during that campaign moved slowly, and their soldiers were like robots on parade. The Prussian military had not changed much from its rigid magazine-fed structure of the 18th century. For the fast-marching soldiers of France, who found their provisions on the way, this relic of an army was dangerous only if collided with directly. The catastrophic Prussian defeat at Jena led to a total reform of the Prussian military, most importantly the establishment of the General Staff system, leading to the eventual dominance of the Prussian military in Europe.

Clausewitz had this to say about the campaign:

"When in 1806 the Prussian generals...plunged into the open jaws of disaster by using Frederick the Great's oblique order of battle, it was not just a case of style that had outlived its usefulness but the most extreme poverty of the imagination to which routine had ever led. The result was that the Prussian army under Hohenhoe was ruined more completely than any army has ever been ruined on the battlefield."

The lévée en masse that gave way to the victories of the French revolutionary armies and Napoleon was not founded on new technologies, but upon the use of 18th-century military technologies on a formerly unthinkable dimension. Using standard 18th century weaponry Napoleon devised innovative strategies that relied on massive force (e.g. the heavy use of artillery), speed and fluidity to converge on the enemy army. Napoleon's style of warfare was revolutionary because it had the capability to encounter and cancel out the impact of the strongest and most advanced armed forces of the day. The patriotic foundation of the lévée created problems for Napoleon’s opponents because, to defeat Napoleon, they had to defeat not just Napoleon or his army, but the French nation as a whole. And as the most populous country in 1800 Western Europe, France had the advantage in numbers.

"Anyone can plan a campaign, but few are capable of waging war, because only a true military genius can handle the developments and circumstances." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon shaped his army (and the French state and economy) to wage a new, far more mobile, shocking, and distressing method of warfare, however, he did not carry out total war by exacting so much obliteration on enemy people and property that they gave up all will to resist. Napoleon's plans, from first to last, concentrated on the annihilation of the enemy's army. While this gave him great battlefield triumphs, it did not produce enduring gains. Even though Napoleon sought to destroy the Prussian Army, he did not seek the destruction of the means for Prussia to create military power. When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, the defeat of those enemy forces that could be engaged and the devastation of the infrastructure that could be reached were not decisive.

"A great captain ought to say to himself several times a day: If the enemy army should appear on my front, or my right or my left, what will I do? If he is embarrassed by the question, he is badly posted, he is not in proper order, he must remedy that." - Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon's brilliant maneuvers and the hard fighting of his army ensured his victories in many battles; however, he was unable to convert battlefield victories into long-term political outcomes favorable to France. After his stunning defeat of the Prussians at Jena in 1806, he became overly concerned with beating enemy forces in the battlefield and relied on mass more than maneuver to achieve victory. His victories on the battlefield were hardly decisive and his enemies were able to recover and fight him again after his incomplete victories. Napoleon's victories affected the civil means of creating military power only in a circuitous manner; Napoleon sought to destroy armies, not the means of creating military power.

Peters:

"This arcane history matters because the U.S. Army never signed up for Clausewitz (not even in the 1980s, when he was quoted more often than he was read). Ours was instinctively a Jominian military when it came to theories of warfare."

Historically, theories of war have been accepted by the U.S. military based more on practicality than stylishness. Any theory has to both work and feel right in terms of who we are in the context of American culture. The fact that our Army was more a Jominian than a Clausewitzian force was not a random choice and we can hardly attribute the writings of a 19th century theorist to how our Army operates. Our way of war might be more Jominian than Clausewitzian, more Clausewitzian than Sunzian, but this has more to do with who we are as Americans than the influence of theorist and their proponents on our forces. As Americans, we are collectively drawn to engineering and technical solutions and often not inclined to seek diplomatic and subtle means to achieve our goals. This has more to do with our overwhelming material strength than with the adoption of Jomini's theories. Ultimately, theories can only be implemented and put into practice only if and when the armed forces believe, accept and follow them. Like Jomini, we loathe uncertainty and live obsessed with diminishing complexity and vagueness to a few apparently straightforward principles. Like Peters notes, we did this instinctively. Besides, our military is under no obligation to sign up for Clausewitz or any other theorist.

Random Thoughts Concerning My (Out of Control) "Expeditionary" Bookshelf

2006-06-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

I received some good comments from an anonymous commenter on the last EBO post. I'll respond to the comments on a different post. I truly appreciate it when readers comment on my posts. Even if they disagree with my points. I prefer non-anonymous comments (I think most bloggers do), but I am grateful to have any comments at all.

For now, some other thoughts.

As I was unpacking my stuff in my temporary Florida location, I realized that I had packed a lot of freaking books. Since I drive a big pick-up truck I could've packed more, but I certainly could've packed less. You can see a picture of the Sonny's "Expeditionary" Library. (No folks, I don't travel with the whole self when I actually go overseas. Not very tactical. Small paperbacks are the only ones allowed to travel overseas.) Will I read all those books before the winter when I (hopefully) go back to Virginia. Probably not. Do I feel more at home having all those books with me? Absolutely. Among the holdings (in no particular order):

The Sling and the Stone by Col Thomas X. Hammes. I read this when it first came out about two years ago. I brought it for reference purposes.
Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq by Ahmed Hashim . I am currently reading this one. Good reference too.
The Tiger's Way by H. John Poole. I bought this book last year at the BX in Al Udeid Air Base when I had nothing else to read at the time. Not for everybody.
On Killing by LtCol Dave Grossman. I am re-reading this one. I was a first lieutenant the first time I read it, a lot has happened since.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. My good charm book.
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. I read Heart of Darkness a while back. I liked HoD so I decided to read this one before the end of the year.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. I don't really know what to expect from this book, but the title grabbed my attention.
Veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada by Pablo Neruda. My favorite poet (in any language) is Pablo Neruda. I am fortunate that I can read it in Spanish. Another good charm book that has been with me since I was a freshman in college back in 1992.
D-Day by Stephen Ambrose. After reading (and watching the awesome HBO mini-series) Band of Brothers, I decided to pick this one up. I might read it before the winter.
Military Misfortunes by Eliot Cohen and John Gooch. I read Supreme Command by Cohen a few years ago when it was in the Air Force Chief of Staff reading list. This book by Cohen was republished last year and the topic is always fascinating.
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. I bought this paperback in a used bookstore down in Key West a few years ago. I never finished reading it while I was down there, so I brought it along. It's always good to have light paperbacks for when I go "forward".
War and Destiny by James Kitfield. I saw a Kitfield interview on C-Span last year talking about this book. I enjoyed the interview and I liked Prodigal Soldiers so I decided to get this one too.
From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. This book came out a while ago, but I never read it. I might get to it later this year.
What Went Wrong? by Bernard Lewis. I finished reading this book on 27 Jun 2004 while I was overseas. Don't ask me how I remember that. I don't know why I even brought it here.
The Brand You 50 by Tom Peters. I bought this book at the airport in Tampa last year. Good motivational book. I am a Tom Peters fan and this is the one Tom Peters book I decided to bring here.
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Two of my friends, independently, recommended me this book. I took it as a signal and bought the book.
Competitive Karate by Adam Gibson and Bill Wallace. Good advice for the dojo (when I get back to VA). Not so great for "real-life" fighting. Still, I always like to read good martial arts books.
Almost a Woman by Esmeralda Santiago. Always good to carry a book by a fellow Boricua. Esmeralda Santiago grew up not too far away from where I grew up in beautiful Puerto Rico. There's also a version in Spanish (Casi una mujer), but Esmeralda originally wrote the book in English. There's very little lost in translation with the way she writes.
The Coming Anarchy by Robert D. Kaplan. I am saving this from where I go back overseas in a few weeks. It's light and easy to carry with my gear. After reading Imperial Grunts last year I decided to get this one too.
Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer. This is a paperback I bought a few years ago, but its intimidating size has prevented me from even starting to read it. Maybe next month I'll start. No way this is going with me overseas. Too bulky.
Developing the Leader in You and Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell. My friend Ida, gave me these books not too long ago. Thanks babe! I finished the first one. Don't know when I'll get to the second one.
The Marine Corps Way by Santamaria, Martino, and Clemons. This is a business book that tries to apply some USMC principles to civilian business. It's actually pretty good although I've read some bad reviews.
Platform by Michel Houellebecq. I read this book last year. Somehow I packed it with the rest. Not for everybody. Good book to read at the beach. I might read a few pages when I feel too cheery and want to sprinkle some nihilism to my day.
Global Brain by Howard Bloom. I bought this book after reading Dan's review at tdaxp. I'll start reading it when my mind clears up a bit more.
Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham. I bought this paperback after Eddie mentioned it on Live from the FDNF. Fun read so far.
Chasing the Silver Bullet by Kenneth P. Werrell. It's always interesting to read about weapons development. This book is about Air Force weapons development from Vietnam to Desert Storm. I actually finished reading this book two years ago. It's a good reference though.
The Transformation of American Air Power by Benjamin S. Lambeth. The best book I've read on airpower history from Vietnam to the Allied Force campaign.
Airpower in Small Wars by Corum and Johnson. I read this book back in 03. The copy that I have has seen better days, but I still like to have with me as a reference.
The Battle for Pusan by Addison Terry. I always like to read war stories. I read many WWII and Vietnam war stories, but not too many Korean War ones. That's too bad because my grandpa and my great uncle were veterans of the Korean War.
Blueprint for Action by Thomas P.M. Barnett. I actually finished reading this book on a plane going to Vegas earlier this year. It's a good book, so I decided to bring it along.
Beyond Baghdad by Ralph Peters. Yes, I read Ralph Peters' books. I am not buying the new one though. I already read most of it at a Barnes and Noble when I was TDY in Nebraska last December. (I had nothing better to do on a Tuesday night in Omaha. Actually, I think there was something better to do. Heck, doing snow angels out in the parking lot would have been more enlightening.)

I realize that I probably will not be able to finish reading all of those books. (As you can tell from the picture above, there are more books that I did not list.) I just did not feel good leaving them behind in VA for six plus months. I am also working on my PME (Professional Military Education for the civilian readers) by correspondence and learning about my new job. I will also be flying out of here shortly and going back overseas for several months. I might post some pictures of my adventures.

Even from this fuzzy picture, you can tell that I have to concentrate real hard to read Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. Maybe I've been hit in the noggin too many times.

In Defense of EBO - Part 3

2006-06-18T23:42:00.000-07:00

In Defense of EBO - Part 3
FX-Based Note: I was getting ready to post on something else, but looking through the list of my postings I realized that I had an draft of something I had not published and it was part 3 of In Defense of EBO. You got to finish what you start. So here it is.

Previous posts on this subject here, and here.

Ralph Peters wrote in the April 06 issue of Armed Forces Journal an article titled Bloodless theories, bloody wars; Easy-win concepts crumble in combat.

The so-called "bloodless theory" he's alluding to is effects based operations or EBO.This is part 3 of my defense of EBO or more appropriately an effects-based approach to operations (EBO for short).

Peters writes:

"Precision-guided weapons are marvelous additions to our arsenal. They save lives, spare resources and accomplish crucial missions. The fallacy is to believe they can win wars by themselves. The abysmally failed “Shock and Awe” campaign that was supposed to persuade Saddam Hussein to surrender by demonstrating our techno-prowess should be a lesson to us all: Take the enemy’s psychology into account, don’t engage in wishful thinking and worst-case what it takes to defeat your opponent."

An effects based approach to operations actually considers effects that go beyond those of precision-guided munitions (PGMs). No smart military officer believes that a single type of weapon or a single type of effect can win a war by itself. In war, "silver bullet" solutions tend to be temporary at best, and the enemy usually devises a countermeasure for them. Stating that "Shock and Awe" was an "abysmally failed campaign" is, in my opinion, a gross misrepresentation of the whole operation. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, an effects-based approach was an extremely evident feature in the fast pace and shock of the major combat phase of operations. Granted, Saddam did not formally surrender (I predict that very seldom we'll see formal surrenders in future conflicts), but he was on the run and his regime collapsed in a matter of weeks in large part because of the disruption brought by a campaign characterized by speed and shock.

An effects-based approach actually takes the enemy's psychology into account more than a target-based attrition campaign. From a conventional warfare standpoint, "Shock and Awe" was a success. You can make an argument that the "follow-through" was awkward and poorly executed, but during the initial phases we kept our "eyes on the ball" and pretty much hit the "sweet spot". The initial phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom are almost universally regarded as an astounding coalition victory, even by critics of the later stages of the war; characterizing "Shock and Awe" as an abysmal failure seems to me like an attempt at revisionism to discredit the validity of EBO.

Peters writes:

"Nonetheless, at the Joint Forces Command and in the Air Force, proponents of Effects-Based Operations now suggest that, by striking just the right pressure points, we might bring China to its knees. Well, China's already on its knees — a position that gives China greater inherent stability than our own top-heavy military and hyper-developed national infrastructure possess. The crucial question in any war is, "What will it really take to force our enemy to surrender?"

"We know what it took in Nazi Germany. And in Imperial Japan. To defeat China, we'd have to inflict at least a comparable level of destruction. "

These two paragraphs are outrageous to the point that they almost require no refutation. War with China is not preordained as Peters suggests. By reading Peters, you get the impression that war with China is inevitable and just around the corner; something not true on both counts. In the unlikely event that we engage in armed conflict with China in the near future (3-5 years), the confrontation will probably turn out to be very different from World War II. Both the US and China have nukes. That fact alone, changes the whole equation when it comes to war. Addressing US-China relations strictly under military terms is a gross oversimplification of a multifaceted subject.

Peters writes:

"EBO isn't a strategy. It's a sales pitch."

Peters is right an effects-based approach to operations is not a "strategy". And what exactly is the "sales pitch" intended to sell?

Peters writes:

"Yet, EBO also reflects a recurring American delusion — the notion that, if only we can discover it, there must be a formula for winning wars on the cheap. EBO and other schemes for sterilized techno-wars have surprisingly deep roots in our military culture — the American vines were grafted onto diseased European root stocks. "The ideas of effects-based and network-centric approaches to operations have been misunderstood in a variety of ways. One of the misconceptions is to characterize these approaches as "schemes for sterilized techno wars".

The strong point of an effects-based approach to operations is that it directly deals with the least sterile components of any endeavor: human beings, human organizations, and events caused by humans. The search for a "formula for winning wars on the cheap" describes more one aspect of the traditional American way of war than an EBO approaches. As American, we are part of an optimistic culture typified by our conviction that every problem has a solution. We are fond of technology-based fixes for problems. An effects-based approach acknowledges this American proclivity towards problem-solving-through-engineering, but goes beyond that, and focuses on the human aspects present in every crisis.

Peters writes:

"Far from being a brand-new, breakthrough concept, EBO is rooted in the 19th-century cult of Gen. George B. McClellan's favorite military theorist, Baron Antoine Henri Jomini, the Swiss-born, French-speaking military charlatan who seduced the engineers produced by West Point with his geometrical "the calculus is all" approach to warfare. Presenting himself as the heir to Napoleonic thought, Jomini got the emperor dead wrong (only his Ulm campaign makes any sense in Jominian terms), reflecting, instead, the mannered approach to warfare that was generally prevalent between the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the cannonade at Valmy in 1792."

The idea of EBO is, like Peters indicates, not new; but EBO's roots can be more easily traced to Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, Giulio Douhet, Billy Mitchell, J.C. Slessor, the US Army Air Corps Tactical School, and Thomas C. Schelling than to Jomini. To a great extent, the current EBO movement and the fervor of its proponents stem more from the combat zones of Vietnam than from the battlefields of 19th-century Europe. For more than three years (1965 to 1968), American airpower was misused in the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The young officers who were aghast by this often senseless and unproductive use of airpower were resolved to do a superior job when their chance to be in charge came. The Gulf War was their first big break.

Part 4 of 4, is next.

Field of Jihad: Part 1: On Sacred Ground

2006-06-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

Iraq is currently the most active field of jihad. A place where militants can train and openly fight those they see as their enemies.

Contact with a cruel ideology

Even after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (AMZ), the fighting in Iraq will still be permeated by his brutal ideology. AMZ's philosophy will still be an important part of life for jihadists living and fighting in Iraq. AMZ's beliefs will live on, and his proponents in Iraq (and elsewhere in the Islamic world) will make sure that young jihadists come in contact with his pernicious ideology. They will try to keep "hope" alive. The good news is Zarqawi is dead. He is not going to put out new "material". His main output was destruction through the spread of his ideology. From now on, others will have to "carry the torch" for him. AMZ can't produce any new videos or recording to spread his message. How much of an inspiration to jihadist will AMZ be after his death? Who will fill the void as the face of the insurgency in Iraq? AMZ represented only one part of the complex insurgency in Iraq. But he was the most recognizable face of the insurgency; the "front man" of the insurgency. (I haven't done any scientific reasearch on this, but I bet that most Americans can only name one Iraq War insurgent by name: Zarqawi, a dead guy.) Any "emergent leader" trying to fill the "void" left by AMZ is facing an uphill battle at this point. AMZ was able to establish himself as a credible leader in the eyes of jihadists by taking advantage of the post-Saddam regime environment in 2003 and 2004. At that time, the new Iraqi security forces were just being established and the US was still in denial and stumbling to fight the nascent insurgency. The environment is much different now for jihadists. The US and Iraqi forces facing the insurgency are a far more capable adversary than they were two or three years ago. As a pragmatic choice, the Salafist in Iraq have shifted from attacking US hard targets as their main effort and have elected to focus on the "near enemy" represented by Iraq's Shia population, and Shia-led government and security forces.

AMZ exposed many potential jihadist to a particularly violent brand of jihad. Other jihadist and radical preacher will try to perpetuate his message across the Arab world through different media outlets, mainly television and the Internet. Once foreign jihadists get to Iraq the process of indoctrination into AMZ's ideology continues on a much more immersive manner. AMZ's message will still be, for some time, part of the milieu for jihadist in Iraq.

Complexity of Iraq

Iraq is a complex environment not only for our troops but for the jihadists as well. The Salafi jihadists are only one part of the multifaceted insurgency and, like us, they have to deal with all the different groups across the country. The jihadists do not operate in isolation and they have to survive in a demanding environment in which there are several players, including the US, intent on their demise. Insurgencies being Darwinian affairs, only the strong and smart survive this environment. We might see the overall number of foreign jihadists being reduced, but the ones that survive will probably be very capable fighters. Iraq is not also complex, but it is also a unique environment and some of the methods that proved useful to the jihadists in this setting might not be effective in other countries. The significance of Iraq as a training ground for jihadists is still very much in question. That being said, for several reasons, Iraq has more potential than Afghanistan had in the 1980's to inspire young jihadists to join the fight against the "enemies of Islam": while Afghanistan is located in what could be considered the periphery of Islam, Iraq is an Arab country, the former seat of the caliphate and the first Arab state to be threatened with Shia rule.

The insurgency will not just go away because we killed AMZ. Like the emergence of the new Iraqi government is a step in the right direction, but we will probably witness more horrific violence during this year. The insurgency in Iraq has deeper origins and motivations that will remain after AMZ's death. Part of the insurgency's resilience lies of the fact that no single entity controls it. Although Zarqawi's death should be accorded the great significance that it deserves, the immediate post-Zarqawi environment would probably not see a diminution of the insurgency. However, the death of Zarqawi is a decisive turn against the insurgency, a breakthrough that needs to be exploited. A tactical breakthrough is only useful if you can convert it into a breakout, a shift in momentum, a strategic advantage.

AMZ. Dead.

2006-06-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

Shack!!!

500-pounders can always ruin somebody's day.

Good job by everybody involved. Celebrations are in order my friends.

AMZ. I am glad you are gone and burning in Hell right now, pal.

Who's next?

Chinese Grand Strategy: Part I: China and Iran

2006-06-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

China's developing relationship with Iran is geared towards creating long-term influence in the region. This relationship is considered by both Beijing and Tehran to be one of their pre-eminent ways of dealing with the US in the next decade. China still has to compete with Russia for a part in Iran's defense market. Beijing's defense industry still lags behind Moscow's, of course and the Iranians rely on the Russians more than they do on the Chinese to fulfill their conventional weapons requirements. One of China's long-term goals is to alter that equation and become at least equal with Moscow. Before the Iranians actually develop nuclear weapons, (still in the future), the Iranians see a robust conventional capability as a way to deter US attacks in the meantime. Both Iran and China know that the US will probably have to undergo a significant strategic rearrangement before it can attack Iran in any significant manner. At any rate, the Iranians will probably see any US strike (no matter how limited or "surgical") as the beginning of a very prolongued war and will act accordingly. In the meantime, Russia and China will be the main providers of enhanced military capabilities to Iran. China will also help out Iran in dealing with international pressure from the US, the EU, the IAEA and the UN Security Council.

China is not necessarily seeking "world domination" at this point. But they are pursuing regional dominance in the Middle East.

China has been very firm in their stance of keeping the Iranian quandary out of the UN Security Council after, earlier this year, Europe united with the US in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report Iran's nuclear activities to the UN Security Council (UNCS).

Beijing has two main goals in Middle East:

Secure better access to the region's oil
Gradually curb (and eventually displace) US power in the region

In order to achieve this two objectives China working its way into crucial strategic relationships with both Iran and Saudi Arabia. For the Chinese accomplish their goals both Iranians and Saudis need to see their strategic relations with Beijing as vital (almost necessary) to their respective nation's security and well-being.

China will try to calm the US by outwardly agreeing with the US (and Europe) in taking preliminary measures, i.e. signataries of the IAEA report to the UNSC, but when push comes to shove, i.e. agreeing more stringent sanctions against Tehran, they will probably back down and try to stall the passing of any additional UNCS. Both Tehran and Beijing understand that inciting the US into a more confrontational stance is counterproductive to both their goals. In this respect, the Chinese will become a "soothing" agent in the crisis. They'll be on-board with the US, but they probably won't support UN economic sanctions. China, of course has veto in the UNSC.

China and Iran probably coordinated some of their actions earlier this year prior to Tehran's removal of the IAEA seals at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility as a meeting between Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister with China's Foreing Minister the day before the removal of the seals seems to indicate. Coincidence? Shortly after the removal was revealed, the Chinese Foreign Ministry insisted that the issue had to be decided within IAEA channels.

The Chinese will probably not support UN sanctions against Iran as a way of applying pressure to Iran, but they will push for the issue to be resolved at the lowest level possible, e.g. within the IAEA framework.

No matter what Beijing says to placate any potential crisis (including economic sanctions and US-led military strikes), it is been proven that they will assist nuclear proliferators if it benefits their interests. North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran all have been beneficiaries at one point or another of almost unnoticeable "under-the-table" exports of nuclear technology. The Chinese are not stupid; they are not going to ship a finished product (or missile) to Iran trough the Strait of Hormuz, much less via land. But certain missile technologies can be easily transferred without hardly anybody noticing.

China can be seen as the hub of a nuclear cooperation network between North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran. If you look at each of those countries' nuclear deveploment programs you will see that Chinese designs emerge as a common denominator. In terms of missile development, the Chinese are suspected of providing solid fuel technologies to the Iranians for use in enhanced versions of their Shahab missile.

The Chinese probably helped the Pakistanis in the development of their Babur land-attack cruise missile and it is possible that, given Iran's interest in enhancing its missile force, the Chinese will probably help the Iranians develop an indigenous cruise missile capability.

The Iranians are also interested in developing space satellites, a technology in which the Chinese have experience and can provide launch vehicles and facilities for any Iranian indigenous satellite.

News

2006-05-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

I am somewhat settled in my new temporary digs. Work is fine, but can't talk about it.

Here's some news items that have caught my eye in the last few weeks, (but I was busy getting ready for the deployment and did not have time to comment on them):

Washington Post May 15, 2006
On Baghdad Patrol, A Vigilant Eye On Iraqi Police
U.S.-Trained Allies Are Often Suspects
By Ellen Knickmeyer, Washington Post Foreign Service

BAGHDAD -- Second Lt. Will Shields started night patrol for his 2nd Platoon Delta Company with the Baghdad basics: a reminder to speed up instead of slow down if a bomb hits the convoy, and a heads-up on where to stash any victims of killings, sectarian and otherwise.

"We find any dead bodies, we've got three or four body bags," the 23-year-old Shields said.

"Hopefully, that'll be enough."

The young troops in his platoon briefly grumbled good-naturedly about whose Humvee always gets stuck hauling the corpses they find of equally young Iraqi men -- stiffened, blood-streaked and open-mouthed. Pretty much every day, U.S. and Iraqi troops are picking up apparent victims of Sunni-Shiite violence on the streets of Baghdad.

Since Feb. 22, when the bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra pushed sectarian tensions in Iraq to a new plateau, the U.S. Army units have quietly moved back into some neighborhoods that U.S. commanders had just turned over, with fanfare, to Iraqi security forces. Iraqi leaders asked for the return of the American troops into parts of central Baghdad in March, fearing that efforts to build a stable government would fall apart if they were unable to rein in the Shiite-Sunni killings, said Col. Jeffrey Snow, commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division.

After fighting for nearly three years to put down an insurgency waged by Sunni Arabs, the Americans now are also dealing with a bloody Shiite-Sunni power struggle fought largely through intimidation and murder. Part civil war, with open battles in Baghdad's mixed southern neighborhood of Dora and the northern Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiyah, and part mob-style violence, with bodies being dumped out of cars that then speed away, the struggle plays out mostly beyond the view of U.S. soldiers.

Mystified Americans often are reduced to helping clear away the unidentified Iraqis left sprawled -- their tortured hands clutching the air or wired together behind their backs -- on curbs, sidewalks and garbage-strewn lots.

"It may be making a statement, and it may work for the Iraqi people, but we have a hell of a time figuring out what the statement is," Snow said.

The Americans' problems are compounded by the fact that the same Shiite-led Interior Ministry police forces they are training to protect Iraqis are widely suspected in the killings -- if not as the executioners, then as allies to the Shiite militias blamed for much of the bloodshed.

"No police allowed," a hand-painted banner declares in Adhamiyah, a middle-class quarter of homes and gardens behind high brick walls that is one of the largest Sunni districts in Baghdad. In clashes last month, Adhamiyah homeowners took up guns to fight off what they took to be Iraqi police, possibly backed by Shiite militias, trying to enter the barricaded neighborhood.

US troops are increasingly getting caught in the middle of gun battles as Iraqis quarrel with each other. Members of the Shiite-led Iraqi National Police, the force being trained to replace the US military are, in many occasions, engaged in sectarian feuds against the Sunni population. Of course, this is not exactly what we trained them to do. Is this America's fight? Or is this a fight older than America itself?

A competent and non-sectarian Iraqi police force is a necessary ingredient in ensuring a stable Iraq. Any drawdown of our forces in the country depends on how well the Iraqi police force performs its duties. Now it's no longer just a matter of how well we train them but, will they do the right things once they are out on the streets or will they just become another armed faction in the low-grade Iraqi civil war?

There is some good news. Occasionally you'll hear about successful operations entirely planned and led by Iraqi forces. But many US troops who have worked with Iraqis will tell you that, overall, they exhibit an astonishing combination of daring, ineptitude, commitment, and unlawfulness. It's very difficult to eradicate ineffectiveness and improper conduct from any police or armed force, but it will be very difficult to decrease our presence in Iraq given the current state of the Iraqi security forces.

Other things I've thinking about Iraq and the Middle East:

An easy way out is not an option.
If we get out prematurely, Iraq will be left in a very bad position.
60% of the world's proven oil reserves are located in the Middle East. We are not leaving anytime soon. In fact, we are building up.

Speaking of building up:

Honolulu Advertiser May 14, 2006
Guam A Focal Point For U.S. Military Plans
By Richard Halloran

The Air Force is surging ahead with plans to revitalize its bases on Guam from which to project power into the skies over the western Pacific and the islands and continent of Asia.

Bombers already are stationed regularly at Guam's Andersen Air Force Base on rotation from the U.S. Mainland, as are aerial tankers essential to long range operations.

My buddy Eddie blogged about Guam earlier this month. On a personal note, I always try to find a scuba diving connection to everything, and I hear that Guam has excellent diving spots.

If the US Central Command (CENTCOM) is building up in certain key spots in the Middle East, the US Pacific Command (PACOM) is also building up in one key spot: Guam. Taking into account the "tyranny of distance", Guam is in an ideal position to maintain a robust military presence in the Pacific without the political implications of having large numbers of US troops stationed in Japan and South Korea. Although given the poor state of Guam's infrastructure (fine for Marines), some significant improvements are in order before the Air Force truly feels at home ;-)

I've also been thinking about how where our forces where stationed in the past, and where they'll likely be stationed in the future. I've been in the service for almost a decade, and in those ten years the late 90s-early 2000s included Germany, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, among others. The near future might include Iraq (again), Qatar (again), Guam (for the first time), and...Bulgaria?

Here's another piece that caught my eye a couple of weeks ago:

Washington Post May 16, 2006
U.S. Restores Full Diplomatic Ties With Libya
Move Sends a Signal To Iran, North Korea
By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer

The United States restored full diplomatic relations with Libya yesterday, marking the end of a quarter-century of enmity and signaling to Iran and North Korea that similar rewards await countries that scrap their weapons of mass destruction.

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi agreed to end his nation's nascent chemical and nuclear weapons programs in late 2003, capping years of talks between Tripoli and Washington over how Libya could end two decades of international isolation. Libya also took responsibility that year for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and agreed to pay as much as $10 million to the family of each of the 270 dead.

I also found a Libya-scuba diving connection.

Regardless of how Qadhafi reached the decision to reinstate diplomatic ties with the US, I see this event as a triumph of diplomacy: direct (and sometimes secret) talks with the faint threat of force in the distant background. Was the defeat of Saddam's regime in 2003 a factor? Maybe. Not surprisingly, many have seen Qadhafi's decision to end Libya's WMD programs as an indirect effect of the war in Iraq. The collapse of Saddam's regime had the opposite effect in Iran, where they have actually become more aggressive in their pursuit of WMD since 2003. The effects of the Iraq War should not be overstated; the truth is that Libya first articulated their interest in disarmament in the mid-1990s when it destroyed its chemical weapons plant in Tarhunah after successful negotiations with the Clinton Administration.

At some point, Qadhafi realized that re-establishing relations with the US was more beneficial to his regime than pursuing WMD. I think we also have to look at what elements Qadhafi perceived as a threat to his regime. The al Qaeda inspired and financed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) attempted to assassinate Qadhafi in 1996; since then Libya has actually been at war against al Qaeda and associated movements and had offered cooperation to US officials in fighting al Qaeda cells in North Africa even before September 11, 2001. Qadhafi perceived Islamic extremists as a more ominous threat to his regime than the US or Israel, which are often perceived as one and the same in the Muslim Middle East. And above all else, Qadhafi wanted to stay in power through connectivity. And plugging yourself back to the US is perhaps the easiest way to achieve that enhanced connectivity, to go from dial-up to somewhere closer to wireless high-speed connection. In my opinion, the process should always be gradual, especially in the Middle East. Force-feeding connectivity is a dangerous proposition. Beyond the security aspect, there's also a financial aspect. A renewed connection with the US economy will probably benefit Libya's economy. It remains to be seen if Qadhafi will translate the renewed financial gains into benefits to the Libyan people. BTW, Libya also has oil. Maybe not a heavyweight compared to Saudi Arabia, but 3 million barrels a day - the estimated output once new technologies jump start Libya’s oil industry - would put Libya on par with Venezuela in terms of oil production.

This got me thinking; in terms of the instruments of national power - diplomatic, informational, military, economic (DIME) - in my opinion the Libya "operation" looks like this: "DImE"; while the Iraq operation (OIF) looks like this: "diMe".

Deployment (From Hell)

2006-05-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

The EBO-related posts generated some response among other bloggers. I'll respond o their critiques when I get a chance. Right now, my priority is to get ready for the 6-month deployment. After completing quite a bit of training and paperwork, I finally depart tomorrow. Six months away from "home". I put home under quotations because I just got to Virginia last year and have been on the road for a long time ever since. I want to say this have been, so far, the deployment order from hell, but that will be whining. Let's say, that it has been the "flexibility is the key to airpower" deployment order. First, they tell me is 4 months then, last month they tell me is 6 months. The location has changed twice. The job description I originally received turned out to be bogus (or so I heard from the dude I'm replacing). I'll find out when I get there, I guess. I am ready to get out of here, though. This is where teleportation will come in handy. I take off tomorrow and will arrive (if I'm lucky) on Wednesday. I'll try to post while out there, however, my main focus for the next weeks will be adapting to my new environment and learning my "new" job. I won't go into any of the other buffooneries, right now. The word "friction" comes to mind. To quote one of my (sadistic) NCOs: "The pleasure is in the pain." Good words to live by.

Special thanks to blogger buds Mark from Zenpundit and Eddie from Live from the FDNF for calling attention to my humble writings.

Please read critiques to my EBO posts from Kingdaddy at Arms and Influence and Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money, which BTW happens to be three of the four things that got me in trouble last time I went to Vegas. I'll respond to both critiques after I get myself situated. Part 3 of In Defense of EBO is still coming. Needless to say, like Ralph Peters, neither one of them offer an alternative to EBO beyond an attrition-based warfare approach, or what I call the "only-killing-win-wars" approach. Killing is undoubtedly part of warfare, but like I've said before, a strategy that consists of only killing "bad guys" is essentially the absence of strategy.

I've also been readind about Dan's trip to China on tdaxp. I envy the guy. I am actually planning a trip to Asia next year. It was originally semi-planned for this fall, but I had to changed my plans. God (and Uncle Sam) had other plans for me, I guess. I suspect that the Chinese will put together a folder on me as soon as I send my visa application though. I am eagerly awaiting the mega OODA Loop series promised by Dan before the China adventure. Will it top Dan's piece de resistance "Globalization Is Water - The Magic Cloud"? I sure hope so.

Also reading Curtis at Phatic Communion and his resilience- and Gap-related posts.

Here's some preliminary writings of ideas that I will expand upon in the near future:

The object of warfare is to affect our adversaries’ decisions and have him act according to our strategic interests; in the words of Clausewitz, war is “an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” Colonel John Boyd speaks of folding an opponent back inside himself by operating inside his observation-orientation-decision-action (OODA) loop. When we operate inside our adversaries’ OODA loop, we come into their view in ambiguous and unpredictable form, thereby producing confusion and entropy among them. As Boyd describes it in “Destruction and Creation”: “High entropy implies a low potential for doing work, a low capacity for taking action or a high degree of confusion and disorder.” An effects-based approach to operations emphasizes the use of synchronized sets of actions that include all aspects of military and other national power that might shape the decisions not only of our adversaries, but also the decisions of friends and neutrals.

Effects Defined

Effects consist of a full spectrum of outcomes, events, or consequences that result from a particular action. An effects based approach to operations stresses the value of connecting all actions (political, diplomatic, economic, and military) to operational and strategic outcomes. In the most basic sense, effects-based operations are planned, executed, assessed, and adapted to influence or change systems or capabilities in order to achieve desired outcomes. The three essential features of effects-based operations (EBO)—planning, employment, and assessment—cannot be separated from one another.

Origins: The Revolt of the Warfighters

Effects-based operations are not new, however, one can trace the current incarnation of the movement to the war experiences of young Air Force officers who were dismayed by the often senseless and ineffective use of airpower in Vietnam. When their turn to lead came, they were determined to do better. Their turn came when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990. The planners on the U.S. Central Command’s (USCENTCOM) “Black Hole” air component planning team which was tasked with developing strategic targets during the Persian Gulf War developed an air campaign to achieve an “effect” on specific Iraqi systems that if removed from Iraqi control, would enable USCENTCOM to achieve its objectives and thus allow the U.S. and its allies to achieve their strategic goals.

Engagement Processes

There is a force application process that prescribes attacking multiple, vital targets simultaneously in an attempt to collapse an adversary’s system, and therefore leaving him with no means to respond, and, when he does respond, he does so in a manner that is favorable to us. If we think beyond merely “servicing” targets – the “only killing wins wars” mentality- and begin to think in terms of desired effects, this “kinetic option” becomes only one of the many options that are part of our range as warfighters.

EBO is an evolutionary idea that does not invalidate the customary notions of annihilation or attrition, but widens the options available to a commander.

In Defense of EBO - Part 2

2006-05-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

Ralph Peters wrote in the April 06 issue of Armed Forces Journal an article titled Bloodless theories, bloody wars; Easy-win concepts crumble in combat.

The so-called "bloodless theory" he's alluding to is effects based operations or EBO.

This is part 2 of my defense of EBO or more appropriately an effects-based approach to operations (EBO for short).

Read part one here.

If you can understand the concept of cause and effect, you can understand EBO. It's just common sense and it's not really all that complicated. It might require a tiny little bit more of brainpower than the alternative, target-based and objectives-based approaches, but not a whole lot more. For every action there's an effect. If I hit the brakes in my truck, I'll slow down and will eventually stop if I keep adding pressure to the brake pedal. If I want to accelerate I step on the gas. If I want to stay awake, I drink coffee. If I am thirsty, I drink water. If I want to get drunk, I drink alcohol. Within the realm of what I want to accomplish I have quite a bit of leeway: I can brew my own coffee using a variety of brands, I can go to a coffee shop, I can go to a convenience store, etc. I can drink bottled water, a sports drink, filtered water. I can drink beer, whiskey, vodka, etc. A lot of what we do on a daily basis is already effects-based. An effects-based approach is a common-sense and intuitive way to conduct operations. It can significantly add flexibility and empower all the players in an operation. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Why are we doing this? Why are we hitting that target?" during real-world and exercise operations. I'll explain the alternatives on a future post.

To recap: Ralph Peters (an author I admire; the author of Fighting for the Future, which I consider a minor classic) argues that "The Allied bombing campaign (during WWII) certainly aided in that (Germany's) defeat, but it was not decisive in itself." I argue that the Allied air campaign was never meant to be decisive by itself. The Allied strategy called for an integration of different elements; an air campaign against Germany was one element. A ground and naval campaign were other crucial elements in defeating Nazi Germany. Peters does not even mention the role played by the US Navy in defeating Germany. He barely mentions the air campaign against Japan, to include the nuclear attack against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the role that the campaign played in the surrender of Imperial Japan and the avoidance of a costly ground campaign in the Japanese home islands.

Peters writes:

"Compounding the damage, each of the services (except the Marine Corps) has fallen into the trap of designing its strategy to fit the systems it wants, rather than devising an honest long-term strategy, then pursuing the weapons best-fitted to support that strategy.

We have gotten the process exactly wrong."

Peters is not a big fan of the F-22. I supposed he's not a fan of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), a system that will be used by the Marines as well as the Air Force and the Navy, hence the "joint" designation. The Air Force needs to replace the aging fleet of F-15s which are currently flying and that form the backbone of our air superiority capabilities. The F-22 is the solution (along with the training of our personnel to maintain our capabilities). The Air Force will stop pursuing air superiority and air supremacy capabilities when the USMC stops pursuing their amphibious warfare capabilities. End of story.

The Air Force is not the only service spending money on new equipment after the procurement holiday imposed upon us during the 1990's. The USMC's main acquisition programs today are the F-35 JSF, the V-22 Osprey, and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). If you are going to judge strategy by the systems a service buys, then the USMC seems to be getting ready to refight the Korean War.

FX-Based Note: I love the Marine Corps. This is not a swipe at you guys. The USMC needs those systems to replace their aging equipment. My point is that you can't judge a "strategy" based on systems alone. Especially when we are fighting in a less "platform-centric" fashion. Peters makes it sound like the USMC is not procuring new systems, which is not true.

Peters writes:
"No sensible person would argue against the potential benefits of new military technologies — but those technologies must be relevant to genuine wartime needs, not merely sexy platforms for air shows. The services become so mesmerized by their in-progress procurement programs that any challenge to a system’s utility is treated as an attack on the service itself.

The truth is that we lie."

Speaking of airshows, check out my sweet airshow pics, (I write airshow the same way I write airpower: as one word).

On a more serious note: Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, Sailors. We are on the same team. I don't really know the motivation behind Mr. Peters' poisonous attacks against the Air Force, but I do know that they do more harm than good. Especially when we have Airmen serving alongside Soldiers, Marines, and Sailors in all sort of hot spots around the world (not just in Iraq and Afghanistan). One thing is to disagree about the procurement of the F-22, another thing is to distort history and blatantly attack an entire service under the guise of being an advocate for the Marines.

More to come on part 3. Mr. Peters also misrepresents Gettysburg as an EBO (when in fact is the anti-EBO) and later states that "only killing wins wars". I think our experience in Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq are evidence that to win wars you have to do far more than just killing. Body counts are a very dangerous measure of success. How many North Koreans and Chinese died compared to our troops during the Korean War? How many Vietnamese died compared to Americans during the Vietnam War? How many Russians died compared to Germans during WWII? How many terrorists and insurgents have we killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? War is not a sport where whoever kills the most automatically wins. Strategies that merely consist of "killing", "search-and-destroy", "kill-capture", or "man-hunts", are recipes for disaster and, in essence, exemplify the absence of strategy.

Tool

2006-05-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

Personal Post Alert!:

I don't really care what anybody says. I have not read the reviews and probably never will, but the new Tool album ROCKS!

Already the soundtrack that I'll be taking on the road for Summer 2006 is shaping up pretty good.

In Defense of EBO

2006-05-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ralph Peters wrote in the April 06 issue of Armed Forces Journal an article titled Bloodless theories, bloody wars; Easy-win concepts crumble in combat.

The so-called "bloodless" theory he's alluding to is effects based operations or EBO.

First of all, EBO is a methodology, an approach and a way of thinking used for planning, executing and assessing operations and not a new "theory" of war or a particular strategy. It is not an "easy-win concept", but rather a cross-dimensional, cross-discipline way of thinking that seeks to integrate all the instruments of power to the maximum extent possible. The effects-based approach is not mainly focused on winning quick decisive battles; the focus is on actions and the effect of those actions over an extended period of time.

Peters writes:
"During the Second World War, American and British air-campaign planners attempted to force the Nazi war machine into collapse by attacking crucial links in Germany’s national infrastructure. According to the theory, hitting well-selected individual targets would paralyze entire systems. So, at an enormous cost in lives and aircraft, we went after German rail junctions and ball-bearing plants, engine factories and Romanian oil fields."

It would have probably been more costly, in terms of lives and aircraft, to send C-47's full or paratroopers and drop them directly on top of the engine factories and Romanian oil fields. The best way to attack those targets, at the time, was using long-range bombers. Today, we would use stealth bombers with precision weapons and cruise missiles, technologies not available during WWII. Additionally, according to the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) conducted after WWII, by at the start of 1945, US Army Air Force (AAF) bombardment had badly degraded German armament manufacture and had brought the German war-supporting economic infrastructure close to collapse.

Peters writes:
"We were, in short, executing Effects-Based Operations, or EBO, the current darling among “revolutionary” concepts."

Actually, most EBO practitioners would tell you that EBO is more an expansion than an outright "revolution". The fundamental idea behind the concept of effects-based operations is that of causal relationships: the connection between two things in which one event occurs as a result of another event. All actions have direct and indirect effects. But you also can achieve an effect via multiple means. This idea has been around for centuries. Sun Tzu’s writings actually express insights that we would regard as effects-based today.

Peters writes:
"Of course, the Wehrmacht had to be defeated on the ground. The Allied bombing campaign certainly aided in that defeat, but it was not decisive in itself. No matter how many railroad marshalling yards we struck, the Reichsbahn found work-arounds. As for bombing the industrial infrastructure, at the end of the war more than 90 percent of Germany’s production capabilities remained intact (contrary to popular belief), giving the defeated country a launching pad for its postwar “economic miracle.” In early 1945, German combat aircraft production was increasing. Those expensive attacks on “vital” nodes helped the war effort but could not have won the war alone had they lasted for a generation. Germany’s lack of home-country petroleum reserves severely hampered the Nazis — but the advance of the Red Army did vastly more to interrupt fuel supplies from the east than did the EBO efforts of the 1940s."

There is no question that the Wehrmacht had to be defeated on the ground. The Casablanca Directive, a policy document formulated by Roosevelt and Churchill in January 1943, made apparent that a ground campaign was part of the Allied strategy well before the start of the planning for D-Day. As D-Day was getting closer and the strategic air forces fell under the command of Gen Eisenhower in March 1944, the demands of the invasion received priority from all Allied air forces and he called for a transportation attack plan to directly support Operation OVERLORD.

However, strategic bombing preceding D-DAY did play a crucial role in Nazi Germany's defeat. The main problem was that one of our main pre-war suppositions proved to be incorrect: the German industrial infrastructure proved to be more resistant to attack than what we originally expected. However, the USSBS showed that aerial attacks had actually worn out the morale of the German people and had increased absenteeism to some extent in the later phases of the war. The attacks conducted by the AAF and the Royal Air Force (RAF) from July to December 1943 did not obliterate all of the German industrial machinery, but they did compel the Germans to disperse manufacturing functions at a critical point in the war.

Peters writes:
"The primary problem we face in preparing for future wars is an intellectually corrupt budgeting and procurement process, a system that forces the services — especially the Navy and Air Force — to make extravagant, impossible-to-fulfill claims for the weapons they wish to buy. It isn’t possible to argue that a system will be “useful.” To appear competitive, each system has to be “revolutionary.”"

Mixing EBO with the DoD's budgeting and procurement process is not only mixing apples and oranges but also smells like a red herring to me. The concept of EBO is not an effort by the Air Force or the Navy to line their coffers at the expense of land forces. EBO is not service specific and never discounts the human dimension in operations. EBO is a mind-set, not a template for procurement decisions.

Peter writes:
"Compounding the damage, each of the services (except the Marine Corps) has fallen into the trap of designing its strategy to fit the systems it wants, rather than devising an honest long-term strategy, then pursuing the weapons best-fitted to support that strategy."

Again, EBO is not a "strategy", it is a methodology. While EBO thinking is influenced by technological advances, many of its influences are as old as warfare itself and not based on new systems. Of course, EBO seeks to take advantage of new applications and new technologies, but it also tries to exploit our advantages in training, doctrine and operational concepts (the human element) to expose and exploit an adversary's vulnerabilities.

More to come, in part 2.

Sonny World Tour 2006

2006-05-11T21:17:00.000-07:00

Currently I am going through that bitter-sweet transition period before a long (6-month) deployment. I won't see my friends and my things here in VA until at least November as the winter starts to set in. The last days are basically just a whirwind of training and other activities to get you ready to go out in good shape. There's also all the usual "getting your house and things in order" type of stuff that needs to be done before a long trip. There's also the good-byes.

There are two ways to see something like this: as a curse or as an opportunity. My whiny side sometimes tells me to treat it like a curse, after all I've never been more than 2 years in one place since I've entered the service and the sense of rootlessness can sometimes wear on you. My strong side, my "warrior" side tells me to stop whining so much and get on with the tasks at hand. I try to listen to the latter side, but the whiner is always somewhere deep inside and sometimes it comes out when I found myself alone and over-thinking and over-analyzing everything.

Over the next six-months I will go to places I have never been to before. I work closely with new people. I have no idea what I am going to be facing. I know roughly what I am going to be doing but I am not an expert in the area and they told me I am expected to learn quickly. Of course. I might see some old friends since my career field is kind of small (and "incestuous" in some way), however, I am actually going to be working primarily outside of my main area of expertise. Flexing some new muscles, so to speak. Expanding my horizons. All that good stuff.

I am going to spend a big chunk of those six months overseas and that's always a mixed blessing depending on the country or region of the world. East Asia (Japan, Korea, etc.) is always fun for me. I don't know what it is, but I always feel a special energy running through my veins every time I touch down over there. I just don't know what it is. Maybe is the fact, (as I have mentioned before) that Asian women are so beautiful. Maybe is the fact that there's so many freaking people everywhere you go, which I don't like that much. Maybe is the fact that every time I've driven in Seoul I've been inches from sure death, which I guess it's kind or expected seeing that most Koreans drive like stuntmen from some bad Hong-Kong action flick. Latin America is also fun in a semi-masochistic, magic-realism kind of way. Plus, I am a native Spanish speaker which always helps. (I know enough Korean to get myself in trouble and I know how to read the Korean phonetic characters, but I don't know what the words that I'm reading actually mean. I know enough Arabic -and look somewhat Middle Eastern, I guess- that I've had a group of Arabic men just basically tell me their tribe's entire history - by what I could understand- starting from Abraham or Ibrahim. All I could hear was Ibrahim this and Ibrahim that until we got to Mohammed and then it was Mohammed this and Mohammed that, until somehow we got to the Americans-in-Iraq part which I guess these dudes were kind of conflicted about, since they were pointing their fingers up in the air and looked midly irritated, but then gave me, and the other American dudes in the group, a warm-ish farewell and some honey from their little store. I've also been expected to translate to the rest of the Americans, until I clarified that I only knew some phrases...and in the Syrian dialect. Go figure.) Back to the Western Hemisphere, I always get the runs every time I go to Central America. The first time I went there, my (steoreotyping-prone) buds were expecting me to be the most resilient to whatever germs they have down there because I am Hispanic, I kind of believed it myself for a day or two, until I had to run for the nearest restroom, and I won't get to graphic, but I felt like my whole lower intestine was liquefying. Thank God you can get all sorts of medicines with no prescription down there. (Actually, you can do that in some - I gues most from what I hear - Korean drugstores too. Never tried it in Southwest Asia and probably never will.) Maybe too much information. Beer is also very cheap in Central American countries, which is always a plus. In some nicer places they even give you "free" appetizers as long as you keep buying alcohol. (My heart is also broken every time I go to places where there's so much poverty while a few privileged drive around in Mercedes and Land Rovers and live in what amounts to small fortresses.) They also have some good-looking and nice women down there. But, I am not going to either East Asia or Latin America. So it's not really a World Tour per se since I will mostly be traveling in one area of the world. But World Tour sounds cool and it makes me feel like a rock star.

These little posts are kind of sweet, since I don't have to do any research or prior reading and I don't need to sound coherent at all. Not that I normally do anyway. Now I have to continue writing my part of a big-ass post-exercise report that I need to turn in before I go. The fun never ends.

Effects-Based - Part 1

2006-05-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

The fundamental idea behind the concept of effects-based operations is that of causal relationships: the connection between two things in which one event occurs as a result of another event. All actions have direct and indirect effects. But you also can achieve an effect via multiple means. This idea has been around for centuries. Good war time leaders have always concentrated on results and on the human element of war. In fact, great commanders since antiquity have all planned to directly attack the will of their opponents through speedy, decisive maneuver wars, but more often than not found themselves faced by enemies too large or too tough for that to be successful. Attrition warfare has never been the first (or a random) choice. It has been the only remaining option. Seizing the spirit of what many past strategists imagined, but never saw in reality, entails assiduous study and a new mind-set. An effects-based approach to operations is not a template or a formula. It is a way of thinking that takes advantage of causal relationships through the use of sound analysis and while this approach exploits the current technological revolutions in sensors, information technology, and weapons, it does not necessarily imply that technology will endow its users with guaranteed triumph. Technology, can hasten the development of a more mature effects-based approach, but it is only an accelerator, not the main engine behind the concept.

The effects-based approach is not mainly focused on winning quick decisive battles; the focus is on actions and the effect of those actions over an extended period of time. It focuses on political objectives, rather than military objectives.

Some Terms

The word “effects” is very vague. In the Air Force definition, taken from AFDD 2, “effects” are basically “the full range of outcomes, events, or consequences of a particular cause. A cause can be an action, a set of actions, or another effect.” We can also think about “effects” in terms of a number of classifications in order to guide the discussion.

Direct and Indirect Effects

A direct effect, also known as a first order effect, is the consequence of events with no intervening effect or mechanism between act and result. An action causes an effect. An effect can be achieved via different actions. Direct effects can have physical, functional or collateral results and are typically instant and easy to identify. A direct effect is an act that directly brings about an alteration in a condition; it is the actual physical impact of an action. A direct effect is one in which there is nothing in-between the action and the effect. I bombed all the oil refineries in country X; I destroyed the bomb refineries and I can see that they are burning.

An indirect effect, also known as a second or third order effect, is an outcome shaped through an intermediary effect or mechanism to create the ultimate result which may be physical, psychological, systemic, cumulative, or cascading in nature. An action causes an effect and that effect generates other effects. An indirect effect is an alteration in a condition that happens somewhere else in the system that can be traced back to the original act and effect. Indirect effects are likely to be delayed and may be hard to identify. I bombed all the oil refineries in country X; I destroyed the bomb refineries and I can see that they are burning and now the enemy tanks will have trouble refueling.

All actions have effects. All efforts should have clear objectives. EBO compels planners to deliberately link efforts with objectives and lower-level objectives with higher ones.

Airshow Beauties...And Movies

2006-05-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

My base hosted an airshow this weekend. Naturally, I was there to photograph some of the beautiful machines on-scene.

Above is a picture of the F-35, the Joint Strike Fighter. Here's another look:

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is built by Lockheed Martin and is part of the effort to replace the bulk of the US fighter fleet with stealth aircraft. The JSF will replace the F-16 and A-10 fighter and attack aircraft in the Air Force, early model F/A-18s in the Navy, and aging AV-8B Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing fighters in the Marine Corps. Specially configured but highly similar variants of the JSF will be built for each of those services.

Movie Apperance: None that I know of...yet.

Here's an F-22 Raptor:

Ralph Peter's favorite jet. The stealthy F-22, in development since the mid-1980s, was recently declared battle ready. By that, the Air Force means it is able to swiftly defeat any aerial or surface-based air threat in the world today or projected to exist for a long time to come. The F-22 will allow US forces to gain entry into any combat theater of operations by destroying enemy air defenses—airborne or ground-based—and holding at risk targets well behind enemy lines.

The big "WARNING" sign just means that airshow attendants were not allowed to touch the plane. Pictures were OK, though.

Movie Appearance: Hulk. My favorite part of this otherwise crappy interpretation of one of my favorite comic-book characters is the battle between Hulk and an F-22 over the San Francisco Bay.

Book Appearance: Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor. A flight of F-22's goes up against a flight of Japanese F-15J's. The F-22's win. One of Clancy's best novels before he jumped the shark after The Bear and the Dragon.

Here's an F-16 Viper:

In the beginning, critics complained that the F-16 was too small and too slow and didn’t have the two engines necessary for flight safety. Pilots would never like it, they said. The Air Force would never buy it, they said. Long-range air-to-air missiles would render its agility moot, they said. The era of dogfighters was definitely over.

“They” were wrong.

Movie Appearance: Iron Eagle. One of the worst movies of all time. There are certain movie laws that I've discovered. One is: "If Louis Gossett Jr. appears in a movie, and that movie is not An Officer and a Gentleman, then that movie is a bad movie." Also known as: "You know the movie is in trouble when you see Louis Gossett Jr. on the opening credits." A similar law applies to Ben Affleck. Somehow, Iron Eagle spawned several atrocious sequels, further proof that Hollywood is run either by idiots, or the Devil.
Another Movie Appearance: X2: X-Men United. What is it with the Air Force being called to fight comic-book characters? X2 is actually a pretty good movie.

Here's an F-15E Strike Eagle:

A heavily modified, two-seat, dual-role variant of the original F-15, with weapons systems totally integrated for all-weather deep interdiction missions as well as air-to-air combat. F-15E has a strengthened airframe for increased gross weight at takeoff and maneuver at nine Gs throughout the flight envelope.

Movie Appearance: Air Force One. Technically, the ones that appear in the movie are F-15Cs, but close enough. I haven't seen F-15E's in any feature film.

Here's a Luftwaffe Tornado:

Designed and built as a collaborative project in the UK, Germany and Italy, the Tornado is in service with all three air forces and the German Navy. Tornado is also in service in Saudi Arabia and Oman. It is a twin-seat, twin-engined, variable geometry aircraft and is supersonic at all altitudes. The design authority for the Tornado is Panavia, the tri-national consortium which comprises British Aerospace, DASA of Germany and the Italian firm Alenia.

FX-Based Comment: When my brother saw this group of fighers, sporting the Iron Cross on the side of each aircraft, he asked me, "Aren't those the bad guys?" I was speechless for a while. I told him that those were German Air Force jets. "Are the Germans on our side now?", he asked. This despite the fact that me and other military members of my family have partied (hard) in Germany and he has seen (some) of the pictures. And the fact that one of our relatives is married to a German woman that he met while he was stationed in Germany. For the record, my brother is not retarded; he is actually smarter than me in many respects (not a huge accomplishment, but hey), maybe he's seen "Saving Private Ryan" too many times. What kind of history lessons are kids getting these days?

Movie Appearance: I remember watching a horrible (although probably not as awful as Iron Eagle) British movie that had some Tornados, but I don't remember the title.

Here a B-1 Lancer a.k.a Bone:

A long-range, air refuelable multirole bomber capable of flying missions over intercontinental range, then penetrating enemy defenses with the largest payload of guided and unguided weapons in the Air Force inventory. Of blended wing/body configuration, the B-1’s variable-geometry design and turbofan engines combine to provide greater range and high speed at low level, with enhanced survivability.

Movie Appearance: Real Genius. Mad props if you have seen (and like) this movie. As a child of the 80's, I grew up watching this movie, along with Red Dawn and Weird Science. Best Val Kilmer movie ever, which is really not saying much, but it's a fun movie. Real Genius intruduced me to bombers shooting lasers from the sky, and sleazy professors that take advantage of their smart students. Red Dawn introduced me to a world of AK-47's, RPG's and Hind helicopters, and American guerrillas on horseback. Weird Science introduced me to Kelly LeBrock in the shower and all the thoughts associated with that image.

And finally, here's a B-52 a.k.a BUFF:

A long-range, heavy multirole bomber that can carry nuclear or conventional ordnance or cruise missiles, with worldwide precision navigation capability. The B-52’s still-expanding weapons capability reflects its continued ability to perform a wide range of missions, including show of force, maritime operations, long-range precision strikes, close air support (CAS), offensive counterair, air interdiction, and defense suppression.

Movie Appearance: Dr. Strangelove. "Nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies". Mandatory viewing.

Aicraft descriptions provided by the Air Force Magazine and the Federation of American Scientists in the case of the Tornado.

Darfur - Part 5

2006-05-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

THE DARFUR PLAN

Objective: Prevent large-scale killings and restore order in Darfur.

The intention is to stabilize a large enough area of Darfur to establish bases from which to freely operate across the Darfur area of operations.

My (somewhat disorganized) version of the (Fantasy) Plan for Humanitarian Intervention in Darfur calls for the following force composition:

Expeditionary Force Package Lima (XFP Lima): Composed of mostly Special Operations Forces (SOF) and Airpower in the form of strike and ISR assets. Light and fast force, hi-tech, hi-kinetics, hi-intensity, low-manpower. Small force structure and very flexible. Relatively easy to deploy to theater and within theater. Very small footprint. This is the force that will set the stage for the follow-on forces and international humanitarian organizations. This is the force that will also kill the most people (bad guys) and break their shit.
Expeditionary Force Package Sierra (XFP Sierra): Composed of several "traditional" brigade-size light infantry units and Airpower in the form of airlift and ISR assets. Heavier force. Motorized infantry and airborne units. XFP Sierra is lower-tech, lower-kinetics, lower-intensity, hi-manpower. Not as easy to deploy to and within theater of operations. This is the force that will bear the brunt of conducting actual humanitarian operations: guarding food shipments, feeding hungry Sudanese, providing medical attention, providing security to foreign aid and commercial workers, some reconstruction support, etc. XFP Lima is inherently not well suited and at a disadvantage when humanitarian tasks might require a large number of personnel to accomplish. XFP Lima's participation will drop off once the majority of opposing forces are defeated. As danger decreases, XFP Sierra's role in the operation will increase.

Both force packages will deploy with small units of reconnaissance and forward observers capabilities, supported by UAVs.

Both force packages will be able to operate in dispersed fashion. Spatial distribution will better enable responses to urgent situations throughout the AO. All coalition forces should be able to reach concentrations of noncombatants quickly and over the wide territory of Darfur, and respond to sudden threats against indigenous noncombatants. All coalition forces should be able to concentrate effects on any point and at any given time regardless of spatial dispersion.

This combination of forces will dictate the scope and course of future hostilities in Darfur and will eliminate the enemy's capability to threaten noncombatants in the future.

Both Force Packages operate under the command of a single Combined Task Force Commander.

Big Questions:

Actual size of the forces required
Nature and motivation of organized armed opposition (Janjaweed, GOS)
Actual composition of coalition and local allied forces

Interoperability

Interoperability is a big challenge and not easily achieved. Allied forces in both expeditionary force packages will consists of a combination of highly-integrated networked forces (coming from "Core" states) and nonintegrated, non-networked forces (some coming from "New Core" states, but most coming from "Gap" states). Effective conduct of military operations in Darfur will require US forces interoperability with both types of force. We have to live with the reality that some of our allies will lack or have very basic technologies needed to network forces. Interoperability is bound to improve shared situational awareness and will help forces conduct all sorts of operations along a spectrum of missions.

One advantage of operating with "Gap" and local allied forces is that they can be easily supported. These rag-taggish forces usually require less logistics support, are pretty good at operating from austere locations (because they come from austere locations) and are generally "lower-maintenance" than Core forces.

Coalition forces should also be prepared to interact with official and private relief organizations.

Of note: Some humanitarian organizations might be cautious to appear too integrated with coalition forces.

Deployment

Currently, the US does not keep large forces in Africa. The first challenge/task is deploying to Africa, and then inserting a relatively large peacekeeping force into Darfur which is inhospitable, relatively inaccessible, out-of-the-way, undeveloped and unfamiliar to most coalition troops. Both force packages will have to travel to Africa via a combination of long-range airlift assets and rapid sealift assets. FP Lima will probably arrive in theater exclusively by air. The rest of the peacekeeping force will deploy to staging areas inside allied African nations (Djibouti, Ethiopia, etc.) and from there, will be inserted into Darfur via theater airlift and open lines of communication (LOC).

Insertion of Force Packages

XFP Lima is inserted into Darfur first. This force package can secure airheads (with possible help from inidigenous rebel forces) that will allow the insertion of FP Sierra. FP Lima must be able to operate inside Darfur with very little supporting infrastructure. FP Sierra will bring the equipment and personnel necessary to build a more robust infrastruture from which forces can operate. ISR assets and small recon units will obtain further information on the enemy, potential enemy, and any other characteristics of the Darfurian battlespace that might have been previously overlooked.

Establishment of airheads will provide locations for:

A wide array of ISR systems
Combined C2 Centers
Intra-theater mobility assets

Engagement

XFP Lima's tactical units will strike early and hard at the enemy's ability to defend itself. XFP Lima will operate and maneuver rapidly and freely across the Darfur theater of operations (which actually extends beyond the borders of the Darfur province) and conduct lethal attacks networked with precision-strike forces (mostly USAF and USN strike assets). XFP Lima's small SOF units will be supported by a variety of sensors that will provide enhanced awareness (e.g. UAVs) and will be able to find and direct precision air attacks against relatively large enemy units in the Darfur area of operations. These attacks will seek to harm the enemy while causing minimum damage to the Sudanese infrastructure. It is unknown at this time if enemy militias and other opposing forces will be prepared to attack allied forces or be inclined to flee at first sight.

XFP Lima will set the stage for the establishment of airheads that will enable in-theater mobility by air to entire expeditionary force.

Big Questions for Engagement Phase:

Enemy capabilities (What can they do to us? What can we do to them? Etc.)
Enemy intent (Will they fight? What's their strategy? Etc.)
Location of enemy combatants (Where are they? Will they operate in a concentrated [unlikely] or dispersed manner [likely]? Etc.)

XFP Lima will find, identify, pursue, and destroy any early resistance to humanitarian operations. As operation progresses, XFP Lima's role will be mainly limited to quick strikes on scattered opposing forces and other time-critical operations. ISR assets networked with SOF will detect indications of enemy actions, however one major challenge will be dicriminating between combatants and non-combatants.

Big Challenges For Engagement Phase (and once XFP Sierra shows up to Darfur)

Darfur encompasses a large area. How to maintain control over entire province? Operating in a networked, dispersed manner is one option.
ISR coverage. Where to concentrate assets?
Sudanese government response. This might depend on the extent of coalition attacks against GOS fixed targets.

Things I Did Not Cover

ROE for prosecuting fleeting targets. What would constitute a high-value target?
How to manage refugees? Mainly XFP Sierra's job.
Training of local allies so they can fend for themselves in the future.
Information Operations.
Reconstruction.

The US can lead the effort but it might not have to dedicate a large amount of troops and resources to the effort. For something like this to work, it has to be accomplished by an international force. The good news is that many allied nations are actually concentrating in improving their abilities to operate in under conditions other than major war. The question is, will they have the resolve to act?

Darfur - Part 4

2006-05-02T23:09:00.000-07:00

I think that from now on, most posts on FX-Based will be part of a series. I can't really cover what I want to regarding some subjects in a single post. Besides, I will be very short on time from here until at least the end of the year.

Fog of War, "A blog devoted to International Defence and Security issues" is the lastest addition to the FX-Based blogroll. I meant to do this a few weeks ago but never got to it.

So, Jules at Fog of War mentions FX-Based and adds:

I’ve read with great interest Sonny's attempt, from FXbased, to draw a "fantasy" framework - as he has called it - for a U.S. led intervention in Darfur. But, as attractive such an idea might be, there is a strong likelihood that such an intervention is not going to happen.

I agree with the last sentence.

Eddie at Live from the FDNF also mentions yours truly and provides a good roundup of other blogs covering the Darfur debacle. Eddie's blog has done more to raise my awareness of Darfur than any other source

I liked Jules' summary of some of the players in the Darfur crisis. Citing from Fog of War. My comments in italics:

The Sudanese government is against any kind of international intervention.

The African Union - which has taken the initiative in Darfur since 2004 - has failed. (FX-Based comment: True.)

The U.N. - The international community has been moving too slow on this matter. (FX-Based comment: When has the UN moved fast on anything?)

The U.S. have recently put forward a stronger position stating that "genocide has to be stopped" in western Sudan and that "involvement by NATO should send a clear signal" to the Sudanese authorities.

NATO - The U.S.'s proposal of NATO deployment plan is still under consideration within NATO.

Transnational Islamist terrorism - Some observers have deemed that a western intervention in Darfur would play into the jihadists' hands, uniting all factions in a war against outsiders.

And my "favorite" player:

China seems to be the biggest player with much at stake: its increasing needs for overseas resources (see China, Africa, and Oil, from the Council on Foreign Relations). In exchange for oil, Beijing provides diplomatic support and weapons to Sudan (see China's role in genocide and China accused of prolonging bloodshed because of oil). An estimated 70% of Sudan’s oil flows to China, and an estimated 6 to 7% of China’s oil imports come from Sudan. It has also been estimated that 80% of Sudan’s oil revenue may be used to buy weapons.

The Chinese deserve a whole new post. At this point in history, China cares only about itself. I personally can't figure out the Chinese. Can they be a positive force for change (like we Americans are) anywhere in the world?

The fantasy plan continues.

The Adversary

The adversary consists of a combinations of elements of the Government of Sudan (GOS) and the Janjaweed. The adversary continues to terrorize the civilian population in Darfur by the systematic, coordinated and indiscriminate use of violence using deployed ethnic proxy forces. Aerial bombardment and attacks on civilians reportedly have occurred widely throughout the region. The number of casualties caused by aerial bombardment cannot be determined, but large numbers of Darfurians have been forced to flee their villages. Many of the reports detailing attacks on villages refer to government and militia forces, preceded by aerial bombardment, acting together to commit atrocities.

Most reports from civilians describe the following pattern in the attacks:

1) GOS aircraft or helicopters bomb villages.

2) GOS soldiers arrive in trucks, followed closely by Janjaweed militia riding horses or camels.

3) GOS soldiers and militia surround and then enter villages, under cover of gunfire.

4) Fleeing villagers are targets in aerial bombing.

5) The Jingaweit and GOS soldiers loot the village after most citizens have fled, often using trucks to remove belongings.

6) Villages often experience multiple attacks over a prolonged period before they are destroyed by burning or bombing

The Sudanese Air Force (SAF)

I would like to see the USAF (or USN) take a shot at these knuckleheads.

Despite Sudan's dire economic situation the SAF has actually undergone a recent modernization. The SAF order of battle contains aircraft and weapons that are considered credible threats to US forces. Of primary concern are modern MiG-29 Fulcrum aircraft, equipped with both AA-12 Adder and AA-11 Archer air-to-air missiles. The Fulcrum is equipped with advanced phased array "Slot Back" radar that can detect targets as small as a cruise missile. The Fulcrum also has an advanced infrared detection system (IRST) that can detect American strike aircraft day or night. Based on Jane's information, the SAF has at least 16 operational MiG-29s. These aircraft are probably operated by Russian mercenaries. In addition, the SAF is known to operate at least two MiG-23 Flogger aircraft. The MiG-29 squadron is located at Khartoun, while the two MiG-23s are based at Bur (Port) Sudan. The MiG-29 purchase represents an expenditure of approximately $400 million.

Reports indicate that Chinese jets sold to Sudan by China and Iran since the 1990s include over 40 Shenyang J-6 and J-7 jet fighters, and more recently some F-7 supersonic fighters, an improved version of the Russian MiG-21 Fishbed.

Based on Jane's, the Sudanese operate two modern air traffic control (ATC) radars that cover the southern approach to Darfur. Both of these Alenea-Marconi radars have a dual-use air defense capability along with civilian ATC.

According to Jane's, Sudan has 20 SA-2 Guideline SAM batteries, with associated Spoon Rest and Fan Song radars. Only three of the batteries are believed to be operational.

Friendly Forces Desired Conditions

NGO and UN humanitarian agencies have border access and overland travel rights from neighboring Ethiopia.
Ethiopia gives US military over-flight rights.
Djidbouti agrees to serve as US local base of operations.
Several Gulf States and central African nations offer (but not disclose) basing and over-flight rights in support of operation.
US aircraft orbits established over Red Sea and Ethiopia.

Next post will cover the whole plan A-to-Z, phase-by-phase.

Darfur Part 3

2006-05-01T00:27:00.000-07:00

Some context for the last two posts and life in general: I am home after two weeks on the road. Military exercise. Huge exercise. My last two post were from an airport, and my quarters late at night, respectively. I was tired and not under ideal conditions when I posted and I found out I had some misspellings which I promptly fixed as soon as I had time at home. Everything went really well during this trip. I had an awesome time and learned a lot. Worked with some great people too. I will be on the road all summer and part of the fall fighting the good fight. Depending on where I am I might be able to post on some things that have been banging around in my cranium. My main priority right now is to get mentally and physically ready for the long time I'll be out there. Realistically, FX-Based might actually be in hiatus for several months due to my realignment of priorities in order to serve my country the best I can. I truly appreciate the comments made by Eddie, Federalist X, and Ben Singer on the Darfur posts. I always strive to answer all comments in one way or another, either in the "Comments" section, by e-mail or by answering as a separate post.

The last two post were fantasies based on reality. This post addresses reality and the contradictions of our world.

"Cool" fact before we continue: The Russians sold 12 MiG-29s to the Sudanese in 2004. Do you think these 4th generation fighters are being flown by Sudanese pilots?

Protests in US cities seek to "Save Darfur Now" Sun Apr 30, 10:35 PM ETWASHINGTON (AFP) - Tens of thousands of demonstrators, led by lawmakers and Hollywood star George Clooney, descended on Washington and other US cities to demand an end to the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region.

This has been brewing for months now. I expect to see more demonstrations full of college students, celebrities and politicians. My question is, are this the same people that want us out of Iraq? People seem to forget about our experience in Somalia. Logistically and operationally speaking, Somalia was far easier than what would be required to operate effectively in Darfur. What would the demonstrators do if we get troops in Darfur and a month (or less) into the operation CNN broadcasts images of one of our troops being dragged across the African sand by a "Janjaweed" horse?

What's the plan? Get out of Iraq and go to Darfur?The same people that criticize how much we screwed up in Iraq, where we had been involved for over a decade before the 2003 invasion, now want us to go into Darfur, a place we know next to nothing about and even military people struggle to find on a map. And yes, intervention in Darfur will require military power. The Janjaweed are unlikely to be deterred by strong language and protest signs. You have to go in there armed and willing to kill. And I seriously doubdt that any of the demonstrators will spill any blood in Darfur fighting the Janjaweed. Will these activists run to the nearest military recruitment office to enlist if the President announces that we are going into Darfur? My suspicion is that, if we go into Darfur (a huge if), you will see many of the veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq in western Sudan. Of course, the US will not go alone. The intervention might be US-led, but with another "coalition of the willing". I just don't see a lot of other countries lining up to send their troops to Sudan. Who will stop the killings? NATO? Think again. Remember Bosnia and Kosovo? It took American power to solve the situations there. And that was on NATO's own backyard. The UN? The African Union? No, and hell no. So, like a said before, if you live in Darfur and your people are victims of genocide, you’re pretty much SOL.

Somehow, these demonstrators think that the same US military that they claim misapplied its power in Iraq will do a better job in Darfur fighting another nasty group of guerrillas. Basically they are saying: "You guys fucked up in Iraq, (even though you had been operating in the area since at least 1990), but now get out of Iraq and please help the poor people of Darfur. Here it is on the map. It's in Africa. Don't fight the guerrillas in Iraq anymore. Fight the guerrillas in Africa now. They are Muslims too, by the way, and Arabs. Only in a different continent, and with much darker skin. Now ship all your troops, Humvees, tanks, planes and helicopters to Africa and save Darfur!" What a joke.

So it if makes you feel better, go ahead and march. Protest. Speak out. You might sleep better at night thinking that you did your part for the people of Darfur. But keep in mind that your march is a walking contradiction.

Further Reading:

Washington Post April 24, 2006 Pg. 1
On Tape, Bin Laden Warns Of Long War
He Accuses the West Of Acting as 'Crusader'
By Craig Whitlock, Washington Post Foreign Service
BERLIN, April 23 -- Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden urged his followers to prepare for a drawn-out conflict with the Western world in a new audiotape broadcast Sunday, blaming what he called "a Crusader-Zionist war" for a long list of attacks on Islam in places from Darfur to Denmark.
Philadelphia Inquirer April 25, 2006
Sudan Rejects Bin Laden's 'Jihad' Call
Leaders said they would not allow such interference, but experts feared the Darfur troubles could worsen.
By Mohamed Osman and Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press
KHARTOUM, Sudan - Sudan dismissed Osama bin Laden's renewed calls for "jihad" in its troubled Darfur region, saying yesterday that it would not harbor terrorists or allow foreign interference in the country.
New York Times April 25, 2006
Osama's Crusade In Darfur
By Nicholas D. Kristof
Those of us who want a more forceful response to genocide in Darfur should be sobered by Osama bin Laden's latest tape.
Washington Times April 27, 2006 Pg. 19
Analysts Downplay Bin Laden's Sudan Appeal
By Alistair Lyon, Reuters News Agency
LONDON -- For now, there may be more symbol than substance in Osama bin Laden's call for jihad in Darfur, but that could change if U.N. peacekeepers go to Sudan's troubled western region, security analysts say.
Washington Times April 28, 2006 Pg. 1
NATO To Intensify Its Role In Sudan's Darfur Region
Rice presses U.N., others to aid mission
By Nicholas Kralev, The Washington Times
SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that NATO leaders have agreed to take on a more "robust" role in Sudan's Darfur region and urged other international bodies to prepare the way.
New York Times April 28, 2006
Blowback In Africa
By Raffi Khatchadourian
EVER since Chad gained independence 46 years ago, it has been a world-class model of political dysfunction. In the 1970's, Chad's president, François Tombalbaye, compelled civil servants to renounce Western customs, undergo a tribal initiation rite known as yondo and profess belief in a nationalist creed he called Chaditude. He was executed in 1975. In the 1980's, a rebel leader named Hissène Habré led an army to the presidential palace and seized power. He became known as the "African Pinochet" and murderously pursued opponents for nearly a decade.
New York Times April 30, 2006
Sudan And Darfur
To the Editor:
Re "Osama's Crusade in Darfur," by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, April 25):
Sudan quickly distanced itself from the recent statement by Osama bin Laden that referred to Sudan, Darfur and jihad. Sudan will not be a pawn in any organization's war against the West.

Darfur Part 2

2006-04-25T23:42:00.000-07:00

I decided to amplify on my fantasy plan for Darfur. But first, I want to answer a comment from my friend Eddy from Live From The FDNF. Here's the comment:

Perhaps a correction?
"Opening of LOC from Ethiopia to refugee camps in
northwest Darfur"
Perhaps you mean Libya or Chad? Ethiopia is on the eastern side
of Sudan, near Eastern Sudan, where its likely the next ethnic cleansing
campaign will unfold if the rebellion there begins to eat into Sudan's oil
revenues.

I actually thought about Chad, Lybia, and Egypt, but a lifeline line of communication (LOC) that extends from Djibouti through Ethiopia to Darfur made more sense.

Why not Lybia? Although Qadafi has toned it down quite a bit in the last couple of years, he is still not our friend or ally. Operations in Darfur will require a significant US presence in the countries where the LOCs are established. Lybia is a predominantly Muslim country, and I did not find a considerable amount of US personnel and assets - to include basing and overflight privileges - in Lybian territory to be a palatable option for obvious force protection issues.

Why not Chad? One word: landlocked. We want to be able to get quite a bit of aid, personnel, and materiel into Darfur. We want to be able to use the port facilities in Djibouti, where the US already has a presence, to bring in large shipments beyond what we would be able via airlifts to Chad. Additionally, Chad is also having some problems of its own.

Why not Egypt? If we can go through Djibouti, Ethiopia, and through the mostly non-Muslim southern part of Sudan, why even consider Egypt? We would have to transverse pretty much the entire country of Egypt from ports in the north (or east) and then enter Sudan through the mostly Muslim/Arab north. I did not find the prospects of crossing US troops crossing through Egypt very appealing.

All this illustrates how logistically difficult would be to mount an operation in Darfur. Add to that, the fact that Sudan falls under the CENTCOM AOR. CETCOM already has its hands full with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, etc., to embark in yet another relatively large-scale operation in Darfur. The American public would just not support it. Especially when there is so little awareness of Darfur in the US and no clear strategic value to have a presence in the region.

Intervention in Darfur by the US military is highly unlikely. We are already involved in counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Janjaweed could very well become the next insurgency we fight if we end up intervening in Darfur. Victory in Darfur would require far more than suppression or destruction of the Sudanese military. Public tolerance for what would essentially be a humanitarian intervention would be very low at this point.

Still, this is a fantasy plan. A mental exercise. A what if. On with the plan.

Players.

The Janjaweed: armed militia group comprising fighters of Arab background. (Consider the ramifications of having to fight another Arab Muslim group). Much of the violence in Darfur, which has created over 1 million refugees (numbers vary), has been attributed to these militias. The Janjaweed have killed many thousands and human rights groups say they have been engage in a systematic campaign of rape, intended to humiliate and punish non-Arab groups.
Alliance of Revolutionary Forces of West Sudan: formed on January 20, 2006, when the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SLA/SLM) merged to form a single rebel alliance in Darfur. Although unified in their desire for an independent Darfur, the rebel groups fighting the Sudanese government have been plagued by deep internal divisions and power struggles.
The Government of Sudan. The Government of Sudan has used aerial bombardment to terrorize the civilians who they claim are harboring rebel forces. The current president of Sudan, Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, came to power in a military coup in 1989. The Sudan People’s Armed Forces is a 100,000-member army supported by a small air force and navy.

Air Campaign

Aim: Establish a no-fly zone over Darfur.

Rationale: Prevent renegade Government of Sudan forces from supporting local pro-Government militias with airpower and to protect airheads, LOCs and ground operations.
Scheme: Continuous monitoring of the airspace using existing air traffic control radars supplemented by airborne radar (AWACS or coalition equivalent).
Desired Effect: Zero unauthorized flights of fixed-wing or rotary wing aircraft within the Darfur no-fly zone.

Aim: Neutralize the threat from renegade Sudanese Air Force (SAF) elements with a minimum loss of life.

Rationale: Minimize potential for escalation.
Scheme: Conduct show-of-force sufficient to deter renegade SAF elements from intervening in the conflict. Focus information operations (IO) efforts against Sudanese air defense battalions operating SA-2s, and interceptor squadrons with MiG-29 Fulcrum fighter aircraft, believed to be operated by Russian mercenaries, and Chinese-made F-7 aircraft.
Desired Effect: Advanced MiG-29 and F-7 aircraft destroyed with minimum loss of life. SA-2 batteries destroyed with minimal loss of life. Operations of second tier fighter aircraft (e.g. F-6) interdicted until no-fly zone is established.

Darfur

2006-04-24T01:17:00.000-07:00

I said I had a Darfur post in me. This is it. Reading Eddie's Live from the FDNF inspired me to write this post.

Backdrop. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called Darfur "the world's worst humanitarian crisis." Since early 2003, the people of Sudan's western Darfur region have experienced a brutal government-coordinated scorched earth campaign against civilians belonging to the same ethnicity as members of two rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Officials of the UN World Food Program (WFP) say nearly 1.2 million people currently need food and medical aid in the Darfur region. Peace talks between Sudan's government and these rebel movements operating in the Darfur province show little sign of ending the violence.

The Sudanese Government's Campaign. Two key elements comprise this campaign. Both had had devastating consequences for civilians in the region.

The systematic use of indiscriminate aerial bombardment conducted by the Sudanese Air Force in North Darfur and to a lesser extent in West and South Darfur.
The deployment and coordination of ethnic proxy armed forces known as "Janjaweed" militias who have been recruited from landless Arab Sudanese nomadic tribes.

The rebels say the government is oppressing black Africans in favor of Arabs. Some of these Arab nomadic tribes have been involved in past clashes with the farming communities branded as supportive of the rebels.

Campaign Purpose. Some 1.2 million people need food aid, or have fled their homes and at least 180,000 are thought to have died since the conflict began. To end the conflict in this arid and impoverished region of the world a US-led coalition will have to:

Enforce the initial disengagement of opposing rebel and engaged Sudanese Government forces.
Open ground lines of communication (LOC) and provide food shipments and medical aid facilities to refugee camps in the Darfur region.
After initial disengagement, U.S. forces are to be transitioned to an armed international peacekeeping force.

Sudanese officials have largely dismissed international pressure in the past. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the Sudanese government blocked international access to Darfur from November 2003 to February 2004, exacerbating starvation and disease and worsening the crisis. However, under threat of stronger punitive action, the president of Sudan will probably agree to not interfere with this effort. However, renegade elements of the Sudanese military, including the Sudan Air Force (SAF) and some ground force commanders will probably defy Khartoun's instructions. These commanders will become high-value targets if they interfere. Musa Hilal, the leader of the Janjaweed militia widely suspected of ordering a large number of atrocities in Darfur will probably interfere with humanitarian efforts. He will become a high-value target and the 16 known Janjaweed bases will have to be neutralized if they decide to interfere with the international efforts.

The wishes of the coalition will be to enforce disengagement and support humanitarian efforts with a minimum of force, and will only engage Sudanese military forces that directly threaten the humanitarian mission.

Campaign Direction. To achieve our purposes we will probably have to:

Establish and sustain airheads for US and coalition forces in Southern and Central Darfur.
After airheads are established, coalition forces will clear LOCs for humanitarian aid, and will begin separating the SLA, JEM and Sudanese government forces.
Once LOCs are cleared and established from the Southern border of Sudan and combatants are disengaged, the US-led force will have to turn over peacekeeping and LOC security operations to an international UN force.
After the South is secure, the US-led coalition can continue disengagement operations in the Northern border of the Darfur region, and neutralize or disarm pockets of recalcitrant SLA, JEM or renegade Government forces.

Desired Conclusions.

Airheads established and capable of secure, 24/7 military operations support pending negotiations.
Opening of LOC from Ethiopia to refugee camps in northwest Darfur. LOC will be patrolled by UN forces which will also provide escort to aid shipments from international organizations and NGOs.
The establishment of a network of UN observation posts supplemented by persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets like unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This network will serve as a presence between rebel and government-controlled areas. The network will be capable of detecting large-scale force movements in Darfur and the border with Chad and Ethiopia. The network will also be capable of providing locations from which UN quick reaction forces (QRFs) can respond to a variety of incidents.

That's all for now.

Here's a list of some of my references:

Around The Internets

2006-04-16T22:44:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the world, the US military will be conducting a big exercise. And I will be there. I am sort of playing for the notional "bad guys" though, so it should be fun. I will try to post from out there, but the posibility is remote. I will probably be working long 14-16 hours-a-day, and Internet access will probably be limited. I will try though. I should be back in a couple of weeks. It should be fun out there. Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum, baby!!!

On unrelated news, I found out two things in the last couple of weeks:

1) I got promoted. I'll be pinning on sometime later this year. And I have to buy beer for my troops who actually got me promoted. They are all over 21, BTW. Designated drivers will be assigned too.

2) I am going to be deployed (again) for six months (I hope). I am pretty sure I'll be able to blog from "over there", but my postings will probably be shorter and sweeter. Last time I was out there I was working long, long hours and spent little time on the Internet. I am going to a different post, but I'll see when I get there. In the mean time, I'll be completing the pre-deployment training, meaning I get to (safely, of course) shoot guns again (neat!).

Cruising around the blogosphere I found this on 7th Fleet's sailor Eddie's Live From The FDNF in reference to FX-Based:

When the brass eventually come for all the active-duty mil-bloggers, let's hope he's the last one standing. Most interesting mil-blog, pound for pound, word for word.

Thanks for the kind words. I was pretty much speechless when I read that. Sometimes I wish I was more prolific, but the USAF has kept me very busy since, well, Operation Desert Fox (1998). Eddie is very passionate about Dar Fur. I actually have a Dar Fur post in me, based on some stuff I was working on. Though place for an operation. I have been thinking about going to Japan or Korea (again) for my next assignment. I've spent some time in Okinawa (which I did not feel was much part of Japan, maybe I'm wrong), but have never been to the other islands (other than in transit, which does not count). Call me crazy, but sometimes I want to go back to Korea, ("the land of the no-quite-right") badly. Maybe it's the women. Actually, the women are a pretty big part of the whole thing. Plus, I feel like I need a rest from the Middle East. (If you are from the Air Force Personnel Center, and are reading this, please don't count this as an official request...it's just a vague desire...I'll fill out the paperwork with the official request soon, which might not even include anywhere in East Asia. Bottom line, I am not sure yet).

I found it funny that Eddie had this to say about TDAXP:

Home of "Globalization Is Water- The Magic Cloud" and other fascinating, stimulating viewpoints. Informed observers note a Corona is often required after reading.

I found it extra funny because "Globalization Is Water- The Magic Cloud" was the first TDAXP post I read, after Mark from Zenpundit posted it about it. The post starts like this:

This post is headlined "Globalization is Water," but of those three words "is" is the most important.

And it pretty much goes downhill from there, or uphill depending on your state of mind. I did need a Corona after I was done, though. "Globalization Is Water- The Magic Cloud" is a modern classic.

I've slacking on commenting on TDAXP. I am just waiting for another OODA, PISSR, or Asian women post to comment fruitfully.

One blog in which I've commented lately is Opposed System Design, maintained by Wiggins. Worth checking out. This is what Mark has to say about OSD and FX-Based:

Their very different Defense field backgrounds makes for a good tag-team approach on issues of doctrine or theory. Very complementary.

I could not say it better.

One more thing before I go. Ralph Peters is wrong. He hates the Air Force and is trying to create divisions between the services where there sould not be. We are on the same team. We fight and die together. On a personal note, late in 2004, I was flying in a CH-46 full of Marines in western Iraq, when our helo came under small arms fire. We survived, of course, but for a while, I though we were going to crash (and probably die or be captured) in the desert. We would've died as Americans. Americans. The enemy wants to see Americans dead, regardless of what branch of service.

Is the F-22 necessary? Yes. Our premier air superiority fighter, the awesome F-15, has been flying since the 1970's. It's time to move one. We don't want a fair fight against our adversaries. Is the Joint Strike Fighter necessary? Yes. And the Marines are, righfully so, buying a bunch of them too.

From the LA Times:

In Iraq, the Air Force has taken over supply convoys to ease the burden on the Army and Marine Corps, and specialized forces have been used in Army-like combat patrols, conducting raids and seizing suspected insurgents outside such facilities as Balad air base, north of Baghdad. Commanders estimate that about a third of all Air Force personnel have been deployed to the Middle East and Central Asia since Sept. 11, 2001.

Actually, we have been deployed to the ME since Operation Desert Shield in 1990. And we have been flying combat missions non-stop over Iraq since 1991. People forget Operations Southern and Northern Watch. The Air Force has been in a combat footing for 16 years. In my career field, I am guessing that two-thirds is a more accurate number. I know I've been over there for close to two years of my ten-year career. Over one year (all in one "shot") since 2003.

Not all wars of the future will look like Iraq or Afghanistan today. We don't know what the future holds. Besides, the Air Force was instrumental in achieving our goals for the first parts of both campaigns. And anybody that says the Air Force is not instrumental even today, simply does not know what is happening in both theaters of those theaters. It has become very fashionable to criticize and take our Air Force for granted. Do they want a return of the Army Air Corps? So what, we are "high-tech". If by "high-tech" you mean flying 40- and 30-year old technology aircraft (B-52, F-15, F-16, B-1, C-130, C-5, etc.), then we are high-tech.

I have to go now. Pil Sung!!!

The Plague

2006-04-13T22:58:00.000-07:00

Zen master Mark from Zenpundit called my attention to an article by Bill Lind published in the DNI website. Here's an excerpt:

The problem is that these contractors are businessmen, and business is a whore. The goal of business is profit, not truth. Profit requires getting the next contract. Getting the next contract means telling whomever gave you the current contract what he wants to hear. If what he wants to hear isn’t true, so what? Just start the “study” by writing the desired conclusion, then bugger the evidence to fit. The result is endless intellectual corruption, billions of dollars wasted and military services that, as institutions, can no longer think.

The plague of senior officer contractors has effectively pushed those still in the military out of the thought process. Meeting after meeting on issues of doctrine or concepts are dominated by contractors. The officers in the room know that if they wave the BS flag at the contractors, they risk angering the serving senior officers who have given their “buddies” the contract. Junior officers, who have the most direct experience with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are completely excluded. They have no chance of being heard in meetings dominated by retired generals and colonels.

Not only does contracting out thinking bring intellectual corruption, it adds a whole new layer of dinosaurism to the thought process. Most retired senior officers’ minds froze in the Fulda Gap many years ago, and that remains their vision of war. Further, any change is automatically an attack on their “legacies,” which they are quick to defend. Twenty years ago, once the dinosaur retired, you could push him into the tar pit and move on. Now he is back the next day in a suit, with a six-figure contract.

My comments:

I would say that the vast majority of contractors I have dealt with are by and large well intentioned. But...they work for a company, a business. The company has to make a profit. The company has to sell its system, its software, its equipment. I always keep this in mind when I talk to a contractor. At the end of the day, many times they are trying to sell something. This gets more "interesting" when there are rival companies trying to sell the government systems that perform similar functions. Then it's a matter of them telling you how much the system from the rival company sucks and how it does not meet the warfighter requirements, and how user-unfriendly and cumbersome the rival product is. On the other hand, the product that their company produces is portrayed as almost flawless. If there are flaws, the developers are always working on them "as we speak"; just wait until version 4.1.2 comes out. The conclusion to the slick PowerPoint slides that accompany the sales pitch...er...infomercial...er...briefing is always pretty much "if you use our product, you'll win the war". Really? I wish it was that easy. The contractors claim these products have taken into account "lessons learned" from the field. It seems to me like they reviewed these "lessons learned" circa 1995. Any suggestions to incorporate improvements based on current experience might not even be taken into account. The system is locked down and we might not be able to add new features. You have to wait until 2007 or FY 08 until they are open again for suggestions. It might be me, but every time I make a suggestion (based on a year and a half experience in the Middle East and over a year in Korea, as well as countless exercises) I always get a semi-polite brush off that basically boils down to "don't bother us with the facts". Creativity is stifled. I don't know how the commercial sector works, but I suspect that if we were running a private company with these acquisition, adaptation and fielding practices we would be out of business in a less than six months.

In terms of stimulating thinking, many times I feel like my talent and what I've learned is being wasted. I have to sit down through countless mind-numbing, soul-sucking "system's integration" briefings. I am political science major. My interest in these things is minimal. Even if I had something to say, based on my experience from last year, I doubt that my input would be taken into account. We do a poor job of putting the right people in the right jobs and at the right time. Basically everything you learn while overseas gets lost because you are sitting in a brief that deals with systems and software and integration and interoperability, which is all great but a) there's very little I can do of impact due to my rank and because the fielding process is so inflexible, so rigid and b) I would rather be in a place where I can make a real impact based on my current experience. I would rather learn from somebody who has actually been there recently, than learn some outdated way of doing things taught by someone who's last foray was back in Desert Storm. I might be whining, but this is how I feel. When I first arrived in the Middle East in 2004 I was clueless. Now I know why.

I you think out of the box, you might be labeled a cowboy. Every "innovation" takes too damn long too field. You need a freaking field manual to navigate trough all the different versions of programs that need to be integrated. One piece of software might be finished today, but might not get out to the field until next year if we are lucky. You have to navigate through a Byzantine maze of middle managers and contractors to get anything done. It's frustrating. Meanwhile, we are reinventing the wheel every time we send a new rotation out to the field. But, in the military, we are supposed to "shut up and color". God forbid that a captain would know more about how to fight our current war than a retired lieutenant colonel.

On the topic of PowerPoint. The software by itself is not the cause or the root of the problem. Technology is rarely the problem. The misuse and abuse of technology is what bothers me. You might have some piss-poor analysis supported by fucked-up assumptions, but if your PP presentation looks good, and is formatted right, you are golden. If you slides look kind of crappy because you spent most of you time actually reading and analyzing the problem, you might get in trouble. "Is that Times New Roman I see in that slide? Oh no! Arial is the correct font, goddammit! This will reflect in your OPR, captain. Lack of attention to detail. You cannot lead troops in combat if you can't tell the different between fonts, colors, and formats." You have to make sure all your letters are the right size and in the right font. Having cool animation always helps. if you have a laser pointer, you are the man.

On the topic of blogs. The higher ups really don't understand the concept. A blog is something that, most often that not, needs to be quashed. You can't have JO's and NCO's (let alone two- and three-stripers) running their mouths on the Internets. My advice to the milbloggers out there:

1) Use your blog as an educational tool.

2) Keep the rabble-rousing to a minimum. There are countless sites devoted to demagoguery and you'll just be adding to the noise...we don't need more Malkin wannabes. If you are going to talk politics, be smart about it.

3) Give me some insight, give me some intellectual meat. For the most part, I don't care whether you did laundry or went to the store today, or if you walked the dogs, or had a burrito for lunch.

4) Give me cultural knowledge. Some of the best milblogs give you a sense of "you are there", a sense of place. Learn about the culture of the country you are stationed in. And tell us about it. Give us your take on the "lands of the not-quite right".

5) Talk to other milbloggers. We must learn from each other.

6) Talk to other smart non-military bloggers. Expand your horizons. Be curious. There's a lot of smart people out there. Mingle with people from different circles. Hang out with smart "freaks". Cross-pollination is the name of the game.

That's my rant for now. I got to get on the road. Again.

For more on the subject, read John Robb's post on his blog and Mark's take on Zenpundit. The Small War Council also has a dicussion forum on the subject of PowerPoint buffonery.

Thoughts and Considerations for COIN Ops

2006-04-10T00:11:00.000-07:00

I've been doing some analysis in the hopes of understanding the nature of successful COIN ops. These are some of the random insights I've gathered, some through my time in the AOR, some through reading of history and other sources:

1. Military force should be employed in a highly precise manner. To defeat the insurgents you are going to need to use military force. That is a given. You are going to have to fight them. However, the military option is just that, an option. Insurgencies are defeated by strategies that combined military and political options. Military offensives should consider impact on the civilian population and be primarily conducted when there is credible intelligence on high-value targets and concentrations of enemy combatants.
Example: US unit conducts raid against suspected enemy residence. US unit conducts military tactics that end up alienating all residents of suspected enemy location and their neighbors. US unit conducted op based on shaky intel. Suspected enemy location turns out to be the wrong house. You keep doing that enough times and the local population will turn into your enemies even if they were neutral or favorable to you beforehand.

2. Do not underestimate the power of nationalism. We must assume that US forces will be seen as occupiers. We must work our way up from that assumption. A number of influential leaders in and outside the country in question will invariably portray US presence as an imperialistic occupation. Their voices will be heard. Especially if the country we are involved in has a large pool of bored, angry, an unoccupied young men. Nationalism can be strong even within a weak or failed nation state; witness pan-Arab nationalism.
Example: "Wherever, whenever there is occupation, there will be resistance."
Example 2: We are not the only ones guilty of underestimating national will. In Chechnya, the Russians did it too.

3. Be ready to go full spectrum. The US must be ready to conduct operations throughout the full spectrum of operations. This is especially true when conducting operations in the political and military environment of a COIN campaign. The center of gravity(COG) in a COIN campaign is the demographics, the people. The battlespace is in the streets and in the minds of the people. The ideal is to engage the demographic COG in a benign manner. Is not good enough that US forces be well trained in counterinsurgency, but the local forces you train must be as good or better than you at it.
Example: Providing training and equipment to security, firefighting, and medical emergency response units in a effort to improve public safety capabilities of transitional government.

4. It's the economy, stupid. Politics, security, the economy are all tied together in the COIN environment. In the short term, high unemployment just feeds more people into the pool of bored, angry, young men. Economic reconstruction is perhaps the most difficult task in the campaign. The countries in which our forces will be conducting the campaign will be probably be suffering from deep economic problems to begin with. An extraordinary amount of external assistance might be needed before the country in question can operate under its own steam. Also, don't assume that the country's vast natural resources will ensure the quick recovery of the economy.
Example: The assumption that Iraq's economy could quickly recover if the oil fields were not burned. The problems in Iraq's economy were deeper than that.

5. Insurgencies are like water. Insurgencies adapt their shape to wherever they move in the stream. They constantly learn and adapt to the present. They thrive in the complexity and chaos of modern war. They don't have rigid tactics and rarely settle in static positions. The insurgents might fiercely defend a sanctuary for a while. Diehards and suicide squads might stay behind as cannon fodder while the insurgent leadership and high value targets sneak out the back door ready to regroup in another town.
Example: Fallujah. Between 1,200-1,600 insurgents were killed inside the city in Nov 04. Many more insurgents fled the city prior to the operation. Insurgent attacks continued elsewhere in the country.

I've got a few more, but this is me thinking out loud for now.

Random Stuff

2006-04-06T00:30:00.000-07:00

I am blogging "on the road" and from a laptop. Not my ideal setting, but workable.

My template for the blog was all jacked-up, so I changed it. Still getting used to it. Lost all my little customizations, but I can add those later. At least now, FX-Based looks less like Zenpundit. I don't think anybody was getting FX-Based confused with Zenpundit since Mark writes on a wider range of topics and far better than me.

Speaking of Zenpundit, reading his blog I found a posting on the defense-related blog Opposed System Design by Wiggins that reference my "Unnecessary Attachements" posting on 4GW and Other Theories. Here's an excerpt from OSD:

Recognizing the uses and limits of a theory remains a challenge for surprisingly many thinkers. I see the uses and limits of 4GW, NCW and EBO as follow:

4GW
-use: recognizes the power of insurgency and unconventional warfare in a globalized environment
-limit: does not consider the relative vulnerability of non-state actors vs. states

NCW
-use: recognizes the importance of common orientation in military capability
-limit: is all too often is used to reduce war to a technological/operations research challenge

EBO
-use: intelligent targeting of structurally complex systems to generate cascading failures. This enables one to disrupt adversary systems with low costs, producing very high returns on investment.
-limit: not applicable to interactively complex systems, i.e. adversaries as a whole.

I like that Sonny characterizes these theories as tools that warfighters use as appropriate to adapt and overcome unexpected challenges. We naturally understand that tools have uses and limits. Theories, on the other hand, tend to activate our combative tendancies. To point to a theory’s limits often provokes the irate defense of its advocates. More theories mean more tools for the warfighter, and I say bring them on.

Thanks to Wiggins for commenting on my humble writings. I also like the bulletized "pros and cons" for each theory. I am going to elaborate on those three theories in a future post, but here's my quick take based on my real-world experience.

4GW

Believe it or not, I did not know that there was something called 4GW until I read The Sling and the Stone by Col Thomas X. Hammes in December 04. By then, I had already spent close to a year in the Middle East working in support of OIF and OEF. I think that even without knowing that we were fighting a "4GW enemy" we did a pretty good job of understanding that this was by no means a conventional fight. Understanding a concept and applying a strategy based on that concept are two different things though. Personally, this is how I viewed our enemy in Iraq:

Elusive. We were dealing with guys that moved around a lot. Mostly in urban environments.
Mixed-in with the noncombatant population. This significantly limits your options for engagement by increasing the potential for collateral damage.
Will use mosques, schools, cemeteries and other sensitive sites for storage of weapons, billeting and command and control facilities.
Will exploit any perception of collateral damage to the maximum of his ability. Our American reporters might no venture into many areas of Iraq, however, Al Jazeera was usually on-scene within minutes along with the usual guy with a cam-corder that is willing to provide his "home-made footage" to the Arab and international networks. This videos can also be posted on the Internet.

So, we were basically dealng with a sneaky adversary that does not play by our rules. Having read about conflicts in the area prior to my deployment I was not that surprised when I saw some of the tactics used by the insurgents. They basically use whatever technique is practical to fight, (physically and psychologically) against us. Having played as a Red Team in some exercises, I can understand (but not condone) their method of fighting. Now, this is stuff that I knew well before I found out about 4GW. Maybe I was not reading the right books.

NCW

I don't really see NCW as a theory per se. I see it as a way of doing business. Call it NCW or whatever, we have to be able to share information across the battlespace to a host of dispersed units. In today's environment, you simply can't afford to have a collection of stand-alone units and systems running around the place. Personally, when I am in a forward operating location I want to be able to share information with other units in the battlespace, vertically and horizontally. NCW is just the way that we do business in the 21st century. Of course, we can fall into the technology trap, but part of your competence as a leader is knowing the limits of technology. The danger lies in the misaplication of technology, not in the the technology itself. Our military reflect our culture in many respects. We live in a "connected" information-intensive culture; our military will reflect some of that. For many of the kids coming in NCW or whatever you want to call it just makes sense and it's something they will pretty much do on their own. NCW does not need "proponents". It just comes naturally.

EBO

There is some disagreement as to what EBO is even within the Air Force. There are so many ways to approach a problem from an effects-based perspective that many times you will not have 100% consensus on what the best course of action to achieve a series of objectives. Even within EBO, we can use different models (Warden's Rings, Strange Analysis, Barlow's NEV Analysis, System of Systems Analysis, etc) to analyze the situation. No sigle model can account for everything, so basically what we usually do is use a combination of models to look at the problem. The metheorologists don't limit themselves to a single model to conduct their weather predictions. The same applies for strategists.

That's my quick take on those three "theories". I will definitely elaborate in my next post. Hopefully I'll be home by Saturday or Sunday, and I will have more time to write, but who knows?

One more thing before I forget. Dan from tdaxp added FX-Based to his "Great Blogs" blogroll. Thanks Dan! We had a long ongoing discussion on the OODA, PISRR, FFPS, and Attractive Asian Women of Lost Nomad's "Girl Wednesday" post. Click on the link and read the comments sections (below pictures of the attractive Asian race queens, courtesy of Lost Nomad) and judge for yourself. Lost Nomad also has a section called "Girl Wednesday" featuring more Korean hotties.

That's it for now.

Constant Reinvention

2006-04-02T01:09:00.000-08:00

Proteus: His power came from his ability to change shape at will, to be whatever the moment required. When Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon, tried to seize him, Proteus transformed himself into a lion, then a serpent, a panther, a boar, running water, and finally a leafy tree.

The changing nature of our security environment requires that our forces be protean in nature: versatile, mutable, capable of assuming many forms. Our enemies will attack us with sudden shocks, hoping to paralyze us. Our enemies will try their level best to break our physical strength and, more importantly, destroy our mental resilience. Our strategies should not be a matter of learning a sequence of moves or theories to follow like a formula. Victory has no set recipe.

We must be able to operate in the realm of chaos, in the the domain of the unexpected. The future is flexibility. The challenges that we've faced range from deposing tyrants, to disaster relief. We have been trained on how to fight another army, but we've ended up fighting tiny bands of terrorists scattered across cities and mountains. These are times that call for us to be quick, crafty, flexible, resolute. Can our Industrial Age military, perfectly structured to deal with another Industrial Age military, act in this manner?

To effectively operate in this rapidly changing environment might require a control-free approach, with no fixed formulas for command, control, communications or tactics, each operation taking its form in response to inexhaustibly changing circumstances. Think General Douglas MacArthur when organizing his campaign to island hop to the Philippines, telling his air component commander to "keep the Japanese air forces out of my way." That was the only order issue. The subordinate was left to decide how best to achieve the mission. As the Marines 1940 Small War Manual tells us, "the commander in the field must be adapted to the situation in order to accomplish the mission without delay."

Think about T.E. Lawrence when we said, "In a real sense, maximum disorder was our equilibrium." The most significant components in war are quickness and flexibility - the capacity to move and make decisions more rapidly than the adversary. As Col Thomas X. Hammes tells us in The Sling and the Stone, "Freedom to communicate laterally based on commander's intent is the fundamental key to converting today's hierarchical organization into tomorrow's flexible, networked organizations."

We are in the midst of a period in which small number of highly-determined, "super-empowered angry men", with the aid of readily available advance technology could potentially cause as much damage to the United States and its interest as could many foreign nation-states. Unlike for nation-states, we might not have the return address for these super-empowered individuals, if their are even alive after they commit their atrocities.

America's new enemies derived their lethality from their fluid yet determined efforts to exploit our weaknesses. In some instances, our weakness stems from a perception that the US is more involved in chasing oil or its own domestic interests than in alleviating the problems of the population, as happened in Iraq. Another weakness is our lack of cultural awareness; in many cases, we simply have failed to know the enemy, and have actually made new enemies by humiliating Iraqis in their own homes. Rule Number One of COIN: Don't Make New Enemies. You are already in a swamp full of alligators.

If you ever get to slide 108 of Colonel John Boyd's "Patterns of Conflict" not so "brief" briefing, you'll see it right before your eyes; he gives you some tools, we must never assume that the fairness of our cause is obvious, we must, "undermine the guerrilla's cause and destroy their cohesion by demonstrating integrity and competence of government to represent and serve needs of people—rather than exploit and impoverish them for the benefit of a greedy elite."

Military analyst Andre Beufre writes, "I have the impression that what the Tet offensive was really aimed at was what has in fact been achieved: to confer international political significance upon the Vietcong, to ruin the prestige of the Americans and of the South Vietnamese government, and to restore better control over the countryside. In sum, the Tet offensive appears to have been much more of a psychological than a military operation."

For Americans, the success of the Vietnam war depended mostly on the military. After our success in WWII and Korea, we were pretty sure that we could beat the enemy. If we could just locate him and then somehow persuade him to come out and fight, where he would then be efficiently killed through devastating American firepower. The North Vietnamese saw the war in a different way. The Communist knew that their main target was the will of the American people. Year by year, the Vietnamese continued to widen their outlook and studied the war at a macro level. We were reduced to thinking in small terms, trying to win the war by winning as many battles as we could. At some point, we were mostly reacting to their tempo.

We must be in constant evaluation of the nature of a war based on what is actually happening. We should see things as they are, not as we want them to be. As Mao explains, "If (our plan) does not correspond with reality, or if it does not fully do so, then in light of our new knowledge, it becomes necessary to form new judgments, make new decisions, and change the original plan so as to meet the new situation".

4GW and Other Theories

2006-03-25T20:37:00.000-08:00

From FOURTH-GENERATION WAR AND OTHER MYTHS by Antulio J. Echevarria II

The major wars of the 20th century also show that political,
social, and economic capabilities were, in many cases, employed
to the maximum extent possible. Some historians go so far as to
maintain that World Wars I and II were, in effect, examples of “total”
war precisely because of the extent to which the major combatants
mobilized the elements of their national power. Even the theoretical
offshoots of netcentric warfare, which 4GW rightly rejects, recognize
the need to integrate all the elements of national power in the pursuit
of strategic aims. The problem is that this notion of total integration
has become the new mantra; the idea itself has almost been elevated
to a panacea for the various ills plaguing the American way of war.
The fundamental rub, which even 4GW advocates do not address, is
how to coordinate diverse kinds of power, each of which operates in
a unique way and according to its own timeline, to achieve specific
objectives, and to do so while avoiding at least the most egregious
of unintended consequences. It is one thing to assert that all the
elements of power must be coordinated to meet the challenges of
this century, it is quite another to think through the next level of that
problem, and figure out how.

CONCLUSION

In sum, there is no reason to reinvent the wheel with regard to
insurgencies—super or otherwise—and their various kin. A great
deal of very good work has already been done, especially lately, on
that topic, to include the effects that globalization and information
technologies have had, are having, and are likely to have, on such
movements. We do not need another label, as well as an incoherent
supporting logic, to obscure what many have already made clear.

The fact that 4GW theorists are not aware of this work, or at least
do not acknowledge it, should give us pause indeed. They have
not kept up with the scholarship on unconventional wars, nor with
changes in the historical interpretations of conventional wars. Their
logic is too narrowly focused and irredeemably flawed. In any case,
the wheel they have been reinventing will never turn.

My Comments: Unnecessary Attachments

Theory cannot equip the mind with formulas for solving problems, nor can it mark the narrow path on which the sole solution is supposed to lie by planting a hedge of principles on either side. But it can give the mind insight into the great mass of phenomena and of their relationships, then leave it free to rise into the higher realms of action.
On War, Carl von Clausewitz

One of the things that can weigh us down in dealing with today's conflicts is an unnecessary attachment to a single theory or doctrine of war, be it EBO, NCW, or 4GW. No single theory or perspective can explain the totality and all the phenomena associated with what is perhaps the most complicated of human endeavors: war. In science, no single theory can't explain all aspects of a phenomenon (e.g. general relativity, quantum mechanics); the same applies for warfare. Neither the generational warfare model, nor EBO or NCW, represent, by themselves, a "theory of everything" regarding war.

It can be beneficial to study the concepts pertaining to each theory, but getting married to a single theory can prove to be detrimental. They way I see it, as warfighters we really have no dog in this academic fight. We should be fighting the war, not the doctrine. The concepts we learn studying the different theories live in our minds (not necessarily in our hearts), but ultimately when it comes time to take action we should try what suits each occasion best, regardless of whether it conforms to a theory or another. We have all this concepts in our toolkit, and that's precisely what these concepts are: tools for understanding certain aspects of warfare. No single tool is appropriate for every job.

The generational model of war, of which 4GW is a part, is more a representation of a different viewpoint than a reinvention of the wheel. What we now call insurgency has been a part of warfare since antiquity. 4 GW looks at insurgency, and war as a whole, from a different standpoint. The 4GW proponents added another layer to the discussion of war. If nothing else, they revitalized the concept. Whether you agree with 4GW or not, the discussions generated by the theory at least are getting us to talk about a topic long neglected by the military: insurgency and unconventional warfare.

Globalization has changed many aspects of our lives; commerce, politics, and or course, the way human beings wage war. Technology also changes how we fight, whether we like it or not. Even the "low-tech" insurgents and terrorists adapt technologies to their advantage.

In his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman talks about the democratization of technology, finance, and information: "three fundamental changes-changes in how we communicate, how we invest and how we learn about the world."

Fareed Zakaria in The Future of Freedom adds, "We often read during the roaring 1990s that technology and information had been democratized. This is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, technology helped reinforce centralization and hierarchy. For example, the last great information revolution--in the 1920s involving radio, television, movies, megaphones-had a centralizing effect."

The democratization of technology and information along with the weakening of the state has contributed to what Zakaria calls the democratization of violence. To those factors, I add the post-Cold War resurgence of ethnic and religious conflict. 4GW is growing on fertile ground.

Peaceful and hostile non-state actors have benefited from these democratizations. You can get in touch with anyone across the world cheaply and exchange news, make arrangements for your latest cocaine shipment, or put the finishing touches on your terrorist attack. The fact that governments can intercept some of these communications will not stop a determined adversary. They have ways to go around that.

The discussion on 4GW and insurgencies will remain front and center for a long time. Neither 4GW, NCW, or EBO deserve a blanket disapproval. Each perspective offers something useful in understanding certain, but not all, aspects of warfare.

Topic: Iraq

2006-03-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

Boston Globe, March 6, 2006, Pg. 1, Filling A Void, Iraqi Militias Assert Authority, Outlawed units expand reach, By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff, BAGHDAD -- In the ranks of the Mahdi Army militia, the deadly sectarian fighting that took Iraq to the verge of civil war wasn't so much a crisis as an opportunity.

A warrior sees every crisis as an opportunity. Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army is composed of primitive "warriors", who are very comfortable with inflicting violence. Warriors who have no stake in civil order in Iraq. In fact, they would rather see civil war than civil order. Sadr and his army will never play by our rules. The many disappointments of reconstruction in Iraq will bring these warriors back again and again. We can outlaw their militias and declare cease fires, but these primitive warriors do not respect treaties, and do not follow orders they don't like.

Moqtada al-Sadr is a supporter of violence in Iraq. He believes the clergy should play a direct role in politics. Unfortunately, his concept of political dialogue is broad enough to include the murder of rival Shiite clerics like the Grand Ayatollah Abd al-Majid al Khoi on April 10, 2003, (right after the fall of Saddam Hussein), denouncing the members of the Iraqi interim government as puppets in a series of sermons that started as early as July of 2003, and of course, Sadr's supporters have fought multiple bloody battles against U.S.-led troops since 2003.

Popular support in Iraq for reconstruction efforts will increasingly erode as long as characters like Sadr continue to play divisive roles. Sadr has never been willing to give reconstruction a chance. He has been a thorn on our side since the first days after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Sadr has been nothing but a source of instability in Iraq; many times he has called for a national rebellion against foreign troops in Iraq.

Sadr is particularly popular in Sadr City (named after his father), the over-crowded Baghdad slum where many Iraqi Shiites have been encouraged to cast their lot with Sadr's militia group. Sadr City has been suffering from neglect since the time of Saddam when the slum was called Saddam City. Sadr City has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting between U.S. troops and Shiite militias. More than Najaf or Karbala, Sadr City will always be the center of any Shiite rebellion in Iraq.

We had made some progress in Sadr City. Progress that Sadr tries to negate. The residents of this sprawling slum will be, for the foreseeable future, somewhat wary of American presence, but they have responded positively to reconstruction efforts. Money, clean water, and electricity, along with security are always good ways to make friends. However, Sadr's vision does not include American-led reconstruction efforts.

If you thought is was tricky to fight the Mahdists inside the Holy City of Najaf wait until you see combat is a 3-million person slum. The key to victory in a place like that lies with the Iraqis themselves. Any increase in U.S. led combat operations in Sadr City will inevitably stir our over-sensitive Western consciences and it can also incite more demonstrations throughout the Islamic world.

Sadr may finally give in to a just and sincere peace--but only when his other options include Bradley fighting vehicles, Apache gunships and F-16 jets. A thug like Sadr will not be cowed by spoken reprimands from diplomats and politicians. Al Sadr represents a major threat for U.S. plans in Iraq. He is opposed to any kind of U.S. influence in Iraq. He has managed to carve out an important role in the Iraqi political scene, but is not content with peaceful solutions. He exploited the outbreak of Shiite-Sunni violence to expand his reach. He is linked to radical Islamic groups (Hizballah) and regimes (Iran, Syria) in the region. The Mahdi Army is does nothing but weaken the Iraqi government's authority.

Sadr's vision for Iraq is very different from what the U.S. would like to see. Sadr belives that Iraq should become an Islamic state. There is no room for true democracy in Sadr's theocratic vision.

We have to come up with a strategy for success in Iraq. It is not too late, but time is running out. We have to help the Iraqis rebuild their nation while dealing with insurgents, militias and an impending civil war. Many young, unemployed Iraqis seek the immediate relief of joining a militia that fills the void of what is perceived as a slow reconstruction. The more the militias grow the more the chances increase of a full-blown civil war in Iraq.

Establishing security should be our first priority in Iraq. Security is the crucial precondition for any functioning state.

For 30 years Iraq was neglected by Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, who spent more time building palaces than creating a viable nation. We've had 3 years to rebuild from this neglect. And we've have done under downright dangerous combat conditions, reconstruction fighting insurgents and militias along the way. What sometimes saddens me is that we need to keep reminding the American people how much has been accomplished.

Back in Virginia

2006-03-17T21:46:00.000-08:00

Well, I survived my latest US Gov-sponsored trip and I finally made it back to the beautiful state of VA., where my home-base is located. On my way back, I also had a chance to stop in Nellis AFB, and of course I had to go to nearby Vegas. This time around, I spent more time in Caesar's Palace. I always wonder what the ancient Romans would think of that place.

If you have ever traveled with the US military, you are probably painfully familiar with the concept of "hurry up and wait". Basically your showtime would be some ungodly hour like 0500hrs, but you end up leaving at 1300hrs, if you are lucky. I see this as an opportunity, rather than a curse and I use this time waiting in base terminals to catch up on my reading, so I always pack a few paperbacks (hardcovers are too heavy and bulky) in my gear. This time around, I packed two books: Emergence by Steven Johnson and Warrior Politics by Robert Kaplan.

I am interested in the subject of spontaneous intelligence, especially as it relates to warfare, and Emergence provides an excellent overview of this phenomenon. Johnson does not delve into the military implications of emergence, but it provides some insight into the growth of gradually intricate actions among simple parts. Intelligence is born out of connectivity. The study of emergence is essential to understanding our current nonlinear battlespaces.

Ever since I read Imperial Grunts, I decided to read every book by Robert D. Kaplan. In my opinion, Kaplan really gets it. Some may say that he is somewhat pessimistic, but I am also pessimistic by nature and I'm always thinking about the worst-case scenario. Warrior Politics is a fairly comprehensive essay/book on that argues for a practical approach to foreign policy instead of idealistic high expectations. Good government emerges only from a "sly understanding of men's passions".

That's it for now. I need to get some rest now.

A Busy Stretch

2006-03-13T21:59:00.000-08:00

Finally I have time for a quick post. The weekend before my trip out of town, I attended a martial arts seminar that my dojo was sponsoring here in the area. It was awesome. Other than learning some useful physical things concerning personal defense, we also had some good philosophical discussions on the nature of conflict. Conflict in its broadest sense, from war between warring factions to one-on-one combative situations.

There are other options to the natural instinct of fight-or-fight. In fact, to think of possible reactions to conflict merely in terms of this dichotomy, considerable limits our array of options in responding to a challenge.

Running away is almost never a good option. We can't run away indefinitely. We might be merely postponing the inevitable. There are times when running is not an option. There are times when we have to fight. Some challenges have to be met head on. One of the big unknowns is how we are going to react in a combat situation. You never know until you are there. I find that the most exposed you are to conflict, the most comfortable you become with it. Suppressing emotions is important. Time plays tricks with your mind. Thirty seconds feel like two hours. Two hours feel like thirty seconds. And when all is said and done, your knees feel weak. You feel like right after having sex.

To constantly be in a fight is a sign of failure. To constantly be flying from our attackers is not a sign of success. The third option is strategy.

No matter the outcome, conflict is always costly. Even the winner can lose something in the process. You have to know the type of fight you are getting into so you can formulate your strategy. Having done some boxing when I was a teenager I had to adapt my style to karate when I first started sparring in my dojo. In boxing, you are in for the long haul. You guard yourself differently. You can take a few hits. In competitive karate, the lighting strike is emphasized. You can get hot once and the match is over. You cover more of your body since your sparring partner can use his legs he has more weapons at his disposal. Boxing is more brute force and stamina. Karate is more about strategy: how can I hit you, fast, without getting hit myself.

It helps to know both forms, boxing and karate. Before a fight, you have to be able to judge if it's going to be short of long. Sometimes is best to go in hoping for the short fight, but ready for the long one. All this we must take into account when we formulate our strategy to deal with the challenge.

Strategy is the ultimate alternative. Strategy combines fight, flight, posture and even sometimes, submission.

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I should be going back home sometime this week. It's been really busy out here. Long hours. Hopefully, when I get home, I'll be able to make more coherent posts.

Sonny On the Road

2006-02-26T23:19:00.000-08:00

I'll be out of town for a few weeks (I hope 2 weeks, but it might be more). I don't know if I'll be able to post much during my time away from home. For OPSEC reasons, I don't really want to say where I'm going, but I doubt I'll have time or access to an internet connection long enough to post. Actually, finding time to post might prove more difficult. I am taking my laptop with me, so I'll be able to write. But, it seems like we are going to be busy. Last time I was out of town, I stopped in Vegas on my way home. Here's a picture I took of the Chinese Garden at the Bellagio. Now I have to finish packing and figure out what books to take on the road.

Topic: Iraq

2006-02-24T02:20:00.000-08:00

New York Times, February 23, 2006, Pg. 1, Blast At Shiite Shrine Sets Off Sectarian Fury In Iraq, By Robert F. Worth, BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 22 — A powerful bomb shattered the golden dome at one of Iraq's most revered Shiite shrines on Wednesday morning, setting off a day of sectarian fury in which mobs formed across Iraq to chant for revenge and attacked dozens of Sunni mosques.

The insurgents are in a fight in which they don't have to win. At least not in the traditional sense of the word. Simply staying in the fight is considered a victory for the insurgents.

The insurgents are going the "soft" way. The soft target way. And that's a good thing for them. Relatively early on, the insurgents realized that taking on Coalition forces head on was suicidal. The last straw came in the form of the battle for Fallujah. Once and for all, the insurgents realized that congregating and "holding ground" in a city actually plays to the strengths of the US military. Going the soft way for the insurgents means, forget holding a city, forget setting up sanctuaries and congregating in one geographical area, forget force-on-force engagements with the US, it means concentrating on soft civilian targets.

Thinking Like an Insurgent (My exercise in thinking like the enemy)

As an insurgent I can still attack the US troops without confronting them head-on, I can set up IEDs and still keep a steady flow of casualties. But I am going to concentrate in lucrative soft civilian targets. My chances of success and survival are better in most cases when I go with a soft target. Striking a very significant soft target, like the Shiite shrine in Samarra gets me more local and international attention than if I killed several US troops. And my chances of surviving and setting up other attack are far better.

Bombing a politically, religiously and ethnically important target like a Shiite shrine provokes chaos more effectively than if I try an attack against the well-trained US forces. It intensifies the civil war that's already in progress in Iraq. Because this is already a civil war. Chaos also halts whatever progress the Iraqi government can gain. I can create chaos and show to the world that the US is not in control. That the Iraqi government is not in control of the situation. It shows that I can pick and choose where and when I strike and that I can cause the US and Iraqi government forces to operate in damage control mode for a while, until I attack again. I don't have to attack every day, or even every week; I just need a steady flow to keep me in the minds of my opponents. As soon as they recover from their damage control posture, I hit again. My aim is not to knock them down, but to wear them down.

I know that the fury is already there. The Sunnis hate the Shiites. The Shiites hate the Sunnis back. Both Sunnis and Shiites hate the Kurds. An the US is in the middle. And we can all hate the US together. And blame them for everything that goes wrong. I just have to stir up the fury. Blowing up a golden mosque should do the trick and then some. Provoking chaos is easy in Iraq. I have to undermine the political gains that the US forces and Iraqi government have attained. Denying victory is my game.

By striking a sensitive and soft target I can initiate a chain of revenge attacks. I know that if I bomb a Shiite mosque, the Shiites will be furious. They will react in kind. It all adds to the chaos. All I want is disorder at this point. So yes, the Shiites will attack my fellow Sunnis, but that's all part of the plan. The Shiites are kind of helping me out by reacting with more violence. The US and Iraq troops will be tied up for a while. I can plan at my leisure and then surface again in a few weeks. This is a home game for me. I am not longing to go home. This is my home. I can work the chaos until I die. And then, others will probably take my place.

The chain of revenge attacks that I set up when I hit a soft but lucrative strategic target ties down manpower and equipment and disrupt operations. Disruption, more than destruction is my game. Anything I can do to disrupt the country's already shaky economy will help me in my struggle. Is this a civil war? Even an optimistic assessment of the situation will conclude that this is at leat a low-level civil war. Remember back in the fall of '03 when this was a low-level insurgency?

Some Thoughts On Blogging

2006-02-23T00:10:00.000-08:00

First, if you happen to be reading this blog, after you are done here, please visit these other blogs that I recommend, in alphabetical order:

Global Guerrillas: John Robb has a very clear and concise way to explain the trends that currently dominate our current war. If you are remotely interested on military subjects and finding out about the dark side of globalization, please click on the hyperlink.

Phatic Communion: My favorite blogs are the ones that promote out of the box thinking. I get enough of "we can't do that" in the military, so the blogosphere is a great oasis of open, intelligent thinking, sort of a more disciplined version of "anything goes". More disciplined because other bloggers, or readers can call you on the carpet in the comments section if you stray too far into bullshit territory. I hope that made sense. Anyway, click the hyperlink to Curtis' site and you'll see what I mean.

tdaxp: If you want a serious trip, go to this site. Dan discusses all kind of subjects ranging from warfare to Lebanese babes. It's all done with a healthy sense of humor, but under the humor, you will find the larger truth.

Zenpundit: This is where I find out what going on in terms of ideas. The way I see it, Zenpudit is a blog of ideas. Mark will bring to your attention some of the best ideas and writing on the blogosphere and the greater internet. One of the first sites, after the Early Bird, I read every morning to find out what's going on.

OK, now to some of my thoughts...

I started blogging to keep some of my thoughts organized. To keep track of some of the things I was reading or working on. To force me to write on a regular basis. Having other people read what I was writing was secondary. But, if you put things on the internet, somebody will eventually find it and notice what you write. Although this sometimes makes me a little uncomfortable, it kind of forces me to write better and it also puts my thoughts under the scrutiny of other people. Blogging has really exposed me to things that were unknown to me before. There is really a stimulating exchange of ideas in the blogosphere. We get to actively participate in dialogues instead of passively receiving information. Pretty much every blogger has a comments section where you can comment and react immediately to what they have posted. I wish TV had that. In fact, I don't really watch TV; I find it numbing.

One of the dilemmas of a military blogger is that you can't blog about everything you know or have seen out there in the field. I've been back from Southwest Asia since summer 05, and even though I still know what's going on "over there", I base my postings on open source reporting peppered with unclassified comments based on my experiences on the subject. You won't find secrets on FX-Based.

I wish I had more time to blog, but I have to work a lot of hours. Like many of the troops back from the field, I am know working towards bettering our force based on what I've seen out there. I can mainly affect things in my career field and that's, of course where I concentrate on. Not a job as big as the generals who are working towards transforming whole services, but nevertheless important.

One of the most difficult things about blogging is picking out subjects to blog about. I also want to make justice to the subject I am blogging about.

OK, now I have to work on another post.

Topic: Iraq: Three Spheres

2006-02-17T21:14:00.000-08:00

The sooner we realize how resilient the insurgency in Iraq is, the sooner we will beat it. The United States military has a single engagement with the insurgents in Iraq, however, in an insurgency, fighting on the battlefield is only one the many arenas in which we must excel to win. The war in Iraq started as a pseudo-third generation warfare (3GW) affair (pseudo, because in the information age, a pure 3GW is almost impossible to wage) and now, of course we are facing a 4th generation warfare opponent.

The Iraqi insurgency operates as a network. Networks are resilient organizations. Why is this network so robust, yet flexible?

The Iraqi insurgency operates within the most active Islamist theater of operation

The jihadists operate a worldwide network that, much like our own U.S. military regional combatant commands (CENTCOM, EUCOM, PACOM, SOUTHCOM, etc), is divided into theaters of operation. There are Islamist groups operating in the Americas, Western Europe and North Africa, however, the most active theater for the jihad is the Greater Middle East. Iraq is located in a central position (geographically and politically) within this theater.

Iraq's geographic position - borders with Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran - allows the relatively easy flow of people (recruits, supporters, etc), materiel, money, doctrine and techniques. Bombings, suicide attacks, kidnappings, beheadings and other terrorist activities are common activities in this theater. Al Qa'eda (a predominantly Sunni organization) has regional partnerships in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kurdistan with a presence in Jordan and in mostly Shiite Iran. Affiliation with Al Qaeda does not imply direct sponsorship or control from a core Al Qaeda leadership (who is mostly on the run anyway); Al Qaeda (as a movement, not an organization proper) provides influence, not direction.

If the Sunnis operate under the umbrella of Al Qaeda, the Shiites have their own (though interconnected) associations and blueprints for the region, particularly Hizbullah, an organization capable of conducting operations throughout the entire theater. Basically, the Middle East, more than any other theater, provides an optimal environment in which a Islamic insurgency can operate.

Iraq is literally in the middle of that optimal environment for insurgency and our troops have to operate inside that environment. The optimal environment for insurgency is compounded by the fact that Iraq is a very weak state. Saddam Hussein's rule crippled Iraq's economic growth since the early years of the Iran-Iraq war. The fall of Saddam's regime also exposed deep fracture lines in the impoverished country. The insurgency operates in an environment or ecosystem that contains multiple spheres.

The Religious/Ideological Sphere. According to CENTCOM, in terms of manpower, 90 percent of the members of insurgent and terrorist groups in Iraq are Sunni and native Iraqis. At the most, 10 percent of the insurgents are foreigners. While small, the foreign element is mostly Sunni. The foreign element of the resistance is predominantly violent and composed of Islamic fundamentalist that go to Iraq to wage jihad. In addition to personnel, the foreign element offers financial and material support to the insurgency.

This majority Sunni in the insurgency (whether native or foreign) share common ideological roots based on the precepts of Neo-Salafism. So, even though the Sunni insurgents are organized under dozens of groups, most of them share the same ideology: broadly Salafi in orientation. Since Salafism and Wahhabism (both movements advocate a "purist" and authoritarian outlook of Islam) originated and has flourished in the Middle East, logically there a more Salafist per-capita in the region than in any other part of the world.

Throw an "Infidel Army" into this Salafi-rich environment and you have a recipe for discord. I am not saying that all Iraqis or Arabs are Salafists or Wahhabist, but certainly, the ideas advanced by both of these variants of Islam have a more fertile ground to grow in the Middle East than in any other region. Our involvement in Iraq demonstrates that the native, civilizational, tribal, religious, and political issues present in such ideological war have to be fought out mainly by our Iraqi allies on the ground and other Islamic states. Iraqi leadership is paramount in this war.

The problem is one of different interpretation of the same events. We see our troops as liberators, the Iraqis initially saw them as liberators who removed Saddam, but then the troops were seen by many as an unwelcome foreign element, as invaders. According to an ABC News poll results released in December of 2005, half of Iraqis, when asked, said it was wrong for U.S.-led forces to invade in spring 2003, up from 39 percent in 2004.

The Cultural Sphere. Our troops in Iraq operate inside an Islamic and mostly Arabic cultural sphere. There are problems inherent with a Western armed force operating inside an Islamic country. Jihadist groups inside of Iraq share the Islamic faith with most of the population while our troops, infidels in the eyes of many Iraqis have to work inside a population that often identifies them as "invaders" and "crusaders".

The insurgents and the Iraqi population also share Arabic as a common language. One of our weaknesses is our lack of troops proficient in foreign languages, specifically Arabic. Small wars tend to be less net-centric and more human-centric. Small wars usually not won or lost on the battlefield, they are won on the political and cultural realms. Small wars are face-to-face affairs were our formidable military technology takes a backseat to personal relationships.

Iraq is a semi-industrialized country with a relatively decent road infrastructure. This allows insurgent groups from remote parts of the country to communicate effectively, and sometimes train together. The fact that it is relatively easy for the insurgents to share information contributes to shared consciousness. The insurgents also share a common Arabic and Islamic civilizational overlay with the Iraqi population in which they reside.

To wage a war in the cultural sphere interoperability is key, and by interoperability I mean the seamless integration of all the agencies (US military, Iraq security forces, intelligence services, civilian government, etc.) into a combined plan of reconstruction, that while national in scope is managed at the local level. Each region, each town in Iraq is unique and our approaches need to account for those differences.

As Westerners, we take for granted our ability to evaluate credible information-we consider sources and always keep a healthy dose of skepticism; this is a product of living in a democratic society and exposed for years to a number of media outlets and information sources. The Iraqis are just now experiencing the possibility of information being disseminated without the approval of a totalitarian regime. For many Iraqis, what we in the US would call urban legend, they perceive as fact. Conspiracy theories concerning the American presence abound. The battlespace in Iraq is as much in the streets and roads as it is in the minds of Iraqis.

The Personal/Human/Psychological Sphere. We discussed the big picture that is the Islamic civilization; then we moved to the medium size picture that represents the Iraqi culture; now we move to the personal, the human or psychological sphere in this conflict.

To survive in an totalitarian regime, the majority of the population is stripped of personal power. The way to gain power is through a patron and not though personal accomplishments, merits, or talent. Once you have a patron you can improve your life a little bit, provided you are passive and don't rock the boat, and demonstrate devotion to your patron. The Iraqis had to live under this conditions for decades. The liberation of the Iraqi mind is still ongoing.

More than physical effects the insurgents rely on psychological effects to achieve their goals. The insurgents know that it is impossible to physically destroy or even put a significant dent in the U.S. armed forces in Iraq, but they want to mentally wear down who they consider to be occupiers. The attacks also aim to create alienation between the so-called occupiers and the general population who blames the US and Iraqi government forces for not providing security and, in the case of the US forces, for perpetuating the dangerous situation by overstaying their welcome.

In Iraq, chaos erupted when we removed the crucial piece that was ruthlessly keeping it all together: Saddam Hussein. Crime spread like wild fire after the removal of the regime. We all remember the images of widespread looting across the country. The perception was that nobody was in charge. The Iraqis were simply unable to govern themselves. And we just were not ready to quickly fill in the vacuum.

A Western force in an Islamic country will inevitably cause a civilizational conflict. Our knowledge of Iraq culture and language is sketchy at best. Psychologically, as Americans, we tend to misunderstand other cultures by virtue of our tendency to mirror image every body else. Assuming that Iraqis perceive, understand and act in a way that would seem "logical" to an American is counterproductive to winning the psychological battle.

The way I see it, Samuel Huntington's clash of civilization is alive and well in Iraq. We are facing a opponent that calls for a jihad against all infidels (basically those outside Islamic civilization), and justifies the murder of innocent civilians based on religious decrees. An enemy that engages in ritualistic violence, like the beheading of captives in front of a large audience. The Iraqi insurgency is a very unique modern phenomenon. It has some elements that reflect the 20th century guerrilla wars waged in China, Vietnam, Latin American and Africa, but with a uniquely 21st century flavor: a mixture of religion and ideological factors mixed in with elements of classic tribal warfare a la 19th century British colonial wars all under an Information Age context. A clash indeed.

Net-Centric Discussion: Today's Wars

2006-02-11T22:43:00.000-08:00

Just like our victory in the Gulf War (Desert Storm) was, in many ways, forged in the jungles of Vietnam, our potential future triumphs are being created by the next generation of our nation's military leaders in the streets of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. What are we learning from today's wars? Many discussions, inside and outside of the military, have centered on this issue. Regardless of the discussion in many forums regarding the differences of network-centric warfare (NCW) and fourth-generation warfare (4GW), I suspect that most of our future leaders understand that this is a false dichotomy and that NCW and 4GW are but flip sides of the same coin; they both represent ways in which we are going to be fighting wars in the Information Age. In postmodern war, the old meets the new in peculiar and unpredictable ways. Witness the extraordinary convergence of 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century styles of warfare in evidence in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There are literally thousands of lessons (that apply both to NCW and 4GW) that we have learned from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, here's ten.

1. Don't count on the elusive. The elusive is that which we can't easily understand. Some of our mistakes have come from lack of understanding of our adversaries' internal workings. Basically, we tend to project American or Western values into our adversaries. For example, the US misjudged how the North Vietnamese would react after the gradual-response Rolling Thunder air campaign; they just did not respond to the "signals" in the way that the US was expecting. In Iraq, we misjudged the resilience of the Saddam regime after Desert Storm and then after the Iraq War in 2003, we misjudged the response of the Iraqi population and the growth rate of the insurgency.

The elusive can be assessed, but it can't be counted on. We should not count on best-case scenarios or that the enemy will react with American-like logic. We should concentrate first on what we understand, on the tangible. Victory in warfare (whether NCW or 4GW) is still defined by the application of decisive force at the right time and place. The way we wage war should be grounded in reality and not in dreams or ideology.

2. Don't go to war by yourself. We can win either way, alone or with a strong coalition, but when we go alone we increase our chances of "winning ugly". The more obvious we make our case for war against a potential adversary in the international stage, the more support we'll get from our key allies. No matter how much we bitch about Europe (especially France), I believe that the Europeans are our natural allies.

We took care of the "low-hanging fruit" that was Saddam's regime in Iraq through a preemptive, but necessary war. We could have done a better job of not alienating the Europeans in the process, but that's now in the past. Today, the Iranians and North Koreans are pretty much making our case for us.

Sometimes I wonder if Bush's preemption doctrine died prematurely on the roads of Iraq.

Like Dr. Barnett, I am not so worried that we can't win a war by ourselves; I am worried about the "peace" that immediately follows the conventional portion or "big war".

3. IO the crap out of the battlespace. Information operations or IO are crucial in winning an Information Age war. When it comes to IO, in many cases, the battlespace includes the whole world. This is related to the "elusiveness" lesson in the fact that we are not very good at it. Is related to the "don't go at it alone" lesson in the fact that we went to war with Iraq with a "with us or against us" attitude that has proven to be ultimately counterproductive.

From a regional perspective, in Iraq and Afghanistan the IO fight has been waged as an afterthought. Wars in the Information Age are primarily wars for the hearts and minds of people. This should be easy for us Americans. We are the land of freedom and prosperity. The light of the world. Unfortunately, we are also perceived in much of the world as an imperial (or at least neo-imperial) power. It can be difficult to make the case for Goliath, but it can be done.

4. An initial intense air campaign always helps at the start. We learned that during Desert Storm and now we've made this a part of the American way of war. Nothing can beat airpower when it comes to putting decisive conventional force at the right time and place. Shock and awe still works. This is not to say that airpower can not benefit from the synergy provided by land forces; witness the successes of Desert Storm where the massive amount of ground forces amassed in the Arabian desert acted as an anvil to our airpower's hammer, the marriage of special ops and airpower to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the closely coordinated maneuvers of Iraqi Freedom that toppled Saddam's regime in three weeks.

Major initial destruction still counts as long as the essential targets are justified. Bombing civilians is counterproductive in an Information Age battlespace. Regardless of what the critics say, when waging war, the US currently takes the most care in not harming civilians ever witnessed by any nation in the history of warfare. It is almost a function of being the Leviathan force that you are going to be condemned for all collateral damage.

5. You need a broad range of capabilities. When you are the US and you face an array of threats from state and non-state actors your options and capabilities need to be equally extensive, from satellites and stealth bombers to infantrymen in close quarters door-to-door combat. Forecasting what our forces will need in the future is very difficult. Usually you don't know what you need until you need it. Our current operations in Iraq do not look like anything we were training for (at least in my service, the Air Force) back in the 90's.

6. Open armored and exposed infantry warfare will be very rare. Our adversaries will likely shelter their forces in cities and populated areas. They will try to compel the US to fight in a urban environment where they can offset our technological prowess. The enemy will take propagandize any strike in an urban area regardless of how justified or collateral damage. The enemy will not stay put in one place waiting for our air strikes.

7. Get the OODA loop in the field. My main criticism of NCW is that, when let loose, net-centricity tends to foment micro-management. This can be the topic of a whole book and is one of the most frustrating aspects of waging post-modern war. The OODA loop is closely related to the sensor-to-shooter cycle that involves finding, fixing, tracking, targeting, engaging, and assessing the results or F2T2EA. We call this F2T2EA cycle the kill-chain. In the Air Force is all about shortening the kill-chain. Matched up to Desert Storm and Allied Force, each of these F2T2EA/OODA loop actions needed a progressively smaller amount of time to be accomplished, with the only exclusion of deciding. The "D" takes a long time if you take it out of the field and put it in the HQ, especially if the HQ is not even in the same country as the shooters.

8. Take advantage of the politization of enemy military forces. Adversary forces associated with a nation-sate will likely have combined military and political responsibilities. In other words, they are structured more to fit the regime's domestic security needs than to conduct joint maneuver warfare operations. Even more so than in the US case, their "D" in the OODA loop will likely be their most limiting factor.

9. Interoperability is key. Since Desert Storm, there's been significant advances in intelligence reconnaissance and surveillance (ISR) fusion and comms connectivity, yet access to information required by field components at the tactical level continues to be widely different among the components. Interoperability is key to joint warfighting. Our services' capabilities need to be seamlessly integrated. We are improving in this area, but we need to get better. This is not an easy task for a modern military force. The good news is that we are probably the best is the world when it comes to interoperability; compared to American standards, potential nation-state adversaries like Iran and North Korea do not have mature combined arms capabilities.

10. We need to emphasize forward leadership. Wars are fought by human beings. No amount of technology will compensate for poor leadership. We have the technological edge, but more importantly we have the leadership edge. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars of people. Our tactics in both countries rely more on the leadership of our company-grade officers and NCO's than on technology. Leadership and not technology is what makes our armed forces the best in the world.

The revolution has already happened and was partially televised. Regardless of all the debates in what we call "the corridors of power", captains, majors and NCO's are the ones who quietly implement revolutions.

Suggested Reading:

Blueprint for Action : A Future Worth Creating. Thomas P.M. Barnett. The book starts with a debate on the false dychotomy of NCW and 4GW. After that, it gets better.

The Tiger's Way: A U.S. Private's Best Chance for Survival. H. John Poole. Our adversaries prepare to outwit our technology, and take on many times their number.

The Challenge of Command: Reading for Military Excellence. Roger H. Nye. Not directly related to NCW or 4GW, just highly recommended reading for junior officers and NCOs.

Transformation Under Fire : Revolutionizing How America Fights. Douglas A. McGregor. Read this book if you want to understand transformation where is mostly needed: in the Army. Perhaps its only flaw is that it's too Army-centric.

Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War. Evan Wright. For my money, this is the best book written on the "big war" part of the Iraq War. The most accurate presentation of life in the Marines. (I am not a Marine, but I have worked closely with them in Iraq. The Marines rule. Semper Fi.)

Topic: Iraq

2006-02-05T23:14:00.000-08:00

Attacks

According to the Department of Defense, at the end of 2004, the number of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces was around 96,000. That number has grown to 227,000 in January 2006. Today, Iraqi forces outnumber US forces in Iraq, who currently number 138,000. The Iraqi forces are also taking a more aggressive and noticeable role in fighting the insurgency.

The insurgents in Iraq have broadened their target list to include the growing number of Iraqi forces operating across the country. This fact explains the increase in insurgent attacks from 26,496 in 2004 to 34,131 last year, an increase of 29%. The insurgents are definitely aiming for the weakest link in the stabilization forces in Iraq, and that link is the Iraqi forces.

Numbers alone can paint an imperfect picture. Just because the number of attacks jumped 29% from one year to the next does not mean that the strength of the insurgents is growing or that they are "winning". Often what we see in the media is an unsophisticated representation of the problem that simply assumes that more attacks is an accurate measure of insurgent strenght and indicates that we are failing in Iraq.

Numbers are just numbers. Think about it. The 34,131 includes every single attack that the military reports, whether is a car bomb resulting in dozens of casualties or a mortar round that lands in an empty field and causes no casualties. Most of the attacks carried out by insurgents are of the latter variety and totally unsuccessful. The insurgents have about a 25% success rate when it comes to their attacks. Success in this case is defined as attacks that cause damage or casualties.

673 US troops were killed in Iraq in 2005, versus 714 in 2004. The number of wounded dropped from 7,990 to 5,639, a drop of 26%.

The most serious threat in Iraq to our forces comes from remotely detonated roadside bombs (improvised explosive devices or IEDs). This type of attack remains as one of the major problems for the Coalition forces. IEDs caused 900 deaths out of a total of 1,748 combat deaths, or 51.5% during the entire post-Saddam period, from March 2003 to January 2006. IEDs are by any measure the most effective tactical weapon of the insurgents. Things are actually getting worse in the IED front. From July 2005, to January 2006, IEDs killed 234 US service members, out of a total of 369 total combat deaths, or 63.4%. IEDs attacks are successful even when they cause no casualties because they tie down manpower and equipment.

At the strategic level, how effective are these thousands of attacks in swaying the views and behavior of the Iraqi population? According to ABC News fourth installment of "Where Things Stand in Iraq", published last December, Iraqis are far more hopeful about their personal situation than they were in June 2004, when the third installment was published. Seven in 10 Iraqis responded saying that their lives were going well, but paradoxically only 44% of Iraqis say they believe things are going well in their country.

One troubling trend is that suicide attacks increased in 2005. The number of suicide car bombs rose from 133 in 2004 to 411 in 2005. There's also been an increase in the number of successful attacks against Iraqi officials, Iraqi forces, and their families, and well over 2,700 Iraqi officials and Iraqi forces were killed in 2005. There's also been numerous attacks against reconstruction and aid projects to weaken acceptance of the US-led transition command in Iraq. At least 276 civilians working on US aid projects had been killed by March 31, 2005.

Success

If the roughly 25% success rate in insurgent attacks is a good measure of victory the insurgents are failing miserably. There are no indications that the insurgents will be able to significantly increase their effectiveness. Just like the insurgents, we also learn and adapt from our experiences. The insurgents are also unable to establish sanctuaries within Iraq. Witness our success at rooting them out from Fallujah. They can't win any major military battle. On the other hand. The insurgents are limited to attacking our weak spots. That being said, we need to remember that the mission of the insurgent is not to attain victory, but to deny victory.

Winning

We can win in Iraq. Unlike Vietnam, we are not in a quagmire in Iraq. We need to understand that fighting asymmetrical warfare against a savage enemy is meant to be frustrating. If we abruptly run way from Iraq, we would be running away from all the moderates in the Middle East. We would be leaving these moderates at the mercy of the terrorists. Who's going to believe us then when we pledge our support for reform in the Middle East, when we are so quick to turn our back and retreat. War is not easy. Is not meant to be.

Further Reading

Here's a link to The Brookings Institution site, where you can find the Iraq Index, a statistical compilation of economic, public opinion, and security data, updated frequently.

What we really need now

2006-02-03T23:06:00.000-08:00

Things we need more of in the armed forces:

An open exchange of ideas. Currently, we are getting a lot of real-world experience in combat, counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and stabilization operations all over the world (especially, but not exclusively, in Iraq and Afghanistan). We need to make sure that the lessons we learned today are not forgotten down the road. True, each war, each operation is unique, and you can't fight today's war with yesterday's war plans, however, we should avoid reinventing the wheel every time we conduct a new operation.

We need to engage in give and take conversations on how to deal with our current challenges. We need to keep an open mind to ways of addressing those challenges. And keep the free-flowing exchange of ideas. Let's look where we have wasted our energies and resources, where we have lost opportunities. And let the boss know what you think. Don't deprive him or her of the opportunity to learn and grow from what your ideas and experiences.

Today, we operate in a vast information space. The battalion on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan that walks the beat in the same area repeatedly for a whole deployment has a far better notion of what's happening in that part of the country than someone who is far detached. But if that information does not flow up the chain, it can't be combined into an overall assessment. In fact, it's lost to our analysts who's job is to understand the strategic implications of our actions.

As Westerners we come from a tradition of fierce war makers. In large part, our ferocity stems from the fact that we go to war as free men and women. The military is not a democracy, but we come from a democracy and a democratic tradition that goes back all the way to classical Athens. Democracies are unmatched when fighting wars. From the time of Thucydides democracies have been the most adept type of governments at war making. Witness the military prowess of Republican Rome, the Renaissance city-states, Victorian England and democratic America, all democracies (if we expand the classical definition of democracy) that projected military power far beyond what their rather limited territories and populations might otherwise suggest.

Out-of-the-box thinking. We live in a world that is, frankly, all screwed up. A world that, in the large historical arc, is just getting out of 500 years of European dominance and transitioning into more diluted ways of supremacy. We Americans are paying for that now. The Europeans used to physically dominate the world. After the Europeans empires collapsed were left behind to pay the bill. Today we are dealing with deformed areas of the world that are the product of poor border settings. The European empires divided populations that were meant to be together and joined populations that were meant to be apart. We are going to have to deal with the problems that will inevitably arise in those parts of the world (see Dr. Barnett's non-integrating Gap). And every time we go into these places, and take action militarily, we realize the limitations of our military technology.

Our military is in a state of flux, from the Cold War, to the post-Cold War, to the post-9/11, to the post-Iraqi Freedom environment. We are wrestling with how to fight the war on Islamic terrorists while trying to reconfigure the military for future (conventional, and non-conventional) threats. We are playing with different ideas on how to accomplish this. We are finding new ways of organizing our information and our institutions. We are finding new ways of connecting our capabilities.

The very nature of warfare is changing. In the past, competing nations tended to focus on building the largest conventional forces and obtaining the most advanced major weapons. That was part of the theme of the Cold War. The U.S. emerged from the end of the Cold War with unrivaled conventional military forces and with most advanced weapon systems. Basically, if you want to oppose the U.S. you better go the unconventional, and asymmetrical way.

During the last two decades we have been involved in this so-called revolution in military affairs (RMA). We've seen how the RMA has paid off from Desert Storm in 1991 to Iraqi Freedom in 2003. We saw the triumph of these RMA in Iraq in 1991, but we also saw its limitations ever since President Bush declaration of Mission Accomplished in 2003. Now it's time for a new revolution to address our future potential adversaries who are likely to engaged us with asymmetrical means.

If you want to beat out your adversaries, you've got to be able to learn faster than they do on a continuous basis. We need leadership that will bring new insight into this fluid environment. Leaders in the mold of Stonewall Jackson who recognized that the conditions of warfare changed fundamentally between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of our Civil War in 1861. Likewise, we need to recognize that the circumstances in which our forces will be involved in the future will be very different from a purely conventional engagement a la Desert Storm.

We need leaders who can figure out ways to get things done within the unusual, sometimes even strange, constraints of a large organization like the U.S. military. Leaders that figure out how to work the organization, bypass the hurdles, create great collaborations (in the mold of special forces and airpower during Enduring Freedom), and accomplish the mission with success.

Our Will

Our adversaries, either terrorists or hostile states, cannot succeed in either a conventional or an asymmetrical conflict against us, should we bring the complete, total package of our assets to the fight. When our nation's will is fully engaged in war, we can become the fiercest of enemies. Witness our relentless bombing of German and Japanase cities during WWII. We've actually been fighting the War on Terror in a subtle manner with an economy of force rarely seen in warfare from a nation whose homeland has been severely attacked. We need to convince our adversaries that in General Sherman's words "war and individual ruin are synonymous terms".

Topic: Info-centric Warfare

2006-01-28T20:07:00.000-08:00

Much has been said about the need for transformation in our military. Nowhere is transformation more necessary than in the field of intelligence.

Intelligence deals with collection, handling and analyzing information. We need to change how we approach each of these tasks:

Collection. During the last ten years our collection capabilities, (especially related to our "national" technical assets), have improved, but they have also become increasingly important to the warfighter community. Basically, there are more customers for what in the past were considered "strategic" assets. The line between strategic and tactical in constantly being blurred in the different realms of warfare and intelligence is no exception. Our collection assets have to support both military and civilian activities in order to achieve our national goals. Of course, the needs of the military (usually short-term, more perishable, operational and tactical needs) are very different from those of the civilian sector (usually more "strategic" and long term needs). Even within the military sector the intelligence requirements of a battalion commander fighting insurgents in an Iraqi town are very different from those of a regional combatant commander planning for the next potential theater-wide crisis. Additionally, the requirements to support a counterinsurgency and counterterrorist operations (4GW), are very different from those needed to support traditional maneuver warfare (3GW) for a major conflict.

Handling of Information. This deals with how we disseminate and what we do with the information we have collected. If the collection aspect is sensor-centric, the handling aspect is network-centric. Today, we live in a multi-INT environment. No single discipline of intelligence (IMINT, SIGINT, HUMINT, etc.) has all the answers. At the operational and tactical level, in order to put bombs on target and at the right time, you usually cannot rely on a single INT. This is what's called fusion. To make key decisions in our current environment we need fast iteration of information from more than one sensor. That information needs to get to the right player at the right time. In Afghanistan and Iraq (and in any future major operation) this involves analysts from different agencies, handling different kinds of INTs, disseminating intelligence in networks to permit quick responses in support of operational and tactical decisions made under great time pressure and under stressful conditions.

Analysis. The two tasks mentioned above have mostly a technical component (sensors, networks) with the human factor as the unifying component. Analysis is mostly a human challenge. In the realm of defense intelligence, we have are being asked to analyze terrorist threats (long considered a law enforcement problem), as well as conventional nation-state capabilities. Due to the rate of assignments at which we change assignments, there is very little chance that the average military intelligence analyst would be an expert in both disciplines. Even the experts from the defense intelligence community would greatly benefit from consulting people from outside the community on subjects in which we have been traditionally weak (e.g. counterterrorism). Unfortunately, on many occasions, we don't stray from the perspectives of the "cleared", "need-to-know" ("the anointed") crowd. By keeping the analysis within our circles, we might miss patterns that non-cleared experts might see. We need to work a way to use the expertise that these "outside" sources bring to the table without compromising our security.

We are already seeing the changes. But more needs to be done. We are witnessing a fundamental transformation of how we conduct our business. The thing is we have to work on all three domains at the same time. We can vastly improve our collection capabilities, but if we don't improve the way we handle and analyze that information, we would still be facing new threats with old methods.

Back

2006-01-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

I was out of pocket for two weeks participating in a military exercise. I had a blast, but now I am back into my normal routine. I received some feedback from Dan at tdaxp (one of my favorite blogs) and I really appreciated it. His comment pointed me in the direction of one of his best post: a very extensive review on Dr. Thomas PM Barnett's Blueprint for Action. Coincidentally, that's one of the books that I am currently reading.

So far, I like Blueprint for Action (BFA) better than Pentagon's New Map (PNM), the first book in the series. Many of the concepts introduced by Dr. Barnett in PNM are developed and fleshed out even further in BFA. I have not finished the book yet (I am currently in the middle of chapter 3), so I am not going to review it (difficult to top Dan at this point). I can tell you that the books has had some resonance among my fellow young military officers and you will start seeing some of the terms described in PNM and BFA (or some variation) by the current generation of service members.

We have seen it. All of us that have spent years overseas have seen the unstoppable train of globalization sweeping through even the most non-integrating of Gap regions. But of course, globalization has a dark side and there is where I tend to concentrate as a military officer. I am a member of the Leviathan service par excellence, the US Air Force and we've had our share of success in "processing politically bankrupt states" since I came in (Milosevic, the Taliban, Saddam), although we can improve our performance in the second half of the game, the so-called peace, or the mostly non-kinetic portion.

Trust me, we in the Air Force do not believe in fair fights, witness the F-22, the B-2 and F-117. These are aircraft that are in a league by themselves, fifth generation fighters and bombers in a world where other countries can't even come up with something to match our "old" aircraft like the F-15, F-16, and my favorites, the A-10 and B-52.

Of course equipment is just a part of why we are so good in the Leviathan role; our training, organization, and doctrine (the human aspects) are just as impressive as our slick fighters and bombers. Oh, and we have an awesome (but often overlooked) SysAdmin component too, exemplified by our airlift forces.

Our Leviathan forces are a product of the two core competencies Dan alludes to: being rich and wanting quick fixes. We have translated these competencies into a force that can win wars quickly. Unfortunately, you can't win the peace quickly.

Case in point, most of our military exercises involve a conventional adversary du jour (it used to be Iraq, now mostly Iran or North Korea) and we deal with this exercise in less than two weeks with overwhelming force. One of the main problems we have in waging peace is that our Leviathan forces are too good at destruction. The peace is all about reconstruction.

We are impatient precisely because we are rich. Rich people are impatient. And they are able and willing to pay extra to get what they want...NOW.

The traditional military-industrial complex is alive and well in America, so don't worry about it. Do we need a new version of this complex to satisfy the needs of the peace? I honestly, don't now. We would certainly be playing to our weaknesses. By the way, the military can absorb long deployments in Gap regions if these operations maintain a low profile. We did it in El Salvador, we are doing it in Colombia, Afghanistan, Kosovo, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines, and other parts of the world were we are running low-profile military operations. We were bombing Iraq for years before 2003, sending our pilots into harm's way, and hardly anybody outside of the military ever noticed.

We can do one part really well of the process for politically bankrupt states. We can deposed regimes almost at will. Now, this is not easy. But it plays to our strengths. Just like Michael Jordan made it look like it was easy in the basketball court. There is a lot of work that goes behind making it look easy. As a nation, we are the Michael Jordan, basketball player, of conventional war. But we are the Michael Jordan baseball player, of patiently waging the peace.

The issue of whether we should concentrate on our strengths or weaknesses as a nation is fascinating. Our armed forces certainly have the will and the endurance to do what is asked of them, but the military is a relatively small percentage of the population and the military is controlled by civilians who are influenced by a number of political factors that don't necessarily match with the tactical ground truth.

The media usually reports the "easy" stories, Iraq right now, is an "easy" story to report. Not easy to cover, as evidenced by the many journalists that have been killed or kidnapped in Iraq, but easy to report. There's a difference. Low-profile ops are not easy to cover or report, and they are less polarizing.

It would be interesting to see how we develop our peace-waging capabilities in the next decade. It would be mostly an Army and Marines show with the Air Force and Navy in supporting roles. More to come...

Low Profile in Iraq

2005-12-28T22:43:00.000-08:00

Just came back from vacation in an undisclosed location. I am trying to catch up on things. On my way home I was thinking how we can change the character of our involvement in Iraq. Here's my quick version of captain playing general.

Strategy for Iraq: Bottom-line Up Front

Bring back home most of the Army and Marine Units: the equivalent of 8 brigades (somewhere around 65,000) would stay in Iraq to complete the hand-off of security duties to the Iraqi Army. This number will keep dwindling down almost imperceptibly, without much fanfare. Let's not draw attention to this gradual reduction in presence.
Make it a Special Ops + Airpower show: this approach worked (granted, under very different condition) in Afghanistan. It also worked in Fallujah during the summer and fall of 2004, before Op Phantom Fury.
Leave some light infantry forces: the light infantry units that stay in Iraq will have much less of a logistic tail than the current forces and will rely more on helicopters and theater airlift for mobility. This will greatly reduce IED-related casualties. The goal is to have less than 100,000 troops on the ground.

I don't like the terms "pulling out", "withdrawal", or "cut and run" when it comes to what we can do in Iraq. I like the term "lowering our profile". That's probably what we should be talking about instead of the above mentioned terms. It is evident that we are lowering our profile in Iraq, and we should.

Our troops have played an extremely crucial role in all of Iraq's decisive steps towards democracy: the invasion was conducted superbly, Saddam Hussein was deposed and captured, elections in January 05, the constitutional agreement, and then the elections of December 05. All very good things and very important to the overall goal in Iraq. On the side there's the whole WMD issue, the poor planning to respond to the insurgency while in its embryonic stages, and the fact that Zarqawi is still at large.

Our military has been the main character in this drama. To deal with an insurgency you need a strategy that includes more than military operations. The socio-political and economic aspects of the "stability operations" and counterinsurgency portion should also take center stage along with the purely military options. Military operations are one of the means to a final political goal.

One of the main roles of our military right now is to get the Iraqi troops up to speed. You can't train an army - to our standards - overnight. Training an effective Iraqi force that will be able to handle the security mission all by itself will take time and patience. Most of the remaining US light infantry troops in Iraq will be working in training the Iraqi Army and conducting combined operations with Iraqi units.

Our presence in Iraq will still be robust; it will just have a different character. The current mix of forces is not really stopping the insurgency in the country. To be sure, there is no evidence that the insurgency is growing, (and I don't think it is) but at this point the insurgency does not have to grow, they just need to stay in the field, conduct one or two high-profile terrorist operations per week and they are still "in the game". They can't lose, but they don't have to "win".

On a personal note, I think deposing Saddam Hussein and trying to create a stable and democratic government in Iraq was a good decision taken by our leadership. I "supported" the decision. For us in the military, it does not really matter if we "support" or not the decisions made by our leadership. I don't really think in those terms. We have a mission - we assume that our leaders already weighted all the options before deciding to act - and we do it to the best of our ability. The word "support" does not accurately describe what we feel when we suit up to get the job done. If anything, it is the ultimate support. We "support" the effort with our presence, our hard work, long days and nights, our sleepless nights. We, and our families, "support" the effort with our blood, sweat, and tears.

Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the decision to go into Iraq, one has to admit that the post-invasion effort was completely botched due to a lack of planning, vision, and historical knowledge of the area. At first, we were received relatively well by the Iraqis. I had friends who traveled the country doing the ground truth analysis for the bombing campaign during the summer of 2003 and they tell me they felt relatively secure everywhere they went. The same ground truth analysis could not have been done a year later because the security situation had deteriorated so much.

But lets assume that the Iraqis greeted our entrance in 2003 with much rejoice and warmly welcomed us into their country, knowing that we were there to bring democracy, to bring hope. Now, let's do something we as Americans don't like to do. Let's put ourselves in the shoes of another people (meaning not-Americans, Iraqis in this case). When was the last time there was a power outage in your neighborhood? If I told you had to live with six-hours a day of electricity for the next year, would you be happy? When was the last time you heard a loud explosion in your neighborhood? Have you ever heard the sound of a car-bomb explosion? Have you ever heard the screams of the wounded after such an attack? Would you be happy if I told you are going to hear at least one explosion each week for an indefinite amount of time? When was the last time you heard gunfire late at night in your neighborhood? I am talking shots fired in anger. If you did hear gunfire, did you feel safer after you heard it? Wouldn't you like to live somewhere where you did not have to hear this? Where you happy to be in a traffic jam this morning on you way to work? Was there a Humvee in front of you with their weapons pointed at you? When was the last time your house was searched by the military? By the police? Was the search a pleasant experience for you? Granted, these could be seen as mere annoyances in the big scheme of things, but they still matter. I am not even going to go into the number of Iraqi deaths after the occupation. To be sure, Saddam Hussein was running a reign of terror against his own population and it's at fault for the majority of the serious political, economic and infrastructure problems that we are facing in Iraq, but our occupation plan certainly needed to account with more fidelity this serious problems taking into account that the occupation was not going to be a "plug-and-play" operation.

Now is time to lower our profile.

If we leave, will the insurgency mutate into warring Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions? Will Iraq break-up into three different countries?

Will the Iraqi Army that we are currently training be competent enough to deal with the insurgency within the next two years?

At this point, we are playing catch-up when it comes to training the Iraqi security forces. After the fall of Saddam there was immediate coherent plan to bring stability back to the country, and we overlooked the real dangers of terrorism and insurgency. This failure of planning was followed by a failure in reaction as the terrorist and insurgent threat slowly but surely began to emerge in the fall of 2003.

Very little attention was paid to the fact that Iraq was a fractious country divided by Sunni, Shiites and Kurds factions hostile to each other and that the only thing keeping them in check was the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. We deposed the Saddam regime and occupied the country (an army of infidels in the eyes of many Iraqis) and the failed to provide basic needs like electricity and security to the country. Now we find ourselves in the midst of an embryonic civil war in Iraq.

What about the recent (Dec 15) election? Holding an election with such a high turnout (more than 70%) is definitely a step in the right direction. As evidenced by the high turnout, from all religious factions, the Iraqis greeted this chance to vote with a warm reception. In fact, amidst the chaos in Iraq, there seems to be a glimmer of hope. One of the best polls gauging the feelings of Iraqis was recently conducted by ABC News in partnership with Time magazine, the BBC, and Japanese and German news agencies. Here's a quick breakdown on the numbers that I found interesting:

The Good

71 % of Iraqis say their own lives are going well.
Nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead.
More than six in ten Iraqis feel very safe in their own neighborhoods, up from 40% in a Jun 04 survey.
61% say local security is good, up from 49% in the first ABC News poll conducted in Feb 04.
Average household incomes have soared by 60% in the last 20 months (to $263 a month)

The Bad

Nationally, security is seen as the most pressing problem by far: 57% identify it as the country's top priority.
Fewer than half, 46%, say the country is better off now than it was before the war.
Half of Iraqis now say it was wrong for US-led forces to invade the country, up from 39% in 2004.
The number of Iraqis who say things are going well in their country overall is 44%.
52% say the country is doing badly.

The Ugly

Two-thirds now oppose the presence of US and Coalition forces in Iraq, 14 points up from Feb 04.
Nearly six in ten disapprove of how the US has operated in Iraq since the war, and most of them disapprove strongly.
Nearly half of Iraqis would like to see US forces leave soon.
26% of Iraqis say US and other Coalition forces should "leave now", and another 19% said they should go after the government chosen in the Dec 15 elections takes office; that adds to 45%.
31% say Coalition forces should remain until security is restored, with 16% saying that they should stay until Iraqi security forces can operate independently.

Iraq is a very complicated country. The collapse of the Baathist uncovered the country's deep divisions. The US made a series of key strategic errors in dealing with this situation. These mistakes primarily stemmed from a lack of preparation on our part.

We failed to accurately assess the status of Iraq's WMD program. Regardless of the political implications of the WMD issue, the fact that the basis for going to war is currently in question, here and abroad, is hurting our efforts at the moral level of war.
We gave too much authority to the opinion of ideologues. These provided on overly optimistic and idealized assessment of the level of acceptance that our troops were going to face among the Iraqi population.
We completely botched the planning for the significant stability operations efforts that was required after the fall of the Saddam regime.
We did not consider Iraqi nationalism as a factor in the planning. The insurgency - which is mostly composed of Iraqis - exploits this, by portraying the Coalition as occupiers not liberators.
We did not map out a robust information operations (IO) strategy for the Phase IV (stability) campaign.

Now we have a situation in which the Sunni Arabs have lost most of the power they had under Saddam's regime and they clearly resent it and the Shiites now comprise most of the government and the military. At some point, the two factions need to sit down and iron out their differences if they want a unified Iraq. This is easier said than done as there are many sub-factions within both camps.

As far as the insurgency goes is hard to tell if is growing or dwindling in terms of numbers. They are probably neither rising nor diminishing in numbers. When it comes to troops-level for an insurgency, the numbers are always unreliable. Besides, even several thousands of insurgents can do considerable damage to the Iraqi infrastructure and reconstruction efforts and cause a low but steady number of coalition casualties to keep eroding domestic support for the war.

No matter how well things go, the US will continue to have a role in Iraq, but the character of that role will probably shift to accommodate the new reality that we are facing.

So we reduce our footprint well below the 100,000 troops level. The fact that we have so many units on the ground in Iraq - conventional Army fighting irregular forces - is partially why the popular support for the war is eroding so rapidly. Once the troops levels are down - and based on the changed character of the operations as result of the phased-down - the number of casualties should go down too, and our presence in Iraq will have a lower media profile. Remember, we still have troops in Afghanistan and nobody is advocating bringing those troops home. Additionally, we run low profile operations all over the world that the media does not cover because the media tends to go for the "easy story". Remember too that for years, during Operations Southern and Northern Watch we were sending pilots into combat missions in Iraq and the media hardly covered that, why? It was a low-signature operation, with no casualties, and as such it was not "sexy" for the media to cover. So, here are the main points of what I think we should do:

1. Keep infantry units that live, train, and operate in close coordination with Iraqi units. The reins of this conflict should be turned over more and more to the Iraqis. At this point, this is their war to win. And it is a mental war more than it is physical. Our military has done an outstanding job in Iraq, but insurgencies are not won with military might alone. The perception of our forces as occupiers needs to be diminished. True Iraqi leadership needs to surface. We'll hold their hands for a while, but ultimately they have to walk on their own and led by their own people. The more the Iraqis work out their military, political, social and economic problems on their own, the less the better. There is a current perception that if you work too closely with the "American infidels", you will be branded a puppet or worse a traitor in the eyes of other Muslims. Decreasing our presence will help curtail this perception and will lead to more cooperation among Iraqis without this stigmatized American intervention. We don't need a massive presence to achieve security at this point. We needed that in Summer 03 and we blew it. Small groups of our troops working side by side with the Iraqis can make a big difference.

2. Special Operations Forces. SOF working closely with airpower assets has been a staple of both OEF and OIF. SOF operate below the media radar. They gather and respond to actionable intelligence and can request air support for their operations. They are the component of our military that is best trained to handle irregular warfare. They constitute a human network and at such are better equipped to handle the human network of the insurgency.

3. Airpower. I am talking mainly about non-kinetic support (ISR and airlift), with a small percentage actually dedicated to kinetic (ground attack) operations. For the air component the counterinsurgency fight is mostly (sortie percentage wise) an ISR fight. Air and space assets can provide most of your intelligence support (IMINT, SIGINT, etc), except of course, HUMINT. For ground attack ops we'll have joint terminal attacks controllers working with the SOF as spotters for targets. Pretty much what we are doing right now. The Iraqis are not ready to conduct this terminal attack control mission, and I doubt that they will be ready in the near future, or that we will be willing to accept the risk of having Iraqis calling air strikes.

Those are my thoughts for now. I am sure I'll think of some more practical stuff. It's nice to play armchair general every one in a while.

Urban Operations

2005-12-19T22:43:00.000-08:00

I've been out of town for a week, and unable to post. Here's a quick view of urban combat ops from an airpower perpective. Urban operations will probaly be my main focus for the foreseable future with a sprinkling of other stuff I am working on.

In the last 20 years (basically since the end of the Cold War) the United States armed forces have been involved in a wave of urban operations in Iraq, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia, to name the most prominent. Current stability operations in Iraq consist mostly of operations in urbanized terrain. To engage an adversary that's intermingled with noncombatants in an urban environment requires a measured combination of force and finesse. The last thing we want is a Stalingrad or a Grozny situation in our hands. Iraq is a highly urbanized country with many major urban areas connected by a modern system of roads and where the insurgents can move from one city to another with relative ease. The hi-tech version of war that characterized the first phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom does not translate well once were involved in stability operations in an urban environment.

From an airpower perspective, our intentions are not to turn cities into ruins (as happened in Stalingrad and Grozny), but to operate in the urban environment without causing major disturbances to the population. From a kinetic standpoint this means killing the “bad guys” without causing collateral damage. No matter how important the contributions the contributions of airpower are to stability operations in urban environments, the mission is still primarily one conducted by infantrymen: soldiers and marines. Airpower is mainly a behind-the-scenes player in this kind of operation. An enemy mixed together with the civilian population sometimes has to be located and identified using the naked human eye of a soldier or marine on the ground. Fierce fights in hyper-urbanized terrain (Baghdad, Mosul, etc.) where our troops are going against insurgents mixed together with civilians are best fought from the ground. Stability operations are primarily low-tech operations.

That’s not to say that airpower can’t act as a force multiplier in this kind of urban operations.

It is likely that the United States will be involved in more urban operations within the next decade. More and more people in the developing world (or the non-integrating Gap to use Dr. Barnett’s term) are moving into urban areas. Our future adversaries in the Gap will probably operate inside an urban environment in an attempt to negate the United States’ technological and operational advantages. The world is increasingly becoming more urbanized. Insurgents, guerrillas, and terrorists will probably seek refuge in urbanized areas to exploit the limitations of our sensors, weapons, and communications technology. We saw a glimpse of the possible future last year in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. Insurgents might also move between dispersed urban areas as happens in Iraq so that our forces have to “fish them out” from a number of dispersed “seas”.

To be sure, conflict will still be waged in a variety of environments other than urban, (jungle, desert, mountains, ocean, etc.), but the urban environment, with its physical and societal complications is not one that we can continue ignoring in our planning and training for long. Simply put, our smart adversaries will probably operate from a city to increase their survivability. It would almost be unavoidable to conduct military operations in urban terrain. Last year in Fallujah, we saw the prototype of how events might unfold in the future and an example of how the U.S. can conduct combat operations in a built-up area. The major contribution of the air component in this case was the ability to conduct persistent air surveillance, and precision air strikes. Additionally, before the November ‘04 sweep into the city the air component provided a constant presence in the city – via surveillance and strikes - and set the stage for the ground operation. This was particularly important due to the fact that prior to the large-scale ground assault the city was considered denied territory by coalition forces. Fortunately, we were able to keep the pressure on the insurgents and shape the battlespace prior to the land portion of the campaign.

4th Generation Warfare and Netwar: The Basics

2005-12-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

Currently I am reading on 4th generation warfare (4GW) and netwar. As a US service-member serving in the 21st Century much of my career has been spent fighting 4th Generation adversaries: drug cartels in Latin America, terrorists and insurgents in the Middle East. Naturally, I am interested in finding out more about these opponents. Thankfully, there's quite a bit of literature on the subject. The most clear and concise explanation on the subject of 4th generation warfare can be found in Global Guerrillas. John Robb provides details on the subject in a no-nonsense format similar to a military briefing. This is Mr. Robb's definition of 4GW:

4GW can be defined as a method of warfare that uses the following to achieve a moral victory:
Undermines enemy strengths (this may seem obvious, but most of modern warfare has involved direct attacks on enemy strengths -- find the enemy army and destroy it).

Exploits enemy weaknesses.

Uses asymmetric operations (weapons and techniques that differ substantially from opponents).

Another excellent effort to clarify the concept of 4GW comes from retired Marine Colonel Thomas X. Hammes in his book The Sling and the Stone. According to Col Hammes 4GW "uses all available networks - political, economic, social, and military" to achieve its goals. According to Hammes (and anybody in the military knows this is true) we are far better equipped, trained, and - more importantly - psychologically prepared to fight a "short, intense war", like Desert Storm or the "major combat" portion of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Another concept used to describe this multifaceted type of conflict is netwar, described in detail by John Arquilla and David F. Ronfeldt in the RAND publication The Advent of Netwar. This is their definition of netwar:

The term refers to societal conflict and crime, short of war, in which the antagonists are organized more as sprawling "leaderless" networks than as tight-knit hierarchies.

According to Arquilla and Ronfeldt, netwar blurs the line between peace and war, offense and defense. However you want to call it, 4GW or netwar, this kind of war extends beyond the military realm and goes deep into the political, economic and social realms. To use Thomas P.M. Barnett's phrase is a war that occurs within the context of everything else.

Both Global Guerrillas and The Sling and The Stone pointed me in the direction of an excellent article on the subject of 4GW/netwar titled The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation. The article, co-written by William Lind (and published in the Oct 1989 Marine Corps Gazette), is a no-nonsense mini-handbook for understanding modern war. Mr. Lind and his co-authors outline the challenges of preparing for the next war in a 4GW environment.

A great resource full of articles on 4GW is the Defense and the National Interest web site. The article titled "Fourth Generation Warfare" maintains that in our current circumstance we seem to be going back to war being waged by both state and non-state actors with state vs. state war being the exception rather than the norm.

Whether 4GW is truly new or an old form of warfare with a new garment, the fact of the matter is that we are currently still struggling to define the concepts and strategies that will help us fight this type of war. Our leaders are still struggling over how to call the combatants who wage 4GW:

"Over the weekend, I thought to myself, 'You know, (in reference to the Iraqi insurgency) that gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit,'" Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, said of his ban on the I-word.

"It was an epiphany," he added, throwing his hands in the air. Encouraging reporters to consult their dictionaries, the defense secretary said: "These people aren't trying to promote something other than disorder, and to take over that country and turn it into a caliphate and then spread it around the world. This is a group of people who don't merit the word 'insurgency,' I think."

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, standing at Rumsfeld's side, evidently didn't get the memo about the wording change. Describing combat in Iraq, he paused and said, "I have to use the word 'insurgent' because I can't think of a better word right now."

NGA Reinventing Itself

2005-12-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

All right, I've "slacking" on my posting. Reason? I've been extremely busy at work and actually outside work too.

Anyway, part of what I've been researching it's the use of commercial satellite imagery for intelligence and disaster relief by our national intelligence agencies, particularly the National Geospatial Agency (NGA).

The agency is providing much of their support to the Hurricane Katrina and Pakistan earthquake relief efforts using commercial satellite imagery.

This type of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery (1-meter resolution and better) will continue to play an increasingly important role in supporting the imagery needs of our government when it comes to disaster relief and military operations.

So far NGA has been one of the biggest customers of this commercial technology, after recognizing that these commercial satellites provide a much welcomed force multiplier to complement our government satellite systems.

Space Imaging is one of the companies that currently provides high-resolution satellite imagery.

Another company that's involved in this sector is Orbimage. This commercial provider of earth imagery products actually acquired Space Imaging last September.

Orbimage has the high-resolution OrbView-3 satellite in orbit, capable of providing 1-meter resolution imagery.

Last September too, Orbimage received new orders totaling $6.1 M under its ClearView contract with NGA. Clearview is a NGA-commercial satellite sector partnership by which the U.S. government buys imagery collected by existing commercial satellites.

DigitalGlobe is another commercial firm that provides high-resolution earth imagery products and which also supported the Katrina relief with imagery products.

I see all this as the start of the reinvention of NGA from a sluggish government organization to a more agile -and disembodied- enterprise that will closely resemble a professional service firm that delivers outstanding services to its clients. These clients include anything from local, state, and federal agencies involved in disaster relief, to the warfighters on our war on terror.

I am optimistic (optimism ain't for wussies) that our intelligence agencies will be forced to further break with tradition and will be forced -mainly due to "competition" from virtual organizations like al Qaeda and the like- to completely reinvent themselves in the next 15 years. One step towards this reivention is to borrow a page from Forrest Gump: "Don't own nothin' if you can help it. If you can, even rent your shoes."

THE NEW BREED OF TERRORISTS

2005-11-28T10:55:00.000-08:00

I have been studying the 9/11 along with the 3/11 Madrid trains attack terrorist networks. (Great insight from Daniel Benjamin and Steve Simon in their book The Next Attack). The similarities are there but what's more striking are the differences between these two group of terrorists. Those differences are what's worrisome. These are some of the characteristics that the two terrorist groups shared:

Focus. This focus gets more intense as the operation nears its completion. The closer to the attack the more focused the group becomes. All dissent is shed aside for the mission. For the 9/11 attacks a group of 19 young men was even to operate as a cohesive unit even though they were geographically dispersed and split into four separate sub-groups. For the 3/11 attacks in 2004, the terrorists started building the bombs they were going to detonate the day prior to the attack. Once the bomb-making began they really had no rest, did not sleep, until after the attack. Focus and misguided passion are an imperative of all successful terrorist operations.

Coordinated set of actions. Both the 9/11 and the 3/11 attackers took advantage of the synergistic effect created by multiple attacks occurring within a limited amount of time and in geographically dispersed locations. One of the desired effects is to overwhelm the response systems in place. The US has used this technique successfully, particularly during Desert Storm, where the massive air campaign effectively disrupted the formidable Iraqi air defenses, using parallel attacks. The systems in place (NORAD, FAA, NYPD, FDNY) were also clearly overwhelmed during the 9/11 attacks. Among the civilian population this precisely times attacks also create the impression that the terrorists are everywhere, that the threat is not localized. Even though the 9/11 attacks took place in the east coast, the whole United States was paralyzed for at least a 24-hour period. By coordinating their actions the terrorists appear bigger than they really are. The 11 March 2004 attacks consisted of a series of ten explosions that occurred at the height of the Madrid rush hour aboard four commuter (Cercanias in Spain). Thirteen improvised explosive devices were reported to have been used, all but three of which detonated.

Use of the readily available. Both the 9/11 and 3/11 attacks used existingtechnologiess in novel ways. The terrorists did no spend a dime on R&D. This demonstrates that sometimes what matters is not the weapon, but how you use the weapon. Airline jets and commuter trains are not designed as weapons or delivery vehicles for explosives, yet that's precisely how they were used for theseattackss.

A chain of effects. We are still recovering from the damage cause by 9/11. Thousands of lives ended that day, and may more survivors' lives were disrupted and changed forever. Our economy suffered. The echoes of 9/11 stillpermeatet our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Madrid Bombings directly affected the Spanish elections and was the tipping point in Spain's decision to pull out of Iraq. These spectacular terrorist attacks have effects over entire nations, over millions of people across continents and the reverberations of the attacks are still felt years after they occurred.

These are some of the similarities between the 9/11 and 3/11 attacks. The differences are more disturbing.

I'll discuss the differences in my next post.

ON TERRORIST NETWORKS

2005-11-20T14:32:00.000-08:00

I have been studying the work done by Valdis Krebs in mapping covert networks using open source data. Krebs has done some outstanding analysis on the terrorist network behind the events of September 11, 2001. According to Krebs’s analysis, the 9/11 terrorist network operated like a project team, like a team of lawyers handling a case, or a team of engineers working on a building. Like a project team, a terrorist network has:

1. Chores to complete. Before an attack there is a series of duties that needs to be completed, this include: securing a place to meet, getting vehicles for transportation, purchasing plane tickets, acquiring train schedules, explosives, weapons, and other logistic and material needs necessary to accomplish the main objective. A terrorist group has to be effective at achieving its main objective, but it must also be able to successfully complete a number of tasks prior to the execution of the main attack.

2. Information to share. The terrorist organization must find an efficient and secure method of distributing information among its members. Security is particularly important for terrorist groups. Terrorist organizations have a wide array of places where they can get information to accomplish their missions, ranging from personal contacts, to open Internet sources. Once in possession of a piece of information the organization must effectively distribute it to the appropriate people within the group. Depending on the character of the terrorist or insurgent network information can spread within the community like an epidemic. Witness how information spreads between the different groups of insurgents in Iraq. At a different level, not all of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers had the same level of knowledge of their mission, nor was the sequence at which they were receiving information equal with the group. The flow of information in a scale-free network like al Qaeda is dynamic though and usually not constrained by the verticality of a hierarchy. At the strategic level, an organization like al Qaeda can spread information and influence terrorists groups sympathetic to their cause using television broadcasts of their messages. At the operational level, in a geographically contiguous area like Iraq the spread of information is epidemic between the different terrorist and insurgent groups operating in the country.

3. Funding to obtain and disburse. Currently, terrorist networks are more likely to be self-funded than state-funded. A terrorist network can be tied to a criminal network for its funding. A financier of terrorism can provide funds for a group based on past successes using innovative means. Terrorism is becoming more and more an entrepreneurial activity.

4. Schedules to meet. Terrorist groups often choose a significant, symbolic date for their spectacular attacks, however, because of their relatively small size, there are inherently flexible and can move, with relative ease, the date of an attack to an earlier of later date than originally planned.

5. An objective to accomplish. A terrorist group sees itself as part of a much larger community. They see the successful completion of their act of terror as part of a total effort.

Terror and Circumstance

2005-11-06T15:38:00.000-08:00

Fighting in Iraq is not a necessary correction of mistakes of the past. The Bush administration's decision to use military force in Afghanistan and Iraq was made in a historical context and under different circumstances from those of previous adminstrations. Many factors counted in the current admintration's decisions, the attacks of 9/11 being the dominant one. Since the Nixon administration, decades before the 9/11 attacks, there's been constant debate over the appropriate responses to Islamic terrorism. President Nixon formed a counterrorism panel in response to the terrorist attacks at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. This panel compiled a threat assessment in 1972 that included "rumors and unconfirmed reports" of a Palestinian terrorist cell operating inside the US and planning spectacular terrorist attacks on US soil. That initial treat assessment presaged the vast majority of all counterterrorism reports since then; it is the nature of the business most of this reports are based on "rumors and unconfirmed reports".

That's why is so difficult to act on these reports. What's a rumor and what's actionable intelligence? Unfortunately, we can't act everywhere and be strong everywhere. And we can't act on every "unconfirmed report". That's why the US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq were only possible after the attacks of 9/11. What kind of support would President Bush (or Clinton) would have been able to garner for a large-scale attack against either one of these countires before 9/11? Probably not a lot. Domestically, imagine how the airlines would have reacted if forced to pay for the security improvements they pay for now, before 9/11.

Now, to move from this "rumors" paradigm we must get to know better our adversaries. How they operate. We need to understand how the terrorists think. We can start by understanding that not all terrorists are crazy fanatics. Were all the Nazis and Japanese that we had to fight during World War II fanatics? How about the communists we fought during the Cold War? No, and no. We must understand terrorism beyond the pychological perspective and begin understanding terrorism from an operational perspective. We beat the Nazis and the Japanese, not because we dismissed them as crazies, but because we closely examined their operational concepts and came up with ways to fight them effectively. Part of the reason why we lost in Vietnam is because we did not understand the enemy, and mischaracterized the conflict. In order to win, we must understand the enemy, and understand the character of the war we are fighting. It also helps to know who are main enemy is. Today, our main enemy is a worldwide network of Islamic jihadists.

Questions: How do the terrorists see the world? How do they see war? What is their strategy? How do they carry out their strategic goals? How do they pick and chose which operations will get a green light, which ones they will put on hold, and which ones are not to be considered. The terrorist can't attack everywhere and they can't be strong everywhere.

I'll expand on this later. I found this really good article that asks the question, can Al Qaeda endure beyond Bin Laden? My answer: yes. Read the article to see the author's answer. Hint, as with all enterprises, is all about leadership.

Challenge: Beyond Detection

2005-11-03T22:36:00.000-08:00

Challenge for US airpower in the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for possible scenarios in North Korea, Iran, and other countries in which we might be involved: the enemy will hide yes...But more importantly, the enemy will run. Constantly. SCUD missiles launchers will not stay put. Neither will troops or mobile surface-to-air missiles. Ground units will probably practice dispersed warfare; they will be scattered, running, and hiding across the battlespace. If they are smart they'll rarely (if ever) mass in large formations.

Our adversaries will try to hinder our detection and identification capabilities. No matter how accurate your smart bombs are, you can't strike what you can't find. Even if we find the prospective targets, from the air, the enemy might be indistinguishable from civilian noncombatants. The enemy might be intermixed with civilian noncombatants so that even if he is found our decision to strike him will be colored by collateral damage concerns. The challenge: to distinguish friend from foe; dummy equipment from operating equipment; combatant from noncombatant.

Urban Warfare Paradigm Shift

2005-11-02T23:24:00.000-08:00

In the planning for the first US large-scale Fallujah incursion, Operation Vigilant Resolve, the Marines had a list that included of dozens of targets that, based on intelligence, were candidates to be struck using airpower or kinetic means, meaning aerial bombardment. The targets themselves were a collection of buildings spread all over Fallujah, somewhat concentrated on the northwest side of the city, the Jolan district. The thing is, the real targets were not the buildings themselves but the people that potentially could be inside the buildings, namely groups of insurgents using the structures as "barracks" or improvised command and control nodes or prepared firing positions. Destroying the buildings themselves was not going to achieve the desired effects if the individuals in question were not inside the buildings at the time of the strike.

So, we could have set a time to send strike aircraft and destroy all the buildings in one day...and achieve nothing beyond the demolition of a series of building. Now, US forces had information that, at some point, it was likely that insurgents would be inside one of these buildings, the rest of the time we did not know where these guys were. There were dozens and dozens of building with insurgents inside about which we did not know anything. Basically, we had to wait until the insurgents arrived at the targeted facilities that we knew about and then hurry up and strike before they leave. To accomplish this you are going to need a great deal of persistent surveillance on the facilities that we do know about, and that could possibly, at some point, be visited by a group of insurgents or by insurgent leadership.

During World War II airpower us used to attack entire cities: Stalingrad, Cologne, London, Dresden, Tokyo, etc. By the time of the Vietnam War, airpower was attacking areas and facilities. During the Gulf War, and other conflicts during the 90s, it was demonstrated that airpower could go after specific portions of a building. Increasingly, airpower is being used not to target entire cities, or entire facilities, or even portions of a building. Airpower is being (and will probably be in the future) used to target small groups of individuals (less than 20 people) or even particular individuals. So in less than 70 years airpower has gone from going against entire cities to the targeting of single individuals.

More on Urban Warfare

2005-10-31T22:42:00.000-08:00

You are a commander on the ground in Iraq and your are tasked with taking back the city of Fallujah. Seizing a city by military force is never a pleasant activity. Of course, war has never been pleasurable, but fighting inside in an urban environment is particularly unpleasant. A city is like a concrete jungle where structures instead of trees are the vertical obstructions that you have to deal with. Except the jungle is usually sparsely populated. In the city you have to deal with people. Non-combatants. Civilians. In recent conflicts one of the challenges has been to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. It happened in Somalia. It happens in Afghanistan. And of course, it happens every day in Iraq. Imagine the difficulty of using not only ground troops to take a city, but also using airpower to accomplish the mission. And by the way, both your land power assets have to be in close coordination with your air power assets. The risks of fratricide and collateral damage are compounded in an urban environment. You think about Stalingrad in 1942 and how the Germans sent a thousand planes to bomb the city into rubble, all to see the Russian resolve actually increase; Stalingrad was the beginning of the end for the once invincible German army. Fast forward to the dawn of the 21st century, the year 2000, and now the Russians are bombing Grozny into rubble. The key to success for airpower in an city fight is to conduct operations in an urban environment and not against an urban environment. More on this in subsequent posts.

Airpower and Urban Warfare

2005-10-30T18:20:00.000-08:00

Throughout the 20th century, when wartime leaders had to make the decision to use airpower in support of ground troops operating in a city, they usually viewed such use as a broadsword and not a rapier. In the 21st Century however, airpower has become that much needed rapier, that precise instrument that today's environment demands.

A Bitter-Sweet Track Record

During urban operations in places as far removed in time and space as Stalingrad and Mogadishu, the use of airpower is support of ground troops operation in a city (what the military calls urban close air support or urban CAS) has been plagued by a list of modest accomplishments dominated by dismal failures.

During World War II successful urban CAS was the exception rather than the rule for both the Axis and Allied powers.

After D-Day, airpower had only a small contribution in helping Allied troops seize German-held towns across the Western Front.

The Urbanization of Armed Conflict

Over the last two decades our ground troops have been involved in a series of military operations for control of urban areas. Currently, over 150,000 US soldiers and marines are involved in what are essentially urban counter-insurgency operations in Iraq.

Since the end of major combat operations in 2003, the US military has learned many lessons in urban warfare, including how to use air and space power to contribute to the fight.

The clearest representation of this new form of conducting air and space operations took place last year over the skies of the embattled Iraqi town of Fallujah.

On the technological side, this new form of conducting operations was shaped by three advances: persistent air surveillance using a new array of sensors, precision air munitions, and information technology.

I'll expand more of this topic in subsequent posts.

Here's a link to a study conducted by RAND several years ago on the subject.

Network vs. Network

2005-10-29T22:17:00.000-07:00

I strongly believe that in the fight against terrorist our government needs to run itself like a hybrid between a business and a terrorist network. The overwhelming majority of people in government want to do the best job they can, but for the most part they work under strict organizational limits that severely limit their effectiveness.

A terrorist organization like Al Qaida is characterized by certain qualities that allow it to operate very effectively in the Information Age by quickly responding to changes in their mission space (what they do: from day-to-day operations, to actual attacks), and their environment (where they do it, and under which conditions):

Regional and decentralized decision-making. The leaders on the field have extensive decision-making authority. Even if some leaders are removed (captured or killed), budding leaders rapidly ascend to central positions by activating links that are already in place. Each emerging leader usually comes into the organization equipped with a pre-existing 'mini-network" of his own.
Horizontal management structure. Dealings within the network aren't dictated by strictly allocated hierarchical relationships. Interaction between the members of the organization is founded on teamwork to achieve a desired goal.
Rising above turf battles. To be sure there is considerable organizational friction when it comes to relations between the different terrorist networks, however, to achieve a common goal, they are mostly able to put those differences aside and work towards an objective, be it a spectacular terrorist act like 9/11 or attacking coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An overarching sense of mission. Terrorist and insurgents are encouraged to incur in bold action at the right time; when conditions are met that maximize the effects of those actions. Marching orders from the leadership to the "foot soldiers" is usually given in clear and unequivocal terms. Fighters within the networks believe theirs is the worthiest, noblest of causes.
Use of all information networks, to include the Internet. Al Qaida and other terrorist organizations really like the Internet; in a post-9/11 world where physical terrorist camps are, for the most part, a thing of the past, the Internet provides terrorist networks a virtual training camp/facility that is less vulnerable to American "eyes in the sky" and precision-guided munitions. However, Al Qaida also extensively uses couriers and face-to-face communications to coordinate operations. As mentioned above, each emerging leader comes into the organization with his own set of contacts, his own mini-network. This mini-network is plugged-in into the whole organization and a whole new set of relationships are created. As Michael Shrage, author of the book Serious Play states, "The surest way to add value to a network is to connect it to another network".

I'll continue expanding on these topics. The above is not intended as praise for Al Qaeda as an organization. Al Qaeda is the most despicable organization in the world. The tragedies inflicted by Al Qaeda go beyond the violence against innocent noncombatants. Al Qaeda is an example of leadership, organizational skills, and youth squandered for a violent and counter-productive cause. However, because of the environment in which Al Qaeda operates and the adversaries they faced they have been able to create and adapt their organization to the challenges of the Information Age.

You can find out more information about networks at the International Network for Social Network Analysis web site.