Archive for the 'Marine Corps' Category

The Small Wars Journal Blog linked an International Herald Tribune article on the crisis of Captains in the Army.

During the war in Iraq, young army and Marine captains have become American viceroys, officers with large sectors to run and near-autonomy to do it. In military parlance, they are the “ground-owners.” In practice, they are power brokers.

“They give us a chunk of land and say, ‘Fix it,’ ” said Captain Rich Thompson, 36, who controls an area east of Baghdad.

The Iraqis have learned that these captains, many still in their 20s, can call down devastating American firepower one day and approve multimillion-dollar projects the next. Some have become celebrities in their sectors, men whose names are known even to children.

Many in the military believe that these captains are the linchpins in the American strategy for success in Iraq, but as the war continues into its sixth year the military has been losing them in large numbers — at a time when it says it needs thousands more.

Most of these captains have extensive combat experience and are regarded as the military’s future leaders. They’re exactly the men the military most wants. But corporate America wants them too. And the hardships of repeated tours are taking their toll, tilting them back toward civilian life and possibly complicating the future course of the war…

Max Boot has recently discussed what he calls The Iraq Recession Fallacy.  The thrust of his main argument is not pertinent, but there is one important paragraph for our purposes.

The overall size of our economy is $13.1 trillion. So the Iraq War is costing us less than 1% of GDP (0.91% to be exact). Even if you add in the entire defense budget that still only gets us to roughly 4% of GDP—roughly half of what we spent on average during the Cold War, to say nothing of previous “hot” wars such as World War II (34.5% of GDP), Korea (11.7%), and Vietnam (8.9%).

The force size reduction began under Bush 41 and continued under two consecutive Clinton administrations.  Rumsfeld believed his own press and ignored his generals, and went to war with half of the force size needed to secure Iraq.  The breaking of the Army and Marines began almost two decades ago.  To be successful in the global war, America must once again go on a war footing.

Back to the Captain crisis.  These things are also true in the enlisted ranks, not only for recruitment goals but also for reenlistment.  In addition to increased reenlistment bonuses, The Captain’s Journal has recommended an across the board 40% increase in salaries for all service members.  America needs to increase the force size in order to put an end to continual re-deployments of the same units to the same theater, and make being in the armed forces more lucrative in order to grow the size of the force and retain qualified personnel.

There is another reason that the Captain crisis is important.  Not only does the Army and Marines need combat experienced commanders, but it needs the same in the enlisted ranks down to the Lance Corporal and Corporal.  America may soon be facing a situation in which the majority of her combat experienced warriors are doing civilian jobs and her active duty warriors are untested.  Finally, in order to demand the greatest respect from the enlisted ranks, officers need to have the same combat experience of their reports.

Today a defense and security policy analyst and consultant firm in the Washington, D.C. area searched on the following words: “new tanker cannot refuel V-22.”  He found our article taking some issue with Abu Muqawama on the award of the refueling tanker contract to Northrop Grumman rather than Boeing.  He learned nothing from our article, but we learned from his search.  Hmmm … said we, and we cracked our knuckles and did a little work to see just what treasures we could dig up.

As it turns out, the Boeing press release protesting the award of the contract contains some pregnant statements, one of which is:

“It is clear that the original mission for these tankers — that is, a medium-sized tanker where cargo and passenger transport was a secondary consideration — became lost in the process, and the Air Force ended up with an oversized tanker,” McGraw said. “As the requirements were changed to accommodate the bigger, less capable Airbus plane, evaluators arbitrarily discounted the significant strengths of the KC-767, compromising on operational capabilities, including the ability to refuel a more versatile array of aircraft such as the V-22 and even the survivability of the tanker during the most dangerous missions it will encounter.”

Defense Industry Daily has asked Boeing a number of questions on this press release, including:

… which aircraft were left out, and what factors would allow the KC-767 to refuel them where the A330 MRTT could not. We have also requested elaboration on what would make the KC-767 more survivable, given that both aircraft would be equipped with the same defensive systems.

The V-22 Osprey has proven its worth in Iraq.

The Osprey seems to have become a favorite of commanders who need to get to places quickly, including Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. Petraeus used one to fly around the country on Christmas Day to visit troops.

“Gen. Petraeus flew in the jump seat and was very impressed by the aircraft’s capabilities,” according to Col. Steve Boylan, a spokesman for the general.

“The rate of climb is exceptional, and it can fly about twice as fast as a Black Hawk [helicopter], without needing to refuel as frequently,” Boylan said. “Beyond that, its automatic-hover capability for use in landing in very dusty conditions, even at night, is tremendous.”

Petraeus chose the Osprey for that mission because it was the only aircraft in the inventory that could fly around the country without refueling and not rely on runways, Boylan said.

We don’t know anything else about the new tanker, since no one has contracted The Captain’s Journal to oversee the procurement process for the new Air Force refueling tanker.  But we have always been fans of the Osprey.  As a Marine blog, if the new tanker cannot refuel the V-22, then we say “screw it.”

The Captain’s Journal is extremely disappointed in the former Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps.  But before addressing our disappointment, some background.  Normally as a Milblog we are dealing with issues in counterinsurgency, weapons and tactics, policy, strategy, and connections in the global war on terror.  Only infrequently do we weigh in on political matters.  In this case, it seems appropriate to break with tradition if only momentarily.

If we can leave behind the ugly picture of Jeremiah Wright screaming “God damn America” from the pulpit of his church or humping the pulpit (video here), Obama’s tactics for addressing his Pastor’s indiscretions are irrelevant, as are his claims that he wasn’t present when the words of hate were screamed.  The focus on examples misses the point, although there are probably copious quantities to go around.

Jeremiah Wright has said very clearly that he is a proponent of liberation theology.  This strand of thought began mid-twentieth century in Latin America as a synthesis of Marxism and Christian trappings and words.  It has since evolved beyond that into a bizarre mixture of this plus a glorification of pre-Christian cultures and religions,  concern for earth worship, struggle for the land, and ecology.

But at its heart it still holds premier the notions of redistribution of wealth and class warfare.  If Obama could somehow claim that he doesn’t hold to any of these things or that his pastor has somehow moderated the messages he delivered from this more radical bent, then it can be countered that Obama has shown that he knows what the social gospel is, declaring that Wright’s “character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.”

The social gospel is the earlier American version of Marxism mixed with the trappings of Christianity.  We turn to one of the foremost scholars on theology and American history, C. Gregg Singer in his A Theological Interpretation of American History for a few words on the social gospel.

Sin [is] no longer a “want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God” but the result of ignorance in which man failed to live up to the highest and the most noble that was within him … according to this conception the church was to help each individual work out for himself that salvation which nature had placed within his grasp and which he should direct toward socially desirable ends.  Salvation was henceforth regarded as largely social in content and purpose, and only incidentally individual in nature.  True enough, a major change of purpose and motivation was to take place in individual lives, but this was not an end in itself, but only a means toward an end – the perfecting of society here on earth.

Jeremiah Wright’s church espouses exactly this liberation theology / social gospel even now on its web site.  A survey of their mission statement reveals nothing of redemption, salvation, regeneration, faith and repentance, but rather of world change through the collective.

We are called out to be “a chosen people” that pays no attention to socio-economic or educational backgrounds. We are made up of the highly educated and the uneducated. Our congregation is a combination of the haves and the have-nots; the economically disadvantaged, the under-class, the unemployed and the employable.  The fortunate who are among us combine forces with the less fortunate to become agents of change for God who is not pleased with America’s economic mal-distribution!

The fact that, say, Job and Noah were very wealthy men is not relevant to Wright because it doesn’t easily fit within the framework of his system of income and wealth redistribution in the name of religion.  Obama clearly knows that his church stands for this socialism, as he said it himself.  When the truth is laid bare, Obama is shown to be little more than a proponent of class warfare.  Wright’s church isn’t about being a catalyst for redemption.  It’s all about “show me the money.”

Back to the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps.  He has formally endorsed Obama for President (far left in the photograph below).

Just eight months after taking off his uniform, the recently retired 15th sergeant major of the Marine Corps is jumping into the campaign fray, stumping for Sen. Barack Obama and echoing the Democratic candidate’s call for pulling troops out of Iraq.

“I stood up and I said I agree with him when he said we should pull out of Iraq. I think it’s time for the Iraqis to stand up and take charge of their own country,” retired Sgt. Maj. John Estrada said in a telephone interview Feb. 25.

“He’s not talking about snatching everybody out of there. He said he will do it over a 16-month period. He will deploy the troops to places where they’re needed, like Afghanistan. … He’s a guy who will use force reasonably,” Estrada said.

Estrada, 52, was the highest-ranking enlisted Marine for nearly four years before retiring in June 2007 after 34 years.

He formally endorsed the Illinois senator for president of the United States during a rally at a high school gymnasium in Beaufort, S.C., on Jan. 24. Estrada served twice at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort and is well-known among the locals there.

He planned to campaign again for the senator in Texas on the weekend preceding the critical March 4 primary between Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

“He has this — I want to call it a unifying force. I see him uniting our country more so than the others. Old, young, across all ethnicities,” Estrada said.

One wonders how Estrada sees this “unifying force” now.  It would have been honorable if he had stumped for the renewed and revised G.I. bill being worked on by Peter King, or for lighter body armor, or for a replacement for the M16A2 / M4 / SAW, or better yet spent his time visiting wounded warriors at their bedside.  If he found it necessary, then he could have engaged in the debate about force presence in Iraq and weighed in with all of the vigor of the highest ranking enlisted man in the Marine Corps.

Instead he chose to shill for a politician, and a Marxist one at that.  It is a sad time in American history when, despite admonitions to pray for the civil magistrate (WCF XXIII), pastors publicly denounce the same and call on God to damn them.  It is made all the more sad when a respected warrior aligns himself with a person who is aligned with such things.  Respected warrior no more.

“I got nothing but mad props for 2/6. With another unit from October 2006 to April 2007, many of us often found ourselves questioning the logic of how we were doing certain things, and positing “why can’t we do such and such.” 2/6 came in and, well, did such and such. During the relief-in-place with the company that replaced us replaced my faith in the U.S. Marine Corps; I’ve never been more impressed.” (courtesy of Michael Totten)

The whole persona of the 2/6 [Marines], the way they’re running operations, is to provide for the citizens. The IPs [Iraqi Police] are like that too, they’re out there engaging the people. They [used to get] attacked so much that they were a military force, doing military-type operations. When they showed up, they showed up hard. Now it’s more ‘Hey what’s going on? How are you doing? What can we do for you?’ It’s yielded huge gains.” (courtesy of Bill Ardolino)

The Small Wars Journal blog has an interesting continuation of the debate over strategy in Iraq by Pete Mansoor, entitled Misreading the History of the Iraq War.  Part of Mansoor’s commentary follows:

In his latest missive on the U.S. endeavor in Iraq (“Misreading the Surge Threatens U.S. Army’s Conventional Capabilities”), Army Lieutenant Colonel Gian Gentile claims that the Surge forces and the new U.S. Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrine had little effect on the situation in Iraq. Rather, U.S. forces paid off the insurgents, who stopped fighting for cash. Once again, Gian Gentile misreads not just what is happening today in Iraq, but the history of the war.

To borrow a quote from Ronald Reagan, “Gian, there you go again.”

Gentile’s analysis is incorrect in a number of ways, and his narrative is heavily influenced by the fact that he was a battalion commander in Baghdad in 2006. His unit didn’t fail, his thinking goes, therefore recent successes cannot be due to anything accomplished by units that came to Iraq during the Surge.

The facts speak otherwise. Gentile’s battalion occupied Ameriyah, which in 2006 was an Al Qaeda safe-haven infested by Sunni insurgents and their Al Qaeda-Iraq allies. I’m certain that he and his soldiers did their best to combat these enemies and to protect the people in their area. But since his battalion lived at Forward Operating Base Falcon and commuted to the neighborhood, they could not accomplish their mission. The soldiers did not fail. The strategy did.

This is a common narrative concerning the security plan and revised strategy for Operation Iraqi Freedom, i.e., “it’s all about the combat outposts.”  If the troops are on a FOB (Forward Operating Base), they cannot possibly engage in counterinsurgency.  This may be true under certain conditions for the mega-bases such as Camp Fallujah.  But this perspective seems very incomplete and truncated.  The experience of the Marines of 2/6 during Operation Alljah shows us why.

With the Anbar province pacified it might be difficult to recall the condition as recently as late 2006 in Ramadi and throughout the province.  The condition was bad almost beyond words, but with the success of the Marines and tribes in combating al Qaeda and other insurgents in the Western part of Anbar, the Eastern parts fell subject to their horror.  Fallujah, which had always been a very hardened city, was the new home to rogue elements from all across the globe.  Libyans, Chechens, and other hard core jihadist fighters called Fallujah home in early 2007.  They had utter and complete control, and were protecting a huge weapons cache in the industrial area, including small arms, explosive ordnance and chlorine.  The Marine command in this area of operations called Fallujah “unwinnable.”  At this point, the Anbar campaign could just as easily have taken a turn for the worse, and in fact could have turned completely in favor of the insurgency.

Into this came the Marines of the 2nd Battalion, 6th Regiment.  The population had clearly sided with the insurgents.  On one occasion the Marines witnessed the ultimate commitment being made by the locals (or perhaps the ultimate cowardice, or perhaps both).  The neighborhood children were sent out to demarcate the location of Marines on patrol by encircling the area and raising black balloons for insurgent mortars.  Soon enough, the mortar rounds started dropping.

Fallujah was pacified, but the Marines of 2/6 didn’t do it by living in combat outposts for seven months.  In fact, they were deployed to a FOB named Reaper, constructed specifically for 2/6 on the South side of Fallujah.  Upon 2/6 leaving Reaper, this FOB was never to see U.S. troops again.  This episode – the narrative, the FOB, the experiences, the unique things accomplished – remains not only important in the history of the Marines, but an un-mined jewel of counterinsurgency practice.

The Marines of 2/6 were rotated out to combination combat outposts / Iraqi police precincts for weeks at a time, and then rotated back to FOB Reaper to provide force protection for weeks, or conduct patrols, or nighttime census missions, or intelligence driven raids, or whatever the mission happened to be at the time.  These rotations were staggered so that the combat outposts were never unmanned, FOB Reaper always had adequate force protection, raids always had manpower, kinetic operations always took place against insurgents, checkpoints were always manned, and Iraqi police always had U.S. presence.  Sleep was a luxury, and all of the Marines were always busy.  Close and constant contact with the police and population and relentless kinetic operations against the insurgents was characteristic of the time that 2/6 spent in Fallujah.  The closest analogy that can be given of this operation is that of a swarm.  The Marines swarmed over Fallujah until the insurgents were killed or captured and the population sided with the U.S.  This close contact was not allowed to diminish the implementation of force protection.  While force protection was maintained, force projection was the hallmark of the final Marine Corp battle for Fallujah.

Whatever else can be said of the Iraq campaign, there were not enough troops (force size) to accomplish the mission (force projection).  This is not a fault of Gentile’s unit.  Concerning strategy, only Lt. Col. Gian Gentile and his reports can know if they accomplished the force projection needed to win a counterinsurgency.  If so, then his unit should be seen as a continuation of the overall campaign for Iraq.  After all, for those who claim that counterinsurgency takes ten to twelve years, it should not be surprising that a single deployment is only a part of the campaign rather than the thing in its entirety.  Time was necessary to convince the population that the U.S. troops were not “short-timers,” and thus Gentile may be right.  Neither the strategy nor the troops failed, but again, only Gentile knows if the force projection was adequate.

It all comes down to having enough troops and doing the right things with those troops.  Whether those troops man a checkpoint or conduct an intelligence-driven raid or take population census or go on patrols, where they live is only of logistical importance.  If it is beneficial to live at a combat outpost in some particular circumstance, then that’s where they should be.  If it is beneficial to live at a FOB but rarely spend time there because of constant contact with the population, they that’s where they should be.  While this experience raises the issue of Marine deployment length (7 months) and whether another branch of the service could survive longer deployments (e.g., 12 or 14 months) at the same pace, nonetheless, the salient points are unimpuned.  They key is what the troops do and how often they do it, not where they sleep.

Foxnews is carrying an article on a dust-up over body armor within the Corps.

The Pentagon and Marine Corps authorized the purchase of 84,000 bulletproof vests in 2006 that not only are too heavy but are so impractical that some U.S. Marines are asking for their old vests back so they can remain agile enough to fight.

Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway wants to know who authorized the costly purchase of the nearly 30-pound flak jackets and has ordered the Marine procurement officers at the Quantico base in Virginia to halt the rest of an unfilled order, FOX News has learned.

“I’m not quite sure how we got to where we are, but what I do know is it is not a winner,” Conway told FOX News at the end of his recent trip to Iraq.

“I think it is foolish to buy more.”

Twenty-four thousand more vests were scheduled to be shipped to Iraq in the coming months, but Conway halted that order during his trip.

“I’ve asked them to tell me — to walk me through — the whole process … how it evolved,” Conway said.

“It goes back a couple of years. I think the vest has its advantages. It fits pretty well on the waist. The weight is distributed more evenly on the hips than shoulders, but Marines don’t like it. I didn’t like it when I put it on.”

The protective jackets, manufactured by Protective Products International in Sunrise, Fla., are known as Modular Tactical Vests, or MTVs. With heavy plates, known as sappis, on their sides, they provide more coverage than the older vests. That makes them much safer but also much heavier. The MTVs have more protection than the older “Interceptor,” made by Point Blank, and they distribute weight more evenly.

The new vests, weighing in at about 30 pounds each, are three lbs. more than previous regulation body armor. Marines, who are already carrying up to 95 lbs. depending on the mission, say they feel the difference.

It is frankly difficult to imagine that this issue could have become so confused to so many people.  Hopefully this article will be enlightening for the careful reader.  To begin with, it is necessary to show a picture of a Marine in Fallujah during Operation Alljah, wearing the IBA (Interceptor).  This picture comes to you courtesy of Bill Ardolino who embedded with the 2/6 Marines in 2007.

Take particular note of the thing hanging on the side of this Marine’s IBA (Interceptor Body Armor) vest.  It is called a side SAPI plate (small arms protective insert, or the enhanced version is ESAPI).  The side SAPIs are not used when Marines train stateside.  They are issued upon entry to the theater.  They are issued to the Marine whether he has the IBA or MTV (Modular Tactical Vest).  The 2/6 Marines were told that they would be issued the MTV prior to deployment, but delays made that impossible.  To compensate, many of the Marines went to TAG (Tactical Applications Group) in Jacksonville, N.C., right at Camp Lejeune, and purchased their own tactical vest, the Spartan 2, which is the commercially available version of the MTV.  This Marine didn’t get his before TAG ran out of the vests, so he took his IBA vest.  When 2/6 deployed to Iraq, they deployed with the vest, the front and rear SAPI plates, and the soft ballistic panels.  Some Marines from 2/6 deployed with their IBA, and had to have TAG send their back-ordered Spartan 2 to their home, and have their families send it to Iraq, since equipment vendors are not allowed to send packages directly to the theater.  But the Marines of 2/6, who regularly spent most of the day in their armor during training, wanted the Spartan 2 (MTV) so badly that some of them had their families send them to Iraq.

Take note also that the IBA doesn’t have the side SAPI integrated into the vest, so it hangs onto the IBA with Molle straps.  In fact, this particular Marine has his side SAPI hanging a full five or six inches below the rest of his vest (in the early days of the Anbar campaign, this gap under his arms was a favorite target for snipers, whereas the MTV solves this problem).  When this Marine was at Camp Lejeune, he didn’t have the side SAPIs hung onto the vest with Molle straps.  In fact, he didn’t have them at all.  Again, these SAPIs are issued upon entry to Iraq, and those side SAPI plates add quite a few pounds to the system.  Notice also that the rear SAPI is hiked up a bit in the back well above the lower part of his spine.  This is the way the IBA holds the SAPI plates.  Down in the front, high in the back, and side SAPIs hanging on by Molle, sagging down and exposing their ribs and lungs.

The IBA and the MTV are merely tactical outer vests to hold the soft panels (to protect against very small arms fire or shrapnel) and SAPI plates (to protect against up to a 7.62 mm round).  The body armor itself – front SAPI, rear SAPI, soft panels and side SAPIs – are exactly the same between the two body armor systems.  This point is critical to understanding the current dust-up.  Again, the weight between the two is the same.  The MTV does not weigh more than the IBA.  The MTV and IBA are vests, not armor.

There are a few changes made to the MTV that make it different than the IBA.  First, the front SAPI is raised a little and the rear SAPI is lowered a little to provide protection to the spine.  Second, a neck guard is provided for shrapnel, and third, a soft panel groin protector is provided.  The neck and groin protectors add little to the weight of the vest – no more than a pound or so.  Fourth, the MTV fully integrates the side SAPIs into the vest rather than hanging them onto the vest.  Finally, the MTV hugs the torso and places the weight on the hips, much like an internal frame backpack, as opposed to the IBA which places all of the weight on the shoulders.

Because of all of this, I commented on a post at the Small Wars Journal the following:

I have completely, absolutely, positively no idea whatsoever what this article is talking about. It makes absolutely no sense at all to me. The MTV is a carrier, not a new set of body armor. All of the weighty elements from the IBA – the front ESAPI plate, the rear ESAPI plate, and the side SAPIs, along with the soft panels placed inside the carrier – are still there with the MTV.

More precisely, the soft panels are taken out of the IBA along with the SAPI plates and placed in the new carrier. The soft panels had been inefficiently deployed in the shoulder area in the IBA, and now are fully utilized. One big difference in the MTV and the IBA is the fact that the IBA hung completely on the shoulders, and allowed no load bearing whatsoever on other parts of the body. The MTV hugs the torso, especially at the hips, and places the weight on the hips somewhat like an internal frame backpack.

This feature was so popular among the grunts with my son’s unit before they deployed to Iraq in 2007 (which happened to be prior to the point that the MTV had been issued) that most of the men went to TAGs (Tactical Applications Group) just outside Camp Lejeune and purchased the commercial version of the MTV, or the Spartan 2.

I have heard multiple Marines myself praise the MTV for its ability to take the load off of the shoulders and place it on the hips – and thus PREVENT BACK PROBLEMS, and have never once heard even the slightest complaint. I have also worn the IBA and Spartan 2, and know the difference first hand. I simply cannot account for the report in this article. The only possible explanation I have for it is that the complaints may not be coming from grunts who have to go on 20 mile “humps” with their armor on (along with ammunition, Camelback, carabineer to hold weapon, etc.). The MTV (or Spartan 2) was so popular among Marines at Camp Lejeune that, again, personal funds were spent purchasing it.

Compare this to the IBA which places the load on the shoulders, and again, I simply do not understand this article. Also, the IBA hangs the side SAPIs by Molle loops, so usually they sag (making good sniper targets under the arms of the wearer because of this sagging). The only real weight difference with the Spartan 2 / MTV and the IBA that I have seen is the existence of the front groin soft panel guard. This adds what – several ounces of weight?

Again, confused, and suspect there is more to this story than meets the eye.

As it turns out after reading the discussion thread on this post, I was right, and the Marines are complaining about the weight of the armor and not the design of the vest.  In other words, this is what is happening.  Marines who are not infantry have trained with their vests on less frequently and not as long in duration as Marines who are infantry, and when they do have them on, they only have the front and rear SAPI plates inserted.  The Marines of 2/6 trained with only their front and rear SAPI plates as well, but knew that they would receive side SAPIs upon deployment to Iraq because many of them were “salty” Marines; they had done this before, some more than once.  Marines who are complaining of heavier weight haven’t been properly briefed or trained to expect heavier loads due to the side SAPIs whether they wear the IBA or MTV.

So the complaints flow concerning weight, as if the weight is all about the MTV versus the IBA rather than the four SAPI plates themselves.  Just to make sure about this, I recently conversed with a senior Marine in whom I place the greatest confidence.  Here is what he told me.

“Sir, you need to understand that there is a difference between a garrison Marine and a grunt, and between a veteran and a combat veteran.  The IBA is good for nothing but back problems, and the people complaining about the MTV are Marines who don’t have to wear their armor 16 hours a day.  The Marines have done a fine job of saving our backs with the MTV.  We like ours and wouldn’t give them up.  Basically, sir, this isn’t about the difference in weights because they are the same.  This is about weight – period.  Sir, this all comes down to a fight between grunts and pogues.  The grunts do what they have to do, and the pogues complain.  Simple as that.”

Yes, the battle space weight is significant, with the armor, the hydration system, ammunition, firearm, radios and other equipment.  The debate is about the use of side SAPI plates, not the MTV or the IBA.  It had been previously considered to jettison the requirement to wear side SAPIs based on conditions in theater, but this is a situation-specific decision.  Weight must be reduced in order to save the health of our warriors, and this should be a goal of future warrior systems.  The MTV is a vest, not armor, and thus has nothing whatsoever to do with the debate about weight.  The MTV was an outstanding success, my Marine contact tells me.  The USMC should be proud of the equipment they have designed for armor.  It is the best available anywhere.

Prior:

Body Armor Wars: The Way Forward

Body Armor Goes Political

” … every Marine a hunter” 

Preliminary Reading: Resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda

Contact.  Contact with the enemy.  Counterinsurgency includes security for the population, construction of infrastructure, amelioration of community problems, and good governance.  It cannot ultimately be won without these (and other) elements.  But it also cannot be won without contact with and defeat of the enemy.  The Marines have participated in untold meals with families, construction of sewage and water systems, and other things that brought them into contact with the population in Anbar.  But contact with the enemy has been a staple of Marine operations in Anbar, and one result is that there are few if any insurgents left to carry on the fight.  It has been many months since a Marine casualty resulting from combat operations.  One can argue with the warrior ethos, but the results speak for themselves and need no apology.

When the Marines of 2nd Battalion, 6th Regiment, conducting Operation Alljah in Fallujah, turned over to their replacement unit, most Marines headed for Camp Baharia but a few stayed behind to complete the turnover to their replacements.  During mounted patrols, one SAW gunner / machine gunner drilled one particular message home every day and on every mission: “If you make contact with the enemy and withdraw or retreat, you have lost.  You might wait until later and use night vision, or use satellite patrols now, or use flanking maneuvers, or some other tactic.  But if you don’t engage, you have lost.  Period.  Don’t ever pull back from contact.  It only makes them stronger.”

Pajamas Media gives us an account of the current situation in Afghanistan, and the observations are important and instructive.

Here’s a verbal snapshot of Kabul today. It was written by an American businessman who wrote to a friend of mine who forwarded his words to me. He has a dry and ironic wit and a keen eye. His information is accurate and utterly heartbreaking.

“First of all, the roads aren’t paved.  Also, there are no street lights.  Not a lot of trees.  That’s because almost all of the trees in the country have been cut down for firewood.  They’re digging up the roots now. That’s in Kabul.

Second, there must be something strange about the gene pool there because there aren’t any women. I was there six days and there are 100 men in the streets for every woman.  And most of them are completely covered.  I didn’t see one Afghani couple on a date.  In fact, I didn’t see anybody on a date.  The restaurants have guards with Ak47’s and double sets of walls to avoid the car bombers.  In case you don’t speak Pushto or English, there are big signs with pictures of AK47s x’d out in red just so everybody understand the dress code if you want to eat.

Third, nobody can read. And there is not a lot of room for improvement there because I saw an awful lot of kids in the street begging or working.  It was reassuring that none of them were younger then 5. Well, I’m not sure, some of them might have been 4.”

Fourth, no one in the American Embassy is allowed to leave.  To eat,  to go shopping, even to fool around—assuming that there was anyone to fool around with or someplace to go.  They can go to a private house if there is enough security.

Fifth, the Army allows it’s personnel to leave to go out, but they have to be in an armored vehicle.  The part about that is that the tactics seem to be completely different from the Petreaus handbook which is a  work of genius.  Even the soldiers say they are going out of their minds.  Its really hard to stay fit and alert in a compound.

The use of trees (and now roots) for firewood to stay warm has been going on for quite a while, and shows that the U.S. has done little if anything to ameliorate the sad power and fuel conditions.  Crop rotation, good agricultural practices and proper land management cannot hope to take hold unless basic necessities are addressed.  The important observations here are too numerous to fully discuss.

The one salient observation for our purposes is the notion of force protection versus contact with the population … and the enemy.  This theme seems to be prominent in the Afghanistan theater.  The Australians – who have been a staunch ally in both the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns – have recently remarked that contact may make their jobs more dangerous.

An Australian patrol from the Reconstruction Task Force takes a break in the Chora valley in Afghanistan (theage.com.au)

AUSTRALIAN instructors working with Afghan army units will be in greater danger as they go into action further from their home bases, says Defence Force chief Angus Houston.

Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon announced on Tuesday that Australia was establishing a 70-strong training team in Afghanistan.

Air Chief Marshal Houston told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra yesterday that Australian soldiers building a forward operating base for the Afghan Army in the Chora Valley were fired on yesterday by insurgents using rockets. No one was hurt.

Air Chief Marshal Houston said the biggest danger in Afghanistan now was not a wave of Taliban fighters coming over a hill but “very lethal” home-made bombs, which were becoming common. The improvised explosive devices now caused 70% of coalition casualties in Afghanistan, Air Chief Marshal Houston said.

He supported Mr Fitzgibbon’s concerns that Australia was not being given enough information about the conflict by NATO, which largely controls the war against the Taliban.

He said he was satisfied with the information relevant to operations in Oruzgan Province, where most Australians are based.

“The problem has been the higher-level NATO work, because fundamentally NATO is set up to deal with NATO members, NATO countries — not participating members such as ourselves.”

He said he hoped that now Australia would gain full access to strategic plans for southern Afghanistan and it was likely that the international security forces would be better co-ordinated during the campaign season following the Afghan winter’s end.

The Marines in Anbar know all about the IEDs, as well as fighters hiding in rooms and on the rooftops.  The only way to defeat them is through contact – contact that Fitzgibbon knows brings additional risk.  IEDs can only be defeated by killing or capturing the IED-makers.  But without sustaining this risk, the result is loss of the campaign.  As for the NATO strategy, force protection is not a strategy, and hope is not a plan.  Thus there is no strategy.

As for the 3200 Marines who will soon deploy to the Afghan theater, their doctrine can be summed up as “close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver or repel the enemy’s assault by fire and close combat.”  This is not mere sloganeering.  The ethos of the Marines runs directly counter to the current malaise that grips the NATO project in Afghanistan.  Without entering into whether the MARSOC unit that deployed to Afghanistan was disciplined enough or the particulars of the engagement in which civilians perished (there is reason to believe that the charges may be dismissed), the reports by Army leadership are more telling on the Marines’ departure than any element of the particular engagement.

A big issue was that the Marines seemed to be dissatisfied with the reconnaissance missions that the Army commanders envisioned for them, even though the Marines, with their heavy Force Recon background, were supposed to be reconnaissance experts.

“They resisted it and kept wanting to go do the direct [action] missions,” he said. They strayed from their area, looking for bad guys.

“They never went in their assigned battle space,” the field-grade Army officer said. “They were always looking for missions outside of their battle space.”

What the Army command didn’t understand is that the battle space for Marines is hunting the enemy.

Before they leave Camp Pendleton, Marines are getting an advanced course in tracking — taught by a big-game hunter from South Africa.

The Combat Hunter course at the School of Infantry is meant to teach Marines how to notice the slightest change in the landscape that shows a person has passed by, no easy trick in a desert where winds erase footprints in an instant.

The Marines are taught to be hyper-aware of their environment: What’s there that should not be there? What isn’t there that should?

The project is the brainchild of the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Conway. “If we create the mentality in our Marines of the hunter, and take on some of those skills, then we’ll be able to increase our combat effectiveness,” he has said.

While Iraq is the immediate focus, the course is also applicable to Afghanistan, where several thousand Marines will soon be deployed. But while the ways of the hunter may be old, the instructional methods have been updated. Each Marine, along with lectures and field work, gets a 15-minute CD: “Every Marine a Hunter.”

The current institutional and strategic malaise in the NATO project in Afghanistan is about to be stirred up with the presence of 3200 warrior-hunters who want to make contact with the enemy.  The real re-examination of the campaign won’t come as a result of the addition of 3200 troops.  It will come with the addition of a completely different ethos than has previously been in theater.  Re-examination should be a healthy process, even if a difficult one.

The United States Marines have launched video that captures the spirit of the nation and the heart, commitment, bravery and courage of those who have earned the distinctive right to call themselves the greatest warriors on earth: The United States Marines.

It is very Americana in its feel, and it reminds the viewer of not only what a great country God has bestowed on us, but also of the great men who sacrifice to keep it safe.  This ‘footage’ is worthy of the Corps.  The Captain’s Journal approves.

You can read the announcement of the Corps (Our Marines Blog) when they launched this commercial spot, and then their followup discussion called the Rest of the Story.

Now enjoy the Marine Corps band as they play Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.  He composed it for four French Horns, three Trumpets, three Trombones, Tuba, Timpani, Bass Drum, and Gong.

Marine Corps Band: Fanfare for the Common Man.

The U.S. Marines have commissioned an Infantry Immersion Trainer system for the purpose of training in MOUT prior to deployment.

The Marine Corps is embracing breakthrough holographic technology to teach combat tactics and battlefield ethics at Camp Pendleton as troops there begin another major round of deployments to Iraq.

Marine officials yesterday unveiled the Infantry Immersion Trainer, a high-tech prototype simulator that resides in a former – and decidedly low-tech – tomato-packing plant that still bears directions for truck drivers.

Marines trained yesterday in Camp Pendleton’s high-tech prototype simulator, designed to evoke the conditions that U.S. troops face in Iraq.

The 32,000-square-foot, $2.5 million training ground became reality after a request from Gen. James Mattis, former commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton. The program capitalizes on 15 years of Navy and Marine research on everything from body movements to urban warfare, coupled with the latest advancements in simulation from defense companies such as Lockheed Martin.

The new training area is “a pretty big deal . . . that’s expected to save lives,” said Col. Clarke Lethin, chief of staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

He added that it also could help guide Marines through the tough process of making split-second battle decisions involving morality and legality.

“As we go through the war, it’s changing out there. There are more no-shoots than shoots,” Lethin said. “We want to make sure that we are shooting the right people.”

It takes its inspiration from a city block in Iraq that U.S. troops typically would patrol, complete with a warren of shops and houses. Hardly a detail is overlooked among the props, modeled with Hollywood set-design techniques: Laundry hangs on the clotheslines. A grill sits against a wall. Propane tanks are placed here and there amid the musky scent of unpaved streets and alleys.

Perched in the rafters are projectors that cast life-size images of civilians and insurgents on wall after wall in the building. Live actors and pyrotechnics round out the integration of sight, sound and smell.

There is an argument to be made that this is two to three years later than needed.  Additionally, the system isn’t perfect.

One of the Marines showing how the troops react in the various scenarios was Lance Cpl. Jason Trehan, a 24-year-old Ohio native who returned from his fourth Iraq assignment in November.

“It’s pretty realistic and a lot like what we do face,” Trehan said. “It could be bigger, though. Bigger is always better,” he said, in reference to the somewhat cramped series of rooms and low ceilings.

Trehan said a higher ceiling that would accommodate rooftops would more accurately depict a typical Iraqi village.

There is always justification for including Lance Corporals in the design review of all training and combat systems.  Lance Corporals are the core of the Corps, but like our friends at OpFor, we are huge fans of General James Mattis, and this brainchild of Mattis will evolve.

Col. Lethin said the Camp Pendleton virtual trainer was in part the brainchild of Gen. James Mattis, who until recently was head of the I Marine Expeditionary Force and commander of Marine Corps Forces Central Command.

Mattis is now working with NATO and as head of the Joint Forces Command based at Norfolk, Va.

“General Mattis said that if we can train a pilot to fly a 747 in a simulator, we owe that same kind of training to our ground forces that are bearing the brunt of the casualties today,” Lethin said.

The local troops now deploying are finding a much more stable and calm environment in the former insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad along the Syrian and Jordanian border, Lethin said. But it remains a dangerous place.

“It’s a lot better today than it was, but there’s still bad guys to be killed,” Lethin said. “The training we now can offer here is good, but I want it to get even better.”

And get better it will.  While no simulator can duplicate the reality of combat, all attempts to train warriors better should be met with appreciation as well as constructive criticism.

The Wall Street Journal has an outstanding interview with Marine Corps Commandant James T. Conway.  The subjects are far ranging and weighty, one such subject being the current ‘heaviness’ of the Marines today.  Planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom II and III didn’t consider the costs and equipment requirements of counterinsurgency, and consequently, 14 force recon Marines were lost in the summer of 2005 due to operating an Amphibious Assault Vehicle on a desert road.

So Commandant Conway takes on the issue of transport and protection.

One way the Marines are clearly changing is in the vehicles troops use to patrol in Iraq. “If you look at the table of equipment that a Marine battalion is operating with right now in Iraq,” Gen. Conway explains, “it is dramatically different than the table of equipment the battalion used when it went over the berm in Kuwait in ’03, and it is remarkably heavier. Heavier, particularly in terms of vehicles.

“I mean the Humvees were canvas at that point for the most part. Today they are up-armored and we’re looking at vehicles even heavier than that. We’ve got a whole new type of vehicle that we’re patrolling in, conducting operations in, that’s the MRAP [Mine Resistant Ambush Protected], a 48,000 pound vehicle. . . . these type of things, make us look more like a land army than it does a fast, hard-hitting expeditionary force.”

Gen. Conway commends the MRAP’s performance: “[W]e had over 300 attacks against the MRAP without losing a Marine or sailor.” And, he says, “We always have to be concerned about protecting our Marines. We owe that to the parents of America.”

“But,” he adds, “first we have to be able to accomplish our mission. And I think there are a lot of instances where a lighter, faster, harder-hitting force that gets to a scene quickly is more effective than a heavier, more armored force that gets there weeks or months later.”

It is clear that the MRAP can make it more difficult to maneuver in a battle zone. “We saw some problems with the vehicle once it went off of the roadways,” Gen. Conway says. “Its cross-country mobility, particularly in western Iraq where you have wadis [dry riverbeds] and small bridges and that type of thing was not what we hoped it would be.”

And it is something Gen. Conway has decided to have fewer of. He recently announced that the Marines are halting orders for these vehicles. The Corps will take delivery of a total of 2,300 new MRAPs by the end of the year, which it will use to conduct missions in Iraq. But Gen. Conway is canceling orders for 1,400 additional MRAPs that he and his advisors believe they will not need in the coming years. In the process, Gen. Conway is saving Uncle Sam $1.7 billion. “Yeah. I mean, that to me was a common sense kind of determination.”

The Multinational Force has addressed the issue of IEDs with interdiction, increased detection and armor, and targeting the networks of those who traffic in and emplace IEDs.  However, the issue with AAVs and MRAPs is a symptom of the problem, as Conway expands into his real issue with the long-term constabulary role in Iraq.

“If you accept a generation of officers is four years,” Gen. Conway says, “that’s what an officer signs on for, we now have that generation of officers — and arguably troops — that have come and gone, that are combat hardened, but that will never have stepped foot aboard ship. . . . an amphibious operation is by its very nature the most complicated of military operations; and that we have junior officers and senior officers who understand the planning dimensions associated with something like that, that have sufficient number of exercises over time to really have sharpened their skills to work with other services to accomplish a common goal — these are the things that concern me with the atrophying of those skills and the ability to go out and do those things.”

Conway ends his interview saying that COIN operations in Iraq are exactly what the Marines need to support because of the compelling national interests.  I have argued for commitment to completion of OIF, although reduced civil affairs missions and an eventual end to constabulary operations in favor of assistance to the Iraqi army and police for kinetic operations and border security.  However, the corollary to this argument is a re-commitment to the COIN campaign in Afghanistan.  Not only would this be a change from urban warfare (MOUT), but from the perspective of the future of Afghanistan, increased force projection is required.

The entire interview of well worth the time to read, and we support not only Conway’s commitment to the campaign in Iraq, but the upcoming deployment of Marines to Afghanistan.  This commitment to Afghanistan should increase over 2008 and 2009.  However, in the end, Conway is right to be concerned about maintaining the capabilities of the Corps.  This will require commitment to MEUs, rapid assault and deployment, amphibious training and retaining the expeditionary flavor of the Corps.

Following up on the recommendation we have made here at The Captain’s Journal to deploy Marines to the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is preparing to bring a recommendation to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to send up to 3000 Marines to Afghanistan.

The Pentagon is preparing to send at least 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan in April to bolster efforts to hold off another expected Taliban offensive in the spring, military officials.

The move Wednesday represents a shift in Pentagon thinking that has been slowly developing after months of repeated insistence that the U.S. was not inclined to fill the need for as many as 7,500 more troops that commanders have asked for there. Instead, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pressed NATO allies to contribute the extra forces.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday that a proposal will go before Gates on Friday that would send a ground and air Marine contingent as well as a Marine battalion — together totaling more than 3,000 forces — to southern Afghanistan for a “one-time, seven-month deployment.”

Gates, he said, will want to review the request, and is not likely to make a final decision on Friday.

“He will take it and consider it thoroughly before approving it,” said Morrell. “I just want to get people away from the idea that this is going to be imminently approved by the secretary.”

He said Gates “has some more thinking to do on this matter because it’s a serious allocation of forces.”

Morrell added that Gates’ thinking on the issue has “progressed a bit” over time as it became clear that it was politically untenable for many of the NATO nations to contribute more combat troops to the fight.

“The commanders need more forces there. Our allies are not in the position to provide them. So we are now looking at perhaps carrying a bit of that additional load,” the spokesman said.

Morrell said the move, first reported Wednesday by ABC News, was aimed at beating back “another Taliban offensive” that is expected this spring — as has occurred in previous years.

When Gates was in Afghanistan last month, commanders made it clear they needed the additional forces.

The Marines would likely come out of Camp LeJeune.

Sources said the Camp Lejeune, N.C.-based 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit — scheduled to deploy in mid-February — went into high gear this week, laying plans for an accelerated deployment schedule that could have the unit departing for Afghanistan on Feb. 1 and staying out past its traditional 180-day rotation. However, unit officials would not confirm that the group is planning to leave early.

The themes of force size and force projection are well known in our previous articles, and the campaign has languished in Afghanistan due to inadequate forces.  However, there is a hint in this report of the remaining paucity of vision that afflicts the strategic planning at the Pentagon.  It is found in the words “one time .. deployment.”  The stated goal of this small addition is to forestall or prevent a spring offensive by the Taliban.  The Pentagon still doesn’t see Aghanistan as the key to Pakistan as we have previously recommended.

The Afghans understand.  They welcome the addition of troops.  But they see more clearly than to refer to a mere temporary addition of troops.  Afghan officials believe that the war on terror should know no borders.

Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders operate “outside the country.”  The war on terror “should know no borders.”

Afghan officials’ are hinting that Afghanistan would be more than happy for US forces to attack Taliban and Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan.

Some analysts say the US and NATO won’t make lasting progress in Afghanistan unless the militants’ ability to command and control the insurgency from across the border is tackled.

“Terrorism is like a spring. It is better to go to the main source than to fight the water’s flow,” said Defence Ministry Spokesman Gen Muhammad Zahir Azim.

Afghanistan’s Intelligence Service Chief Amrullah Saleh said recently “We believe the war on terror should know no borders.”

President Hamid Karzai’s spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said on Tuesday “I’m not going to comment about the specifics about operations inside Pakistan. All I’m going to say is that we should address the sources, the root causes of terrorism wherever they are,” Hamidzada said, hinting heavily that Afghanistan believes that to be in Pakistan.

We have pointed out that counterinsurgency inside Pakistan proper, with U.S. troops actually deployed en masse in the country, would be impossible.  Yet the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan is amorphous, ripe territory for kinetic operations to capture and kill Taliban.  The U.S. has a once in a generation opportunity in being allowed to traffic freely along the border region of the country from which the enemy springs forth.  The key to dealing with the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan is still the border region.  Force projection is required.  And there is still paucity of vision at the highest levels of leadership.

Prior:

Musa Qala: The Argument for Force Projection

Clarifying Expectations in Afghanistan

Review and Analysis of Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Campaign

Gates Sets Pretext for Review of Afghanistan Campaign

British in Negotiations with Taliban

Fates of Afghanistan and Pakistan Inextricably Tied

The British-American War Continues: MI-6 Agents Expelled from Afghanistan

Commitment to Iraq and Recommitment to Afghanistan

Taliban Now Govern Musa Qala