Thursday, February 5, 2009

5 February 2009









U.S. Marines assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit rotate their amphibious assault vehicle in the well deck of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49) Jan. 29, 2009, in preparation for their Spring patrol.

U.S. Marines from Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment deploy an MK-154 mine clearance launcher during a deliberate assault course training evolution on Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., Jan. 18, 2009. (DoD photo by Lance Cpl. Kelsey J. Green, U.S. Marine Corps/Released)

Early Bird summary
Thursday’s Early Bird leads with a piece from the New York Times reporting that the Obama administration was scrambling Wednesday to come up with an alternative to a crucial United States air base in Central Asia, used to supply the growing military operation in Afghanistan, after the president of Kyrgyzstan ordered the American base in his country closed.Defense and State Department officials said they had concluded that Russia had pressed Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, to expel the Americans. Russia has promised not to impede the American-led fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but has also sought to push United States forces out of bases it began leasing in Central Asia in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.The Kyrgyz Parliament planned to vote Friday on a measure that would close the base at Manas, a major air hub for troops and cargo. Loss of the base would present a significant problem for the Obama administration as it deploys as many as 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan over the next two years. Taliban attacks have made another prime supply route to Afghanistan — an overland pass through Pakistan — highly unreliable.
A related story in the Wall Street Journal puts it this way: Russia is reasserting its role in Central Asia with a Kremlin push to eject the U.S. from a vital air base and a Moscow-led pact to form an international military force to rival NATO -- two moves that potentially complicate the new U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan.On Wednesday, Russia announced a financial rescue fund for a group of ex-Soviet allies and won their agreement to form a military rapid reaction force in the region that it said would match North Atlantic Treaty Organization standards. That came a day after Kyrgyzstan announced, at Russian urging, that it planned to evict the U.S. from the base it has used to ferry large numbers of American troops into Afghanistan. Russia said the base may house part of the planned new force instead.The steps mark Russia's most aggressive push yet to counter a U.S. military presence in the region that it has long resented. They pose a challenge for the administration of President Barack Obama, which sees Afghanistan as its top foreign-policy priority and is preparing to double the size of the American military presence there.The developments also underscore the difficulties for Mr. Obama as he seeks to build a closer relationship with Moscow. Russia is signaling that it will be a tough defender of its interests, especially in its traditional backyard of the former Soviet Union. Though its huge cash reserves are rapidly draining because of falling oil prices, the greater needs of its poorer neighbors are still giving it an opening.
Also high in today’s Early Bird slate comes a story from the Los Angeles Times reporting that a day after blowing up a crucial land bridge, Taliban militants torched 10 supply trucks returning from Afghanistan to Pakistan on Wednesday. These actions, said the Times, underscore the insurgents' dominance of the main route used to transport supplies to Afghan-based U.S. and NATO troops.Months of disruptions on the route from the Pakistani port of Karachi through the historic Khyber Pass have forced NATO and American military authorities to look for other transit options. About three-quarters of the supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan -- mainly food and fuel -- are ferried through Pakistan by contractors, usually poorly paid, semiliterate truckers. Many now refuse to drive the route because of the danger.Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, said last month during a visit to the region that routes outside Pakistan had been found, but he provided no details and gave no timetable for their use. The supply question has taken on added urgency with the planned deployment of up to 30,000 more U.S. troops in the Afghan theater in the next 18 months.
The Washington Post reported that America's key ally in once-volatile Anbar province explained what he would do if the counting of votes in Saturday's election failed to show his party as the victor."We will form the government of Anbar anyway," vowed Ahmed Abu Risha, his voice dipping to a quiet growl. The tribesmen seated in his visiting room, where photos of U.S. generals and Sunni monarchs adorn the walls, nodded in approval. "An honest dictatorship is better than a democracy won through fraud," Abu Risha said.Here, in the cradle of the Sunni insurgency, tribal leaders nurtured and empowered by the United States appear ready to take control the old-fashioned way -- with guns and money -- if their political ambitions are frustrated.
Other noteworthy articles in today’s EB:
§ The Associated Press reports that a U.S.-backed plan to create militias and give them guns to fight the Taliban is drawing criticism from local authorities in areas where the first units are being rolled out, raising questions as to whether the effort can succeed in Afghanistan.The militias have been compared to the U.S.-fostered Awakening Councils in Iraq, which have often been credited with reducing violence there, and are similar to neighboring Pakistan's tribal armies, which also have been touted as a success.
§ The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Russian President Dmitry A. Medvedev said yesterday that Russia and its former Soviet allies wanted to cooperate with the United States on stabilizing Afghanistan, but he appeared to link any help to changes in Western policy.Saying Moscow and its allies "are ready for full-fledged, comprehensive cooperation," the Russian leader seemed to imply that Moscow's help on Afghanistan was contingent on a broader list of changes it wants from the new U.S. administration.These include a halt to NATO enlargement in Europe and the cancellation of plans for a U.S. missile-defense system on Russia's western borders.
§ The Washington Times reports that the biggest question facing President Obama's war Cabinet as it sends more troops and resources to the Afghanistan front will be whether Gen. David H. Petraeus can emulate the successful counterinsurgency that helped quiet Iraq.Whether or not the tactics that prevailed in Iraq can be exported to the rocky valleys and towering peaks of Afghanistan is a major aspect of a classified six-part study report commissioned last fall by Gen. Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command. The report has already been distributed to some in the intelligence community for comment.
§ The Christian Science Monitor reports that Swat, which is located in the North West Frontier Province, about a five-hour-drive from Islamabad, was an idyllic place. Once known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan," it was renowned for lush valleys, ragged mountainsides, and snowcapped peaks.But in the past two years, Swat has been caught up in the throes of a violent insurgency that has repelled tourists and is forcing locals to manage their lives around curfews and bans – and prompting many to leave the area.The latest violence struck Wednesday, when militants attacked and destroyed a police station, capturing – and later releasing – some 30 paramilitary soldiers and policemen. A Taliban spokesman said the Taliban had gotten promises from the men that they would quit their jobs.
§ The Boston Globe reports that diplomats from the world's major powers welcomed an offer by President Obama to hold direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program and said they were committed to a diplomatic solution.The meeting in Wiesbaden, Germany, attended by officials from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, was the first opportunity for them to hear firsthand about Washington's intentions toward Iran - reversing the policy of the Bush administration, which had shunned all diplomatic contacts with the Islamic Republic.
§ A related story in the Financial Times reports that a senior adviser to Iran’s president says dialogue with the US will succeed only if the Obama administration accepts Tehran’s right to have a nuclear programme.Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi, right-hand man to Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the fundamentalist president, said, in an interview with the Financial Times, Tehran was studying its options, just as the new US administration was reviewing its Iran policy
§ Reuters reports that The Obama administration has told the Pentagon to pare its next budget request to the level it projected a year ago, down nearly $60 billion from a more recent Pentagon wish list, the White House budget office said on Wednesday.In doing so, the administration would be capping the fiscal 2010 Defense Department base budget at about $527 billion, excluding war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Tom Gavin, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget.
§ The Washington Times reports that Russia sought to strengthen its security alliance with six other former Soviet nations Wednesday by forming a joint rapid reaction force in a continuing effort to curb U.S. influence in energy-rich Central Asia. A sidebar in the Times states that Russia and Belarus will create a new military system to monitor and defend their airspace, the Kremlin said Tuesday - strengthening cooperation between the two uneasy allies who are deeply suspicious of U.S. plans to put a missile defense shield in Europe.
§ Another story in the Washington Times states that U.S. intelligence analysts are putting the finishing touches on the annual threat briefing for Congress that will report that the al Qaeda terrorist group remains dangerous but is no longer the same organization that so devastatingly attacked the United States nearly eight years ago.The annual briefings to the House and Senate intelligence committees on the national security threats facing the country will be presented in testimony by the new director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, and other intelligence leaders in the next several weeks.According to U.S. officials, the briefing will reveal that al Qaeda has been damaged by U.S. military and intelligence operations, including the capture and killing of many of its leaders and the pursuit of those remaining.
§ The New York Times reports that, in an interview two weeks after leaving office, former Vice President Dick Cheney predicted a “high probability” of a nuclear or biological attack in the next few years and said the Obama administration was approaching a “tough, mean, dirty, nasty business” of keeping the country safe from terrorists too timidly.Mr. Cheney singled out Mr. Obama’s decision to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to ban coercive interrogation methods as changes in course that could make the country more vulnerable.He also sought to justify the Bush terrorist surveillance program and the antiterrorism legislation called the USA Patriot Act.
Media summary
1. Leading newspaper headlines: The New York Times leads, the Wall Street Journal banners, and everyone fronts President Obama imposing new limits on executive compensation for companies that get taxpayer money. (Slate Magazine)
2. The Expeditionary Imperative: Georges Clemenceau, France’s indomitable prime minister during World War I, famously remarked that “war is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.” (Wilson Quarterly)
3. Wares for wars displayed: Camp Pendleton troops are still waiting to hear if they'll join the United States' growing combat operations in Afghanistan. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
4. Unmanned jammer could replace Marine Corps Prowlers: The US Marine Corps will consider replacing its radar-jamming Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowlers primarily with a new class of unmanned aircraft systems. (Flightglobal UK)
5. Guantanamo inmate ‘joins Taleban’: A former Afghan inmate at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay has joined the Taleban's high command in Pakistan, UK government officials say. (BBC)
6. Deadly bombing at Iraq restaurant: At least 12 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a restaurant in north-eastern Iraq. (BBC)
Leading newspaper headlines
The New York Times leads, the Wall Street Journal banners, and everyone fronts President Obama imposing new limits on executive compensation for companies that get taxpayer money. The WSJ calls it "the most aggressive assault on executive pay by federal officials." Under the new rules, any company that receives "extraordinary assistance" from the government won't be able to pay its top executives more than $500,000. The tough talk from the White House wasn't just reserved for Wall Street.
The Los Angeles Times leads with a look at how Obama "abruptly changed tactics" yesterday when he used some of the most partisan language since taking office to blame Republicans for holding up the massive stimulus package.
USA Today leads with preliminary state data that show there was a sharp drop in traffic deaths last year in at least 42 states as Americans drove less due to high gasoline prices and the ailing economy. Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia saw double-digit percentage declines. Experts say that while there could have been other factors at play, the decline in deaths was at least partly due to the plunge in miles driven. The Washington Post leads with a look at how people in the Washington area have been forced to wait longer for unemployment benefits. At a time when unemployment is rising, many local government offices have been forced to cut staff and can't keep up with the rising number of claims. The problem is hardly limited to the Washington area as "Web sites and phone systems in some states are buckling under the strain," notes the Post.
The new rules on executive compensation came amid mounting public anger over the huge amounts of money that some of the leaders of companies that have received money from Uncle Sam continue to receive. The move was seen as particularly important because it came days before the administration is expected to outline a new plan to deal with the continuing deterioration of financial institutions that will probably involve having to ask for more money from Congress. "This is America," Obama said. "We don't disparage wealth. … But what gets people upset—and rightfully so—are executives being rewarded for failure."
The WP off-leads an analysis piece that says Obama has been trying to figure out how to best address the anger that many Americans feel "while not crossing into glib point-scoring that could spook the business class." It's clear that "his indignation has ratcheted upward in recent weeks," but he still has many supporters from the financial sector, and some of the top officials in his administration also hail from that world. While he has long decried Wall Street excess, he hasn't gone as far as other Democrats, and his statements pale in comparison with the anger expressed by President Franklin Roosevelt, who famously declared that "the money-changers have fled their high seats in the temple of our civilization" during his 1933 inauguration.
In addition to the salary cap, the firms receiving exceptional assistance wouldn't be able to offer additional compensation to executives except through company stock that can only be redeemed after the government money is paid back. The new rules would also limit so-called golden parachutes for departing executives. Under what the administration is calling the "name and shame" provision, the government will require companies that get government money to outline a policy regarding luxury items, such as corporate jets and country club memberships.
The new rules are not retroactive, so the big firms that have already received billions in order to stay afloat wouldn't have to abide by them. And for the vast majority of the companies that will receive taxpayer money but not "exceptional financial recovery assistance," the limits are largely voluntary. These companies could waive the restrictions on pay if they disclose their executive compensation package publicly and allow a nonbinding shareholder vote. And while they would still be a subject to a ban on "golden parachutes," it is much less restrictive. That may still change, because the rules that apply to firms that don't receive "exceptional" assistance are subject to a public comment process. Regardless, even companies that don't get a waiver could still provide as much restricted stock as they want.
In a front-page piece, the LAT warns of "abundant loopholes" that "could undermine any lasting effect" of the compensation restrictions. Wall Street has been able to get around rules that limit executive compensation in the past, and there's little reason to think it wouldn't be able to do the same thing again. And it certainly won't be the end of multimillion-dollar salaries. The restrictions wouldn't apply to midlevel workers in Wall Street, who often get significant bonuses as well. Still, some worry that restrictions could hurt firms by making it harder for them to recruit top talent.
Even if plenty of loopholes are found, USAT talks to some compensation experts who say the new rules might permanently change the way Wall Street firms pay their employees. It could lead to a move away from cash bonuses and a bigger focus on using stocks with a long holding period to reward workers.
The president angered many members of his party by crafting a stimulus package with lots of tax cuts to appease Republicans. Since taking office, he has publicly tried to strike a conciliatory tone. But yesterday, he made it clear that he's had enough and accused Republicans of espousing "the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis." Obama not-so-subtly reminded Republicans, "and perhaps even some wayward Democrats," notes the LAT, that he won the election and has a high approval rating. "I reject these theories," he continued. "And, by the way, so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change."
Obama repeats some of these same points in an op-ed piece in the WP today, where he warns that if nothing is done to fix the country's problems, "[o]ur nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse." The president criticizes those who think "that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures," or that "our economy and our country can thrive" without tackling "fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care."
The LAT points out that Obama's "partisan turn entails a calculated risk." No one doubts that a failure to get a stimulus package through Congress in a timely manner would be a huge blow to the young administration. But at the same time, if he gets the bill by pushing the partisanship buttons that he has long decried, he could end up jeopardizing some of the long-term projects on his wish list, such as an overhaul of the health care system, that would require bipartisan support.
The NYT got its hands on what must have been a fascinating briefcase full of documents that belonged to Aribert Ferdinand Heim, the most wanted Nazi war criminal, who was commonly known as "Dr. Death" because of the viciously sadistic experiments he committed against hundreds of Jews. Although he was still believed to be at large, it turns out that Heim died in 1992 in Egypt, where he had converted to Islam and was living under the name Tarek Hussein Farid. Heim was widely believed to be hiding in Latin America, and his case will surely "cast light on the often overlooked history of their flight to the Middle East," notes the NYT. Despite all the evidence and the fact that Heim's son confirms much of the story, the case can't be definitively closed because he was apparently buried anonymously in a common grave.
In a dispatch from Israel, the WP points out that Obama has become a key player in the country's electoral campaign. And it's not just about who can work better with the new president to forge a peace deal. The candidates also aren't shy about using his tactics and invoking his campaign. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livini is the most conspicuous and openly talks about how she would bring change to the country since her main competitors have been prime ministers before. Her campaign distributes T-shirts with the word Believni. Binyamin Netanyahu has his own T-shirt: "No, She Can't."
The WP's E.J. Dionne Jr. notes that although Republicans may be "short on new ideas, low on votes and deeply unpopular in the polls," they have unexpectedly "been winning the media war over the president's central initiative." For most of the fight, Obama has refused to fight back and "cast himself as a benevolent referee." In the end, the new administration has been forced to learn a few Washington basics. "For starters, the media cannot be counted on to be either liberal or permanently enchanted with any politician," Dionne writes. "Arguments left unanswered can take hold, whether they make sense or not. And one more lesson: No occupant of the White House has ever been able to walk on water."

Top of the Document
The Expeditionary Imperativeby John A. Nagl
America’s national security structure is designed to confront the challenges of the last century rather than our ­own.
Georges Clemenceau, France’s indomitable prime minister during World War I, famously remarked that “war is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.” He had reason to know: The fighting on the western front cost the lives of more than two million of his soldiers, exhausting the French nation for generations and ending in a peace that turned out to be only the prelude to an even more costly war.
If Clemenceau’s words were true a century ago, they are even more applicable today. Wars of this century are not fought by masses of people but, in British general Rupert Smith’s phrase, “among the peoples.” The counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan are battles for the allegiance of local populations, without whose support or at least compliance insurgents cannot survive. In our contemporary struggles, ideas and economic development are as important as heavy artillery was in Clemenceau’s ­time.
The attacks of September 11, 2001, demonstrated the enormous power our own technology could have when directed against us by a small group of people driven by a single powerful idea. Unfortunately, our response to that attack has focused disproportionately on military means, and these have not been able to affect the underlying dynamics of this new and most serious kind of war. The rapid defeat of Saddam Hussein’s regime turned to ashes when misguided policy decisions threw gasoline on the embers of a nascent Sunni insurgency. America’s counterattack in Afghanistan, with its memorable images of bearded U.S. Special Forces soldiers on horseback calling in precision air strikes against the Taliban, seemed to show that our military could adapt to new realities. But while the Taliban quickly fell, Osama bin Laden escaped an undermanned Army cordon in the mountains of Afghanistan, and a stubborn and strengthening insurgency there now stymies the best efforts of our national security establishment, which is in the midst of conducting at least three separate full-scale policy reviews to find a way out of another seemingly endless war.
We can and must do better. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has noted, the national security community continues to devote the vast majority of its resources to preparing for conventional ­state-­on-­state conflicts, but “the most likely catastrophic threats to our ­homeland—­for example, an American city poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist ­attack—­are more likely to emanate from failing states than from aggressor states.” For that reason, Gates has been a vocal advocate of increasing the resources devoted to accomplishing U.S. objectives abroad without relying on military power. In what he describes as a “man bites dog” moment in political Washington, he has argued outspokenly for reinforcements for his comrades in arms in other departments, including Justice, Agriculture, and ­Commerce.
Gates has been instrumental in leading the Department of Defense to adapt to a world in which the most serious threats to America and the international system come not from states that are too strong, as was the case in the 20th century, but from those that are too weak to control what happens inside their borders. The 9/11 attacks, plotted from within a failed Afghanistan that provided a safe harbor for Al Qaeda, are only the most vivid illustration of this principle. The terror attacks in Pakistan and India, along with the hijackings by pirates who operate with apparent impunity off the coast of Somalia, show that challenges to state authority will remain a prominent and threatening fact of the 21st century. In a globalized world, these threats are too serious to be left to the generals; they demand a different U.S. government from the one we have ­today.
Our overly militarized response to Al Qaeda’s attacks, the global war on terror, could be more sensibly recast as a global counterinsurgency ­campaign. Insurgency is an attempt to overthrow a government or change its policies through the illegal use of force; Al Qaeda’s stated ­objective—­to expel the West from the Islamic world and re-establish the ­Caliphate—­can be usefully conceived of as a global insurgency. It would then take a global counterinsurgency campaign to confront this challenge. ­Counterinsurgency—­a coordinated use of all elements of national power to defeat an ­insurgency—­is a slow and difficult process, often requiring years, but it can succeed when well resourced and executed. David Galula, the great French counterinsurgency theorist and veteran of the Algerian War, estimates that a successful counterinsurgency strategy is 80 percent nonmilitary and only 20 percent military—­requiring not just armed forces but assistance to the afflicted government in the areas of politics, economic development, information operations, and governance. An ability to deliver such a coordinated response would be useful not just in the campaign against Al Qaeda, but also to confront emerging threats ranging from terrorists in Pakistan to 21st-century pirates.
Unfortunately, more than seven years into a global counterinsurgency campaign, the United States still lacks many of the nonmilitary capabilities required to secure, assist, and reconstruct societies afflicted by insurgency and terrorism. Prevailing in today’s conflicts will require more than just a few additional resources. It will require an expanded and ­better-­coordinated expeditionary advisory effort involving all agencies of the executive branch, and it must include a ­re-­created U.S. Information Agency to make the American case in the global war of ­ideas.
Defeating an insurgency requires winning the support of the population away from the insurgents, and unlikely as it seems, the “hierarchy of needs” propounded decades ago by humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow is never more applicable than in a combat zone. After obtaining basic security, people want to live and work under the rule of law, with a chance for economic progress. Many of the insurgents I fought as the operations officer of a tank battalion task force in Iraq in 2004 were not motivated by Islamic extremism but by hunger or at worst greed. At the time, Anbar Province was suffering from 70 percent unemployment, and the leaders of the insurgency were offering $100 to anyone who would fire a rocket-propelled grenade at one of my tanks. They would pay a $100 performance bonus if we were forced to call in a medical evacuation helicopter as a result. In this kind of conflict, development and reconstruction aid are perhaps our most valuable weapons. As the new U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (which I helped to develop) puts it, “Dollars are bullets.”
Unfortunately, many of the people who are firing America’s dollar bullets today are untrained in that task. Because of a shortage of U.S. diplomats and U.S. Agency for International Development officers willing and able to deploy to combat zones, American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are making daily decisions about the comparative economic benefits of giving microloans to small businesses and investing in water treatment plants. The military trained me well in how to coordinate close air support, artillery strikes, and tank and machine-gun fire, but I was left on my own in determining how to coordinate economic development in Anbar. Since my corner of Iraq included critical enemy support zones between the provincial capital of Ramadi and Fallujah, epicenter of the Sunni insurgency, my mistakes had strategic ­consequences.
In partial recognition of how badly my ­well-­meaning but poorly informed peers and I were conducting this critical aspect of counterinsurgency, the State Department developed provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), first in Afghanistan in 2003 and two years later in Iraq. There are currently 26 PRTs in Afghanistan, each led by a lieutenant colonel (or Navy commander) and composed of 60 to 100 personnel. More than 30 teams now operate in Iraq. They focus on governance, reconstruction and development, and promoting the rule of law. In Afghanistan, several other nations in the International Security Assistance Force, including Britain and Germany, now contribute PRTs of their ­own.
Although the creation of PRTs was an important step in the direction of building the government we need to win the wars of this century, they lack sufficient resources. The team I visited in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in November was composed almost exclusively of U.S. Air Force personnel, with a sprinkling of civilian experts. In Iraq, the absence of civilian specialists is also a chronic problem.
The State Department is in the midst of further efforts to establish effective civilian control of the political, economic, and social dimensions of ­nation-­building operations. In 2004, it created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization to oversee these efforts, but this office remains a poorly staffed and funded institution with fewer than 100 people assigned to accomplish its tasks of predicting, planning for, and mitigating the effects of state failure around the globe. To provide more muscle behind this new office, the Bush administration proposed a $250 million Civilian Response Corps, with 250 development and reconstruction experts from different parts of the government ready to deploy to a crisis within 48 hours and many more in ­reserve.
These are noble efforts, but they lack the required scale. Today, there are more musicians assigned to military bands than there are Foreign Service officers in the State Department. While a rousing rendition of John Philip Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever” always did wonders for my morale in a combat zone, having the economic and political expertise to persuade the people of Anbar not to shoot at me would have been even better. The State Department has finally requested the money to hire 1,100 new Foreign Service ­officers—­the biggest increase since ­Vietnam—­but there is no guarantee that it will be approved by Congress, and no understanding that this 15 percent increase must be only a down payment. At a recent conference on building capacity to win the wars of the 21st century, a four-star Army general exploded, “Eleven hundred! I need another 11,000, and I need them now!”
The general knows exactly what he wants to do with this additional personnel, and it isn’t to staff the embassies in Europe. More Foreign Service officers would allow the government to fully staff PRTs so that they would not have to make do with military personnel better trained in close air support than in political negotiations and economic development. Every Army and Marine battalion commander in Iraq and Afghanistan would pay a king’s ransom to have his own political adviser, a privilege now reserved for ­two-­star generals who command divisions. However, as the Counterinsurgency Field Manual notes, “many important decisions are not made by generals” in this kind of war; the colonels on the ground deserve the political and economic advice they need to make better decisions than I ­did.
And Foreign Service officers are far from the entire answer. The most effective tools of U.S. policy in Afghanistan today are the agricultural development teams composed of Army National Guard personnel drawn from places such as my home state of Nebraska. Wise in the ways of irrigation and bioengineered seed stock, they make a huge difference in that impoverished and overwhelmingly agricultural country. A bigger Department of Agriculture, with an expeditionary culture like the one that is beginning to grow in State, could deploy more experts to contribute to the future of ­Afghanistan—­and allow the Nebraska soldiers to go back to waging the war they were trained to ­fight.
Important as governance and economic development are, the single most pressing need is the ability to fight more effectively in the global war of ideas. During the Cold War, which was primarily an economic fight, secondarily a military one, and only third an ideological struggle, the U.S. Information Agency still did yeoman’s work publicizing the objectives of American policy and pointing out the contradictions inherent in the Soviet Union’s. From 1953 through 1999, USIA did everything from promote jazz and American libraries abroad to broadcast the Voice of America and Radio Martí. But with incredible shortsightedness, the government allowed USIA to become a victim of its own success. As a ­cost-­saving measure in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, it was disbanded, and many of its most strategic functions were shifted to the State ­Department.
That shift encapsulated two critical errors. The already underfunded State Department was in no position to devote money to the information fight, and the department’s culture of reporting on foreign countries’ policies is in direct opposition to the very idea of public diplomacy, which focuses on changing, rather than merely talking about, the actions of foreign governments. As a result of these misguided organizational decisions, American efforts to fight the global war of ideas are badly coordinated and often contradictory. How many of our friends and allies abroad, or even our own citizens, realize that the extremists we are fighting in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces have thrown acid in the faces of girls who dare to attend school? While the insurgents regularly present exaggerated claims of American “atrocities,” we consistently fail to “be first with the truth” in explaining our efforts to help the local populations and how those efforts contrast with the horrific brutality of our enemies. On a broader scale, there has been no attempt to capitalize on the ­still-­potent attractiveness of American culture and freedom through expanded exchange programs for artists, authors, and academics, as occurred during the Cold War. The United States must rebuild its ability to project its image abroad, and it can start by relaunching ­USIA.
There is no shortage of messages that a reborn USIA could send to our friends around the ­globe—­and our enemies and their ­supporters—­but the single most important message would be to acknowledge with the act of reviving the USIA that the United States has fundamentally misconceived the nature of the conflict. The struggle against radical Islamists is not primarily a military fight. The Department of Defense will continue to have a critical role to play, but we cannot kill or capture our way out of this problem. Victory in this long struggle requires changes in the governments and educational systems of dozens of countries around the globe. This is the task of a new generation of information warriors, development experts, and diplomats; it is every bit as important as the fight being waged by our men and women in uniform, but nowhere near as well recognized or ­funded.
In its new doctrine, the Army correctly recognizes that we now live in an era of “persistent irregular combat.” It is adapting to meet the demands of that kind of war—fitfully and often haltingly, it is true, and not without protests from those who “didn’t sign up for this,” but it is learning. Now it is time for the civilian agencies of the U.S. government similarly to steel themselves for a long struggle against a twilight enemy, and for the American people to commit to support those who fight on their behalf with words and dollars—the bullets of modern warfare. The stakes are too high to leave the whole fight to the military. John A. Nagl is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. A retired Army officer who helped write The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual, he recently returned from visits to Iraq and Afghanistan sponsored by the commands there.








Top of the Document
Wares for wars displayed
Marines get to see advances at expo
By Rick Rogers
2:00 a.m. February 5, 2009
Camp Pendleton Marines watched at the Marine West Military Exposition yesterday as a remote-controlled robot armed with 40 mm grenade launchers, a machine gun and other attachments passed by. (Charlie Neuman / Union-Tribune) -
VENDOR LIST
About 200 companies and institutions participated in Marine Expo West yesterday at Camp Pendleton. They ranged from defense giants such as General Dynamics and Raytheon to less-known businesses, including:
Bates Footwear – designs footwear for combat in rugged terrain.
Diamondback Tactical – makes body armor and equipment for military dogs.
Massif Mountain Gear – creates “extreme-weather” clothing for the military, civilian rescue teams, firefighters and others.
ReconRobotics – sells miniature robotic systems that help troops and law enforcement conduct surveillance.
CAMP PENDLETON — Camp Pendleton troops are still waiting to hear if they'll join the United States' growing combat operations in Afghanistan. But hundreds of companies worldwide are more than ready to outfit them with specialized gear, from long-range sensors to all-terrain robotic systems to body suits that keep people warm in subfreezing weather.
The vendors showed off their products yesterday as part of Marine West Military Exposition 2009. The Marine Corps hosts the annual event at Camp Pendleton, Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and Quantico Marine Corps Base in Virginia. The two-day local expo will end today.
In favor this year are items designed for expeditionary combat in Afghanistan, whose mountains and harsh climate can make it extremely difficult to fight the enemy. Besides the sensors and the robots for detecting and disarming roadside bombs, a .50-caliber machine gun that shields its user in a kind of metal bubble drew a lot of attention yesterday.
It was the small, unmanned ground vehicles that caught the eye of Col. Gregg Olson, commander of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
He will lead the 2,200-strong contingent on its deployment this summer, possibly to Afghanistan. Olson, who witnessed roadside blasts during his Iraq war tour in 2004, saw potential yesterday in a device that resembles a lunar soil sampler.
“Marines will never be afraid to close and destroy the enemy,” he said. “But there are routine tasks – like explosive ordnance disposal – that if I don't have to risk a Marine, I won't.”
In recent weeks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the troop surge for Afghanistan would entail sending 30,000 more U.S. service members. The Marine Corps' leaders have been pushing to withdraw most of their units from Iraq and switch them to Afghanistan.
In opening the expo at Camp Pendleton, Major Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said private-industry vendors were “very, very, very good” at producing combat equipment during the past seven years because they took Marines' opinions seriously.
Listening to that feedback must continue, he said, because “We are in this for the long haul.”
With the United States leaning away from relatively urban Iraq and toward the more remote and unforgiving terrain of Afghanistan, vendors emphasized products that are light, rugged and long-lasting. Such equipment would likely be a godsend for Marines, who often would have to use mules for transport and live in Spartan, makeshift bases.
“The equipment is more tactical,” said Tim “Gunner” Hoffman, a former Marine weapons officer who hawked the MX-3B thermal imager yesterday for Night Vision Systems. “Everyone is trying to get smaller, lighter and more durable.”
A few booths away, Sudhi Uppuluri marketed the new generation of small, unmanned ground vehicles for iRobot Corp. The remote-controlled machines, which cost $80,000 to $200,000 each, can be fitted with a host of detectors, including those that track heat and explosives.
“Sensors do take on a much more prominent role in Afghanistan,” said Uppuluri, director of sales for iRobot.
He said the company is making its vehicles lighter and better able to handle rough terrain. Besides detecting bombs, the machines also provide reconnaissance data for the Army and Marine Corps.
For his part, Waldhauser said gadgets that can find and neutralize improvised explosive devices – long the biggest killer of U.S. troops in Iraq – seem more important than a scope that helps identify an insurgent far off in the mountainside.
“We still have not resolved the IED problem,” he said.
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Unmanned jammer could replace Marine Corps Prowlers
By Stephen Trimble
The US Marine Corps will consider replacing its radar-jamming Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowlers primarily with a new class of unmanned aircraft systems. For several years, the USMC's unofficial replacement plan involved modifying Lockheed Martin F-35Bs with next-generation jammer pods, but its thinking appears to be opening up to new ideas.
The USMC's future Tier III UAS fleet, now reclassified as the "Group 4" aircraft, is an option for the EA-6B's electronic attack mission, and "may end up taking a good bit of that role", Maj Thomas Heffern, the service's UAS capabilities officer, told the Association for Unmanned Vehicle System International's Unmanned Systems Programme Review on 3 February.
Requirements for the Group 4 UAS have gradually evolved. Bell Helicopter's Eagle Eye tiltrotor was an early candidate before a series of crashes cancelled the programme. The Boeing A160 Hummingbird, a long-endurance, vertical take-off UAS, has also been proposed.
But the USMC is still interested in even more radical proposals for the Group 4 requirement, and vertical take-off may no longer be a necessary feature, with a short take-off and vertical landing capability also listed as a possible option.
Instead of take-off mode, speed and modularity are becoming the key drivers for the programme. A notional speed requirement is 250kt (462km/h), but this must be balanced against the USMC's need for 10h to 24h endurance on station.
"More [speed] is always better from the Marine Corps' capability standpoint," Heffern says, adding that industry should look back to "technologies available in the 1960s that weren't able to evolve".
Besides electronic warfare, the USMC wants the regiment-level UAS to perform the roles of intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and target acquisition (ISR/TA), plus persistent strike, communications data relay and command and control.
The USMC, however, is open to proposals that would allow the same aircraft to carry a 725kg (1,600lb) cargo payload. Heffern raised the idea of a multirole Group 4 UAS that could perform the ISR/TA, strike and cargo missions.
Another key requirement for the aircraft will be its noise signature, Heffern says, as an aircraft performing the ISR mission must not loud enough to be detected from the ground.

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Guantanamo inmate ‘joins Taleban’
By Frank Gardner BBC security correspondent
President Obama has vowed to close the controversial prison
A former Afghan inmate at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay has joined the Taleban's high command in Pakistan, UK government officials say.
They say Mullah Abdul Kayum Sakir, who was released last year, is now closely involved in planning attacks on British and other Nato forces in Afghanistan.
They say he is operating with impunity from the Pakistani city of Quetta.
The Pentagon says more than 10% of 520 inmates released so far have returned to what it calls terrorism.
It says this complicates efforts to release and repatriate those still being held.
US President Barack Obama has long vowed to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
Lord Carlisle's warning
British government officials say Mullah Abdul Kayum Sakir was handed over by the Americans in the spring of 2008 to the Afghan authorities, who briefly imprisoned him in Kabul.
But from there he was released and promptly made his way over the Pakistani border to rejoin the Taleban and its leadership.
Since then, says a US counter-terrorism official, he has had a hand in doing some very bad things.
Meanwhile, Lord Carlisle, the British government's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism laws, warned on Monday against imposing control orders on former Guantanamo inmates if they came to Britain.
He said it was over-simplistic to assume that control orders would be appropriate or even lawful against people simply because they had been detained elsewhere.

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Deadly bombing at Iraq restaurant
At least 12 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a restaurant in north-eastern Iraq.
The attack took place in Khanaqin, Diyala province, a town close to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and near the border with Iran.
It comes days after Iraq held largely peaceful provincial elections, the first results of which are expected to be released on Thursday.
Kurdish and police officials say at least 15 other people were injured.
Yahya Ibrahim, a 35-year-old mechanic, was among those injured.
"I was at the back of the restaurant when suddenly the explosion happened at the entrance. Everything around was destroyed," he said.
He added that most of the casualties were traders from a local market.
Khanaqin police chief Col Azad Eisa said most of the victims were Kurds.
A report on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) media website said the bombing occurred at 1410 (1110 GMT).
Ethnic tensions
Khanaqin is the centre of a power struggle between Kurds and Arabs.
The town holds sizeable oil reserves and longstanding Kurdish ambitions to incorporate Khanaqin into their northern semi-autonomous region have sparked ethnic tensions with Arabs.
Correspondents say that on election day, hundreds of Kurds complained that they couldn't find their names on voter registration lists.
Salahuddin Kokha, an official with a local Kurdish political party, said the attack was meant to upset Kurdish claims of a strong showing in the provincial elections.
"Terrorists want to destroy the happiness of the Kurds over their election victory in Khanaqin," he said.


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