Archive for the 'Department of Defense' Category

Having been a strong proponent of the wise and strategic use of air power in small wars, The Captain’s Journal continues to advocate both retooling and rethinking not only the Air Force proper, but air assets in the Navy, Army and Marines.  The order of the day seems to be small wars and counterinsurgency, and any air support of the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are bound to be highly visible.  The Air Force knows this, and the Multinational Force cooperates with the need to publicize the many accomplishments of air power in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  MNF press releases routinely include air power summaries, whether involving precision-guided munitions, A-10 engagements, helicopter gunship engagements, or flyovers to cause a “show of force.”

This advocacy for involvement in small wars on our part can be misconstrued, however, to intend the diminution of the Air Force proper, and some analysts have gone on record advocating not just the diminishing of the Air Force, but the complete reorganization of this branch into the other branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, in a role subservient to the needs of the specific branch to which the assets have been assigned.  But are these calls for busting up the Air Force really strategic, and if so, how forward reaching is the underlying strategy?

In terms of global strategic thinking, Pentagon senior leadership has bigger problems than what to do with the Air Force.  In a stark admission of what repeated and protracted (15 month) deployments have done to the Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen weighed in on his view of the current state of the ground forces: “Are the ground forces broken? Absolutely not,

From the North County Times:

CAMP PENDLETON —- As Pentagon planners wrestle with a proposal that the Marine Corps take the lead in Afghanistan and leave Iraq largely in the hands of the Army, troops at Camp Pendleton say the idea makes sense.

Several officers and enlisted men spoke to the North County Times last week about the proposal on the condition their names not be used, saying they didn’t want to run afoul of their commanders.

“People are talking it about it all the time,” a lieutenant colonel said of the idea that the Marines be shifted to a new mission. “We go in, we kick ass and we turn it over to the Army. We’re not supposed to be a long-term occupying force.”

A base master sergeant said the idea recently floated by Marine Corps Commandant James Conway is a “hot topic” in staff sessions.

“People are saying it makes sense,” the sergeant said. “We’re not supposed to be in Iraq as a security force. We’re an expeditionary fighting force that trains for combat, not civil affairs.”

Conway has said that he made the proposal because security is improving in Iraq. He said his troops should be serving in a quick-reaction combat role, rather than as an occupying force bogged down by civil affairs work.

Army leaders have declined to comment on Conway’s suggestion, which will ultimately be decided by the White House and by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

On Thursday, Gates threw cold water on the idea.

“I would say if that if it happens, it’ll be long after I’m secretary of defense,” he told reporters during a news conference in Washington.

There is the crux of the issue, isn’t it?  The Marines are an expeditionary force, fighters with an ethos of battle.  Gates may indeed push back against the idea.  However, is his statement more an observation of the inertia in a large bureaucracy with respect to planning and change?  Is he saying that he doubts that the Marines can make the plans and obtain agreement from the other branches of the Armed Forces in the time remaining on his watch?  If so, it would seem that he has set the gauntlet in place, and it is time for the Corps to respond.

Prior:

The Future of the Marines

Marines or State Department: Who Does Afghanistan?

In a jaw-dropping move, the Marines have cracked down on none other than wearing uniform (from the Strategy Page).

The U.S. Marine Corps has decided that it is not good for the image of the Marine Corps for marines to wear their combat (“utility”) uniform off base. New regulations nullify many exceptions to this rule that had been established by the commanders of many marine bases. The new rule allows marines to wear their cammies (camouflage) uniform while driving form (sic) their off-base home to and from work.

In the next revelation, we sit in wonder at the DoD actually paying people to spend time crafting the caveats, stipulations and qualifications. Hold onto your cover.

But they may not get out of their vehicle while wearing cammies unless it is an emergency (an accident, or some matter of life-and-death importance.) Marines may not get out of their car to gas up their vehicle while wearing cammies. If they run out of gas, they may then exit their car to deal with that. Marines are advised to pay attention to the fuel status of their private vehicles, and to carry a set of civilian clothes, or a marine service uniform, in their vehicle, in case they have to get out. The only exception is for marines driving military vehicles for long distances. Marines may exit their vehicles to use the toilet, but this must be done as quickly as possible.

On the bright side, tax advisors believe this new rule will allow marines to deduct the cost of their work uniforms from their taxes. In the past, the IRS had ruled that the cost of utilities, fatigues and BDUs were not deductible as they could be worn off base. The IRS reasoned that, if you could go into a store or restaurant, your uniform was not limited to the workplace, and was therefore not deductible. The high tech camies worn today are not cheap, and a marine can go through several hundred dollars worth a year.

Again, this is absolutely jaw-dropping. Here we have the Marine Corps weighing in on how quickly a Marine can use the bathroom during travel, and stipulating that if it isn’t fast enough, he will have to strip down inside the automobile to change into his service alphas (but only if he is traveling long distances and assuming he has either placed a pair in his car or has purchased an additional pair for his automobile).

The pittance that is saved on taxes each year will be outweighed by the additional purchase of clothing, placing additional civilian clothing at work, and the aggravation of considering these rules and trying to adhere to them. At a time when the Marine Corps is trying to increase its size and retain experienced personnel, it is things like this that will cause them to bolt for the civilian world.

Finally, the Marine Corps has just handed the Army a recruiting victory on a platter. Now when the little boy in the airport, at the gas station or simply out at the mall or in the city asks mom, “who is that?” she can answer, “Son, that is a brave Soldier.” The U.S. Marine Corps now forces all of its warriors to go through the public square incognito.

Sometimes one can only shake his head and move on to other things. There is no explanation.

The press reports are repleat with analyses about the exodus from Iraq and what that might look like.  Most of them are poorly reasoned reports, but some are insightful and informative.  I had previously predicted that it would require more than a year to remove all men and materiel from Iraq.  It looks like this prediction is gratuitous.  The Director of CENTCOM Logistics Operations Center weighs in on just what is going to be necessary to pull off redeployment from Iraq.

Political and public demand for a quick withdrawal is rising. But nothing about withdrawal will be quick.

The 20 ground combat brigades deployed here will fill 10,000 flatbed trucks and will take a year to move, logistics experts say. A full withdrawal, shipping home some 200,000 Americans and thousands of tons of equipment, dismantling dozens of American bases and disposing of tons of accumulated toxic waste, will take 20 months or longer, they estimate.

Yet the administration, long intent on avoiding what it once called a “cut and run” retreat from Iraq, has done little to lay the groundwork for withdrawal, officials here said.

“We don’t have the plan in detail yet. We’re seriously engaged in trying to figure this out,” said Marine Brig. Gen. Gray Payne, director of the U.S. Central Command’s logistics operations center.

Even with the benefit of a detailed plan, Payne said, “this is going to be an enormous challenge.”

Extricating combat forces during an active war is a tricky military maneuver under the best of circumstances, according to interviews with senior military officers and dozens of tactical and strategic military planners and logistics experts in Iraq and at U.S. military facilities across the region.

A hastier departure could find military convoys stalled on roads cratered by roadside bombs, interrupted by blown bridges and clogged with fleeing refugees; heavy cargo planes jammed with troops could labor into skies dark with smoke rising from abandoned American bases.

How the United States manages to disentangle itself from Iraq, whether in a graceful redeployment that strengthens stability or in a more chaotic retreat, will have profound repercussions for American power and prestige in the region, military and civilian strategists said.

Indeed, even though the word withdrawal has become this summer’s most shopworn term in Washington, few have grasped the staggering difficulty, time and cost of actually carrying it out.

“It’s going to be mind-boggling – like picking up the city of Los Angeles and putting all the pieces somewhere else,” said an official of the U.S. Army Sustainment Command, which will oversee much of the work.

Indeed, American power and prestige in the Middle East is an important parameter by which to perform planning for redeployment.  Time gives us a description of the strategic planning problems presented by redeployment in How to Leave Iraq, followed by my own recommendations.

The reality is that it’s difficult to get out fast. It took the Soviets nine months to pull 120,000 troops out of Afghanistan. They were simply going next door, and they still lost more than 500 men on the way out. Pulling out 10 combat brigades — roughly 30,000 troops, along with their gear and support personnel — would take at least 10 months, Pentagon officials say. And that’s only part of the picture. There are civilians who would probably want to head for the exit when GIs started packing. They include some 50,000 U.S. contractors and tens of thousands of Iraqis who might need protection if we left the country.

Slowing things down further is the sheer volume of stuff that we would have to take with us — or destroy if we couldn’t. Military officials recently told Congress that 45,000 ground-combat vehicles — a good portion of the entire U.S. inventory of tanks, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, trucks and humvees — are now in Iraq. They are spread across 15 bases, 38 supply depots, 18 fuel-supply centers and 10 ammo dumps. These items have to be taken back home or destroyed, lest they fall into the hands of one faction or another. Pentagon officials will try to bring back as much of the downtime gear as possible — dining halls, office buildings, vending machines, furniture, mobile latrines, computers, paper clips and acres of living quarters. William (Gus) Pagonis, the Army logistics chief who directed the flood of supplies to Saudi Arabia for the 1991 Gulf War and their orderly withdrawal from the region, cites one more often overlooked hurdle: U.S. agricultural inspectors insist that, before it re-enters the U.S., Army equipment be free of any microscopic disease that, as Pagonis puts it, “can wipe out flocks of chickens and stuff like that.”

Once the U.S. decides to pull its forces back, the security risks to troops leaving the battlefield would increase, and the faster the U.S. withdraws, the greater the dangers. Departing troops lose their focus and become easy targets, says Pagonis. Local militias usually try to prove their mettle by firing at departing columns. “It would be ugly,” says retired Army General Barry McCaffrey, who supports a partial withdrawal. “You’d burn or blow up a lot of your equipment or hand it over to the Iraqis. You’d be subject to attack on your way down to the coast because on the way, people would say, ‘We can either throw rose petals or shoot at ’em,’ and they’d shoot at us.” A gradual exit rather than an immediate one isn’t merely the wiser course; it’s the only course.

A reduction in the U.S. combat presence would probably produce one clear benefit: a lower U.S. casualty rate. But a chilling truth is that as the U.S. death toll declined, the Iraqi one would almost surely soar. Just how many Iraqis would die if the U.S. withdrew is anyone’s guess, but almost everyone who has studied it believes the current rate of more than a thousand a month would spike dramatically. It might not resemble Rwanda, where more than half a million people were slaughtered in six months in 1994. But Iraq could bleed like the former Yugoslavia did from 1992 to 1995, when 250,000 perished.

There is no debate about why: in the wake of an American pullout, Baghdad would be quickly dominated by Shi’ite militias largely unbloodied by the American campaign. Already, well-armed security forces that pose as independent are riddled with militiamen who take direction from Shi’ite leaders. Death-squad killings of Sunnis would rise. Against such emboldened forces, Sunni insurgents and elements of Saddam Hussein’s former regime would retaliate with their weapon of choice: car-bomb attacks against Shi’ite markets, shrines, police stations and recruiting depots.

One result of the military’s “surge” strategy is that the U.S. has handed over to Sunni tribal sheiks much greater responsibility for their security — and even the weapons to back it up — in exchange for severing their links to al-Qaeda. That’s a manageable risk while U.S. forces are nearby; if they depart, it becomes tinder in a dry forest. The danger would be not just sectarian slaughter but outright anarchy as well. “Our immediate concern,” says a senior Arab diplomat, “is that sending a signal of complete withdrawal could encourage some elements in every faction in every political group that they can now impose their own agenda. It would be not only Shi’ite versus Sunni … but [war] inside each community itself. The worst case is a Somalia-ization of Iraq.”

Consistent with the thematic presentation here at TCJ, we believe that we are in the “long war.”  It is past time to jettison old paradigms of global conflict from fifty years ago when we were planning to protect Europe from The Soviet Union and the Far East from China, and enter the twenty first century.  The Far East has come of age, and it is time for Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to prepare for its own self defense.  It is simply too costly, both in wealth and in misdirection of U.S. resources from the real conflicts of the future, to continue to defend the Far East.

We favor a redeployment as soon as possible, but one from Germany, Japan, South Korea and Okinawa to the Middle East.  The idea that after expending such blood and wealth to secure a toehold in the Middle East we would relinquish it to be burned and used against us as we depart is not only sickening and psychologically debilitating, but dangerous and inadvisable.  It does not comport with our understanding of the conflict in which we are engaged.

Of course, it will be necessary to reformulate the model.  FOBs and combat outposts in Anbar will eventually go away, much to the delight of the U.S. Marines.  It is doubtful that the Shi’a will acquiesce to British presence for the long term, a problem we will address in upcoming articles.  But make no mistake.  U.S. deployment in some fashion – perhaps to the Kurdish region, for Iraq/Iran and Iraq/Syria border security, assistance with specialized kinetic operations, training of Iraqi troops and police, etc. – is necessary and good for the foreseeable future.  We should be in the Middle East for a long, long time.  The intractable myth that our presence in the Middle East is merely a recruiting tool for the Salafists is nothing more than pitiful hand-wringing.  The U.S. should become one of the most powerful “tribes” in the Middle East.

The way to avoid the paradoxes associated with redeployment of our entire military back to the U.S. is to avoid redeployment to begin with.  It will save the deployment costs associated with the next Small War in which we engage in the Middle East.

Bing West has another good commentary at the Small Wars Journal Blog entitled Winning the Narrative.  There are two categories of Iraq observers, says West.  The first is the anti-terror camp.  This camp believes that the indigenous Sunnis rejected al Qaeda’s religious extremism when it became obvious that they could not wrest power from the Shi’a, and didn’t want proponents of radical religious ideas as their rulers.  West observes:

It’s conventional wisdom now to say that Anbar improved because the Sunni tribes aligned against al Qaeda. True enough, but an incomplete explanation. With inadequate manpower, the Marines and Army National Guard and active duty soldiers persisted year after year with gritty, relentless patrolling that convinced the tribes the American military was, as one tribal leader said to me, “the strongest tribe”. Hence the tribes could turn against al Qaeda, knowing they had the strongest tribe standing behind them.

West echoes my sentiments in Al Qaeda, Indigenous Sunnis and the Insurgency in Iraq, where I said that:

The coup is not merely that the tribal chiefs and their people are cooperating with U.S. forces.  It is larger than that.  The coup is that the insurgency, properly defined as indigenous fighters rather than terrorists and foreign fighters – those who were previously pointing a gun towards U.S. troops – are now pointing them at the terrorists.  Not only have many of them made peace with the U.S., but in a development just as important, the U.S. forces have made peace with them.  This has been accomplished with the new difficulty introduced by globalization (foreign fighters), and the new difficulty introduced by religious fanaticism (suicide bombers), and the new difficulty introduced by technology (stand off weapons such as roadside bombs).  This is a counterinsurgency tour de force, and as time judges this victory it will take its rightful place in the great military campaigns of world history.

The second is the sectarian camp, which believes that intransigent hostility between Shi’ites and Sunnis has caused a civil war, or more correctly, will blow up into a fully realized civil war upon the departure of U.S. troops, whenever that is.  Terrorism is still a major problem, but underneath this lies a current of sectarian animosity the depth and strength of which is not completely known (The Strategy Page has an article up on the possibility of an all-out civil war if the U.S. leaves.  Civil war has not happened yet, though it could).

The narrative, says West, has been inconsistent thus far, leading to the failure to support a single narrative.  To this, we respond the following.

The problem to which Mr. West alludes is greater than he credits in his insightful analysis.  Only hours after authoring Al Qaeda, Indigenous Sunnis and the Insurgency in Iraq, in which I claimed that the majority of the insurgency in Anbar had been indigenous Sunnis (while also discussing the nuances of the superimposition of terrorism by al Qaeda in Mesopotamia), and in which I claimed that the counterinsurgency victory by the Marines in Anbar would go down as the greatest in military history, an intelligence specialist wrote me to concur with the piece, saying that “if anyone thinks that al Qaeda controls more than 10% of the insurgency they’re crazy.”

Yet we have our Commander in Chief saying that the people we’re fighting in Iraq are the same people who were responsible for 9/11 (an assertion that correctly gets no traction with the American public), and the Multinational Force PAO office issuing thousands of press releases, many of which refer to degrading the ability of al Qaeda to conduct operations, and some of which should have been discussing the Iraqi insurgency or AAS.  Al Qaeda has become a surrogate for all of the enemy, and clear narrative has been sacrificed on the altar of convenience.  It is too difficult to explain what we are doing to the American people, or so it must be believed.

Think Aaron Copland and his brilliant “Americana” style compositions.  The majestic, broad, moving, sweeping, engaging and unforgettable movements of instruments together to create the emotional experience of literally hearing his thoughts.  We need this in our narrative, and it has been absent for so long that it may be irrecoverable.  But there is more.  We need the narrative to be smart, intelligent and sophisticated.  We need a national narrative to explain the “long war” to the American public.  I would even settle for pragmatic at this point, straight from Ralph Peters.  In the event of a precipitous departure, the following would occur:

1. After suffering a strategic defeat, al-Qaeda-in-Iraq comes back from the dead …
2. Iran establishes hegemony over Iraq’s southern oil fields and menaces the other Persian Gulf producers.
3. Our troops will have died in vain.
4. A slaughter of the innocents.

I recently attended a funeral for an elderly person, and the elderly there counted many World War II veterans.  Each one wanted to know my son’s location, billet, MOS, and unit.  As they talked, each one said to me that although my son may be coming home soon, God willing that is, the war will not be over for a long, long time.  And they were not referring to the war in Iraq.  They knew.  In their eyes you could tell.  They knew that we are in the “long war.”

Our national narrative has failed to match the magnitude and stakes in the long war.  But rest assurred, the enemy’s narrative has no such weakness.  Not all of the future enemies of America in the long war will fight for religious reasons, and perhaps not even the majority.  I have gone on record saying that the insurgency in Anbar was primarily indigenous Sunni, and that the strategy to settle with them was brilliant and will go down as the template for future COIN campaigns.  But for some of the enemy, the narrative is clear, and it is powerful.

“With al Qaeda, we are in a global fight between two worlds,” he said. “Al Qaeda is not a territorial organization. It’s not Hamas, it’s not Hizballah and it’s not the Taliban.”

Instead, it should be compared to the Marxist revolutionary movements of the 1960s and 1970s that attracted young Westerners to fight in places like the jungles of South America. Al Qaeda, Roy said, is in fact part of a global revolutionary tradition.

“Today the narrative of the revolt is religious. Forty years ago it was Marxist. Today it is religious and particularly Muslim. But we are still in a global revolt against the system, without having a clear vision of an alternative system,” he said.

Roy contended that al Qaeda members are anti-American only because America incarnates the “world order” — and this “world order is perceived as unjust.”

Khadija Mohsen-Finan, a specialist on the Middle East from the French Institute of Foreign Relations in Paris (IFRI), identified al Qaeda terrorists as “people who don’t think they have their place in globalization.”

Bing has written a smart commentary that is “gilding the lilly.”  Before we can even hope to develop a narrative of Operation Iraqi Freedom, we need to develop a national narrative.  National leadership is needed, and so far it has not been forthcoming.

The Strategy Page has a piece up on China ordering digital camouflage.

China is spending over a billion dollars to buy new combat uniforms for its troops. The new uniforms use a digital camouflage pattern similar to the one used by American soldiers and marines for the past four years.

Digital camouflage uses “pixels” (little square or round spots of color, like you will find on your computer monitor if you look very closely), instead of just splotches of different colors. Naturally, this was called “digital camouflage” when it was first invented three decades ago. This pattern proved considerably more effective at hiding troops than older methods. For example, in tests, it was found that soldiers wearing digital pattern uniforms were 50 percent more likely to escape detection by other troops. What made the digital pattern work was the way the human brain processed information. The small “pixels” of color on the cloth makes the human brain see vegetation and terrain, not people. One could provide a more technical explanation, but the “brain processing” one pretty much says it all.

Another advantage of the digital patterns is that they can also fool troops using night vision scopes. American troops are increasingly running up against opponents who have night optics, so wearing a camouflage pattern that looks like vegetation to someone with a night scope, is useful.

China will take two years to get nearly two million troops equipped with the new uniforms. There are four camouflage patterns (urban, forest, desert and ocean), although the woodland pattern  also works in urban areas, just not as well as the special urban pattern. The new uniforms have a lot of other improvements, based on feedback from the troops. The new uniforms are also sturdier, and are able to survive 700 washings, versus about 140 with the current uniforms.

The U.S. Army developed digital camouflage in the 1970s. Lieutenant Colonel Timothy R. O’Neill, a West Point professor of engineering psychology, had first noted the “digital camouflage effect.” It was never adopted for use in uniforms, but was used for a camouflage pattern on armored vehicles of the U.S. Army 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Europe from 1978 to the early 1980s. Why hadn’t the army adopted it for uniforms back in the 1970s? It seems that the key army people (uniformed and civilian) deciding such things in the 1970s could not grasp the concept of how digital camouflage worked on the human brain, and were not swayed by field tests. Strange, but true, and it’s happened before. In 2003, the U.S. Army decided to use digital camouflage patterns for their new field uniforms. A few years after that, China expressed an interest in the concept, for their new field uniforms.

More interesting than the article is a comment associated with the article.

I tend to be a little dubious about ‘the next big thing’ in camouflage patterns.  It’s been my experience that once you strap on all your gear and get covered in dust and mud, no one can see what your uniform looks like anyway.  Durability and more convenient pocket placement is far more important.

Here we have an interesting anecdotal piece of evidence for Department of Defense inefficiency.  The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, and vice versa.  Below is a pitcure of Marines being outfitted with the new Modular Tactical Vest that I have covered in Body Armor Wars: The Way Forward, and Body Armor Goes Political.

The intent of digital camies is to provide stealth.  The intent of body armor is to protect against penetration of deadly rounds.  The body armor outer tactical vest (the carrier for the soft ballistic panels and ESAPI plates) is not constructed of digital camouflage, and yet the system covers all of the upper torso (protecting the whole body organs) and some of the groin, thereby negating the effects of the digital camouflage blouse (and the picture above is not of desert camies which would be worse in comparison).

Commercial industry struggles with miscommunication and lack of coordination as well.  No one intends for this to happen, but the end result is that the body armor system and the digital camouflage are not compatible, in that the digital pattern of the camies (or more correctly the lack of pattern) is broken with the armor system.  The same is true of other gear, whether radios, carriers for ammunition drums for SAW gunners, or other things that the warrior needs to carry on his mission.

The solution for this disconnect involves two things: (a) more money for the DoD, and (b) better coordination among the planners, engineers and procurement specialists.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates envisions a smaller, long term presence in Iraq.

LONDON (Thomson Financial) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is seeking a political deal in Washington to trade off troop cuts in Iraq for support for a long-term, smaller presence there, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Citing unnamed US government officials, the Journal said that Gates and some political allies are pursuing political support for maintaining a US military presence in Iraq to continue the fight against Al-Qaeda.

The tradeoff, according to the report, is a commitment to slashing back troop levels — now about 155,000 — by the end of President George W. Bush’s term in office, in January 2009.

Gates’s goal is to mollify the strong US sentiment for a pullout of US forces, while not abandoning Iraq altogether.

‘The complicating factor is how long the administration will stick with its ‘surge’ strategy of keeping high levels of troops in Iraq to try to tamp down violence there. On this issue, the administration — and even the military — is deeply divided,’ the Journal said.

In Gates’s plan, the US would trim back its presence and its goals to fighting Al-Qaeda and simply containing a civil war that might erupt, rather than the current aim of defeating all insurgents and ending the conflict between Iraqi groups, mostly aligned on Sunni and Shiite Muslim lines.

It’s nice to be on the cutting edge.  In Settling with the Enemy, I said:

When the U.S. forces begin to stand down and withdraw, to remove the U.S. men and materiel in Iraq will take more than a year.  Withdrawal will be slow and deliberate.  Furthermore, it is likely that complete withdrawal will not happen for a long time.  More likely is that the U.S. will re-deploy to the North in Kurdistan, assisting the Iraqi army and police with kinetic operations upon request, while also serving as a stabilizer for the Middle East and border security for Iraq.

But it is just as likely that U.S. forces will not be performing constabulary operations for much longer.  The counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24, was written based on the presupposition that the U.S. has the ten to twelve years necessary to conduct the classical counterinsurgency campaign.  This was never true, is not true now, and will not be true in the future.  Military needs aside, the public – by the power of the vote – has the right and prerogative within the American system to make the policy decision on the conduct of war.  Asking the American pubic to support a counterinsurgency campaign over three consecutive presidential administrations is expecting the impossible, no matter how well the administration communicates the conditions of the campaign to the public.

All wars must end.  The end of Operation Iraqi Freedom necessitates settling with the enemy, a high stakes strategy, absent which there is only loss of the counterinsurgency campaign.

Under Gates’ plan, the duties of the U.S. forces who are left would likely be (1) region stabilization, (2) training of Iraqi troops and police, (3) support for kinetic operations against known terrorists, and (4) border security.  Constabulary operations would not be in the strategic interests of the U.S., and policing of the population would be left to the Iraqis.

In Air Power in Small Wars, I outlined the real re-involvement of air power (both Air Force and Navy) in the counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, and in the scenario described above air power would take a much larger role.  Intelligence and reconnaissance would be key in this strategy, and it is likely that much of the effort of ground troops would go to this support role.  Trade cannot be completely shut down between Iraq and its neighbors, but if the trafficking of weapons and militants can be ascertained, air power can be readily used to interdict and destroy enemy targets flowing in from Syria and Iran.

 Sun Tzu — “If I am able to determine the enemy’s dispositions while at the same time I conceal my own then I can concentrate and he must divide.  And if I concentrate while he divides, I can use my entire strength to attack a fraction of his