Why has America got the most expensive military in the world and yet cannot deploy the right force to do the job that confronts it?
This story has the answer to this question - its budgets are controlled by its suppliers and its suppliers have bought the leadership.
Who would ever have thought that a Lt Col in the Marine Corps would make electrifying watching on the News Hour?
Well if you really know your stuff and you really have something to say then it might happen and it did.
Here is Lt Col John Nagl talking to Jon Stewart about the cultural revolution that will have to happen to the US Armed Forces if they are to make a positive difference in conflict. Thanks John Robb who writes brilliantly about what is going on for the link and Small Wars Journal for their continuing broad coverage of what is important in Military Affairs today.
Also shows that the US Military is starting to "get it" in terms of how to communicate well today. Have something real to say about about something real and have a spokesperson who can be human do the talking.
Just being able to apply overwhelming force is no longer good enough - on its own - you lose wars that way now. So how do you then go beyond this?
Here is Tom Barnett at TED giving the context for a way of organizing so that you can win the war and the peace. A tour de force - a master class of distilled wisdom.
I read an article today about David Kilcullen that rang a big bell. Kilcullen is an Australian outsider who has recently made it into the inside of policy being made in Iraq. More about him in a second.
Here is the aha - When the rules of war change, the establishment get struck in their old mindsets and only the outside "amateurs" have a chance of getting you unstuck.
In the 1914 - 1918 war, there was deadlock. No one could find an answer to the defense. All they could do was to increase the weight of the effort. The French and British and later American Leadership were trapped by their doctrine and by the fact that they could all draw on immense manpower that they could easily lose.
The Australians and the Canadians were very different. Both fielded volunteer armies ( Both had large Corps of over 100,000 men) Their men were not urban factory workers or rural peasants. They were extremely self sufficient and bloody minded who did not take to authority. They came from big lands but small populations. They could not be wasted.
Above all they were lead by gifted amateurs. Australia by John Monash, a son of Prussian and Jewish parents who was an Engineer. He had been in the militia since 1884 and in 1914 was a Colonel. Arthur Currie lead the Canadians by 1917 and was the planner for Vimy Ridge. Currie had been a not very successful real estate salesman, echoes of Grant, and also had been in the militia where he began the war as a Colonel in the artillery.
Both men understood that the simple application of mass, think Iraq, was not going to do the job. Both could rely on the quality of their men to take a much more fluid approach. Both also used artillery like a scalpel and not simply a hammer. If you are interested in the detail here is a paper on the Currie revolution that I wrote for Veterans Affairs.
By 1918, a totally frustrated Lloyd George was planning to replace Haig with these two men. Currie's work as point for the allies when the Canadian Corps pushed across the Canal de Nord and broke through the Hindenberg line ended the war before this took place.
I think that Iraq & Afghanistan are deja vu all over again. Our military leadership are stuck somewhere in Northern Europe still fighting the Soviet Union. They cannot break the mindset of applying force and just as bad of force protection. They don't have infinite manpower but they have access to infinite money and to technology. Intellectually they may "get it" but in their hearts they don't.
But now we are in "post Somme" Iraq and there is a realization that we are stuck - the time when the amateur from away can be heard.
Kilcullen's main theory (Wikipedia) is that a Kinetic approach (like the first day of the Somme) cannot prevail against an enemy whose order of battle is organic and cultural:
Counterinsurgency in its traditional guise is based on systems analysis. But Cartesian systems analysis cannot handle the complexity inherent in counterinsurgency. Fortunately, since the 1960s scientists have developed new approaches to systems analysis, based on the emerging theory of Complexity, which does provide means for handling this complexity. Therefore complex systems analysis of insurgent systems may be the tool needed to develop a fundamentally new version of counterinsurgency for this War.
Applying the branch of complexity theory that deals with organic systems, the paper develops a model of insurgencies as biological systems. This model identifies key system elements and means to attack them. It also allows insights into the systems dynamics of global insurgency, the enabling role of culture in insurgent systems, evolution and adaptation in insurgent groups, insurgent ecosystems, and the nature of the Islamist ‘virtual state’. A historical survey of five previous counterinsurgency campaigns provides a tentative validation of this systems approach. Applying this model generates a new strategy for the War on Terrorism – Disaggregation. Like Containment in the Cold War, a Disaggregation strategy means different things in different theatres or at different times. But it provides a unifying strategic conception for the War. Disaggregation focuses on interdicting links between theatres, denying the ability of regional and global actors to link and exploit local actors, disrupting flows between and within jihad theatres, denying sanctuary areas, isolating Islamists from local populations and disrupting inputs from the sources of Islamism in the greater Middle East.
This gives rise to an operational concept: the aim of counterinsurgency (hence the war aim in this campaign) is to return the insurgency’s parent society to its normal mode of interaction, on terms favourable to us. This demands an understanding of what ‘normality’ is for a given society, and a realisation that military measures only create preconditions for other elements of national power to resolve underlying issues. The systems model also generates practical insights – the need for a common strategic understanding, a constitutional path to address legitimate grievances, understanding of the global insurgent ecosystem and our role in it, a tailored analysis of each insurgency, and improved cultural capability.
Kilcullen has argued in most of his works for a deeper cultural and linguistic understanding of the conflict environment, an approach he has recently begun calling "conflict ethnography". In May 2007 on the Small Wars Journal website he argued that:
I think that we are here again. Kilcullen is the consummate outsider as were Monash and Currie. He is not trapped by tradition and he also has a keen mind and a different kind of experience (The Australian).
But when the invasion of Iraq was being planned, Kilcullen was one of a handful of senior military advisers in the coalition of the willing to voice a dissenting view. "I was one of a bunch of people ... who said 'Iraq is going to be a lot harder than you people seem to think, based on 20 years of experience doing it and studying it. It's going to take a lot more than you seem to be willing to commit."'
It was a view that then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected out of hand, saying Kilcullen didn't know what he was talking about.
But now, after more than four years of entrenched conflict with no end in sight, Kilcullen's doctrine of counterinsurgency prevails in Washington and on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, where it provided the foundation for the surge strategy the Bush administration says is beginning to succeed.
Kilcullen is one of the most influential Australian military minds of his generation. He grew up on Sydney's north shore, the son of academics. He studied counterinsurgency as a cadet at Duntroon, served for more than 20 years in the Australian Army and was awarded a PhD in political science from the University fo NSW for a thesis on Indonesian insurgent and terrorist groups and counterinsurgency methods. He has been a military adviser to the Indonesian Special Forces in counterinsurgency, taught counterinsurgency tactics at the British School of Infantry, and served in peacekeeping operations in Cyprus and Bougainville. Kilcullen also commanded an Australian infantry company in counterinsurgency operations in East Timor and trained and led East Timorese forces after the independence vote in 1999. He was a special adviser for irregular warfare to the 2005 US Quadrennial Defence Review and is Rice's chief strategist on counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism, working in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia.
His no-nonsense guide to fighting insurgents, The 28 Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level CounterInsurgency, is used by the US, Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch, Iraqi and Afghan armies as a training document.
It is now time to find more Kilcullens, Monash's and Curries
.
6 more dead today. It's not just a news item on PEI. 63 Islanders are in country out of 2,500 Canadians. We all know parents. We still wait in dread. The only relief? That another family has suffered and not one that we know.
So the issue is clear. It is not whether I or we support our troops. How we could do otherwise? It is will my friend lose his son for a mission that is a fantasy?
I was so proud 10 years ago when it looked as if James my son would join the Army. I was disappointed in the way that a parent who hoped a child would choose the life that he himself had not taken that he did not make this choice.
Now I thank the universe that art took him instead. I think that I could accept him serving for a mission that made sense. But not for a wishy washy ideal of somehow bringing democracy to people that don't want it.
In WWII, most politicians had sons in harms way. That is I think how it must be. We have to be careful that none of us send another parent's child into action without being committed to send our own children as well. This is surely how a democracy must go to war?
We are off to France this week to join the thousands who will be remembering the men who served. Who were these men?
How did an army of amateurs lead by an English aristocrat, a real estate salesman and a university professor become the best field army in the world?
I have been asking myself these questions and I offer to you my tribute to our forefathers. It is a 1.5 mg pdf file. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did in writing it.
Here is an example of the kind of footage of action in Afghanistan that we never see on the "News".
You Tube has a growing portfolio of real footage produced by the troops themselves. This is the Robert Capra material of our time.
Tell me someone - why do I never see this material on the CBC?
Who has ended this conflict as a winner?
Who has the seen their support grow both inside and outside Lebanon?
Who has seen their support diminish?
Who won the tactical victory?
Which side is now pumped?
Which side is now into blame and recrimination?
Which military unit is feeling bad and which good?
Which side has a strategy that all can see will lead to further victories?
Which is confused?
So then my friends - what is the lesson for us?
WWIII? - Here is how John Robb sees it: -
THE COMING CONFLAGRATION
JR NOTE: Here's some edgy analysis to brighten up your day. I hope I am wrong about this, but this is what I believe is more likely than not. Feel free to disagree or discard it, if that makes you feel better. I thought it would be better to write this up than to sit on it. PS>> Some editorial support would be very welcome. I am thinking about posting it to the GG blog once I get some feedback from you.
As most readers of this blog already know, its focus is on putting the jigsaw pieces of a mega-trend together: the rise and evolutionary improvement of non-state foes. In this blog, we've tracked and analyzed everything from 9/11's terrorism to Iraq's open source warfare to Afghanistan's black globalization to Nigeria's system disruption to Hezbollah's fourth generation warfare. It's been a wild ride. Unfortunately, this process of evolution has caused a big problem. With each improvement in the capabilities of non-state groups, states have become more confused. Worse yet, they are blaming each other for the problems they are encountering with these groups.
This tension and confusion has now reached a tipping point, akin to the situation that preceded WW1. Nation-states, confused and locked into antiquated mindsets, are likely to stumble into a global war. To wit: Israel's loss to Hezbollah and the US loss of Iraq to civil war puts both countries into an untenable strategic situation. Instead of blaming themselves for an inability to reach victory, they are priming themselves for a confrontation with the perceived 'source' of the problem: Iran. As it stands right now, war with Iran is likely inevitable. It really doesn't matter whether it is caused by a US (or Israeli) air campaign against Iran, an Iranian pre-emptive special operation, or a simple error: it's on the way.
For better or worse, this impending war will not follow a familiar pattern of conflict we are used to. It will quickly evolve into something much more chaotic, an epochal conflict between non-states and states over control of vast sections of the globe. Here's how. Any attack on Iran will be constructed in a way to force regime change (my belief is that it will be an airpower EBO as we saw twice in Iraq and in a pale replica: Lebanon). When this doesn't occur quickly, and as regional chaos spreads due to Iranian counter-attacks the conflict will escalate to a ground invasion. At that point, the Iranian state will cease to exist in any recognizable form. A plethora of energized non-state foes will populate the landscape in its stead. These groups won't yield, and will bog the invasion down into a never ending counter-insurgency.
Stretched to its limit, the US and its remaining allies will not be able to stop the process of self-replication that will occur. Non-state global guerrillas, armed with the evolved capabilities analyzed on this blog, will begin a process of regional destabilization that will sweep many of the nearby autocracies into the dustbin of history. This process will in turn create more armed non-state groups and thereby more foes. Further, this war will quickly expand beyond the Middle East as these forces make attacks on global targets and other non-state groups take advantage of the resulting economic and social chaos.
Western nation-states, to bolster defenses against this chaos, will throw up barriers and enact measures in many ways akin to those of police states and totalitarian governments. This round of globalization will end, which will cause economic contraction, resource shortages, and chaos.Here is a snip from Bill Lind dated August 10/06
One pointer to a shift in the tactical balance is
the comparative casualty counts. According to the Associated Press,
as of this writing Lebanese dead total at least 642, of whom 558 are
civilians, 29 Lebanese soldiers (who, at least officially, are not in
the fight) and only 55 Hezbollah fighters. So Israel, with its American-style
hi-tech “precision weaponry,” has killed ten times as many innocents
as enemies.
In contrast, of 97 Israeli dead, 61 are soldiers and only
36 civilians, despite the fact that Hezbollah’s rockets are anything
but precise (think Congreves). Israel can hit anything it can target,
but against a Fourth Generation enemy, it can target very little. The
result not only points to a battlefield change of some significance,
it also raises the question of who is the real “terrorist.” Terror bombing
by aircraft is still terror.
Here are a few more teasers - The Cultural Issues deepened
When I read these 3 slides, my heart sinks. It is clear to me that we are defeating ourselves. The fault is us. Only a cultural rethink can save us.
More later
Recent Comments