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The genteel and usually mild mannered Editor-in-Chief of the Small Wars Journal, Dave Dilegge, momentarily steps out of the background for a quality rant that I’m reposting in toto:

Back Off Jack Keane Wannabees

Okay, everyone who’s anyone – and many who think they’re someone – inside and outside the beltway – has chimed in – did I miss anyone? Speak now or forever hold your peace.

The Afghanistan affair is quite complicated; we know that, we also can study it to death and comment until the cows come home.

How about a novel approach at this particular point in time – give the Commander in Chief, the National Command Authority, State… and most importantly, the Commanding General and his staff in Afghanistan some efing breathing room to sort this out? The guys on the ground – get it?

How much is too much?

For the all the hype about the benefits of instantaneous global communications and Web 2.0 – of which we most certainly are a part – we’ve never really examined the tipping point – the place where we become part of the problem, rather than the solution.

My two cents – and while it may come across as way, way too simplistic to many of the 2K-pound brainiacs I run into around town – you can take it to the bank that a general backing off of the noise level would be most beneficial right now.

Thoughts?

Interesting. An unusual move by Dave.

Debate is a healthy thing – and as I stated previously, I do not think that anyone has been “shut out” of the COIN debate – but it is best if that debate is kept at a constructive level. Being far removed myself from the players in DC that Dave is familiar with, I have to wonder to what degree the temperature has risen behind the scenes? Dave’s post says to me it must be getting heated.

The defense/national security/milblogging/Intel/FP blogosphere is far larger than it was, say, five years ago but it’s still a pretty small network compared to most online communities – we’re not only dwarfed by Techcrunch types but we fall somewhere behind water polo aficianados and devotees of obscure Christian rock groups. It’s sort of a virtual village where some of the villagers also make their living at it in meatspace and the rest of us can kibbitz with less risk.  While free speech includes volume, softer words sometimes carry farther.

It’s useful for all of us to remember from time to time that most people involved in the discussion operate from the best motives and have far more ideas in common than it sometimes seems from the rhetoric being employed – and that what matters is not our rhetoric but the results.

ADDENDUM:

Dave Schuler just sent me a message that he and Dr. James Joyner will have Dave Dilegge as a guest at OTB Radio from 4:30-5:30 CST (i.e. at the moment I am typing this…)

Out of sheer laziness and a nod to public service, I will re-post this notice from Lexington Green in its entirety:

Early Notice: Thomas E. Ricks at the Pritzker Military Library on September 10, 2009.

Thomas E. Ricks will be in Chicago at the Pritzker Military Library to discuss this most recent book The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. The event will be free and open to the public.

Ricks is the author of the widely-acclaimed book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, e.g. this review.

Ricks is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Ricks has a blog, The Best Defense.

I hope to read The Gamble before the date, and I plan to attend the event.

I hope the weather is better than the downpour on the night that David Kilcullen spoke at the PML.

Barring any unforseen, work-related, commitments, I will be attending this event and will blog about it. Perhaps some live twittering as well.

Nuristan, “The land of Light” (formerly Kafirstan), was the last pagan region of Afghanistan to accept Islam, only in 1895 after a long struggle with “the Iron Emir” Abdur Rahman Khan. It was also one of the first provinces to rebel against the Soviet invasion. The Taliban fared no better there than did the Russians. More or less, Nuristan and the Korengal valley in Kunar province are “Afghanistan’s Afghanistan”.

The Institute for the Study of War has a recent PDF on American COIN operations in this difficult region. They pick up on Frank Hoffman’s “hybrid war” concept:

Kunar and Nuristan Report: Rethinking U.S. Counterinsurgency Operations (PDF) by Michael Moore and Maj. James Fussell

Excerpted findngs:

In the Korengal, the presence of U.S. forces exacerbates tensions resulting in hostility and facilitates violence in the region, negating the U.S. efforts to bring stability and security.

A type of hybrid warfare should be implemented in Kunar and Nuristan; a combination of counterinsurgency warfare, with its focus on the populations, and mountain warfare, whereby the U.S. forces seize and hold the high ground.

Additional emphasis must be placed on U.S. forces demonstrating the immediate and tangible benefits of their presence in the region. Short term humanitarian assistance such as medical and dental aid, radios, and blankets must be paired with long term economic development projects.

• Although counterinsurgency doctrine was successfully implemented in urban Iraq, it has proved more difficult to apply in the sparsely-populated mountains of Kunar and Nuristan.

• U.S. forces are disproportionately committed to defending marginally significant areas in these remote provinces.

• U.S missions in eastern Afghanistan, specifically places like the Korengal and Pech River Valley, must be re-examined and forces must be re-deployed to areas where they will have greater effect.

• The Korengal Valley in Kunar province is the deadliest place in Afghanistan. The population is historically hostile to any outside influence, including any Afghans from outside the valley.
  • The Korengalis have successfully fought off every attempt to subdue their valley, including the Soviets in the 80s, the Taliban rule in the 90s, and currently, the U.S. military. 

• The presence of U.S. forces in the Korengal generates violence and undermines U.S. efforts to bring stability and security.   
  • The current U.S. force disposition in the inhospitable valleys, like the Korengal, relies too heavily on isolated outposts that require massive amounts of artillery and airpower to defend
  • U.S. forces are not denying the enemy the high ground, allowing insurgents to attack and terrorize the population.  
  • Artillery and airpower are counterproductive in dealing with the insurgency in this part of the country because their use alienates the very population the U.S. is trying to secure.
  • Committing additional forces in order to hold this remote terrain would be tactically and operationally imprudent. The resistance in this area is confined to locals in the valley.  It does not accelerate the insurgency beyond the valley.

• Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan requires less interdiction on the borders and greater security in the population centers.  Resources must flow to areas that are strategic priorities in order to allow force densities high enough to practice counterinsurgency effectively.      
  • Rather than maintaining positions in the Korengal and many of the small, ineffective posts that dot the Pech river valley, U.S. forces should conduct active patrols in the populated areas of the lower Kunar River Valley.
  • U.S. forces must protect the specific populations that oppose the enemy and support the government, rather than fighting populations that historically resist the government.  U.S. forces in Kunar should concentrate efforts in places like Mara Wara, Sarkani and Khas Konar Districts where the population actually desires U.S. support and presence, unlike the Korengalis. 

• Counterinsurgency requires short-term economic support, as well as a dense and mobile force presence.  U.S. forces must pair long-term development projects, such as building roads, with short-term, immediate humanitarian assistance and quick-impact projects.

Busy today with some personal matters, but I wanted to draw attention to some blogfriends who are extending the discussion of recent posts:

Josephfouche of The Committee of Public Safety, analyzing the the 1913 debate and providing an excellent, explanatory, graphic to boot:

Strategy and the Race to the Sea

….The logic of disarmament runs counter to the logic of strategy. Strategy seeks to pit strength against  weakness. If that isn’t available, it seeks to pit strength against strength. The least palatable option is to pit weakness against strength. A tie between two opposing wavelengths of equal strength on two opposing spectra of power is better than nothing. In the case of the most extreme end of the spectrum of power, annihilation, there is currently a tie between the nuclear armed Great Powers. That section of the spectrum has been taken off the table. To reopen the annihilation wavelengths will merely tempt others to seek advantage where the bravely virtuous have renounced their warheads and beat them into flower pots.

An “evolved sensibility” will not save you where sensibility is not backed by effective counter force. Evolved sensibility is merely the glove hiding the iron fist. Conflict, as Clausewitz explained, is a trial of moral power through the medium of physical power. Morality can only constrain where the correlation of forces is favorable. If the correlation of forces shift, every thing becomes a repeat of the Race to the Sea.

Adam Elkus at Red Team Journal, continuing the robust argument over Grand Strategy started by Smitten Eagle ( I have been working on a post, on and off, to respond to SE’s original post. As many other voices have joined this debate in the past week, I’m still tweaking mine) and added to recently by FLG of Fear and Loathing in Georgetown.

Do We Need a Grand Strategy?

….Of course, FLG is correct that we haven’t suffered as much from our poverty of grand strategy as, say, Philip II of Hapsburg Spain. But I would argue that in this case America’s compelling enemy is not so much a looming adversary as the entirely human tendency states have to make poor decisions regarding the use of force, the expenditure of resources, and our strategic elites’ perception of political, economic, and cultural trends. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we need a hegemonic concept like containment-I felt that Joseph Fouche did a good job of arguing that a nation is better served by multiple grand strategies. But states do need larger guidance as to how they use resources-both human and material-to achieve strategic ends.

Check’em out.

ADDENDUM:

Fabius Maximus has a large number of posts related to grand strategy at the Military and strategic theory section of the FM site. One example:

The Myth of Grand Strategy 

Primal Strategies

We often see something like a grand strategy in the early years of some societies, when the people have a single-minded commitment to a goal, often just a drive to grow. A primal strategy is an expression of this people’s core beliefs. It is non-intellectual, with no need for theories and plans.

• Rome conquered the Mediterranean world, driven by self-confident belief in their fitness to rule others.
• Men like Pizzaro and Cortes conquered much of the world for Spain and Christ.
• The British Empire was built by men like Robert Clive and Warren Hastings, whose acquisitive drive and energy brought India into the British Empire – often without instructions or even against their government’s wishes.
• Nineteenth century Americans felt it was their manifest destiny to extend America from ocean to ocean.

We can describe these as “grand strategies”, but to do so has an element of falsity. Such intellectual analysis, based on theory, had no place in the hearts of these peoples. History also suggests than leaders cannot manufacture a primal strategy. You either have it, or you do not.

First, John Robb is en fuego today at Global Guerillas in a series of provocative “standing order”  tactical-strategic posts challenging COIN theory. I strongly advise you to check these out. I may comment on some of these later tonight.

John has been taking time away to work on unrelated business projects and this diversion seems to have sparked a burst of creative and innovative thinking in his field of expertise.  This is an excellent technique for improving productivity as the mental shifting of gears from tackling new subjects is neuropsychologically stimulating.

Secondly, there have been a couple of new responses to my earlier “Kilkullen Doctrine” post to which I want to draw your attention:

Rethinking Security –  COIN and Grand Strategy

Committee of Public Safety – Hamilton Rolls Forward, Firing His Laser Eyes and Grand Strategy Through the Lens of Schizophrenia

I had linked to CoPS previously but I think my blog meltdown on Sunday obliterated that particular update.

UPDATE!

Stephen Pampinella – Critical Strategic Theory as Compliment to the Kilcullen Doctrine

The identity question may be the key to grand strategy and the meta-vision behind it – a la John Boyd’s “Theme of Vitality and Growth” as well as the reason why the USG, the bipartisan elite, the COINdinistas all shrink from it. Grand strategy is not merely about externalities, but shaping one’s own. Here America is deeply and bitterly divided.