ZenPundit
Saturday, October 07, 2006
 
"OUR DIPLOMATS....WILL NEED TO BECOME EXPEDITIONARY"

"COUNTERING IRREGULAR THREATS: A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH" -USMC (PDF)

Grabbing System Administration and Full Spectrum Mil-Civ Agency " Jointness" by the horns and issuing a clarion call for emphasizing cultural intelligence, this paper is, in my view, a considerable improvement over previous U.S. policy. Is it perfect ? No. Does this paper implicitly criticize how the Iraqi and Afghan campaigns have been handled thus far by the Bush administration and the Pentagon ? Yes.

Some excerpts:

" We may use violence to suppress an insurgency for a time but the only way to destroy it is by changing the way people think about the insurgency"

" Only information campaigns built on truth, no matter how painful the truth may be for us, can help undermine an insurgency"

" Small unit leaders must be trained to carry far more of the burden of combat decision making supported by a rapid flow of tactical information and cultural intelligence"

"....the "commander" of some interventions may not be a serving military officer but could be an Ambassador, a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, or a police officer, each with a heavily civilian staff that ties together political and military strategy"

[ Ed. Note: One precedent, John Paul Vann's effectively exercising combined military command authority of a major general over II Corps as well as civilian administration as Director of the Second Regional Assistance Command]

"We must find ways to do things the local way "

"Train Marines to be both fighters and peace builders...in foreign languages, cultural intelligence, negotiation and dispute resolution"

Hat Tip - Small Wars Council

RELATED LINKS:

Steve DeAngelis at ERMB - " New U.S. Counter-insurgency Doctrine"

"Hindsight is a wonderful thing. James Baker, former Secretary of State, admitted this morning on ABC's Good Morning America that the U.S. did not handle the securing-the-peace phase of the Iraq war very well. Had that been done properly (and had the U.S. fielded a System Administrator Force) we probably wouldn't now have so many of our service people now engaged in counter-insurgency warfare. An old security adage states, "peace is always cheaper than war." Not only are fewer people required when things are done right, less money is also required. That is the promise of this new doctrine."

Bradd Hayes & Jeffrey I. Sands "Doing Windows: Non-Traditional Military Responses to Complex Emergencies" (PDF)

Thomas P.M. Barnett - " Jim Ellsworth's USPEACECOM proposal"

 
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