Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Revisiting the Case for the Iraq War

Introduction
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."
- Daniel Patrick Moynihan
If two people have all the facts, and still disagree with one another, that's okay. Conversely, those same two people espousing passionate views (particularly ones about which they get extremely sententious) based upon flawed information is cause for legitimate frustration. One would be hard-pressed to present a modern political issue about which more flawed information has been bandied about than an international coalition's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Perhaps it is not surprising that the decision remains so controversial. Even the Second World War, which most consider to be wholly uncontroversial, is still subject to debate and interpretation. For those who, like this author, were firmly ensconced in a military community around the time of 9/11, Iraq counted as America's most pressing example of unfinished business. After 9/11, many within the same community believed that the time to settle that business had come.

After what seemed like a spectacular coalition campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and after months of tension, an international coalition invaded Iraq in March of 2003. When the dust settled, the expected stockpiles of illicit weapons failed to materialize. Rhetoric about "intelligence failures", presidential dishonesty, "exit strategies", and an overall narrative of a mistaken invasion began to percolate. President Bush and his associates were excoriated, the 2004 election was hard-fought, and then-Senator Obama made his disapproval of the Iraq War a centerpiece of his successful 2008 presidential campaign.

For more than a decade now, despite one scrap of evidence here, or another shred of data there, those who supported the Iraq War gave up on trying to convince anyone that the catch phrases about "intelligence failures" and "mistakes" were unfounded. For years on end, it seemed that the debate wasn't worth having. However, with ISIS/DAESH rampaging throughout the Middle East, continuing chaos in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and renewed debates over the use of military force in Iraq - in 2003 and now in 2015 - the issue is worth revisiting. This discussion shall attempt to cut through the mountains of blather and bluster that have mounted in the decade-and-change since the Bush Administration began making a case for regime change in Iraq.

Revisiting the Case for Intervention

The bulk of the case for invading Iraq was made by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations Security Council in February of 2003. That case leaned heavily upon evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs, though many forget that this issue was set within the wider context of Iraq's record of terrorism sponsorship. You can read Secretary Powell's February 2003 address to the Security Council here, or watch the entire video here. Secretary Powell's remarks were divided up into the following topics: Denial and Deception, Biological Weapons, Chemical Weapons, Nuclear Weapons, Delivery Systems, Terrorism, and Human Rights Violations. For the sake of discussion, it is best to save the first topic until last.

Biological Weapons

Did the Hussein Regime retain biological weapons? Yes.

The Iraq Survey Group/Duelfer Report concluded that the Hussein Regime's intelligence apparatus, the Mukhabarat, maintained covert, small-scale laboratories until 2003 with the intent of producing toxins for use in assassinations. Although CNN reported in 2003 that mobile labs had been located in Iraq, a report in June of that year claimed that the mobile labs were not involved in biological weapons research. In 2003, weapons inspectors identified multiple vials of biological weapons precursors, including botulinum toxin, in an Iraqi weapons scientist's home refrigerator. While Iraq's pre-2003 biological weapons program was limited, it had not been entirely dismantled as required by both treaties and U.N. resolutions; instead, it was being kept in storage for future development.

Chemical Weapons

Did the Hussein Regime retain chemical weapons? Yes.

The bulk of the Hussein Regime's WMD arsenal consisted of chemical weapons, and these were used against both Iranian and Iraqi targets in the 1980's. While the Hussein Regime destroyed portions of this arsenal, many chemical rounds were found by both search teams and regular units after the 2003 invasion. Below are a mere handful of examples:

  • Fox News, 17 May 2004: Sarin, Mustard Gas Discovered Separately in Iraq
  • Fox News, 22 June 2006: Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq
  • New York Times, 03 December 2014: Chemical Weapons in Iraq: Revealing the Pentagon's Long-Held Secrets
  • New York Times, 14 October 2014: The Secret U.S. Casualties of Iraq's Abandoned Chemical Weapons
  • New York Times, 14 October 2014: U.S. Intelligence Documents on Chemical Weapons Found in Iraq
  • New York Times, 16 February 2015: C.I.A. Is Said to Have Bought and Destroyed Iraqi Chemical Weapons

    Nuclear Weapons

    Did the Hussein Regime retain a nuclear weapons program? Yes.

    Iraq never developed a nuclear weapon, but its research reactor at Osirak was famously destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Operation Opera in 1981. However, Iraq maintained a nascent nuclear program, retained a variety of materials and infrastructure, and sought additional materials with the intent of eventually reconstituting its program.

  • CNN, 26 June 2003: Nuke program parts unearthed in Baghdad back yard
  • Slate (Christopher Hitchens), 13 July 2004: Plame's Lame Game: What Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife forgot to tell us about the yellow-cake scandal
  • Belgravia Dispatch, 27 June 2004: Joe Wilson: A Botched Niger Mission?
  • Slate (Christopher Hitchens), 08 October 2004: The Buried Truth: A new book shows that Saddam didn't have nuclear weapons—yet
  • Global Security: Al Qa Qaa General Establishment
  • AP, 16 January 2004: IAEA confirms yellowcake found in Rotterdam likely from Iraq
  • CIA, 14 April 2007: The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam’s Nuclear Mastermind
  • AP, 05 July 2008: Secret U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq
  • AP, 05 July 2008: AP: Report: Uranium Stockpile Removed From Iraq in Secret U.S. Mission
  • AFP, 07 July 2008: Iraqi uranium transferred to Canada
  • American Forces Press Service, 07 July 2008: Defense Personnel Transport Uranium Ore Out of Iraq

    British intelligence services, and later President Bush in the form of the now infamous "Sixteen Words", claimed controversially that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Ambassador Joe Wilson controversially disputed these accusations, while numerous journalistic investigations dismissed his claims. In the United Kingdom, the Butler Review investigated the basis of the claims made by British intelligence reports and determined that they were justified. At very least, this issue remains unsettled despite the controversy it caused in 2003.

    It is worth noting that while the Iraq Survey Group and its product, the Duelfer Report, are often considered an authoritative source, investigation was ongoing when the report was issued, and additional evidence was subsequently found. (There has also been conjecture since 2004 that Russian special forces may have assisted Hussein in evacuating arms from Iraq.)

    It is often noted, and with some accuracy, that many or even most of these illicit weapons or materiel were leftovers from the Iran-Iraq War. It is much less accurately claimed (link/link) that most of Iraq's arsenal was supplied by the United States. The latter claim is mostly nonsense; while the United States supplied Iraq with a handful of dual-use technologies and participated in the Tanker War phase of the Iran-Iraq War on the side of the Gulf's Arab states, the vast majority of Iraq's conventional and unconventional arsenal was supplied by the Soviet Union. The former claim is simply a distraction: Iraq was required by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, to include Resolution 687 (which ended the 1991 Gulf War), to destroy its stocks of biological and chemical weapons; to dismantle or destroy its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons infrastructure, materiel, and precursors; and to verify compliance. Instead, Iraq retained substantial, albeit poorly maintained, WMD infrastructure, materiel, and precursors, which were found after the invasion. These supplies could have eventually been reconstituted into a significant WMD program had the Hussein Regime survived long enough to emerge from the international sanctions regime.

    Delivery Systems

    Did the Hussein Regime retain unauthorized delivery systems? Yes.

    The Hussein Regime retained, and post-invasion weapons inspectors recovered, al Samoud 2 missiles that were capable of striking at ranges that exceeded those authorized by the United Nations. Iraq also possessed a nascent - in fact, apparently infantile - UAV program. A 2004 article in The Economist entitled "Still not found" notes that inspectors also found plans to develop home-grown medium range ballistic missiles, and to purchase them from North Korea or Russia. The take-away from this, as with so many other questions about the pre-war intelligence, is that it was Iraq's responsibility to be transparent to the inspectors, and speculation that Iraq had retained an illicit stockpile of medium range ballistic missiles was reasonable.

    Some mention should be made of the "45 Minute Claim", which spurred great controversy in the United Kingdom. The 45 Minute Claim is now considered to be either inaccurate or questionable, but two additional points should be considered. The first is that media hype about this claim omitted observations that this was believed to be the case under battlefield conditions, rather than a spur of the moment capability. Second, these questions and inaccuracies - among others - must be considered in the context of Iraq's rigorous counterintelligence efforts, which shall be discussed presently.

    As the overarching concern was the Hussein Regime's support of terrorists, and terrorists' use of ballistic missiles and UAVs was not an issue of great concern in 2003, perhaps less attention should be paid to the issue of delivery systems. (In fact, terrorists detonating chlorine gas bombs in Iraq, and various insurgent groups fighting in the Syrian civil war, have demonstrated that delivery systems are not required to use chemical weapons effectively.) However, this non-compliance should merely be considered additional evidence of the Hussein Regime's non-compliance with international law.

    Terrorism

    Did the Hussein Regime support international terrorism? Yes.

    Hussein's ties to international terrorism are somewhat confusing. Let's establish one thing up front: Saddam Hussein was openly supporting Palestinian terrorist groups, and was providing sanctuary to such infamous terrorists as Abu Nidal. There is no question that the Hussein Regime was openly sponsoring international terrorism, and there is no question that the Iraq War was about more than al Qaeda. The Bush Administration stated very openly that the purpose of the Global War on Terror was to deter any state around the world from sponsoring any terrorist group.

    However, much of the post-invasion rhetoric centered around the Hussein Regime's connection or lack thereof to al Qaeda, and the question of Iraqi involvement in the 9/11. As the Weekly Standard reported in 2003, there do appear to have been efforts by both parties to investigate the possibility of cooperation with one another. The infamous al Qaeda operative, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, is still generally accepted to have spent a significant amount of time in Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion, and subsequently led al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate. With respect to an Iraqi connection with 9/11, the Bush Administration never claimed any such connection, only that they were investigating the possibility of such collusion.

    A more general myth about terrorism and terrorist groups should also be dispelled. A myth exists that terrorist groups and rogue states only work together when they're in lock step with each other's ideology. This is absurd, absolutely and verifiably false. For example, Iran cooperates with Sunni terrorist groups on a regular basis, to include al Qaeda and the Taliban. The Hussein Regime was no different, and although it was a quasi-secular Baathist regime, Hussein had spearheaded an Islamization campaign in the 1990's in an attempt to legitimize his rule. Terrorist groups and state sponsors of terrorism enact pragmatic shifts in their allegiance, so the idea that a quasi-secular Iraq and an aggressively Islamist al Qaeda could have never cooperated with one another is simply false. While this doesn't prove an operational link, it eliminates one of the more frustrating arguments pertaining to the Iraq War.

    Iraq most certainly maintained links with international terrorist groups. While an operational link to al Qaeda may be questionable, the Bush Administration's justification for invading Iraq was bigger than al Qaeda. Furthermore, the question about Iraq's WMD programs were all couched in this question of state sponsorship of terrorism: the international discourse hinged upon the potential for Saddam Hussein to work with international terrorist groups to carry out attacks with WMDs (which he retained, as discussed above). This broader context is often lost in the blather and bluster.

    Human Rights

    Did the Hussein Regime violate human rights? Yes.

    Even those who opposed the invasion usually refrain from disputing the Hussein Regime's human rights record - the worst one is likely to hear is that maybe Iraq's current situation proves that it required a brutal dictator like Saddam Hussein to hold it together. Of course, many disagree about whether or not that was justification to invade. In light of the Iraq War and other recent conflicts, some commentators have come to question the legitimacy of human rights violations as a casus belli. This question has taken on new prominence relative to the more recent conflicts in Libya and Syria, as both conflicts have inspired rhetoric about a nebulous "Responsibility to Protect", or "R2P". What one should take interest in is the idea that those who made the case for war were so worried that the American electorate and the international community at large might be so lukewarm to the other elements that swaying them with human rights issues was required in the first place.

    Denial and Deception

    Did the Hussein Regime maintain a denial and deception campaign? Yes.

    The very first topic Secretary Powell discussed at the United Nations Security Council was the elaborate counterintelligence effort that the Hussein Regime maintained in order to maintain what has might be called "strategic ambiguity" (comparable to Israel's "nuclear ambiguity" posture). Approximately the first half of Secretary Powell's remarks focused on this issue, and he essentially argued that while the remainder of his presentation represented the best available intelligence on Iraq's WMD capabilities, Iraq's aggressive deception efforts made it difficult to discern the degree to which it was a threat to the international community. As the following items demonstrate, this deception regime was deliberate.

  • CNN, 02 July 2009: FBI interviews detail Saddam Hussein's fear of Iran, WMD bluff
  • Washington POst, 02 July 2009: Saddam Hussein Said WMD Talk Helped Him Look Strong to Iran
  • Al Jazeera, 03 July 2009: Saddam 'feared Iran more than US'

    Much has been made of the apparent failures of Western intelligence agencies to accurately assess Iraq's illicit weapons programs, and these concerns are as legitimate as they are overstated. The delta between those estimates and Iraq's actual holdings can and should be considered in light of Iraq's dedicated counterintelligence program. These deception efforts - inspired by the Hussein Regime's self-confessed prevailing fear of Iran - were highlighted in Secretary Powell's February 2003 address to the UNSC.

    To review: Iraq was involved in an elaborate, deliberate denial and deception campaign, in contravention of U.N.S.C. resolutions. Iraq had retained small but significant amounts of WMD munitions and precursors, in contravention of U.N.S.C. resolutions. Iraq did illegally retained and was carrying out research on illicit delivery systems. The Hussein regime was poised to reconstitute these capabilities, in contravention of U.N.S.C. resolutions. Iraq was openly and unapologetically supporting international terrorism. The Hussein Regime was systematically violating its citizens human rights. The Hussein Regime's denial and deception efforts led international intelligence agencies to incorrectly estimate the regime's capabilities, but on each and every point, the Hussein Regime was in material violation of one or more U.N.S.C. resolutions or international laws. Those violations alone constituted legal justification for the invasion.

    Additional Considerations

    Setting the record straight on the case made in the Security Council, and other details of the casus belli, is important. However, these are not the only factors that one must consider.

    The Role of Intelligence

    In discussion of the accidental success of Iraqi counterintelligence efforts, and the accidental failure of Western intelligence collection, mention must be made of the role that intelligence actually plays in the formulation of policy. Owing perhaps to Westerners' love for courtroom, law enforcement, and medical dramas, there seems to be a perception that intelligence dictates policy in a manner similar to the way in which forensic evidence dictates guilt or innocence, or medical tests lead to an ironclad diagnosis and treatment. Many opine that since the intelligence estimate about Iraq's illicit weapons was not accurate, the justification for invasion was wholly undermined. This is not the case. Instead, intelligence informs policy decisions, along with a variety of other factors. The coalition invaded Iraq based in part - but not entirely, as shall be discussed presently - upon the worst case scenario one could derive from the available evidence, in concert with a paradigm shift in international security risk calculations caused by the 9/11 attacks. Noted David Kay, one-time head of the Iraq Survey Group:
    "Based on the intelligence that existed, I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Now that you know reality on the ground as opposed to what you estimated before, you may reach a different conclusion - although I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."
    Strategic Considerations

    The myopic focus on illicit weapons distracted most in the international commentariat from the invasion's wider context. Many books have been written on politics in the Islamic world in the preceding century, so only a brief overview can be offered here. However, for all of the frustration over the nebulous (and possibly non-existent) links between the Hussein Regime and al Qaeda, Iraq played a significant role in the formation and expansion of al Qaeda in the 1990's.

    Osama bin Laden and many of his closest associates famously learned the art of guerrilla warfare as "Arab Afghans", fighting as an adjunct to native insurgents against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. (Actually, bin Laden's involvement was reportedly as a financier and logistician, rather than an actual fighter.) In 1990, shortly after bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia, Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading bin Laden to meet with the Saudi defense minister. As recounted in a 2001 New York Times article:
    Shortly after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990, Osama bin Laden approached Prince Sultan bin Abdelaziz al-Saud, the Saudi defense minister, with an unusual proposition. Mr. bin Laden had recently returned from Afghanistan, heady with victory in the drive, backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States, to expel the Soviet occupiers.

    As recounted by Prince Turki bin Faisal, then the Saudi intelligence chief, and by another Saudi official, the episode foreshadowed a worrying turn. Victorious in Afghanistan, Mr. bin Laden clearly craved more battles, and he no longer saw the United States as a partner, but as a threat and potential enemy to Islam.

    Arriving with maps and many diagrams, Mr. bin Laden told Prince Sultan that the kingdom could avoid the indignity of allowing an army of American unbelievers to enter the kingdom, to repel Iraq from Kuwait. He could lead the fight himself, he said, at the head of an group of former mujahedeen that he said could number 100,000 men.

    Prince Sultan had received Mr. bin Laden warmly, but he reminded him that the Iraqis had 4,000 tanks, according to one account.

    "There are no caves in Kuwait," the prince is said to have noted. "You cannot fight them from the mountains and caves. What will you do when he lobs the missiles at you with chemical and biological weapons?"

    Mr. bin Laden replied, "We fight him with faith."

    The conversation ended soon afterward, and the proposal was left to rest. But Saudi officials now say that the episode offered an early glimpse of several of the forces the kingdom would spend the rest of the decade trying to contain.
    While one could make the argument that the Iraq War demonstrates the potential lethality of one hundred thousand mujahideen fighters, most would acknowledge that the idea of mounting such a defense against the Iraqi army's brutality - in lieu of the international coalition that eventually protected Saudi Arabia and liberated Kuwait - represented delusion on bin Laden's part, and would have amounted to gross negligence on the part of the Saudi government had they followed bin Laden's advice. This infuriated bin Laden and his associates, as did the persistent Western presence in the "Land of the Two Holy Mosques" after the Gulf War's conclusion. Among many in the Islamic world, this Western presence lent legitimacy to bin Laden's denunciations of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and their allies, and subsequently assisted al Qaeda with recruiting and fundraising.

    However, Iraq's long record of attacking its neighbors, and the survival of the Hussein Regime following the Gulf War, precipitated a prolonged Western presence in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Gulf. In addition to all of the direct concerns about Iraq itself, the United States could not undermine bin Laden's arguments while American troops remained in Saudi Arabia, and American troops could not withdraw from Saudi Arabia while Baathist Iraq was still a threat. Thus, part of an overall effort to undermine support for al Qaeda drove the reduction of the American military footprint in Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East, which itself required that the persistent issue of Iraq be addressed.

    For lack of a better opportunity to mention it, one should also consider a frequent talking point: that "the Iraq War was the right war at the wrong time, and if Hussein was going to be removed it should have been in 1991". This position is understandable, but it ignores history: the 1991 coalition's objective, as outlined by the United Nations, was to reverse the annexation of Kuwait. International support for the 1991 Gulf War was predicated upon the sanctity of Kuwaiti sovereignty, and any attempt to enact regime change by force of arms would have undermined support for the campaign and set a precedent that few nations were willing to support.

    There are a variety of other strategic factors that are virtually ignored in the international dialogue about the Iraq War. However, these items should at least raise questions about other strategic factors that played a role in the decision to go to war, but have not been extensively discussed.

    Success and Failure

    Finally, there is a profound difference between whether the coalition's actions were justified, and whether the coalition's operations were successful. Unfortunately, these issues are often conflated, as those who opposed the invasion in the first place felt justified in their opposition when the campaign went so badly.

    One could point to a veritable encyclopedia of failures that undermined the coalition's efforts in Iraq. A mere sampling of these include the following:

  • The campaigns in both Afghanistan and Iraq were informed by Democratic Peace Theory, which has fallen into disrepute largely because of its failure to achieve acceptable results in either conflict.
  • The campaign in Iraq was planned largely as a repeat of the 1991 Gulf War, utilizing advances in information technology, precision strike capabilities, and other technologies driven by the "Revolution in Military Affairs" - these being encapsulated in the buzz phrase "Shock and Awe". Military planners, particularly those in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army, expected that the invasion would showcase the decisive potential of "Shock and Awe"; instead, RMA was largely discredited by its performance in Iraq.
  • A variety of serious complications arose from the DoD's failure to formulate plans in accordance with the Iraqi social, cultural, and sectarian dynamics.
  • Much has been made of the coalition's decision to disband both the Baath Party and the Iraqi military. Such denunciations are typically made with the benefit of hindsight, and seldom if ever do they include alternative courses of action that could have been followed. Regardless of these observations, the transition plan for the Iraqi government was inadequate, and poorly executed.
  • While many American troops had received training in peacekeeping prior to 2003, the DoD discontinued the development of doctrine and provisions for training in counterinsurgency and stability operations after the Vietnam War. As a result, American troops found themselves trained and equipped for a repeat of Desert Storm, leaving them untrained and unequipped for the type of operations in which they found themselves engaged after roughly June of 2003.
  • Much has also been made of the size of the force tasked with overthrowing the Iraqi Baath regime, and General Eric Shinseki's assertion prior to the war that postwar operations would require several hundred thousand troops (in contrast to the 145,000 troops that invaded Iraq in 2013). This remains a controversial issue, and the reasons for the actual invasion force - discussed in 2007 by several retired American generals - were equally compelling. Again, the question of what those 145,000 troops were doing once they got to Iraq, rather than simply how many of them there were, must also be considered.

    Many of these shortcomings were addressed, albeit at a painfully slow pace. The early 2007 appointment of General David Petraeus as Commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq, the introduction of the Counterinsurgency Field Manual - flawed though it was - and the now-infamous "surge" of combat troops to capitalize upon the diminished legitimacy of various insurgent groups, led to a dramatic decline in violence in Iraq by 2009. The bulk of American troops were withdrawn with some controversy in late 2011, and Iraq continued to look like a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat until the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2013 and 2014. (Even today, debate continues as to whether responsibility for the rise of ISIS/DAESH rests on the shoulders of the Bush Administration, or whether these developments can be attributed to the Obama Administration's inaction on the Syrian Civil War.) Despite these measured successes, even supporters of the invasion acknowledge that national (and coalition) blood, treasure, and time should have been much more carefully managed by both military and political leaders. Even now, tense debates continue in national security circles between those who, on the one hand, see the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan as distractions from "real war" and "real soldiering, to be avoided in the future; and those who, on the other hand, see counterinsurgency and stability as core competencies that American troops eschew at their own peril.

    Conclusion

    Regardless of the data presented above, the question of whether the invasion of Iraq was justified, legally or strategically, remains a matter of opinion. Objective data informs subjective judgements. Was Iraq's state sponsorship of terrorism and circumvention of international law a risk worth managing in light of its role as an imperfect bulwark against Iranian hegemonic ambitions? Did the American military's difficulties in adapting to the complexities of counterinsurgency outweigh the potential benefits of regime change in Iraq? Did the risks associated with Iraq's regional aggression, coupled with the international commitment in Afghanistan, recommend a redoubling of America's efforts to undermine Iraqi ambitions with diplomacy, economic pressure, and intelligence operations? These and other critiques, presented to one degree or another both before and after the 2003 invasion, are entirely fair and consistent even with the evidence presented herein. However, the stakes for the future of the Middle East and the world at large rely upon accurate information. In the case of the Iraq War, such accurate information - regardless of the conclusions one reaches as a result - has been overtaken by hyperbole for too long. Only by eliminating the hyperbole and analyzing accurate information can the past be accurately understood in order that it might better inform the choices that society makes in the future.
  • Wednesday, August 12, 2015

    Selections from Clausewitz, Part 5

    It's time for the latest installment of my commentaries on Carl von Clausewitz's On War. Clausewitz's first three chapters are fairly lengthy. By contrast, the next five chapters are pretty brief.
    "A great part of the information obtained in war is contradictory, a still greater part is false, and by far the greatest part is of a doubtful character. What is required of an officer is a certain power of discrimination, which only knowledge of men and things and good judgment can give. The law of probability must be his guide.
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter VI: Information in War
    I've spoken previously, repeatedly, about how Clausewitz's writings relate to the "Revolution in Military Affairs"/"Military Transformation", so I'll defer to my previous comments.
    "AS long as we have no personal knowledge of war, we cannot conceive where those difficulties lie of which so much is said, and what that genius, and those extraordinary mental powers required in a general have really to do. All appears so simple, all the requisite branches of knowledge appear so plain, all the combinations so unimportant, that, in comparison with them, the easiest problem in higher mathematics impresses us with a certain scientific dignity. But if we have seen war, all becomes intelligible; and still, after all, it is extremely difficult to describe what it is which brings about this change, to specify this invisible and completely efficient Factor."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter VII: Friction in War
    In Book I Chapter I, Clausewitz describes what has been called "Clausewitz's Social Trinity" of the people, the general and his army, and the government. I wanted to highlight the above-quoted passage because I think it identifies three interesting quandaries that emerge from that trinity and from the observation Clausewitz is making here. Civilian policy-makers and the public at large are often quick to opine about the military, or about how various wars are conducted; however, few are more than vaguely familiar with topics at hand. This ignorance is mitigated to some degree by embedded journalists, who were less prevalent than in Clausewitz's time, but that introduces questions about the media establishment that aren't germane to the topic of strategy. This ignorance can cut both ways, either with unwarranted lenience, or with unwarranted criticality.

    Another challenge, which I'll discuss in more detail in the next installment of my Clausewitz commentaries, is the actual competence of the generals in question. This goes more directly to what Clausewitz is describing: on the one hand, he's advocating that some of his readers refrain from judging commanders; but on the other, he's acknowledging that becoming a competent general is extremely difficult. I'm reminded of another item I recently read which identifies that the Chinese military, to include China's generals, possess negligible experience in actual warfighting, and that this will be an issue should China try to assert itself militarily in the coming years. Conversely, I've been rather disappointed with the performance of many American generals in recent years, particularly Generals George Casey and Stanley McChrystal. Most people have never heard of General Casey, although he commanded the Multinational Force in Iraq (MNF-I) before General Petraeus, and was subsequently promoted to become the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, making him America's top-ranking soldier at the time. For a variety of reasons I won't discuss here, I was convinced fairly early on that General McChrystal, who was heralded by many in the commentariat as exactly the sort of leader America needed to win in Afghanistan, had fundamentally misread the Afghan situation and made a series of critically flawed decisions as a result. Another recent article was fairly supportive of McChrystal's approach, which - in my opinion, at least - reinforces my aforementioned views of unwarranted lenience with generals as informed by my reading of Clausewitz.
    "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter VII: Friction in War
    I have nothing to add to this quote. It's exquisite.
    "Activity in war is movement in a resistant medium. Just as a man in water is unable to perform with ease and regularity the most natural and simplest movement, that of walking, so in war, with ordinary powers, one cannot keep even the line of mediocrity. This is the reason that the correct theorist is like a swimming master, who teaches on dry land movements which are required in the water, which must appear grotesque and ludicrous to those who forget about the water. This is also why theorists, who have never plunged in themselves, or who cannot deduce any generalities from their experience, are unpractical and even absurd, because they only teach what every one knows — how to walk."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter VII: Friction in War
    I'll touch on this again in the next installment, but I wanted to discuss one aspect of it here. The line between theorist and practitioner is a very difficult line to ride, and I'm not sure that I entirely agree with the Father of Strategy on this observation, especially since I can think of recent cases on both sides of the argument. I know of one such theorist, whose name I'll withhold, who has served as an official in the Obama Administration and who now occupies a very influential post in a private think tank, and despite very impressive credentials, I have yet to see or hear anything of value or merit from the individual in question. Conversely, some of history's greatest strategists - one good example being nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter - never served a day in uniform. (Other examples of great strategists with minimal military experience are Herman Kahn, Bernard Brodie, and Robert Gates.) Contrasting with both examples would be those military leaders whose generalship results in utter failure. There may be some room to massage this particular passage to account for changes in the "grammar" of war since Clausewitz's day, but on its face, I'm reticent to dismiss the potential for civilians to contribute greatly to matters of defense and warfare simply because they have not themselves come under hostile fire. Again, more on this to come.
    "Certainly, he is not the best general in whose mind it assumes the greatest dimensions, who is the most overawed by it (this includes that class of over-anxious generals, of whom there are so many amongst the experienced); but a general must be aware of it that he may overcome it, where that is possible; and that he may not expect a degree of precision in results which is impossible on account of this very friction."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter VII: Friction in War
    Essentially, this mirrors the adage from the lesser of the great military theorists, Sun Tzu, who wrote of the importance of knowing both oneself and the enemy. I think this passage also speaks to the importance of having well-rounded generals, familiar not merely with the art of war, but also with a variety of other arts and sciences. There's an active debate in American military circles (link, link, link) as to how well the American military, and particularly the U.S. Army, is doing at achieving that balance. The next installment will be a special edition focusing on a specific topic. Stay tuned.

    Sunday, July 5, 2015

    Selections from Clausewitz, Part 4

    In the third chapter of his first book, the Father of Strategy shifts his focus to matters of what we would today call psychology. This is to say, he discusses some of the more human elements of war, warfare, and generalship.
    "The fewer the employment followed by a nation, the more that of arms predominates, so much the more prevalent military genius must also be found. But this merely applies to its prevalence, by no means to its degree, for that depends on the general state of intellectual culture in the country. If we look at a wild, warlike race, then we find a warlike spirit in individuals much more common than in a civilised people; for in the former almost every warrior possesses it; whilst in the civilised, whole masses are only carried away by it from necessity, never by inclination. But amongst uncivilised people we never find a really great general, and very seldom what we can properly call a military genius, because that requires a development of the intelligent powers which cannot be found in an uncivilised state."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III
    Having spent a year of my life studying strategy, it should come as no surprise that I'm an advocate for strategic thinking. The U.S. Army, which is America's "senior service" and tends to dominate overall defense operations, has been criticized for being anti-intellectual, and I'm increasingly convinced that most career officers don't learn strategy or really even understand what it entails - they learn tactics as cadets and junior officers, and campaigning as field grade officers. It's not a comprehensive phenomenon, but it's systemic and institutionalized. This quandary seems to extend in large part from the way the Army selects and promotes its officer corps; as a commenter on a recent article at War on the Rocks noted (I've truncated it a bit): "[T]actical proficiency does not necessarily guarantee strategic proficiency... there are some gifted tacticians in the officer ranks who are not necessarily suited to strategy... we may be weeding out excellent strategists before they are afforded a chance to show their abilities." I could point to a number of illustrative examples of this trend. I actually think that the American military, primarily the Army, is representative of the proverbial "middle" in the Father of Strategy's example, between the unstrategic, chaotic bezerkers of ISIS/DAESH on the one hand, and America's insular and militarily disengaged European allies on the other. That sweet spot between a sufficiently martial society and the sort of intellectual culture which produces a "great general" or a "military genius" is tough to suss out.
    "A common understanding may, at one time, perhaps hit upon this truth by accident: an extraordinary courage, at another time, may compensate for the want of this tact: but in the majority of cases the average result will always bring to light the deficient understanding."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III
    This observation by the Father of Strategy could be applied to just about anything. To some degree, all human exploits, not the least of these being warfare, are governed by pure, dumb luck. However, patterns of success reveal sufficient understanding, while patterns of failure reveal deficient understanding.
    "Mere intelligence is still not courage, for we often see the cleverest people devoid of resolution. The mind must, therefore, first awaken the feeling of courage, and then be guided and supported by it, because in momentary emergencies the man is swayed more by his feelings than his thoughts."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III
    I'm reminded of the training that modern soldiers, and particularly the Marines, who are conditioned in recruit training and again in the Schools of Infantry to follow direction from their junior leaders almost instinctively. Clausewitz's observation highlights the critical confluence of intellect and courage.
    "We believe, therefore, that resolution is indebted to a special direction of the mind for its existence, a direction which belongs to a strong head, rather than to a brilliant one. In corroboration of this genealogy of resolution we may add that there have been many instances of men who have shown the greatest resolution in an inferior rank, and have lost it in a higher position. While on the one hand they are obliged to resolve, on the other they see the dangers of a wrong decision, and as they are surrounded with things new to them, their understanding loses its original force, and they become only the more timid the more they become aware of the danger of the irresolution into which they have fallen, and the more they have formerly been in the habit of acting on the spur of the moment."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III
    I didn't originally save this passage as I was reading through the third chapter of On War, but I kept thinking about it and decided to include it. It's such a fascination observation of how bold young leaders are, and how that boldness is adulterated - for better and for worse - by age and experience. This phenomenon speaks to life in general, but particularly for the leadership and administration of armed force in the pursuit of political ends.
    "To conduct a whole war, or its great acts, which we call campaigns, to a successful termination, there must be an intimate knowledge of state policy in its higher relations. The conduct of the war, and the policy of the State, here coincide; and the general becomes, at the same time, the statesman."

    [...]

    "In order that the reader may appreciate all that must be comprehended and judged of correctly at a glance by a general, we refer to the first chapter. We say, the general becomes a statesman, but he must not cease to be the general. He takes into view all the relations of the State on the one hand; on the other he must know exactly what he can do with the means at his disposal."
    - Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book I, Chapter III
    I'll cover this concept in more detail in a subsequent edition, but I wanted to highlight its instance here. We tend to think of generals as senior managers of the use of armed force. The truly great generals, however - which is to say, the successful ones - are intimately acquainted with all of the instruments of national power, what their comparative strengths and limitations are, and how best to orchestrate them in order to achieve political ends as directed by policy-makers.

    More to come.

    Thursday, April 30, 2015

    Recent Items on ISIS/DAESH, Assad, Iraq, and Syria

    A buddy of mine brought the following articles to my attention this morning:

  • Washington Post, 26 April 2015: Assad’s hold on power looks shakier than ever as rebels advance in Syria
  • Washington Free Beacon, 30 April 2015: Obama Administration Unprepared if Assad Falls

    I haven't had a chance to read them yet, but wanted to share them anyway. I'll divulge my skepticism. The Syrian Civil War has effectively been a stalemate for the last several years, and most of the analysis I've heard or seen in recent months has suggested that the only two major players are the Assad regime and ISIS/DAESH. Various moderate elements have been purported in the recent past, but these haven't tended to have much actual sway.

    I also wanted to bring the following items to everyone's attention, and this is as good a way as any to share them with that aforementioned buddy, too.

  • War on the Rocks, 15 April 2015: PODCAST: The Islamic State’s War in Iraq and Syria
  • Der Spiegel, 18 April 2015: The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State
  • War on the Rocks, 20 April 2015: Are Turkey and Saudi Arabia Going to War in Syria?
  • The Daily Beast, 21 April 2015: What Saddam Gave ISIS
  • Gawker Phase Zero, 22 April 2015: An Intelligence Vet Explains ISIS, Yemen, and "the Dick Cheney of Iraq"

    I'll admit to bristling a bit at the suggestion that ISIS/DAESH is essentially the successor to the Iraqi Baath Party. There seems to be good evidence that former Iraqi Baath Party figures have held a lot of sway in the top echelons of ISIS/DAESH, but I question the degree to which the Iraqi Baath Party originated ISIS/DAESH. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing, but I wanted to share the articles for everyone's consideration.
  • Friday, April 17, 2015

    Second World War Bombing and Conflict Geography

    I'm currently reading Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force by Robert M. Farley. While I was studying for my master's degree, I read several items about nuclear strategy and the history of nuclear deterrence. Notable among these were The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy by Lawrence Freedman, World Politics and the Evolution of War by John J. Weltman, The Anatomy of Deterrence by Bernard Brodie, and The Delicate Balance of Terror by Albert Wohlstetter. On Friday, War on the Rocks published a couple of great items on the topic. One was an article in their (W)archives series entitled Aerial Bombardment and Hitting the Broad Side of a Barn, which discussed the inaccuracy of Second World War bombing campaigns. The second was their weekly Weekend Reading list, which included a link to the new Bomb Sight website, which provides a detailed, interactive map of the British government's postwar bomb census.

    At the moment, and increasingly since I began doing those readings for my degree, one of my fascinations is and has been the history of how the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force turned some very controversial theory about air power into a case for independence from the other services. This was obviously bolstered, somewhat understandably, by the proliferation of atomic weapons after 1945. Farley's book serves as a sort of long overdue sanity check with respect to that independence. One of my longer-standing interests is geography, and particularly conflict geography. (At this point, I'd love to link to an old website that was tracking the Libyan Civil War in 2011, but I can't find it; that said, I found a fascinating New York Times graphic that partially scratches that particular itch).

    Ancillary to the nuclear topic is the discovery of the hulk of the USS Independence, which was recently discovered in the waters near San Francisco. The article and the pictures are worth having a look at.

    Wednesday, April 1, 2015

    Four Things to Remember About the Iranian Nuclear Negotiations

    The Iranian nuclear negotiations are big news at the moment. Never fear, for I'm here to cut through the bluster with four things you should know about what's going on. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a very special Iranian Nuclear Negotiations Thoughts for Today:

    1. Iran doesn't want to stage a nuclear attack on Israel, or the United States, or anyone, really.

    A lot of the concern about Iran revolves around a fear that they'll try to bomb Israel and "exterminate the Jews". Iran has a lot of vitriolic rhetoric about Israel, but it's all saber-rattling. For the domestic audience, the Iranian regime uses Israel as a scapegoat to justify lousy living conditions, a poor economy, and no reforms to fix anything. A lot of regimes in the Islamic world do this, and it mirrors North Korea's saber-rattling against South Korea, not to mention George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984. For the international audience, portraying itself as the champion of the Palestinian cause is meant to bolster Shiite Persian Iran's Islamic bona fides relative to Sunni Arab Saudi Arabia in a region that's majority Sunni Arab. (Turkey's Islamist government has been getting into that game recently, too.) Iran's Jews are actually some of the best-treated in the Islamic world. Actually attacking Israel with an atomic weapon would not only obliterate Iran's most convenient scapegoat, but would also negate any Islamic credibility Iran might have by destroying one of Islam's holy sites (Jerusalem/al Quds), and there's no good reason for Iran to do either.

    2. The mullahs want a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against regime change.

    For a variety of reasons, some understandable and some ludicrous, Iran maintains a very aggressive foreign policy directed at the United States, Israel, and its rivals in the Gulf Region. This includes varying degrees of sponsorship for such terrorist groups as Hezbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda, and the Taliban; covert terrorist attacks, such as Argentina (2012), Thailand, and Bulgaria (2012); and varying degrees of agitation in places like Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain. The mullahs had a front row seat (and allegedly participated as well) when American-led coalitions invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003; and they watched in 1991 as the United States took four days to defeat the same Iraqi army that Iran spent nine years fighting to a bloody stalemate between 1980 and 1988. Those countries were invaded for precisely the kind of bellicose foreign policy that the mullahs believe to be in their regime's best interest, and recent history suggests that the best insulation against regime change is a nuclear deterrent. If the mullahs can build a deterrent capability, they believe that they can insulate themselves from regime change and continue to pursue their long-term strategic goals. In addition, the Iranian regime is unpopular, and the civilian nuclear program is the only government program that enjoys widespread public support. Thucydides characterized strategic considerations as aligning along the lines of fear, honor, and interest, and the mullahs believe that a nuclear deterrent would satisfy all three considerations.

    3. Without ruling out an eleventh hour breakthrough, there's grounds for pessimism about the negotiations.

    In late 2013, there was a lot of chest-thumping because the negotiators, by ceding some substantial leverage, had gotten Iran to agree to more talks. They really haven't made much progress in the intervening year and a half. Negotiations work based upon one of two factors: a confluence of common interests, or one party having enough leverage to get the other party to concede. Without getting into the modern history of arms control, two good examples are the SALT treaties of the 1970's, and the START treaties of the 1980's and early 1990's. The SALT treaties made some progress during a period of detente between the Soviet Union and the West, and ultimately fell apart because the detente fell apart when Russia responded to a weakening of American foreign policy with renewed aggression. By contrast, the START treaties were successful because they corresponded with ambitious efforts by the Reagan Administration to hamstring the Soviet Union economically, politically, and militarily. Iran was in pretty dire financial straits in late 2013. Although the Saudis have pushed oil prices down in an effort to maintain that pressure, the relaxation of sanctions aimed at keeping the regime at the negotiating table gave Iran a reprieve that has not been met with good will. SALT II fell apart when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, but the current diplomatic effort continues despite Iran's involvement in the recent overthrow of the Western-friendly government in Yemen, not to mention Iran's other disruptive efforts in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Without a bona fide overlap in strategic interest, or a significantly weakened Iranian regime, the chances for any substantive agreement seem slim.

    4. Everything's not lost.

    There are a few reasons for some hope. For one thing, the deal and any relaxation of most of the strictest sanctions has to get through Congress. Second, there's been a lot of agitation about how the failure to get a deal is the equivalent of wanting to bomb Iran, but that's not really accurate - there are plenty of other methods aside from military force to continue pressuring Iran. For better or for worse, the Obama Administration is probably the most permissive administration the Iranians could hope for in the near term, which could give Secretary Kerry some leverage, or potentially whomever succeeds President Obama in 2017. We Westerners are fond of thinking in terms of stories that wrap up tightly into a tight, coherent ending, but history keeps unfolding. A lot can happen in the coming days, and a lot can keep happening in the days, weeks, months, years, and decades thereafter.

    Sunday, March 8, 2015

    Link Purge, 23-28 February 2014 Edition

    China:
  • War is Boring: China’s Aircraft Carriers on the Cheap

    COIN:
  • War on the Rocks: The Strategy of Savagery: Explaining the Islamic State
  • Wired: The 40,000 People on Bagram Air Base Haven’t Actually Seen Afghanistan - I've been hearing a line for years that "If you've only ever been to Bagram, you've never been to Afghanistan." Recently, when discussing Kuwait with a business associate who had spent a year in Afghanistan, I made the same observation of Ali al Salem Air Base.
  • War on the Rocks: Reading Galula in Afghanistan - This is a somewhat narrowly focused, but overall poignant discussion of American counterinsurgency doctrine relative to traditionally accepted counterinsurgency theory. The comments on the article itself, and on the corresponding thread at Small Wars Journal, are worth skimming as well.
  • NPR: The IED: The $30-Bombs That Cost The U.S. Billions
  • Afghanistan Analysts Network: Six Days That Shook Kabul: The ’3 Hut uprising’, first urban protest against the Soviet occupation

    Foreign Affairs:
  • War on the Rocks: Nepal’s Dirty Little War: Counterinsurgency and the Fall of a Hindu King
  • BBC: Are the Afghan Taliban ready to talk? - Why would the Afghan Taliban be ready to talk? Belligerents negotiate the end of a conflict when one or another of them has been forced into a position in which surrender is preferable to continuing hostilities. The Taliban have not been forced into such a position, and for years, their adversaries have been advertising to them that all they need to do is wait.
  • Michael J. Totten: ISIS' Next Target
  • AFP: Fighting IS not a priority for Turkey: US spy chief
  • War on the Rocks: Women in Combat Arms: Just Good Business - While Captain (Major?) van Dam's service as a Marine Corps attack helicopter pilot certainly gives weight to her argument, I personally find the views of Army Special Forces Michael Yon more compelling, though they're less diplomatic.

    Intelligence/Espionage:
  • BBC: Argentina Congress votes to dissolve intelligence agency - If you haven't caught the recent controversy over the Argentine intelligence agency, it's worth catching up on.
  • BBC: Paris drones: Al-Jazeera journalist to face court - If you haven't caught the recent controversy over UAVs in Paris, it's worth catching up on.

    Iran:
  • War on the Rocks: The Key to a Nuclear Agreement with Iran? The Window of Vulnerability I think that commentator Cliff Sherrill puts it well: "How can we be confident that Fordow was the only secret site? (Natanz was hardly secret). How can we be so sure as to our intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program when our intelligence about Iraq’s proved mistaken? The issue, it seems to me, is not about crafting an agreement with a regime that holds us to be a necessary enemy. Such an actor will inevitably abandon any agreement. The issue, rather, is how to obtain regime change such that Iranian knowledge about nuclear arms no longer presents a threat." I've been cautiously optimistic about the last thirteen or fourteen months of negotiations with Iran, but I continue to worry that they're focused entirely on technical concerns without addressing the root cause: the Iranian regime sees a nuclear program as its best chance of securing domestic support, and a nuclear weapon as its best chance of deterring international intervention in Iranian affairs. Without addressing those root causes, even cautious optimism is difficult to maintain.
  • War is Boring: Iran Stages Giant Attack on Mock Aircraft Carrier - You can read more about this story here, here, and here.

    Iraq:
  • War is Boring: These Westerners Joined an Iraqi Militia - This is a follow-up to a recent article I knicked from Doctrine Man.
  • Small Wars Journal: US Christians Back Emerging Private War on Iraq Jihadists - This is a follow-up to a recent article I knicked from Doctrine Man.
  • AFP: Riyadh talks seek stronger Iraqi army: Western source

    IT Security:
  • AFP: US State Dept blocks thousands of hack attacks every day
  • BBC: US spy chief James Clapper highlights cyber threats - No, Virginia, hackers do not pose a treater threat than terrorists.

    Kuwait - General:
  • Arab Times: Police Raid ‘Disco Tent’ - This was the Kuwaiti Headline of the Week.

    Libya:
  • BBC: Islamic State gains Libya foothold
  • BBC: How West's limited intervention failed Libya - Limited, intervention, e.g. air strikes and Western special operations/covert intelligence support to local actors was the panacea for the early 1980's, and has become popular today. However, Libya - and to a similar degree, Somalia, Yemen, the Iraqi-Syrian border, and elsewhere - is proof that such an approach has its severe limitations.
  • AFP: Libya could be next Syria without West's help: foreign minister

    Military Kit:
  • War is Boring: Top U.S. Army Marksman Explains Why Gun Nuts Shoot Better - I'm reminded of a long blog post that circulated after the Newtown Shootings in which the writer discussed, among other things, the role that an anti-gun culture played in the poor response by Indian police to the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Both are worth reading.
  • War is Boring: The U.S. Navy Reserve’s Fighter Jets Are Going Extinct
  • War is Boring: I Built an AR-15 in My Kitchen - This article reminded me of this pictorial in which a guy built an AK-47 out of a shovel - a garden variety shovel, one might dare to presume.

    North Korea:
  • AFP: N.Korea could have 100 nuclear weapons by 2020: US researchers
  • BBC: North Korea reflagging ships to evade sanctions - UN - Oh, those wacky North Koreans. What will they think of next?
  • BBC: Kidnapped by North Korea - and forced to make films

    Professional Stuff:
  • Task and Purpose: 10 Ways To Get Ahead Of Your Military Transition While You’re Still Active Duty
  • Times of Oman: Sayyid Fahd inaugurates Oman's Military Technical College

    Risk Management:
  • BBC: US hostage policy reviewed as Qatari emir visits Obama

    Russia:
  • BBC: Cyprus signs deal to allow Russian navy to use ports
  • AFP: Russian paratroopers in drills on border with Estonia, Latvia
  • AFP: Russia could target Moldova: NATO commander

    Scottish Miscellany:
  • BBC: New Aberdour manure letterbox incident man fined
  • BBC: Oil and gas industry in 'bleak' 2014, finds survey
  • BBC: Are low oil prices here to stay?
  • BBC: Consultative ballot on offshore strike from GMB Scotland

    Strategy:
  • War on the Rocks: U.S. Land Forces Must Deter and Defend Abroad
  • General James Mattis: A New American Grand Strategy - When the Warrior Monk talks, everyone should listen. General James Mattis has penned a testimony to the need for a renewal of American grand strategy.

    WMD:
  • BBC: Trident question comes to the surface - God forbid the BBC would find someone who actually knows about strategic nuclear doctrine to interview, instead of a bunch of political hacks and feckless yobs on street corners, none of whom are competent to comment on defense ("defence") issues.
  • War on the Rocks: Why the New Bomber is a Good Investment - I'm currently reading Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force. The author, Robert M. Farley, argues that the Air Force has traditionally decided upon the platform they wanted, and built their capability justification around the platform, rather than building a platform to provide a capability in order to meet a strategic requirement. I haven't put much thought into the projected replacement for the Air Force's bomber fleet, but I'd prefer to see a lot more objective analysis of the actual requirements a bomber is meant to meet - potentially by analytical organizations that are free of undue Air Force institutional influence - than we've seen from such procurement efforts as the F-35.
  • War is Boring: America Readies Its New ‘Smart’ Nuke
  • XNA: Three rockets launched near-simultaneously in Aegis test

    General Chicanery:
  • BBC: The secrets of the Santa Priscilla catacombs

    Yemen:
  • BBC: Yemen on brink as Gulf Co-operation Council initiative fails
  • BBC: Yemen kidnap: French woman seized in capital Sanaa
  • Kuwait Times: Houthis take over US-trained Special Forces base
  • Saturday, February 28, 2015

    Some Stuff I Knicked from Doctrine Man

    I frequently check Doctrine Man on Facebook. The articles that "DM" posts are often worthy of consideration, DM's commentary is sometimes worthy of consideration, and comments on the items and/or commentary that DM has posted ranges from thought-provoking to frustrating. Here are a few items I grabbed from DM on Wednesday, February 18th, 2015.

    * * *

    Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled Christians Flock to Iraq to Fight ISIS.

    * * *

    Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled Return of the ‘Ghost Rider’. For the first time, a decommissioned B-52 bomber has been returned to active service. Sweet!

    LATE BREAKING UPDATE: Here's another link: I’ll Be Damned, These Boneyard B-52s Can Still Fly: Aged bomber gets airborne after years in the desert.
    * * *

    Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled What The Military Teaches About Bad Intel Applies To Anti-Vaxxers. It's worth reading, but it barely mentions the military at all, and does so in the following quote:
    "In the military, we know better than to use rumor or unfounded suspicion as a basis for action. When a military leader feeds us obviously bad information, we call him on it."
    When dealing with the military, this has not been my experience.

    LATE BREAKING UPDATE: Apparently, it hasn't been anyone's experience: Lying in the military is common, Army War College study says.
    * * *

    Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled C.I.A. Is Said to Have Bought and Destroyed Iraqi Chemical Weapons. Recognizing that the intelligence that informed the decision to invade Iraq was not completely accurate, it nonetheless surprises me how many flat out falsehoods - the most common being "there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" - get perpetuated despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, more of which is being publicly acknowledged all the time.

    * * *

    Doctrine Man recently posted an article entitled Biden being Biden is the highlight of Ash Carter's swearing-in ceremony. Partisan politics aside, am I the only one who finds it almost hilariously ironic that Vice President Biden was recently very vocal, even aggressive, in denouncing sexual assault, and now it's emerging that he apparently has a reputation for being kind of a creeper? I remember listening last year to a segment on the Michael Medved Show in which Medved interviewed Ronald Kessler, author of The First Family Detail and In the President's Secret Service, and Kessler discussed the fact that Vice President Biden apparently enjoys skinny dipping despite having female agents on his Secret Service detail. Also, The Onion has done some really good comedy work relating to Vice President Biden, and it can be viewed herehere, and here.

    * * *

    As awkward a note as that is to end on, that's the extent of what I grabbed from Doctrine Man today.

    Sunday, February 22, 2015

    Link Purge from the Last Week (Or So)

    I've recently updated the system I use to collect news links. Here's a purge - with some commentary as necessary - of the news links I've collected in the past week.

    China:
  • WOTR: Ten Reasons Why China Will Have Trouble Fighting a Modern War - I recognize the need for America and its allies to prepare for Chinese ambitions, but I remain very skeptical that China is on the verge of becoming a legitimate superpower, militarily or otherwise. These are some good reasons to question such alarmism.
  • RAND: China’s Incomplete Military Transformation: Assessing the Weaknesses of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) - This study was produced semi-independently from the article above, and provides more depth on the issues identified by the author of the WOTR article, in addition to other relevant topics.

    COIN:
  • War is Boring: All the Reasons Islamic State Won’t Have It Easy in Afghanistan: For one, there’s Taliban to deal with
  • CNN: Nonsense about terrorism's 'root causes' - There's been a lot of press this week about ISIS/DAESH's motives, and how to undermine its regional ambitions. This is one of those items, though
  • CNN: Why does ISIS keep making enemies? - This op-ed, also by Peter Bergen, is another such item.
  • The Atlantic: What ISIS Really Wants - The most prominent article on the topic is this one from The Atlantic.
  • Slate: The Atlantic’s big Islam lie: What Muslims really believe about ISIS - Haroon Moghul at Slate disagrees with that article in The Atlantic. I'm shocked, I swear.

    Iran:
  • War is Boring: Looks Like Iran Upgraded Syria’s Helicopters: But the regime’s not actually using the new systems
  • War is Boring: A Bunch of Iranian Drones Have Crashed in Iraq

    Science/Junk Science:
  • BBC: In pictures: Snow blankets the Middle East
  • Kuwait Times: In Pakistan, vaccinating kids becoming a deadly battle

    Kuwait - General:
  • Kuwait Times: The pros and cons of cousin marriage - Occasionally, I'll post a "Kuwaiti Headline of the Day" on Facebook. This one absolutely made the cut. Previous favorites include "Fight over 100 fils (about $0.34) renders Bangladeshi impotent", "‘Accusing Kuwaitis of laziness unfair’", "Excessive meddling ruining Kuwait Airways: MP Saleh", "New twist in Kabad camel market brawl", "Royal among three Kuwaitis in fight over bike ownership", "Daesh (ISIS) Goes Potty", "Ministry of Interior officer steals sheep", "The great Kuwaiti cat-meat scandal", and my all-time favorite, "Egyptian Sex Maniac brought to book".

    Military Kit:
  • WOTR: Getting Our Money’s Worth: LCS vs Iver Huitfeldt-Class - This one feeds into a conversation I've been having with one of my postgraduate coursemates, CN Slapshot.
  • AFP: Four US littoral combat ships to operate out of Singapore by 2018 - This feeds into the same conversation with CN Slapshot.

    Risk Management:
  • UPI: Industry: Risk aversion costs more than 'fast failure'

    Russia:
  • Sputnik: Russia May Finalize its Flagship Aircraft Carrier by 2025 - A couple of years ago, I researched the state of Russia's conventional forces, to include its navy. I wasn't impressed.
  • SPX: Russian Shipyard Makes History: 4 Subs Under Construction Simultaneously - See directly above.

    Scottish Miscellany:
  • BBC: Shetland firearms teenager to appeal against three-year sentence
  • BBC: Shetland ferry strike called off after Cosla talks
  • BBC: Wood Group warns of further cuts over low oil price
  • BBC: British Gas owner Centrica sees profits fall steeply

    Strategy:
  • BBC: How strong is the Nato military alliance?

    Terrorism:
  • Al Jazeera: Al-Shabab stages deadly attack on Somalia luxury hotel

    WMD:
  • AFP: Nuclear deterrent important in 'dangerous world', says Hollande - I mainly saved this article to share with my Strategic Nuclear Doctrine instructor, Critical Mass.

    General Chicanery:
  • Wondermark #1101
  • Wondermark #1102
  • Al Jazeera: Spring has sprung in Oregon - It can't be very frequent that Oregon gets mentioned by Al Jazeera.
  • BBC: Algeria's protracted end of an era
  • Failblog: This Wrong Number Text Ends in Excellent Home Decoration Advice
  • BBC: Rand Paul and his Ron Paul conundrum
  • Thursday, February 19, 2015

    ISIS/DAESH and the Dabiq Prophecy

    My buddy Ryan asked me for my take on an opinion piece at CNN by Peter Bergen entitled Why does ISIS keep making enemies?. I read the article. Here are some comments on specific items.
    "Adding to your list of enemies is never a sound strategy"
    Bergen obviously isn't an actual strategist, because sometimes that's absolutely a sound strategy. For example: in World War II, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and the United States declared war on Japan *AND* Germany. In the case of ISIS/DAESH, they gain legitimacy amongst the same sort of al Qaeda, Taliban, Boko Haram type folks who think that that laundry list of other sects and religions are kufr and the Saudi types aren't Wahabist enough.
    "The mistake some make when viewing ISIS is to see it as a rational actor. Instead, as the magazine documents, its ideology is that of an apocalyptic cult that believes that we are living in the end times and that ISIS' actions are hastening the moment when this will happen."
    ISIS/DAESH *IS* a rational actor. That's the entire argument Bergen is making. He's literally talking past himself. The whole point of a rational actor is that they have a predictable philosophy, and that their actions follow corresponding patterns, and that's exactly the argument that Bergen is making. This is just as intellectually lazy as claiming that the Iranians are a bunch of millennarian lunatics who can't be reasoned with. It's ridiculous to assume that because your adversary's values and logic is different than your own, that they don't have values or logic at all.
    "In other words, ISIS wants a Western ground force to invade Syria, as that will confirm the prophecy about Dabiq."
    This is the first time I've EVER heard of this Dabiq thing. I didn't even think that Mohammed ever left the Arabian peninsula, but I could be wrong about that. This whole thing is possible, I guess, but I feel like ISIS/DAESH might have done a better job of getting that message out if Peter Bergen's the only one who's figured it out.
    "We live in an increasingly secularized world, so it's sometimes difficult to take seriously the deeply held religious beliefs of others. For many of us the idea that the end of times will come with a battle between 'Rome' and Islam at the obscure Syrian town of Dabiq is as absurd as the belief that the Mayans had that their human sacrifices could influence future events."
    This was a very silly thing for Peter Bergen to make, and a very silly comparison for him to make.
    "But for ISIS, the Dabiq prophecy is deadly serious. Members of ISIS believe that they are the vanguard fighting a religious war, which Allah has determined will be won by the forces of true Islam."
    *shrug* Could be, but if Dabiq was actually the Islamic Megiddo, I sort of feel like I'd have heard about it by now.
    "'Muslims can reject the Islamic State; nearly all do. But pretending that it isn't actually a religious, millenarian group, with theology that must be understood to be combated, has already led the United States to underestimate it.' Amen to that."
    This is something that I've been thinking about a lot over the last few years. To a great degree, I feel like Western nations have failed to really understand Islamic culture and use that culture to defeat terrorism. I'm currently working to dramatically shorten a long article about the DoD's General Order 1(X), which restricts American troops' conduct in the CENTCOM AOR, and which is a case study in how not to study Islamic law. Western states have been very focused on introducing the concept of pluralism (a distinction, rather than a "separation", between religion and state), and that's a great thing and a lot of Muslims respond to it. However, it's a novel concept for many Muslims, as the Islamic tradition inexorably unites mosque and state. Westerners love to complain about sharia, and that's all well and good, but it would be nice if Western powers would actually put together some groups of people to study and understand the Quran, the Sunnan, the Ahadith, and the various commentaries on Islamic jurisprudence, and use that corpus of law to build better narratives to counter the allegedly apostate interpretation of sharia that those terrorist groups subscribe to. I don't think that's actually Bergen's point, but it ought to be.

    Wednesday, February 18, 2015

    Strategy and Risk Management

    I mentioned in a recent post that I had been corresponding with a former co-worker. He's a retired Navy officer - let's call him Sheikh - and we tend to write an E-mail or two back and forth most days. We share a lot of interests in international affairs, and though he's a Naval War College graduate, he's very gracious to ask me my take on various issues relating to strategy and international relations. Today he asked me a very interesting question: how should risk management factor into strategy? Long-time readers of this blog will know that his question is a confluence of two disciplines I've spent a great deal of time studying, so I wrote a lengthy response, and I thought I'd share an expanded version of it here.

    * * *

    My impression is that the potential relationship between risk management and strategy is lost on most strategists, and on nearly all political leaders (most of whom are conversant in neither risk management nor strategy). Sheikh is right, one would think that risk management and cost/benefit analysis would play a significant role in strategy. Clausewitz discusses it a bit in Book I, Chapter 2 of On War:
    Still more general in its influence on the resolution to peace is the consideration of the expenditure of force already made, and further required. As war is no act of blind passion, but is dominated over by the political object, therefore the value of that object determines the measure of the sacrifices by which it is to be purchased. This will be the case, not only as regards extent, but also as regards duration. As soon, therefore, as the required outlay becomes so great that the political object is no longer equal in value, the object must be given up, and peace will be the result.
    Clausewitz's treatment of the issue refers specifically to treating for peace in a conflict which is already underway, but the concept stands. Meanwhile, as I noted recently, Thucydides - writing more than two thousand years before Carl von Clausewitz - characterizes strategy in terms of "fear, honor, and interest". These factors are difficult to quantify. And, given that people are willing to sacrifice a lot for political power, and given that strategy is all about achieving political objectives, it shouldn’t be surprising that some leaders are willing to make strategic sacrifices that are disproportionate to the gains.

    In a perfect world, you’d have both strategists and actuaries working together to compose and revise strategic plans based upon the costs of historically similar campaigns, the quantified benefits, and the likelihood of particular contingencies – e.g., the post-Cold War American posture of preparing for two simultaneous campaigns, notionally expected to take place in the Gulf and on the Korean Peninsula. Those plans would then drive the reconciliation of ways, means, and desired ends.

    Instead, many states tend to come up with one or more "national strategies". In America, that's the White House's National Security Strategy, the Secretary of Defense's National Defense Strategy, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's National Military Strategy, and Congress' Quadrennial Defense Review; as far as I can tell, the United Kingdom, does this through one such document, the National Security Strategy. Russia's new strategic release is getting a lot of attention lately, as is the 2015 National Security Strategy from the White House. World renowned strategist Lawrence Freedman, who wrote one of the most difficult books on strategy that I've ever read, recently gave a lecture in which he was pretty dismissive of such documents, and I think he had a point: at least in the case of the American documents, they tend to have a lot of words without providing much substance. (A couple of years ago, I posted a bunch of links about these documents, and you can go check them out.)

    I’m also reminded of an anecdote. My postgraduate advisor, who had worked as an analyst at the British Ministry of Defense before he began teaching, recounted a story from 1982 in which he had opposed the Falklands War (despite being a Thatcherite Conservative) on the grounds that the cost was disproportionate to the potential gain from retaking the islands from Argentina. He said that, at the time, he’d been of the mind that Her Majesty’s Government should have compensated each of the islanders to the tune of one million pound (I may be inflating that, but the concept stands) and relocated them back to Britain, which would have been less costly than the campaign itself. He said that in time, and particularly with Britain’s spectacular success, he came to understand Maggie Thatcher’s wisdom in pressing the issue.

    As I wrote that anecdote, I got to thinking that risk management and strategy are probably sort of like intelligence and strategy, or perhaps another corollary would be science and policy. People made a big deal out of how the Iraq War was supposedly a mistake because the intelligence was allegedly faulty. (The more accurate version of that story is seldom reported, but that's another discussion entirely.) In reality, the intelligence informed the decision to invade Iraq, but it wasn’t as simple as “the intelligence is this, therefore we will do that”. In fact, I think that risk management was a poorly advertised counter to the intelligence narrative: no, there wasn’t a high degree of confidence in the intelligence, but after 9/11, the level of risk the West was willing to accept from rogue states, and the level of risk of another 9/11-like attack, changed the strategic risk calculus. I want to present a non-military example would be climate change. Climate change is a controversial topic, and I don't want to get into that controversy. For the sake of arguments, let's assume that the world is going to warm by several degrees in the next century, and that man-made pollution has played a significant role in that outcome. For many, the argument is simple: because climate science says that X is going to happen, we must obviously do Y to prevent it. I’ve been impressed by economist Bjørn Lomborg, who is more confident in the climate predictions than I am, but who seems to take a very pragmatic attitude. He suggests that climate change isn’t the world’s most pressing risk, that the world can get more bang for its buck by trying to solve other problems (Malaria, for instance); and by preparing for a potential shift of a few degrees, rather than trying to retroactively fix the climate. He notes, sensibly in my opinion, that efforts to prevent climate change will be extremely costly with little or no chance of actually making any difference. It's a similar concept: even if you have the data entirely right, other factors are going to influence the policies which are developed to respond to the challenges in question.

    So, I think that with strategy, as with other aspects of policy, it’s important but difficult to balance the pure quantitative picture with some of the more subjective factors – like fear, honor, and interest.