HOPPING ON THE BLOGOSPHERIC BOYD BOOK BANDWAGON



Colonel Frans Osinga, PhD, who gave a tour de force lecture at Boyd 2007, managed to prevail upon his publisher to sell a paperback version of Science, Strategy and War:The Strategic Theory of John Boyd at a price non-billionaires could afford.

I will be reviewing Science, Strategy and War in December and - tentatively - organizing a roundtable discussion at Chicago Boyz, most likely after Christmas. If you are a blogger, academic or a current or former member of the armed services and are interested in participating, send me an email at zenpundit@hotmail.com.

Labels: 4GW, boyd 2007, ideas, intellectuals, john boyd, military, military history, military reform, science, strategy, theory, war, warriors

  ¶ 7:05 PM 2 comments

  THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE WARLORD



Kent's Imperative had a post up that would have been worthy of Coming Anarchy:

Enigmatic biographies of the damned

"....Via the Economist this week, we learn of the death of an adversary whose kind has nearly been forgotten. Khun Sa was a warlord who amassed a private army and smuggling operation which dominated Asian heroin trafficking from remotest Burma over the course of nearly two decades. In the end, despite indictment in US courts, the politics of a failed state permitted him to retire as an investor and business figure, and to die peacefully in his own bed.

The stories of men such as these however shaped more than a region. They are the defining features of the flow of events in a world of dark globalization. Yet these are not the biographies that are taught in international relations academia, nor even in their counterpart intelligence studies classrooms. The psychology of such men, and the personal and organizational decision-making processes of the non-state groups which amassed power to rival a princeling of Renaissance Europe, are equally as worthy of study both for historical reasons as well as for the lessons they teach about the nature of empowered individuals.

Prospective human factors and leadership analysts are not the only students which would benefit from a deeper pol/mil study of the dynamics of warlords and their followers in the Shan and Wa states. The structures which were left behind upon Khun Sa’s surrender were no doubt of enduring value to the ruling junta, and tracing the hostile connectivity provided to a dictatorial government by robust transnational organized crime is an excellent example of the kombinat model in a unique context outside of the classic Russian cases..."

Read the rest here.

There are no shortage of warlords for such a study. Among the living we have Walid Jumblatt, the crafty chief of the Druze during the 1980's civil war in Lebanon, the egomaniacal and democidal Charles Taylor of Liberia, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar the Islamist mujahedin commander and a large assortment of Somali, Colombian, Indonesian and El Salvadoran militiamen and paramilitaries. The history of the twentieth century alone offers up such colorful characters as "The Dogmeat General", the ghoulishly brutal Ta Mok of the Khmer Rouge, "The Mad Baron" Ungern von Sternberg, Captain Hermann Ehrhardt and Pancho Villa among many others.

What would such a historical/cross-cultural/psychological "warlord study" reveal ? Primarily the type of man that the German journalist Konrad Heiden termed "armed bohemians". Men who are ill-suited to achieving success in an orderly society but are acutely sensitive to minute shifts that they can exploit during times of uncertainty, coupled with an amoral sociopathology to do so ruthlessly. Paranoid and vindictive, they also frequently possess a recklessness akin to bravery and a dramatic sentimentality that charms followers and naive observers alike. Some warlords can manifest a manic energy or regularly display great administrative talents while a minority are little better than half-mad gangsters getting by, for a time, on easy violence, low cunning and lady luck.

Every society, no matter how civilized or polite on the surface, harbors many such men within it. They are like ancient seeds waiting for the drought-breaking rains.

Labels: 4GW, history, kent's imperative, psychology, war, warriors

  ¶ 7:55 PM 8 comments

  INSTANT HISTORY




Picked up both of these on a lark on Saturday, as I cruised through Border's with The Son of Zenpundit, who was getting some independent reader level books about Spider-Man fighting -well- some villain or other. The usual suspects.

Any thoughts from readers as to how high these tomes merit being placed on the "Must read" pile ? I'm currently innundated with things to read, so prioritizing is a must.

Labels: book, bush, COIN, foreign policy, history, insurgency, iraq, islamic world, islamist, mideast, war

  ¶ 7:35 PM 2 comments

  MORE 4GW

Wolf Pangloss has a series of interesting posts on 4GW and information operations that readers might care to consider in light of the discussion that has ensued in the comments section of the post on the strategic analysis of Fabius Maximus. Wolf's posts are:

Democracies at 4GWar

4GW Jihad and the role of the World Media

Conflict Map of the Counterjihad

Media Cheerleaders for Despair

Labels: 4GW, al qaida, insurgency, islamist, strategy, terrorism, theory, war, wolf pangloss

  ¶ 8:12 PM 7 comments

  THE 4GW FESTIVAL OF FABIUS MAXIMUS



" To summarize, we seek to radically change the cultures and political systems for much of the world, to halt foreign revolts and civil wars of which we do not approve, to bring global peace and prosperity, to make friends (even with those states whose rise we seek to restrain), and to “transform” our so far unreformable national security apparatus. Those who thought President Bush was kidding about these learned better in the months following our invasion of Iraq."

- Fabius Maximus

For some time now, an author whose nom de guerre is "Fabius Maximus", after the ancient Roman general of the Punic wars, has been a regular and at times, prolific, contributor to the Boydian and 4GW school oriented Defense & the National Interest. Fabius, who comments here at Zenpundit on occasion, also set off one of the most popular, if heated and controversial, threads at The Small Wars Council, catching the attention of noted COIN strategist Col. David Kilcullen. Kilcullen's theories later became a subject of frequent critique from Fabius in his DNI articles.

While I had hoped to meet Fabius in person at Boyd 2007, he did not attend and I am not privy to his identity or professional background. Fabius' arguments must rise or fall entirely on their own merit and he has been content to engage his critics on this basis at the SWC and elsewhere. Clearly he is a member of the 4GW school and is an admirer of Col. John Boyd, William Lind, Dr. Martin van Creveld and Dr. Chet Richards but has not shrunk from advancing his own ideas or original criticisms.

Recently, Fabius completed his tenth article in a series on America's Long War for DNI and, as Fabius has entertained and enraged members of the community of "reform" defense intellectuals and COIN practitioners, it is timely for us to take stock of his strategic argument:

The Long War Series - from DNI's Fabius Maximus Archive

Part X - One step beyond Lind: what is America’s geopolitical strategy?
Part IX - 4GW at work in a community near you,
Part VIII - How to accurately forecast trends of the Iraq War,
Part VII - Kilcullen explains all you need to know about the Iraq War,
Part VI - The bad news is that Lind’s good news is wrong,
Part V - The Iraq War as a warning for America,
Part IV - Beyond Insurgency: An End to Our War in Iraq,
Part III - Stories or statistics? Read and compare to find the truth!
Part II - News from the Front: America’s military has mastered 4GW!
Part I – America takes another step towards the “Long War,”

I have read the roughly 20,000 words offered here previously and I re-read them for this post. I have also read most of the authors of the original works that Fabius Maximus cites in his series. Therefore, I feel qualified to offer a few observations in regard to the strategic paradigm that this body of work represents and the assumptions, clearly stated as well as implicit, upon which it is built.

Many of the specific analytical criticisms of American policy and performance in Iraq and Afghanistan made by Fabius are incisive, some are rather questionable and a few are brilliant. I encourage you to read his efforts for yourself rather than simply accepting my word for it. What interests me most though, given the scope of the series, are his premises. As I discern them, they are:

That 4GW is the environment in which we find ourselves conducting operations - and doing so quite poorly at that with a military predisposed toward 2GW offensives. Or irrelevantly on the strategic level where we happen to be executing COIN well on the tactical level.

We cannot significantly affect the internal dynamics of alien societies that we understand poorly or not at all, regardless of the carrots or sticks used. We are marginal factors at best.

American war policy is being constructed on the false analogy of the Cold War model.

Al Qaida is more phantom than menace.

War is the wrong conceptual metaphor and the wrong operational-bureaucratic response to the conflict in which we find ourselves.

Our response, which serves bureaucratic and factional interests at homes, undermines our global strategic position and wastes our economic strength.

A better grand strategy for America is nonintervention and reducing friction with the rest of the world. Or failing that, at least bolstering states, any states, rather than collapsing them into failure with military attack or other pressures ( Lind's "Centers of Order vs. Centers of Disorder")

If George Kennan argued for "Containment" of Soviet Communism in his "X" article the best descriptor of the grand strategy of Fabius Maximus might be " Conservancy" - dialing down our kinetic response to terrorism to the surgical level and recognizing this contest as more ideological conflict than war and, in general, recognizing our limitations in attempting to become masters of the universe. Many readers would associate this paradigm with the Left but I believe that to be incorrect. Instead, reflecting a deeply paleoconservative reading of history and American traditions in foreign policy that historian Walter A. McDougal called "Promised Land" and others "city on a hill" and " isolationism".

The virtues of "conservancy" as I interpret Fabius is that it minimizes both costs and future commitments for the United States, leaving us better able to afford to deal with strategic threats to vital national interests, when unanticipated threats arise, as they surely will. It would serve as a reality check on statesmen to pursue fewer, more coherent, simpler, more easily realizable and markedly cheaper objectives, which will have far higher probability of success ( as opposed to say, attacking Iran while engaged in Iraq. Or perhaps invading Russia in winter or fighting a land war in Asia. Some folks around PACOM with a few years ago with uber-journalist Robert Kaplan's ear, thought an unprovoked war with China was a splendid idea). When forced to intervene, our footprint will be light; more like British frontier agents of old or the 55 advisers in El Salvador in the 1980's than the invasion of Iraq. As a nation, our foreign policy would stay on the good side of the diminishing returns curve.

The drawbacks include, in my view: being flatly incorrect about al Qaida's potential to initiate attacks on the operational or strategic level specifically, and about the threat of radical Islamist-Mahdist movements in general, when coupled with increasing capacities to leverage against complex systems ( see John Robb's Brave New War); underestimating the geopolitical ripple effect of the U.S. shifting to a conservancy posture, upending the global security arrangements upon which the calculations of statesmen currently depend. The unanticipated consequences of the latter are large. Within two to three levels of unfolding decision-tree possibilities, any potential response by the U.S. is simply swamped. We benefit by the status quo. Changing our position imposes costs.

I invite Fabius Maximus to respond as he likes and I will publish his remarks here, unedited. Readers are invited to offer their own critique in the comments section.

Labels: 4GW, 5GW, al qaida, COIN, dni, fabius maximus, iraq, islam.insurgency, islamist, john boyd, state failure, strategy, terrorism, war, william lind

  ¶ 5:58 PM 12 comments

  CHILDREN OF LIGHT, CHILDREN OF DARKNESS


Reinhold Niebuhr

The Atlantic Monthly has a sometimes thoughtful, at times irritating, article by Paul Elie on the late theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, and the political struggle being waged by the Left, Middle and Right over his intellectual legacy. An excerpt:

"The biblical sense of history can make Niebuhr seem like something other than a liberal. In the '60's, his religiosity made him suspect on the New Left, and in the years after his death, his work resonated with the thinkers who were turning against that era's liberal reforms"

It wasn't Niebuhr's religiosity that made him suspect with the New Left but his anti-totalitarianism, something that a movement deeply afflicted with an authoritarian certitude and spasmodic nihilism could ill abide; indeed, they still seem to despise Niebuhr for his unwillingness to equivocate about Leftist tyranny. Elie is correct though, that the original Neoconservatives (the ones who actually made an intellectual journey from Left to Right) such as Norman Podhoretz had high regard for Niebuhr's writings. I myself first heard of Niebuhr from reading David Stockman's bitter memoir The Triumph of Politics. Stockman may have repudiated Ronald Reagan but he remained true, almost adulatory, to Niebuhr:

"The scales fell from my eyes as I turned those pages [ of Children of Light, Children of Darkness - ZP] Niebuhr was a withering critic of utopianism in every form. Man is incapable of perfection, he argued, because his estate as a free agent permits-indeed ensures -both good and evil...Through Niebuhr I dimly glimpsed the ultimate triumph of politics" ( Stockman,24).

I do not profess to be an expert on Reinhold Niebuhr or his philosophy, having read only one of his books, but the polemical war over Niebuhr that Elie critiques has, in my view, an air of ahistoricality to it. Perhaps with not the completely unhinged lunacy of the similar debate over Leo Strauss, but like Strauss, Niebuhr has been lifted by both sides out of the mid-20th century intellectual context that illuminated his ideas, in order to serve as a barricade for the political battle over Iraq and the Bush administration.

My gut reaction is that Niebuhr, were he alive today, would be writing things that would not sit well with some of his would-be reinterpreters and with more nuance and wisdom than for which his contemporary critics give him credit.

ADDENDUM:

Peter Beinart, who comes in for much criticism from Elie for the following link, on Reinhold Niebuhr.

Labels: christianity, history, intellectuals, neoconservatism, philosophy, politics, reinhold niebhur, the atlantic, totalitarianism, war

  ¶ 6:21 PM 0 comments

  A GREAT FIND

Eddie ( who credited Abu Muqawama) sent in a link to a Mother Jones issue that has a veritable roundtable of experts commenting on withdrawing from Iraq. I was impressed with their selection and below I highlight links to some of the experts who would be of the most interest to readers here:

Colonel T.X. Hammes
Colonel H.R. McMaster
Lt. Colonel John Nagl
Dr. Andrew Bacevich
Dr. Bary Posen
Dr. John Pike
General Anthony Zinni
Dr. Anthony Cordesman
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski

Give it a look.

Labels: 4GW, COIN, eddie, insurgency, iraq, military, mother jones, war

  ¶ 5:27 PM 0 comments

  THE MILITANT IDEOLOGY ATLAS

The most comprehensive, English-language, ideological analysis of Islamist extremist and terror movements yet compiled; assembled by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

Executive Summary (23 page PDF)

Research Compendium (361 page PDF)

Hat tip to Charles Cameron for the title of this ( actually, many) interesting scholarly work and to Right Truth for the URLs.

UPDATE:

Heh. Plagued by basic reading comprehension problems last night. Title corrected. Gracias, Charles!

Labels: al qaida, analytic, COIN, islam.insurgency, islamist, military, military intelligence, national security, strategy, terrorism, tribes, war, warriors

  ¶ 6:48 PM 0 comments

  A TIMELINE FOR 5GW THEORY

Props to Curtis for his altruistic act of blogospheric historiography in creating an online 5GW Timeline. It will be highly useful to know exactly who said what/when before writing any more 5GW posts. Thanks, Curtis!

Dreaming 5GW is on a roll lately. Check out Shane Deichman's "xGW Evolution: Purely Reactionary" and Subadei's "Hammes 5GW Redux:Via Phil" ( original post by Phil at Pacific Empire is here, plus Phil's previous "“Fourth-generation warfare expert to speak in Wellington on Monday”).

Great work, gentlemen.

Labels: 4GW, 5GW, dreaming 5gw, pacific empire, theory, war

  ¶ 8:08 AM 4 comments

  BELATEDLY, KILCULLEN ON THE TRIBAL REVOLT

Great piece by Colonel Kilcullen at SWJ Blog on the "flipping" of Anbar province by the tribal revolt against AQI:

"The implications of the tribal revolt have been somewhat overlooked by the news media and in the public debate in Coalition capitals. In fact, the uprising represents very significant political progress toward reconciliation at the grass-roots level, and major security progress in marginalizing extremists and reducing civilian deaths. It also does much to redress the lack of coalition forces that has hampered previous counterinsurgency approaches, by throwing tens of thousands of local allies into the balance, on our side. For these reasons, the tribal revolt is arguably the most significant change in the Iraqi operating environment for several years. But because it occurred in ways that were neither expected nor accounted for in our “benchmarks” (which were formulated before the uprising began to really develop, and which tend to focus on national legislative developments at the central government and political party level rather than grass-roots changes in the quality of life of ordinary Iraqis) the significance of this development has been overlooked to some extent."

We should run with the grassroots and try to get tolerably effective Iraqi self-government at the local and provincial level and simply cut our losses with the central government. Let it fade into irrelevance as most Iraqis already ignore its edicts anyway.

The opportunity of the democratic elections were blown when the Iraqi power brokers (few of whom could be considered democrats in any meaningful sense and see a truly democratic system as inimical in principle to their own in-group leadership) were permitted to drag out negotiations over forming a government until legitimacy and popular interest generated by the elections eroded. We should have instead, followed the example of the noteworthy "Small Wars" fighter, General Leonard Wood.

The general, who was running occupied Cuba as the military governor in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish-American War, faced a similar situation with the intransigence of wealthy, landed, Cuban elites who filled the legislature who were attempting to outwait Wood by creating a political deadlock until the Americans went home. General Wood, who understood the game being played and the free-for-all that would ensue if American troops left Cuba without a functional government, simply locked the doors of the parliament and his armed soldiers refused to permit anyone to leave until the legislators finished their business and also ratified the unpopular Platt amendment.

The latter effectively made Cuba a protectorate of the United States in name as well as fact but from a realist perspective, it also quashed the possibility of civil war, boosted Cuba's economy and guaranteed a functioning civil government in Havanna for two and a half decades, even if it required a new military intervention. Iraq is not nearly so well off.

ADDENDUM

SWJ BLOG

Glittering Eye

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Global Guerillas

Iraq the Model

Labels: al qaida, COIN, insurgency, iraq, islamist, kilcullen, military, primary loyalties, small wars journal, tribes, war, warriors

  ¶ 7:32 PM 2 comments

  DEFINING OUR TERMS ON 5GW

"Super-empowered individuals are practitioners. Fifth Generation Warfare is a doctrine

....It makes sense that Super-Empowered Angry Men are most likely to choose the most violent and destructive doctrine within their means. I do not think the essential nature of Fifth Generation Warfare with its long-term planning horizon fits that description. For super-empowered individuals with a strategic mindset, 5GW may be an attractive doctrine and super-empowered individuals may prove to be 5GWs most effective practitioners."

Nice distinction and clear thinking by Arherring at Dreaming 5GW, where the conversation continues in successive posts.

Labels: 5GW, dreaming 5gw, superempowered individuals, theory, war

  ¶ 8:09 AM 0 comments

  NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AND LEGACY MENTALITIES



"It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union."

- John F. Kennedy, President of the United States


"Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims."


-Osama bin Laden, "amir" of al Qaida

Both the Soviet Union and the United States amassed immense nuclear arsenals during the Cold War of approximately 50,000 warheads of various sizes and a range of systems with which to deliver these terrifying weapons. A number of other second and third tier states later joined "the nuclear club", seeking a hedge against regional enemies or desiring the totemic status in international relations brought by possession of nuclear arms.

None of these states, not even Israel which is reputed to have up to 200 nuclear bombs, ever developed a nuclear weapons capability that remotely matched that of the superpowers. A number of nuclear-capable states have either eschewed building nuclear weapons (Germany, Japan, Taiwan) or have been persuaded to disarm those that they had inherited or assembled ( Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and South Africa).

So lopsided are the throw-weight ratios between countries with small yield or primitive atomic weapons and the stockpiles retained by the U.S. and Russia that most of the nuclear club have arsenals that are useful only for deterring a military attack from their immediate non-nuclear neighbors or a nuclear peer. Pakistan's nuclear status was of no help in warding off American demands after 9/11; had Islamabad attempted to brandish, much less use, nuclear weapons in defense of their Taliban clients, it would have surely invited Pakistan's immediate destruction.

Cheryl Rofer of Whirledview, had a post "The Necessity of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent: A White Paper" that analyzed a recent quasi-official document “White Paper on the Necessity of the U. S. Nuclear Deterrent” authored by a cluster of national security VIPs, including several past CIA directors and current advisers to the US Strategic Command. The paper summarizes many obvious points about American nuclear deterrence and calls for a " debate". Cheryl found the paper to be lacking:

"No real threat assessment is offered, just vaguely threatening words about Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. For a group of folks trying to move out of the Cold War mindset, that’s an interesting ordering of countries.

....Is the white paper saying that US nuclear policy is only about deterrence? Nothing about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its obligations? Nothing about the uselessness of deterrence against mobile subnational groups with no territory to defend? The only thing that is important to our allies is US security assurances, backed up by the threat of nuclear warfare?

....This white paper is stuck in the the Cold War, circa 1969. "

I think the white paper authors are correct that the perceived credibility of American nuclear guarantees dampen down potential nuclear arms races among third parties, notably in Northern Asia. Cheryl however, is correct on the larger point that the analytical assumptions of the paper are shot through with Cold War legacy mentalities.

Arguably, the white paper does not even match the Cold War era in terms of nuanced thinking. In 1958, in Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, Henry Kissinger wrote:

"It is the task of strategic doctrine to strike a balance between the physical and the psychological aspects of deterrence, between the desire to pose a maximum threat and the reality that no threat is stronger than the belief of the opponent that it will in fact be used. A strategy which poses alternatives that policy-makers are unwilling to confront will induce either inaction or improvisation. A strategy which establishes a superior balance between power and will may then gain a crucial advantage, because it permits initiative and shifts to the other side the risks inherent in making countermoves" (Kissinger, 175)

CKR aptly pointed out the obvious alternative of non-state and subnational actors with nuclear weapons that the white paper's authors were " unwilling to confront" in their state-centric focus.
Here are a few others that would relate to the state of American deterrence, enhancing or undermining it:

* Potential, novel, weaponization of of aspects of nuclear particle research outside classic uranium 235 and plutonium bombs.

* The need for more effective controls and tracking of trade in esoteric, dual-use, technologies of weaponization that make nuclear devices useful militarily. Increasing transparency level of same.

*Identifying non-nuclear technologies that could result in weapons of a comparable order of magnitude of destruction or loss of life as with low-level nuclear weapons.

* Strengthening and expanding the inspections regime under which NPT signatories are permitted access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Addition of automatic penalties if NPT signatories are caught cheating, subject to removal or waiver by the UNSC ( putting the burden on the accused proliferator to come clean instead of on the IAEA or UNSC states to get any meaningful sanctions applied).

* De-escalating the potential for future conflict between nuclear and nuclear capable states by instituting new regional diplomatic and security structures.

* International nuclear convention regarding the security of nuclear materials and command and control by the nuclear weapons states.

* Moral-political-legal campaigns that degrade the credibility of American deterrence by ratcheting upward the "unthinkability" of nuclear weapons use, thus tempting potential adversaries to risk the very brinksmanship scenarios ( war, apocalyptic terrorism) that would make the use of nuclear weapons possible or likely.

* Avoiding "nuclear weapons deflation" as an unintended consequence of arms control. Striking a balance between reducing large American and Russian arsenals and unduly increasing the military value of small ones and the temptation to increase them in order to reach "parity" with America and Russia ( "linkage" for all nuclear club arsenals). Or worse, the temptation to sell or use them.

* Removal of strategic nuclear materials from the global black market by vastly accelerating certified destruction or reprocessing of obsolete national stocks.

* Developing new models of deterrence that would be concurrently perceived as credible by states, non-state actors and subnational/ transnational networks who may all be within an interdependent nexus of responsibility for a catastrophic WMD attack.

* Identifying and categorizing non-state network threats to American security with potential WMD capacity.

* Understanding the parameters of the possible in terms of private networks and WMD capabilities, through intellectually honest red team exercises.

* Examining the balance of utility between emphasizing clarity and uncertainty in American nuclear response and deterrence policy in a multi-polar and non-state actor era.

Many of my variables are not new but they are of at least more recent vintage and of a broader horizon than what the white paper has considered. I'm interested in hearing your thoughts as well.

Labels: 21st century, al qaida, America, arms control, CKR, deterrence, diplomacy, military, networks, nuclear, terrorism, war, whirledview, youtube

  ¶ 12:38 PM 7 comments

  A GLITTERING EYE ON RICHARDSON'S NEW REALISM



Dave Schuler has a superb examination about Governor Bill Richardson's major foreign policy essay in the Harvard International Review.

I can applaud the serious effort by Richardson, a former high level diplomat, to address foreign policy in a thoughtful way, even though I agree with Dave that many of Richardson's proposed solutions do not logically address the strategic trends he identifies ( thought they probably appeal to regular, middle-class, Democratic activists if not the wackiest of the wingnuts).

Labels: 2008, bill richardson, diplomacy, foreign policy, glittering eye, international law, national security, terrorism, war

  ¶ 8:58 AM 0 comments

  GUEST POSTING AT DEMOCRACY PROJECT

My friend, Bruce Kesler was gracious enough to offer me a guest posting opportunity on the topic of 4GW at the well-respected group blog Democracy Project. Bruce's only proviso was that the piece should be aimed at the general reader and not the academic specialist or military professional and I have endeavored to comply.

With far more patience than I deserve, Bruce waited for me to finally get my post together and he has put it up this evening:

"4GW Primer"

Much thanks to Bruce Kesler for allowing me to expound on this topic for DP readers!

Labels: 4GW, COIN, Democacy Project, insurgency, kesler, theory, war, william lind

  ¶ 9:41 PM 2 comments

  MOUNTAINRUNNER ON KENNAN'S LESSONS

Matt at MountainRunner has a fine post on lessons that can be drawn from George Kennan's "Long Telegram".

"For those who frame the modern conflict in Cold War images, it might be useful to remember the real designs and purposes of early Cold War policies. For those who think public diplomacy is simply a beauty contest to hopefully "win hearts", should go back to the aggressive "five-dollar, five syllable" foundation of public diplomacy as a psychological struggle for minds and wills against an enemy who understood perception management."

Kennan's two volume memoirs make for some interesting reading, as does his work Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin, though it helps to have some of the period's diplomatic historiography under your belt to better read between the lines of Kennan's prose. If we have any George Kennan equivalents today, they are probably employed by the Defense Department or have been, which says a great deal about the intellectual and political decline of the State Department since Kennan's time.

KENNAN ADDENDUM:

"America and the Russian Future (1951)" by George F. Kennan

"More reflections on George Kennan" by Dave Schuler

"LET HISTORY JUDGE THE FATHER OF CONTAINMENT " - Zenpundit

"George Kennan Speaks to the War on Terror" and "Tipping Points" by CKR

Labels: America, cold war, Communism, diplomacy, diplomatic history, george kennan, mountainrunner, national security, strategy, war

  ¶ 2:05 PM 11 comments

  HAIL CAESAR



I just finished Caesar: Life of A Colossus by the military historian Adrian Goldsworthy and found it to be a remarkably worthwhile read from which I learned much about Julius Caesar the commander, yet the flanking movements by Gaulish cavalry and Triplex Acies of the Legions do not overwhelm Goldsworthy's portrait of Caesar the man and populares politician.

Goldsworthy succeeds in breathing life into a figure about whom so much cultural and historical commentary has been encrusted, often to the point of distortion. Caesar is a dynamic and charismatic figure in this biography but also a calculating and, at times, overconfident and reckless one. Goldsworthy is sympathetic to his subject but remains critical of Caesar's errors and propaganda while trying to keep all events in their proper 1st century BC context.

The biography does not have quite the same social and cultural richness of the late Roman Republic to be found in Tom Holland's Rubicon ( which was a work of history) but there are gems of information for the reader, nonetheless . Other useful companions to Goldswothy's effort would be Anthony Everett's biographies Cicero and Augustus, especially the former book given the importance of the brilliant but unsteady Marcus Tullius Cicero as Caesar's sometime rival, ally, critic, adviser, enemy and companion.

An excellent read.

ADDENDUM:

"Heather — The Fall of the Roman Empire", "Ward-Perkins — The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization" by James McCormick at Chicago Boyz

Labels: adrian goldsworthy, ancient history, biography, book, historians, historiography, history, julius caesar, military history, roman empire, war, warriors

  ¶ 1:03 PM 2 comments

  WHAT WOULD A 4GW CAMPAIGN BY THE USG LOOK LIKE ?

Lexington Green asks this question at Chicago Boyz.

Labels: 4GW, America, chicago boyz, COIN, Ic dreaming 5gw, lexington green, strategy, theory, war

  ¶ 8:01 AM 2 comments

  RICHARDS ON STRATEGIC TRANSFORMATION

Dr. Chet Richards of DNI has posted the introduction to his forthcoming book, If We Can Keep It. From what I have gathered, this book will be an extension of the radical military analysis Richards began with his previous work, Neither Shall the Sword: Conflict in the Years Ahead . An excerpt:

"Three national myths

The first is that “terrorism” poses the most serious threat to our survival and our way of life. In fact, the physical damage that terrorism does is small in comparison to other threats to our national well-being, and there are means available to reduce it even further. The greatest threat of “terrorism” is the damage we do to ourselves in sincere but misguided attempts to deal with it.

The second national misperception is that we still require a military establishment whose cost exceeds not just that of the next most powerful nation or even the next three, but of all the rest of the world, combined. Most of this expense goes into conventional (non-nuclear) forces that are no longer needed or even useful. The reason for this is not that world brotherhood has broken out, as earlier generations of pacifists mistakenly assumed, but that nuclear weapons have made wars between major powers impossible. States that are not nuclear powers, on the other hand, are either U.S. allies or are far too weak to pose any kind of military threat, and our attempts to use military force against non-state opponents, such as the “terrorists” mentioned in the previous paragraph, have not proven particularly successful.

The third, and perhaps the most dangerous because it seduces us into thinking that we can make military force into a normal tool of policy, is the notion of counterinsurgency theory. The problem is not that insurgencies cannot be defeated, but that proponents of this theory sometimes fail to distinguish between different meanings of the term “insurgency.” Several observers, recognizing this limitation, have proposed classifications. Biddle (2006) distinguishes between “people’s wars,” in which groups try to overthrow the government, and “communal civil wars,” where groups are fighting to avoid genocide. Metz (2007) classifies insurgencies based upon whether a legitimate government exists or can be created. These are both valuable and help explain why some insurgencies succeed where others do not.

....In the specific area of national defense policy, I recommend that the Department of Defense be gradually downsized to roughly the current U.S. Marine Corps plus special operations forces and supporting tactical air. This is more than adequate to deal with any future military threat. Concerning strategic – nuclear – forces, 10,000 weapons are more than we need to preserve the proven doctrine of mutually assured destruction (Blair, 2007a). Some reduction in this arsenal is clearly feasible.

Such a reordering of priorities towards our real problems implies a restructuring of the federal government. We should immediately disband the terrorism bureaucracy, particularly the Transportation Security Administration and its parent, the Department of Homeland Security and should review the roles and functions of the other agencies and departments.

Over time, as the Defense Department assumes its natural size, as has already happened with most of our European allies (Bacevich, 2006), intelligence will assume a more important function. Although military operations in the future will be rare, it becomes more important than ever that they be perceived by our friends and allies as justified, and when they do occur, they must be rapid, daring, and successful. Achieving this standard requires a step-function improvement in the integration of intelligence, diplomacy, and operations, so it will make sense to consolidate these functions in a single body where the controlling function is intelligence."

Read the entire introduction here.

It would appear that Richards, whose analytical framework is deeply rooted in the ideas of John Boyd, is throwing the 4GW hat into the ring of grand strategy, remediating a frequent criticism that 4GW thinkers are focused primarily upon tactical conflict and the destructive rather than constructive levels of strategic thinking. It will no doubt be an interesting and thought-provoking book that will stampede an entire herd of sacred cows beloved by defense intellectuals off of a cliff. That alone will make it a useful read.

My questions ( and Richards may very well answer them in his forthcoming book) raised by If We Can Keep It, would hinge on several variables:

* The utility of nuclear deterrence, upon which Richards' strategic transformation seems to depend, in an era when significant power (WMD capacity) appears to be devolving to progressively smaller ( and potentially less accountable, predictable and deterrable) substate and non-state networks. The history of nuclear deterrence and accompanying theory represents a large and complex literature with such thinkers as Brodie, Wohlstetter, Kahn, Kissinger and others who never satisfactorily arrived at answers to the conundrum presented by nuclear weapons.

Eisenhower-Dulles " massive retaliation" and "brinksmanship" put a brake on defense spending ( as Ike intended) but it was a very risky and blunt instrument. The idea that Washington would "trade New York for Paris" with the Soviets was never entirely a credible one. Nor did America's massive nuclear arsenal prevent Nasser from closing the Suez or Ho Chi Minh from subverting Saigon or even deter Khrushchev from his nuclear gamble in Cuba (in fact, our lopsided nuclear advantage probably was an incentive in Khrushchev's eyes to gain parity on the cheap).

* Steady-state assumptions about nation-state behavior in the international arena if conventional American power projection capacity was drastically reduced to levels proportionate to Western Europe. This is a major point to consider when offering a non-interventionist alternative to current strategy - American military power is the focal point of most regional security systems ( or opposition to them). To my mind, statesmen calculate their actions and plan their military expenditures based upon assumptions of American hegemony, welcome or not. The inability to even get to the starting block for military competition with the U.S. - we must think not just in terms of annual military budgets but in the colossal sunk costs of establishing a military-industrial base - is inhibiting regional arms races to a degree. Remove American preeminence from the equation and foreign statesmen are going to arrive at different calculations regarding their interests and security.

I look forward to reading it and entertaining Dr. Richards' argument in full.

Labels: 21st century, 4GW, America, chet richards, COIN, defense, deterrence, dni, foreign policy, insurgency, john boyd, military reform, national security, nuclear, small wars council, strategy, theory, war

  ¶ 7:01 PM 5 comments

  THE COMING OF AFRICOM: THE DEPARTMENT OF EVERYTHING ELSE VS. EMBRACING DEFEAT*



* image and title shamelessly "liberated" from the multidisciplinarily creative Dan of tdaxp who previously posted an excellent series by the same name.

Two articles with diametrically opposed worldviews of American intervention overseas.The path to error lies in the simplification of both approaches:

"Africa Command: The Americans Have Landed" in Esquire by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett
(This article is currently only available in dead tree format)

"Rethinking Insurgency" (PDF) at Strategic Studies Institute by Dr. Steven Metz (hat tip to Danger Room)

Tom Barnett's Esquire article on the newly created AFRICOM is one of his best pieces in "journalist" mode and it demonstrated the dire need for establishing true ( and not primarily "kinetic") "operational jointness" in interagency cooperation in Africa. This means accepting the inherent complexity of the Gap and answering with synergistic connectivity to globalization in order to engage in societal-building and state-building .

AFRICOM



Dr. Metz also accepts the complexity and interconnectivy of globalization but prescribes defusing conflicts by disengagement, accepting the co-option of aggrieved insurgencies into the national power structure even when they are resolutely hostile to American interests. A graceful retreat does less damage, in Metz's view, than would sustained conflict fueled by American aid enhancing the power of states to resist insurgencies.

Unsurprisingly, I am in favor of Barnett's approach but recognize that it is best employed judiciously, with an economy of force and minimalist platforms where aid gives the biggest bang for the buck. Likewise, while I see the Metz approach, if raised to a general rule, as a prescription for strategic erosion of American primacy and the decline of globalization, used with discretion, it is a useful "means-test" for evaluating the strategic importance of failing states and avoiding of the waste of American blood and treasure.

Malawi is not as important as Pakistan, even if al Qaida can be found in both countries. That doesn't mean ignoring Malawi but that we engage it differently than we do Pakistan.

ADDENDUM:

Steve DeAngelis is also discussing AFRICOM at ERMB

Labels: 4GW, barnett, COIN, counterinsurgency, insurgency, national security, PNM, resilience, SSI, state building, state failure, steven metz, strategy, system administration, tdaxp, theory, war

  ¶ 7:56 PM 0 comments

  THE STRATEGIKON

An interesting paper about an obscure military classic of the Byzantine Empire (hat tip to TROUFION )

Labels: byzantium, classics, history, military, military history, small wars council, theory, war

  ¶ 10:03 AM 0 comments