Articles by Herschel Smith

In the town of Darra Adam Khel in the NWFP of Pakistan, the Taliban attacked a tribal meeting.

DARRA ADAMKHEL/ PESHAWAR, March 2: A powerful blast hit a tribal peace jirga near the Zarghunkhel checkpost in Darra Adamkhel on Sunday, killing at least 42 people and wounding another 58.

The jirga of Zarghunkhel, Akhurwal, Sheraki, Bostikhel and Toor Chapper tribes had been convened to discuss the formation of a Lashkar to drive militants out of the area, sources said.

It was not clear if the blast was the work of a suicide bomber, but local officials said that a teenager had detonated explosives just after the meeting had ended.

A severed head was found at the site and the officials believed it was that of the bomber. Some people identified the teenager as a youth from the Sheraki area of Darra, a hub of militants.

Security forces, it may be mentioned, launched an operation against militants in Darra Adamkhel in January in which scores of security personnel and militants have been killed.

Izat Khan, a tribesman injured in the explosion, told Dawn at the Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar that the blast took place when the tribal elders were finalising modalities for raising the tribal force.

“I fell and became unconscious just as I was about to leave the meeting,” Mr Khan recalled. He pointed out that no official of the political administration or the army was there and said he had doubts about the official statement that the blast had been caused by a suicide attack.

This is the fourth explosion during the past three days in the NWFP and Fata. On Friday, an explosion killed three police personnel and a blast in Swat during the funeral of one of the slain police personnel killed 46 people. A suicide bomber hit a vehicle of Levies Force in Bajaur tribal region on Saturday and killed two people and wounded 24 others.

The jirga was attended by over 1,000 tribesmen. It had started at about 9am and ended at two hours later after unanimously deciding to form a Lashkar and calling upon the army to withdraw troops from the area. The meeting also sanctioned action against militants, who were attacking people in the name of Islam.

Tribal elder Haji Gul Rahim said most of the people attending the jirga had dispersed and about 200 people were discussing measures for security on the Indus Highway.

Witnesses said that the blast site was littered with human flesh and severed limbs. They said that the blast was so intense that it caused severe burn injuries.

Maulana Sabir Afridi, convener of the jirga, Haji Zar Khan, Haji Nazer, Haji Jamal Hussain, Malik Mohammad Nawaz and Haji Khan Mohammad Din were among the dead.

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that recent attacks have disrupted an expected post-election calm.

In four separate incidents over the weekend, suicide bombers struck large gatherings in Pakistan, shattering a fragile sense of optimism that has prevailed since national elections on Feb. 18.

The hope has been that those elections, by empowering Pakistan’s moderate, secular parties, could help stem Pakistan’s rising tide of extremism, which has left about 500 people dead this year. But for the last week, the elections have not brought a much needed sense of calm and euphoria.

But in what seems to be a stepped-up effort to sow chaos and fear, suicide bombers struck on Friday in Lakki Marwat, in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, killing a district superintendent of police, CNN reports. The following day, militants struck again during that police official’s funeral in Swat Valley – where the Army is still battling Taliban militants – killing 46 people. On Saturday, a suicide bomber targeted the vehicle of a security official in Bajaur Agency, a Taliban enclave near the border of Afghanistan, killing 21 people, the Associated Press reports.

Perhaps the inept analysts in the MSM expected a post-election calm due to empowering secular parties in Pakistan, but readers of The Captain’s Journal knew better.  In Misinterpreting the Pakistani Elections, we summarized the elections thusly: “The less ideologically driven voter abandoned the Islamist party, but then, he never voted for that party for the purposes of institution of sharia law anyway.  He voted for jobs, sewers, electricity, water supply and good governance several years ago and got none of what he voted for. Hence, he overthrew the clerics this time around.  The die-hards joined the Taliban.  There are various colors and stripes of jihadists the world over, from Salafism to Wahhabism, from the purist Sunni radicals in Saudi Arabia to the Shi’a Mullahs and their followers in Iran.  But one common element among them all is the utter rejection of democracy.  Democracy is deemed to be directly contrary to Islam, and the Taliban, al Qaeda and their sympathizers and advocates sat out the election.  They had no stake in it.”

The voters rejected two things: (1) Musharraf’s administration, and (2) the more moderate Islamicists (i.e., the ones who failed at administrating a state, but who also never saw Sharia law as being implemented through violence.  The religious extremists didn’t vote or run for office.  As to the future of Pakistan, we have consistently pointed out that there are two Taliban fronts; one in Afghanistan and the other in Pakistan.  There has been a resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda (with the new focus on suicide missions as we pointed out), and because the Pashtun have rejected the concept of a global war on terror, U.S. and Pakistani forces find unfriendly human terrain in the NWFP and FATA, and not just due to Taliban presence.  When the people do not support the campaign, the campaign finds the way hard and toiling.

The U.S. expects for there to be continued kinetic operations against the Taliban, and Musharraf soldiers on in implementing operations against them.  At some point it is likely that these operations will devolve into talks with the Taliban because the Army, the regional tribes, and the population in general will not support continued kinetic operations.  How long Musharraf can continue to press these operations without toppling his regime remains an open question.

The real news here is not that there is continuing Taliban violence, but that The Captain’s Journal laid out the correct scenario for you before it happened.  You should continue to read TCJ for cutting edge analysis.

About a week ago we got the message that everything is going just swimmingly in Afghanistan.

Insurgent attacks have tumbled in eastern Afghanistan, notably along the border with Pakistan, in recent months compared to the same period in 2007, a US general said Sunday.

The fall was due to “aggressive operations” by Afghan security forces and their Western allies, as well as improvements in local governance, Brigadier General Joseph Votel told reporters.

The number of attacks so far in February was about 35 percent below that for the same month last year, said Votel, deputy commander of the US-led coalition force that works with a separate NATO-headed deployment.

“Our border attacks and incidents along the border … continues to go downwards. We are probably 40 to 50 percent below what we were a year ago,” he said.

“We attribute this to aggressive operations there that we have been conducting with the police, with the army, assisted by the coalition forces … and the growth of the government in the districts and in the provinces” …

Votel played down talk of an insurgent “spring offensive.”

“I think there is going be an offensive in the spring, the offensive is going to be us, the ANSF (the Afghan National Security Forces),” he said. “The government security forces will lead the operations and we will support.”

Today, reminiscent of our article The Marines, Afghanistan and Strategic Malaise, General McNeill painted a picture of NATO cowardice and intransigence.

Nato’s commander in Afghanistan voiced his “frustration” with the restrictions imposed on the Alliance’s forces yesterday and said these “national caveats” were hindering the fight against the Taliban …

Germany, for example, insists on keeping its 3,200 troops in the relative safety of northern Afghanistan where reconstruction – not combat  is their primary task.

Gen McNeill, an American veteran of the Vietnam war, said these restrictions were “frustrating in how they impinge upon my ability to properly plan, resource and prosecute effective military operations”.

Gen McNeill, 61, added: “It’s hard to mass [troops] when you sometimes have to ask all the way back to governments ‘may I use your force in this location in this manner’?”

As for deploying rapidly, Gen McNeill said: “If we can move faster than our adversary we have an edge over him. If I have to take the time to see who can make this move and who cannot if I request them, it’s hard to avail myself of speed. Therein lies the issue.”

He added: “It requires me to expend energies that without an imposition of such restrictions and constraints, I’d be able to put that energy into things that are far more important.”

Preposterous.  Apparently everything is not going just swimmingly in Afghanistan.  The ghost of General George S. Patton gives NATO a well deserved kick in the ass for their cowardice, along with the U.S. for our stupidity in having the hapless and pitiful NATO involved to begin with.  It’s way past time to remove the adolescents and put the adults in charge.

The publication of Army Field Manual 3-0, Operations, gives us a chance to pause and ponder definitions, concepts, and going forward doctrine for the global war on terror, much or most of which is likely to be small wars, irregular engagements and counterinsurgency.  But some background is in order before considering the new field manual.

In 2002, Antulio J. Echevarria II authored an interesting analysis entitled Clausewitz’s Center of Gravity: Changing our Warfighting Doctrine – Again!  There is probably no more copiously quoted military strategist than Clausewitz, and it pays to correctly understand what he said.  To begin, Echevarria briefly traces what he sees as the glasses through which the branches within the U.S. military have “seen” Clausewitz.

… each of the services – shaped by different roles, histories, and traditions—tended to view the CoG concept in their respective images. The U.S. Army and U.S. Navy, for example, typically thought in terms of a single CoG, which usually resided at the core of one’s land or naval power and provided the “source” of one’s physical and psychological capacity to fight. The U.S. Air Force, on the other hand, pursued the notion of multiple CoGs, each of which could be “targeted” from the air to achieve the paralysis of the enemy.  And, finally, the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), with the difficult mission of conducting amphibious forcible entry operations, preferred for a time to think of the CoG as a key weakness, or critical vulnerability, the exploitation of which would give it a decisive advantage.

Echevarria argues that Clausewitz sees CoG neither as a weakness nor a strength, but a focal point at which force may be employed to force the enemy to become unbalanced and topple.  Much like the martial art of Jiu jitsu, the goal is to find the point of maximum leverage against the enemy and exploit it to upend the enemy.

Clausewitz did not distinguish between tactical, operational, or strategic CoGs. The CoG is defined by the entire system (or structure) of the enemy, not by a level of war … According to Clausewitz, a local commander might determine a center of gravity for the portion of the enemy’s forces that lay before him, providing those forces demonstrated sufficient independence from the remainder of the enemy’s forces. However, this separate CoG would only amount to a local rather than a tactical or operational CoG. For us to speak of a tactical CoG, the tactical level of war would have to exist independent of the operational and strategic levels of war. Similarly, for CoGs to exist at the operational and strategic levels of war, those levels of war would have to have an existence separate from the rest of warfare. This notion defies the principle of unity – or interconnectedness – that German military thinkers from Clausewitz to Heinz Guderian had ascribed to warfare.

Translating “On War” from the German, Echevarria gives us an important point in understanding Clausewitz.

The first principle is: To trace the full weight (Gewicht) of the enemy’s force (Macht) to as few centers of gravity as possible, when feasible, to one; and, at the same time, to reduce the blow against these centers of gravity to as few major actions as possible, when feasible, to one.

. . . reducing the enemy’s force (Macht) to one center of gravity depends, first, upon the [enemy’s] political connectivity [or unity] itself . . . and, second, upon the situation in the theater of war itself, and which of the various enemy armies appear there.

Antulio J. Echevarria II recommends a redefinition of CoG: “Centers of Gravity are focal points that serve to hold a combatant’s entire system or structure together and that draw power from a variety of sources and provide it with purpose and direction.”

This is a complex construction of thoughts, and it bears unpacking a bit.  Clausewitz’s background was in the physics, and so it necessarily stands to reason that a CoG should be single and unitary.  The CoG is a theoretical construct with which one can evaluate and predict the behavior of objects as they are acted upon by gravity.  It requires other things such as computation of the centroidal axis of an object.  For a single object, there is a single CoG.  For multiple objects there can still be a CoG as long as the objects are not dynamic.  But if the objects are moving in Cartesian space with respect to the other objects in a system, there can be no single CoG.

Clausewitz understood this, and while there are arguments for seeing an Army as a dynamic system, he is compelled to see it more as an object with a unitary CoG.  There are not multiple CoG, only one, and this point is critical to understanding Clausewitz.

Speaking at the Center for a New American Security along with Lt. Col. John Nagl, Sarah Sewall of Harvard University stated the following:

If the civilian is the center of gravity, securing and protecting is the main function of military forces, not destroying.  If restraint in the use of military force is fundamental to the successful campaign, then that is in fact the opposite of overwhelming force.

Sewall goes on to give nonkinetic operations a place of primacy over kinetic operations.  In finding a sole CoG, she is true to the Clausewitz idea of a unitary CoG.  But is this notion of locating and articulating a unitary CoG in counterinsurgency (COIN) based solely on Clausewitz, FM 3-24, the newly released FM 3-0, or something else?

Regarding the Counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24, the phrase “center of gravity” appears only three times (except for the definition), and the most interesting is found in section 4-12:

In model making, the model describes an approach to the COIN campaign, initially as a hypothesis.  The model includes operational terms of reference and concepts that shape the language governing the  conduct (planning, preparation, execution, and assessment) of the operation. It addresses questions like  these: Will planning, preparation, execution, and assessment activities use traditional constructs like center  of gravity, decisive points, and LLOs? Or are other constructs—such as leverage points, fault lines, or  critical variables—more appropriate to the situation?

Rather than CoG being the central doctrinal concept in COIN, a different concept begins to appear, that of lines of operation, appearing first in Section 1-36:

The Vietnamese conflict offers another example of the application of Mao’s strategy. The North Vietnamese developed a detailed variant of it known as dau tranh (“the struggle”) that is most easily described in terms of logical lines of operations (LLOs). In this context, a line of operations is a logical line that connects actions on nodes and/or decisive points related in time and purpose with an objective (JP 1-02). LLOs can also be described as an operational framework/planning construct used to define the concept of multiple, and often disparate, actions arranged in a framework unified by purpose. (Chapters 4 and 5 discuss LLOs typically used in COIN operations.) Besides modifying Mao’s three phases, dau tranh delineated LLOs for achieving political objectives among the enemy population, enemy soldiers, and friendly forces. The “general offensive–general uprising” envisioned in this approach did not occur during the Vietnam War; however, the approach was designed to achieve victory by whatever means were effective.  It did not attack a single enemy center of gravity; instead it put pressure on several, asserting that, over time, victory would result in one of two ways: from activities along one LLO or the combined effects of efforts along several. North Vietnamese actions after their military failure in the 1968 Tet offensive demonstrate this approach’s flexibility. At that time, the North Vietnamese shifted their focus from defeating U.S. forces in Vietnam to weakening U.S. will at home. These actions expedited U.S. withdrawal and laid the groundwork for the North Vietnamese victory in 1975.

Here the concept of lines of operation appear, by example, in a linear implementation.  If this line of operation doesn’t work, another will be implemented.  In FM 3-0, this concept is upgraded and explained as something other than unitary, singular, sequential actions (6-61).

Commanders may describe an operation along lines of operation, lines of effort, or a combination of both.  Irregular warfare, for example, typically features a deliberate approach using lines of operations complimented with lines of effort … with this approach, commanders synchronize and sequence actions, deliberately creating complementary and reinforcing effects.  The lines then converge on the well-defined, commonly understood end state outlined in the commander’s intent.

The concept of lines of operations and lines of effort appears many more times in FM 3-0.  If FM 3-0 represents an advancement over the Clausewitz doctrine of a unitary CoG, then what are we to make of this notion of COIN as “armed social science”?  This view certainly doesn’t cohere with Osama bin Laden’s summary of the psyche of the population in this part of the world: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.”  Similarly, we have claimed that the Anbar campaign was won because the U.S. was the strong horse.

The seeds of this view are actually contained within FM 3-24 itself.  In Section 1-159, we read that “COIN is an extremely complex form of warfare. At its core, COIN is a struggle for the population’s support. The protection, welfare, and support of the people are vital to success.”  In Section 5-42, we read that “Essential services address the life support needs of the HN population. The U.S. military’s primary task is normally to provide a safe and secure environment.”  In Section A-60, we read that “Whatever else is done, the focus must remain on gaining and maintaining the support of the population. With their support, victory is assured; without it, COIN efforts cannot succeed.”

True enough within the right context, statements such as these give ammunition to those who see COIN as “armed social science,” and allow theoreticians such as Sarah Sewall to focus in on a singular CoG, that being the population.  Gaining their support is key, and kinetic operations are secondary or even tertiary in importance.  It is a small next step to the claim that restraint in military force in the key to winning the population.  How Sewall expects to provide security for the population without kinetic operations against the enemy remains a mystery.  After all, “armed social science” is more like U.N. “peace keeping” missions that routinely fail to keep the peace than it is the actual campaign in Iraq.

The security plan for Iraq, however, is in many ways modeled after the Anbar part of that campaign, in which military force was the pretext to the successes with the tribes, neighborhood muktars, and heads of households.  It might be countered that the focus on lines of operations (kinetic) and lines of effort (nonkinetic) represents a more tactical focus, but in the end, theory bows the knee to tactics and logistics because all counterinsurgency is local.

National unity, political reconciliation, fair participation in the political scene and infrastructure and services are all significant actors in whether the more local lines of operations have lasting effect.  But if FM 3-24 represents the softer side of COIN, FM 3-0 seems to see COIN as the multifacted complexity that it is.  Rather than see a singular, unitary CoG in COIN, FM 3-0 seems to view an insurgency as a loosely coupled and dynamic machine, or even organism, which has no tipping point, thus requiring in response parallel lines of effort that target different aspects in different ways and with different means – sometimes simultaneously and sometimes sequentially.

No astute observer of the campaign in Iraq – especially in Anbar and subsequently in and around Baghdad during the security plan – seeing the high number of intelligence driven raids, heavy use of air power, and kinetic operations against foreign terrorists and indigenous insurgents, can claim that kinetic operations have taken on a secondary or tertiary role to anything.  In other words, when the successful practice in the field doesn’t comport with the theory in the books, only the disconnected theoreticians can continue the mantras.  It was time to update doctrine to recognize the nature of the gains in Iraq.  By so robustly enveloping lines of operations and lines of effort within its pages, FM 3-0 may represent a significant advancement in military doctrine over FM 3-24.

In a post entitled Well, well, well …, Abu Muqawama says:

The Air Force, in a stunning upset against the Boeing Company, awarded a $40 billion contract for aerial refueling tankers on Friday to a partnership between Northrop Grumman and the European parent of Airbus, putting a critical military contract partly into the hands of a foreign company.

Abu Muqawama knows next to nothing about the way the U.S. Air Force buys airplanes, but he knows enough from reading the Economist that this is huge. The KC-30, virtually everyone agreed, was the better aircraft. But did anyone honestly see Boeing not getting this contract? This gives us at Abu Muqawama hope in the ongoing war against ridiculous F-22 appropriations. If a large domestic lobby can be rejected in favor of common sense in one case…

The Captain’s Journal responds, “well, whatever.”  We aren’t impressed with Abu’s glee and giddiness over the demise of U.S. defense contractors, weapons systems, and new aircraft.  Sure, there is waste and we have spoken against it when we find it.  Sure, the USAF needs to support the COIN campaigns in both Iraq and Afghanistan to the extent capable, and then press for more support when they think they have maxed out.  Sure, we have praised the USAF on things such as COIN aircraft and the refurbishment of old aircraft to support the campaigns.  Regular readers know of our love for and even infatuation with the A-10, and the upgraded A-10C with its faster kill chain.  Just do a Google search, and you will find that no one can match our coverage on the A-10 or the V-22 Osprey (of which we are also big fans).

You will also find we are have been “good to go” on pushing for the growth of both the size of the military – all branches – and the spending for weapons systems.  But knowing that these things are contingent on things out of our control (but rather, subject to the evil Congress which is controlled by the devil), we knew that future weapons systems would likely suffer as a result of the COIN campaigns.  Want to know the first weapons system we would vote for here at TCJ?  We would like to see a replacement for the M-16A2 / M4 / SAW to a more reliable system less likely to jam.  Ain’t likely to happen, though, and it is more likely that the brass will decide that what we have is good enough.  They always do.

Additionally, SECDEF Gates knows that the F-22 program will suffer due to the COIN campaigns, and is ready to do what needs to be done.

The effect is often jarring, in Washington, when someone inside the Beltway utters an uncomfortable truth. That’s what Defense Secretary Robert Gates did at the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, putting a damper on pressure from his own Air Force for Congress to buy more F-22 fighters. Gates believes the 183 F-22s currently planned are sufficient. “I know that the Air Force is up here and around talking about 350 or something on that order,” the Secretary said. But buying more of the costly F-22 will come at the expense of the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is about half the price.

“The reality is we are fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either theater,” Gates said. That’s the kind of statement that sends generals up the wall – not only because it’s true, but because it’s the Secretary of Defense who’s saying it. And the generals know that the next time some eager-beaver congressional budget-cutters want to trim Pentagon spending, they’re going to roll out that quote.

Gates made clear he believes there is a need for the F-22. “It is principally for use against a near-peer in a conflict, and I think we all know who that is,” he said coyly. He’s referring to China, which today represents the only hope for both the U.S. Air Force and the Navy to justify spending billions of dollars on weapons initially designed to battle the Soviet Union. Since the end of the Cold War, the phrase “near-peer” has increasingly crept into Pentagon documents meaning a potential foe that could almost match the U.S. on the battlefield.

Well, do we need more F-22 to battle Beijing? Once again, Gates depressed the generals with his unassuming tone and logic. “Looking at what I regard as the level of risk of conflict with one of those near-peers over the next four or five years until the Joint Strike Fighter comes along,” he said, “I think that something along the lines of 183 is a reasonable buy.”

Deep in the Pentagon, Air Force generals know that the Bush Administration’s decision to close down the F-22 assembly line won’t come into effect until 2010. That gives them time to convince a new Administration that additional F-22s are vital to U.S. security. That’s because what Gates finds reasonable, some Air Force generals will treat as treasonable.

So Gates has lowered the bar as it is.  But those who live for the demise of conventional war and the weapons with which it will be fought shouldn’t crow too much and should be careful what they ask for.  All it will take to regret the decision to emaciate the USAF will be for China to cross the Taiwan strait and enslave millions under communism while the Navy and Air Force sit without recourse.  Or, if that doesn’t jar you into reality, then consider that Russia is aiming past the F-22, and is trying to better the U.S. submarine fleet.  Remember, fancy aircraft and ships are in place not only to wage war, but to be a preventative for war.

The Captain’s Journal wants to win the COIN campaigns as much as anyone does.  In fact, we are willing to sacrifice Navy and Air Force money to do it.  But it causes us no joy, and in the end, there will be a price to pay for this course of action.  Finally, Abu should read the Economist more carefully.  We don’t get something for nothing.  We can delay or even outright cancel the F-22 program, but stress corrosion cracking and metal fatigue have caused rising expenses in repair of the existing fleet.  Taking a dollar from the USAF might mean getting 50 cents.

Everyone has a domain he wants to protect.  The real question is why we have forces deployed in Germany and Korea, costing money in a tip of the hat to 50 year old cold war thinking, when they could be stateside or contributing to the global war on terror?  We must be efficient in finding ways to save money and fund the systems we need, both short term and long term.

Prior: Can the Navy Afford the New Destroyers?

Several days ago I noted that the Taliban were worried about the technological advantages the U.S. could leverage against them, but at the time I thought, “don’t they understand – surely they won’t carry through with this ridiculous threat?”

The Taliban threatened Monday to attack mobile phone facilities in Afghanistan, alleging that the technology was being used at night to pin-point the Islamic rebels’ hideouts.

Zabihullah Mujahed, a rebel spokesman, said that several phone companies had been given three days to respond to militants’ demands that they cut night time operations or face attacks, notably on antennas erected across the country.

“The invading forces are using mobile phones for military purposes,” Mujahed told AFP, referring to about 60,000 foreign personnel deployed in Afghanistan to hunt down Taliban militants who are waging a deadly insurgency.

“Usually during the nights the mobile phones are being used to spy on the Taliban to track down their footpaths. Here we ask the (mobile) companies to halt their operations from five o’clock in the evening to seven in the morning,” he said.

With 700 million dollars of investment, the burgeoning communications industry is one of the biggest development projects in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

According to the country’s telecommunications ministry, over five million Afghans are currently using mobile phones, provided by five mainly foreign companies.

“The Taliban themselves are using mobile phone for communications,” he said.

No phone company can stay in business by intentionally shutting down their service, so it was an impossible set of conditions to meet.  Nevertheless, the Taliban have carried through with their threat.

Taliban militants blew up a telecommunications tower Friday in southern Afghanistan following a warning to phone companies to shut down the towers at night or face attack.

The militants fear U.S. and other foreign troops are using mobile phone signals to track insurgents and launch attacks against them. A Taliban spokesman on Monday said militants would blow up towers across Afghanistan if the companies did not switch off their signals overnight.

Insurgents made good on that threat Friday, destroying a tower along the main highway in the Zhari district of Kandahar province, said Niaz Mohammad Serhadi, the top district official.

Phone companies moved into remote areas of Afghanistan after talks with tribal elders, who asked for the towers to be built, said Abdul Hadi Hadi, spokesman for the Telecommunications Ministry.

“When they destroy any tower, it shows direct enmity to the people of that area. I don’t think the destruction of the towers has any direct effect on the government. It is the people who suffer,” he said.

Thousands of customers will be affected by the tower attack, Serhadi said. Police have increased security around other phone towers, he said.

Communications experts say the U.S. military has the ability, using satellites and other means, to pick up cell phone signals without the phone company’s help. Cell phones periodically send signals to the network even when they are not making calls.

The frequent cell phone pings to locate towers are well known, but this leads to the inevitable question, “why wouldn’t they just turn their cell phones off?”

Use of the mobile networks for intelligence is an obvious step which is well-nigh certain to have been taken, just as governments have done in every country. And it’s well known that masts can be used to locate a phone which is powered up.

What’s less clear is why the Taliban have chosen to demand a shutdown of mast signals at night. Even the most paranoid phone-security advisers would normally suggest taking the battery out of one’s phone, rather than menacing local cell operators unless they went off the air. (The idea of removing the battery is to guard against someone having modified the phone to switch itself on without the owner’s knowledge.)

It could be that the Taliban want to operate their own networks, of course. Micro/pico/femtocell equipment is widely available, and there’s said to be a strong tradition in wild and woolly rural Afghanistan of unregulated, private wireless comms. It might be that guerrilla commanders merely want to clear other operators off the spectrum so that they can use it themselves.

Even so, Western military or spook electronic-intelligence units will still be able to intercept, identify, locate and track active mobile phones in an area of interest, even if they are communicating (or meant to be communicating) only with Taliban-controlled cells. The reported threats still don’t make a huge amount of sense in terms of the reasons given.

Another possibility is that the Taliban simply want to deny ordinary Afghans phone service at night, perhaps to stop people reporting on militia movements and/or prevent them phoning for help if attacked. Or it might be that the Taliban – the Taliban press office, anyway – simply isn’t up on the technical issues.

The later seems most likely.  If it weren’t for the disruption in phone coverage and the potential for harm to humans, the thought of the Taliban wasting ordnance on cell phone towers when they could simply power down their phones at night would bring a smile to my face.  In addition to creating a disruption in their own cell phone service, this version of “winning hearts and minds” is sure to be a bomb – so to speak.

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

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

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

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

“I think it is foolish to buy more.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prior:

Body Armor Wars: The Way Forward

Body Armor Goes Political

On February 21, 2008, sitting in for Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, Michael Totten linked an article by Michael Yon, in which he said the following:

It no longer makes economic sense for many news agencies to keep people here. Those who do stay operate at a loss. If making a profit is important, reporting from Iraq is a bad business decision. This seems to be holding for the new or alternative media as well. I haven’t seen a blogger in maybe a year, though I know that some, like Michael Totten and Matt Sanchez, have spent a good deal of time embedded with the troops. Matt Sanchez seems to have more staying power than most; he says he’s spent eight months here.

The best reporting comes from reporters who have spent the most time on the ground here, because the context is complex and evolving. Long distance reporting is like exploring the moon through a telescope. To get a feel for the ground here, a journalist has to be like Captain Kirk. I have often commented on how very different the reality is over here from what most Americans seem to think it is. There is no way to explain how different, except to say “you would have to be here to understand it.” When mainstream reporters get the story wrong, it’s usually because they lack the context and depth of experience necessary to correctly interpret what they see and hear. The same is true for bloggers, some of whom are grandiose in implying that they spend a significant amount of time in the field, but an inventory and audit would not support the claims.

The mainstream media continues to carry the overwhelming bulk of the load. On the other hand, bloggers like Bob Owens, Blackfive, Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin, have served as important media watchdogs, without whom shoddy coverage of the war likely never would have been revealed. Hopefully they will continue to apply spotlights to keep as much accurate and quality reporting as possible, regardless of whether it comes from mainstream or alternative sources.

In Mosul this week, at least five other writers and two photographers were here, from such organizations as The Washington Post, New York Times, The Telegraph and Agence France-Presse. All seven are veteran international reporters, and most have substantial experience covering wars. I have never been in a group of journalists in Iraq where all of us had so much war experience. The A-team is definitely here. Yet by the time of the American presidential election, the Iraq news stream likely will have diminished to almost nothing, precisely when events over here will demand the most skilled and experienced reporters. That is when, bets are on, many of the bloggers will again trumpet Iraq-experience they do not possess. Fact is, for battlefield reporting, mainstream media retains a virtual monopoly, and the bloggers are not in a position to compete, or at least are utterly failing to compete on teh (sic) most important battle ground: the ground. These harsh truths come as plea to bloggers to get over here and walk the walk. Alternative voices are needed. Stop talking. Start walking.

Michael Totten agreed with Yon in his post at Instapundit.  On February 24, 2008, Pete Hegseth writing at National Review Online also lamented the current paucity of reporters traveling to Iraq.  A little of my history is in order at this point.  I began blogging as an honor to my son in the Marines.  As I learned more and shared his experiences – if only in words, reading and visits – I grew in my blogging efficiency and experience.  Before long, it was time for my son to deploy to Iraq.  He and his unit left in April of 2007, deploying to FOB Reaper in Fallujah in support of Operation Alljah.  As a side note, the interview with Lt. Col. William F. Mullen (now Colonel Mullen) had to get me by (along with some good embedded reporting by Bill Ardolino).  As I told Colonel Mullen (only partially joking), I would have given my right testicle to be there in Fallujah with my son, but I couldn’t find a buyer for my right testicle.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

I had talked a good bit with Michael Fumento about the cost and difficulty of embedding, and I knew that it was almost always a money-losing proposition.  But I thought I had it worked out.  David Danelo (who is a great journalist and writer, combat experienced warrior, and all around good guy) and I had been discussing the possibility of sending me to Iraq to meet my son.  At this time David was with U.S. Cavalry On Point.  By the time I had gotten my things about in order to go, I found out that David had left U.S. Cavalry to pursue other things (and I feel sure that we will benefit in the future from his work).  For reasons that I don’t now know and probably never will, the funding dried up and I was left without a way to Iraq.

But let’s be more precise; it’s more than just “a way to Iraq.”  The costs are huge.  I knew about the body armor, the photographic equipment, the laptop, the satellite uplink equipment some bloggers use, the airplane fare, the wasted time in airports and through customs, the hotel fees prior to entry to Iraq, etc.  But until I had thought about it, it didn’t occur to me that the biggest expense for a blogger is the loss of his salary.  Danelo had a soft agreement with me to pay me for stories to match the loss of my salary.  But in order to embed for any length of time (say a month or two), this cost becomes exorbitant.  After Michael Totten linked Yon and weighed in that he also would like to see more bloggers embed, I conversed with Michael Totten by e-mail.

Michael’s advice was stark.  It is always a money-losing proposition.  He tells me that Bill Ardolino takes vacation time in order to keep costs down, but of course, this is a good option only insofar as you are certain that you won’t need it later for home repair, dependent care time, or other needful life exigencies.  Michael Yon operates on a shoestring budget, Michael Totten always loses money even though he sells his stories to main stream media outlets, Bill Ardolino takes vacation time, Michael Fumento always loses his own money, and so on the list goes.  And these journalists get thousands of visits per day to their site (and have built a loyal following from which to draw funds), while I get a pitiful 300 – 400 visits per day.  Further, the number of actual committed readers who would be willing to contribute is unknown, but is probably far less than 400.  Please note that I’m not complaining.  I’m simply drawing out the facts of the matter.

My son’s unit will deploy again this year.  He doesn’t know where, and thus we don’t know where.  It could be Afghanistan, or it could be Iraq, or it could be a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit), or it could be a MEU and Afghanistan, or a MEU and Iraq, or some of all of the above.  But wherever it is, I will want to go with him so badly that I would give my right testicle.  But I am not a wealthy man, and the funds I have to contribute towards such an embed are essentially non-existent.  In other words, I don’t have $20,000 of “throw-away” money.  And I’ve checked with my horrible hometown newspaper, and they get the horrible McClatchy to do their embedded reporting.  They have no money for such things, relying, I am told by the editors, on AP and UPI and McClatchy press releases.  So much for the “news.”

It sounds nice to encourage (even goad) bloggers into embedding with the troops.  If it were not for the fact that I have studied this a bit, I might even feel somewhat guilty for not being there in order to report on the facts.  But Michael Yon said it as well as anyone while in the middle of this encouragement to go: “those who do stay operate at a loss.”  It has nothing whatsoever to do with profit.  It has entirely to do with losses.  For now the alternative (or new) media is just that.  Main stream media has the money and we don’t.  Insofar as this condition continues, we will continue to have a symbiotic relationship with the main stream media, and they will get the lion’s share of the embeds.  Plain and simple, it’s just the dollars and sense of the issue.

In “Everyone thought the Taliban would not fight!” I observed concerning the difference between modern day insurgencies and classical insurgencies that “In addition to an insurgency being a function of counter-forces within a nation state, they can be (and have been in the case of Iran) funded, supported and trained by nation states to undermine the stability of the host country.”

Today we have yet another indication of Iran’s actions in Iraq, given to us straight from someone who would know.

Iranian secret service agents are working to “sabotage” the operations of groups fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Baghdad’s intelligence chief said on Wednesday.

Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani issued the statement shortly before a landmark visit to Baghdad on Sunday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“We have information confirming that Iranian secret services have sent agents to sabotage the Sahwa experience in Iraq,” the statement said, referring to mostly Sunni groups fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq alongside the US military.

Shahwani “stressed the need for the Iraqi people to be vigilant in facing these activities.”

Vigilant indeed.  They should kill the Iranian usurpers.  Another example is given to us in the Pakistan / Afghanistan region, but this example is not of a formal nation-state actor (although it is being allowed to exist by a nation-state).

Al Qaeda is taking a greater role in coordinating the Taliban and other Islamist militant groups operating in Afghanistan’s volatile border region with Pakistan, a top U.S. commander said yesterday.

U.S. military officials are concerned the activity is part of an ongoing effort to escalate violence in Afghanistan against U.S.-led NATO forces as attacks in Iraq subside.

Similar to Vietnam where the Viet Cong were supported by North Vietnam who was supported by Russia and China, this is the brave new world of transnational movements that David Galula didn’t get to experience.

Dutch troops deploying to Afghanistan last fall had a surprise awaiting them.

TARIN KOT, Afghanistan — Lt. Col. Wilfred Rietdijk, a 6-foot-7 blond Dutchman, took command of his military’s reconstruction team in the southern Afghan district of Deh Rawood in September. Tranquil and welcoming, it seemed like the perfect place for the Netherlands’ mission to help rebuild this country.

Intelligence reports indicated that the district was free of the Taliban, allowing the soldiers greater freedom of movement than elsewhere in Uruzgan province.

“We could go out on foot,” Rietdijk said.

Reconstruction teams, escorted by a platoon of soldiers, fanned across the fertile countryside, building bridges over streams and canals, repairing irrigation systems, and distributing books and pens to local schools.

But the day after Rietdijk arrived in Afghanistan, his field officers reported hundreds of villagers suddenly fleeing parts of Deh Rawood. “Within a few weeks, everybody was gone,” Rietdijk said. “We didn’t understand why.”

Now the Dutch say they realize what happened. Even as the soldiers believed they had won the support of the local population, the Taliban had secretly returned to reclaim Deh Rawood, home district of the group’s revered leader, Mohammad Omar. It took only a few months for the Taliban to undermine nearly six years of intelligence work by U.S. forces and almost two years of goodwill efforts by Dutch soldiers …

As Hogeveen was settling into his armor-plated metal bunker at the main Dutch base, Camp Holland, near the provincial capital of Tarin Kot, Taliban fighters were evicting local police from three of Deh Rawood’s most strategic checkpoints. They bribed officers to abandon one post, kidnapped the son of a policeman at a second checkpoint and attacked the third, sending officers fleeing. They turned a local school into their headquarters and stocked it with weapons and ammunition, Hogeveen said he learned later.

Then they lay in wait and ambushed the first unsuspecting Dutch convoy they spotted.

“They were better prepared than anyone led us to believe,” Hogeveen said.

Hogeveen’s troops and the Taliban skirmished almost daily.

In mid-December, fighters yanked a 60-year-old woman and her 7-year-old grandson off a bus in Deh Rawood. They interrogated the pair and, after finding a U.S. dollar bill in the boy’s pocket, accused the two of spying and executed them in front of the other passengers and bystanders, according to accounts by Afghan human rights groups, news services and Dutch officers.

Meanwhile, on the advice of U.S. and Dutch intelligence officers, Hogeveen prepared a battle plan for routing the Taliban: “The intelligence guys said, ‘If you go in with large forces, they will leave,’ ” Hogeveen recalled in an interview.

He sent larger contingents of heavily armored troops into the heart of the Taliban stronghold in northern Deh Rawood, a jumble of mud houses connected by mazes of narrow lanes.

“Everyone thought the Taliban would not fight,” Hogeveen said. “The intelligence was wrong.”

Today, after 2 1/2 months of often intense combat, Dutch troops have reclaimed some of the villages of Deh Rawood and are helping villagers repair the damage caused by weeks of fighting between NATO forces and the Taliban. They have also started many new projects and are working more closely with tribal leaders, the Afghan army and local police to provide better security for the residents.

Even so, the Dutch say, the Taliban forces have merely relocated to the fringes of the district, and thousands of villagers remain too frightened to return to their homes.

The resilience of the Taliban, a shortage of NATO forces and the Dutch philosophy that the Afghan people need to take charge of their own lives have prompted the Dutch to adopt a precarious strategy for Uruzgan: evict the Taliban from small enclaves while ceding the surrounding territory to them in hopes that neighboring communities will oust them on their own.

David Galula’s ideas – a man who is a virtual unknown in his country of origin, and who is the doctrinal father of the counterinsurgency manual FM 3-24 – are being implemented in Afghanistan.  Galula advocated targeted action in select areas, with resources moved as needed.  I have long advocated seeing Galula’s ideas as useful and helpful, but within their proper context.  But his campaign in Algeria was far different than the war on terror we fight today, on a least (but not limited to) the following fronts.

1. The global insurgency characteristic of the campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Africa and Chechnya and other places, thrives on a transnational ideological movement.  Whether response to globalization or for religious motivation (I advocate the later), borders mean nothing to international jihadists.  David Galula fought a campaign in Algeria; today the U.S. fights a campaign around the world with immediate flow and communication of personnel, ideas, intelligence and weapons.
2. Modern technology has introduced standoff weapons to the battle space such as IEDs.  This becomes a force multiplier for the insurgency.
3. Religious ideology has brought terror and suicide (or martyrdom) missions into the battle space.  Hence, rather than vying for good governance and protection of the population, the insurgency uses brutality and torture as weapons of intimidation, preventing the need to take the subsequent steps of a typical 1960’s style insurgency of providing state-like functions and services.
4. Popular sentiment at home among the public will prevent the U.S. military from ever again having ten to twelve years to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign.  For a COIN campaign to last this long would require the support of three consecutive presidential administrations, obviously an exigency which stands almost no chance of coming to pass.
5. In addition to an insurgency being a function of counter-forces within a nation state, they can be (and have been in the case of Iran) funded, supported and trained by nation states to undermine the stability of the host country.

There are many more reasons that I have detailed in past articles, but these five will suffice.  Again, Galula’s ideas are worth studying (and implementing in certain circumstances), but inadequate to form the basis for a comprehensive COIN doctrine.

The “whack-a-mole” brand of counterinsurgency didn’t work in Iraq, and will not work in Afghanistan.  For COIN operations to succeed, two elements must be present as we have learned in Iraq.  First, the force size must be right.  If there aren’t enough troops to take, hold and rebuild, the campaign will fail in the brave new world of the global religious insurgency.  Second, having the right force size in itself does nothing to ensure the proper use of those troops.  The corollary or companion axiom for force size is force projection.  The circumstances on the ground, with the population being too afraid to return to their homes due to terror, and the loss of years of effort at becoming trusted for good governance, proves the contrary of the Dutch strategy.  Pushing the insurgency into surrounding areas doesn’t work, either short term or long term.

The Dutch contingency represents the wrong strategy, while U.S. forces have recently been documented doing the right thing with too few troops in a stunning New York Times Magazine article.

OVER THE LAST two years, the Americans have steadily increased their presence in Kunar province, fanning out to the small platoon-size outposts that have become the signature of the new counterinsurgency doctrine in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Korengal Outpost, nicknamed the KOP, was built in April 2006 on the site of a former timber mill and motel. The soldiers of Battle Company of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team live there in dusty tents and little wooden huts. They now have hot food and a small chow tent with an Internet linkup and a few phones for calling home. But the place was protected by not much more than concertina wire and sentries. Nearly every time I arrived at the KOP our helicopter was greeted by sniper fire or the dushka — a Russian-made antiaircraft gun.

Dan Kearney was essentially lord of the Korengal Valley. A self-described Georgia army brat, he grew up idolizing his warrior dad, Frank Kearney, and wanted to move in his father’s world of covert and overt operations. (His father is now a lieutenant general in Special Operations command.)

But as hard as Iraq was, he said, nothing was as tough as the Korengal. Unlike in Iraq, where the captains and lieutenants could let down their guard in a relatively safe, fortified operating base, swapping stories and ideas, here they had no one to talk to and were almost as vulnerable to enemy fire inside the wire as out. Last summer, insurgents stormed one of the bases in a nearby valley and wounded 16.

This admission from Kearney – who is undoubtedly a good officer – is telling.  The Anbar province saw combat outposts, distributed operations, countersnipers, and higher casualties well before the balance of Iraq.  It is fair to say that the surge and security plan was in part modeled after the Anbar campaign.  But while Marines (and some Army and National Guard) in Anbar were taking casualties, some forces in Iraq were well protected in safe FOBs.  The reason, in other words, that Kearney saw Afghanistan as far different from Iraq is because he was not deployed in the Anbar province.  It isn’t too long ago that Marines were dying by the score from sniper rounds and room clearing in Anbar.  But Kearney is certainly seeing his share of kinetic operations now.

ON OCT. 19, Kearney and Battle Company were air assaulted into the insurgents’ backyard for a mission that many thought insane. It was called Rock Avalanche and would last about six days. One of its main targets was the village of Yaka China.

Kearney, being the good soldier, tried to pump up his boys with the promise that they would be going after insurgents who had killed their friends and whose grizzled faces were plastered on their bad-guy family-tree wall at the KOP. They would upset the guerrillas’ safe haven and their transit routes from Pakistan. They would persuade the villagers to stop harboring the bad guys by offering an $11 million road project that had just been approved by NATO and Kabul and would be built by the Kunar Provincial Reconstruction Team. And they’d complete the “human terrain mapping” that is part of the new counterinsurgency doctrine — what families dominate, who’s married, who’s feuding, are there divisions to be exploited?

It was a lot to ask of young soldiers: play killer, cultural anthropologist, hearts-and-minds winner and then killer again. Which is why, just hours before the mission was to begin, some soldiers were smearing black-and-green war paint on their faces when their sergeant shouted: “Take it off. Now!” Why? They’d frighten the villagers.

It seemed a moot point as Rock Avalanche got under way. Apache gunships were scanning the ridges for insurgents. Other helicopters were dropping off more soldiers. An unmanned drone was whining overhead as it sent infrared video feeds to a large screen back at the battalion’s headquarters, Camp Blessing, six miles north of the KOP.

Almost immediately, high on a mountainside looking down on Yaka China, Kearney had to play God. In a ditch to his left, Jesse Yarnell, a young intelligence officer, along with John, an Afghan interpreter, were intercepting insurgents on their two-way radios saying, “We see them, we’re going to wait.”

“They’re right down there!” said Kevin Caroon as he gazed out of his night vision. Caroon, from Connecticut and a father of two, was an Air Force JTAC — the joint terminal attack controller who talks the combat pilots onto their targets. “See that? Two people moving south 400 meters away from us,” Caroon said, pointing down the mountain face. More insurgents were located nearby.

“Sir, what do you want to do?” Caroon asked Kearney.

“I want them dead,” Kearney said.

“Engage them?”

“Yes. Take ’em out.”

Caroon radioed the pilot his instructions, “On-scene commander’s intent is to engage.” And that was it.

A sudden wail pierced the night sky. It was Slasher, an AC-130 gunship, firing bullets the size of Coke bottles. Flaming shapes ricocheted all around the village. Kearney was in overdrive. The soldiers back at the KOP were radioing in that the drone was tracking 10 men near the tree line. Yarnell was picking up insurgent radio traffic. “They’re talking about getting ready to hit us,” someone said. The pilot could see five men, one entering a house, then, no, some were in the trees, some inside, and then, multiple houses. He wanted confirmation — were all these targets hostile? Did Kearney have any collateral-damage concerns? Cursing, Kearney told them to engage the men outside but not to hit the house. The pilots radioed back that men had just run inside. No doubt there would be a family. Caroon reminded Kearney that Slasher had only enough fuel to stay in position for 10 more minutes.

“What do you want to do, sir?” Caroon asked him.

Kearney radioed his soldiers back at the KOP to contact his boss, Lt. Col. Bill Ostlund. Ostlund, a Nebraska social scientist who could switch effortlessly from aggressive bomber to political negotiator talking family values with Afghan tribal elders, was in the crowded tactical-operations room at Camp Blessing watching the drone’s video feed and getting the same intelligence. He signed off on collateral damage, and Kearney turned to Caroon: “Take out the compound. And anyone that comes out.”

Flaming rockets flashed through the sky. Thunder rumbled and echoed through the valley. Then there was a pause. Slasher asked Caroon whether the insurgents were still talking. Kearney shouted over to Yarnell in his ditch, “You picking anything up?” Nothing. More spitting rockets.

The night seemed incomprehensible and interminable. Slasher departed and Gunmetal — an Apache helicopter — swept in. Radio communication kept breaking down. At one point the crew of Gunmetal, sensing no hostile intent, refused Kearney’s orders to fire. Then suddenly Gunmetal was rocketing at figures scattering for cover. Then Slasher was back in the sky doing more “work.” In the predawn light Bone — the nickname for the B-1 bomber that seemed to be the soldiers’ favorite — winged in and dropped two 2,000-pound bombs above the village. Finally, around dawn, a weary Kearney, succumbing to gallows humor, adrenaline and exhaustion, said: “O.K., I’ve done my killing for the week. I’m ready to go home.”

Kearney estimated that they killed about 20 people, adding: “I’m not gonna lie. Some are probably civilians.”

In the logic of war, the best antidote for the menacing ghostliness of the ambushing enemy is killing and knowing you’ve killed them. The soldiers in the Korengal almost never had that kind of satisfaction. Any insurgents, if they were killed, would be buried fast, and all that was left in their wake were wounded civilians. That morning, after a long night of fighting, was no different. Within an hour or so, Lt. Matt Piosa, an earnest, 24-year-old West Point grad, and his patrol were in Yaka China. They radioed that the village elders were asking to bury their dead. They’d also collected wounded civilians. The tally was bad — 5 killed and 11 wounded, all of them women, girls and boys.

Human terrain mapping, anthropologists, provincial reconstruction teams, and all of the things that make classical COIN advocates happy.  The next installment should be theme parks for the kiddies.  But this dissipates in the face of kinetic operations that need more troops.  The pretext to successful reconstruction, I have discussed before, is force projection and security.

To be clear about the civilian casualties, it occurs to me that the journalist with the NYT Magazine doesn’t understand the nature of war.  Her clinical perceptions hopefully didn’t survive several weeks in Afghanistan.  I have clearly advocated ROE that holds first in importance the protection of U.S. forces rather than the implementation of international law.  All other things take secondary or even tertiary importance.  I am not concerned about neither ROE problems nor the potential loss of noncombatant support for the campaign in this specific instance.

However, the concern appropriate to this incident is the use of air power and what role it plays.  I have also advocated air power in COIN, but for the purpose of protecting U.S. forces and providing acceleration to the campaign.  I do not advocate air power as a replacement for ground forces.  Air power should be used as a force multiplier, not force replacement.

Captain Kearney knows how to conduct kinetic operations and work the population.  Captain Kearney doesn’t have enough troops.  With the narcotic influence of classical COIN doctrine which claims that we have ten to twelve years, and in which it is acceptable to push the insurgency to different locations rather than kill or capture them, the strategic malaise in the Afghanistan campaign continues unabated.

The campaign needs more forces, more force projection, and strong leadership.  This kind of campaign belongs to regular, active duty Army and Marine infantry, not air power (which is simply a force multiplier) or state-side COIN specialists – and certainly not NATO intransigence.  Captain Kearney and his men need reinforcements, and NATO command is holed in FOBs wondering what their public back home thinks.

When my son deployed to Iraq in 2007, there were many things I wanted to say but didn’t have time.  I used Motomail to accomplish much of this conversation over the next seven months (at times writing letters almost daily).  One such letter must have been puzzling to him and I have not yet discussed it to see if he recalls the contents.  I will do this soon.  Maybe.

I had known for some time that the bacteria to which he would be exposed if wounded were somewhat different than any to which he had previously been exposed, and my counsel in this particular letter went something like the following: “If you become wounded – especially on your extremities but also even on your whole body – and a doctor begins to discuss rapidly propagating infection, or amputation of limbs, you need immediately to request that he administer 50 Rads of gamma or x-ray radiation to the affected area.  If the infection doesn’t begin to retreat within 12 hours, request another 50 Rads.  If the doctor doesn’t understand or wants to talk about this, have him call me.  You know how to reach me at any hour, night or day.”

Strange?  Why would I have so advised my son in a war zone?  To begin with, a report on bacteria in Iraq (and elsewhere) was recently published that illuminates some of these issues.

“It’s why I lost my leg, so it sucks.”

The assessment, from a 22-year-old Marine toughing out physical therapy on two prosthetic limbs, is laconic, matter-of-fact. Sgt. David Emery lost one leg in February 2007 when a suicide bomber assaulted the checkpoint near Haditha, Iraq, where he and fellow Marines stood guard. Military surgeons were forced to remove his remaining leg when it became infected with acinetobacter baumannii-a strain of highly resistant bacteria that since U.S. forces began fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has threatened the lives, limbs, and organs of hundreds wounded in combat.

“They could have saved it,” says Emery. “They had a rod in it, but then the bacteria was in too bad and my white blood cell count was up to 89,000-and they told my mom on a Friday that they had to take it.”

Emery’s mother recalls that the hazard was not confined to her son’s limbs.

“He ended up getting it in his stomach,” says Connie Emery, “and they tried to close his stomach back up, but when they did, the stitches ended up pulling away because the infection was taking over.”

An Army infectious disease physician says the germ has spread rapidly since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began. “Prior to the war, we were seeing one to two cases of acinetobacter infection per year,” remembers Lt. Col. Kimberly Moran, deputy director for tropical public health at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

“Now that’s much different. We’ve had hundreds of positive cultures over the last four years.”

Please, please read the entire article.  If you read nothing else today, study this.  This article will educate you and break your heart at the same time.  The doctors are doing all they know to do with the equipment and procedures they have, and the article goes on to describe the potential for kidney damage if they break out the “big gun” antibiotics too soon, but potential loss of life if they don’t.

Back to my Motomail to my son.  The answer for it is simple.  Radiation hormesis.  By definition, radiation hormesis is the “adaptive response of biological organisms to low levels of stress or damage, leading to a modest overcompensation to the disruption, and resulting in improved fitness.”  Basically, the radiation causes greatly increased activity of the body’s immune and reconstructive systems.  It has been tested on gas gangrene and other rapidly propagating infections, and there is no question as to its effectiveness.  Much more material to study on this can be found at Biological Effects of Low Level Exposures.

Are you still not convinced?  Then recall one of the final paragraphs of the report on Bacteria.

Researchers in military laboratories and elsewhere are exploring better means of fighting acinetobacter. Some are examining possible uses of radiation. At Harvard, Anderson is experimenting with a dye “painted” onto open wounds then activated with light. “Even the worst strains that are resistant to multiple antibiotics,” he says, “will succumb to the light-activated dye approach.”

Radiation is the answer.  This is true whether you accept or reject (and I do reject) the LNTH (linear no threshold hypothesis) for radiation.  The alleged risks are far outweighed by the advantages.  Thus my letter to my son made sense, if he read and remembered it and could discuss it under duress – that is.