Articles by Herschel Smith

Ever since the publication of Unrestricted Warfare by two Chinese military strategists, the Chinese have been interested in the utilization of all assets – military, financial, communication, technological – to wage war.  It has been said that the Chinese admired, and were even jealous of, the the U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan.  Ostensibly, the use of proxy fighters (i.e, the Northern Alliance), technology (bombs guided to their targets by Air Force special forces operators), and political pressure were key ingredients to successful military operations in the twenty first century.

But if the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq haven’t taught us anything else, we have learned that “force transformation” with a few more special forces operators carrying gizmos and gadgets and electronic toys simply cannot replace a military.  In an insightful critique of Rumsfelf’s bold new vision, Opfor has this to say:

To some, his leadership was inspirational. To others, he was the guy who was single handedly dismantling a force that had barely survived eight years of Clinton-era defense cuts. The name for the pain was Transformation, Rumsfeld’s baby. The Pentagon’s “bridge to the 21st century.” And before September 11, it sounded and felt pretty slick. A lighter force, with emphasis on flexibility, technology, and force multiplication. Maximum effect, minimum loss cheered supporters.

In Afghanistan, Transformation was looking pretty good. A couple of hundred SPECOP warriors exploited our new, network-centric approach to warfighting and accomplished what the much-feared Soviet juggernaut could not. Who needs tanks? Who needs divisions? One foward air controller with a horse, a laptop, and a MILSTAR uplink to a B-52 could now do the heavy-lifting of an entire mechanized brigade.

And that’s when Transformation blasted off. The Air Force started delivering Raptors and Global Hawks while BRAC cut our fighter force by 20%. Money poured into the Army’s Future Combat Systems, the Marine led V-22 procurement, and the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ships. New tankers for the Air Force, new EELV heavy lift rockets to facilitate our budding space weapons program, a new class of aircraft carrier and a new class attack sub. All very useful weapon systems, but all very expensive weapon systems.

Operation Iraqi Freedom was supposed to get the Transformation concept over that final, sizable high-cost hurdle. Afghanistan was mostly asymmetric, fought almost exclusively at the platoon and company level. OIF was Transformation’s real test. State v. State conflict, a real army -albeit ill-equipped and poorly trained- to prove the mettle of the new force. And again, Transformation worked. Less troops, higher tech did the job. Mission accomplished.

And like a Shakespearean tragedy, Rumsfeld’s bold new vision for a brave new military collasped at the height of its success. The insurgency dug-in, and with each IED blast another hole was punched in the Transformation concept. Billion-dollar B2s flew helpless overhead as suicide bombers and roadside bombs took the lives of troops who lacked armor on their Humvess and on their bodies. 100 dollar bombs killed 100,000 dollar weapon systems. The highly touted, highly financed UAV force could only watch as car bombers exploded Iraqi marketplaces. What we needed was more troops. What we got was more gizmos.

Rumsfeld’s bold new vision for the military created a cultural milieu in which it was possible to envision remarkable military successes with what we now know to be inadequate force projection.  Like sycophants, the strategists around him wrote doctrine that created the theoretical framework to support this culture, and so the stage was set – as if a tragic theatrical production – for the situation we now face in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

We cannot shirk our responsibilities and hide the ugly truth.  The top military brass were complicit in this affair, at least some of them, but it all starts at the top.  And Rumsfeld was at the top.  Things now public began in secret some time ago in war gaming conducted by Marine General Anthony Zinni called “Desert Crossing.”  Zinni’s group came back with remarkably different recommendations than what ended up being put into place for the Iraq campaign:

The former CENTCOM commander noted that his plan had called for a force of 400,000 for the invasion — 240,000 more than what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved. “We were concerned about the ability to get in there right away, to flood the towns and villages,” USA Today quoted Zinni as saying in July 2003. “We knew the initial problem would be security.”

Army General Thomas “Tommy” Franks adjusted the concept when he assumed command of CENTCOM upon Zinni’s retirement. Yet even his initial version of OPLAN 1003-98 envisioned a need for 385,000 troops, according to the book, COBRA II, — before Rumsfeld insisted that the number be sharply reduced.

The plan called for 400,000 troops, Rumsfeld approved a fraction of 0.4 of that, for a total of 160,000 troops.  So in spite of all of the bluster about giving the generals all the troops that had been requested, we now know that this was a subterfuge.  It was all smoke and mirrors.

With its strict deference to rank, the military is “hard wired” to be impervious to peer review.  Yet this is exactly what is called for by war planners.  The civilian world does this every day.  Lawyers review the work of other lawyers, engineers review other engineers, and so forth.  In the very best reviews, rank and seniority mean nothing.  The good, bad and the ugly get heard, and the dissenting voices are encouraged and given a stage on which to speak.

But it all starts at the top, and Rumsfeld was unwilling to listen to his subordinates.  This obstinance, this unwillingness to bend and adapt and adjust and modify, limited the successfulness of an otherwise brilliant man.  But it did much more than that.  It placed our boys in harm’s way without what they needed to effect the mission and win the victory.

And thus has America’s experiment with “unrestricted warfare” ended.  I don’t really care whether China learns from this example.  But the U.S. must.

Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” III.26: “He who understands how to use both large and small forces will be victorious.”  Tu Yu comments, “There are circumstances in war when many cannot attack few, and others when the weak can master the strong.”

Courtesy of New York Times: Sgt. Jesse E. Leach of the Marines assisted Lance Cpl. Juan Valdez-Castillo, who was shot by a sniper in the town of Karma. He survived.

Background

The insurgents in Iraq for some time had relied on stand-off weapons to do their warfare (i.e., IEDs).  With the influx of the more well-trained al-Qaeda fighters across the Syrian and Jordanian borders, these tactics have given way to guerrilla tactics.  Every stand-up battle in which the insurgents engage the U.S. troops involves a loss for the insurgents, sometimes significant.  It has taken time for the evolution to occur, but the change to asymmetric warfare seems to be about complete.

On June 21, 2006, Marine Lance Cpl. Nicholas Whyte died from sniper fire in the streets of Ramadi.  On September 26, 2006, Marine PFC Christopher T. Riviere died in the Anbar Province from sniper fire while wearing full body armor.  On October 8, 2006, Marine Captain Robert Secher died from sniper fire.  On October 22, 2006, Specialists Nathaniel Aguirre and Matthew Creed, US Army, died from sniper fire while on foot patrol in Baghdad (see also a North County Times article on Creed).  There is no shortage of personal stories on fatalities from sniper fire, but stepping back from the personal to the statistical, there is no question that sniper attacks have increased in both frequency and lethality.

Sniper attacks on U.S. troops have risen dramatically as more Americans have been pulled into the capital to patrol on foot and in lightly armored vehicles amid raging religious violence.  Sniper attacks, generally defined as one or two well-aimed shots from a distance, have totaled 36 so far this month in Baghdad, according to U.S. military statistics.

That’s up from 23 such attacks in September and 11 in January.

The figures were confirmed by Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the No. 2 commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. “The total numbers are elevated, and the effectiveness has been greater,” he said.

At least eight of the 36 sniper attacks in Baghdad in October have been fatal, according to accounts by hometown newspapers reporting on the deaths of individual soldiers and Marines. Snipers have also killed four U.S. servicemembers in Anbar province this month.

Assessment

The picture above visually conveys the story of the sniper attack that wounded Lance Cpl. Juan Valdez-Castillo.

The bullet passed through Lance Cpl. Juan Valdez-Castillo as his Marine patrol moved down a muddy urban lane. It was a single shot. The lance corporal fell against a wall, tried to stand and fell again.

His squad leader, Sgt. Jesse E. Leach, faced where the shot had come from, raised his rifle and grenade launcher and quickly stepped between the sniper and the bloodied marine. He walked backward, scanning, ready to fire.

Shielding the marine with his own thick body, he grabbed the corporal by a strap and dragged him across a muddy road to a line of tall reeds, where they were concealed. He put down his weapon, shouted orders and cut open the lance corporal’s uniform, exposing a bubbling wound.

Lance Corporal Valdez-Castillo, shot through the right arm and torso, was saved. But the patrol was temporarily stuck. The marines were engaged in the task of calling for a casualty evacuation while staring down their barrels at dozens of windows that faced them, as if waiting for a ghost’s next move.

This sequence on Tuesday here in Anbar Province captured in a matter of seconds an expanding threat in the war in Iraq. In recent months, military officers and enlisted marines say, the insurgents have been using snipers more frequently and with greater effect, disrupting the military’s operations and fueling a climate of frustration and quiet rage.

The New York Times article goes on to say that “across Iraq, the threat has become serious enough that in late October the military held an internal conference about it, sharing the experiences of combat troops and discussing tactics to counter it. There has been no ready fix.  The battalion commander of Sergeant Leach’s unit — the Second Battalion, Eighth Marines — recalled eight sniper hits on his marines in three months and said there had been other possible incidents as well. Two of the battalion’s five fatalities have come from snipers, he said, and one marine is in a coma. Another marine gravely wounded by a sniper has suffered a stroke.”

I have covered the weaknesses in the Interceptor body armor system with its gaps in protection along the lateral torso.  The insurgent snipers have become quite sophisticated in their tactics.  They have become disciplined shots, as this chilling quote by elements of the Second Battalion, Eighth Marines indicates: “Most of the time, the marines said, the snipers aim for their heads, necks and armpits, displaying knowledge of gaps in their protective gear.

In “Old and New Body Armor for Marines,” I discussed the existing Interceptor body armor system and its replacement, the Modular Tactical Vest (MTV) by Protective Products International.  Stars and Stripes has given us a glimpse of the MTV.

In addition to more efficient weight distribution, the MTV claims better protection to the lateral torso, with less exposed area on the side and under the arms.  This is an example of the United States Marine Corps being just about as far ahead of the curve as is possible.  The Army is lagging behind, and for the Marines, the MTV is scheduled to go into service early 2007.

The MTV could not be issued soon enough.  The New York Times had an article on November 3, 2006, entitled “Sniper Attacks Adding to Peril of U.S. Troops,” in which the following nugget of gold may be found: “Most of the time, the marines said, the snipers aim for their heads, necks and armpits, displaying knowledge of gaps in their protective gear.”  The Interceptor has gaps on the side torso that the MTV promises to remedy.

I will be publishing a commentary soon on enemy sniper activity in Iraq (including recommendations on responsive tactics by the U.S.), which in my estimation will constitute the most significant threat of mortality for U.S. troops throughout the balance of deployment in Iraq.  Until then, it should be noted that the sooner the MTV can make its way into the field, the better.

On November 2, 2006, I published “Missing Weapons and Iraq’s Open Border Policy.”  In this post I argued that Iraq’s borders were essentially open, with inadequate border personnel or U.S. troop force levels to effect good border security.  I showed that the borders were replete with traffic to the point that the border guards could only log information on passports rather than inspect them for forgery.  We showed that the weapons necessary to wage jihad were already in Iraq, and that the requirements to war against the U.S. forces were twofold: cash and a fake passport.

On November 4, 2006, the Multi-National Force web site published an article entitled “Teams Build Relationships at Border.”  The story is about a joint Iraqi-U.S. border transition team, and it conveys the teamwork, mentoring, challenges and friendships associated with such a team.  It is quite a nice story, with the exception of the following assertion: “Observing this exchange, it becomes evident the border is not the only thing being secured in this remote area.”

The evidence I have marshalled in defense of my hypothesis includes, but is not limited to, the following:

1. Michael Rubin’s work showing a heavy influx of Iranian intelligence assets, money, communications equipment and military materiel into Iraq just before the war began.
2. The Washington Post reported that “Iranian personnel have established safe houses throughout southern Iraq. They monitor the movement of coalition forces, tend weapons caches, facilitate cross-border travel of clerics, smuggle munitions into Iraq and recruit individuals as intelligence sources.”
3. Iraqi General Nazim Mohammed, chief of Iraq’s border police in Muntheria, stated in June of 2005 that Iranian personnel were responsible for leading operations against Iraq.  “We captured three men and there is proof they blew up oil pipelines near Nuft Khaneh under the orders of Iranian intelligence officers,
   

One common element we see in our war against radical, Islamic facism is schools and academics being caught in the cross hairs of the enemy.  The targeting of education by the enemy is not restricted to elementary schools, but extends itself to higher education.  In fact, it is fair to say that targeting education is a tactic being used by Islamic facism throughout the Middle East.

The Taliban have exacted a huge toll on schools and teachers for daring to operate in Afghanistan:

Now there is a concerted – armed – campaign to keep such children away from school. Education – particularly that of girls – is associated with the often-hated government and the occupying Western forces. Their opponents – including the Taliban – burn schools and attack teachers. The Ministry of Education said 267 schools had been forced to stop classes – a third of them in the south where five years after 9/11, fighting is intensifying as the Nato-led troops confront a resurgent opposition.

One reason proferred for this war on education is pragmatic, and has to do with potential future jihadist fighters.  According to Zuhoor Afghan, the top adviser to Afghanistan’s education minister, “Once they destroy a child’s chance for education, there is nothing else for the young generation to do and it becomes very easy to encourage them to join their forces.”

There is another pragmatic reason for the attacks on schools.  According to Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), “the extremists want to show the people that the government and the international community cannot keep their promises.”

Directly east in Iran, February of this year saw the first consequences of the nationwide plan to purge university professors and other academics:

Advaar News, the news source from the office of Fostering Unity (Tahkim Vahdat) reported that a professor of Communications Sciences of Tehran’s Allaameh Tabatabaie University is the first to be terminated in the new nationwide plan to purge all professors and academics, specifically teaching Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in universities across Iran. It is also rumored that several other of the professors in other fields of study such as Political Science and Law, will also be terminated soon. It is important to mention that a while ago Dr. Mohammad Gorgani who was a faculty member of the School of Law at this very university was sentenced to 10 months in prison and before serving his prison term was flogged.

Further east in Iraq, true to form, the radical Islamic facists have targeted both elementary schools and higher education.  Regarding the ongoing battle for Saba’ al-Bour, the Iraqi government noted that teachers and their families had been expelled from the city, and promised to increase teacher salaries for returning.  And similar to the approach in Iran to higher education, at least 156 university professors have been killed since the war began, and possibly thousands more are believed to have fled to neighboring countries.

Surveying this redacted and abbreviated list of recent attacks on education, it seems that perhaps there is another reason for this tactic.  Without the presupposition that your world view cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, promulgating your world view by using force to attack education makes little sense.

Whether it is the ease of recruitment of jihadists, the embarrassment of a fragile regime, or the belief in the inherent theoretical weakness of Islamic facism, as we move forward into the future and consider strategy and the consequent tactics of our enemy, one thing is clear.  If history is any indication, we should expect war on education to be a point of doctrine with the jihadists.  This war on education will not be an internal jihad or a “striving” for anything.  History shows us that the jihad on education will be violent.

One common element we see in our war against radical, Islamic facism is schools and academics being caught in the cross hairs of the enemy.  The targeting of education by the enemy is not restricted to elementary schools, but extends itself to higher education.  In fact, it is fair to say that targeting education is a tactic being used by Islamic facism throughout the Middle East.

The Taliban have exacted a huge toll on schools and teachers for daring to operate in Afghanistan:

Now there is a concerted – armed – campaign to keep such children away from school. Education – particularly that of girls – is associated with the often-hated government and the occupying Western forces. Their opponents – including the Taliban – burn schools and attack teachers. The Ministry of Education said 267 schools had been forced to stop classes – a third of them in the south where five years after 9/11, fighting is intensifying as the Nato-led troops confront a resurgent opposition.

One reason proferred for this war on education is pragmatic, and has to do with potential future jihadist fighters.  According to Zuhoor Afghan, the top adviser to Afghanistan’s education minister, “Once they destroy a child’s chance for education, there is nothing else for the young generation to do and it becomes very easy to encourage them to join their forces.”

There is another pragmatic reason for the attacks on schools.  According to Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), “the extremists want to show the people that the government and the international community cannot keep their promises.”

Directly east in Iran, February of this year saw the first consequences of the nationwide plan to purge university professors and other academics:

Advaar News, the news source from the office of Fostering Unity (Tahkim Vahdat) reported that a professor of Communications Sciences of Tehran’s Allaameh Tabatabaie University is the first to be terminated in the new nationwide plan to purge all professors and academics, specifically teaching Liberal Arts and Social Sciences in universities across Iran. It is also rumored that several other of the professors in other fields of study such as Political Science and Law, will also be terminated soon. It is important to mention that a while ago Dr. Mohammad Gorgani who was a faculty member of the School of Law at this very university was sentenced to 10 months in prison and before serving his prison term was flogged.

Further east in Iraq, true to form, the radical Islamic facists have targeted both elementary schools and higher education.  Regarding the ongoing battle for Saba’ al-Bour, the Iraqi government noted that teachers and their families had been expelled from the city, and promised to increase teacher salaries for returning.  And similar to the approach in Iran to higher education, at least 156 university professors have been killed since the war began, and possibly thousands more are believed to have fled to neighboring countries.

Surveying this redacted and abbreviated list of recent attacks on education, it seems that perhaps there is another reason for this tactic.  Without the presupposition that your world view cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, promulgating your world view by using force to attack education makes little sense.

Whether it is the ease of recruitment of jihadists, the embarrassment of a fragile regime, or the belief in the inherent theoretical weakness of Islamic facism, as we move forward into the future and consider strategy and the consequent tactics of our enemy, one thing is clear.  If history is any indication, we should expect war on education to be a point of doctrine with the jihadists.  This war on education will not be an internal jihad or a “striving” for anything.  History shows us that the jihad on education will be violent.

Friend of the Captain’s Journal, Michael Fumento, recently embedded in Ramadi, and spent his own money to do it.  Given the problematic nature of getting into Iraq and to the units with which he was to embed, I think I might just have given up and gone home.  Michael didn’t and it cost him frustration, time and money to bring his stories back to us.  He is back now and we benefit from his work, but the costs don’t go away.

Another friend of the Captain’s Journal, David Danelo, who manages and edits US Cavalry OnPoint, is reporting from Iraq.  Please drop by Michael’s site and give him a donation if you can.  Also drop by David’s web site and wish him well and tell him you are praying for his safety.  This is the least we can do, and I have for both Michael and David.

ps: I do not see a way to donate to David.  If I find out how I will let my readers know.

Once a peaceful and mixed Sunni-Shi’ite town eighteen miles northwest of Baghdad, Saba’ al-Bour with its dense population and canals has become the cornerstone of the Mujahideen strategy.  Having re-entered the town, U.S. forces are seeing success, but the Iraqi army is still not ready to take handoff in hard core areas of Iraq.

On October 16, the Iraqi government announced an increase in teacher’s salaries, noting that assistance would be provided to the families of teachers who had been expelled from Saba’ al-Bour.  They noted that they had observed an increase in terrorist activities in Saba’ al-Bour, but in fact this escalation had begun much sooner, and has been going on long enough to cause the effective evacuation of the city.

A buildup of the insurgency began a few months earlier.  A jihadist web site is reporting that jihadist forces clashed with U.S. forces on Friday, June 10, in Saba’ al-Bour.  On June 16th, a mortar barrage killed two people and wounded sixteen in Saba’ al-Bour.

But there has been a significant increase in the level of hostile activities in the area, especially over Ramadan.  On Wednesday, October 11, a Black Hawk Helicopter was downed, and the Mujahideen Shura Council claimed responsibility.  This group is composed of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Victorious Army Group, the Army of al-Sunnah Wal Jama’a, Jama’a al-Murabiteen, Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, Islamic Jihad Brigades, the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades, collaborating to meet the “unbelievers gathering with different sides

Once a peaceful and mixed Sunni-Shi’ite town eighteen miles northwest of Baghdad, Saba’ al-Bour with its dense population and canals has become the cornerstone of the Mujahideen strategy.  Having re-entered the town, U.S. forces are seeing success, but the Iraqi army is still not ready to take handoff in hard core areas of Iraq.

On October 16, the Iraqi government announced an increase in teacher’s salaries, noting that assistance would be provided to the families of teachers who had been expelled from Saba’ al-Bour.  They noted that they had observed an increase in terrorist activities in Saba’ al-Bour, but in fact this escalation had begun much sooner, and has been going on long enough to cause the effective evacuation of the city.

A buildup of the insurgency began a few months earlier.  A jihadist web site is reporting that jihadist forces clashed with U.S. forces on Friday, June 10, in Saba’ al-Bour.  On June 16th, a mortar barrage killed two people and wounded sixteen in Saba’ al-Bour.

But there has been a significant increase in the level of hostile activities in the area, especially over Ramadan.  On Wednesday, October 11, a Black Hawk Helicopter was downed, and the Mujahideen Shura Council claimed responsibility.  This group is composed of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Victorious Army Group, the Army of al-Sunnah Wal Jama’a, Jama’a al-Murabiteen, Ansar al-Tawhid Brigades, Islamic Jihad Brigades, the Strangers Brigades, and the Horrors Brigades, collaborating to meet the “unbelievers gathering with different sides

Sun Tzu, “The Art of War,” III.4: “Thus, what is of supreme importance is to attack the enemy’s strategy.”  Tu Mu comments, ‘He who excels at resolving difficulties does so before they arise.  He who excels at conquering enemies triumphs before threats materialize.’

The Iraq-Iran border was a problem from before the war began.  Michael Rubin noted with some dismay the lack of U.S. responsiveness to the huge influx of fighters, Iranian intelligence assets, and cash that came from Iran into Iraq before the war.  I noted that the border is still problematic, with a flow of traffic so significant that the Iraqi border guards cannot keep up with it or adequately inspect all traffic.

Turning west to the Anbar Province, discussing Michael Fumento’s reporting on Combat Operation Posts, we saw that there was a well-worn path into Iraq in use by foreign fighers:

The impact of the FOB system was shown to me on a map. The foreigners who come into this area do so along a mini-Ho Chi Minh trail from the west, namely Jordan and Syria. And the foreigners tend to be better trained. Certainly any good sniper will come from that route, because Iraqis are terrible shots and hence crummy snipers.

I mentioned that the U.S. would see success in the war in the al Anbar Province by turning this trail into a shooting gallery.  The fighers would die or turn around at the border.  This might have been wishful thinking.  In the continuing theme of inadequate force projection, the Washington Post has an enlightening article on the porous Iraq-Syria border.

U.S. troops in the area are concerned that controls are too loose. For instance, the passport office is sparse and includes a single officer sitting at a desk behind a barred window where travelers line up to show their passports. The officer simply enters the information from each passport into a small ledger.

“The only thing he’s really doing is nothing more than creating a historical log,” said 1st Sgt. Richard DeLeon, 40, of Shafter, Calif., also a member of Apache Troop. “We can’t scan your passport to find out if it’s fake, we can’t scan your photo. You can come in if you have a legitimate passport or a good fake. The weapons are already in Iraq. All you really need to do is bring money.”

Turning our attention for a moment towards the proliferation of weapons, in an interesting finding by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, we have learned that there are many missing U.S. weapons in Iraq:

The Pentagon cannot account for 14,030 weapons – almost 4 percent of the semiautomatic pistols, assault rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and other weapons it began supplying to Iraq since the end of 2003, according to a report from the office of the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The missing weapons will not be tracked easily: The Defense Department registered the serial numbers of only about 10,000 of the 370,251 weapons it provided – less than 3 percent.

1st Sgt. Richard DeLeon isn’t the only one who is concerned about the presence of weapons in Iraq.  Speaking of the U.S. plan to arm the Sunni tribes who have allegedly sided with the government to hunt down al-Qaeda, Iraqi authorities have expressed deep concern over the final disposition of the weapons:

New Iraqi Army Brigadier-General Jassim Rashid al-Dulaimi, from Anbar province, said: “I cannot imagine 30,000 more guns in the Iraqi field. I hope they will reject the idea. Iraq needs more engineers and clean politicians to solve the dilemma of the existing militias rather than recruiting new ones to kill more Iraqis. The idea sounds to me [like] turning the country into a mercenary-recruitment center.