The recent announcement that General Petraeus, senior commander in Iraq, is being considered for assignment as top NATO commander is clear proof of the proposition that COIN is antithetical to Transformation, and his success in battle threatens billions of acquisition dollars being spent on the wrong stuff. He is slated to be kicked upstairs, and out of the way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/washington/21military.html?th&emc=th
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2007/10/coin-threat-to-transformation.html
At first blush, it appeared to me that “Full Spectrum Operations” was a return to some form of sanity within the Pentagon. While I have the greatest respect for Defense Secretary Gates, the Dark Forces Within the Pentagon’s bowels (certainly no higher) conduct Psychological Preparation of the (Political) Battlefield to support a “Cut and Run” from Iraq, and abandon the Iraqi people to the same fate we let the Vietnamese face.
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2007/12/gates-paradigm-full-spectrum-warfare.html
They are preparing for an incoming administration dedicated to the same “Anti-War” posture that led to the Killing Fields. And, at the same time, preserve Modular Madness, Rotational Warfare, and the Fantasy Combat System – all Neo-Con dream states.
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2007/12/armys-fantasy-combat-system-fcs.html
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2007/10/knives-in-gun-fights-not-good-idea.html
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2006/12/quadrennial-defense-rubbish.html
http://gordonswar.blogspot.com/2006/12/square-triangular-and-modular-madness.html
The billions being spent on Army Transformation are focused on an imaginary battlefield originally designed in the Fifties for a so-called “Nuclear Battlefield” while USAF airplanes fall out of the sky, and the Navy creates an imaginary “Thousand Ship Fleet” based on the presumption that our allies will rally to our cause when the Chinese decide to seize their designated defense perimeters which include the Philippines and Japan.
It is hard for me to imagine a national military command structure so inept that it’s abolition seems to be the only rational course left. This is to say that the law that created the Department of Defense be repealed, and start over. While we have won more battles that before WW2, it is likely that the increased size and operations of the services accounts for that. Despite more victorious troops, our record for winning wars has gone into the toilet. Which is where DoD needs to go.
Or, maybe there are some serious Philbys in there.
Showing posts with label petraeus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label petraeus. Show all posts
Monday, January 21, 2008
Thursday, October 25, 2007
A Tail of Teeth
The ratio of teeth to tail in a field force from Theater down is about ten to one in accordance with the historical experience of the entire Twentieth Century. Since teeth are more sexy than tail to those with little heads, a cerebral colonic inversion occurred in the Pentagon on the realization that the expertise in Corps, Field Army and Theatre Army operations lay in the Reserve Components, most predominately in the Army Reserve.
This corollary to this is the plain fact that the ability to conduct operations at levels above division had be lost to those in the Pentagon giving rise to colonic confusion that teeth don’t need tails, at least those from the detested weekend warriors. Accordingly, the decision to eliminate the tail from the teeth by creating a force that didn’t need one, called reducing the “footprint” of tactical forces. An privatizing the tail makes it weigh less. Way less.
A new battle doctrine likewise had to be invented that didn’t require ammunition re-supply, casualty replacement, or equipment maintenance, hence the Rumsfeldian “Whack-a-Mole” Rotational Modular Stabilized Expeditionary Transformational mini-brigade force. All wars and military emergencies could, under this approach, be won in a “10-30-30” cycle: Go in Ten, Win in Thirty, and Recover in Thirty Days.
Fortunately for the US, GWOT is not a near peer war like WW1 or 2. In WW1, General Sir Douglas Haig fed the finest infantry in the world into the shell holes of Hell in Flanders followed by the cream of Britain’s youth with a determined Pig Headedness that seems to have been replicated in the Pentagon. After six years of a failed rotational, transformational, expeditionary, modular war, and in spite of the burgeoning success of the new Counter Insurgency doctrine, the Pentagon prefers to cut and run than adapt to the eclectic and effective.
Lest this be seen as another of my pipe dreams, remember when there was a thing called “combat readiness”? How the Pentagon attempted to denigrate and marginalize the Reserve Components with phony readiness standards like MOS training, equipment readiness, et al? And remember what happened before 9-11?
Desert Storm did it. The Pentagon realized that the Reserve Components could rock and roll with the best of them. This had to go. No more “major” command post exercises to be done to continue to exercise Corps and above under combat conditions was a lead indicator.
And what happened when the balloon did go up? Converting artillery and tanks units to a new breed of motorized infantry in short order gave the lie to the relation of MOS to combat readiness. All that matters, now as in all wars before, is that a soldier needs only not to be gay, and that the government owns a piece of his/her ass. And the rest of the body doesn’t have to have all the parts issued originally.
One thing the last QDR did accomplish is that the Army has been transformed from a combat ready force to a combat experienced force. It is time to bring sanity to the next QDR but note that the Pentagon is trying to eliminate the Reserve Representation on the staff that prepares the QDR. BOHICA 08?
This corollary to this is the plain fact that the ability to conduct operations at levels above division had be lost to those in the Pentagon giving rise to colonic confusion that teeth don’t need tails, at least those from the detested weekend warriors. Accordingly, the decision to eliminate the tail from the teeth by creating a force that didn’t need one, called reducing the “footprint” of tactical forces. An privatizing the tail makes it weigh less. Way less.
A new battle doctrine likewise had to be invented that didn’t require ammunition re-supply, casualty replacement, or equipment maintenance, hence the Rumsfeldian “Whack-a-Mole” Rotational Modular Stabilized Expeditionary Transformational mini-brigade force. All wars and military emergencies could, under this approach, be won in a “10-30-30” cycle: Go in Ten, Win in Thirty, and Recover in Thirty Days.
Fortunately for the US, GWOT is not a near peer war like WW1 or 2. In WW1, General Sir Douglas Haig fed the finest infantry in the world into the shell holes of Hell in Flanders followed by the cream of Britain’s youth with a determined Pig Headedness that seems to have been replicated in the Pentagon. After six years of a failed rotational, transformational, expeditionary, modular war, and in spite of the burgeoning success of the new Counter Insurgency doctrine, the Pentagon prefers to cut and run than adapt to the eclectic and effective.
Lest this be seen as another of my pipe dreams, remember when there was a thing called “combat readiness”? How the Pentagon attempted to denigrate and marginalize the Reserve Components with phony readiness standards like MOS training, equipment readiness, et al? And remember what happened before 9-11?
Desert Storm did it. The Pentagon realized that the Reserve Components could rock and roll with the best of them. This had to go. No more “major” command post exercises to be done to continue to exercise Corps and above under combat conditions was a lead indicator.
And what happened when the balloon did go up? Converting artillery and tanks units to a new breed of motorized infantry in short order gave the lie to the relation of MOS to combat readiness. All that matters, now as in all wars before, is that a soldier needs only not to be gay, and that the government owns a piece of his/her ass. And the rest of the body doesn’t have to have all the parts issued originally.
One thing the last QDR did accomplish is that the Army has been transformed from a combat ready force to a combat experienced force. It is time to bring sanity to the next QDR but note that the Pentagon is trying to eliminate the Reserve Representation on the staff that prepares the QDR. BOHICA 08?
Saturday, January 20, 2007
PPPPPP
Since the end of Desert Storm, the mobilization of Reserve and Guard units has been done with “derivative UICs” which are cherry picked lists of unit members called up under a partial unit derivation and when mobilized combined with other cherry picked units to make a provisional unit. The reasons advanced include the rationale that not all unit members were MOS or physically qualified. Well enough to drill but not to fight.
Since MOS (military occupational specialties) are skill sets presumed to have some relevance to unit mission and personal reassignment and career development, the skill sets that went to war were not the skill sets needed for this war. Artillery and Armor units re-equipped, trained, and deployed as “constabulary” units destined for patrolling the roads and alleys of Iraq.
Does this invalidate the foundation for personnel management or the foundation for the existence of units? The evidence suggests that the Personnel Managers, their Super Grades, decided that the existence of trained Reserve and Guard units is valid only as fillers and as “non-union” temporary warriors for non-union seasonal work … like war.
QDR 2006 spells it out in bold terms, but without clearing with Congress that their consistent insistence that Reserve and Guard units have a clear wartime mission is being ignored utterly.
And, worse yet, the QDR 2006 is the quintessential example of the deliberate adoption of the 6P principle (PPPPPP – “Prior Preparation Prevents P*$$ Poor Performance) which is the opposite of the Six Sigma principle of Deming enthusiasts. And it might be said that, despite the best trained, motivated, lead, and equipped, the performance of the progress in Iraq is definitely PP.
QDR 2006 dichotomous shifting includes “From under resourced , standby forces (hollow units) – to fully equipped and fully manned forces (combat ready units)” which means that that the Pentagon views Guard and Reserve units are inherently hollow.
The entire Capstone program mandated by Congress aligning units with combat mission is classic contingency planning. QDR 2006 tosses the entire concept of contingency planning in favor of “proactive” prevention based not on threats, but on capabilities. The QDR 2006 dichotomous shifting requires some innovative thinking, as follows:
“From threat-based planning – to capabilities based planning”, “From peacetime planning – to rapid adaptive planning”, and from “from forces that need to deconflict – to integrated, interdependent forces” which all means that no planning based on Mission, Enemy, Weather and Terrain is required, Modular Stabilized one-size-fits-nothing Brigades can rest in Festung Kansas and pounce with speed, agility, and precision on any and all contingency … without planning.
This no planning modus operandi is officially disclaimed elsewhere in QDR 2006 which calls for a dichotomous shift “from crisis response – to shaping the future” and from “reactive” to “proactive”. I have a hard time envisioning being proactive without threat based peacetime planning. PPPPPP.
While the Democrats are spending useless energy in trying to conduct military operations in Iraq, which they have zero Constitutional authority, they, and the disaffected other Congress members should focus on what is their specified Constitutional authority to do which is to provide for the regulation (doctrine) of the military. It is clear that the Puzzle Palace on the Potomac can’t do it.
Since MOS (military occupational specialties) are skill sets presumed to have some relevance to unit mission and personal reassignment and career development, the skill sets that went to war were not the skill sets needed for this war. Artillery and Armor units re-equipped, trained, and deployed as “constabulary” units destined for patrolling the roads and alleys of Iraq.
Does this invalidate the foundation for personnel management or the foundation for the existence of units? The evidence suggests that the Personnel Managers, their Super Grades, decided that the existence of trained Reserve and Guard units is valid only as fillers and as “non-union” temporary warriors for non-union seasonal work … like war.
QDR 2006 spells it out in bold terms, but without clearing with Congress that their consistent insistence that Reserve and Guard units have a clear wartime mission is being ignored utterly.
And, worse yet, the QDR 2006 is the quintessential example of the deliberate adoption of the 6P principle (PPPPPP – “Prior Preparation Prevents P*$$ Poor Performance) which is the opposite of the Six Sigma principle of Deming enthusiasts. And it might be said that, despite the best trained, motivated, lead, and equipped, the performance of the progress in Iraq is definitely PP.
QDR 2006 dichotomous shifting includes “From under resourced , standby forces (hollow units) – to fully equipped and fully manned forces (combat ready units)” which means that that the Pentagon views Guard and Reserve units are inherently hollow.
The entire Capstone program mandated by Congress aligning units with combat mission is classic contingency planning. QDR 2006 tosses the entire concept of contingency planning in favor of “proactive” prevention based not on threats, but on capabilities. The QDR 2006 dichotomous shifting requires some innovative thinking, as follows:
“From threat-based planning – to capabilities based planning”, “From peacetime planning – to rapid adaptive planning”, and from “from forces that need to deconflict – to integrated, interdependent forces” which all means that no planning based on Mission, Enemy, Weather and Terrain is required, Modular Stabilized one-size-fits-nothing Brigades can rest in Festung Kansas and pounce with speed, agility, and precision on any and all contingency … without planning.
This no planning modus operandi is officially disclaimed elsewhere in QDR 2006 which calls for a dichotomous shift “from crisis response – to shaping the future” and from “reactive” to “proactive”. I have a hard time envisioning being proactive without threat based peacetime planning. PPPPPP.
While the Democrats are spending useless energy in trying to conduct military operations in Iraq, which they have zero Constitutional authority, they, and the disaffected other Congress members should focus on what is their specified Constitutional authority to do which is to provide for the regulation (doctrine) of the military. It is clear that the Puzzle Palace on the Potomac can’t do it.
Monday, January 15, 2007
The Threat, the Task, Two, Three and Four
At present the Battle of Baghdad and the War on Terror is locked in mortal combat … in the halls of Congress and between the A and E Rings in the Pentagon. The former and less significant is broadcast daily on the Telly, while the latter is shrouded in cold fury of a battle of whose bowl is about to be broken. It is a war in which the fate of nations is personified by Bush, Gates and Petraeus on the one hand, and the Dichotomist Ghost of Transformation, not yet dead, on the other as described in the Quadrennial Reviews of 2001 and 204. While much of the dichotomous thinking in the QDR is the result of personnel centric conflict between the services, branches, and components of the Defense Department, it is the result of the psychological conflict between staff functions of intelligence, operations, personnel and logistics.
Intelligence is the determination of the strength, composition, and disposition of the enemy to determine possible courses of action, weaknesses and strengths. Operations is the creation of friendly strength, composition, and dispositions expressed in courses of action that will avoid the enemy’s strengths and exploit his weaknesses to ultimately deny the enemy the ability move, shoot, and communicate and present the enemy with an offer he cannot refuse.
In warfare, operations depend upon intelligence. War is threat driven. In peacetime, we train for war and training is task driven. Intelligence is created to provide a focus for training for the Mission Essential Task List and Skill sets required for military operations.
Likewise in warfare, capabilities and courses of action open for operations is determined by the personnel and logistics available, the former by the imbalance of casualties and replacements, the latter by the provision of gas, ammo, food, and repair parts which require a huge transportation network to move them forward.
In peacetime, personnel turbulence is minimal and little ammo or gas in consumed in garrison operations which is most of the time. Likewise, there is little demand for intelligence in peacetime because the enemy is created for the task, and is provided by known adversaries. Training exercises are rarely fought long enough to exhaust gas, ammo, repair parts, food or replacements to give enough work for the logistics and personnel staff to effectively train on.
The absence of meaningful changes in intelligence, personnel, and logistics in peacetime training gives the operations officer the effective control of unit operations. Operations officer slots, therefore, are real career enhancers. The rest of the staff and the troops they represent are consider “tail” vs the more macho “teeth” of the Six and Three. Thus QDR 2006 “shift in emphasis” in black/white dichotomous terminology includes:
“From threat-based planning – to capabilities-based planning” regardless of who or where the threat may be. Thus Enemy and Terrain are purged from METT-T as a basis for planning. The threat that the S2/G2 might pose to the primacy of the S3/G3 is diminished.
“From an emphasis on (hardware) – to focus on … actionable intelligence” which transfers the blame for a failure to act on enemy information to the intelligence officer who is now has to decide what, if any action, is applicable to the intelligence available … as in the flight numbers and dates of the 9-11 bombers was an intelligence failure.
From reactive response to proactive preventative action, and from “crisis response –to shaping the future, which is capabilities based and not on weather, enemy or terrain … such as the intelligence created to provide precision targets on non existent weapons of mass destruction.
The shift in logistics is from “stove pipes” to “matrix”, from “tail” to “teeth” and “from broad-based industrial mobilization- to targeted commercial solutions” which means privatizing, civilianizing, and outsourcing logistics, particularly in no competition bidding to friends of Dick.
The QDR also enshrines a conflict within the operations community, between operations and planning. Planners are usually a separate organization seated outside the inner circle who plan ahead based on assumptions of mission, enemy, terrain, troops available, time and technology and put their recommendations in OPLANS which can be activated by changing paragraph one (enemy situation) on information from intelligence. This requires those in the inner circle to be bound by the dictates of outsiders (plans, intel, personnel, logistics) and is a threat to the purity and essence of warrior-dom. The QDR continues:
“From predetermined force packages – to tailored, flexible forces”, and from “one size fits all deterrence – to tailored deterrence” which don’t have to deconflict – to integrated, interdependent forces. Deconfliction means task organization to meet METT-TT, and integrated independent forces means one size fits nothing Modular Rotational Expeditionary Brigades based in the States to react quicker to Baghdad than from Germany or Japan.
If Bush, Gates and Petraeus have their way, the Modular Brigades would have to be Civil Affairs, Intelligence, Psychological Operations and Civil Engineering brigades. Since these skills are found primarily in the Guard and Reserves, The need for a larger standing army is placed in jeopardy.
Intelligence is the determination of the strength, composition, and disposition of the enemy to determine possible courses of action, weaknesses and strengths. Operations is the creation of friendly strength, composition, and dispositions expressed in courses of action that will avoid the enemy’s strengths and exploit his weaknesses to ultimately deny the enemy the ability move, shoot, and communicate and present the enemy with an offer he cannot refuse.
In warfare, operations depend upon intelligence. War is threat driven. In peacetime, we train for war and training is task driven. Intelligence is created to provide a focus for training for the Mission Essential Task List and Skill sets required for military operations.
Likewise in warfare, capabilities and courses of action open for operations is determined by the personnel and logistics available, the former by the imbalance of casualties and replacements, the latter by the provision of gas, ammo, food, and repair parts which require a huge transportation network to move them forward.
In peacetime, personnel turbulence is minimal and little ammo or gas in consumed in garrison operations which is most of the time. Likewise, there is little demand for intelligence in peacetime because the enemy is created for the task, and is provided by known adversaries. Training exercises are rarely fought long enough to exhaust gas, ammo, repair parts, food or replacements to give enough work for the logistics and personnel staff to effectively train on.
The absence of meaningful changes in intelligence, personnel, and logistics in peacetime training gives the operations officer the effective control of unit operations. Operations officer slots, therefore, are real career enhancers. The rest of the staff and the troops they represent are consider “tail” vs the more macho “teeth” of the Six and Three. Thus QDR 2006 “shift in emphasis” in black/white dichotomous terminology includes:
“From threat-based planning – to capabilities-based planning” regardless of who or where the threat may be. Thus Enemy and Terrain are purged from METT-T as a basis for planning. The threat that the S2/G2 might pose to the primacy of the S3/G3 is diminished.
“From an emphasis on (hardware) – to focus on … actionable intelligence” which transfers the blame for a failure to act on enemy information to the intelligence officer who is now has to decide what, if any action, is applicable to the intelligence available … as in the flight numbers and dates of the 9-11 bombers was an intelligence failure.
From reactive response to proactive preventative action, and from “crisis response –to shaping the future, which is capabilities based and not on weather, enemy or terrain … such as the intelligence created to provide precision targets on non existent weapons of mass destruction.
The shift in logistics is from “stove pipes” to “matrix”, from “tail” to “teeth” and “from broad-based industrial mobilization- to targeted commercial solutions” which means privatizing, civilianizing, and outsourcing logistics, particularly in no competition bidding to friends of Dick.
The QDR also enshrines a conflict within the operations community, between operations and planning. Planners are usually a separate organization seated outside the inner circle who plan ahead based on assumptions of mission, enemy, terrain, troops available, time and technology and put their recommendations in OPLANS which can be activated by changing paragraph one (enemy situation) on information from intelligence. This requires those in the inner circle to be bound by the dictates of outsiders (plans, intel, personnel, logistics) and is a threat to the purity and essence of warrior-dom. The QDR continues:
“From predetermined force packages – to tailored, flexible forces”, and from “one size fits all deterrence – to tailored deterrence” which don’t have to deconflict – to integrated, interdependent forces. Deconfliction means task organization to meet METT-TT, and integrated independent forces means one size fits nothing Modular Rotational Expeditionary Brigades based in the States to react quicker to Baghdad than from Germany or Japan.
If Bush, Gates and Petraeus have their way, the Modular Brigades would have to be Civil Affairs, Intelligence, Psychological Operations and Civil Engineering brigades. Since these skills are found primarily in the Guard and Reserves, The need for a larger standing army is placed in jeopardy.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Without CORDS, Petraeus and W will trip
The President’s new plan for winning in Iraq, released on January 10 came in three different pieces, the Wehnergram introducing LTG Petraeus and FM 3-24 Counter-Insurgency came first. Then the Iraq Fact Sheet that showed the influence of the Pentagon in mitigating the loss of control FM 3-24 would have on personnel management policies including Rotational Warfare ensuring the rotation of O-6 command positions, and an increase in the size of the Regular Army, thus ending the threat of a competent National Guard and Reserve force. The third was the President’s speech which, in my view was the most Presidential presentation he has made since taking office, but unaware that his plan has already been emasculated.
Without a CORDS, Petraeus will trip and get entangled in the ganglions of Beltway politics and turf wars in the Palais Pentagon. CORDS (Civil Operations and Rural Development) was the result of President Johnson’s demand that all the agencies in Vietnam get their act together. Just agreeing to meet and hash out differences didn’t work, and the mish mash they hatched serves as the basis for reasons for our defeat in Vietnam. CORDS got those disparate agencies under one roof and enabled the civilian agencies to obtain resources from the military they previously could only dream about.
CORDS was effective and in three years the Viet Cong/NVA were driven away from the populated parts of Vietnam.
Unity of Effort is a basic principle in love, war, business and politics. FM 3-24 lays down the ways that this can be achieved in a coalition environment. It doesn’t necessarily mean one super leader. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) creates a framework for multiple agencies including volunteers to have a unified effort. What has been happening in Iraq is a repeat of Desert One where interagency rivalry sabotaged the hostage rescue attempt in Iran. Coordination regardless of hat size made the difference between New Orleans ability to react to disaster and Houston’s.
LTG Petraeus must be given the kind of authority and mechanisms to create a NIMS and/or CORDS-like structure, or W will be impeached by Christmas.
And that’s the least of our worries.
Without a CORDS, Petraeus will trip and get entangled in the ganglions of Beltway politics and turf wars in the Palais Pentagon. CORDS (Civil Operations and Rural Development) was the result of President Johnson’s demand that all the agencies in Vietnam get their act together. Just agreeing to meet and hash out differences didn’t work, and the mish mash they hatched serves as the basis for reasons for our defeat in Vietnam. CORDS got those disparate agencies under one roof and enabled the civilian agencies to obtain resources from the military they previously could only dream about.
CORDS was effective and in three years the Viet Cong/NVA were driven away from the populated parts of Vietnam.
Unity of Effort is a basic principle in love, war, business and politics. FM 3-24 lays down the ways that this can be achieved in a coalition environment. It doesn’t necessarily mean one super leader. The National Incident Management System (NIMS) creates a framework for multiple agencies including volunteers to have a unified effort. What has been happening in Iraq is a repeat of Desert One where interagency rivalry sabotaged the hostage rescue attempt in Iran. Coordination regardless of hat size made the difference between New Orleans ability to react to disaster and Houston’s.
LTG Petraeus must be given the kind of authority and mechanisms to create a NIMS and/or CORDS-like structure, or W will be impeached by Christmas.
And that’s the least of our worries.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Escalation -The Return of the Peoples Park
My hopes that the new Democratic regime change would include a few grown ups were dashed when Pelosi of San Francisco trotted out that hoary old Buzzword “Escalation” from the halcyon days of Hate Asbury, Herpes, LSD, tie dyed, dropped out, tripped in Viet Cong activism of the Sixties and Seventies. Escalation means that any alteration in order of battle, tactics, strategy, or techniques by the US to face escalation of the same type by the enemy, the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese.
It’s classic Buzziology and true to the principles elicited by George Orwell in his books, 1984, Animal Farm, and Homage to Catalonia. Real escalation, such as the current Jihadi offensive in and around Baghdad is not escalation; it is evidence of US interference in native affairs. Any attempt to deal with Jihadi escalation (good) is American escalation (bad),
For those who followed the course of the War in Vietnam, each time the NVA/VC launched a major offensive, the people at the Peoples Park took another toke. When allied forces counter attacked or dared to launch a pre-emptive attack, the Minions of Gozer poured out of their communes and classrooms by the hundreds of thousands across the planet with identical chants, signs, slogans, porta-potties, and buses to swarm the streets of three continents, all done spontaneously on order like immediate air strikes.
The Adult ego state in a healthy head, would simply ask, “why is the US adding troops any different from the other side adding troops?” The simplest answer is that the other side gone on the offensive, such as the Germans did at the Bulge, and we must deal with it.
The are a few grown ups in the Democratic party including John Edwards who knows that the current “Surge” is not just to defeat an Jihadi/Insurgent Surge, but as part of the new strategic plan that the Democrats and some Quitters in the GOP say doesn’t exist. The tragedy of this comedy is that after four years of war, the President finally read the manual. Remember the old adage, after everything else has failed, read the instructions. And the instructions, upgraded from the old manual, are in FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency available for download:
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/Repository/Materials/USA-USMCCOINNewsRelease.pdf
http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/CAC-COINFILES/COINREADER_WEB.pdf
The only Surge that counts in all this is the deployment of LTG Petraeus and whomever he brings with him to Iraq. LTG Petraeus learned quickly that dealing with Stability Operations, Peace Keeping and Counter Insurgency with military forces requires an integrated unified coordinated effort to include economic development, effective governance, essential services (police and fire, water, electricity, schools, transportation, medical and sanitation) are just as much a military concern as fire and maneuver. Based on the successes and failures in the last fifty years, all these efforts must be coordinated under one umbrella which may include a variety of command relations such as inviting NGO’s to work “with” governmental elements. This is nothing more than the “incident management system” has been evolving to deal with tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and fires everywhere.
This is the real surge and that is what scares the Old Left, still stuck in the great ”World Revolution” of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao and Ho, all True Communists. Today’s Anti-American Left spouting Marxism is, interestingly, not True Communism, but Neo-Communism. The True Communist was concern with restoring lost labor value stolen by Capitalism to the Working Class, the Proletariat.
The Neo-Communist has been rejected by the Working Class who now prefers to be called Middle Class, and as long as they get their six-pack, pickup, three bedrooms and a bath, union pension and health benefits, don’t give a rat’s ass about the Revolution. This rejection has been taken to heart by the Neo-Commie to now champions the unworking class, and the inanimate like the Environment to replace the games system that restores the balance of the Great Game of Buzziology, the role switching game of Victim, Rescuer, and Prosecutor.
Pendulums swing, and it can be expected that we will see politics swing from banning same sex marriage to requiring it. From establishing the Christian church as the National Church to affirmative action in churching is inevitable.
Or, perhaps the dedicated few could read the manual.
It’s classic Buzziology and true to the principles elicited by George Orwell in his books, 1984, Animal Farm, and Homage to Catalonia. Real escalation, such as the current Jihadi offensive in and around Baghdad is not escalation; it is evidence of US interference in native affairs. Any attempt to deal with Jihadi escalation (good) is American escalation (bad),
For those who followed the course of the War in Vietnam, each time the NVA/VC launched a major offensive, the people at the Peoples Park took another toke. When allied forces counter attacked or dared to launch a pre-emptive attack, the Minions of Gozer poured out of their communes and classrooms by the hundreds of thousands across the planet with identical chants, signs, slogans, porta-potties, and buses to swarm the streets of three continents, all done spontaneously on order like immediate air strikes.
The Adult ego state in a healthy head, would simply ask, “why is the US adding troops any different from the other side adding troops?” The simplest answer is that the other side gone on the offensive, such as the Germans did at the Bulge, and we must deal with it.
The are a few grown ups in the Democratic party including John Edwards who knows that the current “Surge” is not just to defeat an Jihadi/Insurgent Surge, but as part of the new strategic plan that the Democrats and some Quitters in the GOP say doesn’t exist. The tragedy of this comedy is that after four years of war, the President finally read the manual. Remember the old adage, after everything else has failed, read the instructions. And the instructions, upgraded from the old manual, are in FM 3-24 Counter Insurgency available for download:
http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/Repository/Materials/USA-USMCCOINNewsRelease.pdf
http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/CAC/milreview/English/CAC-COINFILES/COINREADER_WEB.pdf
The only Surge that counts in all this is the deployment of LTG Petraeus and whomever he brings with him to Iraq. LTG Petraeus learned quickly that dealing with Stability Operations, Peace Keeping and Counter Insurgency with military forces requires an integrated unified coordinated effort to include economic development, effective governance, essential services (police and fire, water, electricity, schools, transportation, medical and sanitation) are just as much a military concern as fire and maneuver. Based on the successes and failures in the last fifty years, all these efforts must be coordinated under one umbrella which may include a variety of command relations such as inviting NGO’s to work “with” governmental elements. This is nothing more than the “incident management system” has been evolving to deal with tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes and fires everywhere.
This is the real surge and that is what scares the Old Left, still stuck in the great ”World Revolution” of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao and Ho, all True Communists. Today’s Anti-American Left spouting Marxism is, interestingly, not True Communism, but Neo-Communism. The True Communist was concern with restoring lost labor value stolen by Capitalism to the Working Class, the Proletariat.
The Neo-Communist has been rejected by the Working Class who now prefers to be called Middle Class, and as long as they get their six-pack, pickup, three bedrooms and a bath, union pension and health benefits, don’t give a rat’s ass about the Revolution. This rejection has been taken to heart by the Neo-Commie to now champions the unworking class, and the inanimate like the Environment to replace the games system that restores the balance of the Great Game of Buzziology, the role switching game of Victim, Rescuer, and Prosecutor.
Pendulums swing, and it can be expected that we will see politics swing from banning same sex marriage to requiring it. From establishing the Christian church as the National Church to affirmative action in churching is inevitable.
Or, perhaps the dedicated few could read the manual.
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