I was wrong about SecDef Gates - here is a more accurate view of him

I apologize to those of you who read yesterday’s post about Secretary of Defense Gates.  I read his recent speeches with my mind closed.  Fortunately Tom Engelhardt sees what the rest of us overlook.  Consider Gates’ 4 April speech at West Point.

Last year I read Partners in Command, a book by Mark Perry. It is an account of the unique relationship between Eisenhower and General George Marshall … one of the things I found compelling is how they were both influenced by another senior Army officer who is not nearly as well-known and in fact, as a reader of history, I had never heard of.

His name is Fox Conner, a tutor and mentor to both Eisenhower and Marshall. … From Conner, Marshall and Eisenhower learned much about leadership and the conduct of war. Conner had three principles of war for a democracy that he imparted to Eisenhower and Marshall. They were:

• Never fight unless you have to;
• Never fight alone;
• And never fight for long.

All things being equal, these principles are pretty straightforward and strategically sound. We’ve heard variants of them in the decades since, perhaps most recently in the Powell doctrine.

But of course, all things are not equal, particularly when you think about the range and complexity of the threats facing America today, from the wars we are in to the conflicts we are most likely to fight. So tonight I’d like to discuss with you how you should think about applying Fox Conner’s three axioms to the security challenges of the 21st century, the challenges where you will be on the front lines.

Gates then explains that we will no longer follow these principles — and will do the opposite.  This is the build-up to the heart of the speech (bold emphasis added):

The media discover info ops, with outrage!

The media have discovered that our military has mastered the key 4GW skill of running information operations.  Thoroughly researched and well-written, the following is probably one of the most important news stories of the year.   I strongly recommend reading it.

“Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand“, New York Times, 20 April 2008 — “A Pentagon Campaign:  Retired officers have been used to shape terrorism coverage from inside the TV and radio networks. “

This should not be news.  In November 2007 I described good news:  our military had learned how to run successful information operations.  Unfortunately, they were running them against us.  Mine was not the first such article. 

One of the best to date examined the propaganda of the pre-war and early war phases.  Boehlert’s account of Bush’s Imperial press conference on 6 March 2003 is worth the price of his book, recounting the moment in which “please stand for the President of the United States” in effect gave way to to “bow before the President of the United States.”

“Lapdogs“, Eric Boehlert, Salon (4 May 2006) — “Cowardly and clueless, the U.S. media abandoned its post as Bush led the country into a disastrous war. A look inside one of the great journalistic collapses of our time. This is an excerpt from former Salon senior writer Eric Boehlert’s new book Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush.”

Many do not see any problem with this, like this post at Winds of Change.  Almost nobody discusses the real problem with government propaganda:  it undermines people’s trust of and identification with the State.  That is bad even for tyrannies like the USSR; it is a potentially terminal problem for a republic. 

Whatever the short-term benefits of info ops — in this case, building public support for a long war — it undermines the foundation of our political regime.  That should be an unacceptable price in the Decline of the State era, in which strengthening people’s relationship with the government must be a paramount strategic goal.

Update:  A comment about this story by W. Patrick Lang (Colonel, US Army, retired), posted at Sic Semper Tyrannis (19 April 2008):

I was invited to one briefing at the Pentagon. At the meeting, many of those mentioned in this article were present. The purpose of the meeting was to give Rumsfeld the chance to explain the Abu Ghraib mess. I asked some awkward questions and was not invited again.

Update:  A comment by Matt Armstrong at MountainRunner (23 April 2008) that concurs with my conclusion (mentioned above).  The full post is worth reading!  Excerpt:

In the end, I don’t see this as an issue of legality, but one of credibility and trust. The Rumsfeldian Defense Department clearly failed to understand the importance of these two elements in Information Age conflict and counterinsurgency, which has been ably documented elsewhere.

( click for more about how our military has mastered this key 21st century military skill)

We are withdrawing from Afghanistan, too (eventually)

As our Long War continues with no end in sight, it is easy to lose perspective on the course of the war.  This brief survey illustrates one aspect of the Afghanistan Campaign.  Like Iraq, it began with fantastic success — then has slowly deteriorated as our 4GW foes evolve and their “home court” advantage works against us.  Note the links at the end to more information about the Afghanistan War.

The following results from a quick search of the Stratfor database.   My thanks to Stratfor, provider of a premier private geopoltical reporting and archive service.  They make this kind of research fast and easy.
 
Afghanistan: War ‘Over,’ But Combat To Continue (May 5, 2003)

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced May 1 that “major combat activity” in Afghanistan has ended. However, the events of recent months have shown that conflict — though no longer on the scale of Operation Anaconda — is far from past. If Rumsfeld’s announcement is followed by a draw-down in combat forces and support, the United States will be left more vulnerable to attacks by Islamist militants and warlords.

 NATO Troop Strength In Afghanistan  (February 4, 2004)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) seeks to more than double its presence in Afghanistan, the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily reported on Feb. 4.  According to the German daily, NATO will consider plans to raise the number of troops from the current 6,000 to 14,000. … another detachment of 12,000 U.S.-led forces, separate from the NATO-led peacekeepers, is engaged in tracking down Taliban militants and their jihadist allies in southern and eastern Afghanistan. There are plans to put these troops under NATO control and to construct an Afghan headquarters for Eurocorps, a five-nation military alliance.

Why are we are fighting in Afghanistan?

Summary: a debate about our role in the Afghanistan War, and more generally about the limits of America’s power and military power. As our share of global income declines, this is increasingly the same thing.

“Don’t ‘pull an Iraq’ in Afghanistan“, Benjamin H. Friedman, Christian Science Monitor (3 April 2008) — “Massive state-building efforts are not a good use of tax dollars.”

This article sparked a discussion about the Afghanistan War with Joshua Foust at Registan.net (”Central Asia News - All Central Asia, All The Time”). What can we gain by fighting in Afghanistan? Is it worth the cost? See “Why we fight” for the full text of the debate.

In the opening round, Friedman makes what I consider powerful arguments.

This week at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, American officials asked Europeans to send more troops to the war in Afghanistan. Leaders in both the Democratic and Republican Parties agree that higher troop levels and a deeper commitment to state-building are the path to victory in Afghanistan. But both sides are wrong, and Iraq shows why.

How long will all American Presidents be War Presidents?

The Presidential campaign rolls on in the seventh year since 9/11, with the only debate about the Long War being in which nations America should fight. We see this even the speeches of the most “liberal” candidate, Senator Barack Obama.

I recommend reading “The World Beyond Iraq”, his speech about national security given at Fayetteville, NC on 19 March 2008.  He describes his plan for withdrawal from Iraq, but only to focus our efforts on Afghanistan … and Pakistan.  This is doubling down when losing, known as the “gambler’s ruin.” {revisions to this are in red)  This speech is a rhetorical masterpiece, providing strong and specific promises.  He gets right to the point…

…while we have a General who has used improved tactics to reduce violence, we still have the wrong strategy.   As General Petraeus has himself acknowledged, the Iraqis are not achieving the political progress needed to end their civil war…. When you have no overarching strategy, there is no clear definition of success.  Success comes to be defined as the ability to maintain a flawed policy indefinitely. Here is the truth: fighting a war without end will not force the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. And fighting in a war without end will not make the American people safer.

So when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on Day One: I will end this war.  Not because politics compels it.  Not because our troops cannot bear the burden- as heavy as it is.  But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer.

A key to the power of FM 3-24, the new COIN manual

(later additions to the text are in red)   FM 3-24 provides a basis for DoD’s people to describe a society. This is sketched out under “Describe the Effects of the Operational Environment” (3-16 through 3-65+) using standard social science definitions. This is valuable, as we cannot describe that for which we lack the words, and clear language promotes clear thinking.  Ths post discusses the problematic nature of the Army using language and concepts from the social sciences, following yesterday’s post discussing the limited operational utility of social science theories.

General Semantics teaches us that language is a process of abstraction, and can sometimes give just the illusion of knowledge. The map is not the territory. The name is not the thing itself. The deeper we go in this section of FM 3-24, the deeper gets the waters. To take a small example: as Americans we can talk about clans, races, and other groups … but understanding their hold on people’s minds and feelings is far more difficult. As we climb the ladder to more abstract concepts, their meaning becomes more difficult to grasp.

3-44. A value is an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end state of existence is preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence.

Values are the bedrock on which many people build their lives. Americans are taught in most colleges that facts and values are different things, a concept with roots in western philosophy going back to Hume. Believing that values are not facts puts one in a different cultural universe from that of many other peoples, who believe that their values are not personally chosen but instead rooted in reality … derived from God. The Army can teach the words, but the music is more difficult to learn.

An implied message of western social sciences can be that “we” are superior to “them”. After all, Max Weber taught “us” that values are just beliefs, while “they” do not know this — foolishly regarding their values as permanent and enduring facts about the universe. Armed with these insights, it must be difficult not to patronize the locals (especially in the ancient societies of the Middle East, which had a high civilization when the people of Britain painted themselves blue and worshiped trees). Even worse, these insights might encourage officers to believe they actually understand these foreign societies (much of the language in FM 3-24 encourages this). Worst of all would be belief that the Anthropology 101 concepts allow us to successfully manipulate foreign societies (see yesterday’s post for more about this last point. Much of the professional training in these fields is to overcome these tendencies.

As an example, consider one simple and clear typology from FM 3-24 (from the work of Max Weber):

One telling similarity between the the Wehrmacht and the US Military

“Center of Gravity versus Lines of Effort in COIN“, Herschel Smith, at the Captain’s Journal (3 March 2008) — An article well worth reading.  Thoroughly researched, Smith provides several powerful insights and provides an excellent operational and tactical perspective.

From a larger perspective this article shows how the 21st century US military is locked into a historically common trap.  No matter how good, it remains harnessed to US elites’ geopolitical thinking — poorly reasoned, emotional (ruled by hubris and fear).  Our military apparatus consistently provides professional, smooth execution of bad strategy.   We do the wrong thing, but brilliantly.  In this we have become like the WWI and WWII German military (aka loosely as the Wehrmacht), attempting to overcome foolish strategy with operational excellence.  In the seventh article of William Lind’s ”On War” series (12 March 2003), he presented on of his most incisive observations:

Between 1809 and 1945, the Prussian and, later, German armies developed what is often called maneuver warfare of Third Generation warfare. For the past quarter century, the U.S. military has been trying to adopt this German way of war, and failing.

A must-read book for any American interested in geopolitics

Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner

While by no means the definitive history of the CIA (which cannot yet be written), or even an objective look at the Agency (probably not yet possible), it is one of the best and most timely accounts of one of the prime instruments in the War on Terror — now the primary strategic concern of the US defense apparatus (see this for evidence).

One contributing factor to the debacle of the Vietnam War was the collapse of the State Department during the commie hunts of the 1950’s (a sub-text found in many accounts of that era, such as David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest).  In this sense, the long and expensive futility of the Iraq War results from the long decay of our intelligence apparatus — which Legacy chronicles.  That leaves a future historian the task of recording the collapse of our military agencies, the only leg so far standing in our geopolitical tripod.

There is no need to review this thoroughly researched and footnoted work.  It can speak for itself, as any excerpt shows its quality.  Here is one such, giving concrete illustrations of the post-9/11 militarization of intelligence and the hollowing-out effect of privatization on our intel agencies.

Quote of the day: this is America’s geopolitical strategy in action

This 2300 word essay by George Friedman of Stratfor shows the essence of America’s geopolitical engine, the heart of the War on Terror.  I strongly recommend reading it.  The end is especially worth pondering.  More than just reading it, I recommend mailing copies to your elected representatives along with letters of outrage.

“Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Good War“, George Friedman, Stratfor (26 February 2008) — Excerpts:

…It {the US government} was not after the Taliban but al Qaeda. It appears — and much of this remains murky — that the command cell of al Qaeda escaped from Afghan forces and U.S. Special Operations personnel at Tora Bora and slipped across the border into Pakistan. …Al Qaeda clearly was disrupted and relocated — and was denied its sanctuary. A number of its operatives were captured, further degrading its operational capability.

…The U.S. commitment of troops was enough to hold the major cities and conduct offensive operations that kept the Taliban off balance, but the United States could not possibly defeat them. The Soviets had deployed 300,000 troops in Afghanistan and could not defeat the mujahideen. NATO, with 50,000 troops and facing the same shifting alliance of factions and tribes that the Soviets couldn’t pull together, could not pacify Afghanistan.  But vanquishing the Taliban simply was not the goal. The goal was to maintain a presence that could conduct covert operations in Pakistan looking for al Qaeda and keep al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan.

Surrender in Al Anbar province

The fateful events in Al Anbar province during 2006 and 2007 illustrate that seemingly simple events in 4GW can mystify even experts. The specifics are clear. By the summer of 2006 local elites in the largely Sunni Arab province in Iraq had established local control against the efforts of the Shiite-dominated central government and Coalition forces. At the same time they began fighting their closest ally, Al Qaeda in Iraq. Experts offer different explanations for this split; there may be no one master narrative. Perhaps the tribal leaders no longer needed these pushy Islamic extremists as shock troops.

At the same time Americans’ support for the war was rapidly fading. At the request of Congress, the Iraq Study Group (aka the Baker-Hamilton Commission) was formed in March 2006, reporting in December. Drastic steps were necessary if the American Expedition to Iraq was to continue.

In September of 2006 the Anbar Salvation Council was created, and the stars had aligned for a deal. The terms, however informal, were clear.

• The US military ceased operations against them.
• The US ceded full control of their territories to them.
• The US paying, training, and arming their militia.
• The US began directing funds through the tribal leaders for rebuilding their communities.
• The Sunni Arabs in return agreed to continue fighting the Islamic extremists, with whatever timing and intensity they consider appropriate.
• They gave no formal promises of allegiance to either the Iraq National government or to the US.

We surrendered this theater of the war; they won. But the word “surrender” has too much baggage for anything but shock value. Technically, in the context of the Iraq War, this was a tactical retreat. As Douglas Macgregor (Colonel, USA, retired) said in his statement to Congress on 8 February 2008 (this is a must-read for anyone following the war):

The Essential 4GW reading list: David Kilcullen

Contents

1. A brief note about Kilcullen and his work.
2. Kilcullen’s major works
3. Kilcullen’s other works (minor only in comparison with his major works)
4. My reviews of Kilcullen’s work
5. A selction of articles about Kilcullen in the mainstream media
6. Articles about the Revolt of the Anthropologists against “militarization” of their science
7. Other articles in this series

I.  A brief note about Kilcullen and his work

Soldier.  Adviser to both Coalition governments and their front-line company commanders.  Advocate of the war on terrorism.  Kilcullen’s work explains how to think about insurgencies (as biological systems, in “Countering Global Insurgencies”), how to fight insurgencies on every level from a single community to the entire world, and warns of imperial overstretch (ibid).

Analysts of modern warfare (herein called 4GW) can be divided into two groups.  First, those who believe that western nations — led by the USA — have the right, resources, and ability to successfully wage offensive “war” (broadly defined) against a global Islamic threat.  Second, there are those who disagree with one or more elements of that proposition.  Kilcullen is one of best-known and most skillful experts in the first group.

The articles he published while a Coalition adviser have few precedents in wartime.  Imagine an adviser to General MacArthur or General Eisenhower writing about our strategy, tactics, and progress during WWII, as Kilcullen has about and even from Iraq.  Is the government using the Internet to accelerate our Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action loops, tapping into the expertise and creativity of our citizenry?  Or info-warfare to sustain support for the war, propaganda on a new and more sophisticated level?  It’s something for historians to debate, as we cannot know.

If the former, has this worked?  Note the lack of analysis Kilcullen’s work has received.  Much attention, even adulation.  But, so far as I can find, few articles providing analysis or review.  Given the quality of his work, its importance, and the controversial nature of its subject, this is not only extraordinary but also unfortunate. 

Arrows in the Eagle’s claw - solutions to 4GW

This series describes the various types of solutions to modern warfare, herein called fourth generation warfare (4GW).  It will attempt to show their relationship to one another and their relative potential.  4GW appears to be the dominant form of warfare in the 21st century, so mastery of it might prove necessary for America’s prosperity or even survival.  This is a topology, a wide perspective view of writings about 4GW.  Future chapters will examine these divisions in more detail.

Analysts – the foundation of the pyramid

This first class of work provides analysis, drawing on a diverse range of resources including history, military theory, and the social sciences.  This is foundational to the development of solutions, for nothing can be done except by luck without a deep understanding of

• our situation (strengths, weaknesses, goals, etc),
• the other players on the world stage (both state and non-state actors),
• and the almost infinite range of scenarios possible in the near and far future. 

Since everyone working with 4GW does some combination of analysis and recommendations, I include in this group those whose work focuses on more on description than prescription.  Applied to individuals, any simple categorization is somewhat arbitrary.

Readers of journals in this field — such as  DNI, Parameters, or the Marine Corps Gazette — will see that this category of work is by far the largest both in volume and number of writers.  It includes, just to name a few,  Martin van Creveld, David Kilcullen, Chet Richards, and John Robb.

Visionaries — another important component of the foundation

War with Iran

Wolf Pangloss wrote an interesting and detailed reply to Part I of my series on The Long War.  In it he describes why Iran is our enemy.  As a timely rebuttal see The Iranian Challenge in The Nation, by Trita Parsi (author of the newly released Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S. (Yale), and president of the National Iranian American Council).  This describes 6 myths about Iran.

1. Iran is ripe for regime change.
2. Iran is irrational and cannot be deterred.
3. Iran is inherently anti-American.
4. Enrichment equals a nuclear bomb.
5. Iran seeks Israel’s destruction.
6. The pressure on Iran is working.

I am no Middle East area expert, but these seem pretty accurate (although I question #4, as it is true only over the short term).  But the strategic context to this debate is seldom discussed.  Let’s consider two aspects of the wider game.

First, history shows that the very existence of a hegemon impels other states to ally against it.  Worse, our new fondness for attacking other states must incite fear and encourage alliances against us.  This is clearly happening today amongst the emerging powers of Asia — China and Russia.   Let’s not encourage this natural tendency, let alone accelerate it.  Attacking Iran would do both, at warp speed.

Second, strength encourages boldness — often disastrously so (Napoleon’s invasion of Russia).  But even worse, so does the illusion of strength.  America’s position today is precarious, with both internal and external weaknesses — both geopolitical and financial.  Note my previous posts about Peak Oil and the US dollar.  Adding the stress of another war at this time seems extremely unwise.

Note that rumors are again circulating about a strike at Iran by Israel, best stated in this January article in the Times:  Israel plans nuclear strike at Iran.  Almost certainly a bluff, in my opinion.  Using nukes would make Israel a pariah, far more so than it is today.  They would be global criminals, almost certainly hit with punitive measures such as elimination of foreign aid and trade sanctions.  These would put Israel’s very existence at risk.  

 

For more information about Iran

• War with Iran  (9 November 2007)
• Is Iran dangerous, or a paper tiger?   (13 November 2007)
• Will Israel commit suicide? More rumors of a strike at Iran.  (22 December 2007)
• Will we bomb Iran, now that Admiral Fallon is gone?   (17 March 2008)
• More post-Fallon overheating: “6 signs the US may be headed for war in Iran”   (18 March 2008)

One step beyond Lind: What is America’s geopolitical strategy?

Part X of a series about America’s new Long War

First, we would have to adopt a realistic strategic goal, one that might be attainable. The present strategic goal of turning Afghanistan into a modern, secular, capitalist state with “equal rights for women” and similar claptrap lies in the in realm of fantasy.
William Lind, On War #237 (15 October 2007)

Can America Have “Realistic Strategic Goals”?

Lind’s analysis (brilliant as usual) raises an uncomfortable question: are his recommendations reasonable, or do they too lie in the realm of fantasy? After all, when did America last have a reasonable geo-political strategy? Is this an impossible thing to ask of our current ruling elites?

A great nation needs a clear and simple geo-political strategy. They focus one’s strength and limited resources, and allow allies to easily coordinate their actions with ours.

• The British Empire sought cheap raw materials, export markets for its goods, the channel ports in friendly hands, and to prevent one state from dominating Europe. Plus a few humanitarian goals, such as eliminating the sea-borne slave trade.
• The Czars sought to expand Russia’s borders to the Mediterranean and Pacific, while maintaining its vast multi ethnic Empire.
• Nineteen century America had its Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine.
• Cold war America sought (1) containment of communism and (2) spread of free trade under the US dollar-based Bretton Woods system, both implemented though a web of alliances.

4GW at work in a community near you

Part V of this series provoked many emails requesting more symptoms showing the decline of the State (DOTS) in America. I wish all the questions I received were so easy to answer. This essay will give some general background and a specific example. The ur-text for DOTS is Martin van Creveld’s The Rise and Decline of the State. [DNI Editor's note: See also van Creveld's "The Fate of the State"] He gives vast evidence of DOTS in America, such as the shifting of core functions like primary education and security from public to private entities - either for profit companies or non-government organizations (NGO’s).

The privatization of education is a major media story, especially efforts by the government to resist the rise of home teaching and for-profit schools. The privatization of security has occurred more quietly and is perhaps more significant. Private security detectives/guards outnumber police in America by approximately 1.1 million to 800 thousand, and their numbers are growing faster. The total number of private guards does not even include in-house guards, such as for companies and schools - nor mercs, such as those Blackwater brought in to guard the mansions of New Orleans following Katrina.

These are just the first symptoms of America’s DOTS. The State’s loss of power means not just diminished functions but an overall loss of authority. For example, generations of lies have eroded the credibility of America’s government - and its replacement by NGO’s as reliable sources of information and analysis. We see this today as Americans seek to learn about events in the Iraq War.

Even pro-war groups seek alternative sources of information to official reports and the establishment media. Hence the development of a cottage-industry of privately supported bloggers reporting from Iraq, such as Michael Yon and Bill Roggio.