Ah, the Washington Times is always good for a chuckle

Day late and a dollar short on this story, Richard Tomkins: "Estonian troops boost NATO forces." The subhead: "Deployment 10 percent of full military."

Well, for another couple of months, anyway.

As noted yesterday, the Estonian Defense Minister has been in town for talks with Secretary Gates. Here's what he had to say on Tuesday, according to the MoD's website:

Minister of Defence Jaak Aaviksoo pointed out that although for the duration of the elections Estonia has been the biggest per capita contributor to Afghanistan with two infantry companies, keeping up such a presence is not sustainable. “We have come to a common conclusion with the Americans that our military co-operation in Afghanistan should continue primarily with the human intelligence specialists (HUMINT) and also in the context of the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan,” said Aaviksoo.

Which means a draw-down to 170 troops, as noted here. So, um, wouldn't you think the Times would mention that? Not only is there no mention of the redeployment, but Tomkins doesn't even tell us that Aaviksoo's been in town! There's a possible explanation for that, of course: the article is datelined in-theater, so the writer may not know what's going on back here. Then again, isn't that what editors are for?

Just the same, there's some useful content related to what the Estonians are doing there now and a few quotes from the major who leads the Estonian detachment.

"In general, the Estonian people support our being here," said Maj. Janno Mark, commander of the contingent. "The people in Estonia understand we're a member of NATO. We can't just consume security; we have to contribute to it.

"Looking at who is our neighbor, you can understand why we have to be a good and active member."

You ain't kidding.

P.S. I take back whatever comments I made w/r/t training and advising that may have suggested that the Estonians didn't fight or didn't know how to fight, as it now seems plain that at least some portion of their contingent is taking casualties.

Lessons from 4/1 AD, the first Iraq AAB

From the American Forces Press Service:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2009 – The first new “advise and assist” brigades already in Iraq and others slated to arrive soon have a big leg up on their new mission, thanks to the groundwork laid by the “Highlander” brigade, which provided a test bed for the new concept.

The 1st Armored Division’s 4th Brigade has been on the ground in Iraq since April, conducting the initial advise and assist operations to pass on to the first officially designated AAB, explained Army Col. Peter Newell, the brigade commander.

The Defense Department announced in July plans to send four of the new brigades to Iraq beginning this fall to train and mentor Iraqi security forces.

The brigades will focus less on traditional combat operations and more on advising, assisting and developing capabilities within the Iraqi security forces, Newell said. They also will conduct coordinated counterterrorism missions and support the State Department’s provincial reconstruction teams and other U.S. interagency partners in Iraq.

The first units assigned the mission are the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st and 2nd Brigade Combat Teams based at Fort Stewart Ga., and its 3rd BCT at Fort Benning, Ga.; and the 4th Infantry Division’s 3rd BCT at Fort Carson, Colo. In addition, the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade, which recently arrived in Iraq, has taken on the AAB mission.

Of course, you already know all of this, and I've written about the concept and force structure here, here and here. This article is a good summary, though, and has a lot of quotes from the brigade's commander about the challenges of operating in such a radically different way to what a BCT does either during COIN or MCO -- so take a look.

Yes, Geoff, it's a serious question

This exchange took place during Geoff Morrell's press briefing yesterday. (You've got to sort of fight through the garbled question, but you get the idea.)

Q As far as Afghanistan war is concerned, many, many think tanks are having discussions and also assessments, are bringing high-class experts, including Wesley Clark and others. What they are saying is that including President Obama and secretary of State and secretary of Defense -- that at peak of -- center of terrorism is not Afghanistan or enemies are not Afghanistan but in Pakistan. But why the war is going on in Afghanistan?

MR. MORRELL: Well, this, I mean -- I mean, are you serious? Is this a serious question?

Q That's what they are saying -- really, why they are fighting the war --

MR. MORRELL: We're fighting in Afghanistan because we were attacked from Afghanistan on 9/11. I'm not going to go re-litigate the history of why we're in Afghanistan at this hour.

Well maybe you ought to, dude.

Obviously we all understand why the war isn't happening in Pakistan: that country has a government that is capable of preventing us from operating on its territory (or that would, at the very least, object to something like that). Afghanistan does not. So terrorist safe-havens and ungoverned territory and blah blah blah. But the fact of the matter remains that those who are responsible for the 9/11 attacks are IN PAKISTAN. Al-Qaeda is currently based IN PAKISTAN. The major threat to South Asian regional stability is IN PAKISTAN.

Can we stop dealing in facile cliches like "we're fighting in Afghanistan because we were attacked from there"? Yeah, we were attacked from there, so we fought there. In 2001-2002. And then the guys who attacked us weren't there anymore. So why are we still fighting there?

There are good answers to this question. There are even good twenty-second answers that can be given in a press conference. Maybe try this one on for size: "As the President made clear during his speech back in March, our goal is to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent their return. Abandoning Afghanistan to the Taliban, who lest we forget were the state sponsors of the same al-Qaeda terrorists who killed 3,000 Americans just eight years ago, would allow terrorist organizations the freedom of movement and material resources they require to strike at Americans around the world. We're not going to permit that to happen."

Seriously, I don't even buy this and I came up with it in about ten seconds. So maybe stop being so effing glib and acknowledge that not everyone is quite so willing to accept your first principles and Ethical Appeal.* I know you can't be laying all this out every single day, but it's a well-intentioned question and it deserves a serious answer. Yes, mouthpiece of the Defense Department, it is possible for someone to be seriously curious about why we're fighting a war in a separate country from our main enemy.

*(To better make sense of this little bit of rhetorical cunning, see David Foster Wallace: "What the Ethical Appeal amounts to is a complex and sophisticated 'Trust me.' It's the boldest, most ambitious, and also most distinctively American of rhetorical Appeals, because it requires the rhetor to convince us not just of his intellectual acuity or technical competence but of his basic decency and fairness and sensitivity to the audience's own hopes and fears." And dude, consider this: maybe we're not so convinced of all that when it comes to our government.)

Estonia as a model for future coalition contributions

Secretary Gates met yesterday at the Pentagon with Jaak Aaviksoo, the Estonian Defense Minister. The Baltic country currently has just under 300 troops in Afghanistan and plans to draw down to a "more sustainable" 170 in coming months, but it perhaps provides a model for how NATO allies and other coalition members can contribute to operations both in South Asia and elsewhere in the future: Aaviksoo apparently pledged support in cyber-warfare and information operations, an area of focus for his country in the wake of 2007 attacks on Estonia's government and public networks by what is thought to have been a loosely-connected army of Russian nationalist hackers. Talinn also plays host to the relatively-new NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, which is responsible for research and training related to cyber-warfare.

Drama about troop contributions and burden-sharing is nothing new for NATO or the various recent warfighting coalitions, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time belaboring the subject. What I think is interesting about this is that it's a concrete example of a smaller country preparing to contribute in the ways for which it is most suited. Estonia doesn't need infantry BCTs, and it's debatable whether Poles and Romanians need to know how to do COIN. If NATO is to survive as a meaningful alliance and a force for stability in out-of-area, expeditionary operations, then we'll need to see an increasing focus on the development of niche capabilities like this. There's even debate among our larger, stronger, and richer allies about how to structure forces; some smart people, for example, are wondering whether the UK might usefully focus on developing conventional deterrence and defense capabilities, patrolling and securing the global commons, and developing forces that are complementary to U.S. land power rather than spending limited resources on duplicative formations like infantry battalions (which, if we're honest, will only ever really supplement U.S. forces rather than providing an independent, expeditionary COIN capability).

And of course this is one of the really difficult things about an alliance, particularly one that is institutionalized through a permanent organizational structure, and especially one that has 29 members: who gets to make the plans? No one country can "save" NATO by itself, and it takes real faith in the alliance (and the commitment of allies) to perhaps set aside self defense-oriented capabilities and reform in the direction of niche capabilities and coalition contributions. Some states and armies, of course, are too small and weak to even imagine that they could defend themselves; Estonia is a good example. But when it comes to the UK, Canada, France, Germany, and so on, how does the Alliance develop a cohesive plan for what capabilities everyone ought to bring to the table?

New blog: al-Sahwa

Just been made aware (via Starbuck via KoW) of a new COIN-ish blog called al-Sahwa. They've been up for about two weeks, and thus far it looks like a welcome addition to the blogosphere in our field(s). Here's how they describe themselves in their kickoff post:

The idea for this blog started with a series of e-mail conversations between a group of current and former military folks who had recently returned from serving together in Iraq. As we all moved on to different locations, we recognized the need for continued discussion and critical thought about what lay ahead. Our goal is to identify and analyze emerging trends in intelligence and irregular warfare - in terms of threat, mission, and environment. The idea is to inspire reasoned, informed debate and discussion among a wide range of participants who can offer alternative perspectives.
...
In much the same way, we aim to gain a deep understanding of our enemies' motivations, methods, and intentions. We must develop this rich understanding in order to inform our discussions on how to improve our plans and policy - at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. We want to involve as many folks as possible in the process - from intelligence analyst to deployed infantry Soldier, to DC think-tanker, to government policymaker. Please take part in these discussions and feel free to agree, disagree, and suggest new topics or points for discussion.

So welcome, al-Sahwa.

"Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs"

Apparently the Iraqi government is making extensive use of a device called the ADE 651, which at least one American military officer has described as "nothing more than an explosives divining rod." The same guy says that it "works on the same principle as a Ouija board," and the DoD testers at Sandia Labs have shown that devices of a similar type perform no better in detecting explosives than random chance.

This is a deadly serious subject, of course, but it's hard not to chuckle at some of the quotes from Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, who heads up the MoI's General Directorate for Combating Explosives. The title of the post is one of them. More:

Checking cars with dogs, however, is a slow process, whereas the wands take only a few seconds per vehicle. “Can you imagine dogs at all 400 checkpoints in Baghdad?” General Jabiri said. “The city would be a zoo.”

And this one's awesome:

“I don’t care about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,” General Jabiri said. “I know more about this issue than the Americans do. In fact, I know more about bombs than anyone in the world.”

But easily my favorite:

During an interview on Tuesday, General Jabiri challenged a Times reporter to test the ADE 651, placing a grenade and a machine pistol in plain view in his office. Despite two attempts, the wand did not detect the weapons when used by the reporter but did so each time it was used by a policeman.

“You need more training,” the general said.

But again, this is a serious issue. Iraq has spent $85 million on these devices. Probably the most telling fact in this whole story: "no major country’s military or police force is a customer, according to the manufacturer." And yet the guy in charge of detecting and disarming explosives for the Iraqi Interior Ministry swears by them.

Hopefully Iraq's requirement for bomb detection decreases in the coming months and years, and I think it's reasonable to expect it will. But here's another example of the way that things change as U.S. presence diminishes, and as our leverage decreases. Not before time, many will say, and it's surely a good thing that fewer U.S. troops are vulnerable to attacks that could possibly be prevented if those troops' Iraqi partners weren't dependent on pseudo-science for protection.

And are we going to be surprised if we find out that Jabiri or someone else at MoI is getting rich off the purchase of these devices (for $60k a pop, incidentally, when they're apparently available for under $20k each)?

Does the M-16 suck as much as people say it does?

C.J. Chivers, who is awesome (as we have documented in the past), has a two-part post up on the Times "At War" blog (Part 1, Part 2) about the reliability of the M-16 and M-4.

Few issues are more personal to soldiers than the question of whether they can trust their rifles. And few rifles in history have generated more controversy over their reliability than the American M-16 assault rifle and its carbine version, the M-4.

In recent weeks, a fresh round of complaints about weapon malfunctions in Afghanistan, mentioned in an Army historian’s report that documented small-arms jamming during the fierce battle in Wanat last year, has rekindled the discussion. Are the M-16 and M-4 the best rifles available for American troops? Or are they fussy and punchless and less than ideal for war?

Don’t expect a clear answer any time soon. Expect several clear answers at once – many of them contradictory. This is because when talk turns to the M-16 and the M-4, it enters emotionally charged territory. The conversation is burdened by history, cluttered with conflicting anecdotes, and argued over by passionate camps.

This much is indisputable: Since the mid-1960s, when at Gen. William C. Westmoreland’s request an earlier version of the M-16 became the primary American rifle in Vietnam, the reputation of the M-16 family has been checkered.

This isn't new territory for Chivers, who has written on small arms before for the Times and plans to publish a book next Spring called Killing Machine: A Social History of the AK-47, The Rifle of the Revolution from the Cold War to the Jihad. But I'll read pretty much anything this guy writes. Seriously, he could switch to the John & Kate Plus 8 beat and I'd be all over it.

Anyone with experience downrange have opinions on the M-16 controversy?

All hail the COIN-istas!

In what is otherwise an excellent and comprehensive profile of the SecDef, Gordon Lubold of the Christian Science Monitor drops in this line about the two major factions contesting the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan:

Put simply, there are two poles in Washington: the counterinsurgency experts, or COIN-istas, who believe Afghanistan's deteriorating security can only be reversed by adding tens of thousands of troops – perhaps as many as 80,000; and those who believe US interests in Afghanistan are few, and the best way to keep it on a low simmer is to employ a counterterrorism-like model – using drones, bombs, and special forces teams to keep Al Qaeda at bay.

Come on, Lubold, you know better. "COIN-istas"?! That doesn't even make sense! It's even worse than Michael Cohen's consistent misspelling of the term as COINdanista!

Let's give credit where it's due: to SNLII, erstwhile commenter on this and other blogs, birthday boy, and creator of both "COINdinista" and "COINtra." This may mark the first (botched) use of either term in the non-blog media, so happy birthday, SNLII! (Do you get more than a dime for this mainstream infringement of your patent?)

AFRICOM: Combatant Command. Period.

While Lil has spent some time on the continent recently (here and here), this excellent report from Lauren Ploch at CRS has my mind on U.S. involvement in Africa. This is one of the best and concise distillations of all things AFRICOM that I've seen. Ms. Ploch does a great job talking about what they've done well, what they haven't, and what their challenges are ahead.

Having spent some of my working (read: paid for) time looking into AFRICOM with my previous employer, I still get a lot of heartburn about what they're doing there in Stuttgart. Mainly with the self-branding of the command as a "combatant command plus." Now I'm all for Africa having its own geographic command. Africa is huge (land- and people-wise), has a never ending supply of conflicts, and is falls increasingly within the strategic interests of the U.S. Why wouldn't the U.S. have a command, and associated staff, that could focus exclusively on the unique and many issues facing the continent?

But it's the "plus" that gets me. In light of the relatively recent DoS OIG report that tore the Bureau of African Affairs (AF) a new hole, AFRICOM had been set up to be able to facilitate all sorts of non-military operations in Africa. Granted, AFRICOM's mission was set prior to this report, but the shortcomings of DoS were well known and much bemoaned by DoD. So to fill that void, DoD saw fit to empower a uniformed command, usually responsible for the conduct of wars and military cooperation, with the mandate to conduct or assist in other operations. So much so that of the two deputy commanders, one is military and the other is an ambassadorial position, the latter formerly filled by the extremely competent AMB Mary Yates.

Having been in Iraq and dealing with a limited DoS capacity, I know it's infuriating. It would be awesome if DoS was able to do all that it was supposed to or a fraction of what DoD wants it to. But putting the responsibility, even if it is merely a coordination role, of diplomacy and development into the hands of the military is just wrong. Africa, a place in which I have zero experience, is obviously wary of foreign military interventions no matter what the reason. And American philanthropy, no matter how flawed, has been well intended to a highly inflicted region. But it's different to the recipient when the philanthropist is wearing a uniform - it just reeks of imperial designs. For a military that seems to have finally understood the power of perspective, we're failing when we talk about AFRICOM doing diplomacy and development. To say nothing of the legal and constitutional issues involved.

The very nature, and even existence, of the command may change over the coming years. I'm all for keeping it. But for God's sake, please, please drop the "plus" - let the combatant command do what it's supposed to do. And let the diplomats and aid professionals do what they're supposed to do. Or we're going to end up with the better part of a continent who doesn't want our help - just when we start caring about them and the things they have that we want.

Contrasts--Kinshasa, Monrovia, and Abidjan

One of the things that I thought was most interesting about my short visits to all of these places was the different attitudes that locals had towards their countries' police and military forces. Since we hadn't been to any of these cities before, we always had someone drive us around town for a couple hours after checking into the hotel, just to get a feel for things.

Kinshasa is big, messy, bustling and crazy. The main artery, the Boulevard du 30 Juin (the day of independence from Belgium), has been completely torn up so it can be widened. In the process, the Chinese companies who are doing the work have removed all the decades old trees that I'm told used to line up the avenue (I had people almost crying when they told me about the trees, it's really awful, now there's just this sewage ditch on each side of the street, lovely).

Anyway, cops stand on platforms at intersections directing traffic and stopping white people in expensive looking cars. We asked the driver to take us down by the river, where some government buildings and embassies are. "No, we can't go there, there are too many military guys there," was the response. Ok, not that good, you have a problem if people are scared to come too close to government buildings. Over the next few days, we quickly found that taxi drivers would rather add 5-10 minutes to the trip in order to avoid getting too close to the Presidential palace...This is what happens when cops carry AKs--just like soldiers--and no one gets paid, or at least not paid enough. This is also what happens when soldiers are doing the jobs of police officers and when presidential guard units have complete impunity.

So, next stop Monrovia, where basically every permanent structure suffers from bullet holes. There's a lot of property disputes going on because seemingly sound structures (besides the bullet holes) lack roofs and windows and are not being used, despite the fact that there's a clear lack of housing/shop space/office space, you name it. Like in Kinshasa, there's construction everywhere.

On our little tour around the city, the driver pulls right into the driveway of the Ministry of the Interior. We're thinking "this guy is completely nuts." So we ask, "is it safe?" and get a puzzled frown in response, "Of course it's safe it's the ministry of the interior." And then you realize, there are no soldiers patrolling the streets, only unarmed police. They're directing traffic too but it seems they're harassing drivers a lot less. Not only that but it seems many of them actually do get paid. Now this creates another set of problems, which is that unarmed police have a hard time trying to respond to armed gangs...In short, people would like the cops to do more to address crime. Meanwhile, the military it seems is esconded into a big base for training. Signs on the gate and on the wall say "Barclay Training Center: Security Sector Reform for the Liberian People, from the American People."

Next stop Abidjan, which is different again because the buildings are largely intact (almost no bullet holes). The roads are paved, the traffic lights work and unless there's no one around, people actually abide by them. There are also bus lanes and nice highways along the laguna.

Here there are all sorts of police and military milling about, some almost unrecognizable because they're neighborhood cops and they just wear pants and a special kind of polo shirt that says "police municipale" in washed out capital letters in the back. The policing model is of course French. Here the gendarmes and military guys are armed again but not the municipal cops--these people are mostly seen talking to locals on the street, walking around the market. Here, ministries are surrounded by big fences and high walls and guarded by some kind of private guard company (yellow polo shirts, black pants, unarmed). These yellow shirt guys also stand guard at banks, supermarkets, and the nicer restaurants. Here, it seems military, police and gendarmerie patrol and sometimes set up "checkpoints" to steal money from hapless taxi drivers (small red corollas--they have meters!). So here again, we have the problem of unclear distinctions between police and military tasks.

All this to say, the reform needs for these countries are different and the way in which forces in country behave gives these cities a completely different feel.

Crisis in Guinea (updated)

After spending the last two weeks in Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire--mostly in Monrovia and Abidjan but also a whirlwind afternoon in Bouake, the capital of the Forces Nouvelles in the north--I wanted to write about the ongoing crisis in Guinea.

The simple reason is this: Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, and of course Sierra Leone are very fragile countries. If things really deteriorate in Conakry, it could get really ugly. Just the refugees fleeing Guinea could threaten the shaky balance that the UN is trying to maintain in the region. I'll write more about Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire themselves, as well as about my two weeks in DRC a little later but really, you need to know about Guinea. It's sad, scary, and frankly outrageous.

After the death of Lansana Conte late last year, a young, likely illiterate "captain" named Dadis Camara took over in a coup. At first, people were hopeful because he announced presidential elections and promised not to run for election. Since then, he has been hedging (of course). At a protest at the Stadium in Conakry on 28 September, where people from the opposition gathered to encourage Camara not to run, over 150 were killed by security forces who entered the stadium. They simply started shooting people and gang-raping women.

This guy is a nut job: he gave France 24 (the French CNN basically) an interview defending himself. Take a look (you don't need to speak French to see why he's nuts): he's in bed in his PJs, talking to France 24. I saw another one where he was unable to string two sentences together and he was wearing Mugabe glasses...

So you can imagine that people I spoke with always brought up what would happen if things were to really go south in Guinea. In Liberia,they wondered how locals would deal with refugees flows. In Cote d'Ivoire, they wondered if the crisis would serve as yet another excuse for delaying the November presidential elections. They also asked why the US, France, and the EU had not done more to get rid of the crazy captain who has taken over in Conakry.

In the meantime, ECOWAS, the EU, and today the African Union, have imposed sanctions on Guinea and President Obama has called on Camara to step down. And just because you needed another reason to be outraged, Human Rights Watch reports that the massacre on 28 September was premidated. Still, I think we need to do a little more than that because I'm not sure that the UN can handle another operation in West Africa.

Oil spots/ink blots approach in Afghanistan?

According to the New York Times and "administration officials," that may be what we're looking at.

President Obama’s advisers are focusing on a strategy for Afghanistan aimed at protecting about 10 top population centers, administration officials said Tuesday, describing an approach that would stop short of an all-out assault on the Taliban while still seeking to nurture long-term stability.

Mr. Obama has yet to make a decision and has other options available to him, but as officials described it, the debate is no longer over whether to send more troops, but how many more will be needed. The question of how much of the country should fall
under the direct protection of American and NATO forces will be central to deciding how many troops will be sent.

At the moment, the administration is looking at protecting Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad and a few other village clusters, officials said. The first of any new troops sent to Afghanistan would be assigned to Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital, seen as a center of gravity in pushing back insurgent advances.

Might this be the best possible middle road? It sure seems to beat the hell out of "muddling through," the other non-drawdown, non-escalation path currently being advocated by some people, in which we'd, uh, just keep doing what we're doing (because that seems effective).

The best line in the whole story cites one official calling the plan "McChrystal for the city, Biden for the country."

Of course, if this approach is adopted, there will be critics who object to the "abandonment" of parts of the country, and others who question the effectiveness of a sequential, oil spots approach. Bernard Finel has raised some reasonable questions on this point here, and I hope to discuss them a bit more in the near future.

As I've indicated over the last several weeks, I'm not convinced of the strategic necessity of this Afghan campaign, or that a pacified Afghanistan is vital to the maintenance of American security. I'm skeptical about the chances for success of a broad-based and open-ended COIN campaign in the region, and I think a massive, extended resource commitment to Afghanistan is a pretty bad idea. That said, I appreciate the political challenge that this poses for the President. I think it would be nearly impossible at this stage for him to seriously consider a substantial drawdown or redefinition of the mission (as much as I would welcome those things). So in the meantime, maybe this is the least-bad option...?

Send Me...

The 2d Brigade Combat Team of the 3d Infantry Division is deploying back to Iraq in the coming weeks. This is the Brigade's fourth year-long rotation in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (in six and a half years of the Operation - for those of you keeping score at home) and while there are other (conventional) units that have as much time in theater as this Brigade, I don't believe there are any that have more. The Spartans did the Thunder Runs, overwatched the national elections, were the last surge brigade, and many, many other things and now go to do whatever it is that we're doing these days in Iraq. But most importantly they've fought their asses off because that's what Soldiers do. This Division isn't called the Rock of the Marne because of their ability to hand out HA (which they also do very well...).

So Godspeed to COL Sexton, CSM Martin, and the thousands of other Spartan Soldiers going once more into the breach. Rock of the Marne. Send Me.

This will make Gian Gentile's head explode

Last Saturday's New York Times finds lessons of counterinsurgency on the fields of Agincourt. James Glanz on how some historians are challenging the legend of English supremacy in the face of massive numerical disadvantage:

The work, which has received both glowing praise and sharp criticism from other historians in the United States and Europe, is the most striking of the revisionist accounts to emerge from a new science of military history. The new accounts tend to be not only more quantitative but also more attuned to political, cultural and technological factors, and focus more on the experience of the common soldier than on grand strategies and heroic deeds.

The approach has drastically changed views on everything from Roman battles with Germanic tribes, to Napoleon’s disastrous occupation of Spain, to the Tet offensive in the Vietnam War. But the most telling gauge of the respect being given to the new historians and their penchant for tearing down established wisdom is that it has now become almost routine for American commanders to call on them for advice on strategy and tactics in Afghanistan, Iraq and other present-day conflicts.

The most influential example is the “Counterinsurgency Field Manual” adopted in 2006 by the United States Army and Marines and smack in the middle of the debate over whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the head of the United States Central Command, drew on dozens of academic historians and
other experts to create the manual. And he named Conrad Crane, director of the United States Army Military History Institute at the Army War College, as the lead writer.

Drawing on dozens of historical conflicts, the manual’s prime conclusion is the assertion that insurgencies cannot be defeated without protecting and winning over the general population, regardless of how effective direct strikes on enemy fighters may be.

Mr. Crane said that some of his own early historical research involved a comparison
of strategic bombing campaigns with attacks on civilians by rampaging armies during the Hundred Years’ War, when England tried and ultimately failed to assert control over continental France. Agincourt was perhaps the most stirring victory the English would ever achieve on French soil during the conflict.

The Hundred Years’ War never made it into the field manual — the name itself may have served as a deterrent — but after sounding numerous cautions on the vast differences in time, technology and political aims, historians working in the area say that there are some uncanny parallels with contemporary foreign conflicts.

Out of concern for COL Gentile's health, I cut off the excerpt just before some lady compared the French forces who opposed Henry V to al-Qaeda in Iraq. No, I'm serious.

This is a really odd article. It's ostensibly about research related to Agincourt and competing claims about the relative strength of the forces in the field, but the digression about counterinsurgency and history repeating itself is just... well, weird. I'm not sure where Glanz is trying to go, or if maybe it just helps you get things published if you drop "COIN" in somewhere. Anyway, worth a read if only for the chuckle you'll get when you think about steam coming out of COL Gentile's ears* when he thinks about the clear, objective lessons of clean, decisive conventional combat being muddied by these damned revisionist, Sorley-esque dilletantes!

Technical aside: does anybody else find it strange that Glanz and his editors 1) note that GEN Petraeus now oversees the wars as CENTCOM commander, but didn't clarify that he directed the writing of the COIN manual in one of his old jobs as the commander of TRADOC's Combined Arms Center?, and 2) began a paragraph with "[d]rawing on dozens of historical conflicts..." just two sentences after writing that Petraeus "drew on dozens of academic historians and other experts" in the writing of the manual? Isn't that the sort of amateurish repetition that you'd edit out of your kid's eighth-grade history paper?

*Just kidding. Mostly. Seriously though, I'm obviously caricaturing Gentile and having a little fun at his expense, so you don't need to tell me how wrong I've got it in the comments, and how Sorley really is wrong, and so on. I get it.

Does this confuse anybody else?

Or am I just too dense to understand what the hell is going on here? From the Jaffe/DeYoung piece about wargaming various Afghanistan escalation options in today's Post:

McChrystal's analysis suggests that 44,000 troops would be needed to drive Taliban forces from populated areas and to hold them until Afghan troops and government officials can take the place of U.S. and NATO forces. The extra troops would allow U.S. commanders to essentially triple the size of the American forces in the southern part of the country, where the Taliban movement originated and where the insurgents have their strongest base of support.

McChrystal would also use the additional troops to bolster the effort in eastern Afghanistan, which has long been a focus of the U.S. military, and push additional troops into western Afghanistan, where the military has maintained a tiny presence and where the Taliban has made inroads, U.S. officials said. A surge of 44,000 soldiers and Marines would also allow McChrystal to designate a brigade of about 5,000 soldiers to train and advise the Afghan army and police forces, accelerating their growth.

The increase of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers would give McChrystal one U.S.
advisory brigade of about 5,000 troops to speed the development of Afghan forces and a large number of support forces to include engineers, route-clearance teams and helicopters. McChrystal's analysis also suggested the option of increasing the number of troops by 80,000, but that isn't drawing serious consideration. [emphasis added]

We've already got a dedicated "train and advise" brigade; it's called a modular brigade augmented for security force assistance (or in Iraq, an Advise and Assist Brigade), and the 4th Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division is currently executing that mission in Afghanistan. 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division at Ft. Carson has already been tapped as 4/82's replacement; they'll go over next summer.

So what the heck are they talking about here? A troop increase would mean more SFA brigades, or what? What would escalation do to impact the rotational cycle that these units are already on? As far as I can tell, so long as we're only talking about having one brigade perform this mission at a time in-country, we're set for SFA brigades through late spring 2011.

Any ideas what this means?