Irregular warfare

[buglerbilly]

From The Times February 8, 2010

Special Forces chief battles to stop book revealing details of operations in Iraq

Michael Evans and Tom Coghlan

The head of Britain’s special forces has been trying to stop the publication of a book by a senior BBC journalist which describes in “tactical detail” operations carried out by the SAS in Iraq from 2003 to 2009.

The major-general, who cannot be identified for security reasons, is concerned about the impact of Task Force Black on the elite regiment’s operational effectiveness because of the contents, which are understood to be based on interviews with members and former members of the SAS.

Negotiations with lawyers representing the book’s author, Mark Urban, Newsnight’s diplomatic and defence editor, and the Ministry of Defence, have been going on for months, and a compromise had been reached.

However, the Director Special Forces (DSF) remains unhappy with the publication. The DSF is in command of all the special forces: the SAS, the Special Boat Service, the Special Forces Support Group (formerly the 1st Battalion The Parachute Regiment), and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment.

“As far as DSF is concerned, when he saw the manuscript, all he wanted to survive was about three lines,” one defence source said. “All DSFs would prefer nothing to be written about the SAS. In fact their ideal situation would be if neither the word ‘special’ nor ‘forces’ ever appeared in print,” he added.

The book describes missions in Baghdad, Basra and along the border with Iran in the south, and is to be published this week by Little Brown, despite the concerns of the most senior personnel in the special forces.

The defence source said that after lengthy negotiations with the publisher, the MoD was satisfied that the book would not compromise the operational effectiveness of the SAS.

“It has not been approved, because that implies that the MoD and special forces are happy with the publication, which they are not,” he added.

The first time an account was written about SAS operations in Iraq, it caused such a storm in Whitehall that all members of the special forces were ordered to sign a confidentiality agreement which barred them from divulging any operational details without permission from the MoD.

The author was General Sir Peter de la Billière, commander of British forces in the Gulf War in 1991. Earlier in his career he was Director Special Forces and he included a chapter on the SAS in his memoir, written after he left the Army.

General de la Billière’s book was submitted, as required, to the MoD, but he was treated for some time as persona non grata and was banned from attending SAS functions. A flood of SAS books followed, the most famous, Bravo Two Zero, by Andy McNab, a former sergeant in the elite regiment.

Although much has already been written about SAS operations in the 2003-2009 British campaign in Iraq, most of the focus has been on the regiment’s covert missions in Baghdad, where it served alongside the American Delta Force and other US special forces.

The forces worked together hunting down al-Qaeda operatives and Sunni insurgents, and were involved in negotiations to persuade militants to give up and to support the Government in Baghdad. Far less is known about SAS operations in Basra, where a squadron from the SAS carried out covert missions alongside US Navy Seals.

One key aspect of SAS operations in Iraq was the close working relationship with MI6. The SAS and MI6 worked together in some of the most dangerous environments.

When British forces crossed the Kuwaiti border into Iraq in March 2003, and advanced to Basra to liberate it from Saddam Hussein’s troops, MI6 officers and SAS troopers were the first to enter the city to try to discover where the bulk of the enemy units were positioned.

In March 2006, the SAS, along with other forces, rescued three Westerners from captivity in Iraq. The three men, Norman Kember, a Briton, and James Loney and Harmeet Sooden from Canada, were members of a group of four peace activists who had been kidnapped in November 2005 by an Iraqi organisation known as the Swords of Righteousness Brigade.

Following the kidnap and killing of British workers Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan in 2005, a multinational unit, which included the SAS, was formed, called Task Force Black.

Apart from hunting prominent Saddam Hussein loyalists and alQaeda leaders, the task force was involved in establishing an intelligence network to counter the threat from kidnappers.

[buglerbilly]

American forces in the Philippines

Front-line vets

Drawing lessons from a rare success

Jan 28th 2010 | JOLO | From The Economist print edition

RUMBLING over unfriendly terrain the world over, Humvees form the backbone of America’s military transport. Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Goldsmith has found they also make a good cattle corral. Park two Humvees at an angle, lead a cow into the gap and lash it to a bumper by its nose. Then climb on either bonnet and administer the necessary jabs. “I got tired of getting kicked all the time,” he says.

Lieut-Colonel Goldsmith, a veterinarian in the American army, has already worked with Afghan livestock. Now he tends to scrawny, tick-ridden cattle in Muslim-majority parts of Mindanao. Since March 2008, he has treated some 7,000 animals in villages where qualified vets are as rare as pukka roads. Proper care of livestock means fatter animals for market and more income for their owners.

This is part of an American mission that started in 2002, not long after the Taliban fell in Kabul. A force of up to 600 American soldiers, many of them counter-insurgency specialists, has been training elite Filipino troops to fight militant groups ever since. American gadgets, tactics and intelligence seem to be helping. Fifteen of the 24 names on a Philippine most-wanted poster have been crossed out, either captured or killed. Foreign troops are forbidden to fight, so combat duties fall to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The Americans keep busy with aid projects designed to woo locals in areas thick with militants. These days, there are fewer of them. The AFP estimates that Abu Sayyaf, a group notorious for bombings and beheadings, has fewer than 400 fighters on Jolo and Basilan islands. General Benjamin Dolorfino of the AFP boasts the group can no longer stage attacks on Mindanao itself.

American military thinkers wonder if there are lessons for other parts of the world where al-Qaeda lurks. With a modest outlay here, the Pentagon has dealt a blow to Islamist radicals and sharpened the skills of an ally. American troops are overstretched, expensive and make attractive targets for jihadists, so it makes sense to train other forces to fight where they can.

America, however, is unlikely to find other partners as perfect as the AFP, which is modelled on America’s armed forces. Filipino officers speak English, know and admire America, once the colonial power, and can bond with their comrades over beer and karaoke. Try that in Yemen.

Mindanao is racked by insurgencies, from the semi-respectable—the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is engaged in peace talks—to the outright criminal, such as Abu Sayyaf in its present form. But the Philippines poses less of a threat to global security now than it did in the 1990s, when al-Qaeda plotted suicide plane attacks here and the MILF invited Jemaah Islamiah, a regional network, to train the bombers who went on to attack Bali in 2002. A handful of hard-core jihadists are in American crosshairs. One, Abdul Basit Usman, may have been killed in a recent drone attack in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Mopping up this mess will take more than firepower. Better governance is needed on poor islands such as Jolo, so that the law of the gun, jihadist or simply criminal, is less persuasive. That can start with aid programmes, such as the mobile veterinarians’, to win over disaffected Muslims. Protecting and influencing civilians is all the rage in counter-insurgency circles. Increasingly, says an American officer, AFP commanders “get it” and are committed to development as a way to win the war. This matters greatly, since American troops will eventually leave. Special forces in particular are in demand elsewhere.

Critics gripe that the AFP has been slow to finish off Abu Sayyaf because it wants American military aid to continue. That may be true. But a greater distraction from the campaign in Mindanao is the persistence of another, far broader insurgency. Ask a Filipino officer which group poses the gravest security threat and the answer is probably the communist New People’s Army, which has been fighting across much of the Philippines since 1969. America has not only to train its ally but also to convince it that jihadists are the real foe.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Winning Hearts and Minds in the Philippines

Posted by John M. Doyle at 2/8/2010 1:40 PM CST

The Jan. 30 issue of The Economist has an interesting -- and unexpected -- article about the success of the U.S. military mission in the Philippines started in 2002 to counter the rise of Islamist terror groups like Abu Sayaf.

Philippine regulations bar foreign troops from fighting on their soil, so the Armed Forces of the Philippines handle combat duties while Americans "keep busy with aid projects designed to woo locals in areas thick with militants," according to the British-based magazine. Meanwhile, insurgents numbers are down, the Philippine military is getting both counter-insurgency training and experience and the U.S. is reaping the public relations benefits with a minimal outlay of money and personnel.


U.S. Navy photo by Lt.j.g. Theresa Donnelly

The strategy is working according to the The Economist, which highlights the work of Lt. Col. Stephen Goldsmith, an Army veterinarian, who has been treating villagers' cattle, goats and poultry for malnutrition and parasites. In the photo above, Goldsmith -- assisted by an unidentified Army Special Forces soldier -- deals with an uncooperative goat in Sulu Province. Healthy livestock means a healthier economy and that makes insurgent recruiting tougher. The magazine says U.S. military thinkers are wondering if the experience of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines is applicable to other parts of the world facing insurgencies.

The U.S. mission isn't limited to agricultural assistance. At the request of the government in Manila, the JSOTF-P -- with less than 600 members -- partners with the Armed Forces of the Philippines on a number of humanitarian, engineering and educational projects. JSOTF-P personnel also advises Philippine military and police units on techniques like bomb detection and disposal. In the photo below, Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Jonathan Porter assists a dehydrated patient at an elementary school in Zamboanga. Last fall, the JSOTF-P assisted a Philippine armed forces unit in treating more than 1,000 patients over a three-day period.


Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class William H. Ramsey

Despite the successes -- 15 of 24 high value targets on a list of insurgent leaders have either been killed or captured -- an earlier Christian Science Monitor article notes that keeping things stable on the violence-wracked island of Mindanao and elsewhere in the Philippines could take years.

See more on counter-insurgency at my Blog: 4G WAR

http://4gwar.wordpress.com/

[buglerbilly]

'Irregular' Agenda

U.S. Navy Routinely Faces Myriad Global Challenges

By REAR ADM. PHILIP GREENE

Published: 15 February 2010

As the U.S. services continue to put boots on the ground in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, a host of "irregular" global maritime challenges continues to fester –– piracy; the smuggling of people, drugs and weapons; humanitarian and natural disasters; illegal exploitation of marine resources and environmental degradation in ungoverned spaces; proliferation of dangerous weapons; regional instability and crisis. This is what the U.S. Navy will continue to face.

These irregular challenges in a maritime context differ markedly from irregular threats on land. The challenges are not simply about conventional conflict versus counterinsurgency or even a mix of the two. It is more complex and ambiguous, with the seas serving as highways for a sweeping spectrum of transnational threats and challenges that honor no borders.

The irony for the Navy is that these irregular challenges are more akin to regular operations than they are to out-of-the-ordinary tasks. Indeed, what is often described as irregular warfare is actually part of the regular mission-set for the Navy.

With more than 12,000 sailors on the ground in the Central Command (CentCom) Area of Responsibility (AOR) engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan –– a commitment that taps into Naval Special Warfare/SEAL teams, Navy/Marine Corps explosive ordnance disposal experts, naval construction battalions/Seabees, and sailors augmenting joint forces ashore in provisional reconstruction teams, detainee operations and combat support –– the Navy has quietly been shouldering more of these "everything else" type of missions.

In fact, there are currently more sailors serving on the ground than there are sailors serving at sea within the CentCom AOR.

For the Navy, the ability to surmount irregular challenges flows from its engagement in traditional as well as novel naval missions and tasks conducted while forward deployed. For example, a guided-missile destroyer armed with anti-ballistic missile defense systems is fully capable of capturing pirates one day and rescuing migrants the other, all while remaining ready to protect the homeland, allies and friends from attack.

By repeatedly deploying to regions of interest to the United States, Navy forces develop a level of local knowledge and priceless expertise. Long-term relationships and partnerships are established and greater insights are gained into how local forces operate, train and are organized.

As the triservice Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower underscores, trust and cooperation cannot be surged.

The strategic value of on-scene and engaged naval forces is growing. For example, last October, an unprecedented 102 countries with 91 chiefs of services gathered at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., for the 19th International Seapower Symposium, which included for the first time admirals from Russia and Vietnam. The collective imperative coming from this meeting was a commitment for increased collaboration and engagement.

When the Navy routinely deploys to the Arabian Gulf, West Africa or Pacific Rim, for instance, these ships engage purposefully with local navies and coast guards and other maritime law-enforcement entities to enhance partners' security knowledge, skills and abilities.

Moreover, trust and cooperation-building is not solely focused on military forces. The Navy increasingly works closely with nonmilitary governmental and nongovernmental organizations, engaging in public diplomacy with local, regional and national leadership to safeguard maritime security. These engagements help local forces and government agencies carry out maritime security missions.

Much closer to home, the U.S. and international community's response to the horrific Haiti earthquake is underscoring the value of Navy general-purpose forces in emergencies. As a component of the nation's joint and interagency relief efforts, within just a few days the Navy had positioned an aircraft carrier embarking helicopters ready to shuttle supplies and equipment, four surface warships with helicopters embarked, three amphibious ships embarking hundreds of Marines, a hospital ship, a fleet oiler, an oceanographic ship and a cargo ship capable of offloading critical cargoes without port infrastructure.

As Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "we end up doing [these types of missions] with some regularity, but we obviously learn each time."

Working with Marine Corps and Coast Guard forces, Navy ships, aircraft and people help to achieve important strategic and policy objectives. In the context of irregular challenges, then, the U.S. Navy is indispensable for U.S. security force assistance in critical world regions, supporting development, diplomacy and defense, and ensuring the regular security of the global maritime commons. ■

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Philip Greene is director, Navy Irregular Warfare Office

[buglerbilly]

Vickers: U.S. SOF Need 'Armed ISR,' More Helos

By JOHN T. BENNETT

Published: 8 Mar 2010 17:00

ISR dissemination capacity and close air support provided by SOF gunships are among the "biggest capability and capacity shortfalls" of U.S. special operations command, says the Pentagon official who oversees all things SOF.

As well, "I'm very concerned about our ability to get armed ISR, rotary-wing lift and other critical enablers into the hands of our war fighters," Michael Vickers said in a March 4 interview.

Vickers, a former Army special operator and CIA operations officer, is the assistant U.S. defense secretary for special operations, low-intensity conflict (SO/LIC) and interdependent capabilities.

Vickers did not disclose details, but said Pentagon officials "are working to address each of these."

In his interview, Vickers joined the chorus of senior Pentagon leaders who, for months, have raised concerns about the size and state of the U.S. military's helicopter fleet.

"As we grow SOF ground forces and intensify operations in Afghanistan, it is essential that we grow our rotary-wing lift capacity," he said. "The high-mountain terrain and long distances in Afghanistan have placed an extra demand on the [CH-47 and MH-47 fleets], and created shortfalls in operational lift."

So defense officials have created new combat aviation brigades, improved asset management and tacked an MH-47 helicopter company onto the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

U.S. Special Operations Command is also upgrading its MH-47s, MH-60s and A/MH-6 helicopters. Its MH-47s are undergoing a service life extension program, promising extra time for the aircraft Vickers said has "become the workhorse for helicopter operations in Afghanistan."

Extra Funding Requested

The Pentagon's 2011 budget request seeks $6.3 billion for U.S. Special Operations Command, up 6 percent from this year. If approved by Congress, the increase would buy new gear; new intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets and upgrades for existing ISR equipment; training; and communications systems, according to DoD budget documents.

"DoD plans to call for SOF funding to continue to increase sharply over the next several years," said a summary of the 2011 defense spending that was included in the reams of documents sent to Congress Feb. 1.

Asked whether SOF will need that same level of annual spending for the next few years, Vickers said yes, then added, "It's a complicated question. It's both a question of capability and capacity."

First, he said, U.S. special operations needs sustainable growth.

Vickers said that SoCom chief Adm. Eric Olson has said SOF, "if directed, can grow sustainably at 3 percent to 5 percent a year," the assistant secretary said. "That does not mean you cannot exceed that in one year, but on average, that's what we're structured to provide."

The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review emphasized rotary-wing lift and intelligence assets, which Vickers called "the enablers."

"In this QDR, it was very important to focus on the neglected pieces in the 2006 QDR … which were really the enablers that allow sustained counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that we find ourselves in," he said.

Also getting a boost will be certain SoCom "organic combat service support" capabilities that are needed "for sustained operations so they're not having to get it from elsewhere in the force on a requisition basis," Vickers said. "That will provide a more sophisticated force over time; that growth is necessary, qualitatively."

The 2011 defense spending plan also calls for adding 2,800 new special operations personnel. Vickers said that, as with any mandated expansion of the military's elite corps, he worries SOF troop hikes will lower standards.

Will the Pentagon likely be forced to add even more special operators in coming years?

"SOF continues to be in very high demand around the world," he said, "so whether our planned growth will be sufficient remains to be seen."

More broadly, Vickers said he is pleased the QDR called for a number of steps to strengthen the military's ability to operate in future environments where foes will seek to prevent American forces from entering.

DoD officials, he said, are examining "the way ahead for long-range strike, both land- and sea-based."

Vickers predicted the Pentagon will boost funding in areas that will be key for future anti-access operations, including, "electronic warfare, advanced jam-resistant communications, computer network defense capabilities, and space survivability."

Some defense analysts and national security veterans have in recent weeks - after examining a beefy section of the 2010 QDR on anti-access threats - predicted such scenarios will help drive future budgetary and program decisions.

Peter Huessy, a defense and national security consultant, told a March 3 conference in Arlington, Va., "the major debate within the defense budget over the next five years will come" within anti-access portfolios.

[buglerbilly]

Commanders Tout Value of Training Indigenous Forces

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued March 17, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- The military’s increasing practice of training and equipping indigenous forces to counter terrorism in their home countries is a highly decisive, comparatively low-cost approach to fighting global terrorism, the commanders of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command said here today.

In their second day of testifying on Capitol Hill, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of Central Command, and Navy Adm. Eric T. Olson, head of Special Operations Command, told the House Armed Services Committee that the training and equipping of militaries in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere is money well spent.

“It’s a heck of a lot cheaper,” Petraeus told committee members, to fund and train Afghan forces in counterterrorism than it is to keep even a small contingent of U.S. forces there indefinitely.

“I think the lesson in the fight against extremism is that you have to put pressure on the transnational extremists wherever they are,” the general said. “You can’t do ‘whack-a-mole.’ If all you do is prevent Afghanistan from being the sanctuary that it was, then yes, we have to succeed in that and also have our Pakistan partners be the ones doing the fighting on the ground [in Pakistan].”

Meanwhile, Olson said, U.S. special operations forces “are engaged in low-level training in countries across the region in which our adversaries may move when they ultimately are forced out of Afghanistan.”

The Defense Department’s fiscal 2011 budget request would increase funding for special operations forces by 4.6 percent, allowing for the command’s continued training and equipping of foreign militaries while increasing troop strength and procuring new equipment, Olson said.

Olson outlined the way ahead for special operations, asking that Congress fully fund his baseline request of $6.3 billion and an additional $3.5 billion for overseas contingency operations. Special Operations Command, he said, synchronizes global operations against terrorist networks, supports plans formulated by regional commanders and makes recommendations to Pentagon leadership on funding allocations.

Of the command’s 12,000 forces, roughly 10,000 are deployed in the Central Command area, which covers Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader Middle East, Olson said.

If approved, the new budget would fund an additional 2,700 special operations forces, an increase of 4.6 percent, the admiral said. He noted that annual growth has averaged around 3 percent, “a strategy intended to retain the best while adding additional manpower only as it can be recruited, trained, absorbed, and deployed.”

Olson noted the increasingly specialized expertise of special operations forces.
“Central to our contribution are our career, multi-dimensional operators; individuals adept in defense, diplomacy, and development,” he said, noting that they often are locally grounded in their areas of responsibility, are diplomatically astute, and are experts in specialized tactical skills. “It is demanding work,” the admiral told the committee.

But the number of people who are both eager and qualified to serve as operators is limited, he added, and the command depends on the services to maintain recruitment and retention.

Special operations forces use both direct and indirect approaches to counter terrorism around the world, Olson explained. In the direct approach, forces capture, kill and interdict extremist networks and resources. “The direct approach is urgent, necessary and largely kinetic,” he said. “These effects, while significant in the short term, are not by themselves decisive.”

In the indirect approach, an authorization the command has had since 2005, special operations forces train and equip indigenous forces to take over the fight, Olson said. The authority is a “key tool for our widely dispersed and often-isolated special operations forces around the world,” he said.

The spending authority has resulted in many successful counterterrorist operations by allowing for “essential access” to locations, people and information, the admiral said.

“The enduring results come from indirect approaches – those in which we enable partners to combat extremist organizations themselves by contributing to their capabilities,” he said.

Direct and indirect approaches must be carefully balanced, Olson said. “While the direct approach is often necessary and has immediate impact, it essentially creates time for the indirect approach to achieve lasting outcomes through other means.”

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Interesting paper.................Is Aid effective in a COIN context?


SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Development aid is becoming an increasingly important tool to ‘win hearts and minds’ and promote stability in counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. Given its centrality to current COIN doctrine and strategy, there is still a surprisingly weak evidence base for the effectiveness of aid in promoting stabilisation and security objectives. The main purpose of this conference was to bring together leading academics, policymakers, military personnel and civilian practitioners to explore what evidence does exist. The conference participants were presented with the findings of recent field research conducted by academics on the relationship between aid and security, listened to military and civilian practitioners regarding their experiences implementing stabilisation projects, and heard from policymakers regarding the implications of the evidence for COIN and development policies. The interactive round table format was enhanced through collaborative computer technology.


SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Development aid is becoming an increasingly important tool to ‘win hearts and minds’ and promote stability in counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. Given its centrality to current COIN doctrine and strategy, there is still a surprisingly weak evidence base for the effectiveness of aid in promoting stabilisation and security objectives. The main purpose of this conference was to bring together leading academics, policymakers, military personnel and civilian practitioners to explore what evidence does exist. The conference participants were presented with the findings of recent field research conducted by academics on the relationship between aid and security, listened to military and civilian practitioners regarding their experiences implementing stabilisation projects, and heard from policymakers regarding the implications of the evidence for COIN and development policies. The interactive round table format was enhanced through collaborative computer technology.

Key Points

• Current Stabilisation Strategies Are Based on Entrenched and Often Questionable Assumptions.
Research findings presented at the conference questioned many of the assumptions underpinning COIN stabilisation strategies, including that: key drivers of insecurity are poverty, unemployment and/or radical Islam; economic development and ‘modernisation’ are stabilising; aid projects ‘win hearts and minds’ and help legitimise the government; extending the reach of the central government leads to stabilisation and development projects are an effective means to extend this reach; and the international community and the Afghan government have shared objectives when it comes to promoting development, good governance and the rule of law.

• The Implementation of COIN Doctrine has not Adequately Addressed Political Issues.
The research findings from Afghanistan highlight that many of the fundamental conflict drivers there are inherently political in nature, such as ethnic grievances and inter- and intra-tribal disputes. Indeed, many Afghans believe the main cause of insecurity to be their government, which is perceived to be massively corrupt, predatory and unjust. A COIN strategy premised on using aid to win the population over to such a negatively perceived government faces an uphill struggle, especially in a competitive environment where the Taliban are perceived by many to be more effective in addressing the people’s highest priority needs of security and access to justice. Without getting the ‘politics right’ both military and aid efforts are unlikely to achieve their desired effects.

• Effectively Designed and Delivered Development Aid Does Seem to Have Some Stabilisation Benefits at a Tactical Level, but Not at a Strategic Level.
Researchers and practitioners described ways in which aid had been used effectively to legitimise interactions between international forces and local communities (i.e., ‘to get a foot in the door’), which had proven useful in terms of developing relationships, and gathering atmospherics and intelligence. But these were relatively short-term transactional relationships, and there was little evidence of more strategic level effects of populations being won over to the government as a result of development aid. While there is ample evidence of development programmes having clear development benefits, for example the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) and the Basic Package of Health Services, there was little evidence of even successful development outcomes having major stabilisation benefits. Several critical questions remain, however. These include: whether aid in itself is unable to stabilise, or whether the current modalities for delivering aid to promote stabilisation are inappropriate; and, while development aid may not be effective at addressing the main causes of insurgency in the most insecure regions, whether aid could be effective at helping to consolidate stability in more secure areas.

• Less is Often More – Too Much Aid Can be Destabilising.
There was considerable consensus that Afghanistan cannot effectively absorb the large increases in aid spending earmarked for the insecure regions of the country. Too much aid money spent quickly with little oversight can be delegitimising and destabilising in many ways, including by: fuelling corruption; creating destabilising winner-loser dynamics in ethnically and tribally divided societies; supporting a lucrative war/aid economy that benefits insurgents, corrupt government officials and other malign actors; and creating perverse incentives among key actors to maintain the status quo of insecurity and bad governance. Having to spend large sums of aid money quickly also reduces the opportunities for prioritising the critically important processes of effective development, and instead focuses attention primarily on generating products. Historical evidence also suggests that the Afghan state’s rentier economy has politically destabilising consequences, as it reduces the government’s need to derive legitimacy from, or be accountable to, the citizens of Afghanistan.

• Aid Seems to be Losing Rather Than Winning Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan.
At a time when more aid money is being spent in Afghanistan than ever before, popular perceptions of aid are overwhelmingly negative. Despite the considerable work that has been done, including the expansion of basic social services, major investments in roads and other infrastructure, and a communications revolution, negative perceptions persist that little has been done, the wrong things have been done, what was done is poor quality, the benefits of aid are spread inequitably, and that much money is lost through corruption and waste. Research findings suggest policymakers should be cautious in assuming that aid projects help create positive perceptions of the deliverers of aid, or that they help legitimise the government.

• Strengthening provincial and district governance systems and fostering effective and transparent Afghan leadership which connects to Kabul is key.
Local governance is not a replacement for Kabul's leadership, but constitutes a key component in a social contract between the centre and periphery. In practice this means encouraging a more responsive and transparent state, promoting more merit-based appointment mechanisms, building social capacity along the lines of NSP, and addressing abuses of power that look inequitable to the population. Fostering quality Afghan leadership is also critical to a sustainable exit strategy.

Recommendations

• The Coalition Should Ensure COIN Doctrine is Evidence-based.
There is an urgent need to ensure that the new ‘population centric’ COIN strategy is evidence based, and does not continue to uncritically assume that development aid ‘wins hearts and minds’ and/or promotes stability. Priority should be given to assessing stabilisation effects of projects, rather than assuming impact based on amounts of money spent or the number of projects implemented. Greater emphasis should also be given to understanding drivers of conflict, as aid projects can only be effective in promoting stability objectives if they are effectively addressing the main causes of instability.

• Development and COIN Policies Should Acknowledge the Potentially Destabilising Effects of Aid.
There is a need for much greater awareness regarding the destabilising effects of aid in terms of creating perceived winners and losers, promoting a destructive war/aid economy, and fuelling corruption. There also needs to be greater recognition of the inadvertent role of aid donors (and not just aid recipients) in fuelling corruption when they provide money without adequate safeguards and oversight.

• Donors Should Prioritise and Strengthen Accountability Mechanisms to Minimise the Destabilising Effects of Corruption.
Civilian and military institutions should spend as much development aid as they can effectively and accountably, but no more. Spending money without adequate oversight will do more harm than good. Donors should therefore prioritise strengthening monitoring, evaluation and other oversight mechanisms to promote greater accountability and minimise risks of corruption. Incentive structures should also be created that reward quality and not just quantity, processes and not just products, and impact rather than just outputs.

• Donors Should Differentiate Between Stabilisation and Development Objectives and Funding Sources.
Donors should avoid setting development aid up to fail by expecting it to deliver on unrealistically ambitious stabilisation objectives for which it is not well-suited. Donors should differentiate between stabilisation funds, used for relatively small-scale and short-term projects designed to promote stability effects at a tactical level, and larger-scale and longer-term development aid projects designed to promote development objectives. The perceived imbalance in aid spending between insecure and secure provinces could be redressed by spending more development funds in relatively secure regions while continuing to spend stabilisation funds in less secure regions.

• An Afghanistan Trust Fund Should be Established.
Donors should consider establishing and contributing to an Afghanistan Trust Fund (or strengthening and expanding the scope of the existing Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund), which could take advantage of the current high levels of development resources being committed to Afghanistan, but would remove some of the pressures on donors and implementing partners to ‘use or lose’ their aid money. The pressure to spend too much money too quickly (i.e., to maintain ‘burn rates’) is having many harmful and destabilising effects, which could be mitigated by the establishment of a trust fund mechanism. This would allow development resources to be spent more accountably and effectively within more sustainable and realistic timeframes.

http://kingsofwar.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/WP1022-Final-Report.pdf

[buglerbilly]

Alexander Tikhomirov's life illustrates challenge radical Islam poses in Russia

By Philip P. Pan, Washington Post

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

MOSCOW -- He had been a bright but lonely child from a sleepy city near the Mongolian border, in a Buddhist region of Russia far from the nation's Muslim centers. But by the time he was killed last month, thousands of miles away in the volatile North Caucasus, Alexander Tikhomirov had become the face of an Islamist insurgency.

After two young women blew themselves up on the Moscow subway last week, killing 40 people in the city's worst terrorist attack in years, investigators said they suspected that Tikhomirov had recruited and trained them, and perhaps dozens of other suicide bombers.

How the schoolboy whom neighbors called Sascha became the tech-savvy militant known as Sayid Buryatsky remains a question wrapped in rumor and speculation. But the outline of Tikhomirov's journey from the Siberian steppes to the mountains of Chechnya provides a sense of the challenge that radical Islam poses in Russia and the speed with which the insurgency in the nation's southwest is changing.

In less than two years with the rebels, Tikhomirov became their most effective propagandist, drawing in young Muslims with his fluent Russian, colloquial interpretations of Islam and mastery of the Internet. When security forces gunned him down last month at age 27, the guerrillas immediately cast him as a martyr.

Even in death, he remains influential. The rebel leader Doku Umarov has vowed fresh attacks in the Russian heartland by the brigade of suicide bombers that Tikhomirov helped revive. And he remains a digital legend, with his writings and videos preserved on the Web and his DVDs sold outside mosques across the former Soviet Union.

Neighbors in Ulan Ude, capital of the Siberian province of Buryatia, remember Tikhomirov as an awkward boy from a troubled family. His father was Buryat, an ethnic minority related to Mongols, and died soon after he was born. His mother, said to be an ethnic Russian, struggled to make ends meet at a local market.

One resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of police scrutiny, said Tikhomirov's interest in Islam came after he was forced to drop out of high school and attend vocational school. Others traced it to a stepfather from the Caucasus.

But in a letter posted on a rebel Web site, Tikhomirov's mother said he was simply drawn in by a library copy of the Koran when he was 17. "That same year, he started to search for people who could tell him anything about Islam," she wrote.

Tikhomirov may have had an early brush with Islamic extremism and Russia's heavy-handed efforts to stamp it out. An Uzbek preacher named Bakhtiyar Umarov moved to his city about the time he converted, and Tikhomirov studied with him, acquaintances said. After Umarov caused a stir by trying to build a mosque, Russia deported the preacher to Uzbekistan, where he was jailed on charges of "terrorist propaganda." But his defenders insist that he is a moderate and could not have radicalized Tikhomirov.

In his late teens, Tikhomirov moved to Moscow, where he attended an Islamic college that the authorities later closed in a crackdown on suspected extremism. He then traveled to Cairo, where he studied Arabic and attended lectures by Muslim scholars, one of whom he cited years later to justify violence in the name of Islam.

In 2003, he returned to Moscow, telling friends that the Egyptian authorities had kicked him out for his religious activities. He took the Muslim name Sayid, calling himself Sayid Buryatsky.

But he seemed far from ready to join the rebels in the North Caucasus. Investigators say he took a job as a low-level assistant to the Russian Council of Muftis, which unites the nation's Muslim spiritual boards.

Suppressed by the czars and the Communists, Islam has enjoyed a fitful rebirth in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of the nation's estimated 20 million Muslims are ethnic minorities who adhere to a moderate branch of the faith. But radical views have made inroads, fueled by foreign proselytizers and frustration with state-backed spiritual leaders.

Acquaintances say Tikhomirov embraced a movement known as Salafism, which argues that Islam has been corrupted over the centuries and urges a return to the stricter practices of the earliest Muslims. The movement is popular among young Muslims in Russia, but the security forces often target its adherents as extremists.

Russia's traditional Islamic leaders have tried to steer young people toward moderate views, but a severe shortage of mosques, due in part to state limits, has made that difficult. In Moscow, six mosques serve as many as 3 million believers, the largest Muslim population of any city in Europe.

Aslam Ezhaev, director of an Islamic publishing house, said Tikhomirov voiced frustration with Muslim officialdom and eventually returned to Buryatia, where he took a job as a warehouse guard and offered to translate Arabic books for him.

Ezhaev suggested that Tikhomirov start a podcast for his Web site, Radio Islam. Tikhomirov proved be a talented preacher; his lectures were an immediate hit.

Ezhaev said he opposed violence and forbade Tikhomirov to discuss jihad. "It was easy for him to stay within the limits," he said. "I didn't see any signs of fanaticism."

On the Web, radicals criticized Tikhomirov for refusing to talk about Russia's brutal efforts to crush the insurgency in the Caucasus, where rebels in 2007 declared jihad to establish an Islamist emirate.

In the spring of 2008, Tikhomirov received a recruitment video from a senior rebel commander. "I considered it probably three or five seconds," he recalled in a video of his own, then concluded that God was challenging him to back up his sermons with action.

Because of his mixed ethnicity, he quickly became a powerful symbol for an insurgency trying to expand beyond Chechnya to the rest of the Caucasus. His sermons, which he filmed in combat gear, weaved scripture with sarcasm, striking a chord in an impoverished Muslim region brimming with resentment against the security forces.

Tikhomirov called the screams of injured enemies "music for the ears" and detailed his central role in the campaign of suicide bombings that began last summer with the revival of Riyad-us Saliheen, a brigade that once staged attacks across Russia.

"While I am alive," he wrote in December, "I will do everything possible so that the ranks of Riyad-us Saliheen are broadened and new waves of mujaheddin go on to martyrdom operations."

On March 2, when security forces surrounded him and other fighters in a village in Ingushetia, Tikhomirov recorded a final sermon on his mobile phone, officials said. The authorities recovered the phone, along with a 50-liter barrel of explosives.

[buglerbilly]

Gates Notes Convergence of Conventional, Irregular War

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued May 7, 2010)

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. --- As the Army moves forward, differences between conventional and irregular warfare are becoming less important, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told students and faculty during a speech at the Army Command and General Staff College here today.

“To some extent, much of the debate between low-end and high-end [warfare] misses the point,” Gates said. “The black-and-white distinction between conventional war and irregular war is becoming less relevant in the real world.”

Roughly 80 percent of the officers Gates addressed served in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they are uniquely qualified to lead the Army of the future, he said. The secretary was surrounded by reminders of Army heroes: He spoke at the Eisenhower Auditorium next to the MacArthur Room in the Lewis and Clark Building.

The U.S. military has overwhelming conventional military dominance over any potential adversary in the world, but experience has shown that isn’t enough, given the threats America faces, Gates said.

“Possessing the ability to annihilate other militaries is no guarantee we can achieve our strategic goals – a point driven home especially in Iraq,” he said. “The future will be even more complex, where conflict most likely will range across a broad spectrum of operations and lethality -- where even near-peer competitors will use irregular or asymmetric tactics, and nonstate actors may have weapons of mass destruction or sophisticated missiles.”

The Army is working to institutionalize the lessons learned from counterinsurgency operations, Gates said, but the students and faculty at the staff college also must be at the forefront of thinking ahead to future conflicts that will traverse that broad spectrum of operations.

“You must develop the analysis, doctrine, strategy and tactics needed for success in 21st century conflicts that are likely to be very different from 20th century conflicts – and different from conflicts we are in now,” he said. “You must continue to be the visionaries, the pathfinders, the intellectual cutting edge of the Army.”

The Army must modernize equipment for future conflicts and identify technologies that will continue U.S. military dominance, the secretary said. “Advances in precision, sensor information and satellite technologies have led to extraordinary gains that will continue to give the U.S. military an edge over its adversaries,” he told the students and faculty. “But no one should ever neglect the psychological, cultural, political, and human dimensions of war or succumb to the techno-optimism that has muddled strategic thinking in the past.” This is especially true for the Army and Marine Corps, which will lead – and bear the brunt of – irregular and hybrid campaigns in the future, he said.

Gates quoted Army Gen. Joseph “Vinegar Joe” Stillwell, the U.S. commander in the China, Burma, India theater in World War II, who said, “No matter how a war starts, it ends in mud. … It has to be slugged out. There are no trick solutions or cheap shortcuts.”

The secretary praised the Army and the staff college for adapting to the current wars. “Leaders here have learned and explored the latest technologies,” he said, “and are currently using the Web, social media and other tools to rapidly turn battlefield lessons learned into usable tactics, techniques and procedures.”

The staff college and the Center for Army Lessons Learned worked to develop the counterinsurgency doctrine under then-Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus. “It was used to great success during the surge in Iraq, and is helping guide our strategy in Afghanistan,” Gates said.

The Center for Army Lessons Learned is shouldering the herculean task of codifying and collating an enormous amount of information flowing in from the battlefield and around the world. This information then is distilled into products providing guidance on topics ranging from operations to counter roadside bombs to tribal customs. These products help to maintain U.S. combat leaders’ decision-making superiority over an adaptive and implacable enemy, the secretary said.

“Carrying that spirit of innovation forward, Army senior leaders have sought real-time feedback – online and off – on a range of issues including the spectrum of current operations, the Army’s force generation system and stress on the force,” Gates said.

The secretary stressed the responsibility the young officers have for the physical and mental health of the force.

“With regard to reducing the strain on soldiers and their families, we have made some headway but are not where we need to be,” he said. “At the height of the Iraq war, the Army was operating at roughly a 1-to-1 dwell time ratio [of time deployed to time at home station] for certain specialties, while others were deploying rarely, if at all. It was unsustainable.

“As you know, the Army has now set a goal of two years at home for one year deployed for the active duty, and four to one for the Guard and Reserve,” he continued. “Part of the solution is increasing the pool of soldiers available to deploy.”

Gates noted he authorized more soldiers and Marines, and he later authorized a temporary increase of more than 20,000 soldiers for the high-demand period.

“With this increase and our ongoing drawdown in Iraq, we have made strides towards the goal of 1-to-2, but we aren’t there yet,” he said. “In reality, the current strain will continue at least well into next year as the drawdown in Iraq is partially offset by the troop increase in Afghanistan, where a gradual transition to Afghan security responsibility will begin next summer.”

The increase in end-strength is only half of the picture, Gates said, as the Army is rebalancing billets and units within and between the active and reserve components.

“We are disbanding or reducing Cold War-era companies – for example, air defense in the National Guard – and standing up high-demand, low-density units like special operations, military police and others,” he said. “All told, the Army has undergone its largest organizational transformation since World War II, and has done so with 100,000-plus soldiers continuously deployed since the beginning of the Iraq war.”

Fighting the current wars is his highest priority, the secretary said, but close behind is the continuing care of those wounded and injured.

“This means ensuring they receive world-class medical, mental, and transitional support,” he said. “I remain concerned about soldiers’ outpatient care, which has again received some less-than-flattering reviews in recent weeks.”

Army leadership – especially Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. and Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli – are championing the Army’s efforts to care for those suffering from post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, as well as comprehensive suicide-prevention efforts and doing everything possible to address and reduce the disturbing increase in suicide rates.

But efforts from senior leaders are not enough, Gates said.

“As military leaders, you must care for your subordinates and make sure they have the information, resources, and skills they need to be successful soldiers and members of society,” he said. “Strong unit-level leadership is needed not just to prevent soldiers from ending their lives, but to open the door for them to seek help.” He urged the young officers to make this a visible and vocal priority in their organizations.

“We all have our part to play to end the stigma of seeking help for mental-health issues,” he said. “If someone is struggling with what they have seen in combat or adjusting to a home environment, it is your duty to give them the support they need.”

Gates encouraged the students “to keep the entrepreneurial and sometimes contrarian spirit that you have developed during your combat tours.”

“You have had unique learning experiences – from providing security for elections that determine the fate of nations to getting feuding groups to work together instead of killing each other,” he said. “You have learned how to restore infrastructure and services to places that desperately need them, and how to understand the strategic impact those improvements can have.

“You have been in deadly firefights, and you have seen your soldiers wounded and die,” he continued. “Now, you must incorporate all these experiences and lessons into your training cycle to institutionalize what you have learned – capabilities that will be critical to success in Afghanistan and other potential conflicts.”

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Petraeus Describes Changes in Army Structure, Doctrine

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued May 7, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- The Army’s conversion to a modular combat brigade structure in the years immediately preceding the surge of forces into Iraq was a key factor in the strategy’s success, the commander of U.S. Central Command said here yesterday.

“As I have noted on several occasions, the most important surge in Iraq was not the surge of forces,” Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said in a keynote address to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. “Rather, it was the surge of ideas that guided the employment of our forces in Iraq.”

Petraeus – who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq during the surge – received the Irving Kristol Award at the institute’s annual dinner and gala.

The general recounted the events and processes that led to the Army’s transformation from a division-centric to brigade-centric fighting force, noting that the modular-brigade concept changed the way forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Transformation is a part of the Army’s recent history that’s “near and dear” to his heart, Petraeus said. The period from 2005 to 2006, when brigade combat teams were equipped and manned to function more independently, he said, doesn’t receive the credit it deserves for the Army’s success in Iraq and progress in Afghanistan.

The surge proved critical to progress in Iraq, Petraeus said, however, he noted that the Army’s period of transformation pre-dated the surge. “Indeed, it was during this period that we developed the intellectual underpinning that proved so critical when additional forces were deployed to Iraq in 2007,” he said.

Without those ideas and new thinking about counterinsurgency operations, U.S. forces would not have been successful in the surge, Petraeus said. The efforts that institutionalized those ideas “touched all aspects of our Army” through a generational transformation, he added.

Much has changed in the way the Army operates on and off the battlefield, the general said, including doctrine, the way leaders are educated, how forces are trained, and how the Army builds on lessons learned. He also noted the Army’s shift from division rehearsal exercises prior to deployments to three-week tours by brigade combat teams to joint readiness training centers in California, Louisiana or Germany.

The Army worked tirelessly to provide realistic training for troops to prepare deploying units for the constantly evolving insurgent threats, he said.

All of the Army’s changes have “had far-reaching implications for the conduct in our operations in Iraq, and most recently, in Afghanistan,” the general said.

Petraeus also recognized servicemembers and military leaders for their commitment in putting those ideas into practice. He recalled how the coalition was struggling in Iraq in 2004. Despite some progress at that time, the insurgency still spread, and by 2006, sectarian violence began to grow at an alarming rate. Political progress in Iraq then was at a virtual standstill, he said.

When the surge of forces arrived in 2007, troops focused on securing the population by living near the communities in combat outposts, rather than commuting to the fight from larger bases, he said. Troops fostered reconciliation when possible, relentlessly pursued al-Qaida and supported civil-military efforts.

The increased number of troops and their training enabled success, he said. And although the mission in Iraq “got harder before it got easier,” the general added, coalition and Iraqi forces were able to reduce violence by more than 90 percent. Improved security allowed for infrastructure repairs, revival of the economy and the process of Iraqi elections – “all of which gave rise to new hope,” he said.

“This hope was created as a result of the changes our Army, together with the other services, made in 2006 that enabled the subsequent implementation of our big ideas in Iraq in 2007,” he said. “This was the process that enabled the real surge in Iraq – the surge of ideas. Armed with and trained on these ideas, leaders and troopers who got it about counterinsurgency deployed to Iraq and enabled the progress we’ve seen there over the past three years.”

War calls for constant learning and adaption, especially in a counterinsurgency fight, Petraeus said. But military leaders and servicemembers still have much to learn, he acknowledged.

“The side that learns and adapts the fastest often prevails,” he said.

(ends)

Casey Says Army Needs Counterinsurgency Capabilities

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued May 7, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said it is unfair that the press has portrayed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates as having to pressure the Army and its leaders to adopt counterinsurgency as a necessary capability.

“I spent 32 months in Iraq,” Casey said here yesterday during a Defense Writers’ Group breakfast. “I get it.”

The chief said that when he served as commander of the 1st Armored Division in 1999 to 2001, he thought that if a division could handle conventional war it could handle anything below it on the scale of conflict.

“After 32 months in Iraq, I don’t believe that anymore,” the Army Chief of Staff said. Casey said he now believes the Army has to posture itself and train to operate across the spectrum.

In 2008, he said, the Army came out with a new full-spectrum doctrine that said Army formations will simultaneously “apply offense, defense and stability operations to seize the initiative and achieve the desired results.”

“It is not an easy intellectual shift to move away from the idea that the Army is supposed to fight other armies,” Casey said. “It takes a decade to fully ingrain a doctrine in an organization the size of the Army.”

But, no one in the Army appears to be arguing with the need. “I don’t find there are a lot of dinosaurs out there that say, ‘We gotta go defeat the 8th Guards Tank Army [a major unit of the Red Army during the Soviet years],’” Casey said. “Most of the four-star generals in the Army have served in Iraq or Afghanistan. We understand it.”

Still, some critics say the Army is concentrating too much on counterinsurgency doctrine and is not paying attention to conventional warfare. Casey said that this is because the time between deployments for soldiers is still too short.

If soldiers get two years between deployments, they will get the chance to train for all aspects of conflict. Right now, it is important that they train for the missions that confront them now.

In the future, the scenarios will be even more different.

“They still won’t be your regular force-on-force scenarios like we had back when I was a brigade commander going to the National Training Center,” Casey said. “They will be hybrid threats. They will look more like southern Lebanon in 2006 than large armored formations. They will be a mix of conventional, irregular, [anti-]terrorist and [anti-]criminal capabilities. That’s the change.”

The next big push for the Army will not be organizational, but institutional, Casey said.

“We will be adapting all of our Army units to support an Army on a rotational cycle like the Navy and Marine Corps,” he said. “Before 2001, we were largely a garrison-based Army that lived to train, and the Guard and Reserve were a strategic reserve to be called on only for the Big One.”

But this decade has seen a huge change, he said. This is exemplified by the fact that half the soldiers in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve are combat veterans and those units are fully incorporated into the rotational model.

“We’re going back and we’re looking at each of the warfighting functions,” he said. “We’re looking at the mix of our force that’s available, the design of the forces and whether we have the right active component/reserve component mix in those functional areas. This is continuous.”

The Army will continue to work with the effects of the reorganization. “We converted all 300-plus brigades in the Army to a modular configuration,” he said. “That’s a lot of change. You don’t undertake something that sweeping without having these effects.”

Modularity is designed to allow the Army to put together divisional force packages to meet the needs of the commander on the ground, he said. A division may have four infantry brigades, but the mission it goes on may require a mix of two infantry brigades, a Stryker brigade and a heavy brigade.

Casey said that on the combat service support side of modularization, the service did go too far.

“We have de-aggregated our combat service support units to the point that it makes it very difficult for the battalion commanders to control those small units,” he said. “We’ve got to go back and reactivate that.”

A reporter asked the chief if the Army – even with plus-ups – is big enough. “We’re not big enough today to meet the demands at a sustainable deployment regime,” Casey replied.

The Army today has moved from a deployment cycle of one year deployed to one year at home station, to one year deployed to about 18 months home. “That’s not good enough to get the force where it needs to be,” he said.

As the drawdown continues in Iraq, the force will be large enough to meet a sustained demand of one corps, five divisions, 20 brigade combat teams and about 90,000 enabling forces – a total of about 160,000, the chief said. “We can do that on a sustained level of one year out, two years back,” he said.

The dwell time is important. “We just recently finished a study that told us what we intuitively knew: that it takes two to three years to fully recover from a one year combat deployment – it just does,” Casey said.

“I believe two years at home is an interim step,” he said. “We ultimately have to get to one and three, not one and two. As demand continues to come down I think we can get there.”

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Gates Orders Services To Adopt McChrystal's COIN Standards

By JOHN T. BENNETT

Published: 25 May 2010 11:07

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has directed the U.S. military services to adopt a set of counterinsurgency tools modeled after ones instituted in Afghanistan by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said a senior Pentagon official.

Gates on May 24 signed a directive ordering the services to "take McChrystal's COIN training and proficiency standards ... and adapt those for the whole force," Garry Reid, deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combat terrorism, told Defense News May 25.

The idea is to take the kinds of COIN training and "proficiency" standards that McChrystal, the top American general in Afghanistan, implemented there with his "AfPak Hands" program.

The "Hands" effort was formally launched last fall with the endorsement of Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen.

A Joint Staff fact sheet calls it a language and cultural immersion effort under which U.S. forces gain skills to help them carry out counterinsurgency missions. Military officials have made gaining the trust and support of local populations in Afghanistan a cornerstone of the ongoing allied mission there - AfPak Hands is aimed at bolstering that effort.

Gates wants the new military-wide training and proficiency standards to be "in line" with those used in McChrystal's "Hands" program, Reid said.

"Every service member needs some understanding" of the local population, culture and language "when they're going to be on the ground," he said during prepared remarks at an industry conference in Arlington, Va.

The memo instructs the Pentagon's top policy shop in coming months to develop the framework for the standards. It will then be up to the services, Joint Staff and other military components "to fill those out - as they would with anything else," Reid said.

Eventually, Reid told the conference, the COIN standards could be expanded.

"Ideally, we will [one day] have a global approach," he said, adding the standards might be amended to reflect "region-by-region" specifics.

[buglerbilly]

Olson: Counterinsurgency Ops Should 'Involve Countering the Insurgents'

By JOHN T. BENNETT

Published: 26 May 2010 12:59

The U.S. military's counterinsurgency tactics increasingly place too much emphasis on protecting local peoples and not enough on fighting enemy forces, said U.S. Special Operations Command chief Adm. Eric Olson.


U.S. Special Operations Command chief Adm. Eric Olson said counterinsurgency tactics increasingly place too much emphasis on protecting local peoples and not enough on fighting enemy forces. (YURI GRIPAS / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE)

While the U.S. military has adopted a population-focused strategy in Afghanistan, Olson said May 26 he "fears counterinsurgency has become a euphemism for nonkinetic activities."

The term is now to often used to describe efforts aimed at "protecting populations," Olson said during a conference in Arlington, Va.

The military's top special operator, in a shot across the bow of modern-day counterinsurgency doctrine proponents, then added: "Counterinsurgency should involve countering the insurgents."

Olson also made clear he thinks U.S. laws give him the authority to craft and implement doctrine for America's special operators.

Olson said doctrine is important for fighting wars, and "should be carefully written - but we should not fall in love with it."

In a blunt statement, Olson called "COIN doctrine an oxymoron."

That's because "almost none" of what the doctrine contains is "actually applied" during military operations, he said.

Olson pointed to parts of the current counterinsurgency doctrine that is based on U.S. military efforts in certain provinces of Iraq. Those tactics rarely apply anywhere in Afghanistan, he said.

"It is an imperfect template from which we must deviate," Olson said to a silent room.

His comments came 24 hours after Garry Reid, deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combat terrorism, told the conference that Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants the entire military to adopt counterinsurgency standards "in line" with those applied in Afghanistan by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces there.

Gates on May 24 signed a directive ordering the services and military components to "take McChrystal's COIN training and proficiency standards ... and adapt those or the whole force," Reid said.

The idea is to take the kinds of COIN training and "proficiency" standards McChrystal implemented there with his "AfPak Hands" program. The "Hands" effort was formally launched last fall.

A Joint Staff fact sheet calls it a language and cultural immersion effort under which U.S. forces gain skills to help them carry out counterinsurgency missions. Military officials have made gaining the trust and support of local populations in Afghanistan a cornerstone of the ongoing allied mission there - AfPak Hands is aimed at bolstering that.

Olson told Defense News the secretary's guidance must be implemented in a way that incorporates "a SOF flavor."

"There is a special operations flavor of COIN that is up to us to adjust to within the context of Gen. McChrystal and the secretary of defense's guidance," he said.

Olson also made clear whom he feels should write doctrine for the military's specops forces.

"Frankly," he said, "it is a legislative requirement for the commander of Special Operations Command to craft doctrine for special operations forces."

The previous day, Reid told Defense News the Pentagon's top policy directorate will draw up a "framework" for implementation of Gates' COIN guidance. But it will be up to the services, the Joint Staff, and all other military components "to fill those out - as they would with anything else."

[buglerbilly]

Al-Qaida Offshoot Grows in the Desert

June 07, 2010

Associated Press

GAO, Mali - Dozens of Malian troops rush through the sweltering desert, yell war cries and open fire, spitting hundreds of bullets from rifles and machine guns. It's all part of a training session - run by the United States.

The U.S. is trying to help nations bordering the Sahara and the arid Sahel region to contain a growing threat of terrorism. More than 200 U.S. Special Forces and 500 African troops trained together in May, in the latest of several large military maneuvers over the past few years.

Intelligence officers estimate there are some 400 Al-Qaida extremists based in the vast emptiness north of here, up from about 200 just a year ago. They worry that the militants are teaming up with smugglers carrying cocaine across the desert to Europe and with the restless nomad tribes of the Sahara.

As the extremists get stronger and wealthier, they are attracting more recruits among local youth and Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa. While Algeria's large military has managed to contain most terror attacks to the hinterland, militants have spread southward through the porous borders of the Sahara to take advantage of weaker African governments like Mali and Niger.

Officials fear the militants could use their safe havens to mount jihadi operations against Europe and the United States.

"You can consider they're only 400 in the desert, but they now dominate a zone half the size of Europe," says a French official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his job is to monitor the zone. "It's a threat everybody is taking very, very seriously."

----

A dust bowl of adobe mud houses surrounded by sand dunes, the small town of Gao lies at the junction between al-Qaida and organized crime. The Tuareg nomads pitch tents on the town's outskirts, along with Arab and Moorish Bedouins. The Peul, a black tribe of cattle herders, live in round, wooden huts right next to a gated hotel compound transformed into a U.S. military camp.

Gao, in northeastern Mali, marks the start of an area twice the size of Texas that has been declared a no-go zone, where al-Qaida is holding hostage two Spaniards and a Frenchman.

The northern halves of Mali and of neighboring Niger, the eastern part of Mauritania and the southern tip of Algeria are now "red zones" banned for travelers by the French Foreign Affairs Ministry, which maintains close ties to the region - a French colony until the 1960s. American and British authorities have also issued strong terrorism warnings.

Malian soldiers trying to patrol the area have lost several men during clashes with drug traffickers, arms smugglers, bandits and al-Qaida.

"The real problem is that it's getting hard to know who's an Islamist and who's just a criminal," said Col. Braihama Tagara, the military commander for Gao region. "They support each other more and more."

The gunmen's weaponry has improved hugely of late, Tagara said. They can open fire with automatic riffles, heavy machine guns and even R-Pgs, and they all have Thuraya satellite phones to share intelligence.

The growth in the terrorist footprint in North Africa dates back to 2006, when a local militant group, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, merged with al-Qaida. The new group took the name of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM. It operates much like a franchise from an international firm: AQIM has imported the techniques and "brand" of Osama bin Laden's network, and pays its dues by sending militants to fight U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For now, most of AQIM's violence has taken place outside Mali's borders, apart from the murder of an army colonel last year and a few random desert skirmishes.

The militants openly claim on jihadi websites they want to topple the government in Mauritania to create an Islamic caliphate. A suicide bomber tried to destroy the French embassy in Mauritania's capital, Nouakchott, last summer, and militants frequently clash with the Mauritanian army to Mali's west.

In Niger, to the east, AQIM attacked an army unit last winter, killing several soldiers.

AQIM's potency has also grown to the north, in Algeria, where a tourist guide was arrested this year because he planned to turn his group over to extremists. The vast area between the town of Tamanrasset and the Malian border was declared off limits by the Algerian military this year because of insecurity, and one official said police had thwarted a plan to kidnap tourists even within the town.

The American military presence in Gao and other desert towns has become so frequent that many Malians believe the U.S. wants to establish permanent Sahara bases to track terrorists. American officials deny this, saying they offer Mali training and military gear to help it maintain its own security.

----

To the north of Gao is al-Qaida's main desert base, set in mountains near Terargar. The fact that AQIM can run a training camp and resupply base in broad daylight highlights how little control local authorities have over northern Mali, Western intelligence officials say.

Many, interviewed on condition of anonymity, suspect there is a sort of "pact of nonaggression" between Mali and AQIM: Malians don't try to dislodge al-Qaida, and in turn the militants avoid directing their attacks on Mali.

Local authorities deny this is taking place.

"The government does what it can, but the challenge is just so huge," says Assarid ag Imbarcaounane, the deputy speaker of Mali's national assembly and a close ally of the country's president.

Some officers might, "on a case-by-case basis," be bribed into ignoring AQIM or the traffickers, Imbarcaounane said. But most troops and police are simply no match for the forces they encounter, said the lawmaker for Gao district. He said there are only a couple of hundred troops and police to monitor all of Gao's administrative district, a barren area the size of Florida.

This is also the hub for a thriving trade in cocaine, flown in from South America. Intelligence officials say the trade has soared to between 50 and 100 metric tons of drug last year, from tiny quantities a decade ago.

Nobody thinks al-Qaida has cornered the Sahara cocaine trade. But most suspect AQIM gets "protection money" for letting the caravans drive by unharmed, or rents out bases like Terargar for resupply. Officials also believe AQIM militants are increasingly "freelancing" as bodyguards hired by the cartels to protect drug shipments from rival traffickers.

Intelligence officials say the militants often get paid in kind - weapons and ammunition - rather than cash.

The militants are organized in "Khatibat," or units, headed by the "Emir of the South," an Algerian man known as Abou Zeid, or Mossab Abdelouadoud. He is viewed as a disciplined radical with close ties to AQIM's overall boss in northern Algeria, Abdelmalek Droukdel.

The south's former chief, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was the first AQIM chief to move into the desert some six years ago. Known as "the one-eyed sheik" because he fought in Afghanistan and lost an eye in combat, Belmokhtar married into the ruling family of the Berebiche, one of the region's nomadic tribes.

Intelligence officials say Belmokhtar essentially built a bridge between AQIM and the underworld, creating a system where various blends of outlaws now support each other and enroll local youth.

The Tuareg are the best armed and disciplined nomads, the overlords of the desert, and they have never been considered close to Islamists. But some Tuareg from the younger generation now work for the drug runners, thus coming in contact with AQIM militants.

Tribal chiefs insist they do everything to prevent the AQIM-drug connection from growing. But the nephew of a prominent Tuareg chief, for instance, has been detained in Algeria with a drug shipment.

A video filmed by the Malian army and viewed by The AP shows the outlaws' power. The footage shows a column of half-a-dozen solid 4-by-4s driving cross country at breakneck speed. Several of the cars are mounted with 12.7 heavy machine guns and all the men on board are heavily armed.

Algeria, the regional powerhouse, has created with its neighbors a joint military command headquarters in Tamanrasset. A key challenge is hostage taking, which has soared since 2003.

"It's triggered a real 'kidnap economy' in areas where there are so few other resources," says Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, Mali's former defense minister and intelligence chief.

Rather than kidnapping people themselves, AQIM militants usually just buy hostages from other gunmen or tribes. Boubeye Maiga and others say militants pay a minimum of 70,000 euro per Western tourist, as long as the hostage isn't taken in Mali - so as not to antagonize their host country.

Austrians, Swiss, Italians, Spaniards and two Canadian envoys from the United Nations have been kidnapped in recent years all across the region, and then held in northern Mali.

Malian and Algerian officials say all were released for millions of dollars in ransom, except a Briton, Edwin Dyer, who was beheaded last June. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the killing "a barbaric act of terrorism" but insisted Great Britain never paid ransoms.

France also says it didn't pay for Pierre Camatte, a Frenchman kidnapped near Gao last year. But his rescue, secured during a trip to Mali by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, came after Malian police released four jailed AQIM militants in February.

Another Frenchman, Michel Germaneau, has since been abducted in Niger. He is held by AQIM in Mali, along with two Spanish aid workers, Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta, who were taken in Mauritania in November.

The most worrying sign of the militants' rise is that so many tribesmen are now willing to find Westerners for sale, many officials say. Tribal chiefs, often the only real form of local authority in the stateless desert, all say they are bent on preventing their disgruntled followers from helping AQIM. But most Tuareg live on a pittance compared with the tens of thousands of dollars that a single drug shipment or kidnapping can bring.

"The Tuareg have absolutely nothing to do with al-Qaida," says Bajan Ag Hamatou, the Amenokal, or king, of a powerful Tuareg confederation based around Menaka, an area just east of Gao. "But what can chiefs do when the young have no jobs and no camels?"

Hamatou, whose family has ruled with absolute power for centuries, is seeing authority slip through his hands. Though he won't openly admit it, the Amenokal now sees rival power brokers rising in the desert: the men doing business with al-Qaida and with cocaine.

"It's very worrying, because the drug money and the Islamists are polluting everything," Hamatou warned. "When you spend your time making money with al-Qaida, you end up thinking like them.

Like all other Malian officials, Hamatou says the U.S. military has given more than training and gear, sometimes delivering GSP grid coordinates to direct patrols or attacks. Lt. Col. Joseph Duncan, the commander of Special Ops. Task Force 103, which deployed 100 Special Forces to train the Malian army, denies this - or says he's not aware of it.

But Mali still needs more help, says Hamatou, who also sits in Mali's parliament and is the deputy chief of the country's defense commission.

If U.S. and European forces don't help hunt down AQIM, he worries, "it's going to become much, much worse than just a few kidnappings."

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