Just wanted to shout out a big "thank you" to CDR Chris Rawley for holding the ship steady while I was busy restoring the office from hurricane Irene flood damage.
Things are back up and running. Blog posting should return to normal shortly.
Tuesday, September 6, 2024
Another TFG Transition
After several years and numerous predictions foretelling the organization's imminent collapse, Somalia's TFG is slowly, but surely taking on the trappings of a real government. Here, the Somalia Report reports that the TFG is now less than a year from holding new elections and putting more permanent governance structures in place. More interesting from a naval perspective is the Benchmark for maritime security, which includes the establishment of a Somali Maritime Police Force and Coast Guard, anti-piracy legislation, establishment of EEZs, and maritime security cooperation with Puntland and Somaliland. Now, if only they could get over that little matter of Al Shabaab's control of most of Southern Somalia's ports.
Somalia's problems are broad and deep, but getting a handle on maritime security will go a long way in mitigating some of the worst of them, including al Shabaab (which will also enable famine relief), and of course, piracy.
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.
Somalia's problems are broad and deep, but getting a handle on maritime security will go a long way in mitigating some of the worst of them, including al Shabaab (which will also enable famine relief), and of course, piracy.
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.
Monday, September 5, 2024
Rebranding the Arab Spring
Fall is rapidly approaching, yet popular revolutions in the Middle East and Africa continue, notably in Syria, and of course, Libya. Words have meaning and importance, and as these historical events persist, it makes sense to have a moniker that more accurate describes their impact. Some have suggested the “Arab Transition.” Others note the fact that not all the countries undergoing -- or that will undergo -- these rapid transitions of governance are Arab.
I recently heard a well-regarded DOD communications expert discuss the rebranding of the Arab Spring. He likened it to an awakening and suggested that this term be adopted. Awakening would also apply to non-Arab countries whose populations might be in a pre-revolution phase, but have yet to act. He even mentioned the potential energy in China for this sort of mass movement. Regardless, I’d strongly discourage use of the term “Awakening,” because it plays right into the hands of al Qaeda. In this 2005 Long War Journal article, one can see that the Awakening refers to the first phase of AQ’s seven phase strategy to create an Islamic caliphate. By the way, don't the rest of the phases read like an eerily accurate prediction of recent history? So what is a more appropriate name for the ongoing revolutions? Or does it even matter?
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.
I recently heard a well-regarded DOD communications expert discuss the rebranding of the Arab Spring. He likened it to an awakening and suggested that this term be adopted. Awakening would also apply to non-Arab countries whose populations might be in a pre-revolution phase, but have yet to act. He even mentioned the potential energy in China for this sort of mass movement. Regardless, I’d strongly discourage use of the term “Awakening,” because it plays right into the hands of al Qaeda. In this 2005 Long War Journal article, one can see that the Awakening refers to the first phase of AQ’s seven phase strategy to create an Islamic caliphate. By the way, don't the rest of the phases read like an eerily accurate prediction of recent history? So what is a more appropriate name for the ongoing revolutions? Or does it even matter?
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.
Sunday, September 4, 2024
Signs of Decline
This is what stretched thin looks like in practice.
When the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group headed to sea in August for the first of three planned exercises with Marines, it got underway with only two of its three ships.I am curious if the continuing resolution process for FY11 earlier this year contributed to this delay. The fleet does not appear to have any margin for errors or delays anymore - whether from political process or an accident. When something happens that delays any single ship, due to the smaller fleet the cascading impacts always seem to always have broader impacts to schedules and training of other ships and crews.
The dock landing ship Pearl Harbor remained in San Diego while the amphibious transport dock New Orleans and amphibious assault ship Makin Island conducted “blue-green” training ahead of their deployment later this year.
Pearl Harbor is completing a scheduled-but-extended maintenance period at a San Diego shipyard, so its crew sat out the first set of training. When the ARG gets underway again later this month for its composite training unit exercise, Pearl Harbor won’t be joining them for that one, either, officials say.
That will be one fewer ship Marines and Navy commanders have for training to handle helicopters and vehicles, launch landing craft and support operations ashore.
But Navy officials are “cautiously optimistic” that Pearl Harbor will be ready to join the final training that ultimately deems the ARG and Marine expeditionary unit “ready” to deploy.
“We are not going to relax a single certification standard for the Pearl Harbor as they integrate into this ARG/MEU,” said Rear Adm. Gerard Hueber, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3.
The rest of the article does a good job discussing options and alternatives. It's worth reading to understand the depth of the issue.
Friday, September 2, 2024
Why Do We Still Need a Huge Army? - Round II
I’ve received significant feedback on this post , ranging from private emails calling these ideas “brilliant” to a blatant dismissal of any arguments that recommend cutting the army by a single soldier. More importantly, regardless of one's opinion on my arguments, the discourse on this topic has been energized. Since my post, a few timely articles were written discussing this debate. Looks like the Army itself is talking about eliminating 10 out of 45 active BCTs, which is just short of the 25% SWAG I recommended (no, I didn’t have inside information on this).
Was I too parochial? Guilty as charged, except that I’m also defending the Marine Corps, Air Force, and multi-service SOF community over the Army conventional force. However, I’m not sure how one can take a position on force reductions without being parochial, unless one thinks that across the board cuts make any sort of strategic sense (I don’t). I was also accused of coming to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. Fair point, but I didn’t intend to capture all of the reasons that the army should be reduced before the other services in a single post. Those arguments have been made extensively at every draw-down, most recently during the early 1990s, post-Cold War/ODS era.
For someone much more eloquent than this author on the value of of sea power to America's security, I recommend reading Bryan McGrath. But I will make a few points here to round out the case for a large decrease in the size of the active component army, while leaving the other services relatively unscathed by future budget cuts:
-The Navy/Marine Corps (and SOF) are nimble and able to respond quickly to global military contingencies. Despite repeated efforts at trying to correct this, the army is too bulky and inflexible to provide a global on call response force when it counts. Furthermore, neither the US people nor international community will show any appetite for a large US military combat footprint anywhere for at least the next couple of decades. As one of the commenters noted, it's best to "start small and stay small." To paraphrase another responder, having a large army provides us a convenient excuse to use a large army. Going in big is not always the best strategic COA, especially when other political or military options are available.
-Post Afghanistan, the Army will withdraw to garrison and do little to counter ongoing irregular threats, while the other services (and SOCOM) remain forward engaged. It’s not in the US Army's culture or capacity to do otherwise. For those who might disagree, what is the Army’s strategy to counter non-state actors short of a full scale ground invasion with follow-on extended COIN operations?
-Yes, SOF-Airpower, the air-sea battle, and other future warfighting concepts are still in nascent stages of development (some more than others). However, we've seen enough benefits from these ideas in combat the past decade or so to make a decision on investing more in air, maritime, and SOF capabilities, even at the expense of traditional ground combat force structure.
- Finally, the Navy has already taken significant hits to manpower and readiness the past few years, while continuing to support the war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against al Qaeda in a variety of ways. One way these personnel shortfalls manifest themselves is through the boots-on-the-ground individual augmentees the Navy provides to make up for a supposed lack of army capacity in certain areas. In some cases, this augmentation has been thoughtful and logical. In others, it’s just plain stupid. Additionally, the Navy continues to pull Sailors from what are already “optimally manned” ships to deploy in support of the Army. The most egregious IA example I've heard of is deploying highly trained, highly compensated nuclear qualified submarine junior officers to Afghanistan to run army postal units. First, the Navy must take a hard scrub on these IAs. Second, the Army Chief might want to consider doing what the Marine Corps Commandant did a few years back; scour the Pentagon and all other DC staffs (not to mention those homesteading comfortably in Europe and Asia) to find the embarrassing number of Army field grade officers and senior NCOs -- regardless of rank or specialty-- who have never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and put them on the next rotator to Bagram Air Base with a postal scale in their ruck.
Defense reductions should be made strategically, not on the basis of some sense of fairness. Why should the other services take further cuts when the Army pulls back to garrison post-Afghanistan? Why shouldn’t the conventional army take the lion’s share of any defense cuts?
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.
Was I too parochial? Guilty as charged, except that I’m also defending the Marine Corps, Air Force, and multi-service SOF community over the Army conventional force. However, I’m not sure how one can take a position on force reductions without being parochial, unless one thinks that across the board cuts make any sort of strategic sense (I don’t). I was also accused of coming to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons. Fair point, but I didn’t intend to capture all of the reasons that the army should be reduced before the other services in a single post. Those arguments have been made extensively at every draw-down, most recently during the early 1990s, post-Cold War/ODS era.
For someone much more eloquent than this author on the value of of sea power to America's security, I recommend reading Bryan McGrath. But I will make a few points here to round out the case for a large decrease in the size of the active component army, while leaving the other services relatively unscathed by future budget cuts:
-The Navy/Marine Corps (and SOF) are nimble and able to respond quickly to global military contingencies. Despite repeated efforts at trying to correct this, the army is too bulky and inflexible to provide a global on call response force when it counts. Furthermore, neither the US people nor international community will show any appetite for a large US military combat footprint anywhere for at least the next couple of decades. As one of the commenters noted, it's best to "start small and stay small." To paraphrase another responder, having a large army provides us a convenient excuse to use a large army. Going in big is not always the best strategic COA, especially when other political or military options are available.
-Post Afghanistan, the Army will withdraw to garrison and do little to counter ongoing irregular threats, while the other services (and SOCOM) remain forward engaged. It’s not in the US Army's culture or capacity to do otherwise. For those who might disagree, what is the Army’s strategy to counter non-state actors short of a full scale ground invasion with follow-on extended COIN operations?
-Yes, SOF-Airpower, the air-sea battle, and other future warfighting concepts are still in nascent stages of development (some more than others). However, we've seen enough benefits from these ideas in combat the past decade or so to make a decision on investing more in air, maritime, and SOF capabilities, even at the expense of traditional ground combat force structure.
- Finally, the Navy has already taken significant hits to manpower and readiness the past few years, while continuing to support the war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against al Qaeda in a variety of ways. One way these personnel shortfalls manifest themselves is through the boots-on-the-ground individual augmentees the Navy provides to make up for a supposed lack of army capacity in certain areas. In some cases, this augmentation has been thoughtful and logical. In others, it’s just plain stupid. Additionally, the Navy continues to pull Sailors from what are already “optimally manned” ships to deploy in support of the Army. The most egregious IA example I've heard of is deploying highly trained, highly compensated nuclear qualified submarine junior officers to Afghanistan to run army postal units. First, the Navy must take a hard scrub on these IAs. Second, the Army Chief might want to consider doing what the Marine Corps Commandant did a few years back; scour the Pentagon and all other DC staffs (not to mention those homesteading comfortably in Europe and Asia) to find the embarrassing number of Army field grade officers and senior NCOs -- regardless of rank or specialty-- who have never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and put them on the next rotator to Bagram Air Base with a postal scale in their ruck.
Defense reductions should be made strategically, not on the basis of some sense of fairness. Why should the other services take further cuts when the Army pulls back to garrison post-Afghanistan? Why shouldn’t the conventional army take the lion’s share of any defense cuts?
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.
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