Dean Weingarten has a good find at Ammoland.
Judge Eduardo Ramos, the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, has issued an Opinion & Order that a ban on stun guns is constitutional. A New York State law prohibits the private possession of stun guns and tasers; a New York City law prohibits the possession and selling of stun guns. Judge Ramos has ruled these laws do not infringe on rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Let's briefly…… [read more]
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has brought most American Special Operations forces under his direct control for the first time, out of concern over continued civilian casualties and disorganization among units in the field.
“What happens is, sometimes at cross-purposes, you got one hand doing one thing and one hand doing the other, both trying to do the right thing but working without a good outcome,” General McChrystal said in an interview.
Critics, including Afghan officials, human rights workers and some field commanders of conventional American forces, say that Special Operations forces have been responsible for a large number of the civilian casualties in Afghanistan and operate by their own rules.
Maj. Gen. Zahir Azimi, the chief spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said that General McChrystal had told Afghan officials he was taking the action because of concern that some American units were not following his orders to make limiting civilian casualties a paramount objective.
“These special forces were not accountable to anyone in the country, but General McChrystal and we carried the burden of the guilt for the mistakes they committed,” he said. “Whenever there was some problem with the special forces we didn’t know who to go to, it was muddled and unclear who was in charge.”
Spencer Ackerman seems to support McChrystal’s consolidation of forces into one chain of command because of the need to protect the population as the center of gravity of the campaign. I do not. To be clear, I do not support the consolidation of forces into one chain of command for the reason that the population is the center of gravity (see Center of Gravity Versus Lines of Effort in COIN). I do indeed support the consolidation of forces.
Ending the silly high value target campaign (capturing mid-level Taliban commanders, only to release them 96 hours later) won’t end unintended noncombatant casualties. The attempt to completely end noncombatant casualties has already contributed to unnecessary deaths of U.S. troops. I support the consolidation of forces because SOF shouldn’t be operating out of the chain of command. If there is a direct action raid and a father or a son is killed in the middle of the night, the infantry (or those attached to the infantry, i.e., SOF) should have done it, under the direction of the immediate chain of command, and they should all be present the next morning to explain to the village why it happened. If you don’t harbor insurgents, this won’t happen. There is nothing like a little time with the villagers by those who did the killing … expending effort policing, teaching and admonishing.
Michael Yon told us about the refusal of the Spanish to work well together with U.S. forces. Bratty kids, they are. A snippet of a letter from a Lt. Colonel in the 82nd Airborne Division follows (full disclosure, my father served in the 82nd Airborne, and this Lt. Col. sounds to me like he is in the line of distinguished, hard core infantry and airborne warriors who have graced this division).
Qal E Naw: The Spanish are not interested in helping in anyway, and are trying to make us decide to leave based on their unacceptable treatment of Americans. Our refuelers [soldiers who refuel helicopters] that are living there have to run out, unroll the hoses, pull security, and roll everything back up. They have asked for gravel along the FLS as it is currently calf deep mud, but the Spanish refuse to make any improvements. They asked for a T barrier (just one) to put at a 45 degree angle outside the fence where the FARP [Forward Arming and Refueling Point; where helicopters land for ammo and gas] has to be set up so they can run for cover in case there is small arms fire, the Spanish say no and refuse to make any improvements. They asked for a small gate where their billets are located so they can access the FARP directly rather than going a half mile loop to get out the gate, but the Spanish said no and refuse to make any improvements. They [sic] guys are living hard (we understand that) but have to do laundry by hand as all of their stuff is stolen if they turn it into the laundry, they discussed this with the Spanish, but they refuse to many any improvements …
BmG: Who ever briefed that they have gravel there has never been there. We arrived during a TIC [fighting] and a MEDEVAC mission. The aircraft have to land/park in a field that has no gravel and then they sink into the ground. They have to be moved everyday to pull them back out of the mud. If we can’t get gravel, how about putting some AM2 matting, stakes and a couple of Red Horse guys on a CH-47 and fly them in to build a couple of pads just big enough to park an individual UH-60 on? We’ve been pushing the gravel issues since last fall and are no closer to a solution. Those guys are living in fighting positions. When it begins to warm up in the next month, that field will be untenable without gravel or AM2 matting. We don’t want to lose MEDEVAC capability there because we couldn’t put in two pads. We did a MEDEVAC [troop(s) wounded] and Hero [troop(s) killed] mission while I was there and the next day as well, let’s not forget that they are on the tip of the spear, we owe them more.
Michael follows up with a letter from Colonel Robert J. Ulses (U.S.) to Colonel Jesus De Miguel Sabastian (Spain). He says in this letter that he is assured that the Spanish leadership has been very responsive to all requests for support. Indeed. The letter closes with this – I kid you not, go look at the letter at Michael’s site – hand written note.
“Thanks for the support!! Look forward to meeting you.
Now they’ve done it. I feel all warm and gooey inside. On the other hand, not really. Having a father who was in the 82nd Airborne Division, a son who has spent four years in the Marines as an infantry grunt and who earned the CAR in Fallujah, a daughter who is in the process of joining the Navy as an officer, and having spent 28 years in corporate America and industry, I have never, ever, seen anything like this before.
The only thing that remains is for Colonel Ulses to put hugs and kisses on the letter. Something like this:
XOXOXOXOXO !!!!!
Which, as best as I can tell, is big, excited hugs and kisses since it is followed by the exclamation marks. Oh … oh … I feel that I’m going to be sick to my stomach. So would there have been a more appropriate way to end this sniveling letter? Has anyone even seen anything like this? My God. Give us men like Chesty Puller!!!!! (In a tip of the hat to the subject of this post, I thought it appropriate to end this sentence with some exclamation marks). No hugs and kisses, just exclamation marks.
British troops are to hand over control of the largest town in north Helmand to US forces as part of a major “rebalancing” of UK forces in Helmand, the Defence Secretary said yesterday.
Speaking on a visit to Helmand, the Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, said that Musa Qala would be handed over to US forces in the next month and that “further changes” are likely to ensure that British forces have the “greatest effect in countering the threat posed by the insurgency and protecting the civilian population.”
The decision to hand over Musa Qala to US forces had been one of a series of options under consideration by senior Nato commanders. In January The Times reported that British troops were likely to be pulled out of Musa Qala, Kajaki and possibly the iconic town of Sangin …
British troops originally moved into Musa Qala in June of 2006 to counter Taleban attacks that threatened to overwhelm weak local security forces in the town. In late 2006 British forces withdrew from Musa Qala under the terms of a controversial deal that saw local tribes promises to exclude the Taliban and govern the town.
However, Taliban fighters retook Musa Qala in February 2007 and held it till December when it was retaken in a major offensive by a mixed US and UK force. The retaking of the town was aided by the defection of a local Taleban commander, Mullah Abdul Salaam, who was subsequently installed as the local district governor.
Twenty-three British soldiers have died in and around the town. General Messenger said that British forces would leave behind a success story.
There is a problem within the Ministry of Defence (and the higher echelon of the chain of command) in Britain. Musa Qala is not a success story. The British warrior is a good as any on earth, but the officer corps has a troubling predilection to grant themselves special dispensation to turn their own failures into successes (it happened with the campaign in Basra).
Let’s take a quick detour through recent history. The British were on the front end of the attempt to make deals with the Taliban, and even earlier, the local tribes. A deal was indeed struck with the locals to turn away the Taliban. The promise didn’t obtain, and the Taliban took control of Musa Qala.
In a tip of the hat to more deal-making, the British befriended one Mullah Abdul Salaam, a so-called “former mid-level Taliban commander” who promised to bring his fighters to bear upon the Taliban during the initial assault of U.S. and British troops to retake Musa Qala. In fact, upon the initiation of the assault, Salaam “stayed in his compound in Shakahraz, ten miles east, with a small cortège of fighters, where he made increasingly desperate pleas for help.” In other words, he screamed like a little girl.
This whole incident has been a stain on the British effort, and is not indicative of the high quality enlisted men in the British military. The CTC Sentinel at West Point had some very direct words to the MoD regarding Musa Qala in July 2008.
Since the initial withdrawal from Musa Qala in 2006, the British image for military capability in general and counter-insurgency competence in particular has suffered a number of setbacks, by no means all in Afghanistan. The success of Iraqi forces in Basra in 2008 was widely seen as them doing a job that the British had left unfinished for political reasons. Britain’s relations with Kabul have suffered a number of setbacks, from the removal of diplomats following direct negotiations (bypassing Kabul) with the Taliban at Musa Qala in 2006 to Kabul’s rejection of Lord Paddy Ashdown to be the new UN envoy in Afghanistan … If the United Kingdom fails in Musa Qala, its relations with coalition partners and Afghans alike is likely to be harmed, and it may have a further impact on its international standing.
One and a half years ago the relations between Salaam and the British troops had soured. The British had accused him of corruption and thuggery, while he had accused the British of undermining his “authority.” Salaam was “feathering his own nest” while reconstruction is not forthcoming from the largesse poured into Musa Qala. It would appear that relations have not gotten any better in the last year. “At their latest meeting, Mullah Salaam is complaining that the Household Cavalry Regiment Battlegroup, which has been here for nearly six months, simply isn’t violent enough.”
This is from a man who couldn’t convince his own “fighters” to make good on their promises to take Musa Qala back from the Taliban. Yet it also appears that Salaam hasn’t added one iota to the security around the area in the time that he has been “governor” of the area. Government officials still can’t move more than one kilometer outside of Musa Qala because of security problems.
It’s time for some serious counterinsurgency in and around Musa Qala, and this means that Salaam must go, or be relegated to the sidelines as the irrelevant lackey that he is. If the British didn’t have the resources to pacify the area, then the U.S. Marines might be able to squeeze the enemy out of hiding and kill them – and retake the roads in the area. And so much for tribal engagement and deals with the Taliban as the answer to every problem in Afghanistan.
Ralph Peters is sanguine concerning Iraq. Daniel Pipes is much less so. I tend towards bleak outlooks, but am waiting on either of the very good analysts at Iraq the Model to weigh in, or Nibras Kazimi at Talisman Gate (with whom I have had knock down, drag out fights). Several things are clear at this point. It is clear that there is a lot of confusion. It is clear that Ahmad Chalabi is a sniveling lackey and treacherous scumbag who has empowered Iran and hurt Iraqi unity by causing the dissociation of its sects. I have complained long and loudly concerning the Status of Forces Agreement and what it has done to U.S. power in the region. We have spent too much blood and treasure to give up so much authority and allow the criminalization of so many Sunnis who participated in the sons of Iraq program to defeat al Qaeda. ITM weighed in on the exclusion of so many Sunnis from elections and concluded that it has as its basis sectarianism.
Hunkered down in a community outside Baghdad, Raad Ali watched the national elections Sunday in anonymity. No one bothers him here. Strangers think he is just another displaced Iraqi from the capital.
The days are long, and he misses his wife and children.
He believes that the election results could mean either his return home or exile, far from his loved ones.
With his button-down shirts, slacks and habitual smile, Ali looks like an unassuming civil servant or eager salesman growing into a chubby middle age. The only sign of worry is his five o’clock shadow.
A little over two years ago, he was shaking U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno’s hand in his old neighborhood, Ghazaliya, where Ali commanded one of the first Baghdad branches of a Sunni paramilitary movement that helped restore calm to Baghdad. Now Iraqi security forces are hunting him, despite the fact that he took on the Mahdi Army and Al Qaeda in Iraq in his west Baghdad neighborhood.
Ali prays that the national elections will solve his problems. If Iyad Allawi wins, he thinks there would be a place for him in his country. If Nouri Maliki or another Shiite Islamist wins, he believes the harassment will never stop. It would only be a matter of time before he was jailed and separated from his family forever.
“If Allawi doesn’t win, the future is dark,” he said. “They will target everyone.”
Having allowed such a situation to obtain is not only bad for Iraq (and to say that Maliki is bad for Iraq is redundant). It is also bad for U.S. power and force projection. God help us if we ever have to go back to Iraq, or if the tribal leaders in Afghanistan see how we have deserted the Sunnis. We have no staying power, no stomach for enforcing deals we have struck. We are in such felt-need for legitimacy in our campaigns that we are willing to allow Iraq to stipulate the conditions of the SOFA when the U.N. approvals expire. To have a picture of General Odierno shaking the hand Raad Ali in 2008 while he is being hunted now is more than embarrassing. It’s belittling to the most powerful nation on earth – which is also still engaged in counterinsurgency campaigns across the globe.
I have the utmost respect for General Odierno and his son who lost his arm fighting in Iraq. I have difficulty mustering such respect for the politicians who agreed to the Status of Forces Agreement or timeline for withdrawal, or who refused to take Iran on in the regional war that it declared against the U.S. This picture is worth a thousand words, and it makes me sick.
For weeks, the United States public followed the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan war against what it was told was a “city of 80,000 people” as well as the logistical hub of the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central element in the overall impression built up in February that Marjah was a major strategic objective, more important than other district centers in Helmand.
It turns out, however, that the picture of Marjah presented by military officials and reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as an historic turning point in the conflict.
Marjah is not a city or even a real town, but a few clusters of farmers’ homes amid a large agricultural area that covers much of the southern Helmand River Valley …
The ISAF official said the only population numbering tens of thousands associated with Marjah is spread across many villages and almost 200 square kilometers, or about 125 square miles (editorial note, approximately eleven miles squared) …
So how did the fiction that Marjah is a city of 80,000 people get started?
The idea was passed onto news media by the US Marines in southern Helmand. The earliest references in news stories to Marjah as a city with a large population have a common origin in a briefing given on February 2 by officials at Camp Leatherneck, the US Marine base there.
The Associated Press published an article the same day quoting “Marine commanders” as saying that they expected 400 to 1,000 insurgents to be “holed up” in the “southern Afghan town of 80,000 people”. That language evoked an image of house-to-house urban street fighting.
The same story said Marjah was “the biggest town under Taliban control” and called it the “linchpin of the militants’ logistical and opium-smuggling network”. It gave the figure of 125,000 for the population living in “the town and surrounding villages”.
The war in Afghanistan, as we have written here and in Military Review (pdf), is indeed a near replication of the Vietnam War, including the assault on the strategically meaningless village of Marjah, which is itself a perfect re-enactment of Operation Meade River in 1968.But the callous cynicism of this war, which we described here in early December, and the mainstream media’s brainless reporting on it, have descended past these sane parallels. We have now gone down the rabbit hole.
Two months ago, the collection of mud-brick hovels known as Marjah might have been mistaken for a flyspeck on maps of Afghanistan. Today the media has nearly doubled its population from less than 50,000 to 80,000 — the entire population of Nad Ali district, of which Nad Ali is the largest town, is approximately 99,000 — and portrays the offensive there as the equivalent of the Normandy invasion, and the beginning of the end for the Taliban. In fact, however, the entire district of Nad Ali, which contains Marjah, represents about 2 percent of Regional Command (RC) South, the U.S. military’s operational area that encompasses Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul, Nimruz, and Daikundi provinces. RC South by itself is larger than all of South Vietnam, and the Taliban controls virtually all of it. This appears to have occurred to no one in the media.
Nor have any noted that taking this nearly worthless postage stamp of real estate has tied down about half of all the real combat power and aviation assets of the international coalition in Afghanistan for a quarter of a year. The possibility that wasting massive amounts of U.S. and British blood, treasure, and time just to establish an Afghan Potemkin village with a “government in a box” might be exactly what the Taliban wants the coalition to do has apparently not occurred to either the press or to the generals who designed this operation.
In reality, this battle — the largest in Afghanistan since 2001 — is essentially a giant public affairs exercise, designed to shore up dwindling domestic support for the war by creating an illusion of progress. In reporting it, the media has gulped down the whole bottle of “drink me” and shrunk to journalistic insignificance.
Analysis & Commentary
The U.S. Marine Corps over the last several years in Iraq and Afghanistan has customarily been engaged in heavy combat operations. More than 1000 Marines perished in Iraq, most in the Anbar Province. Regardless, whatever the Marines are engaged in, they will officially hype their exploits and stretch the narrative, always redounding to the benefit of the Marines. It’s part of the history, mystique and political strategy of the Corps. The U.S. Marines are the best strike fighters and shock troops in the world. No matter, this narrative isn’t enough, and it is crafted and molded until the Corps takes on mythical proportions. The fact that their reputation precedes them and intimidates the enemy only justifies the strategy.
That most so-called journalists don’t know enough to be able to effectively cover the Marines is amusing, but reaches the point of being sad for analysts who spend time asking the wrong questions and reiterating what we all already know. Marjah is an approximately eleven mile squared area of operations comprising tens of thousands of farmers rather than an urban setting. So who didn’t already know that? The closest thing to a major urban center in Helmand is Now Zad. How is this “revelation” significant to worthwhile analysis of what the Marines are doing?
In Why are we in the Helmand Province? I addressed the notion that Marjah is a “worthless postage stamp” of land by pointing out that targeting Kandahar (as a population center) without a coupled effort to shut down the Taliban recruiting grounds and support network (as well as means of financing) would be analogous to giving the Taliban free sanctuary in Pakistan, just on a moderately smaller scale.
U.S. counterinsurgency strategists can claim until their last breath that counterinsurgency should be “population-centric,” but if we honestly believed that axiom we wouldn’t care about sanctuary in Pakistan. Control over population centers and good governance would be enough to marginalize the insurgents and render them powerless in spite of their sanctuaries – or so the doctrine claims.
But we know that the enemy must be stalked and killed, so we are in the Helmand Province, and Marjah was the last battle space for heavy kinetics. Policing of the population must now ensue in these areas. Kandahar will be next, and the buildup will be slow and deliberate, after, of course, we have finished with major operations in Helmand.
But if it isn’t one thing it’s another, and in addition to enduring bad analysis we must also deal with incomplete analysis that stops short of asking the hardest of questions. Consider this recent Washington Times editorial.
The recent battle in Marjah in Afghanistan’s Helmand province was a key test case for new rules of engagement that emphasized protecting civilians rather than killing insurgents. The town was taken, but whether that was because of the new rules or despite them remains to be seen.
The rules of engagement are probably the most restrictive ever seen for a war of this nature. NATO forces cannot fire on suspected Taliban fighters unless they are clearly visible, armed and posing a direct threat. Buildings suspected of containing insurgents cannot be targeted unless it is certain that civilians are not also present. Air strikes and night raids are limited, and prisoners have to be released or transferred within four days, making for a 96-hour catch-and-release program.
In Marjah, the enemy quickly adapted to the rules, which led to bizarre circumstances such as Taliban fighters throwing down their weapons when they were out of ammunition and taunting coalition troops with impunity or walking in plain view with women behind them carrying their weapons like caddies …
The fighting has wound down in Marjah, which may or may not validate the rules of engagement. Most of the local Taliban either melted away to the frontier or simply put down their weapons and are still there. The true test will come when NATO implements rules of disengagement. When coalition forces pull out, Marjah may well go back to being the Taliban stronghold it always has been, and those who cooperated with NATO and Afghan government authorities will be held to account.
True enough with respect to the rules of engagement (as we have pointed out before), this commentary ends with a non sequitur. It was predestined – the Marines were going to take Marjah, and there was nothing that the Taliban could do about it. The conclusion of the battle was firm and fixed regardless of the rules of engagement, and they have won Marjah in spite of the ROE and not because it it. The outcome of the operation says nothing to validate the ROE.
On the other hand, we all know that the Marines announced their offensive prior to its start for the specific reason of avoiding noncombatant casualties. That Taliban escaped was irrelevant. But is it? Will the Taliban simply slither away only to come back later and cause long term counterinsurgency problems in this area?
Will our focus on the population (to the detriment of killing insurgents) come back to haunt the campaign? Will we be dealing with these same insurgents later, walking with their women holding their weapons, knowing that the U.S. troops will not fire on them? What do the people of Marjah think about the rules of engagement? How long will this operation last, and will the horrible Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police be able to fill in behind the Marines?
The analysts at Foreign Policy called Marjah a “Potemkin village.” John Robb did this as well with Fallujah in a post entitled Potemkin Pacification (as best as I can tell, he took it down about as soon as it went up). There were a number of reductionist articles that sounded about the same when Operation Alljah began in Fallujah early in 2007. Most of these articles focused on the “horrible” conditions of Fallujah when the Marines locked it down.
In April – June of 2007 heavy kinetics ensued between the Marines and insurgents in Fallujah. The follow-on work involved heavy policing, gated communities, biometrics and neighborhood programs to watch and defend their turf. It was found that most IEDs were vehicle-borne, so the decision was made to prohibit vehicle traffic. When the population in a major urban center must walk everywhere, it provides a significant incentive to find and turn in insurgents and their weapons.
One narrative for counterinsurgency is that it must focus on turning the human and physical terrain into Shangri La, and if it doesn’t, it’s fake. Of course, it is the narrative that is fake. There will be heavy lifting in Marjah still to come, for it isn’t Shangri La. Fake narratives by so-called analysts will continue. But for the motivated journalist there are salient questions that must be answered.
As usual, Tyler Hicks is providing the best pictorial documentaries of Marine Corps operations in Helmand, and C. J. Chivers’ coverage is indispensable. But the Marjah narrative is yet to be written, much less the narrative for the Helmand Province (Now Zad claimed many Marine lives). Other than C. J. Chivers, we have yet to even approach anything that could be considered good analysis of the Marine Corps campaign in the Helmand Province, and Marjah remains fertile ground for reporting and analysis.
Boeing wins by default. Northrup Grumman has pulled out of the refueling tanker competition. Apparently they won low bid about two years ago, but the stipulations and structure of the contract is suspect. Northrup Grumman has pulled out because they have decided that they can’t make any money.
Defense giant Northrop Grumman said Monday that it is pulling out of the $40 billion competition to build aerial refueling tankers for the Air Force, a move that defense analysts and procurement specialists say leaves its rival Boeing as the likely winner.
Northrop’s decision marked the latest twist in the nearly decade-long fight over one of the Pentagon’s biggest and most controversial contracts and raised questions about the impact of procurement reforms proposed by the Obama administration.
In announcing its withdrawal, Northrop said that the government’s requirements did not recognize the value of the larger refueling platform it had proposed and instead favored Boeing’s proposal to build a smaller tanker using a prototype of its 767 aircraft.
Wes Bush, chief executive of Los Angeles-based Northrop, said that under those conditions, it no longer made financial sense to stay in the competition …
Northrop executives and defense industry analysts have questioned how profitable the tanker contract would be, given the Pentagon’s push for setting a fixed price for the contract before design and testing of the aircraft are completed.
I had previously weighed in against the awarding of contracts based solely on low bid because of the requirements of the awful Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Bidders learn to game the system. Northrup Grumman had previously won under the provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley, but this time around apparently wanted to perform design and testing under a time and materials arrangement.
Things are often not quite what they seem, and the big, bad, evil defense contractors occupy the same space as the big, bad, evil health insurance companies and other corporations. There are some of them, and their senior management makes way more money than they’re worth. But in the end, that is oftentimes an accidental rather than an essential feature of the problem. Giddiness over the demise of a major defense contractor can mean joy over lost jobs in the U.S., technology transfer to foreign companies, and unintended consequences of our decisions.
Northrup Grumman surely has many highly skilled people in the U.S., and I hope that they fare well through subsequent competitions. We need good competition to keep our contractors honest. Northrup Grumman folks can’t help that Vladimir Putin holds a significant interest in their company. But as for the apparent Boeing success in the tanker wars, it appears that the best candidate has won (from technological capabilities to national security), and the U.S. military will be better off for it.
I weighed in over three years ago on the merits (or lack thereof) of the M-16 (although not comprehensively). Since then, a certain Marine I know had to put a nine round burst (from a SAW) into an insurgent in Fallujah in 2007, only to see him keep advancing (they suspect that he was high on morphine and epinephrine like so many others at that time). There are advantages (lighter ammunition leading to more ammunition carried on patrols) and disadvantages, e.g., lack of killing power at long range, to the Stoner system of weapons. C. J. Chivers also has two very good articles on the same subject, and much more comprehensive than I have time for (Part 1 and Part 2).
But there is an interesting graduate paper from Leavenworth by Major Thomas P. Ehrhart entitled Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer (PDF here). It is causing a stir, and is more applicable to Afghanistan than Iraq due to the protracted distances of fire fights (as opposed to the MOUT in Iraq). We have covered some of this in our ongoing analysis of the Battle of Wanat (where the limitations of the M-4 figured prominently) and Kamdesh (where terrain loomed large, so to speak, similar to the situation at Wanat).
I observed of the Cubbison study that training is paramount for clearing jams and ensuring proper functioning of this system of weapons.
Mr. Cubbison also goes into some detail considering other tactical and weapons failures (specifically at OP Top Side). Due to rate of fire issues, there were numerous weapons systems failures (e.g., jamming) of SAWs, M4s and M16A2s. I know one Marine who has trained his “boots” hard in the art of rate of fire and other measures to keep their SAWs from jamming and the barrels from melting. Clearing jams within mere seconds is necessary for proper functioning of the Soldier and Marine and his .223 closed bolt system of arms, and Soldiers and Marines must be extensively trained to accomplish this under duress.
However, there is also truth to the notion that this training is necessitated by the weaknesses in the system of weapons. Another way to say it is that when fire fights have to depend heavily on the art of weapon jam-clearing, something is fundamentally wrong.
I agree with the recommendations of Major Ehrhart to tool the fire team and squad with greater latitude and more available weapons depending upon the situation and their own choice. But aside from this, two other observations are appropriate. First, leaving aside the issue of lethal range for a moment, there is no reason whatsoever that the Army and Marines can’t replace the current M-4 / M-16A2 system of arms with an open bolt or gas piston system like the H&K 416. This may not affect range, but it would go directly to the issue of reliability which was paramount at Wanat.
Second, it occurs to me that the Army (with their much more vehicle-borne approach) could take a page from the Marines (who are more foot-bound). The Marines qualify (iron sights) at 500 yards, or around 457 meters. The Army could as well, and it has to do with a strategic choice, not capabilities. This might go a long way towards a remedy for the infantry half-kilometer.
The Small Wars Journal has a paper up entitled The Tribal Path – a Better Alternative? I think there are a whole host of problems with this paper, not the least of which is that I stop listening when someone implies that everyone else is wrong and they have the only true solution to our counterinsurgency ills, a sort of Gnostic insight that everyone else is lacking.
But this stunning statement appears in the paper: “Greater tribal cooperation and understanding would further allow the government to appeal to the Taliban nationalists, (the Afghans), whose only real concern and cause is a free and peaceful Afghanistan, without the presence of foreign troops.”
Uh huh. The rights of women is high on the Taliban’s list of things to work on, and hiding behind women and children so that they die instead of the Taliban certainly ensures the peace of Afghanistan. What a foolish statement. Then there is this: “Afghanistan is much more complicated than Iraq with many more tribes to study and understand.”
This is a tip of the hat to the Iraq narrative for idiots, you know, the one that goes like this. In 2003 – 2006 we were stepping on our crank, couldn’t do anything right, and were totally confused. Along came General Petraeus who implemented a brand new counterinsurgency strategy, and we suddenly reduced the kinetics, made friends with the tribal leaders, and Iraq became Shangri La.
Anbar was won due to a number of different things. Tribes were indeed important, but only in Ramadi. In Haditha policing and pacifying the population required sand berms to prevent the influx of fighters from Syria, along with a police strong man named Colonel Faruq. In Al Qaim it required a police strong man named Abu Ahmed aligning with the U.S. Marines, and heavy kinetics by the Marines. In Fallujah in 2007 it required heavy kinetics, biometrics, gated communities and concrete barriers, census taking and aggressive policing.
What was going on in Anbar happened as a result of Marines and many casualties. It was going on prior to General Petraeus’ arrival and continued after it. More than 1000 Marines perished in Iraq, many of them in the Anbar Province. Many tens of thousands more were wounded and maimed. I have read the names of many of them, and read the stories of their wives and parents.
Iraq wasn’t easy, and its success remains a testimony to the hard work, blood, sweat and tears of U.S. Servicemen. It’s offensive when I hear dumbed down narratives, but Marines Corps and Army parents can at least rest assured that some of us understand the truth.
As a Milblog I don’t often weigh in on matters solely political, but in instances where I have predicted it right, I like to brag to readers (even if I have to go back some four years ago to find my prediction).
I had told my oldest son, Josh, a while back after he predicted a total debacle for the health care bill that it didn’t matter. Obama’s aims are much more nefarious than just a socialization of our health care system. He knows that he doesn’t have the soul of the American people with this scheme, but that is America as it is currently constituted.
America could change with “immigration reform,” with more of the votes going democratic. And despite the current political difficulties, Obama is going for broke, sooner rather than later.
Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already.
Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections.
In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators — Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — who have spent months trying to craft a bill.
According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.
The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally.
If this succeeds, 10 – 15 million new voters will be added to the roles, most of them voting democratic. The current objections to socialization of our society and nationalization of our industries won’t matter. It will be an artifact of history, and Obama will have thus ensured that his party remains in power in perpetuity.
One final note. With people like Lindsey Graham in the Senate, Obama doesn’t even need total control over the legislative process. The GOP will apparently help him do it. Maybe the GOP is on a suicide mission for some reason or other?
