Archive for the 'The Long War' Category

We have previously argued for properly resourcing the long war.  This argument was primarily based on multiple deployments and the affect that they have on warrior morale.  Said a different way, consider Ernie Pyle.  For a generation that has been raised on video games, World of Warcraft and rap, Ernie Pyle is unknown.  Yet his prose serves as some of the best philosophical analysis of war that has ever been published, and should be required reading in professional military programs.  Pyle had previously described the belief of World War II veterans that the only way home was through Germany.  Winning the war meant going home, and permanently so.  Going home for modern day warriors means being deployed again in a year with all of the stress and strain on troops and their families.

There is currently a debate within professional military circles regarding a somewhat different concern, that being that prosecution of counterinsurgency taking the focus off of more conventional operations, one of which is artillery (h/t Small Wars Journal Blog).  Three active duty Army Colonels weigh in with a white paper entitled The Impending Crisis in Field Artillery’s Ability to Provide Fire Support to Maneuver Commanders.  In it they argue that the practice of field artillery has languished with the exclusive practice of counterinsurgency.

Professor Lt. Col. Gian Gentile argues the same in “Breaking the American Army.”

Six years of counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has atrophied the Army’s ability to fight conventional battles like the kind fought in the first Gulf War against Iraq.

Recent analyses of the Israeli army’s performance in southern Lebanon in summer 2006 show that its skill at conventional fighting atrophied because of many years of conducting counterinsurgency operations in the Palestinian territories. In southern Lebanon the Israeli army suffered a significant battlefield defeat at the hands of Hezbollah militants who fought them tenaciously and ferociously using tactics reminiscent of the way the World War II German army fought the Americans in the hedgerows of Normandy in the summer of 1944. When Hezbollah fighters attacked Israeli armored and infantry columns in 2006, the Israeli army had severe difficulties at simple command and control and coordination between tanks and infantry.

The American army is in a similar condition today and the American people and their political leaders should be worried. For example, when combat brigades return from Iraq or Afghanistan and are looking at only a year or so back home before heading back the short amount of training time almost guarantees that the brigades will train almost exclusively on counterinsurgency operations.

Last summer a group of combat soldiers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division wrote critically in a New York Times opinion article about Iraq and the long-term effects that continued American military presence would produce. Although these soldiers were doubtful of American military power solving Iraq’s deep-rooted problems, they acknowledged that as soldiers they would carry on despite their doubts about the mission. They said: “we need not talk of morale, as committed soldiers we will see this mission through.”

Those words by battle-hardened, combat soldiers from the 82nd Airborne reflect the ethic and commitment of the American army to accomplishing the assigned mission, even if it means breaking the Army in the process. Just as our political leaders can employ the American army as they see fit, so, too, can they keep it from breaking.

The Captain’s Journal will not weigh in on a solution to this dilemma.  However, properly resourcing the long war, as we have argued for multiple times (basing this argument on the mental health of our warriors) would go a long way towards solving this problem as well.  Morality must undepin our prosecution of the long war, this morality being applicable to our very own warriors and how we treat them, whether concern for their hearts or concern for their skills.

The demarcation between “conservative” and “liberal” over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has not only made for strange bedfellows in recent months and years, it has caused the twisting and spinning of evidence and data to fit into a political model, this model being derived by political party operatives not for purposes of clear delineation and advocacy of strategy and tactics regarding the global war on terror, but rather for purposes of victory in the U.S. electoral college.

In the discussion that follows, we will provide three examples of this phenomenon and then an analysis of these examples to show how the traditional boundary conditions of “conservative” and “liberal” no longer suffice as an adequate explanation or descriptor of the positions advocated by an individual or party.

Examples

The first example pertains to whether the Sunni insurgency was primarily indigenous Sunnis or al Qaeda.  On or about July 2007, we released Al Qaeda, Indigenous Sunnis and the Insurgency in Iraq.  The primary point of this article was not to berate the talking points of the administration or Multinational Force, but rather to point out that much of what had been called al Qaeda in Iraq or al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was actually indigenous Iraqi Sunnis.

The next example pertains to the state of the U.S. Army and Marines.  Mid-2007, Gen. Peter Pace, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conducted his own review of our military posture and concluded that there has been an overall decline in military readiness and that there is a significant risk that the U.S. military would not be able to respond effectively if it were confronted with another crisis.  Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen gave warning in October of 2007 that the Army and Marines were weary.  Speaking of his visits to soldiers and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan … Mullen said: “They’re tired. They’ve been doing unbelievably great work for our country. And we need to make sure we take care of them and their families.” Regarding prolonged and repeated deployments for the ground forces in Iran and Afghanistan, he said, “The ground forces are not broken, but they are breakable.”

General Pace above was cited in the testimony of Lawrence J. Kord of the left-leaning Center for American Progress.  But W. Thomas Smith, Jr., an analyst who can hardly be called liberal, recently authored an analysis which calls the Army and Marines “war-weary” and “worn thin,” both in terms of human and materiel exhaustion.  This assessment is disputed by Major General Bob Scales, a Foxnews contributor, who uses re-enlistment statistics and other intangibles to conclude that the Army and Marines are resilient rather than broken.  Scales’ view is disputed in the superlative by General Richard A. Cody, the Army’s vice chief of staff, who said that the heavy deployments are inflicting “incredible stress” on soldiers and families and that they pose “a significant risk” to the nation’s all-volunteer military; and General Robert Magnus, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, who called the current pace of operations “unsustainable.”

The final example is Basra, and prior and recent operations there to bring peace and stability.  For all the attention given to Basra in recent days, we’ll note that most analysts are Johnny come lately compared to The Captain’s Journal.  TCJ has been covering Basra beginning mid-2007 with Calamity in Basra and British Rules of Engagement and The Rise of the JAM, recently with Continued Chaos in Basra and ending with As the Smoke Clears Over Basra.  The spin of victory is unrelenting.  One analyst is commenting that the Iraqi Army performance in Basra was good enough that it might be a model that points to a U.S. exit strategy.

Discussion and Analysis

An administration talking point during Operation Iraqi Freedom has been the battle with al Qaeda, and properly so.  But the term “al Qaeda” became a surrogate for a much larger campaign involving Ansar al Sunna, hard line Ba’athists, the Fedayeen, and indigenous fighters among other rogue elements.  The focus on al Qaeda neglected the strategy necessary to effect progress.  That is, insurgents who fight primarily (or at least partially) for religious reasons must be dealt with in a different way than indigenous insurgents.  For this reason The Captain’s Journal has been supportive of the concerned citizens program (now called sons of Iraq) for indigenous Sunnis, and exclusively kinetic operations against al Qaeda.  But balance is necessary, and we have also discussed Iraq as a watershed moment for al Qaeda, and the significant loss that al Qaeda has suffered as a result of sending so many of its fighters to die in Iraq.  In fact, as we had pointed out in Resurgence of Taliban and al Qaeda, by early to mid-2007, there was a paradigm shift concerning the recruitment of jihadists across the globe.  Iraq was and is becoming increasingly seen as a losing proposition for al Qaeda and the deployments of fighters is now primarily to Pakistan and Afghanistan rather than Iraq.

Over the course of this debate over al Qaeda, “conservatives” and “liberals” have become strange bedfellows.  Commentators on the right have argued for seeing the robust presence of al Qaeda in Iraq.  Commentators on the left find themselves in the hard position of having to relinquish their narrative that the U.S. is embroiled exclusively in a civil war in order to refute the conservative narrative.  We must leave Iraq immediately, says the left, because it is our mere presence there which is drawing jihadists from across the globe.  We must stay, says the right, because jihadists from across the globe are in Iraq and will cause a destabilizing presence if we leave.  Both narratives are shortsighted.  The exclusive focus by the right on al Qaeda missed the counterinsurgency strategy pressed by General Odierno to bring the indigenous fighters into the Iraqi fold.  The narrative on the left misses the role that a stable Iraq will play in the region over the next century, and assumes that al Qaeda has no regional or worldwide ambitions, contrary to its stated intent.

The current state of the U.S. military also brings the differences (and similarities) between the right and left into sharp focus.  The left has known for quite some time that the present pace of operations is unsustainable with the current military.  This has become a powerful talking point for withdrawal from at least one theater of operations, and this usually has been Iraq with most commentators.  In order to counter this point, some conservative commentators (including blogs and running up through retired generals) actually argue that the armed forces are - contrary to the specific, repeated, documented and insistent pronouncements by active duty generals - just fine.

But there is a problem with this narrative.  Tooling America for the long war is not something that either political party is ready to consider because of two reasons.  First, for the left, tooling for the long war would require acquiescence to the notion that there is such a thing.  Second, for the right, it would require the political courage to put before the American people that the time had come to go on a war footing.  Max Boot gives us a short picture of just how far we currently are from this footing.  “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 final example is interesting insofar as it unmasks the pretensions of the conservative narrative that the armed forces are having no problems with the current pace of operations.  This example is Basra.  If the U.S. Army and Marines can sustain the current pace of operations indefinitely without morale and materiel problems, then there is no need to see Basra as the exit strategy.

We must toe a balanced and careful line in these matters.  The campaign for Iraq is complex and requires patience, and measured words and doctrine, including full-orbed implementation of counterinsurgency involving both the hard and soft power of the government.  When a conservative takes the situation in Basra - where women have been beheaded by the hundreds, members of the the Iraqi Army deserted to the Mahdi militia, units in the Iraqi police were told not to shoot at the Mahdi militia even if shot at by them, and the Iranians had the power to broker the ceasefire - and turns this data on its head to conclude that this is some sort of victory for the Iraqi Army, then the conservative knows that he is on the wrong side of the data.  Pointing out failure is not the same thing as demanding retreat.  Max Boot, hardly having a history of advocacy for retreat, has one of the best analyses of Basra, and yet sees multiple failures on the part of the Iraqi army.

When a conservative finds himself ignoring the very real strain on the U.S. Army and Marines, he should know that he is on the wrong side of the data.  Usually supportive of the armed forces, when conservatives side with political talking points against the troops, the conservative soul has been lost.  The Captain’s Journal has good and well-sourced reason to believe that the recent resignation of CENTCOM commander Admiral William J. Fallon had little to do with any specific campaign, present or future, but rather, was focused more on whether the country itself is prepared to go on a war footing in order to tool the armed forces of the United States with the men and materiel it needs to conduct the long war.

The people of the United States will ultimately decide if and how to conduct the long war.  Issuing forth spin and fact-denial in the name of advocacy of that war (or for those on the left, advocacy against that war) creates an evolving narrative that changes as rapidly as the latest political soundbite, and places conservatives in truly dark company, unwittingly arguing for the diminution of the military.  Advocacy for winning the long war requires truth-telling.  It is always the best policy.  As part of this truth-telling, the need to increase the size and budget of the armed forces goes without question.  Going on a war footing to conduct the global war in which we now find ourselves should have been a point of contention in the new media for years.  Unfortunately, much of the new media is too wrapped up in talking points to engage the most significant issue of the century.

In Standing up the Iraqi Army, we made the case that the state of the Iraqi army necessitated the long term presence of U.S. forces in order to protect Iraqi borders and ensure national sovereignty.  The U.N. recently extended the security agreement for U.S. forces in Iraq through the end of 2008.

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to extend the U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq for one year, a move that Iraq’s prime minister said would be his nation’s “final request” for help.

Authorization for the 160,000-strong multinational force was extended until the end of 2008 because “the threat in Iraq continues to constitute a threat to international peace and security,” according to the resolution.

Iraq’s U.N. Ambassador Hamid Al Bayati called it a historic day for the country because the council renewed the mandate “for the last time” after long and hard negotiation. He expressed hope that the council would deal with Iraq without any military authorizations after 2008.

“We realize that Iraq still needs more time and intensive efforts to enable our armed forces to take over the security responsibilities all over Iraq from the multinational forces,” he said, noting that Iraqi forces took responsibility for Basra two days ago and now control nine provinces.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad formally introduced the resolution Tuesday afternoon and soon after the council met to approve it.

After the 15-0 vote, Khalilzad cited “positive developments in Iraq” including reduced violence. He welcomed the council’s support for the Iraqi government’s desire “to sustain this momentum” and keep the force in the country.

The resolution requires a review of the mandate at the request of the Iraqi government or by June 15, 2008. It reiterates a provision of past resolutions that the council “will terminate this mandate earlier” if Iraq requests that.

It also says the Security Council would have to consider Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s request, in a letter on Dec. 7 to the Security Council’s president, that “this is to be the final request … for the extension of the mandate” for the U.S.-led force.

Asked whether the United States wanted to keep the door open to maintaining its troops in Iraq longer, Khalilzad said the extension is at the request of the Iraqi government “representing the will of the Iraqi people.”

“We hope that … with progress in Iraqi security capabilities that Iraq’s goal of self-reliance can be achieved as soon as possible,” he said.

Permanent bases have seemingly been rejected by the Iraq national security advisor.  “We need the United States in our war against terrorism, we need them to guard our border sometimes, we need them for economic support and we need them for diplomatic and political support,” Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.  “But I say one thing, permanent forces or bases in Iraq for any foreign forces is a red line that cannot be accepted by any nationalist Iraqi,” he told Dubai-based al Arabiya television.

Strong words, these are.  But the Kurds see things a little differently.

A top Iraqi Kurdish leader Tuesday said the Kurds want a deal with Washington that would protect their rights as well ensure long term American troops presence in the country.

On his arrival from a visit to Washington, Omar Fatah, deputy prime minister of Iraq’s northern Kurdish government, said they want a “strategic agreement with the Americans” similar to the one between Washington and Baghdad signed last month (editorial note: this refers to the Maliki agreement with and Iraqi cabinet approval of the petition before the U.N. referred to above).

That was for a long-term economic and political agreement that would also keep U.S. forces in Iraq beyond 2008.

“We expressed our pleasure about the agreement between Washington and Baghdad, ” said Fatah, adding Iraqi Kurds want a similar deal. “We want an agreement that would see that Kurds are not oppressed again,” he said, referring to atrocities committed by the former regime against them.

Fatah said during his visit he also told U.S. leaders the Kurds were in favor of a long-term U.S. presence in Iraq.

U.S. forces will be required long beyond 2008, and the Kurdish north is the likely beneficiary of the money and work that will flow as a result of this presence.  Another benefit of this arrangement is the role that U.S. forces will play in regional stabilization.

Former Commander of CENTCOM General John Philip Abizaid, born to a Christian Lebanese-American father and fluent in Arabic and knowledgeable in Middle Eastern culture, coined the phrase long war to describe the conflict with extremist Islamic groups such as al Qaeda.  This phrase was dropped by Admiral William J. Fallon, but the idea is the same and the conflict will not go away because the phrase isn’t used at CENTCOM any more.

Michael Yon has posted an interesting and well-supported article entitled Al Qaeda is Defeated.  He documents the perspective of a powerful South Baghdad tribe concerning al Qaeda violence in their city.

Sheik Omar, who has gained the respect of American combat leaders for his intelligence and organizational skills, said the tough line against al Qaeda is also enforced at the tribal level. According to Sheik Omar, the Jabouri tribe, too, is actively committed to destroying al Qaeda. So much so, that Jabouri tribal leaders have decided they would “kill their own sons�? if any aided al Qaeda. To underscore the point, he went on to say that about 70 Jabouri “sons�? had been killed by the Jabouri tribe so far.

This perspective is not dissimilar from the Anbar tribes after the assassination of Awakening leader shiekh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha by a roadside bomb.  His brother Ahmed vowed to fight al Qaeda to the last child in Anbar.  Soon after this The Captain’s Journal discussed the idea that Iraq was al Qaeda’s quagmire, a title line that was later used for an editorial by the New York Post.  But we also pointed out that al Qaeda would be able to pull off spectacular bombings, and the battle was not yet finished.  This moderation seems to coincide with comments by General Petraeus, when he said that al Qaeda was reeling and their presence was significantly reduced, but also that “al-Qaida remains a very dangerous and very lethal enemy of Iraq. We must maintain contact with them and not allow them to establish sanctuaries or re-establish sanctuaries in places where they were before.�?

The flux or movement of fighers not only within Iraq but within the region suggests that there is mutual cooperation, communication and support within the network of jihadists throughout the region.  In fact, as al Qaeda is gradually defeated in Iraq, this same class of fighters is seen entering Afghanistan to conduct combat against coalition forces.

Afghan police officers working a highway checkpoint near here noticed something odd recently about a passenger in a red pickup truck. Though covered head to toe in a burqa, the traditional veil worn by Afghan women, she was unusually tall. When the police asked her questions, she refused to answer.

When the veil was eventually removed, the police found not a woman at all, but Andre Vladimirovich Bataloff, a 27-year-old man from Siberia with a flowing red beard, pasty skin and piercing blue eyes. Inside the truck was 1,000 pounds of explosives.

Afghan and American officials say the Siberian intended to be a suicide bomber, one of several hundred foreign militants who have gravitated to the region to fight alongside the Taliban this year, the largest influx since 2001.

The foreign fighters are not only bolstering the ranks of the insurgency. They are more violent, uncontrollable and extreme than even their locally bred allies, officials on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border warn.

They are also helping to change the face of the Taliban from a movement of hard-line Afghan religious students into a loose network that now includes a growing number of foreign militants as well as disgruntled Afghans and drug traffickers.

Foreign fighters are coming from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya, various Arab countries and perhaps also Turkey and western China, Afghan and American officials say.

Fighters of Chechen, African and Far Eastern descent have also been recently killed in Fallujah, and if any have lived through the Iraq campaign, there is no doubt that there is some relocation from Iraq to Afghanistan.  This isn’t to say that the Iraq campaign is finished, but that the battle space is fluid and dynamic.  Taliban commanders in Afghanistan say that they communicate with al Qaeda leadership in Iraq.

Al-Sharq Al-Awsat published a sobering commentary for the prospects of the region when the U.S. withdraws.

This is the main problem. America will leave the region and we will find ourselves opening a new chapter that is no better than where we are today. After Iraq and Lebanon are devoured by Iran and Syria, the Gulf region will [find itself] under the siege of the Islamic revolution and under pressure from Syrian meddling. In this case, [our only option will be] to welcome the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups, which will establish their own branches in many Arab countries with Iranian sponsorship and Syrian support.

It is then that we will see many Khaled Mash’als, Hassan Nasrallahs, and Rustum Ghazalis, as well as [numerous] armed forces whose names will begin with ‘Jerusalem,’ and we do not know where all this will end. Therefore, in light of the American withdrawal and the lack of Arab action, the region will witness its second downfall - but this time, it will be at the hand of Tehran and Damascus.

Further West, Afghan forces could be as many as ten years from being able fully to take over security for their nation.  It is important to report and analyze the positive news, and as we have stated here before, al Qaeda is in a quagmire in Iraq.  But it is just as important not to prematurely declare victory and stand down.  Al Qaeda still has life in Iraq and must be completely rooted out.  Afghanistan is the forgotten war which must be re-engaged, and sooner rather than later.  Finally, Syria and Iran are bitter roots within the region and there will be no stability as long as their current regimes are in power.  The long war is not finished.

The U.S. administration intends to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (or perhaps better known as the Quds force) as a specially designated global terrorist group.  “The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities.”

Ralph Peters adds that “The real reason for the move is to set up a legal basis for airstrikes or special operations raids on the Guard’s bases in Iran.  Our policy is that we reserve the right to whack terrorists anywhere in the world. Now we have newly designated terrorists. And we know exactly where they are.”  Of course as Michael Ledeen points out, the Quds force is a terrorist organization simply because they are an arm of Iran, which is a state sponsor of terror.

The only real mystery is why anyone in the government felt that it was necessary to have a formal decision to declare the IRGC a bunch of terrorists. I guess that would be the lawyers, for whom it wasn’t sufficient to know that the entire Islamic Republic had been branded a sponsor of terrorism, and hence (a normal person would say) any part of it is ipso facto culpable of terrorist activity, and it’s particularly true of the IRGC, which directly kills people, both inside and outside Iran.

And indeed, the Iranians are proud of it.  A more preening, arrogant, self-important dance-strut is hard to imagine.  Think end-zone dance during a football game.  This is the picture of the “Holy Man” of Iran dancing to the sound that the U.S. declares his nation’s special forces to be a terrorist organization.

Provisional Friday Prayer Leader of Tehran said here Friday the US decision to include the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the list of international terrorist organizations is another golden page in the IRGC’s history.

Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Khatami added, “As in the nuclear case, the Iranian nation and government would never leave alone their revolutionary offsprings.”

Two leading US dailies, the Washington Post and the New York Times reported in their Wednesday edition about US officials intention to survey adding the name of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to the list of the international organs involved in terrorist acts.

According to IRNA Political Desk reporter, Ayatollah Khatami in his second sermon, addressed to thousands of Tehrani worshipers at central campus of Tehran University, congratulated the IRGC on blessed birth anniversary of the Third Shi’a Imam, Husain ibn Ali (PBUH), that is marked as the Islamic Guards Day.

He said, “The IRGC has truly shined well during the 28-year history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, both in confronting foreign enemies and foiling domestic plots.”

Khatami said, “Among the prides of the IRGC we can refer to the late founder of the Islamic Republic’s words about the Guard Corps, where he said he was pleased with the IRGC, and that he would never think negatively about them.

He added, “The late Imam also said that there would have been no Islamic Republic of Iran if there were no IRGC; I love the IRGC very dearly; My entire hope lies in IRGC’s conduct;” and “There is nothing in the records of the IRGC, save serving Islam.”

Ayatollah Khatami said, “Therefore, the US State Department’s decision to include IRGC in its list of world terror organs is merely another golden point in the records of IRGC pride.

A senior Iranian cleric also warns the U.S. not to pick on the Guards. ”“Americans should know that in this field, as with nuclear energy, they are dealing with the whole nation. And the great nation of Iran will never abandon its revolutionary people,�? Ahmad Khatami told worshippers at Friday prayers in Teheran.”

A clearer indication of the intentions of the state of Iran is not needed.  It is not just that the Quds force is a terrorist organization.  More than that, the state of Iran is an international sponsor of terror.  Hence, its official international machinations must be seen as those of terrorists.  Iran and sponsors of terror is a global problem, and until a global solution is implemented, the U.S. will likely lose the local skirmishes that occur, including Operation Iraqi Freeedom.  Each and every military engagement in Iraq will be a victory for the U.S., and yet the final result will be a loss or statemate with the global forces of terror.  That is, until we think and act globally.

**** UPDATE ****

Quds threatens to “punch” the U.S.:

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said they would not bow to pressure and threatened to “punch” the U.S., in their first response to Washington’s plan to list them as a terrorist organization, newspapers reported Saturday.

Local press in the Iranian capital of Tehran quoted Revolutionary Guards leader Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi saying that he could understand Washington’s ire toward the group because of their “leverage” against the U.S.

“America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future,” he was quoted as saying in the conservative daily Kayhan. “We will never remain silent in the face of U.S. pressure and we will use our leverage against them.”

There was no elaboration on what Safavi meant by the punch or the organization’s “leverage.”

Read the story here.