Global Guerrillas has a very interesting piece up entitled “Playing with War.”  In it John Robb argues that:

The western way of war in the 21st century is a pale shadow of the warfare it waged in the 20th. The reason is simple: for western societies war is no longer existential. Instead, it’s increasingly about smoothing market flows and tertiary moral concerns/threats. As a result of this diminishment of motivation, western warfare is now afflicted with the following: 

John continues with a complete description of what I will include as an outline listing (for editorial and space reasons):

• Operations of low lethality
• Marginal placement within national priorities
• Muddled objectives

The upshot according to John is that wars will become increasingly difficult to win, because:

• Asymmetric motivation (of the enemy)
• New methods of warfare
• Proliferation of opposition

Finally, the following points are outlined as a summary for learning to live within the constraints imposed by this new breed of warfare (I will quote completely).  We should learn to avoid:

• Nation-building as a global social policy. Historically, counter-insurgency against an established enemy has almost never worked (and when it has, it usually involves bloody exterminations). Any attempt to build a nation will likely, particularly in the current environment of globalization, yield an opponent that will be impossible to defeat through limited means. Further, the durations of these conflicts will exceed the capacity of the western states to maintain a cohesive set of objectives — they will shift with opinion polls and political winds.
• Collapsing rogue states. In almost all instances, despite how easy it is to collapse a weak state with modern weapons, those wars launched to collapse rogue states will not yield positive results. The collapse will necessitate calls for revival (see item one). Unless states are willing to live with partial collapse without resolution, they should not undertake the action in the first place.
• Escalation of tension. Given an inability to resolve conflicts through nation-building and state collapse, western states should endeavor to deescalate conflicts rather than ignite them. Escalation is a false God that promises a return of the motivational clarity found in the wars of the 20th Century. It cannot deliver this. The only thing it provides is a widening and deepening of the conflict through the proliferation of opposition. 

Mr. Robb probably knows about one thousand times as much about the current subject as I do.  So it is with all due respect that I say that I think that his characterization of the problem(s) is incomplete.

Having a son in the Marines, I study everything I can get my hands on pertaining to his training, the history of the Marines, the nature of the current conflict, and what he will likely be doing in several months.

One of the more interesting things that I have learned is the concept of “small wars.”  I highly recommend reading the Small Wars Manual, and I especially recommend visiting the Marine Corps Small Wars web site and another site called Small Wars Journal.  I make a daily visit to these sites (and sometimes more).

What Mr. Robb describes has already been described in detail in the Small Wars Manual.  In fact, the Marines have known this not since the publication of the manual in the early ’40s, but essentially since the birthday of the Marines, 10 November 1775.

Since their birthday, the Marines have been engaged in small, low intensity conflicts at the behest of the President, oftentimes without the support of the public, without a declaration of war, and without clear goals or orders, while battling both regular forces and insurgencies and while also having to deal with more pedestrian issues such as electrical power and the restoration of government.  Such engagements have often relied upon rapid, mobile and robust force projection.

The above paragraph is not an advertisement.  The Small Wars Manual is as salient today as it was when it was first published.  It is an admonition for the Army to consider its future.  The Marines have had to adapt, modify, adjust and make-do based on the changing conditions of the over three hundred low intensity engagements in its history.  The Army will do the same, or it will become irrelevant to the twenty first century.

If this type of warfare is not new, then what has changed?  My contention is that politics has changed.

Politics and failure to act decisively allowed Bin Laden and many in Al Qaida leadership to escape Tora Bora.  Politics failed to execute a warrant for al Sadr’s arrest during Paul Bremer’s watch in Iraq (I recently saw an interview with Bremer on FNC in which he attributed this failure to a military decision, saying that he was in favor of al Sad’r arrest.  I know nothing of the decision making or line of authority concerning this matter, but if the military made this decision, then the one who actually approved of letting al Sadr escape arrest should be on the receiving end of a courts martial).  Politics has caused us to cease hostilities on Ramadan.  Politics has caused us to refuse to fire upon Mosques (until very recently).  Politics has caused problems for Gitmo.  Politics has dragged generals in front of congressional inquiries to be battered by those seeking to stake out a position for the upcoming elections in November.

There is a deep division in America, with one side being not just anti-military, but rather, socialistic and anti-American to a large extent, and this is a failure of American society, not American military strategy or might.  Even though the Marines have engaged in conflicts before in which the public was unsupportive (or unaware), the difference now seems to be politics in the highest ranks of the military brass.  The military establishment seems less willing to insulate the decision-makers from politics, and potentially risky decisions are avoided due to their being seen as potentially career-ending decisions.  To summarize, my contention is that the main difference today is the deference being paid to politics by the military brass (and senior leadership, including the Secretary or Defense and even the President).

When properly posed, I believe the question to be “do we have the political will to win?”  The tactics, strategy, manpower, know-how, equipment and patriotism are already in place.

It is not a question of warfare.  It is a question of politics.

Postscript: Even if I am right, this post doesn’t address the other issues raised in the GG post such as nation-building.  I will post on this at a later time.

I have posted several times on the battle for Baghdad, begging for rapid and intense offensive action.  The only boundaries on our offensive action should be the limits of intelligence.  Our intelligence network should be large, deep and well-paid enough by now to be able to decipher where the insurgents are, who the bomb-makers are, and where they are located.  Al-Sadr’s militia, the so-called Mahdi army, continues to be a problem, and Iraqi PM Maliki will not decisively act against him:

Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, is a Shiite-dominated city where the influence of Mahdi Army has been gradually increasing. It already runs a virtual parallel government in Sadr City, a slum in eastern Baghdad.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has found it difficult to rein in al-Sadr, whose movement holds 30 of the 275 seats in parliament and five Cabinet posts.

Al-Sadr’s backing also helped al-Maliki win the top job during painstaking negotiations within the Shiite alliance that led to the ouster of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

Al-Sadr mounted two major uprisings against the American-led coalition in 2004 when U.S. authorities closed his newspaper and pushed an Iraqi judge to issue an arrest warrant against him.

But American forces have also been wary of confronting the Mahdi Army because of al-Sadr’s clout over the government and his large following among Shiites, who are in a majority in Iraq.

Nine U.S. troops died over the weekend, eight of which were from roadside bombs (IEDs) in and around Baghdad.

As I have suggested repeatedly, al-Sadr’s influence and power should make him a prime target.  The notion that because he is supported by the Shiite people the U.S. should be reluctant to engage him is, to me, analogous to saying that because Nasrallah is supported by some of the Islamicists in southern Lebanon, Israel should be reluctant to go after him.  This is manifestly absurd.

Finally, Baghdad is a restive city.  It has been said that the battle for Baghdad will be measured in months, not days.  But at the rate of nine U.S. troops per weekend, if this rate continues, we could be sustaining hundreds more U.S. deaths to IEDs before Baghdad is pacified.

This should be intollerable to both the brass and the U.S. public.  Not a single military spokesman has proferred a single reason why a broad, sweeping, aggressive, offensive action to clean out Baghdad, capture or kill al-Sadr, and kill the bomb-makers is not possible and in order.  If it is politics that is holding us back, then let’s bring our boys home now.

Politics loses, not wins, wars.  This is still a war, isn’t it?

From My Way News:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Militants freed two Fox News journalists on Sunday, ending a nearly two week hostage drama. One of the former captives said they were sometimes held face down in a dark garage, tied up in painful positions and forced at gunpoint to make videos and say they had converted to Islam.

I would like formally to thank the captors of Centanni for making my point for me better than I could have.  See my post “Does this help explain Jihad a little better?”

Here at the Captain’s Journal, we always appreciate it when others make us look smart at the expense of making themselves look stupid.

From My Way News:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – Militants freed two Fox News journalists on Sunday, ending a nearly two week hostage drama. One of the former captives said they were sometimes held face down in a dark garage, tied up in painful positions and forced at gunpoint to make videos and say they had converted to Islam.

I would like formally to thank the captors of Centanni for making my point for me better than I could have.  See my post “Does this help explain Jihad a little better?”

Here at the Captain’s Journal, we always appreciate it when others make us look smart at the expense of making themselves look stupid.

Haaretz has this:

A 17-year-old boy who died during tryouts for pilot training was apparently killed by heat stroke rather than dehydration, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The commander of the Israel Air Force, Major General Elyezer Shkedy, has ordered an investigation into the death of Itai Sharon of Zichron Ya’akov, who died on Wednesday.

A debriefing revealed that between 6:30 and 8:00 A.M. Wednesday, the group of teens involved in the tryout went on a six-kilometer march carrying weights. The IDF’s chief medical officer, Brigadier General Hezi Levy, said that the heat stress factor did not rule out such activities under army regulations. At 8:30 A.M., the heat stress factor became borderline in terms of the regulations governing strenuous physical activity, so the group was assigned activities that they could do sitting down.

An hour after the march, Sharon’s friends saw him sitting in the sun. When they summoned him into the shade, they noticed that he was confused and apathetic. After they made the commanders aware of Sharon’s condition, he was sent for medical treatment. He was found to have a high fever, given a transfusion and transferred to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, where he lost consciousness and died.

Heat stroke, in which the body is unable to discharge heat built up during strenuous activity, is a known risk in very hot weather. A number of IDF soldiers have died of heat stroke over the years.

In my post “Israel’s Might Army: Plan and Keep the Balance,” I said:

In my post “Israeli Army in Disarray During War,

Haaretz has this:

A 17-year-old boy who died during tryouts for pilot training was apparently killed by heat stroke rather than dehydration, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The commander of the Israel Air Force, Major General Elyezer Shkedy, has ordered an investigation into the death of Itai Sharon of Zichron Ya’akov, who died on Wednesday.

A debriefing revealed that between 6:30 and 8:00 A.M. Wednesday, the group of teens involved in the tryout went on a six-kilometer march carrying weights. The IDF’s chief medical officer, Brigadier General Hezi Levy, said that the heat stress factor did not rule out such activities under army regulations. At 8:30 A.M., the heat stress factor became borderline in terms of the regulations governing strenuous physical activity, so the group was assigned activities that they could do sitting down.

An hour after the march, Sharon’s friends saw him sitting in the sun. When they summoned him into the shade, they noticed that he was confused and apathetic. After they made the commanders aware of Sharon’s condition, he was sent for medical treatment. He was found to have a high fever, given a transfusion and transferred to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, where he lost consciousness and died.

Heat stroke, in which the body is unable to discharge heat built up during strenuous activity, is a known risk in very hot weather. A number of IDF soldiers have died of heat stroke over the years.

In my post “Israel’s Might Army: Plan and Keep the Balance,” I said:

In my post “Israeli Army in Disarray During War,

Our friend Mike at Cop the Truth sent me an interesting (but not surprising) link from the Herald Sun in Australia.

An Iran-based web site run by Hezbollah has run this picture of Hezbollah rockets allegedly hitting an Israeli ship last month.

Examine the features of the blast.  Now look at this picture below, of the intentional sinking of the Australian destroyer-escort HMAS Torrens in 1998 upon being retired and decommissioned:

Right click on the picture and notice the link URL.  It is from Defense Industry Daily.  Examine the features of the explosion in this frame and compare it with the frame above.

The real question is how anyone who views the Hezbollah web site could be so stupid as to believe that this was a picture of the Israeli ship.

The picture is obviously taken from the air (i.e., a helicopter) based on the oblique angle.  And it cannot have been taken from much more than about 1 km away.  So in order to believe that this was the Israeli ship, someone would have to believe that either:

1. Israel has a helicopter in the air that day taking time lapse photograpy, and then decided to release this picture to the press showing its failure to protect its ship, or
2. Hezbollah now has an air force and it made it to within 1 km of an Israeli war ship without being molested; the occupants of the aircraft knew when the Hezbollah missile was launched, and took time-lapse, fast shutter speed photography at the time of the missile impact.

The Herald Sun reported that since its publication of these pictures, the Hezbollah web site had removed its post.

Not so.  At the time of this post on the Captain’s Journal, the Hezbollah web site still has this post online.

I just can’t figure out who the clowns are: Hezbollah or their followers.

From the AP (courtesy of Military.com):

BAGHDAD, Iraq – U.S. forces fired tank rounds at a mosque in the restive city of Ramadi Friday and exchanged heavy fire with militants inside, the U.S. command said, as Iraqis looted a base in the south after it was vacated by British troops.

One U.S. soldier was lightly wounded and three people were reportedly killed inside the mosque, while five people were killed elsewhere in Iraq in a relatively peaceful day in the country wracked by sectarian and Sunni insurgency violence.

Militants inside the Al Qadir Al Kilami mosque fired small arms, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades at U.S. forces, a statement by the U.S. command said. They also hurled hand grenades and a bomb, it said.

American soldiers returned fire at first, and finally unleashed several rounds from M1 tanks into the mosque, said the statement. “The mosque suffered serious structural damage to the dome and minaret,” it said.

It said the attack occurred at about 12.30 p.m., a little before Friday prayers were due to start. It was not known if any worshippers were already inside.

Permit me what may seem a rather pedestrian comment (since I am not in Iraq and do not have a sense of the Iraqi population or the various exigencies of the battles now being fought).  The U.S. has long shown deference to the various religious holidays (e.g., if you will recall, we have even ceased hostilities during Ramadan) and locales (we have avoided firing upon Mosques, even to the point of allowing al Sadr to hole up in a Mosque when he was initially being hunted during Paul Bremer’s watch).

I thought then, and will think in the future, that this was and is, respectively, the wrong strategy, and that it sends the wrong message.  We endeavored to be liked, when we should have endeavored to be respected.  Each and every time we have tried to be kind, compasionate and respectful, we have been taken advantage of and looked the weaker for it.

If from the beginning we had dropped leaflets informing the Iraqi citizens that upon receiving fire from a Mosque the U.S. forces would return fire ten-fold regardless of whether there were worshippers in the Mosque, my bet is that even if they did not believe us the first time it happened, if we had been true to our words, they would have believed us the second time.  More to the point, my bet is that there wouldn’t have been a second time.

What do you think Patton would have said if the Germans had holed up in a church?  God, please give us another General Patton.  No, correction: Give us ten more.  And hurry.

With all of the silly and dangerous definitions of Islamic Jihad out there (e.g., a “peaceful internal striving,” etc.), it is good to see moral clarity and precision.  Michelle Malkin has a great piece today on the case of Lina Joy, in which she converted to Christianity from Islam, and wants to marry a Christian man.  She is now facing death threats (as is her lawyer), and the case has gone to the highest court in Malaysia.  But apparently the civil courts routinely refer cases to the Islamic court, and:

While the Quran states there should be “no compunction” in religion, Islamic authorities world-wide consider apostasy both a sin and a crime. In Malaysia, Islamic courts can sentence apostates to “rehabilitation” in prison-like re-education centers that sometimes use caning as part of their program. 

Sounds nice, doesn’t it?  Rather like the Gulags? 

Continuing, we learn why Islam refuses to allow people to leave the faith:

“If Islam were to grant permission for Muslims to change religion at will, it would imply it has no dignity, no self-esteem,” said Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad, senior fellow at Malaysia’s Institute of Islamic Understanding.

“And people may then question its completeness, truthfulness and perfection.

There you have it.  These are some of the major differences (there are so many to choose from) between Christianity and Islam.  Christianity believes that God changes hearts and minds, not man.  Islam believes that caning can assist in “rehabilitation” in matters of religion.  Christianity welcomes a battle of ideas, confident in the victory of its world view if people will only be logical and if God chooses to change hearts and minds.  Islam tethers its self-worth to what man thinks.

Folks, these are critical differences.  This is why Christianity will not shoot others in the name of God, and why Islam believes that it is acceptable to spread Islam by the power of the “sword.”  It is because in Islam, man is doing the work rather than God.  If you believe that it is by your efforts that man is saved, then why wouldn’t you use all means at your disposal to spread your salvation?

This helps explain Jihad.  It makes perfect sense; it is the seed of violence within Islam.  All attempts to explain it away fail.

[And please, do not send me any moronic e-mails about Eric Rudolph or Timothy McVeigh.  Neither one carried out their actions because of religious motivation.  Rudolph was a white supremicist, while McVeigh didn’t very much like Ruby Ridge or the U.S. government.]

On the heels of the report by the Center for American Progress that I posted on (Marine Corps Equipment & Dollars), we see this from North County Times:

The chairman of the House Armed Service Committee said Wednesday there has been no shortfall in money for Marine Corps combat-readiness and equipment needs as was suggested in new report from the liberal Washington think tank, the Center for American Progress.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, said the Marine Corps and the Army are getting all the money the two service branches need and have asked for to repair and replace aging equipment and aircraft. 

“We are funding every dime that the Marine Corps and Army have identified as being needed and we are adding more money than they have asked for,” Hunter said in a telephone interview before a press conference he conducted on the subject in San Diego.

The think tank’s report, released Wednesday, said the Marine Corps had lost 3,500 pieces of ground equipment and 27 helicopters in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

The report said that providing the service with the ground and aviation equipment and restoring those elements to their pre-war level will cost $12 billion as well as an additional $5 billion for each year the U.S. remains in Iraq.

“Because Marine Corps equipment needs have been neglected in the past and the Iraq campaign has proved more protracted than anticipated, stresses are beginning to appear in the service’s capacity to supply its troops with the best war-fighting tools available,” said Larry Korb, co-author of the report and a senior fellow at the center, which bills itself as a nonpartisan research and educational institute.

The report says that war planners did not anticipate a lengthy stay in Iraq, nor the losses of equipment incurred in combat actions.

“Like the strain on its personnel, the Marines’ inventory of equipment exhibits increasing signs of wear and tear,” the report says. “This stress is already eroding the readiness of units outside Iraq and could eventually impede operations within Iraq.”

Hunter said that during classified and public hearings with Marine and Army officials before the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, the services told lawmakers of their specific equipment needs.

Of the $11.7 billion the Marine Corps said in January that it needed, Congress responded a short time later by allocating $5.1 billion. The remainder of that money and some additional funds is in a 2007 defense appropriations bill now in negotiations between the House and Senate, with resolution expected soon, Hunter said.

In addition, Hunter said he and Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., have agreed to add $20 billion to an existing $50 billion “bridge” fund established two years ago for the services to draw from to meet immediate equipment needs, the congressman said.

“We have made sure that we won’t run short of the money for equipment that is needed in the war-fighting theater,” Hunter said, adding that funding bills are continually being adjusted as new needs arise.

Similar steps have been taken to assure that the Army has all the money it needs to maintain and replace equipment, Hunter said.

“While the priorities of our military are numerous and constantly changing to meet the challenges of the war on terror, we will continue responding without hesitation to the most immediate needs of the war fighter,” Hunter said.

In an interview with the North County Times on Monday, Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, the new commanding general at Camp Pendleton, said he is confident that Congress will appropriate the money needed for new armored personnel carriers, aircraft and other major components used to move and protect Marine forces.

“We have to keep pace because this is going to be a long fight,” Mattis said.

Psssst … listen a minute.  Here’s how it works.  The Marines are a little bit scared (well, scared might be the wrong work to use about a Marine).  They are (rightfully) concerned that if you give them more money, then you might just go messin’ with their stuff, meddling in their affairs, and picking apart what they do and how they do it.  After all, Washington has a history in these things, do they not?

Representative Hunter, if you and your colleagues will promise to be wise and circumspect about what you ask them about what they do and how and why they do it, and promise not to meddle too much in their affairs, the Marines would likely be a little more forthcoming to you about what their true needs are.  Just don’t get too nosey.  The Marines don’t like it, and for good reason.

I am sure that the brass could tell you stories until you were tired about their aircraft, troop transports, other aging equipment, and the need to increase salaries (go take a look at the pathetic salaries in the E1, E2 and E3 ranks).  I will leave the heavy lifting to the brass.  Let me mention one thing to you.  Body armor.

I posted some time back on “Heavy Battlefield Weight,” in which I cited reports that showed that the heavy body armor weight not only decreased agility in combat, but was so heavy that some Marines were actually opting to leave it behind when they went into combat in Iraq.

I also posted on “Thermobaric Weapons and Body Armor,” in which it was shown that more research is needed to design lightweight, state-of-the-art body armor that is effective not only against ballistics, but air-fuel weapons as well.

If the brass didn’t tell you these things, then they weren’t being completely forthcoming.

So I told you.

There.  That wasn’t so hard, was it?