"We're just beginning to start to undo the damage"* caused by Michele Bachmann's goofy vocabulary

Everyone's favorite hot Congresswoman from a cold state gave the "Tea Party response" to the State of the Union last night, whatever that means. The speech was a doozy, and made one point more clearly than all others: if this woman wants to run for president, she really needs to hire a professional speechwriter. I'll leave it to others to criticize the substantive content of the speech, but let me just highlight one notable error related to our area of focus here at Ink Spots:

Just the creation of this nation itself was a miracle. Who can say that we won't see a miracle again? The perilous battle that was fought during World War II in the Pacific at Iwo Jima was a battle against all odds, and yet this picture immortalizes the victory of young GIs over the incursion against the Japanese. These six young men raising the flag came to symbolize all of America coming together to beat back a totalitarian aggressor.

Yeah. I know. Don't even get me started on the language. ("Perilous battle"? "Victory... over the incursion against the Japanese"? Seriously?) But how about this whole "GIs" thing?

First, a question: how many people hear "GIs" and think "American military personnel" in a general sense? For me, "GI" is an Army-specific identifier. (Here's some interesting background on the origins of the term, which apparently started off as an initialization of "galvanized iron," the material Army trash cans were made out of.) We use "soldier," "sailor," "airman," and "Marine" to refer to members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps respectively, and "serviceman" to refer to them all. But obviously some folks think of "GI" as a catch-all. Do you?

The reason this is relevant to Bachmann's remarks: as all of you will surely already know, the Battle of Iwo Jima was contested by Marines and sailors, not by the Army. That's why the Marine Corps War Memorial is a giant forged bronze statue based on Joe Rosenthal's photograph "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima," which features five Marines and a Navy hospital corpsman (for those who don't know: the USMC doesn't have medical personnel, so sailors serve with Marine units as corpsmen -- what the Army calls medics).

So yeah, whatever the "victory... over the incursion against the Japanese" was, it was achieved by Marines. It's possible Bachmann knew this and used "G.I." as a general term for all servicemen, but can we just get the lingo straight already?

Oh yeah, and while we're at it, here's another gem: "And I believe that America is the indispensable nation of the world."

1. Something necessary is indispensable to something else... not the indispensable element of a collective.

2. Do you think Bachmann realizes that her allusive catch-phrase was made famous -- indeed, branded on the public consciousness -- by a Democratic Secretary of State? Somehow I doubt it.

*The title of the post is an homage to Rep. Bachmann's very special style of speaking: earlier in her remarks, she said that Congress is "just beginning to start to undo the damage" caused by the administration's policies. Just beginning to start. We're fixin' to get going. Any minute now.

Forrestal was right: Why the Marine Corps isn't going anywhere, EFV be damned (UPDATE)

There's been a lot of hand-wringing and heavy breathing from some corners in the wake of last week's announcement that the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program will be terminated. Despite the Commandant's insistence that he'd not only consented to but recommended cancellation of the too-heavy, too-slow, too-expensive, and generally too-problematic (pdf) next-gen amtrac, the defense defenders are coming out of the woodwork to eulogize the sea service and lament the destabilizing effects of its passing (or in the case of A#1 douchebag Loren Thompson, suggest investment in body bags). Without the obsolescent forcible-entry capability offered by the EFV, some said, the Marine Corps was being stripped of its primary purpose and its existential identity. But by Jim Forrestal's count, the Marines have just a bit more than 435 years of beach-storming and ass-kicking left in 'em thanks to that famous flag on Suribachi. Gen. Amos seems to agree; if his remarks to the Surface Navy Association this morning are any kind of signal -- and I think they are -- then reports of the devil-dogs' demise seem tad premature.

So is Tom Donnelly right that cancellation of the EFV "calls into question the future of the Marine Corps, whether the Marine Corps can function as it has since World War II as a kick-down-the-door force"? Nah. (As a matter of fact: "Naw. Naw, man. Shit, naw, man! I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' somethin' like that, man.") Can the USMC keep doing kick-down-the-door missions without the EFV? Sure, just like they could today or yesterday or ten years ago. But amphibious assault is a wasting asset, and everybody from the Commandant to Bob Work to Andy Krepinevich to the SECDEF knows that (no matter what they're saying in press conferences). What that means is that this capability will be neither particularly useful nor tremendously relevant in the future: there will come a day where neither the Marines nor anyone else are kicking down a whole lot of doors from the sea, but that's going to be a result of operational realities and the threat environment, not cancellation of a luxury weapon system.

But as for the future of the Marine Corps... they're on the ropes now, right? Down goes amphibious assault! Down goes amphibious assault! Down goes amphibious assault! Not gonna recover from that one. What the hell good is a Marine Corps that can't perform a forcible entry on a fortified beachhead? We all know a Marine's only as good as his extremely sophisticated, wildly expensive tactical vehicle, right? Yeah, I thought so too, but then here comes Amos just in time to prove us wrong.

The Marines have always been really, really good at public and Congressional relations. Maybe it's the flashy uniforms (uh, yeah, uniforms!) and the excellent recruiting posters and ad campaigns. Whatever the secret, they've needed it: I've yet to meet an active-duty or prior-service Marine who fails to mention how the Corps has had to justify its existence to every new administration and Congress for as long as they can remember. And should we be all that surprised? If you're wielding the budget ax, first on the block is going to be that duplicative 200,000-man ground force, that redundant "second army," the really-not-all-that-apparently-useful naval infantry formation (hell, the Army did D-Day!). But they've worked their pitch to the circumstances, and they've always stuck around.

The 35th Commandant inherited a proud tradition -- not just of leadership, but of salesmanship. He and his speechwriters didn't disappoint:

The Marine Corps is America's Expeditionary Force in Readiness-a balanced air-ground-logistics team. We are forward-deployed and forward-engaged-shaping, training, deterring and responding to all manner of crises and contingencies. We create options and decision space for our Nation's leaders.  Alert and ready, we respond to today's crisis, with today's force.TODAY.  Teaming with other services, allies and interagency partners, we enable and participate in joint and combined operations of any magnitude.  Responsive and scalable, we operate independent of local infrastructure.  A middleweight force, we are light enough to get there quickly, but heavy enough to carry the day upon arrival.  We operate throughout the spectrum of threats-irregular, hybrid, or conventional-or the shady areas where they overlap.  Marines are ready to respond whenever the Nation calls.wherever the President may direct.

The bulk of Amos' speech, recounting the many ways in which Marine forces have been employed of late, reads like a nearly exhaustive laundry list of recent and ongoing DoD missions: combat deployments (division-sized presence on the ground in Afghanistan, not to mention air operations), humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, security cooperation and capacity-building -- activities across the spectrum of conflict and the range of military operations. 

But the Corps has more to commend it than high OPTEMPO and eagerness for a fight, and the Commandant isn't afraid to be explicit about the advantages his service offers the nation. Let's think about this for a second: if you're trying to preserve force structure in the face of inevitable budget cuts and the prospect of an extended, indefinite era of austerity, what's your pitch? Well, you probably don't want to be pigeonholed into just one mission area, like, for example, amphibious assault. (How do you know Donnelly, Thompson, and Goure don't give a shit about the Marine Corps but care a lot about expensive acquisition programs? Look at the way they find it impossible to imagine meaningful missions for the pointiest end of America's pointy spear in the absence of the amphibious-landing mandate.) Now we're on to something: flexibility. We're not interested in an airplane that can only dogfight, only attack ground targets, only operate in good weather, or only be flown by human pilots, and the same principle applies to ground forces: if you only offer a niche capability, we're just not going to be able to afford you absent special circumstances. The best life insurance policy: operational adaptability, something the Commandant was happy to demonstrate when talking about all the different missions accomplished by the same Mark 1, Mod 1 Leathernecks.

But that's not all! Marines have another advantage over their ground-force counterparts in Big Army: they're relatively light, having been built to deploy aboard ship with their entire complement of equipment. Marines don't require expensive and complicated logistical arrangements, as they spend their time at sea both in war and peace. As such, they serve as the nation's "force in readiness": this means they're agile and responsive, rapidly deployable to crises and contingencies, able to show up in Haiti or New Orleans or Afghanistan or West Africa or Kuwait at the drop of a hat. As Gen. Amos said, "You're either ready to respond to today's crisis with today's force, today, or you're late and risk being irrelevant." In an oblique shot at the Army's force-generation model, he also commented that "crisis response is incompatible with tiered readiness" -- in other words, how the hell do you expect to put boots on the ground in a hurry when half your damn force is in RESET at Fort Stewart?

And what if it's not just flood relief or a quick show of deterrent force -- what if they need to stick around? Well, the devil-dogs have you covered there, too. Marine units are scalable and self-sustaining, so they're easily tailored to the required mission and able to operate in austere environments without external support. This is a big bonus when they're the first guys to show up, particularly when you're trying to secure a lodgment for a larger force to conduct protracted operations. When they're relieved by follow-on forces or need strategic mobility, they can just helo out to their ever-present "Swiss Army knives of power projection": amphibs on station off the coast.

Taken together, that's a hell of a pitch. Amos puts it like this:

Factoring all aspects of our role in the Nation's defense, the United States Marine Corps affords the following three strategic advantages: 

• We provide a versatile 'middleweight' ability to respond across the range of military operations (ROMO).  

• We provide an inherent agility that buys time for national leaders.  

• We bring an enabling and partnering capability to joint and combined operations of any magnitude.

Here's what they called that in the good ol' days: any mission, any fight, any place on the globe, alongside whoever else you can bring to the show. From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. Just makes you want to sing a damn song, don't it?

A Marine Corps for another 435 years, I say! Or how about this: a Marine Corps 'til we don't need what they have to offer anymore, or until someone else can do it and everything else. I think the Commandant did a hell of a job showing that day's a good ways off yet. Breathe, Donnelly... breathe.

UPDATE: I was away from the computer on Friday, but I wanted to share Philip Ewing's commentary from Morning Defense, which I think totally misses the point.

BULLISH ON THE CORPS – In true gung-ho fashion, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos on Monday put an optimistic spin on the future of a service that could’ve just sulked after the cancelation of its beloved EFV and more delays for its new fighter jet. But the Marines are still America’s ready crisis-response force, Amos said, and America uses ‘em all the time for their specialty: Amphibious operations.

Amphibious work isn’t obsolete, Amos said – the Navy and the Marines have responded to “crises and contingencies” at least 50 times just since Sept. 11. (Marine Corps leaders have cited a range of numbers for this factoid, depending on how you slice it.) So even though the EFV didn’t work out, the Marines’ basic purpose in life – to appear from out at sea, kill people and break stuff – remains intact and vital, he said.

The Commandant's pitch was smarter than that, though: everyone knows the Marines can "appear from out at sea, kill people and break stuff," but this EFV drama has underlined the need to justify their existence with a bigger, broader set of roles and missions. By emphasizing non-traditional missions like humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, security cooperation, and defense support for civil authorities, then also giving us a reminder about persistent presence, strategic mobility, rapid deployability, operational adaptability, and combat power, Amos was saying "hey, we're not just about killing people and breaking stuff these days." That's why the Marine Corps remains relevant -- not just because the world still has oceans and beaches.

Another related note from the weekend: in a moment of tragic irony, 27-year old Iraq vet Sgt. Wesley Rice died Friday when his AAV sank in the Del Mar boat basin off the coast of Camp Pendleton. The other five Marines aboard were able to escape the vehicle safely.

In memoriam, thanks, and happy birthday

First: today is Remembrance Day, so try to pause for a quiet moment and think of those who have sacrificed so much in defense of their families, their neighbors, and those they'd never met.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Second: here in America, it's Veterans Day, where we thank all those who have served, drawing no distinction between sacrifice of comfort and spilling of blood. To those who chose to serve, who chose to suspend their own freedom and comfort to maintain those same privileges for their countrymen -- we're in your debt. Hope you've all had a great day, and that you had at least one moment where you were reminded how much your service means to so many others.

And third: yesterday was the 235th birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps. Happy birthday, devildogs, and long may the Corps continue. Check out the commandant's message for some goosebumps moments, and read Bob Work and Frank Hoffman on the reasons why we'll need Marines no matter how the operational environment may shift.

"Campaign continuity" and the specialization of the force

Yochi Dreazen of the WSJ reports today that the Defense Department is embarking on an initiative that will send Army and Marine units to the same AORs repeatedly, hopefully allowing those units to retain some of the geographic, cultural, and human terrain knowledge that contributes to effective operations.

The Pentagon is revamping the way it deploys troops to Afghanistan, putting in place a new system that will return units to the same parts of the country so they can develop better regional expertise and closer relationships with local Afghan power brokers.

Senior military officials say the “Campaign Continuity” initiative will determine the specific provinces and regions where many of the 30,000 soldiers and Marines who are being sent to Afghanistan as part of the Obama administration’s retooled war strategy will end up serving.

The plan represents a significant change for the military, which has long rotated its combat forces through both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Under the new system, the Pentagon will essentially be assigning responsibility for the Afghan war to the same small number of Army and Marine units.

“They’ll be going back to the same place and seeing the same faces, so they won’t need to relearn everything from scratch,” said a senior military official familiar with the plan. “It will allow for continuity of effort in a given location.”

The new system is the latest example of the military’s continuing effort to remake itself for the long war in Afghanistan.

I find this move really interesting, if only because the argument has been consistently made over the last decade that specialization is objectively bad for the total force. There's something to that argument, I think, which has usually been made in opposition to the creation of specialized units for training and advising foreign security forces.

As we've discussed here in the past, the Army is adopting a model that treats the training and advisory (or Security Force Assistance) mission the same as every other mission that a combat brigade engages in -- which is to say major combat operations, COIN, stability operations, etc. Units being sent to do SFA are identified at the beginning of their ARFORGEN cycle, provided with a brief period of specialized training, an augmentation of three- to four-dozen additional field grade officers to lead training teams, and are ready to be sent on their way to perform any SFA mission in the AOR of the COCOM to which they've been made available. Then when their "Available/Deployed" period is up, they go back into the ARFORGEN cycle as a regular old combat brigade, doing a year of Reset, and then training up for a "traditional" deployment.

This model is being developed for a couple of reasons, which the Army hasn't stated expressly but which are still pretty obvious: 1) to retain force structure by using the SFA/training mission as a means to justify the continued existence of a large number (in this case, 45) of Active Army brigade combat teams, and 2) to retain flexibility in the force, by allowing a brigade that spent all of 2012, say, doing SFA to deploy to Freedonia for combat operations in 2015. The unit maintains the capability for full-spectrum operations, and so do its individual members.

So what does this have to do with "Campaign Continuity"? Well, for one thing, you're tying up a certain number of brigades on a certain mission and a certain piece of terrain for an intederminate period (that is, the rest of the war). You're also making those units unavailable for what we've identified as high-priority training missions elsewhere in theater, and even beyond. Brigades from the 101st Air Assault and the 82nd Airborne divisions, for example, have performed or have been tapped to function as SFA brigades (or AABs in Iraq). If we assume that those two divisions will be assigned pieces of terrain in RC-East, then we lose those brigades to the training and advisory mission.

All of which means that there's a smaller pool of available units to pull from when picking SFA brigades, which means that that mission will rotate through a pretty limited number, which means, at least in some sense... specialized advisory units. (Except not that specialized.)

I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I... [I don't know if I can do it!] I agr... [Seriously, I just can't write this down!] I AGREE WITH TOM DONNELLY AAAGGGHHH!!!

Thomas Donnelly, a defense analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said Gen. McChrystal “clearly has the strong personal backing” of Defense Secretary Robert Gates as he presses for initiatives like the Campaign Continuity plan.

“It’s no longer a question of adapting a previously existing force for a different kind of war,” Mr. Donnelly said. “At this point, it’s a question of restructuring the entire force for Afghanistan.”

[Man, that was painful.]

I'm sure there's someone on this, but we ought to be thinking about whether all these great ideas about Afghanistan are 1) reducing our flexibility in that war, and 2) foisting limitations on the force that will make it less useful in the future. I know this is the root of the back-and-forth that's been taking place on a grander scale over the last several years -- win the wars of today versus prepare the force for future contingencies -- and I think we all know where I generally come out on that one.

But isn't the point of the ARFORGEN model creating a flexible, rotationally deployable force that can be tailored to specific mission sets? I know you can't develop "campaign continuity" in a 12-month train-up period, but how much tangible positive effect can we expect from this? And are we working towards something like the Vietnam model, where we had "campaign continuity" by unit but individual replacement rendered that unit-level continuity completely irrelevant (and had a number of other pernicious side-effects)?

I know this whole standing-up-a-foreign-security-force thing ain't an overnight deal, but...

...this has got to be just about the funniest bureaucra-speak I've ever come across around the military (and that's saying a lot):

The Marines are moving to boost Afghan training by emphasizing combat leadership among the enlisted ranks and more accurate use of M-16s. The project goes by the acronym TLSR: Transition of Leading Security Responsibility.

"There is plenty of room to improve marksmanship training," said Col. Burke Whitman, the Marines' liaison to the Afghan army and police. "Our biggest focus of training is shooting skill."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not laughing about the necessity for marksmanship training. I just think it's hilarious to imagine shooting lessons as the first step in a rather grandiloquently titled process of Transition of Leading Security Responsibility. "Once they know how to shoot, they'll definitely be ready to take the lead. At least, that's what the general and ISAF PAO told me to say."

What's perhaps even more funny (or at least ironic) is that this clip comes from an article touting improvements in ANSF performance during the Marja offensive.

The Afghan troops who supported the U.S. Marines in the battle to end Taliban control of this town in Helmand province showed marked improvement over last summer's performance in a similar fight but still need much more training, Marine commanders say.

Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the top Marine here, said that overall the Afghan battalions exceeded his expectations. Nicholson said he would give some Afghan units an A-minus or B-plus but that others, particularly those with soldiers fresh from basic training, would get a C-minus or D.

C.J. Chivers' latest dispatch suggests that the ANSF he's been exposed to trend towards the latter ratings:

The Afghan soldiers who accompanied Company C, [one Marine officer] said, had looted the 84-booth Semitay Bazaar immediately after the Marines swept through and secured it. Then the Afghan soldiers refused to stand post in defensive bunkers, or to fill sandbags as the Americans, sometimes under fire, hardened their joint outpost. Instead, they spent much of their time walking in the bazaar, smoking hashish.

Company K had stories of its own. As its own Marines stumbled wearily across friendly lines, much of the Afghan platoon that worked with them was straggling behind, unable to keep pace.

Step 1 in Transition of Leading Security Responsibility (TLSR): teach ANSF to shoot.
Step 2 in TLSR: teach ANSF to respect human rights, not violate the law, not get high on duty, and to behave as a professional fighting force
Step 3 in TLSR: Transition Leading Security Responsibility!
Step 4 in TLSR: PROFIT!!!

I know this doesn't even rank in the 1,000 most frivolous and idiotic pieces of legislation proposed this year...

...and I know it's probably going to piss off SNLII and others, but that doesn't stop me from thinking that this piece of legislation (registration required) is frivolous and idiotic:

A quiet, nine-year effort to give the Marine Corps equal billing in the Department of the Navy went high profile Thursday with a Capitol Hill news conference featuring retired Marine generals, a wounded Marine, parents of Marines and a Hollywood star.

The event was aimed at giving momentum to a perennial effort by Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., to expand the name of the department and its secretary to the "Navy and Marine Corps."

Jones, whose district is home to two Marine Corps facilities, Camp Lejeune and the Cherry Point air station, has introduced legislation to change the department's name every year since 2001.

Although the proposal has been included in the House defense authorization bill every year, it has never been accepted by the Senate, largely because of the opposition of former Sen. John Warner, R-Va., a Marine Corps veteran and former Navy secretary who was Senate Armed Services chairman or ranking member for many years. With Warner retired, the main obstacle may be Senate Armed Services ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., a retired Navy captain.

Ok, so why exactly would we expect McCain to oppose the bill... just because he was in the Navy? I mean, that's only peripheral to the story, but it seems like a silly assumption to me.

But really, who out there feels burnt up about the fact that there's no Department of the Marine Corps? Well, I guess this guy:

"We'll always be part of the Navy, but we'll always be Marines," said retired Marine Sgt. Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in Iraq. "We're out there fighting, putting our butts on the line. I don't see anything wrong with a little recognition."

See, that's the thing, though: the Marine Corps is not "part of the Navy." (Interestingly, the British Royal Marines are a part of the Royal Navy). It's just part of the Department of the Navy. The Navy is a service, and the Marine Corps is a service. The Department of the Navy is a military department, and there is (obviously) no Department of the Marine Corps.

I don't suppose I'd have any big problem with it if they changed the name, but really, why bother? I guess I just have a difficult time understanding why anyone feels slighted about this.

I wonder if anybody's asked Jim Webb what he thinks about this. Sen. Webb, after all, was a Marine officer in Vietnam, and later served as SecNav in the Reagan administration.

"If that IED had worked like it was supposed to? Bye-bye, sweetheart."

If you haven't read this story from the front page of yesterday's New York Times, do it now. It combines two awesome things: C.J. Chivers and Marines escaping death.

If luck is the battlefield’s final arbiter — the wild card that can trump fitness, training, teamwork, equipment, character and skill — then Lance Cpl. Ryan T. Mathison experienced its purest and most welcome form.

On a Marine foot patrol here through the predawn chill of Friday morning, he stepped on a pressure-plate rigged to roughly 25 pounds of explosives. The device, enough to destroy a pickup truck or tear apart several men, was buried beneath him in the dusty soil.

It did not explode.

Lance Corporal Mathison’s weight triggered the detonation of one of the booby trap’s two blasting caps. But upon giving an audible pop and tossing small stones into the air, the device failed to ignite its fuller charge — a powerful mix of Eastern Bloc mortar rounds and homemade explosives spiked with motorcycle parts, rusty spark plugs and jagged chunks of steel.

Lance Corporal Mathison and several Marines near him were spared. So began a brief journey through the Taliban’s shifting tactics and the vagaries of war, where an experience at the edge of death became instead an affirmation of friendship, and in which a veteran Marine reluctantly assumed for a morning one of the infantry’s most coveted roles: that of the charmed man.

Great stuff.

Al-Anbar Awakening: [Much Needed] Iraqi Perspectives

We've heard a lot of perfectly legitimate crabbing over the last year or so that the so-called "dominant narrative" of the Surge has been based on an American-centric understanding of history, that there wasn't enough consideration given to the thinking and motivations of those who turned in the sahwa, or to Iraqi civilians, or to the Jaish al-Mahdi stand-down. By and large, I agree with this. The actions of Americans have probably been overstated in the (American) story of Iraq's (relative) stabilization.

That's this new report is so welcome: Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume II: Iraqi Perspectives; From Insurgency to Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, a publication of Marine Corps University Press. The companion document is Volume I: American Perspectives. (h/t SWJ)

I haven't read it yet, so don't hold me responsible for the content. Three hundred and forty pages should help get me through my Christmas Eve flight (and if you add in the other volume, it's nearly 700)!

Me fail English? That's unpossible!

There's something seriously ironic about misspelling the names of prominent highly-educated members of other services in a published article advocating for more educational opportunities for senior Marine officers.

Military professionals pursuing advanced education at the doctoral level is not something that only exists outside of the United States. Indeed, all three of our sister Services have formal doctoral education programs, the results of which are inarguably successful. The United States Army has developed many of its own homegrown counterinsurgency experts with names like Patraeus (doctorate in international affairs from Princeton), McMasters (doctorate in American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), and Mansoor (doctorate in military history from Ohio State University). These are officers who have obtained doctorates while in uniform and yet remained operationally relevant, serving in combat as commanders at the brigade, division, and corps levels.

I wonder if Patraeus and McMasters ever crossed paths with GEN Petraeus and BG McMaster...? (Sic. Emphasis above is mine.)

Seriously, the article is fine and makes a good argument, but I laughed out loud when I saw that. I'm really not making fun of Marines here. (Ok, only a little bit.)

UPDATE: If if makes you feel better, Devil Dogs, I misspelled "misspell" on first publication. (But it was a typo.)

Afghanistan deployment details (UPDATED)

As an update to this post, here are some more details on upcoming Afghan deployments straight from DoD:

The Department of Defense today announced the deployment of approximately 16,000 additional forces to Afghanistan, the initial elements of the 30,000 troops authorized by President Obama on Nov. 30. An infantry battalion task force, with approximately 1,500 Marines, from Camp Lejeune, N.C., will deploy later this month. Regimental Combat Team-2, headquartered at Camp Lejuene, N.C., will deploy approximately 6,200 Marines in early spring 2010. A Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) headquarters from I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif., will deploy approximately 800 Marines in spring 2010.

A Brigade Combat Team (BCT), with approximately 3,400 soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y. will deploy in early spring 2010 to conduct a training mission.

Secretary Gates also approved the deployment of approximately 4,100 support forces, which will deploy at various times into spring 2010.

So that's 1/10 Mtn as an SFA brigade, I guess, and RCT-2 to Helmand for the fight in Marjah. That gets us about halfway there, as far as I can tell.

Interesting to see that the two IBCTs, one of which will be headed to RC-East and one to RC-South -- that is, basically the bulk of the additional combat power in this "surge" -- are going to constitute the latter half of the escalation. Marines and trainers headed over first. Curious to see how they're going to ramp up 1/10 Mtn for the SFA mission at pretty much the exact same time they're getting 1/4 ID ready. (And who's replacing 48th BCT, doing SFA in the east? 1/10 Mtn is supposed to be an additional training brigade.)

UPDATE: You'll remember that 1/10 Mtn was "off-ramped" from a planned Iraq deployment just a couple of months ago. Here's what I had to say about it in October:

The First Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division has been "off-ramped" from its previously-scheduled deployment to Iraq, expected to take place in January of next year. They've yet to receive a new mission tasking, but this announcement is fueling speculation that the brigade is being made available for a potential escalation in Afghanistan.

This means the brigade is just finishing up its "Train/Ready" phase and is just about ready to go. So slap on a few weeks of advisor training down at Ft. Polk, switch out those Arabic phrasebooks for Pashto and Dari, and you're headed to Afghanistan!

Two BCTs, some Marines, and an SFA brigade?

Today's NYT tells us, as expected, that the bulk of the new troops headed for Afghanistan will end up in the south.

An American military official said Wednesday that the bulk of new combat forces approved by President Obama would be sent to southern Afghanistan, an area including Helmand and Kandahar Provinces that is the financial and spiritual base of the Taliban as well as the deadliest part of the country for American troops.

Two combat brigades, one from the Marines and one from the Army, will go to the south, while another Army brigade will be sent to eastern Afghanistan, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Army combat brigades usually comprise about 5,000 soldiers.

The flow of forces will begin “in earnest” next month, the official said, and a majority of troops will be deployed by next summer.

In Helmand, the new Marine brigade will nearly double the Marines’ 10,000-strong force. When these troops are combined with British forces, Helmand may end up with well over 20,000 troops, as many as were typically deployed in Baghdad. Helmand covers a far larger territory than Baghdad but has about one-fourth of the population.

I'm really confused about what the hell we're talking about here, to be honest with you. First of all, Army combat brigades don't "usually comprise about 5,000 soldiers." They're usually about 70-80% of that size -- around 3,500. And what are we talking about when we say a "Marine combat brigade"? It's certainly not a Marine Expeditionary Brigade, which is a task-built, combined arms force built around a reinforced infantry regiment. I've seen reference elsewhere to a Regimental Combat Team from Camp Lejeune heading over, but I'm not sure about this. The Marines confuse everything by tailor-making every deploying force, so there's no stock size for an RCT. What I can tell you, though, is that an RCT is not going to come close to "double[ing] the Marines' 10,000-strong force."

It seems to me that we're talking about four total "brigades": one Marine Regimental Combat Team, two BCTs, and one (Army) SFA brigade. But then, yet more confusion:

Speaking to reporters at his headquarters in Kabul on Wednesday, the American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, said the new American deployment, along with expected NATO reinforcements, was “sufficient.”

“I think that we’re going to have exactly what we need to move forward,” said the general, who had earlier sought a fourth brigade.

Excluding support units, about one-quarter of the new forces will serve as trainers for Afghan forces. The rest will be traditional combat units teamed with Afghan security forces.

Wait, what? McChrystal's wanted "a fourth brigade," but he's getting only... four brigades? Did he want four Army brigades plus the Marines, and now he's only getting the three (two BCTs and the SFA bde)? I guess that's it, and they're talking about a fourth maneuver brigade.

It's also misleading to say that "about one-quarter of the new forces" will go to the training mission; by my math you have ~5-8K Marines and ~7-8K soldiers in the additional maneuver units, and then about 3-3.5K soldiers in the SFA brigade, plus whatever Division staff and support elements go, which means that trainers make up something more like 10-12% of the total numbers. I guess this math could be screwed up if you're chopping some of those Marines off into ETTs, but I don't know anything about how that works. And finally:

The three new brigades will join the equivalent of what are now roughly five United States combat maneuver brigades and two training brigades, and bring the total number of American troops in Afghanistan to almost 100,000.

So that's (1) 4/82 and (2) the 48th BCT (Georgia ARNG) as the two brigades doing the advisor/training mission, to be joined by one additional SFA brigade. And the three new maneuver elements will join (1) 4/4 Infantry; (2) 3/10 Mountain; (3) 4/25 Infantry; (4) 5/2 Infantry (Stryker) plus 1-12 Infantry (and international elements) in TF Kandahar; and (5) RCT 7 as the five combat maneuver brigades the article references. (I'm sure Tintin will correct me if I'm wrong here. After all, I am ripping off his Afghanistan Order of Battle!)

The Army is gonna start notifying brigades next week, apparently, so things should get a bit clearer then.

UPDATE: Changed the title, as I'd confused even my damn self.

Whoopsie! (Or, EFV in peril!)

Colin Clark, who writes for the usually very good DoD Buzz, had this to say yesterday about the QDR's impact on the future of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle:

That amphibious study, which could lead to the Marines seeing their central mission stripped away, appears highly unlikely to go anywhere. Is the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, himself a Marine, likely to countenance such a move? Not likely. Is the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, likely to approve such a move when the Marines are so closely intertwined with the Navy? Well, no. If Gates didn’t kill the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle on April 6 — and it certainly would seem to have met many of the same criteria for termination as did programs such as FCS — why would he take such a drastic action now?

The piece was linked on the Early Bird, the DoD's daily news aggregator. I think this is a first for DoD Buzz, but I could be wrong; if it is, then it might've come at a bad time. To wit: today's Early Bird links another article on the same subject, "Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Sinks EFV Hopes," from Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.

The prognosis for the U.S. Marine Corps' troubled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is not good, according to Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

After his presentation to the Space and Missile Defense Conference here Aug. 19, Cartwright said the close-to-finished Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is looking at EFV in the context of "amphibious writ large," and the high-speed combat vehicle "will have a significant challenge moving forward."

Cartwright went on to brand the EFV with the scarlet "E" for "exquisite" -- a pejorative term coined by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to refer to programs aimed at producing be-all, end-all systems.

"As we look at anti-access threats, is the exquisite nature of the vehicle appropriate? It's going to have a hard time," Cartwright said.

"Now I can't be a Marine anymore," he added.

According to other sources, the QDR may downplay the Marines' role as a forced-entry assault force versus security assistance and the Corps' currently dominant role on the ground.

Yikes.

The EFV's problems have been discussed extensively in the past, particularly the flat-bottomed hull and its susceptibility to IED attacks. It's interesting to see the Gen. Cartwright cite anti-access threats, too; Krepinevich talked about this extensively in his recent Foreign Affairs piece, making specific reference to the EFV's unsuitability for the likely future threat environment. Maybe the Pentagon really is listening!

Like I said before, I think that Clark and DoD Buzz generally do a great job. This just goes to show you how easy it is to look silly when doing personality-based analysis and speculating about things like procurement and budgeting decisions.

National Jackass Training Center (UPDATED)

I had heard about Special Forces guys riding horses with the Northern Alliance during the early days of the Afghan war, but I didn't know we were training junior Marines on how to handle pack animals.

For Campbell and Cross, the day with Annie could be a preview of days to come. The two may soon deploy to Afghanistan, where donkeys and mules have been the preferred mode of military transport for centuries -- and remain so.

With the U.S. shifting its focus from the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Central Asia, this course on pack animals at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center has become critical to the new mission.

Opened in 1951 to train troops for Korea, the center -- with its administrative buildings, barracks, corrals and an enormous tent for visiting troops -- is set on 47,000 acres of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, where serrated peaks above 10,000 feet are the perfect terrain to teach high-altitude combat skills.

Five donkeys, 24 mules and five sergeant trainers are stationed at the center for the course, which is given eight times a year to Marines, Army soldiers, Navy SEALs and some foreign troops.

Humvees and even helicopters are of limited use in Afghanistan's mountains. There are few roads and the air is thin. But a 1,000-pound mule or 400-pound donkey can easily carry a load one-third its weight -- or more, if necessary.

The weapons of war have changed, but the basics of handling donkeys and mules -- like the sawbuck saddle and packs on Annie -- are not much different from how they were in the time of Genghis Khan.

"It's a very primitive way to carry very modern weapons," said Sgt. Joe Neal, one of the instructors. "But it works."

Here's my favorite part:

On those half a dozen occasions when Annie refused to budge, Campbell and Cross stuck to the dictum drilled into them: Donkeys do not respond well to rough treatment or harsh language.

Sgt. Chad Giles sat on his horse and watched the two 20-year-olds coax and cajole Annie. He urged persistence but admonished against rude language, saying they should talk to her as they would a woman they loved.

So basically the Marine Corps wants you to talk to donkeys precisely the opposite of the way you do junior enlisted.

UPDATE: SNLII reminds me in the comments that there's actually a Field Manual for this (AKO access only).