Libya Lessons: Supremacy of the SOF-Airpower Team… Or, why do We Still Need a Huge Army?

A number of interesting learning points have arisen from the Libyan conflict. Foremost among them for me is the need to massively downsize the United States Army. More about that heresy in a minute… Galrahn and Robert Farley have discussed the merits and shortcomings of airpower in relation to the US/NATO/various third-party countries' campaign against the Gadhafi regime. They both make some interesting points. However, what the Libya campaign best demonstrates, or more appropriately, reiterates, is the utility of the special ops-airpower team. And by airpower, I’m referring to service-agnostic airpower in all its’ forms, although biased towards the flexibility sea-based aircraft provide.

This lesson was best demonstrated in 2001 in Afghanistan, when relatively small numbers of US Special Forces combined with guerilla fighters and precisely applied airpower over-ran the Taliban. A similar unconventional warfare campaign was executed in Northern Iraq in 2003 when conventional US Army forces were prohibited from gaining access there via Turkey. Instead, Army Special Forces working in conjunction with Kurdish Pesh Merga fighters deftly defeated Saddam’s ground forces, including mechanized armor formations.

No US military boots deployed on the ground during Libya, but other nations’ SOF are reported to have participated, including those of the Gulf States, which by the way, have worked and trained extensively with US SOF the past several years. The rag-tag TNC rebels, supported by (primarily) US ISR, multi-national strike sorties, and foreign SOF - which came to the party somewhat late - were able to defeat a rather heavily armed force. Needless to say, had US SOF been involved, the game would have been over for Gadhafi many months ago.

So what is the role of the Navy in this construct? First, SOF’s capabilities are amplified when they are inserted, supported, and sustained from the sea (see Sep. 2005 Proceedings for elaboration), and Navy-SOF interoperability is as critical now as ever. Second, and more importantly, is that the United States has designed and nearly perfected a capability to defeat large conventional armies without employing our own conventional ground forces has huge budgetary implications that can be seen as favorable to the Navy (and Air Force).

Look at the range of expected combat missions over the next few decades:
-Overthrowing a dictatorial regime? Use SOF married to an indigenous force of irregulars supported by naval forces and air power.
-Want to defeat a large conventional army? SOF and ISR will target enemy ground formations for destruction by air power and naval fires.
-Need to counter an irregular threat? Apply SOF, naval, and air power. Rinse. Repeat.
-Steady state shaping operations? SOF excels at these, and the navy's forward deployed forces are always positioned to respond to emerging crises.

What’s missing from the above scenarios? The conventional army. In other words, there is little role for a large standing army in supporting the national security of the United States once we have pulled out of our manpower-intensive counterinsurgency fights. What does an armored force give us against an opposing armored force when air dominance allows us to slice and dice enemy armored divisions? (And if we didn’t have air supremacy, we wouldn’t commit large numbers of conventional ground troops to be slaughtered by an opposing air force anyway). How often do we use artillery to suppress threats in a collateral damage adverse world now that we have on call ISR over-watch and precision guided munitions? And why on earth would we deploy a large conventional infantry force for constabulary duty in another protracted ground war given the lessons (relearned) in Iraq and Afghanistan?

What about Iraq, you say? The routing of Saddam's army took over 100,000 US troops and GEN Shinseki said we should have used several hundred thousand more. Yes, but with a little more patience, a few battalions of US Special Forces supported from the air could have deposed Saddam's regime through an unconventional warfare campaign. This sort of effort probably wouldn't have destroyed Iraq's infrastructure and army to the point of bringing the complete disarray to the country that our "shock and awe" campaign required. But that sort of operation wouldn't have been appreciated by the conventional army generals running the war, would it?

Naturally, there are drawbacks to instituting major cuts to the army's force structure. Primary among these are the secondary effects on USASOC, which recruits the majority of its special operators from the conventional army. But unlike platform-intensive air and naval forces, or mature and highly trained special operations forces, conventional army formations can be reconstituted rather rapidly. And admittedly, there are times when a US ground force is necessary to conduct a larger unilateral raid or punitive expedition ashore than SOF alone could execute. Fortunately though, there is a magnificently self-sufficient, expeditionary, and flexible group of warriors known as US Marines, who are well-equipped and forward deployed to handle these sorts of operations; again, supported by naval and air power.

I realize the above concepts are controversial, but I also know that the US became a secure and strong nation and will remain powerful because of sea power, not land power. And a globally deployed Navy/Marine Corps team, combined with a robust range of airpower and special operators is the force we need to defeat just about any conceivable future threat. So why shouldn't the Army take a disproportionate share of the impending DOD budget cuts?

UPDATE: To save readers from going through 80+ postings and provide some clarity: what do I mean by "massive" cuts to USA force structure? How about at least 25% of active duty force structure? Honestly, I won't venture to put out an exact number, but I do know that 5% cuts applied to all services across the board is a disservice to national security. Designing a future force for "most likely" scenarios, as well as black swans doesn't mandate that we do things the way we always (or at least recently) have done them. And while 25% may not seem like a large number, when you put it in dollars and manpower, it's pretty "massive."

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

The STRATCOM Opportunity of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame

No matter where I go or who I talk to in the US Navy, the one thing folks give me a hard time about is that it is suggested I often spend too much time focusing on piracy in Somalia and not enough time discussing Al Shabaab. That is fair, I guess, although I was the guy who suggested we buy the services of pirates to fight Al Shabaab, after all at least we know the motivation of pirates is money...

But on a more serious note, US officials have been talking up the threat posed by Al Shabaab and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula over the last few months. It turns out, they had a very credible intelligence source of information regarding the threat of those two organizations. A few details from Luis Martinez of ABC News.

After secretly holding and interrogating a Somali man captured off the coast of Africa for two months, the United States indicted him, claiming he was a liaison between terrorist groups.

The Somali man, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, believed to be in his mid-20s, is a top leader in the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab terrorist group in Somalia who has been acting as a go-between with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the U.S. Justice Department alleged in an indictment Tuesday.

Many thoughts, not very well collected, come to mind as I observe this event.

First, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame was captured at sea on April 19, 2024 and taken to USS Boxer (LHD 4) where he was interrogated and held before being transferred to New York. To capture the man while at sea obviously suggests an impressive intelligence operation took place behind the scenes, and while it shouldn't need to be said - the reason the US did capture him on what was almost certainly a short notice window to respond to intelligence is because the US Navy is globally deployed and always present. It is probably a bit of luck that some pirate event didn't have our ships out of position to respond to this intelligence, a detail that needs to be stated because it is important to note piracy is a distraction for maritime forces, not a maritime mission the US Navy is currently, actively dealing with directly.

Second, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame was captured at sea. The sea is playing an important but rarely discussed role in Al-Qaeda's lines of communications. Around The Horn of Africa there is a lot of attention given to piracy as the major problem at sea, but piracy is a symptom of the bigger regional lack-of stability problem and by no definition is piracy a threat to the national interests of the United States. Task Force 151, the international task force against piracy, is symbolic of US military activities lately - it is a halfhearted military solution that can never solve the political problem that sources the piracy in the first place. I do not know why it is the policy of the United States to sail the fleet in circles off the Horn of Africa pretending to protect commerce from piracy threats, but at some point effective and efficient use of the fleet needs to focus on forwarding legitimate security solutions. In this instance, that claim can be made.

Third, I intend to leave the legalities of taking Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame to civilian court to the experts, and highly recommend the good folks at the Lawfare Blog. They have made available a copy of the full indictment of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame at this link (PDF), and have already gone into the coverage of this very important development. Does it matter? Yes, how we deal with terrorists is a legal issue that rises to the level of a Presidential election issue. Will this trial get as much coverage as Casey Anthony? It would be a tragedy regarding the judgment and quality of American journalism that balances ratings in favor of national importance if it didn't, which also means it probably won't get anywhere near as much attention as Casey Anthony on the US cable news networks.

Fourth, the politics of this are also very important. George Bush left office with no way to deal with detained terrorists except to release them to the custody of other nations. Some people say the Guantanamo Bay solution works just fine, but it really doesn't. The bottom line on the Guantanamo Bay solution is that it has always been a temporary solution with no replacement, and both the Executive and Congress has been unable to come up with a better replacement for almost a decade now.

But more important than the detainment politics to me is the war narrative politics. For a couple of years now the US Army has cited only "hundreds" or less Al Qaeda operating in Afghanistan and Iraq, but Al Shabaab alone is well over 5,000, with access to tens of thousands more disenfranchised folks in Somalia alone. No one really knows how big Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is, but best verifiable numbers range over 500, and they have access to many thousands of disenfranchised folks in Yemen. While it is unlikely the Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame case will bring it up, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is on the rise and becoming the next big problem with thousands in their ranks.

The point is, Afghanistan gets all the attention but that isn't where Al Qaeda is. I've put together a little map to put my thoughts in context, and included a few pointers to where one might notice a few dumpster fires.

One Hot Mess

There are more Al Qaeda at the end of those arrows on this map than all other places not shown on this map combined, and you do not see major parts of Pakistan or Afghanistan on that map. The Obama administration knows this, hell everyone knows this, but the question is what is anyone going to do about it and what should the United States be doing about it?

The Obama administration is going to send Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame to civilian court, which means evidence will be presented publicly and a narrative will emerge from that evidence.

We are about to find out if the United States has any STRATCOM at all in the State Department, because this court case is without question the single most important STRATCOM moment of the next decade in the fight against terrorism - not just on the prosecution legal side but also on the operational side.

So lets all generically think about what is happening here. News reports are claiming Somalia is not only a failed state, but Somalia is a dead state with as many as 54,000 people fleeing the war stricken drought zone in June alone. Pirates are now organized enough to use the Yemen controlled island of Socotra as a fuel depot. News headlines tomorrow will discuss a pirate hijacking inside the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor, about 30 miles from Aden if my sources are correct. But none of this news items about Somalia actually matters, because none of these developments represent a threat to the national interest of the United States.

Those are other peoples problems and should be left for other people to deal with. It might be hard to swallow, but when one starts counting problems in Somalia, piracy looks more and more like the least of the problems folks are facing, at least it is unless piracy is part of the income model for Al Shabaab. No government has officially made that claim yet though.

The threat comes from Al Shabaab, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) - all of whom are capable and have desires to strike at US interests both globally and domestically. Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame represents the link between Al Shabaab and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which makes him potentially the most important Al Qaeda member captured outside Pakistan or Afghanistan since 9/11. If similar links between these organizations and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) exist, we are in serious trouble... and those links probably exist.

Think about the map. Right now Libya is a dumpster fire with no local functioning security system, which means it represents a tremendous opportunity for organizations linked to Al Qaeda to move and operate freely around the current military contest for political control. Libya has all the makings of a prolonged, uncontrolled tribal war similar to Somalia where groups are likely to link up with elements of Al Qaeda like AQAP and AQIM for support towards taking political control once Gaddafi is removed.

Folks also better start paying attention to the news on the western side of Africa, because another front is starting to open up in Africa (see here, here, and here) - and I'm not talking about Independence day in Sudan this Saturday - which is where the UN is focused.

Right now we are fighting wars on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the political objective hopefully to reduce the military presence in both nations over the next few years. Pakistan is going to remain a target in an extended air campaign for years. The only sure thing we know from the announced arrest of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame is that the United States is about to really spin up air operations in Yemen and Somalia over the next days, weeks, and months.

Libya is a strategic catastrophe, or as it is more commonly being called privately - an Obama Boondoggle - and it will surely look like one that even the best political spin doctors can't hide as European nations begin to withdraw from combat operations next month. Libya is also emerging as the new nexus in North Africa for Al Qaeda, and anyone who says otherwise is ignoring how that fight against Al Qaeda is the fight everyone knows is coming after Gaddafi loses power. The easiest prediction one can make right now is that some form of covert US military operations against AQIM and their efforts in Nigeria are coming - sooner rather than later. Finally, the Obama administration has a "no massacre" policy, so if things get heated after South Sudan declares independence, expect US military activity there too.

Since AFRICOM stood up, the focus has been engaging African nations at their request in what is described as a "supportive role" towards security. That must change in the very near future.

At some point it is time to admit that strategically, the US military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq to consolidate and contain Al Qaeda to those two states has failed miserably, and the US must adapt. I do not know what that adaptation looks like, but western, northern, and eastern Africa are dumpster fires where Al Qaeda presence is growing - and AFRICOM needs to grow up from its touchy, feely hands off approach and be a real Unified Combatant Command if they are going to productively deal with these emerging problems. The United States is facing Al Qaeda on three sides of a continent we have neglected as policy for decades, and our best friend on the continent - Egypt - is enduring some internal issues that remove the nation as a regional leader we can count on.

Which takes us back to Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame's day in court and the associated STRATCOM. What will the court files reveal about Al Qaeda? What will be the emerging narrative from a terrorist trial in the US at a time where the nation is suffering from war fatigue, and oh by the way, the future is darker than the present. How strong are our alliances and are they sufficient to address emerging challenges?

How can the US and China work together in solving the emerging Al Qaeda problem in Africa? We are engaged with China on this, right? If the answer isn't yes, we have much work to do. How long before Europe bails in dealing with problems on their own southern lawn? How much longer will US war hawks trumpet the cause in Afghanistan with other, much more serious problems emerging in Africa and the Middle East? How long can the US sustain "air campaigns" and claim that activity legitimately forwards a solution, as opposed to doing what air campaigns always do - prolong the problems?

The US Navy is heavily investing in force structure to fight the big war against China in the Pacific while the nation is engaged in 6 campaigns - none currently deployed from the sea - in 6 countries across the Middle East and Africa. The most important nation in Africa besides the United States is China. In other words, the Navy is organizing to fight the one nation that has the most shared interest with us towards an Africa that is connected to the global trade system - something Al Qaeda stands squarely against. Is this approach to national security interests our naval strategy, or our naval strategery?

What does the logistics of distributed regional naval support presence look like when low end counter terrorism problems are to be addressed in the maritime domain by the Littoral Combat Ship?

Tell me what WWIII might look like. Take your hand and rub it on a globe from Nigeria to Pakistan on land, and if we count piracy - go from the Gulf of Guinea up towards the Med, down the Red Sea and all the way over to the west Indian coast topped by the Persian Gulf all the way down to the southeastern coastline of Africa. Is that a sufficient amount of territorial mass to conduct military operations and potentially be big enough to be a world war? By 2012 that is almost certainly going to be the range of land and sea where the US is conducting air strikes and maritime security operations against legitimate Al Qaeda related terrorism threats. This is not a hollow prediction, the US has consistently fought Al Qaeda wherever they go, and right now that enormous swath of territory is the area Al Qaeda is attempting to influence politically. Think about it.

STRATCOM matters in ideological struggles, and right now the expansion of Al Qaeda across Africa represents a weakness in our ideological struggle against the legitimacy of Al Qaeda as a credible alternative to the global trade system. If the global trade system isn't effectively reaching the people of African nations, which in many cases it is not; Al Qaeda represents a legitimate alternative to an offering we can't make to disenfranchised people.

The STRATCOM from the Obama administration offers nothing productive to disenfranchised people in Africa, and unfortunately that is the one lesson everyone stands witness to with the Arab Spring. That also might explain why the Obama administration does not stand up for folks like Mubarak and Gaddafi, hoping the result will offer the US better access to disenfranchised people. Will we have compelling alternatives for the people once dictators are out of power? I don't think anyone really knows, primarily because we are still quite uncertain how it all turns out in Egypt.

Are we fighting the right fights with the right tools? Today the Obama administration claims air campaigns aren't war; they are simply an evolved variation of armed humanitarian intervention. If humanitarian air strikes isn't the STRATCOM for Libya, then what exactly is? What about Somalia? What about Pakistan? Yemen? Sudan? Nigeria? Are we shaping the information environment for political action, or simply shaping the battlefield for the next air campaign?

The United States is a strategic hot mess right now in our fight against Al Qaeda. We are engaged in two land wars and air campaigns in four countries, and we do not have a policy that can be articulated as an acceptable plan for successfully ending any of these military campaigns. Why is defense cuts the most highlighted spending issue by this administration when the Presidents policies continue to call for more and more open ended military activity across Africa and the Middle East? How does any of this end?

Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame is sure to be another political parade of some sort, but is the United States preparing to lead the parade by establishing a narrative that explains the use of global forces or are we simply going to operate as usual pretending 6 different simultaneous military campaigns are no big deal? I believe the event represents a real opportunity for the administration to take control of the counter terrorism narrative to forward a more reasonable realignment of counter terrorism policy.

If the President can't establish a narrative that explains the constantly expanding use of military force globally as his primary political tool in the war against terrorism, then he needs to be replaced for getting the United States involved in (and also failing to lead during) what is by any definition the largest hot battlefield globally the nation has fought on since World War II. It is quite concerning that US political leaders are not being held accountable for that remarkable fact.

Defending Iraq’s OPLATs - End of an Era

The final British patrol has departed Iraq’s Khawr Al Amaya and Al Basrah Oil Terminals (KAAOT and ABOT) in the North Arabian Gulf. American Sailors are still engaged but will join the Brits later this year as the Iraq withdrawal progresses. From the time of their initial capture by NSW operators in March 2003, to the rapid hand off of security to USMC FAST, USCG Port Security Units, and the establishment of a long term presence by (then) Naval Coastal Warfare and MESF forces, thousands of active and reserve American and British Sailors, Marines, and Coasties have played a key role in defending the lifeblood of the Iraqi economy. A few even gave their lives.

Some observations on this mission:

- MSO is an enduring sort of mission - once started, it’s hard to stop. Aside from the oplats, a significant portion of the NECC’s security forces have been tied down since 911 protecting SPODs and friendly shipping in CENTCOM. Even as some of these missions draw-down, these capabilities should remain intact, as they are versatile and difficult to reconstitute in the event of a crisis. MESF is an economy of force capability, and with a little imagination, the squadrons bring utility outside of force protection such as support to HADR operations and FID.

- A related lesson is that cutting the umbilical and turning over operations (completely) to a foreign partner can be challenging. The complete withdrawal from the OPLAT has been delayed several times. It's time for the Iraqis to sink or swim.

- Although numerous CRUDES and Gators supported the defense of the OPLATs and the Sailors on them, the work horses of this mission were the USN PCs and USCG WPBs. The OPLATs are situated amidst a complex environment of shoal water, heavy small boat traffic, and international sea boundaries. Some missions were made for smaller, more nimble, shallow draft vessels, and putting a multi-billion dollar capital vessel at risk is a misuse of assets at best. The PCs have been rode hard and put away wet, and are beyond the end of their service lives. A replacement is nowhere to be found in USN acquisition plans.

- ISR over-watch is a critical component of MSO. For a variety of reasons, UAVs were chosen for this mission in the NAG. However, other systems should be considered to maintain persistent surveillance over ports and offshore platforms, including fixed aerostats, like those made by this company or this one. These tactical aerostats (unlike those currently in use for base protection in Afghanistan) are affordable for smaller navies.

- At the strategic level - putting all of one’s eggs in the same critical infrastructure basket is a recipe for disaster. The Iraqis (and consequently the US) were very lucky that there was only one viable attack attempted on the platforms over the past 8 years. Systems disruption attacks, especially against oil infrastructure, have become widely understood by insurgents and terrorists globally as a low risk/high return tactic. Given growing global offshore oil infrastructure, it’s likely the US Navy will find itself involved in MSO again sometime in the future, whether in a lead or supporting (train/equip/advise) role.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are those of the author alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense, the US Navy, or any other agency.

Force Structure in Order to Create Partnership

Now this is interesting (p.29):

The intention is for these units to steadily grow to the point at which their staffs can sustain specialized expertise in regions and countries of greatest importance and regularly detach experts to accompany units deploying to training missions abroad. In addition, the Air Force will field light mobility and light attack aircraft in general purpose force units in order to increase their ability to work effectively with a wider range of partner air forces.

And (p.30):

DoD will double its current capacity to provide [training for partner aviation forces]. This enhancement will include the purchase of light, fixed-wing aircraft to enable the Air Force's 6th Special Operations Squadron to engage partner nations for whose air forces such aircraft might be appropriate.

These are part of the QDR section titled Build the Security Capacity of Partner States. Now, unless I'm reading this wrong, the argument seems to be that the United States needs to purchase and operate COIN oriented aircraft in order to effectively train partner states to operate such aircraft, in both an organizational and technical sense. I find this of particular interest because I wrote my dissertation on the subject of how military organizations learn from one another; one focus was the need for transfer of tacit, practical knowledge in addition to explicit, written knowledge. This is to say that the best kind of learning is learning by doing, and learning by doing is only available from those who have already learned to do. The proposal here seems to be that the USAF ought to restructure its procurement and training (if only on a relatively small scale) in order to become a better "teaching" organization to its "learning" partners in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

My second thought is this: I have long wondered what the end state expectations are for the Iraqi Air Force. During its heyday, the Iraqi Air Force was a large, capable, technologically advanced force capable (theoretically, anyway) of long range strike against a variety of opponents. Given that the political situation in Iraq remains uncertain, it has never been clear to me that the US intended to rebuild this Iraqi Air Force; the threat is too great that advanced fighter aircraft sold to Iraq in two years might be used against the US (or Israel) in ten years. At the same time, whatever Iraqi Air Force is created needs the capacity to support Iraqi ground forces against both domestic opponents and foreign competitors such as Iran. I'm wondering whether the idea of re-orienting the USAF, even on a small scale, around operational training in COIN platforms indicates that US expectations of the Iraqi Air Force will be measured, modest, and defensive.

...to put this in a naval context, here's a somewhat similar passage (p.39):

U.S. naval forces likewise will continue to be capable of robust forward presence and power projection operations, even as they add capabilities and capacity for working with a wide range of partner navies.

Note, though, that this doesn't seem to include the idea of operating particular platforms for the purpose of being able to instruct others in their use.

Noteworthy Iraq News

This news is too good not to mention.

December was the first month since the beginning of the Iraq war in which there were no U.S. combat deaths, the U.S. military reported.

There were three noncombat fatalities.

"That is a very significant milestone for us as we continue to move forward, and I think that also speaks to the level of violence and how it has decreased over time," said Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Since the beginning of the war more than six years ago, 4,373 U.S. military members have died -- 3,477 from hostilities and 898 in non-combat incidents.

Combat fatalities have decreased significantly since June, when the United States started withdrawing troops from Baghdad, Iraq's capital, and other urban areas. The United States also started a troop drawdown in 2009 from about 160,000 to the current level of around 110,000.

The U.S. military suffered double-digit combat-related deaths in February, April, May and June 2009. The highest was 17 in May. There were also eight non-combat deaths in May, making for the highest monthly total in 2009.

I don't know what Iraq will look like in 10 years, but if we are still there in a support capacity my prediction is that by 2020 the economy of Iraq is bigger than the economy of Iran.

I'm still torn whether or not I believe the Iraq War was worth the cost in US blood and treasure. Iraq is better off without Saddam, but is the US better off for undertaking the military action? We really won't know for years and it is too soon for any answer to represent anything other than an opinion.

Gene Taylor's Christmas Letter to Secretary Gates

The following letter was sent from Congressman Gene Taylor (D-Miss) to Secretary Gates on December 18, 2009. This is remarkable.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I write to express my concern that vast amounts of equipment used to support operations will be left behind as the U.S. military draws down its presence in Iraq.

I am particularly concerned that much of the equipment in Iraq is simply unaccounted for because it was purchased outside of the DOD or military services' supply chain. Such equipment has been termed "non-standard equipment".

During a recent visit to a unit in Balad, Iraq, I raised this subject with the battalion commander at a nearby FOB. He said that he set up an "Amnesty Day" for persons to turn in all unaccounted items. The commander said that a line of vehicles and equipment soon formed stretching approximately two miles in length. He and his soldiers were so overwhelmed with identifying and cataloguing this equipment that they extended the amnesty period for additional days in order to process all of the items brought to them. As the origin of many of these items is unknown, such equipment is termed "FOI" -- meaning "found on installation."

I strongly suspect that the account I described above is likely the rule, rather than the exception. We must do all that we can to identify and catalogue this equipment and then determine whether it is needed by our troops elsewhere in Iraq or Afghanistan. If not needed there, this excess equipment should be made available to the National Guard, other federal agencies, or state and local governments in the United States.

On May 5, 2009, Major General Raymond W. Carpenter, Acting Deputy Director of the Army National Guard, testified before the House Armed Services Committee's Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. In his testimony, General Carpenter stated that the National Guard need to "improve fill levels for a number of Combat Service Support items such as water purification systems, generators, material handling equipment, field feeding systems, tactical ambulances, aviation ground equipment and battle command systems." According to his statement, these systems are considered "Critical Dual Use" items - in that they are "critical to both domestic and war fighting missions."

General Carpenter further stated that while significant quantities of Critical Dual Use equipment has been provided to National Guard units, it is "chronically unavailable to Governors in the States and Territories due to continuing rotational deployments." he testified that the national average of Critical Dual Use equipment available to the nation's governors is 65 percent - an amount I find unacceptable.

As the U.S. Representative for the region hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina, I know firsthand how important it is that our National Guard troops have the equipment they need to carry out their state missions and provide support to civil authorities following a catastrophic event. When the 890th Engineer Battalion of the Mississippi National Guard returned from Iraq in 2003, they were required to leave all their equipment behind. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, only 60 percent of the unit's equipment had been replaced.

I regret to say that something resembling Hurricane Katrina will happen again - whether man-made or an act of God, it is just a matter of time. Every effort should be made to ensure that the excess equipment in Iraq is available to address the National Guard's stateside shortfall in Critical Dual Use equipment.

In the case of non-lethal excess items that the National Guard doesn't need or want, such equipment should be available to other federal agencies or to state and local governments. While a considerable amount of this equipment may no longer be useful to the military, it may have significant value to state agencies or local communities which face considerable funding constraints in these difficult economic times.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I stand ready to work with you on this important issue. I am available to discuss this issue with you at your earliest opportunity. Please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Gene Taylor
Member of Congress

I would not be surprised if we find enough equipment scattered around Iraq to completely fill National Guard equipment shortages, with plenty for state and local government left over. It would be quite irresponsible to leave behind billions and billions because of the difficulty in cleaning up after ourselves. This is likely a very hard job, but one that must be done.

And it should be considered a critical part of any war to clean up in the post conflict period.

Iranian Trouble and Mischief

It was interesting news this morning when the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Sayissa reported that Iran has urgently summoned Syrian leaders and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah to Tehran. The report goes on to say orders will be given regarding what action to take should Iranian nuclear sites be attacked. The Jerusalem Post has an English language report with a few more details.

Interesting now that Drudge has his Red Banner out reporting Iranian forces take over Iraq oil well. It sounds like this is not necessarily a random action thought.

"What happens is, periodically, about every three or four months, the oil ministry guys from Iraq will go ... to fix something or do some maintenance. They'll paint it in Iraqi colours and throw an Iraqi flag up.

"They'll hang out there for a while, until they get tired, and as soon as they go away, the Iranians come down the hill and paint it Iranian colours and raise an Iranian flag. It happened about three months ago and it will probably happen again."

He added that the Iraqis are "very concerned about the Iranians pulling oil out of fields underneath Iraq."

This looks to me like mischief, not trouble. The report in al-Sayissa - that looks like trouble.

Thinking About Trends and Changes

There is a clear information and political perception war taking place in the Middle East. The current trend in the war can be framed quoting from this Esquire magazine article by Thomas Barnett, who I believe has captured the essence of the trends very effectively for violent extremism.

Radical Islam has overplayed its hand again, creating popular resentment escalating to political backlash. We're the ones winning this struggle across the board, and not only should Obama ignore the offer of a truce as we press forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan (it would only allow Asia to step in for the oil money) — he should make explicitly clear to Al Qaeda that we'll never acquiesce to their desire for civilizational apartheid between the West and the Arab world, even as isolationists and defeatists on our side would just as soon erect a fence around the whole Islamic world to let them fight it out amongst themselves. Why? Because the penetrating embrace of globalization is doing the truly profound damage to Al Qaeda, and we are globalization's bodyguard. The flow of proliferating networks that offer ideas and conversations and products and expressions of individualistic ambition — especially with regard to women — offer radical Islamic groups no hope of gaining permanent political control.

This is an example why I believe an Arabic MTV network acts as a force multiplier against Al Qaeda more than several brigades in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has been so shattered over recent years that they are struggling to win hearts and minds in one of the most isolated places in the world, Northern Pakistan and disconnected southern Afghanistan. The disconnected places of the world, whether it be Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, or even the increasingly disconnected Venezuela seems to be where the trouble is usually coming from. This is not coincidence.

As Tom Barnett notes, "We're the ones winning this struggle across the board" and are doing so by connecting opportunity to places where opportunity has rarely existed in any form, much less on a global scale. While there is a hint in the truth that by fighting them over there we aren't fighting them over here, there is also a bit of truth in suggesting that fighting the soft war is more important, and achieves a more attainable containment strategy than fighting the hard war in those disconnected places ever will.

I don't want to give the impression I am celebrating globalization as a saving grace, because globalization has a whole set of challenges that needs fixing beginning with very few meaningful global rule sets that are consistently effective. What can be celebrated though is that even in the anarchy of what is globalization today, that chaos of inconsistency is better than what the disconnected despots are selling as an alternative, and more nations (which can easily include just about every major economic power) can claim it as an official political position. Contrary to popular conventional wisdom, I do not see military action in the Middle East under the 21st century tactical application of people centric strategies 'creating more enemies to fight' as the 20th century military actions in the Middle East did.

Ultra conservatives crying for brutal violence have it as wrong as ultra liberals who reject the need for violence against extremist, because in the broader Middle Eastern society violence in some form is as much a part of society as free speech is in American democracy. These aspects of society cannot be stomped out, but they can be molded and channeled, and used effectively to produce broader norms that improve a society. While people reject any infringements of free speech as a violation of rights, most Americans support infringements of free speech against hate speech against minorities, and that anti-free speech has become a government policy, to the benefit of American society I think many of us would agree.

The same is true of violence in the Middle East. Careless, meaningless vengeance and cruelty is eroding as an attractive appeal to Islamic culture, particularly when 'some' emerging national military forces in places like Iraq represent a positive object when they fight, the positive object being protection of family and security for community.

Due to political bias, popular opinion often omits the macro level side effects of events even when those side effects carry powerful consequences to the course of history. In the case of the Middle East, the side effect of a clumsy invasion of Iraq was a massive swelling of economic growth in the greater Middle East, an almost overlooked evolution of greater opportunity that has broad positive long term consequences both economically and politically for the greater Islamic society and peoples. When opportunity exists, the natural flow includes choices other than violent vengeance or cruelty.

The economic growth in the Middle East, most of which is a direct result from military engagement by US and coalition members over the last many years, has combined with greater connectivity to the rest of the world and hurt the extremist movements much more than it has helped. Given the choice of violence and death or a job and a family, job and family apparently wins the vast majority of the time. This is why whatever our military goals are in the Middle East, they must be towards a positive object from the point of view of the Middle East citizen that promotes job and family. When our military goals no longer favor these positive objects for the Iraqi or Afghan citizen, it is time to leave.

Interesting News Story - Check the Details

Air Force Times has an interesting story. There are a ton of things to think about in what is otherwise a very short news report.

An unmanned aerial vehicle crashed Sunday in Iraq, according to the Air Force.

The crash of the MQ-1 Predator, flown out of Joint Base Balad, occurred at 4:30 p.m. after an Air National Guard crew lost communications with the remote-controlled plane. The wreckage was discovered about 45 minutes later.

The crash is the second of a Predator this month. An Air Force special operations MQ-1 went down Feb. 8 in Afghanistan.

The Predator is designed to continue flying on auto-pilot if it is not able to receive directions from crew members on the ground. However, often a communications loss is the result of mechanical or electrical problems that the auto-pilot cannot handle, resulting in a crash.

An accident investigation board will look into what led to the loss of the plane, worth about $3.5 million.

Note the cost of the aircraft. Note the reason for the crash. Note the most likely causes for communication loss.

Anyone know where to find good records for accident rates of the Predator? I bet it has a great flight time record based on number of hours since the aircraft actually flies a whole bunch of hours in one sortie. I would be curious to know for sure though.

This technology may still have a long way to go to replace traditional aircraft, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stay focused on developing the future. I still say the X-47B is more important to the long term future of naval aviation than the F-35C.

The X-47B is decades away from being any sort of replacement for the F-35C, but should never be considered an optional program for carrier aviation. The learning curve for the X-47B will be very steep, best to start the journey now.

Dirty Jobs Nobody Talks About

This soldier is doing his job, and the job of these guys. I've done work that lazy coworkers wouldn't do, I only hope one day I'm in a position to tell a few folks exactly how I feel about that. Warning, foul language and plenty of it.

I read a lot of comments under that YouTube video. Maybe we should give the critics their wish, and not help build an effective Iraqi police force. To some, that alternative appears to be a smarter way ahead at this point.

As for me, I'd hire that soldier, because it is plainly clear in the video this is not the first time he has had to motivate this police unit to simply do what they are being paid to do.

H/T DT

The Lag Between Networked and Disconnected

Greyhawk is right, folks who are just realizing the war in Iraq has been won are arriving to the party after the keg has been tapped.

Greyhawk on 7/17/08, "we won."

And for the record, ID on 7/16/08.

We believe the US has already won in Iraq. People may accuse this blog for being overly optimistic, but we believe we are being realistic. There are many, many reasons, too many to cover, why we believe this, but one anecdotal statistic sticks out that implies the war is over. The death toll of US troops in Iraq in July through right now is eight. That is one fewer soldiers than died in the one firefight in Afghanistan earlier this week. A US soldier is safer in the "war" zone in Iraq than he or she would be in the city of Chicago today, which interestingly enough, may be where some Iraq veterans find themselves in the near future. This is also why we believe the trip to Iraq by Barack Obama isn't a fact finding mission to determine what next, rather we expect him to pledge US support for the Iraqi's through the upcoming election, talk about how good things are in Iraq, shift the discussion towards Afghanistan, and we won't even be surprised at all when Obama returns home to declare victory in Iraq...

The war in Iraq is over, it isn't war anymore, it is reconstruction and security through one more major election, then what we believe can be described as a "fading phase" will begin that disappears US troops gradually from the everyday lives of the Iraqi people.

OK so Obama hasn't declared Victory yet, but either Bush does, or Obama will. I don't know that I can take credit for being a sage though, I read Greyhawk and at the time was probably reading the same tea leaves he was.

As for Afghanistan, everything said on the blog in that July post still applies today.

F-16s In the News

While not Navy related, interesting news regarding sales of F-16s. First, Pakistan.

Howard Berman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs, asked the Bush administration in late July not to shift $226.5 million in federal anti-terrorism aid to the Pakistani military, saying they feared the plan would impede efforts to stop terrorism and that they needed more time to study it.

"We are concerned that the administration's proposal to use military assistance to pay for the F-16 upgrades will divert funds from more productive counter-terrorism tools like helicopters, [tube-launched, anti-tank] missiles and night-vision goggles," Ber­man and Lowey said in a joint statement issued July 29. "We have requested a hold on the administration's planned reprogramming pending additional information. The hold ... will provide time for Congress to make a more considered judgement in consultation with the administration and the government of Pakistan."

Then Iraq.

The Iraqi government is seeking to buy 36 advanced F-16 fighters from the U.S., say American military officials familiar with the request, a move that could help reduce its reliance on U.S. air power and potentially allow more American forces to withdraw from the country than had been proposed.

Hard to find anything wrong with either issue. As far as I'm concerned, I want to see all that surplus money in Iraq being pumped into the US economy. If it's for military equipment that allows the Iraqi's take over for our troops and lets them come home, all the better.

As for Pakistan, Saturday is the election, but I doubt we will see much change in the policy Pakistan takes towards the tribes in the north anytime soon. Is there any evidence these are for supporting operations against the Taliban, or are these aircraft to be used along the border with India. In other words, good for Congress, ask questions.

We may sell the F-16s to Pakistan anyway, but nothing wrong with asking a whole bunch of questions first.

5th Fleet Focus: Singapore Deploys Again to the Gulf

Singapore continues to be a solid friend to the Iraqi people as they deploy a LST yet again to the Persian Gulf in support of defending the Iraqi oil Terminals.

A Singapore Navy Landing Ship Tank (LST) left the country's Changi naval base early Saturday for the Gulf region to support the multi-national reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

According to the statement issued by the Defense Ministry on Saturday, RSS Resolution and its crew of about 175 personnel will undertake tasks such as protecting the waters around key oil terminals, conducting patrols and boarding operations, as well as providing logistics support for coalition vessels and helicopters during the three-month deployment.

To review the history here, RSS Endurance (L 207) operated in the Persian Gulf from October 2003 until December 2003. RSS Resolution (L 208) operated in the Persian Gulf from November 2004 until January 2005. RSS Endeavour (L 210) operated in the Persian Gulf from February 2006 until April 2006. RSS Persistence (L 209) deployed last September to contribute to Task Force 58.

Once again, we see an amphibious ship used in a role other than for amphibious assault, more evidence of the flexibility of the platform. In this case, Singapore uses their LSTs as motherships in protection of fixed resources at sea.

As the picture above highlights, in the past Singapore has deployed Protector USVs from their LSTs for patrols. In other words, big motherships, not small, is the trend everywhere but the US Navy.

In the past, people in the comments think we are out on a limb with our mothership concepts, but we again highlight the concepts promoted on the blog are tested, it is the US Navy spending taxpayer money on untested ideas... namely replacing rated frigates with unrated small motherships and expecting the same results.

We see RSS Resolution (L 208) replacing the USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) which will be returning home soon. The US Navy amphibious force has been on a very rapid deployment schedule, and we don't believe the US Navy will be deploying an amphibious ship to replace the USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) due to the high operational tempo. This deployment would seem to alleviate the necessity for a replacement.

A Clear Example of Disproportionate Priorities

While the Navy is telling Congress it is time to reset the strategic environment back to the cold war to support leaderships vision of what the Navy needs to be doing, the reality of what the Navy should be doing is summed up all too well by the details of this article from back in May.

Company A, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), is training to operate boats the unit received, May 2.

“I’m pretty excited,” said Cpl. Tomas Montoya, Co. A, 3-187th Inf. Regt. “I never thought I’d have the opportunity to work on boats over here in Iraq.”

“The boats will create new opportunities and capabilities in their operations along the Euphrates River,” said Lt. Col. Andrew Rohling, commander of 3-187th Inf. Regt. “They bring a sense of security, strength and versatility the local populace has not always seen from the water.”

“The boats add invaluable dimensions to the unit’s ability to conduct full-spectrum operations,” said Maj. Curtis Crum, 3rd BCT operations officer. “The boats give the brigade a unique capability that is not typically resident in this type of unit’s arsenal.”

The unit’s predecessors, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, ordered the boats in November 2007 to conduct operations along the Euphrates to deter insurgent activity. The boats were delivered to 3-187th Inf. Regt., in January.

I'm not sure we could find a better example of the disproportionate priorities the US Navy has today than to highlight a photograph of the 101st Airborne Division patrolling Euphrates River.

One might look at this picture and wonder why the Navy couldn't find a Boston whaler to mount a machine gun on and do this mission, or was it because the Navy wouldn't do the mission? It is a serious question, because it highlights the lack of priority the Navy's leadership has in regards to the NECC, not to mention the lack of funding.

The story is a good read. In particular note the attitudes of the guys in 3-187 interviewed. Imagine a world where the Navy's leadership was excited about doing the Navy's job as those Army guys reportedly are. As the Iraqi's take over duty at the dam, one wonders if the Navy will step up and take over for the Army. From what I'm hearing, the answer is "probably not."

The nation has been at war in Iraq for over five years now, a war with a clear Navy riverine mission profile, and yet here we are after five years into the war watching the Army stand up a riverine force for the Euphrates river from an order given in November of 2007, and the unit is already on patrol by May of 2008.

This is a leadership issue, specifically an attitude of leadership issue.

Five Good Reads - War Edition

The Long War Journal is an outstanding site that cuts through the BS in war reporting we see from most of the establishment. This story caught our attention this morning, particularly in the wake of the recent following the Supreme Court's ruling June 12 that Guantanamo detainees have a right to access US courts. Congress doesn't get asked enough hard questions on this topic, because they really need to be working to develop the legal framework to help guide the courts, because the consequences of failing to manage those captured in a war where the enemy isn't held accountable for promoting tactics defined as war crimes leads to more war crimes.

Iran has found a new way to wage war against the Kurds, just in time for summer too. Instead of using bullets and bombs, Iran is cutting off their sources of water. There have been many intellectuals predicting the use of water as a weapon in the 21st century, looks like we are seeing the first case where it could happen, because the Kurds, who are very well armed, will not sit quiet and die. The Israeli's, who have been reported to work with the Kurds quietly for years in regards to military training, could factor in this...

Armchair Generalist is looking into the face of the Marines catch-22 in Afghanistan and isn't happy. We don't disagree with his position, but we don't disagree with the reasons the Marines don't follow his advice either. Long term solution combines security and an alternative crop the local population can utilize to grow the economy. We vote biodiesel via algae, but the technology is still a few years away, and the security is at least that long away until Europe steps up.

If you ask me which milblog is the best in terms of all factors one would consider for judgment, my vote goes to Kaboom. No style is as unique, few stories are more interesting, and there are very few first person blogs where you will learn more lessons relevant to the world we live in. As huge fans we want to wish him congratulations on one of his most difficult and rewarding endeavors yet.

Tony Blankley is right, the debate is worth having. It is easy to rush to answer yes or no, but would one have weighed costs and benefits before politics rushes the answer out of ones mouth? Unlikely. One problem with having the debate centric to Bush is that managing the costs and managing the benefits will be an important job for the next administration, and if we are being honest, we don't have much faith in either candidate to reduce the burden of the costs to the American citizen or military while capitalizing on the benefits of victory in the Iraq theater (should it happen) to forwards American interests.

* We have been on the road thus the reduced posting this week, but promise our readers their high expectations for quality content on the blog will be met as time allows.

The Surge Has Spillover

The last few videos that have been released had already tipped off this conclusion. The CIA is now assessing Al Qaeda has been defeated in both Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Less than a year after his agency warned of new threats from a resurgent al-Qaeda, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays the terrorist movement as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world, including in its presumed haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In a strikingly upbeat assessment, the CIA chief cited major gains against al-Qaeda's allies in the Middle East and an increasingly successful campaign to destabilize the group's core leadership.

What changed? The surge. The strategy to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq with the surge is having some very nice unintended consequences for Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Given the political steps observed from the Iraqi government, the war is about over regardless of the domestic political situation. In fact, I'm now thinking it will Obama, not McCain, who declares victory in Iraq first.

Now the question is what can be done in the northern tribal regions of Pakistan where Al Qaeda has made gains, and how can the US turn the tables on Iran nuclear issue without resorting to a military solution. On that last point, I get the impression the US intends to discredit Iran in Iraq the same way they discredited Al Qaeda, but I have a feeling that will be much easier said than done. The politics of Iraq might be ridiculous, but I am so impressed with the job General Petraeus has done. Right man, right place, right time.

The End of an Act Approaches in Iraq

While we tend to avoid the topic, we follow the events of Iraq daily. Most Americans don't, they only catch the headlines. If you can find accurate, detailed news sources about events in Iraq, and you read them daily, follow the unfolding events like a play being performed on the stage of history, and observe the trend lines we believe you can get a feel for what is happening. Because most Americans take a casual look at the war, get the made for TV version of events, and are heavily influenced by the political view rather than the strategic view, disinformation on Iraq can drive the conversation.

It isn't an accident House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a surprise visit to Iraq this past weekend, as much as her political opponents would like to present her as a fool, she is very much aware of events as they unfold. We believe the conclusion of this act in the play is at hand, and the next act in the Iraq campaign is about to begin. Since our leadership has never actually discussed victory conditions for Iraq, we observe the conclusion of this act will not be victory, at least by the definition of the official government policy driving the action.

The end of the act we are talking about is the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has either already occurred or is at hand. We begin with the view from the ground.

The al-Qaida terror group in Iraq appears to be at its weakest state since it gained an initial foothold in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion five years ago, the acting commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Wednesday in an Associated Press interview.

Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who assumed interim command of U.S. Central Command on March 28, acknowledged that al-Qaida remains a relentless foe and has not disappeared as a serious threat to stability. But he said an accelerated U.S. and Iraq campaign to pressure al-Qaida has paid big dividends.

However the most important signal came last Friday in a tape released that is reported to be Osama Bin Laden. The tape changes the message for Al Qaeda, and can be interpreted as Al Qaeda's surrender in Iraq as they relocate to new grounds in an effort to rally support.

"Al-Qaida could now be preparing its followers for a strategic failure in Iraq. It therefore needs a rallying cry and Palestine is a no-brainer," Nigel Inkster, director of Transnational Threats and Political Risk at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, told the BBC.

"There is some evidence that support for Osama Bin Laden has been dropping in the Arab world because of revulsion about al-Qaida behavior and especially the killing of Muslims," said Inkster, a former British intelligence deputy chief. "On the other hand, there is still an appetite and ambition to engage in terrorism spectaculars in western Europe and U.S."

The US military has now defeated Saddam's Iraqi military, defeated Rumsfeld's "dead enders", won over the Sunni tribes, reversed the course of a civil war, and all signs are pointing towards the defeat of Al Qaeda. With the government process evolving albeit slowly, including the slow consolidation of power between the factions, there remains one final act in Iraq for the "military" phase of the Iraq campaign, and it appears to be picking up momentum by gathering all the attention.

The top uniformed U.S. military officer told Congress Tuesday that Iran is directly jeopardizing any potential for peace in Iraq, prompting fresh calls from senators that the U.S. pursue diplomatic talks with Tehran.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “irresponsible actions” by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard “directly jeopardize” peace in Iraq.

“Restraint in our response does not signal lack of resolve or capability to defend ourselves against threats,” Mullen told the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.

When Gates discusses Iran, he continues to highlight the need for the US to build leverage for diplomatic action on Iran. We believe this will becomes the new strategy for CENTCOM as Army Gen. David Petraeus becomes CENTCOM Commander. Hearings for General Petraeus's appointment takes place today in the Senate. There is some irony that there will be a political sideshow, because as General Petraeus has become the savior of the nations military actions in Iraq, he is being tapped again, this time to tackle the strategy for Iran.

Indeed, the Senate is expected to eventually approve the two nominations, but not before Democrats get a chance to sharply question Petraeus and Odierno on when more troops might come home and whether the U.S. war effort in Iraq has aggravated the violence there.

When asked by the Senate panel whether a lengthy deployment in Iraq only strengthens Iran's influence in the region, Petraeus responded that the opposite was true. It "has the potential to counter malign Iranian influence against the government of Iraq, build common cause in the region and expose the extent of malign Iranian activities to the world," he wrote.

Any political rhetoric that comes from these hearings will be background noise, and both sides of the aisle will embarrass themselves lecturing someone already proven to be smarter than them. With both Kennedy and McCain absent from the hearings tomorrow, the contrast between the rest of the Senators and the General is striking, as he has clearly contributed more to the national interest of the United States than the sum total of the Senators that will sit on the panel, and I include my Senator Hillary Clinton. That doesn't mean the Senate doesn't have good questions that need to be asked, rather that any political grandstanding at the Generals expense would demonstrate the empty character of politics in America today, the absence of adults in politics.

As CENTCOM Commander, General Petraeus faces a challenge more difficult than the one faced in Iraq, and he starts with a pair of twos facing a full house. Iraq was a classic counterinsurgency, a military problem where Petraeus could draw upon his military experience to execute a successful military solution. He has performed admirably.

We observe the irony, that in a world absent the ignorance bred by American domestic politics, General Petraeus would be the champion of the desired liberal approach to the Iran situation. The Generals only flaw in the political world is also his greatest strength, success, which has made him the champion of the right side of politics for pulling US policy from the abyss in Iraq.
That mantle as champion of the right under the Bush Administration is the primary reason some people are skeptical of this appointment.

Armed with a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, General Petraeus represents the best education taxpayer money can buy to deal with this specific situation. With a successful record at all levels as a broker of national power toward the national interest of the United States, General Petraeus once again finds himself as the best hope for a nation looking for a successful resolution to a complex problem where no good solutions are easily discerned from the public perspective.

The struggle against Al Qaeda will continue across the theater, but with the appointment of General Petraeus to CENTCOM on Thursday, the confrontation between the United States and Iran begins.

A War of Proxy Wars

CIA Director Michael Hayden conducted a Q&A at Kansas State University on Wednesday, and busted out some comments worth analysis.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said Wednesday that Iranian policy, at the highest government level, is to help kill Americans in Iraq, the boldest pronouncement of Iranian involvement by a U.S. official to date.

Hayden made the statement in response to a student question while delivering the Landon Lecture at Kansas State University.

"It is my opinion, it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq," Hayden said. "Just make sure there's clarity on that."

It is very difficult to prove "it is the policy of the Iranian government, approved to highest level of that government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq" which is why he begins the sentence with "It is my opinion." We observe Directory Hayden to be a sharp guy, and as CIA Director he unquestionably has access to more information that we do on the topic. In essence though, his opinion becomes that he believes the government of Iran has declared war on the United States military in Iraq.

The story continues.

Military commanders in Baghdad are expected to roll out evidence of that support soon, including date stamps on newly found weapons caches showing that recently made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing rate.

Another senior military official said the evidence will include mortars, rockets, small arms, roadside bombs and armor-piercing explosives - known as explosively formed penetrators or EFPs - that troops have discovered in caches in recent months. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the evidence has not yet been made public, said dates on some of the weapons were well after Tehran signaled late last year that it was scaling back aid to insurgents.

This is much easier to prove. Origin of military equipment can be determined by scientific means, hell origin of any hardware can be done this way, and is not really subject to a political opinion. The politics arrives after an accurate revelation. We know too many folks both in Iraq and who have been to Iraq who have first hand accounts on this subject, and we do recognize that some of the military equipment is sourced to Iran, and in particular the really nasty modern stuff.

While there are a lot of people who are under the mistaken impression Iran is going to go away when Bush leaves office, we see Iran, not Iraq, as the enormous foreign policy burden Bush will leave the next president. Iraq was contained, constrained, and only empowered through the broken corruptive nature of the UN, a series of corruption driven programs we believe screwed Saddam just as much as it was screwing legitimate sanctions. As we have said many times on this blog, we did not support the invasion of Iraq, believing at the time Bush was attacking Iraq to avoid addressing the problem with Iran. However, now that we are in Iraq we do not support withdrawal from Iraq until an exit strategy is developed. We see the political rhetoric in this election to be very tactical, as stuff like surge or withdrawal does not strike us as very strategic.

We find it very plausible that Iraq represents the same strategy for both Iran and the United States. While we are leveraging Iraq as the battlespace to fight a proxy war against Al Qaeda and other extremists "over there," it seems very plausible Iran is fighting a proxy war against the United States "over there" as well. Either it is time to discuss a peace treaty for the proxy war, or time to shift the proxy war to a real war. We really do not see another option for the United States, as the present situation does not provide stability as long as Iran is involved. We note that Iran has the same two options for a conclusion to the stalemate, but they have one more, time is on their side.

We believe the exit strategy out of Iraq goes through Iran. We do not know what that strategy should be, but with rhetoric like what we see from General Hayden here, it does not appear the United States knows either. One thing that is also clear, the conservative "bomb, bomb, bomb..." approach and the progressive "get our troops out now" approach both strike us as unproductive, and neither appears in line with our national economic interests.

Iraq has become a war of proxy wars. Whether it is this president or the next, the war will not end until the proxy aspect of the war ends. We see the development of strategy to that end as the exit strategy. We don't believe the only ways and means to reach those ends are military, although we acknowledge they may need to be.

US Forces Take The Offensive

We observed the other day the Navy had moved two aircraft carriers into the Middle East region. We first noticed something was a bit off when the daily air power updates continued to include Naval aviation sorties. Usually during a carrier rotation, the administration insures that as one carrier enters the region the other is on the way out, but not this time.

There were plenty of other press reports that gave the impression offensive operations in both theaters were about to be sustained for a short period, and we are observing news reports of these expected offensive operations today.

Navy Times has the story from Afghanistan.

Marines in helicopters and Humvees flooded into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan’s most violent province early Tuesday in the first major American operation in the region in years.

The article goes on to highlight that the Taliban had been expecting the Marines. The fighting in this region is likely to be sustained as the Marines make their presence known. The 24th MEU represents the first surge to the Afghanistan region by the USMC. In watching the activities of the 24th MEU, there appears to be a 24th MEU official blog that may be worth observing for news.

Additionally we observe the continued operations in the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Reports on the ground are claiming that a lot of Iranian sourced materials are being captured in the fighting. As always, we default to better sources for understanding the tactical aspects of the events taking place in both theaters. Unfortunately the Iranian weapon issue will remain political, and as such, unproductive for the troops dealing with the problem.

We do not know how long the Navy will keep 2 carriers in the region, although we observe it unlikely the Harry S Truman Carrier Strike Group will begin to return home until one of the offensive operations is completed.

Observing the Rotation of US Naval Power to the Middle East

As you might observe in our latest Order of Battle, the US Navy is currently operating two Carrier Strike Groups in the Middle East. Additionally, we are observing two Expeditionary Strike Groups and a British Carrier Strike Group in the region as well. As we read the events as they are disclosed in public sources, we believe the United States is on the verge of major offensive operations in the Middle East.

These rotational periods where strike groups overlap durations in forward theaters do occur every year, and are not abnormal, however it is noteworthy that this year the rotation coincides with a large naval presence from Europe in the 5th Fleet theater. We also observe the possibility that this massive increase of naval power may not be reduced as quickly as we observed it would last week.

We default to better sources, including the Small Wars Journal and Long War Journal for understanding the tactical operations taking place in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in observing an increase in naval forces in the region, we believe the increase is directly related to events taking place on the ground in both theaters.

The USS Harry S Truman presence is directly related to activity specific to supporting the current events surrounding the fighting in Basra, and the larger activities unfolding with the Mahdi Army. Our observation of General Petraeus is that he isn't keeping surged troops in Iraq simply to wait around and watch events unfold, rather we believe he has a stopwatch regarding Mahdi Army activity, and the clock is quickly counting down to zero. We believe that if the Mahdi Army situation doesn't resolve itself quickly, MNF-I will be solving that issue with force. The additional carrier air power in the region is to support that offensive if it is required, and because the deployment of the USS Harry S Truman (CVN 75) is approaching its conclusion over the next two weeks, we believe Petraeus will insure the carrier is on station if the offensive is required.

The issue for CENTOM isn't that an aircraft carrier can't support operations in both theaters, the Navy has proven one carrier can support both wars at the same time many times over the last few years. The issue is that a single aircraft carrier can't support offensive operations in both theaters at the same time. In that context, we observe the 24th MEU is on the move, and we believe this 'surged' Marine force was sent to the region for a purpose, and it wasn't to guard a border. News reporting supports our theory.

U.S. marines are crossing the sands of southern Afghanistan for the first time in years, providing a boost to a NATO coalition that is growing in size but still short on manpower, especially where it counts.

Military officials say some of the marines who make up the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Afghanistan were among those who helped to tame a thriving insurgency in western Iraq.

Plans are for the newly arrived forces to move into regions of Afghanistan now controlled by the Taliban.

With Pakistan negotiating with the Taliban again, we believe the 24th MEU is about to go on the offensive, and that will require close air support. It doesn't appear to us as coincidental the 24th MEU is on the move just as the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) arrives to the region.

With two major offensives either already begun or about to begin in the region, ground forces will require more air power than usual to support these activities. The USS Harry S Truman (CVN 75) deployed on November 5th, 2007. The 6 month mark will come and go on May 5th, 2008, and the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) has already arrived on station to replace the Truman CSG. We observe that the Canadian frigate HMCS Charlottetown (FFH 339), which was part of the Truman CSG, has already crossed into the Suez Canal on its way home. This implies the deployment for the Truman CSG has been extended.

We read any sustained increase of two aircraft carriers to be a signal that a considerable amount of military activity is about to take place in both Afghanistan and Iraq. It will be interesting to see how long the Truman CSG remains in the region, and it could be that events on the ground in Iraq over the next few days will decide how long the carrier remains in theater.

Update: Yes, we are intentionally ignoring the Iran possibilities, although we will be monitoring this and this closely. We admit we might be willfully denying the possibility of a strike against Iran, despite the fact that if you add the European forces, we are currently observing the highest level of naval presence in the Middle East region since late 2003.