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Top Billing! Kitchen Dispatch –A Travesty Forged by Politics: Support SFC Walter Taylor 

This story makes my stomach turn.

We now have retroactive ROE for enlisted operators so that lawyers can parse chaotic firefights second by second against ex post facto political requirements of our corrupt and useless lotus-eating client, Hamid Karzai. Read Kanani Fong’s post and ask yourself how a vehicle that was deemed a threat in eyes of prosecutors can only have non-threatening occupants who approach American GIs in the midst of combat? WTF?

The initial investigation which blamed “failures of leadership” in the tragic death of Dr. Aqilah Hikmat has been swept under the rug by Army prosecutors.

The senior generals  of the US Army are failing in their moral obligation to stand behind our soldiers when they are right and to demonstrate that when they are wrong, that the standards that apply to the least of privates apply equally to the most august of commanding officers:

A few weeks ago, over on Facebook, I shared the tragic story of the accidental death of a female Afghan gynecologist. She had stepped into a battle, where a convoy had not only been bombed, but were engaged in a firefight. I remember scratching my head, thinking about the scores of women who needed her skills, and now they wouldn’t have them. Everyone on Facebook agreed. We were all saddened and troubled.
But I also recall thinking that in her snap decision, she underestimated the situation, the danger, and her own mortality. Had she not rushed into the middle of things, she would be alive today. Sometimes you cannot save the world, only yourself and the ones you love.
War in itself is messed up. War and politics even more so. The president of that creaky nation called for an investigation. 
Now, Army prosecutors are bringing charges of negligent homicide against SFC Taylor.
His Facebook support page is here: In  Support of SFC Walter Taylor
Since he’s hired a civilian military defense attorney, a fund has been set up because it’s already wiped out his life savings. Please go here: On Indiegogo: Defense Fund for SFC Walter Taylor
Then keep reading. From the L.A. Times:

“Four Seconds in Afghanistan: Was it combat or a crime?  

Four seconds….Good fucking Lord.

Imagine your head has just been rocked by the concussive force of high explosive, bullets are snapping around you and the air is thick with the cries of wounded friends. You don’t know where are the enemy is. No officer is giving you orders. You can’t hear properly. Your heart is pounding in your chest. All of you may die in the next few minutes. A black car pulls up and everyone sprays it with bullets. Someone gets out and walks at you….what do you do?

You had far more time reading that passage than SFC Taylor had to make the decision for which he is on trial for his freedom.

Peter J. Munson –Rajiv Chandrasekaran on Afghanistan, COIN, and the Future of the MAGTF 

RC:  I believe that we could have fought this war in a far smarter way.  Fighting smarter does not have to involve an existential threat.  If the President of the United States and his war cabinet determine that committing US troops and US civilians and American taxpayer money was a critical thing to do for our national security, then I believe the organs of our government had an obligation to employ those resources in the most judicious way possible.  You outline a number of problems that I illustrate in the book.  Each of the problems you cite has a different cause.  Let me take a few of them. 

The Marine decision to push for contiguous battlespace – let me say at the outset that this book is not in any way a criticism of the Marines who went to Afghanistan and fought so bravely.  They did phenomenal work and I try to capture that in the opening chapters of this book.  I recently found out that the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade is going to be awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, an incredibly prestigious award. I think that a reader would determine from their work that I detail in the book that they were deserving of an honor like this.  My criticism is with senior officers in the Corps in Washington, as well as our senior Pentagon leadership for sending the Marines where they were sent.  There is no argument that Helmand is a bad place; lots of insurgents there.  Helmand is the epicenter of poppy production.  It was a nasty place, but was it the nastiest place in all of Afghanistan?  Was it the most critical place? 

….though most don’t associate computer networks with special operations forces, SOCOM is seeking technology for cyberspace operations. It is looking information assurance throughout worldwide enterprise systems that also connect to joint, coalition, and partner networks. SOCOM is also interested in offensive and counter-threat capabilities, wanting to globally identify, attribute, geo-locate, monitor, interdict, and defend against threats while simultaneously being able to access, control, and disrupt enemy networks.

Top Billing! Information Dissemination Guest Post Series

Galrahn needs to be commended for organizing this excellent series and also the top-notch contributors who participated, including a sitting Member of Congress. A first-rate blog event!

Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., Captain USN –Is there a connection between your strategic and tactical assertions?

Dr. Andrew Exum –What should the US Army be contributing to AirSea Battle? 

Jan Van Tol –When matching the strategic objective of preventing war to resources, can the US Navy prevent war in the 21st century, and if so, how? 

Rep.  J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) –What is the potential and what are the challenges the Navy faces in fielding a UCLASS to the fleet? 

Feedback and Discussion

SWJ Blog  1. (Octavian Manea) The Russian COIN Campaign in North Caucasus 

How different is the ranking of priorities in the Russian COIN compared to the Western pop-centric approach? In what kind of missions and priorities were the main resources invested?

I assume you’re referring to doctrinal approaches here. It’s important to point out that there are still plenty of Western analysts who believe that heavy “enemy-centric” approaches are more effective than the “population-centric” approaches upon which our doctrine is based. Western doctrinal COIN approaches start with and revolve around “security” – for the government as well as the local population, whereas you can see from the chart in my book on page 201 that the Russian approach considers security of the local population a much lower priority. In the Western approach, it is important to start trying to gain the support of the indigenous population through a number of means (security, economic, civil affairs projects, diplomatic, etc), while the Russians initially put these types of activities way at the bottom of their list (although Ramzan Kadyrov has placed a much higher emphasis on those types of activities since he has assumed the presidency).  The Russian Main Effort has always been focused on the general Russian population within Russia proper, as opposed to the indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus.  And as an enemy-centric approach, they have emphasized killing the enemy over building support for themselves among the local population. All in all, I’d say the Russian and Western priorities are generally very different.

2. (Alex Verschoor-Kirss) Foucault and Fourth Generation Warfare: Towards a Genealogy of War and Conflict 

Inclusion does not equate with my endorsement.  Frankly, there’s a cocked-up misunderstanding of historical methodology (and the field of military history) and hero-worship of Michel Focault; however, the piece is certainly thought-provoking as it is a critique of 4GW coming way out of left field and worth a read.

Abu Muqawama (Kelsey Atherton) –Guest Post: Learning from Greece the Hard Way

….At the beginning of the current system is America’s involvement by proxy in the Greek Civil War. Following an awkward post-war realization that maybe arming every faction fighting against the Nazi occupation was not the wisest run in the long term, the Allied powers (initially the United Kingdom) decided to disarm as many partisans as they could in the immediate outbreak of peace, while shoring up support for the royalist government.  Not all partisans were agreeable to being disarmed or towards the ancien regime, and Greece developed a communist insurgency.  In 1947, the UK decided they could no longer afford their investment in the Greek government, and in their stead Truman decided to shoulder the task of providing military assistance in their stead. He did this through the American Mission for Aid to Greece “outside and independent of the embassy at Athens and of Ambassador Lincoln MacVeagh.” Inevitably, the Greeks observed that Griswold controlled the resources, so they bypassed the Ambassador and dealt directly with him. The  Ambassador’s authority diminished, and a conflict within the Embassy emerged. 

PARAMETERS (Ralph Peters) –In Praise of Attrition 

Dr. Von –Do We Have the Educational Infrastructure to do Major STEM Education?

Diane Ravitch –Bill Gates Turns His Attention to Higher Education

Eide Neurolearning Blog –Education for Misfits and Neurodiversity and The Steps of Creativity – Early Crowd sourcing and Prototyping 

Robert Slavin –A Call to Arms for Education Innovation

Chicago Boyz – (Ginny) Taylor 1: Liberal Arts Purpose to Leave Our Selves Behind 

Recommended Viewing:

Bruce Kesler –“Existential Defeatism” Abroad and at Home 

Kings of War (David Betz) –My correct views on COIN and Beyond the Cloister Redux: A Case for the Militarisation of Higher Education*

Anne-Marie Slaughter –Why Women Still Can’t Have It All 

….Yet the decision to step down from a position of power—to value family over professional advancement, even for a time—is directly at odds with the prevailing social pressures on career professionals in the United States. One phrase says it all about current attitudes toward work and family, particularly among elites. In Washington, “leaving to spend time with your family” is a euphemism for being fired. 

Venkat Rao –Analysis-Paralysis and The Sensemaking Trap 

Attention Boydians……

Fred Leland –Winning at Low Cost: No better friend, no better role model, no better diplomat and, no worse enemy 

Attention Boydians…..

Small Wars Journal –Things I Learned from People Who Tried to Kill Me

Shlok Vaidya –REVIEW – BUSINESS MODEL GENERATION: A HANDBOOK FOR VISIONARIES, GAME CHANGERS, AND CHALLENGERS 

IntelWire -THE CIA’S SECRET AL QAEDA FILES

Outside Magazine -INTERVIEW ISSUE 2012: ADVENTURER ROBERT YOUNG PELTON ON DANGEROUS PLACES

AFJ –THE MILITARIZATION OF THE PRESIDENCY 

John Seely Brown, Douglas Thomas – Learning for a World of Constant Change: Homo Sapiens, Homo Faber & Homo Ludens revisited

HONOR THY FRIENDS DEPARTMENT:

Carl Prine – Hank III kicks ass!!! 

Command Posts –DOCTRINE MAN!! SAVING THE WORLD WITHOUT A PLAN 

[by J. Scott Shipman]

Recently, several notable posts have continued, or amplified the ideas introduced by Lt. Benjamin Kohlman’s post at Small Wars Journal calling on “disruptive thinkers.” I’ll be sharing five posts: three are serialized and offer a historical example of disruptive thinking in the U.S. Navy and the resultant lessons. The fourth is written by LTG Walter F. Ulmer, Jr. (USA, Ret) and defines a major obstacle to the disruptive thinker, namely, “toxic leaders.” The fifth is an current example of a young active duty officer, Richard Allain (USMC) thinking deeply about his profession and offering ideas on adaptability and innovation.

Navy Lieutenant Commander Benjamin “BJ” Armstrong wrote a three installment post at the US Naval Institute blog, and his topic was an example of not only disruptive thinking, but of courage, persistence, and what LCDR Armstrong calls (correctly) “grit.” Here is an excerpt from the first installment describing then-Lt. William Sims:

In 1900 he was a Lieutenant, fresh off staff duty in Europe as an intelligence officer.  He had orders to China Station to join the U.S. Navy’s newest and most powerful battleship, the USS KENTUCKY.  He arrived aboard the battleship having studied the early Dreadnaught battleships of Europe and the gunnery practices of both potential allies and potential adversaries alike.

Sims checked onboard and discovered that the Navy’s “newest and most powerful” may have been new, but it certainly wasn’t powerful.  There were a number of problems with the ship.  The hull was armored under the waterline, but the sides and gun turrets were open and un-protected.  The gundecks were so low to the waterline that when the ship was fully loaded and took heavy seas water would pour into the turrets.  And there was no separation of the magazines and the weatherdecks and gundecks, so a hit from an enemy shell could directly access the magazines.

Sims was incensed.  He set about recording the deficiencies.  In a letter to a friend he wrote: “The Kentucky is not a battleship at all.  She is the worst crime in naval construction ever perpetrated by the white race.” 

In the second installment, Lt. Armstrong describes then-Lt. Sims “grit:”

Sims had submitted 13 reports in all, over the span of two years, each one continually improving his method and technique.  When he heard that the Bureau of Ordnance had completed a test and proved that what he claimed was impossible, he finally had enough.  He knew that if the United States Navy went up against a force that was using continuous aim fire it would be decimated.  Destruction of the fleet would open up the U.S. coast to invasion, as the Brits had done in the War of 1812 (a war that was roughly as distant to him as World War I is to us).  He believed that the nation’s security depended on his success.

Lieutenant William Sims did something that he later characterized as “the rankest kind of insubordination.”  He wrote a letter to the President.

Writing the President is is pretty disruptive, and the President read the letter and acted.

LCDR Armstrong, in his final installment called, Voice, Grit, and Listening…A Look at the Possible:

Finally, we all need to learn to listen.  This is especially true as we become more senior.  Today we may be the junior leaders, but that means tomorrow some of us will be the mid-grade leaders, and in the future some of us will be the senior leaders of the Navy.  Sims is proof that when you remember it’s not about you but instead it’s about the idea and about the Service, you can continue to innovate as you are promoted.

These three posts are exceptionally relevant, and highly recommended.

LTG Ulmer’s essay in Army magazine, June 2012 issue, is titled: Toxic Leadership, What Are We Talking About? General Ulmer defines toxic leadership:

Defining toxic leader is the first priority before addressing numbers, impact, cause and solution. Webster’s defines toxic as poisonous, not far from destructive or harmful.

Toxic leaders are a major obstacle, and according to General Ulmer’s essay, make up almost 10% of the Army’s officer corps. General Ulmer goes on to define precisely toxic leaders in the military context, explain how they continue to survive, and offer solutions. His analysis is lucid and spot-on. The other services could learn from the Army’s lesson, and take positive action to separate toxic leaders using indigenous resources—essentially using the personnel system to weed these folks out:

A very good soldier and scientist, LTC Larry Ingraham, now deceased, commented on the dramatic differences among subordinate reputations of senior officers, saying that the personnel system that cannot distinguish between the revered and the despised must have a fundamental flaw.

The final essay comes from today’s Small Wars Journal. The title is Innovation in a Small War, and is truly an exercise in deep thinking on how the Marine Corps plans, adapts, innovates, and fights. On creativity, Allain says:

Current theories of creativity support a process consisting of four key themes.  Creativity results from the invention and bounding of a problem, deconstruction of existing mental concepts, synthesis of these concepts in a new way, and test and development of the novelty to become valuable.

Allain recognizes the institutional obstacles to innovation:

It is clear that we need both innovators and adaptors within the Marine Corps to execute our doctrine.  Without a balance we can stagnate or fluctuate wildly, rapidly finding ourselves unable to cope with structured or unstructured situations.  While Marines are elite, they still have a spread in distribution of natural talents and attributes and exercise a spectrum of adaptive and innovative thought processes.

He concludes:

The field of military innovation studies must expand its orientation and re-examine the interconnectedness of adaptability and innovation, appreciation and leadership, and military effectiveness.  Specific focus should be given to the aforementioned instances of resistance to innovation.  It created stagnation and inhibited learning, a sign of ineffectiveness under this theory, and deserving of analysis.

Allain’s essay, along with the other posts, should be required reading for all are instructive, and all offer examples and solutions—and I would offer, an inspiration to those members on the fence about wading into the debate.

Well done to all!

ADDENDUM to original: Mark Tempest over at EaglesSpeak links to some insightful posts (duplicating a few above), and makes a good point about age (us old guys), illustrating you can teach an old dog new tricks—if the dog is paying attention…

Cross posted at tobeortodo.com

Brain Pickings –Cargo Cult Science: Richard Feynman’s 1974 Caltech Graduation Address on Integrity

Colin Gray – Concept Failure: Counterinsurgency and Strategic Theory  

“A R2P Festival”– Leon Wieseltier –They Died for Westphalia,  Henry Kissinger vs. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Jason Fritz of Inkspots vs. Slaughter & Shadi Hamid,  Daveed Garstein-Ross vs.Dan Trombly vs. Danielle Pletka  and finally, Adam Elkus vs. Westphalia

Hat tip to my amigo Bruce Kesler!

Thomas PM Barnett -An accurate if overwrought description of the Chinese economy

Global Guerrillas –This Version of the Four Horsemen the Apocalypse actually Makes Sense

That’s it