Thinking About Peacemaker Brigades

There is a tendency by some Americans to think of Georgia as a front line against Russia. Keep perspective. The front line is Iraq and Afghanistan. The threat is not the southern flank of Russia, and if you are looking for the front line against Russia's southern flank, that would be Turkey.

While the United States certainly has options in terms of its response with military power, but the answer is not combat power. We really like the concept Austin Bay is discussing. Understanding the difference between military power and combat power is important, Austin Bay gets it.

A peacekeeping brigade comprises at least two engineer battalions with attached military police, medical, Civil Affairs, signal units and lots of media connectivity. Cameras matter. Add State Department personnel. Add Special Forces with their linguistic talents and a light infantry battalion for local security. Embed non-governmental organizations with the guts to participate and promise support to NGOs who choose to operate on their own but would accept clean water and blankets.

Joint agency, NGO integrated, the DoD is the logistical enabler... this is a clever idea, but it isn't new nor unique to Austin Bay. It also wasn't the only place I read about something like this today, in fact it sounds a lot like what Lieutenant General William Caldwell blogged about today on Thomas Barnett's blog.

You posed the questions, "Who is the master of the middle? What is the Department of Everything Else?" Our leadership at the Combined Arms Center here is seeking to answer these same questions, and raise awareness that warfare across the entire spectrum of conflict will require a comprehensive approach. This comprehensive approach includes incorporating military power, interagency and whole of government participation, as well as non-state actors like NGOs and IGOs. Field Manual 3-0 states "This conflict cannot be won by military forces alone; it requires close cooperation and coordination of diplomatic, informational, military, and economic efforts."

Thinking about this for a minute, if the only combat power necessary for the peacemaker brigade is a battalion, seems to us that a MEU would be a perfect fit. We are reminded of that often discussed NPS report A Systems Engineering Approach for Global Fleet Station Alternatives in the Gulf of Guinea (PDF), which looked into platform metrics for Global Fleet Station operations in Africa.

We prefer sealift solutions for this type of capability, but we think speed is not a trivial metric. We tend to think combining the metrics in that report with Austin Bay's peacemaker brigade and Lieutenant General William Caldwell's comprehensive approach and you have the beginnings of a flexible, mobile, deployable capability.

It would be a major upgrade. The United States has reportedly decided to send the USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) to Georgia. While there is no question the USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) is an incredible military asset, the hospital ship will take 10 days to load, and at least three weeks to travel to Georgia. In other words, we won't be making an impact with this type of response for at least a month.

While hospital ships are important military capabilities for peacemaking, the lack of strategic speed for responding to crisis highlights that if the United States is going to get serious about our soft power capabilities, we will need to invest in new assets to enable the capability of the rapid response the requirements demands.