Archive for the 'Small Wars' Category

Bruce Hoffman, who has headed the counterinsurgency program at the Rand Corporation, recently gave an interview that essentially could have been titled “know thine enemy.”

ELEANOR HALL: You’ve written that the failure of the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq is the failure to know your enemy. What should the US and its allies like Australia be doing differently in order to know the enemy?

BRUCE HOFFMAN: I think we need a much more comprehensive and systematic effort to really understand this enemy than we’ve thus far undertaken. I think that in many instances we see the problem too much through a Western prism and a Western perspective that this has consequently led in some instances, to wishful thinking and other instance to conjecture.

And it entails a much more determined effort to really – I mean, it’s like during the Cold War where we understood not just the Soviet Union’s military capabilities, but we strove to understand their mindsets and to be fully knowledgeable of their culture as well. And I don’t think we’ve yet achieved that.

ELEANOR HALL: How do you go about doing that? I mean, is it just a matter of more intelligence?

BRUCE HOFFMAN: Well it’s not; it’s not just intelligence. It’s linguistic familiarity, cultural knowledge. It’s really basing our policies and approaches on a very firm and clear empirical base rather than on seeing things through our own perspective.

The Captain’s Journal has made the same points recently.  In The Enemy of My Enemy, we said:

… troops (most of the time) are given some basic instruction in Arabic as part of the training for deployment.  This training is based on the philosophy of phonetics (i.e., sounds, proper pronunciation).  With limited time, money and resources, this is the best approach and sure to yield the best possible results in the short term.  But proper planning for the long war needs to take the next step.  Immersion in Arabic (both spoken and written) needs to be part of the planning for not only officers, but enlisted men as well.  A better knowledge of Arabic would cause a remarkable step change in warfighting capabilities in Iraq (and throughout the Middle East) given the nature of COIN.

In response to this article, we received a communication from the Center for Security Policy concerning a new language corps.

The Department of Defense announces the implementation of a pilot “The Language Corps” over the next three years. The pilot will include no fewer than 1,000 members drawn from all sectors of the U.S. population. Members will have the opportunity to join a dedicated pool or a national pool of linguists.

The Language Corps, formerly the Civilian Linguist Reserve Corps, represents a vital new approach to address the nation’s needs for professionals with language skills. This is an integral component of the Defense Department’s comprehensive language roadmap and the President’s National Security Language Initiative.

These are good first steps, but more is needed, and in particular, for Soldiers and Marines, both officer and enlisted.  Concerning a general knowledge of the culture and religion of the population, in Smith Responds, we said:

… to send soldiers and marines to win hearts and minds of a population without at least some cursory understanding of the population is the equivalent of blinding them and then turning them loose with firearms.  Based on Smith’s premise, some Muslims will follow a hermeneutic that requires them to war on others to extend their faith (AQI and AAS would be examples).  This isn’t true of all Muslims, and in fact it may only be a small fraction.  Still others will not be amenable to negotiations with the U.S. armed forces or the political structure (this list may include, for example, Sadr, Sistani, the Mullahs in Iran, the Badr force, etc.).  Still others will be amenable to our efforts at WHAM (the Sunni tribes), and still others might be an ally in our struggles.  It pays to know your enemy.  It may pay even more to know those whose hearts and minds you wish to win.

The Rand Corporation (counterinsurgency program) and the Captain’s Journal are saying the same things, just in slightly different ways: know thine enemy (and those whose hearts and minds you wish to win).

During the Israel-Hezballah war, Hezballah used a strategy called distributed operations.  Small, self-sufficient teams of fighters with only low- to mid-level leadership conducted operations against the IDF, often cut off from communication, senior leadership and supplies.  The risks are great, but Hezballah could react organically rather than bureaucratically.

The insurgency in Iraq has taken this to the next level.  Distributed operations are the norm.  Insurgent snipers regularly stay cut off from their leadership for days.  Small teams of insurgents operate with near autonomy, yet the overall objective remains fairly well known and paramount.  The “membership rolls” of the insurgency can grow or shrink, depending upon any number of things.  An insurgent might be a respected worker by day and a fighter by night.

The insurgent makes use of any means available, such as high tech explosively formed projectiles transported in from Iran.  In the absence of a high tech weapon, they will make use of the lowest-tech weapon possible — ordnance delivered by humans, or suicide bombers.  Depending upon the needs, the insurgency can cluster or disperse, swarm or disappear, distribute largesse or threaten brutality, hide or relocate.

The single best word that describes this behavior is adaptability.

Let’s contrast this with a possible example from the U.S. Army.  Let’s suppose that there existed an NCO (non-commissioned officer) in a combat brigade who, after doing previous combat tours in support of OIF and training his subordinates to do the same for the next deployment, decided that he didn’t want to re-enlist for a full enlistment term, but also that he would like to deploy with the unit soon for another combat tour in support of OIF.  He decided this because he felt an obligation to the mission and his troops, and his troops wanted him to deploy with them.  So the intent was to stay in the Army until the combat tour was finished.

The problem is that the rules don’t allow it.  Our NCO has to re-enlist for the full term or leave the Army.  He decides to leave the Army, and so the Army loses a seasoned NCO who could have provided leadership to his troops in the upcoming deployment.  In this instance, adaptability has ceded the high ground to bureaucracy, and the insurgency wins one small encounter due to the unadaptability of the U.S. military.

In Religion and Insurgency: A Response to Dave Kilcullen, Smith continued a conversation that Kilcullen started at the Small Wars Journal on the role of religion in the impetus for an insurgency.  Every now and again a dust-up develops over the web, and a response is necessary to set the record straight.  In this article Smith responds to the comment thread at the initial article at The Captain’s Journal and The Small Wars Manual.

Smith finds the discussion at least mildly amusing with the fabricated stories about what Smith believes or what surely must be the consequences of his reasoning, but beyond a little chuckle, the work of thinking clearly is serious business and requires us to roll our sleeves up and expend a little energy.  As one who has had some formal graduate level training in religion, Smith has something to offer to questions on the role of religion.

To rehearse Kilcullen’s article, he has it as his project to demonstrate that the traditional methods of winning hearts and minds in a counterinsurgency are useful for the Iraqi population, i.e., that religion doesn’t prevent traditional methods from producing fruit.  Insofar as the project is careful, judicious, and open-minded, this is a legitimate project.  But Kilcullen didn’t stop at a judicious conclusion.  The insurgency in Iraq, said he, was “entirely political.”  That is, there is no religious aspect to the insurgency.

Kilcullen’s error is one of attempting to use inductive evidence to prove a universal negative, or in other words, he committed a formal logical fallacy.  Or said in a bit more formal manner, a deduction with a universal conclusion must have two universal premises.  This formal error particulary preys upon people who begin the process of reasoning (or, if you will, the scientific process) with an emotional or ideological commitment to a premise that they want to prove.  Just for the sake of clarity, one could also say that Kilcullen commits the fallacy of composition, where one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole.

At the discussion thread at the Small Wars Journal, Smith continued to outline the most egregious failures of the new counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24.  Said Smith:

In summary, the two most important failures in FM 3-24 in my opinion are:

1. Failure to incorporate the things that religion can teach us in a counterinsurgency campaign, and

2. Failure to address how protracted engagements affect troop morale and public sentiment at home (not, by the way, a failure of the Small Wars Manual as I have written about in “Observations on Timeliness from the Small Wars Manual”). I do not believe that the nation will ever again give us ten years to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign. To the extent that FM 3-24 assumes this, our proverbial heads are “in the sand.”

Concerning the second point, the current Marine Commandant (apparently about simultaneously with Smith) warned that there was a disconnect between the needs of the classical counterinsurgency and what the nation would allow in terms of duration or longevity (see also here and here).

“The difference in the time we in uniform need for success in Iraq and the amount of time our countrymen are prepared to invest is a disconnect that’s troubling,” Conway said.

He pointed to progress in western al-Anbar province, a hotbed of the Sunni insurgency where some tribal leaders have recently turned against al-Qaeda extremists and joined forces with US troops.

The province was once considered the last in line to be turned over to Iraqi security forces because of the intensity of the insurgency, but Conway said that has changed with Sunnis joining the Iraqi army and police in large numbers.

US commanders will have to decide whether 4,000 additional marines that were supposed to deploy to the province as part of the surge will still be needed in Al-Anbar, he said.

Whether security for Al-Anbar can be turned over to Iraqis sooner is “very much an open question at this point, but I’m optimistic about all those things,” Conway said.

Conway argued that a US failure in Iraq would damage US credibility and leave the world “a less safe place.”

But he said insurgencies typically take nine to 10 years to defeat.

“I think there is less of an appetite in our country than we, the military, might think we need to sustain that kind of effort over that period of time. That’s the basic disconnect that I was talking about,” he said.

Smith’s initial article argued that religion was a fundamental motivator of men, and in order completely to understand man’s actions, religion had to be considered as at least one of the elements, if not the most important.  The comments on Smith’s views fell into logical errors, constructed straw men and fabricated stories about what Smith advocated.  First came “emjayinc.”  To emjayinc, religion as a motivator seems “too deterministic.”  How this is so is not explained, but his objection falls moot when he puts forward other deterministic motivators for man, including the procurement of resources.  For no reason that is explained, emjayinc favors the determinism of resource seeking over the determinism of religion.

The fallacy of using anecdotal evidence to make universal conclusions takes it next prey. emjayinc then makes a patently false statement in asserting that “religion … appears nowhere in most modern constructs of man’s motivating needs.”  Debunking this is difficult because Smith is left to wonder which single book, person, society or scholarly article to cite, when there are so many hundreds of thousands available.  In order to bring this to a more rapid conclusion we will leave emjayinc to consult with the Society of Christian Philosphers.

Next, emjayinc falls prey to the genetic fallacy when he appeals to the idea that “many people believe that men use religion to satisfy needs.”  What he alleges “many people” to believe is, for purposes of this argument, quite irrelevant.  Next comes emjayinc’s straw many to substitute for Smith’s real arguments.  Said he, “if it’s about religion, then its (sic) the Christians against the Muslims.”  Here emjayinc is pretending that Smith called for a holy war between Christians and Muslims.  This needn’t waste any more of our time, since this call for holy war was neither present in Smith’s article nor subsequent comments here or at the Small Wars Journal.

Next in line is “Kat-Missouri” (abbreviated here as “Kat”).  Kat engages us in a somewhat far-reaching discussion about what he feels to be how the U.S. might engage a culture in a counterinsurgency.  This discussion is moderately interesting, but again, quite irrelevant.  Kat has constructed a straw man.  The specific location at which believers might congregate a couple of hours a week is not germane to the argument, because Smith didn’t discussion Churches, Mosques or Synagogues.  Smith discussed religion.  All of the discussion on anything else is wasted insofar as it is intended to be a rebuttal of Smith.

Next, Kat falls into a non sequitur, saying after this discussion that “emjay and Kilcullen would be correct in saying that politics, not religion, is the basis through which we should engage.”  The first problem with this conclusion is that it isn’t supported by any of the antecedent discussion.  The second problem with this conclusion is that the antecedent discussion is consumed with the Mosque, but the conclusion introduces a new subject: religion.  The two are not the same.  Power is indeed an insidious thing, ensnaring men who have it to keep it and obtain more of it.  Kat’s discussion on power structures — whether political or in the religious community — warrants its own study.  But Smith’s article didn’t touch on this issue.

Religion, or world view, far from being identified with institutions, is what orients and motivates a man’s life when he is not in public places of worship.  It has to do with world views, or belief- and value-systems.  This is true even of emjayinc’s and Kat’s position (even if for example they are humanists, Smith’s definition includes humanism within the scope of religion; for the right to do this, see Gordon H. Clark, Religion, Reason and Revelation, Chapter 1.)  Smith’s detractors make the case that men are motivated by anything but religion, and especially stuff; we might call it the “give them stuff and they will come” approach to counterinsurgency.  But of course, counterinsurgency is more difficult than merely giving people stuff, and rather than Smith it is his detractors who oversimplify the matter.  Religion is currently the basis for an insurgency in Thailand.

The violence in the south is increasingly directed more at Moslems, as the terrorists try to eliminate government informers, and non-Moslems increasingly organize death squads to carry out reprisal attacks. Most of the Moslem population wants all the violence to stop, as this sort of thing has happened before. Since the Moslem Sultanate was taken over by Thailand a century ago, there have been uprisings every few generations. In the past, these rebellions were put down with much violence by the Thai government. It’s not for nothing that Thailand is one of the few nations in the region to never be colonized. The Thais are tough, determined, and vicious if provoked. However, times have changed, and “vicious” doesn’t play as well as it used to. So the Thai government is telling the southerners to cool it, and is sending money and other economic aid as peace offerings. In times past, this might have worked. But this time around, it’s not just ethnic (the southerners are Malays) and religious (some 95 percent of Thais are Buddhists) differences, but the presence of Islamic radicals who want to convert all Thais to Islam …

The third problem with Kat’s conclusion is that it extends the scope of the conversation into areas previously uncharted.  Stricly speaking, the subject has been whether religion can be said to be a motivator of man and whether traditional WHAM tactics, techniques and procedures can be effective on those who are religiously motivated.  Kat extends this conversation to the point that it now encompasses an entirely new subject: whether we should engage religion at all in our counterinsurgency techniques, whatever the term “engage” is supposed to mean to Kat.

Kat ends his far ranging discussion with the following exaggeration: “To imagine that we should engage the religious nature of a community without the requisite moral authority, even as a proxy on its face, is the epitome of arrogance.”  Contrary to this view, to send soldiers and marines to win hearts and minds of a population without at least some cursory understanding of the population is the equivalent of blinding them and then turning them loose with firearms.  Based on Smith’s premise, some Muslims will follow a hermeneutic that requires them to war on others to extend their faith (AQI and AAS would be examples).  This isn’t true of all Muslims, and in fact it may only be a small fraction.  Still others will not be amenable to negotiations with the U.S. armed forces or the political structure (this list may include, for example, Sadr, Sistani, the Mullahs in Iran, the Badr force, etc.).  Still others will be amenable to our efforts at WHAM (the Sunni tribes), and still others might be an ally in our struggles.  It pays to know your enemy.  It may pay even more to know those whose hearts and minds you wish to win.

The responses to U.S. efforts will range across the spectrum, with a whole host of reasons for the various reactions, religion being among them.  Further, an understanding of the religious landscape means more than gaining a knowledge of motivations.  It also means being sensitive to U.S. tactics, techniques and procedures on the population and ensuring that TTPs that are inherently offensive are minimized to the extent practical (e.g., see Smith’s article Religious and Cultural Sensitivities in Counterinsurgency). Engaging the culture (despite the straw men set up by Smith’s detractors) doesn’t mean U.S. soldiers evangelizing Muslims, or attempting to tell them what their own religion expects of them, or expecting every adherent to be a radical militant.  Building straw men and then deconstructing them makes for good entertainment, but doesn’t add anythng meaningful to the conversation.

The Small Wars Manual, concerning engaging the religion of the locale in which U.S. forces are deployed, says:

1-31.d: Akin to politics is the subject of religion.  The people of many countries take their religion as seriously as their politics … 1.11: A failure to use tact when required or lack of firmness at a crucial moment might readily precipitate a situation that could have been avoided had the commander been familiar with the customs, religion, morals, and education of those with whom he was dealing.

Sometimes the best counsel is the oldest.  Smith’s argument concerning the duration of counterinsurgency and public sentiment is similar to that of the Marine Corps commandant (even if  somewhat unrelated to the initial subject of Kilcullen’s commentary).  Smith’s views on religion and counterinsurgency – far from being debunked – have not yet even been engaged.

In my article Religion and Insurgency: A Response to Dave Kilcullen (and associated comments), I responded to Dave Kilcullen’s article Religion and Insurgency at the Small Wars Journal.  In order to continue the conversation, let’s tackle a real life instance where cultural and religious sensitivities come to bear in the counterinsurgency campaign.  Whereas it might have been assumed that the only application to my claims was that of seeing the insurgent as a jihadist, religiously motivated and completely unamenable to our COIN efforts (certainly this is one application for some number of them), there are far more applications where a proper understanding of religion and culture would help frame the discussion.

A Stryker Colonel Talks About the Situation in Iraq:

FORT LEWIS – The commander says the loss of two soldiers hit everyone hard. We had a rare opportunity to speak with Col. Stephen Townsend from Baghdad Tuesday.

The 4,000 Fort Lewis-based soldiers have been there since last summer and now are in the hotspot, Baghdad.

“We feel pretty fortunate to be doing what we’re doing,” Col. Townsend said. “Right now, the Arrowhead Brigade is employed in a role that is ideally suited for a Stryker Brigade. We’re being very mobile. We’re going to where the tough jobs are. We’re helping out with both the Coalition and the Iraqi security forces there where the tough jobs are.

“We’re pretty fortunate about that. It’s pretty gratifying to see the progress the Iraqi security forces are making. In fact, the operation that we’re in now an Iraqi general is actually running the operation and I’m working for him rather than an American general.”

Col. Townsend and the 3rd Brigade have been to Iraq before, but this is their first time patrolling Baghdad.

Cpl. Jason Ratliff out on patrol says on video provided by the Army, “We always look for weapons and we try to see if people know anything.”

PFC Elizabeth Turan on patrol says, “It’s kind of scary because you don’t know if someone is going to pull a gun out. But it’s not that bad.”

‘Elizabeth’ is not one of those names that can be mistaken since it is not a gender-neutral name.  ‘Elizabeth’ is a woman, and she is on patrol in Baghdad.  We might make several observations about this.

For whatever reason (meeting recruitment goals, political pressures), the Pentagon wants women in combat.  Of course, there are practical matters with which to contend, including unit cohesion, lower torso strength of women, a higher rate of lower extremety injuries, etc. (in fact, the Russian campaign in Afghanistan saw a much higher rate of lower extremity injuries in women).  But leaving behind the practical effect on U.S. forces, has anyone stopped to consider what we are communicating to those whose hearts and minds we want to win?

In the heavily patristic and tribal society that is Iraq (and in fact the whole Middle East), family and tribe function to a great extent by providing protection and security.  This is codified into the religious framework of the region by Islam.  The very notion of accepting security from women would be seen as scandalous, humiliating and repugnant to the head of a family or tribal elder.  But in our so-called “security plan,” accepting security from women is precisely what we are offering (and in fact demanding) from men who cannot accept this offer.

We routinely offer up rhetorical flourish on winning hearts and minds, while Elizabeth is on patrol in Baghdad.  And no one stops to ponder the question “just what are the consequences of these actions?”

On April 15, 2007, Dave Kilcullen authored a commentary on Edward Luttwak’s commentary entitled Dead End: Counterinsurgency Warfare as Military Malpractice.  Kilcullen invokes this discussion in his most recent commentary entitled Religion and Insurgency at the Small Wars Journal; Kilcullen puts forward a series of interesting thoughts on the role (or lack thereof) of religion in the current insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Without studying these articles, my commentary will be read in a vacuum.  It is recommended that you spend the time necessary to understand Kilcullen’s arguments before tackling my response.  In the lengthy article that follows, Smith responds to Kilcullen; first to his views concerning the relationship of Islam and the insurgency in Iraq, second to his views concerning the Peters / Luttwak position, and finally the current state of affairs concerning rules of engagement and the Petraeus letter to the troops concerning the same.

The three central theses of Kilcullen’s commentary follow:

First, there is solid field evidence that modern counterinsurgency methods, properly updated for the new environment, actually are effective against current insurgencies. Second, insurgents in both Afghanistan and Iraq are not actually particularly religious — certainly, they are no more religious than the societies they are attacking. Indeed, there is an empirical problem with the whole notion of a “religious

In Splits, Reorganization and Realignments Within the Insurgency in Iraq, I argued that the internecine warfare within the Sunni insurgency was a good thing for coalition troops in the short term, but that sooner or later, one side will win.  This side — whichever it happens to be — will then turns its sights again on the so-called “occupiers” (i.e., the U.S.).  The insurgency doesn’t end, it merely morphs into something different than it is at the present.

The Middle East Times brings us a fascinating story of U.S. armed forces learning counterinsurgency, adapting and bringing innovation to the battlefield.  Things like this simply cannot be taught.  They have to be learned by troops at the front.  This is a lengthly article, but well worth your time (along with a few comments by me at the end).

Joseph Krauss
AFP
May 9, 2007

SAMARRA, Iraq —  On a dark street in the restive Iraqi town of Samarra a young man masked with a bandana and a baseball cap looks over his shoulder before pulling out an aerosol can and spray-painting across a wall.

A US Army officer standing behind him squints at the flowing Arabic script, then turns to a reporter traveling with his platoon.

“What does that say?” he asks.

The young vandal is an army translator whom the soldiers call Matthew – publishing his real name would put him in danger.

Matthew is charged with sowing seeds of strife between the town’s two main insurgent groups, Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic Army of Iraq.

While Al Qaeda takes its inspiration from Osama Bin Laden’s international Islamist struggle, the Islamic Army is a coalition of Iraqi Islamists and Baathist supporters of the ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

And while both groups are fighting to oust American forces from Iraq, there are also signs of growing conflict between them – a conflict that the local security forces and their US allies are keen to exploit.

The two groups have clashed on the Internet, with the more nationalist Islamic Army criticizing Al Qaeda for targeting Iraqi civilians and for its attempts to impose a harsh Saudi-inspired version of Islamic law.

Within Samarra, the Islamic Army enjoys wide popularity because of its single-minded focus on attacking US forces, while Al Qaeda intimidates local residents with spectacular bombings and coordinated attacks on police.

“Al Qaeda is based on Islamic extremism, while the others only focus on the occupiers,” said Colonel Jalil Al Dulaimi, who was police chief of the town north of Baghdad until he was killed in a coordinated attack on police headquarters this week. “But from our perspective, anyone who carries weapons is a terrorist. It doesn’t matter what faction they are a part of,” he added.

The commander of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne, 3rd Brigade, Charlie Company, based in Samarra, agrees that both groups pose a threat to security in the town but says that there are important differences.

The Islamic Army “is against coalition forces and ISF [Iraqi Security Forces] that work with the coalition,” says Captain Eugene “Buddy” Ferris. “Al Qaeda will blow up bombs in markets. Al Jaish Al Islami [the Islamic Army] won’t,” Ferris adds. “If reconciliation is ever going to occur then the Islamic Army is a group you could work with.”

Both insurgent groups tag the walls with slogans, threats, and boasts.

Al Qaeda’s street artists write: “The Samarra police are infidels, so we will bring you young men who love martyrdom,” and “We will destroy all those who cooperate with the Americans.”

The Islamic Army scribes write much the same thing, but threaten “the occupiers” instead of the local security forces and collaborators.

Matthew’s job is to redirect the artistic impulses of each group against the other. “It’s a way to destabilize their unification efforts,” says First Lieutenant Charlie Hodges, who leads one of the graffiti patrols.

Abu Tiba, the alleged leader of Al Qaeda in Samarra, is a frequent subject.

Hodges tells Matthew to write something really terrible about Abu Tiba, something that the Islamic Army of Iraq might say about him, something that will start a fight.

Matthew nods. Then in bright red paint he writes “Abu Tiba is a terrorist and those who work with him are terrorists.”

It seems somehow less menacing than the crossed out “USA” daubed next to it on the dusty brown wall.

Hodges does not read Arabic, so he asks a reporter traveling with the platoon to translate. Hodges is clearly disappointed. The black propaganda effort needs a lot more street cred than Matthew is giving him.

They climb back into the Humvees, drive around the corner, and try again.

Hodges sees writing on the wall, but he has to ask to make sure that it is insurgent sloganeering and not something else, such as a sign advertising someone’s vegetable stand.

He asks about one long sentence. Matthew tells him it is a Koranic verse. “Leave that one alone,” Hodges says.

Finally they find a message telling the occupiers to leave. Matthew scribbles over it. Then Hodges tries again. “This time, I want you to write that Al Qaeda has killed many in the Islamic Army,” he says.

“Al Qaeda has killed many from the Islamic Army,” Matthew writes.

Then the local Iraqi police step in, not to handcuff Matthew and charge him with vandalism, but to offer suggestions on how to spice up his prose.

Many of the police are well-practiced themselves, having sprayed messages like “Long live Iraq, Long live the First Battalion,” and “the First Battalion are Heroes” on the blast walls surrounding their bases and compounds.

An argument ensues between Matthew and the police – three men in mismatched uniforms with AK-47 assault rifles slung around their necks.

One cop finally suggests something that is greeted with enthusiasm. Matthew amends the message.

“Al Qaeda has killed many FIGHTERS from the Islamic Army.”

The paint is running out. Hodges tells Matthew that his writing is too large, and orders everyone back to the vehicles.

The heavily armed US soldiers who had fanned out along the darkened street return to the Humvees, the police climb into their pickup trucks, and under the cover of darkness and an all-night curfew they head back to base.

Again, the use of graffiti to incite conflict between competing insurgents is adaptive, innovative, and apparently effective.  It is not learned at Quantico or Leavenworth.  It is learned in the school of the hard knocks.  The U.S. troops are the best in the world, but there are two cautionary comments that are appropriate at this point.

First, troops (most of the time) are given some basic instruction in Arabic as part of the training for deployment.  This training is based on the philosophy of phonetics (i.e., sounds, proper pronunciation).  With limited time, money and resources, this is the best approach and sure to yield the best possible results in the short term.  But proper planning for the long war needs to take the next step.  Immersion in Arabic (both spoken and written) needs to be part of the planning for not only officers, but enlisted men as well.  A better knowledge of Arabic would cause a remarkable step change in warfighting capabilities in Iraq (and throughout the Middle East) given the nature of COIN.

Second, we must remember that the counterinsurgency will morph upon the potential demise of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).  It doesn’t end, and in fact it might become more complicated given the potential support of the broader population if this revised and restructured insurgency no longer engages in acts of brutality towards the population.

There appears to be a paradigm shift in the counterinsurgency strategy being employed by the U.S. forces in Iraq.  This shift goes further than the changes associated with the security plan of which many observers are aware (e.g., deployment out of Forward Operating Bases into the cities to combat operation posts).  The changes point to a fundamental shift in the way the U.S. sees the battle for Iraq.

The schema until now seems to have been focused on the notion that the Iraqi people, separated from the rogue elements in their midst, long for freedom and self-determination, with al Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al Sunna, and foreign suicide bombers standing in their way.  Defeating the insurgents has primarily been seen as defeating AQI.  One need only to go back through the Multi-National force press releases to see how many references there are to AQI.  But it is becoming increasingly clear that this schema bears little resemblance to the realities on the ground in Iraq.

With AQI and AAS standing only at several thousand, for a country the size of Iraq, there simply aren’t enough to pull off destabilization of a country.  There are more gang members in most medium size American cities than there are al Qaeda in Iraq. Until recently, the Sunni militants were seen in the role of assisting AQI, but the view seems to be changing to one of the disaffected Sunnis (i.e., Fedayeen Saddam, former Iraq security police, former senior Iraqi army leadership and hard line Baathists) being primarily in the lead with AQI and AAS being secondary in their affect and power.

There are reports that the security situation in Ramadi might be improving.  Once again, AQI is mentioned as of paramount importance regarding the security situation in Ramadi, but the NewsDay article ends with an interesting admission concerning the Anbar province and other areas of Iraq.

The U.S. military has struggled for nearly four years to secure this city, which had become a magnet for Sunni insurgents and a lawless haven for al-Qaida militants.

Now – slowly, and in halting steps – something appears to have given way. At least by its own tortured standards, Ramadi seems to be calming.

“It’s much safer than it was, but is it perfectly safe? No,” said Army Col. John Charlton, the commander responsible for the city 75 miles west of the capital.

“As long as al-Qaida is operating in Iraq, it’s not going to be.”

Ramadi offers a snapshot of the Pentagon’s latest strategies to quell violence in Iraq. Neighborhoods are being walled off to keep insurgents out. Military units are moving off major bases and setting up smaller U.S.-Iraqi posts in violent areas downtown.

Alliances are being struck with influential Sunni sheiks once arrayed against the Americans, and tribal leaders have provided people for a police force …

While the U.S. military claims progress, Ramadi remains a place where fear shadows even commonplace acts. Shoppers and school children carry white flags in desperate attempts to show neutrality.

“A lot of people are still scared in their hearts,” said Mahmoud, an elderly man who gave only his first name.

“Jihadists were all around … killing everybody. They could come back anytime.”

In large part to allay those fears, Charlton said 70 percent of U.S. forces live downtown.

“We used to go on patrols and get shot at, then go back to base, eat chow and do it all again,” said Army 1st Sgt. Michael Jusino, also in Ramadi two years ago.

“But we realized … you have to go into the city and stay there.” Suicide bombers still strike, the most recent one on April 6.

But troops show off graphs indicating a recent turnaround in violence. Compared to 20 to 30 daily attacks a year ago, now there often are just a few bursts of small-arms fire in a day.

Marine Brig. Gen. Charles Gurganus, commander of U.S. ground forces in Anbar, said insurgents who fled Ramadi are still in Anbar.

“They’re going to places we aren’t. They regroup … but wherever they go, we’re going to go with them.”

As I have discussed before, Fallujah is currently a hot spot of insurgent activity, so some of the Sunni fighters have fled from Ramadi only a few kilometers East.  Another hot spot is Baqouba, in the Diyala Province.

They maneuver in squads, like the U.S. infantrymen they try to kill. One squad fires furiously so another can attack from a better position. They operate in bad weather, knowing U.S. helicopters and surveillance drones are grounded. Some carry GPS receivers so mortar teams can calculate the coordinates of U.S. armored vehicles. They kidnap and massacre police officers.

The Sunni guerrillas and extremists who now dominate this city demonstrate a sophistication and lethality born of years of confronting U.S. military tactics. While the “surge” plays out in Baghdad just 35 miles to the south, Baqouba has emerged as a magnet for insurgents from around the country and, perhaps, the next major headache for the U.S. military.

Some insurgents have moved into Baqouba to escape the escalation in Baghdad. But the city has been attracting insurgents for years, and particularly after U.S. officials in Baghdad proclaimed it and surrounding Diyala province relatively pacified more than a year ago and drew down their troop presence.

When 70 insurgents broke out of a Mosul jail last month, for example, escapees from Chad, Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan were apprehended here, the Iraqi police said. And Sunni fighters continue to heed calls by insurgent leaders to converge here.

It is impossible to say how many insurgents there are in Baqouba now. Some military officials put the number around at least 2,000, a nasty stew that includes former members of Saddam Hussein’s army and paramilitary forces, the Fedayeen; angry and impoverished Sunni men; criminal gangs; Wahhabi Islamists; and foreigners. That is similar to the number of insurgents in Fallujah in 2004, before a bloody Marine offensive to retake the city, said Lt. Col. Scott Jackson, deputy head of the provincial reconstruction team in Diyala, who fought in Fallujah.

As the insurgent ranks have swelled, attacks on U.S. troops have soared. The 5,000-strong brigade that patrols Diyala province has had 44 soldiers killed in five months, more than twice the number who died in the preceding year.

This account more clearly summarizes the current state of the insurgency than merely calling them al Qaeda.  U.S. forces are reponding to the increased insurgent activity in Baqouba, even if senior leadership still points to AQI as being the primary enemy.  “Soldiers with 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment continued their systematic attack on terrorist forces in Baqouba with another clearing operation in the city April 10.  In this latest effort, Soldiers of 5-20 Inf. Regt., 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Lewis, Wash., spent three days clearing the neighborhood of Buhriz, described by Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Bruce Antonia as “al-Qaida’s battleground.”

The much-heralded tribal split with al Qaeda is a positive sign in the Anbar Province, but it must be remembered that even if AQI loses in this showdown, the insurgency is not defeated.  One side of the insurgency has merely gained supremacy over the other.  This modified schema of seeing the insurgency as being primarily borne on the shoulders of disaffected Sunnis is supported in this informative and interesting report by Michael Totten from Kirkuk (Patrick Laswell has an equally interesting report from Kirkuk).

“Most, if not all, the terrorists are the old Baath Party members,

From The Australian:

AUSTRALIA’S defence chiefs are already reconciled to a long-term Australian military presence in Afghanistan.

Yesterday’s announcement of a return of special forces to Afghanistan confirms that that country remains at the centre of Australia’s military contribution to the global jihadist war.

The SAS and the commandos are essential to ensuring that our engineers and trade specialists can go about their civic rebuilding tasks with the support of localAfghans. The ground forces are sustained by headquarters, intelligence and logistics staff, as well as vital air support, bringing the total size of the force to at least 1000.

The experience of the past few months has shown that without aggressive, long-range patrolling and intelligence gathering by Australian special forces, the threat posed by Taliban insurgents in Oruzgan province will soon rebound. Tight rules of engagement for a number of NATO countries, including The Netherlands, inhibit their combat forces from taking on the Taliban in offensive operations. 

We will revisit this last sentence in a few moments.  In a recent article in Harper’s Magazine, defense policy expert Edward Luttwak weighs in on the current conflict in Iraq in an interesting article entitled Dead End: Counterinsurgency Warfare as Military Malpractice.   After recognizing that involvement of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and effective political machinations are necessary for victory in any counterinsurgency, he makes the following observation that becomes seminal for his article.

Much more questionable is the proposition that follows, which is presented as self-evident, that a necessary if not sufficient condition of victory is to provide what the insurgents cannot: basic public services, physical reconstruction, the hope of economic development and social amelioration. The hidden assumption here is that there is only one kind of politics in this world, a politics in which popular support is important or even decisive, and that such support can be won by providing better government. Yet the extraordinary persistence of dictatorships as diverse in style as the regimes of

Cuba, Libya, North Korea, and Syria shows that in fact government needs no popular support as long as it can secure obedience. As for better government, that is certainly wanted in France, Norway, or the United States, but obviously not in Afghanistan or Iraq, where many people prefer indigenous and religious oppression to the freedoms offered by foreign invaders.

The very word “guerrilla,

I am in receipt of information not available in the public domain that convinces me that the information in the article was substantially incorrect.  Rather than explain it, I have simply deleted the content.  I am not too big to admit mistakes.  In 427 articles, this is only the second time (of which I am aware) that false information was proferred.

I am in receipt of information not available in the public domain that convinces me that the information in the article was substantially incorrect.  Rather than explain it, I have simply deleted the content.  I am not too big to admit mistakes.  In 427 articles, this is only the second time (of which I am aware) that false information was proferred.