Showing papers in "Military review in 2004"

The Recognition-Primed Decision Model

Abstract: A KEY Objective Force premise is to achieve a significant increase in operating tempo (OPTEMPO). Fundamental to increased OPTEMPO is gathering, integrating, and applying information that helps military planners anticipate and counter threats before an adversary can act. To act faster than the enemy can, the Army currently uses a procedural and cumbersome military decisionmaking process (MDMP) that military planners often abbreviate. (1) However, little guidance exists on how to abbreviate the process. U.S. Army Field Manual (FM) 101-5, Staff Organization and Operations, gives suggestions, but no real guidance. (2) To take full advantage of the Objective Force's new capabilities, the Army needs a strong, fast, flexible decisionmaking process. In 1989, Gary A. Klein, Roberta Calderwood, and Anne Clinton-Cirocco presented what they called the recognition-primed decision (RPD) model, which describes how decisionmakers can recognize a plausible course of action (COA) as the first one to consider. (3) A commander's knowledge, training, and experience generally help in correctly assessing a situation and developing and mentally wargaming a plausible COA, rather than taking time to deliberately and methodically contrast it with alternatives using a common set of abstract evaluation dimensions. (4) Klein, S. Wolf, Laura G. Militellio, and Carolyn E. Zsambok show that skilled decisionmakers usually generate a good COA on their first try. (5) J.G. Johnson and M. Raab replicated this finding, extending it to show that when skilled decisionmakers abandon their initial COA in favor of a later one, the subsequent COA's quality is significantly lower than the first one. (6) Johnston, J.E. Driskell, and E. Salas show that intuitive decision processes result in higher performance than do analytical processes. (7) The findings call into question the rationale behind MDMP, which assumes that good decisionmaking requires generating and evaluating three possible COAs to find the best solution. John F. Schmitt and Klein developed the Recognition Planning Model (RPM) from research on the RPD model and on several studies of military planning exercises to codify the informal and intuitive planning strategies skilled Army and U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) planning teams used. (8) The RPM has stimulated interest in the military ever since Schmitt and Klein described it. Individual Army and USMC battalion commanders have experimented with the RPM and found it useful. The British military has been conducting experiments with the RPM, demonstrating its face validity. (9) Peter Thunholm performed the most stringent research, contrasting performance for division-level planning groups in the Swedish Army that used either a variant of the RPM or the Swedish Army version of the MDMP. (10) Thunholm found that the RPM permitted an increase in planning tempo of about 20 percent. Thunholm also observed that RPM plans were somewhat bolder and better adapted to situational demands than MDMP plans, which tended to be more constrained by an over-compliance with current doctrinal templates. The Swedish Army has adopted a variant of the RPM, and Sweden's National Defence College provides training on tactical planning aided by that model only. Rather than trying to replace the MDMP, Schmitt and Klein sought to codify the way planners actually work. Therefore, the RPM does not feel awkward or unnatural to planners, who often say, "We're already doing this," which is exactly the intent--to codify existing effective planning practices that reflect the best planning practices that have evolved over decades. The RPM, which reflects current theory and research, is a practical application of the RPD model. The RPM is consistent with natural practices and enables an increase in tempo without losing efficacy, which offers a potentially useful application for the Objective Force. RPM strategy is for commanders to identify their preferred COA so the staff can work on detailing and improving it. …

HOMELAND CALLING: Exile Patriotism and the Balkan Wars

Abstract: HOMELAND CALLING: ExUe Patriotism and the Balkan Wars, Paul Hockenos, Cornell University Press, Ithica, NY, 2003, 320 pages, $27.95. With Homeland Calling: Exile Patriotism and the Balkan Wars, Paul Hockenos focuses critical attention on the role the Balkan diaspora played in fomenting and fighting the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Diaspora patriotism was at the heart of Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman's decisionmaking throughout the late 1980s as he prepared his republic for a separatist war. While he faced bleak times at home, a network of Croatian emigres in Canada, America, and Australia nursed the bright vision of a "thousand-year-old dream" of independence-one they would eventually turn into Tudjman's war plan. Hockenos admirably describes Gojko Susak as the key personality in this process. A Croatian-Canadian pizza maker, Susak launched himself into a brief, stellar wartime career as Tudjman's chief weapons buyer, largely on the strength of the diaspora support network he mobilized at Croatia's critical moment. Hockenos's story of the Serbian diaspora's involvement in the Yugoslav breakup wars is a tragi-comedy of errors. With the full backing of Serbia's institutional apparatus, most notably the "Serbianized" Yugoslav People's Army, Serb separatists in Bosnia and nationalists in Kosovo needed little in the way of war support. Nonetheless, certain memorable diaspora figures stepped forward to try to persuade the world of the justness of Serbia's military causes in the 1990s. New York's City University history professor Radmila Milentijevic left her job and home in 1989 to attend Milosevic's infamous rally at Kosovo and ended up his minister of information-the chief apologist of Serbia's war policies. Milentijevic led the propaganda machine that claimed that Serb forces did not commit atrocities in Bosnia and, later, that they had done so only in response to worse atrocities committed against Serbs. Milentijevic eventually became an object of ridicule even among Serbs for her slavish loyalty to Milosevic. Hockeno's exploration of the Albanian diaspora's influence on Kosovo is the most far reaching and impressive of the discussions in Homeland Calling, perhaps because the Albanians were most successful of all the region's emigre communities in advancing nationalist agendas. The Albanian diaspora maintained a shadow government of Kosovo for 10 years, formed a proactive lobby in America, raised hundreds of millions of dollars, and built an army from scratch whose guerrilla accomplishments led to NATO's 1999 intervention and the ouster of Serbian forces from Kosovo. …

Understanding Fourth Generation War

Abstract: RATHER THAN commenting on the specifics of the war with Iraq, I thought it might be a good time to lay out a framework for understanding that and other conflicts. I call this framework the Four Generations of Modern War. I developed the framework of the first three generations during the 1980s, when I was laboring to introduce maneuver warfare to the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC). (2) The Marines kept asking, "What will the Fourth Generation be like?" The result was an article I co-authored for the Marine Corps Gazette in 1989: "The Changing Face of War: Into the Fourth Generation." (3) (Our troops reportedly found copies of the article in the caves at Tora Bora, the al-Qaeda hideout in Afghanistan.) Modern Warfare The Four Generations began with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the treaty that ended the Thirty Years' War. With that treaty, the state established a monopoly on war. Previously, many different entities had fought wars--families, tribes, religions, cities, business enterprises--using many different means, not just armies and navies. (Two of those means, bribery and assassination, are again in vogue.) Now, state militaries find it difficult to imagine war in any way other than fighting state armed forces similar to themselves. The First Generation. The First Generation of Modern War, war of line-and-column tactics, where battles were formal and the battlefield was orderly, ran roughly from 1648 to 1860. The relevance of the First Generation springs from the fact that the battlefield of order created a military culture of order. Most of the things that distinguish military from civilian--uniforms, saluting, careful gradations of rank--were products of the First Generation and were intended to reinforce the culture of order. The problem is that, around the middle of the 19th century, the battlefield of order began to break down. Mass armies, soldiers who actually wanted to fight (an 18th-century soldier's main objective was to desert), rifled muskets, then breechloaders and machine guns, made the old line-and-column tactics at fast obsolete, then suicidal. The problem since then has been a growing contradiction between military culture and the increasing disorderliness of the battlefield. The culture of order that was once consistent with the environment in which it operated has become more and more at odds with it. The Second Generation. Second Generation War was one answer to the contradiction between the culture of order and the military environment. Developed by the French Army during and after World War I, Second Generation war sought a solution in mass firepower, most of which was indirect artillery fire. The goal was attrition, and the doctrine was summed up by the French as "the artillery conquers, the infantry occupies." Centrally controlled firepower was carefully synchronized (using detailed, specific plans and orders) for the infantry, tanks, and artillery in a "conducted battle" where the commander was, in effect, the conductor of an orchestra. Second Generation war came as a great relief to soldiers (or at least their officers) because it preserved the culture of order. The focus was inward, on rules, processes, and procedures. Obedience was more important than initiative. In fact, initiative was not wanted because it endangered synchronization. Discipline was top-down and imposed. Second Generation war is relevant today because the U.S. Army and USMC learned Second Generation war from the French during and after World War I, and it remains the American way of war, as we are seeing in Afghanistan and Iraq. To Americans, war means "putting steel on target." Aviation has replaced artillery as the source of most firepower, but otherwise (and despite the USMC's formal doctrine, which is Third Generation maneuver warfare), the U.S. military today is as French as white wine and cheese. At the USMC desert warfare training center in California, the only thing missing is the tricolor and a picture of General Maurice Gamelin in the headquarters. …

COUNTERINSURGENCY LESSONS FROM MALAYA AND VIETNAM: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife

Abstract: A searing indictment of US strategy in Afghanistan from a distinguished military leader and West Point military historian—“A remarkable book” (National Review). In 2008, Col. Gian Gentile exposed a growing rift among military intellectuals with an article titled “Misreading the Surge Threatens U.S. Army’s Conventional Capabilities,” that appeared in World Politics Review. While the years of US strategy in Afghanistan had been dominated by the doctrine of counterinsurgency (COIN), Gentile and a small group of dissident officers and defense analysts began to question the necessity and efficacy of COIN—essentially armed nation-building—in achieving the United States’ limited core policy objective in Afghanistan: the destruction of Al Qaeda. Drawing both on the author’s experiences as a combat battalion commander in the Iraq War and his research into the application of counterinsurgency in a variety of historical contexts, Wrong Turn is a brilliant summation of Gentile’s views of the failures of COIN, as well as a trenchant reevaluation of US operations in Afghanistan. “Gentile is convinced that Obama’s ‘surge’ in Afghanistan can’t work. . . . And, if Afghanistan doesn’t turn around soon, the Democrats . . . who have come to embrace the Petraeus-Nagl view of modern warfare . . . may find themselves wondering whether it’s time to go back to the drawing board.” —The New Republic

The Savage Wars of Peace

Abstract: The U.S. military has a long history prosecuting what Rudyard Kipling labeled the "savage wars of peace." In many cases, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) carried these small, savage wars to successful conclusions. Max Boot's The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power is a history of the U.S. military's involvement in small wars and counterinsurgencies during the 19th and 20th centuries.1 Boot, a frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, provides a valuable, topical addition to the existing corpus of books about small wars and insurgencies. Although this is Boot's first foray into the realm of U.S. military history, the American military should read this book because of the ongoing counterguerrilla warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lessons learned in Vietnam and other counterinsurgencies are germane to the small wars of today. This extraordinary book has three pails: America's rise as a commercial and naval power; its emergence as a great power and its increased commitment to constabulary roles; and Vietnam's influence on the U.S. military's willingness to fight small wars. The book also draws conclusions about the kinds of wars America might face in the future. Counterinsurgency Wars Boot's most interesting chapter offers a colorful account of Stephen Decatur's exploits as an intrepid, swashbuckling naval officer whose leadership skills and actions were central to America's success during the Barbary wars. Discussions of America's emergence as a great power and Alfred Thayer Mahan's book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History: 1660-1783, conclude the book's first part.2 The second and largest part of the book, the most salient for students of small wars, examines the Boxer Uprising in China and ends with a discussion of U.S. constabulary operations in China at the outbreak of World War II. The importance of this part of the book is to illuminate accounts of the Army's counterinsurgency efforts during the Philippine Insurrection and the USMC's conduct of the Banana Wars. Boot's account of the Philippine War is thorough and lucid as he explains the brutal methods perpetrated by insurgents and counterinsurgents. His conclusion highlights the key components of what was ultimately a successful counterinsurgency. He also captures the gruesome massacre of G Company, 9th Cavalry-"A bolo slash across his face filled in with strawberry jam to lure ants from the jungle." General Arthur MacArthur's response to intransigent insurrectos was to dust off and reissue Civil-War-era "General Orders 100," which essentially authorized the execution of captured combatants not in uniform.3 Boot also captures in detail Cuban veteran and U.S. Brigadier General Frederick Funston's daring, cunning raid into enemy territory to capture guerrilla leader Emilio Aguinaldo. According to Boot, the Philippine counterinsurgency was a success because the U.S. military used aggressive patrolling and force to pursue and crush insurgents, treated captured rebels well, and generated goodwill among the population by running schools and hospitals and improving sanitation.4 Three chapters of The Savage Wars of Peace are devoted to the US MC's experiences in constabulary and counterguerrilla operations in Central America and the Caribbean Basin. The experience gained during the Banana Wars was the genesis of the USMC Small Wars Manual, which Boot addresses in the short first chapter of part 3.5 The most salient discussions stem from the USMC's constabulary and counterguerrilla efforts in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. Boot introduces readers to Smedley Darlington Butler, an intriguing, resilient character who appeared in almost every USMC small war during the early 20th century. Boot tells us that Butler "was trained under the eye of an old sergeant major who had fought with Kitchener in the Sudan before retiring and joining the U. …

Terrorist Threat in the Tri-Border Area: Myth or Reality?

Abstract: LATIN AMERICA'S Tri-Border Area (TBA), bounded by Puerto Iguazu, Argentina; Ciudad del Este, Paraguay; and Foz do Iguacu, Brazil, is an ideal breeding ground for terrorist groups. The TBA is a lawless area of illicit activities that generate billions of dollars annually in money laundering, arms and drug trafficking, counterfeiting, document falsification, and piracy. The TBA offers terrorists potential financing; access to illegal weapons and advanced technologies; easy movement and concealment; and a sympathetic population from which to recruit new members and spread global messages. While the TBA is not currently the center of gravity in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), it has an important place in the strategy for combating terrorism. The TBA and Global Terrorism The TBA, South America's busiest contraband and smuggling center, is home to a large, active Arab and Muslim community consisting of a Shi' a majority, a Sunni minority, and a small population of Christians who emigrated from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories about 50 years ago. Most of these Arab immigrants are involved in commerce in Ciudad del Este but live in Foz do Iguacu on the Brazilian side of the Iguacu River. According to international terrorism expert John Price, "The economy of Ciudad del Este is dominated by illegal activity focused on smuggling contraband products, pirating software and music, and money laundering of cocaine production revenue."1 Even though it has a population of only 300,000, Ciudad del Este has approximately 55 different banks and foreign exchange shops. The United States estimates that $6 billion a year in illegal funds are laundered there, an amount equivalent to 50 percent of the official gross domestic product of Paraguay. Carlos Altemberger, chief of Paraguay's antiterrorist unit, says terrorists partly finance their operations by remitting dollars from Ciudad del Este to the Middle East.2 Ambassador Philip Wilcox, former Department of State (DOS) Coordinator for Counterterrorism, testified before the International Relations Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives that Hezbollah activities in the TBA have involved narcotics, smuggling, and terrorism. Many believe the TBS's Arab and Muslim community contains hardcore terrorist sympathizers with direct ties to Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian, Lebanese Shiite terrorist group; Hamas, the Palestinian fundamentalist group; the Egyptian group Islamic Jihad; and even al-Qaeda.3 However, Arab and Muslim TBA leaders claim their community members are moderates who have lived in harmony with the rest of the population for many years and have rejected extremist views and terrorism. Most of the TBAs 20,000 Arabs and Muslims say it would be impossible for terrorists to hide in their midst and deny remittances sent abroad go to Hezbollah. A minority of Arabs and Muslims, however, make no secret about their sympathy and financial support for Hezbollah, which they say is a legitimate Lebanese political party. Argentine officials believe Hezbollah is active in the TBA. They attribute the detonation of a car bomb outside Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires on 17 March 1992 to Hezbollah extremists. Officials also maintain that with Iran's assistance, Hezbollah carried out a car-bomb attack on the main building of the Jewish Community Center (AMIA) in Buenos Aires on 18 July 1994 in protest of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement that year.4 In May 2003, Argentine prosecutors linked Ciudad del Este and Foz do Iguacu to the AMIA bombing and issued arrest warrants for two Lebanese citizens in Ciudad del Este. An Iranian intelligence officer who defected to Germany told Argentine prosecutors that Imad Mugniyah was the principal suspect in the Buenos Aires bombings.5 U.S. officials consider Mugniyah the mastermind of the 1983 suicide bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which suggests he has direct ties to Hezbollah and Iran.6 Argentine Jews (and many non-Jews) reportedly feel former Argentine President Carlos Saul Menem, of Syrian ancestry, accepted a bribe to conceal Iran's role in the bombings. …

China's Cruise Missile Program

Abstract: DURING OPERATIONS Desert Shield and Desert Storm, the U.S. Navy launched 288 Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles. Eighty percent hit their targets. (1) The Tomahawk is so accurate that after a 1,600-kilometer (km) journey, its 454-kilogram (kg) warhead usually impacts within 3 meters of the aim point. (2) The People's Republic of China took note of the magnificent performance of these weapons and focused its efforts on acquiring cruise missiles. During the 1991 Persian Gulf war, China also learned that the United States is too powerful to be challenged directly by military means. Having a stockpile of cruise missiles would enable China to influence U.S. decisions without becoming involved in a major conflict. Cruise missiles would offer China a precision-strike capability at a much lower cost than developing and training a modern air force would. Missiles require less maintenance than a fleet of modern jet aircraft; are suitable against land- and sea-based targets; are relatively cheap and reliable; and have few vulnerable parts. (3) Cruise missiles also do not entail political risks because, unlike disgruntled pilots, they cannot defect. (4) China's effort to acquire cruise missiles is a disturbing development. Robert Walpole, a national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, testified before Congress that "[w]e may not be able to provide much, if any, warning of a forward based ballistic missile or land-attack cruise missile threat to the United States. Moreover, land-attack cruise missile development can draw upon dual-use technologies." (5) Missile Acquisition Technologies available on the commercial market have eliminated many of the barriers to cruise-missile proliferation, and many components used in cruise missiles are common to commercial aircraft. Companies manufacture cruise missile airframes using the same technologies as for manufacturing light aircraft. A country like China, which can build manned aircraft, can easily produce cruise missiles. China is also acquiring these systems by direct purchase and indigenous development. Direct purchase. The best option for acquiring missiles is to procure the entire cruise missile system directly from another country. The National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC) estimates that by the end of the decade, at least nine countries will be capable of producing land-attack cruise missiles. (6) Many such countries will offer their cruise missiles for export in order to maintain their military industrial complex because their nation's defense budgets are in decline. This rapid increase in the number of cruise-missile suppliers means that China will find itself seeking cruise missiles during a "buyer's market." Purchased missiles will give China an immediate precision-strike capability and the opportunity to use a proven system. Since the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident and the curtailment of U.S. foreign military sales to China, China has turned to Russia to acquire most of its current weapons systems and has cloaked its military development in secrecy. China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) subscribes to Deng Xiaoping's strategy of hiding capabilities to maximize options for the future. (7) It is difficult, therefore, to assess the full extent of China's cruise missile acquisition program. However, the open literature suggests that China has purchased the Russian Kh-41 Moskit supersonic, sea-skimming, anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM). As an air-launched ASCM, the Kh-41 Moskit has a range of 250 kilometers, can attack ships at speeds greater than Mach 2, carries a 200-kg payload, and can make 10-G turns to defeat a ship's defensive capabilities. (8) The Kh-41 can "defeat U.S. Navy Aegis ship defense systems and destroyers," which is daunting because the U.S. and Japan expect the Aegis to play a key role in any future Japanese or U.S. theater missile defense system. (9) New Su-27 fighters and Su-30 long-range interceptors equipped with Kh-41s give China the capability to sink U. …

Doctrinal Reawakening of the Indian Armed Forces

Abstract: INDIAN AND PAKISTAN (Indo/Pak) military doctrines have had distinctive defensive undertones since the two countries gained independence from the British in 1947. Notwithstanding the three wars and several near wars the two countries have engaged in as independent nations, there has been no significant shift in respective military and warfighting doctrines until recently. In the last year, events in the region and elsewhere have highlighted what the two countries need in order to modify existing doctrine. Some regional events that triggered the review of military doctrine include the Indian subcontinent's nuclearization and how it affects the nature of war in the region and the roles of Indo/Pak military services; lessons from the 1999 Kargil crisis and the possibility of waging limited conventional warfare under a nuclear umbrella; and the 2001 to 2002 period of massive military mobilization and posturing referred to as Operation Parakaram. Global events affecting doctrinal thinking in Indo/ Pak militaries include America's Global War on Terrorism, manifested in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and U.S. President George W. Bush's doctrine of preemption. These events have had so pronounced an effect in the last year, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), the Indian Army, and the Indian Navy (IN) have published new doctrinal documents and manuals or modified editions of existing ones. This spurt of doctrinal changes and revisions comes at a time when India and Pakistan have declared their intent to enter into a composite dialogue. Referring to the timing of the announcement of the Indian Army's new "Cold Start" doctrine, military columnist Sultan Hall notes, "The timing of this 'disclosure' of India's new war doctrine is of interest. Why have India's top military commanders returned to their drawing board to work on this new war doctrine--the Cold Start strategy--while a highly hyped peace process is underway?" (1) South Asia's Nuclearization The nuclear genie emerged from the lamp in South Asia in 1998. The availability of a nuclear capability has altered the nature of war in the region and the role of the three military services in their respective realms of warfare. India and Pakistan nuclearized their air forces first. Attack aircraft capable of being configured with nuclear weapons emerged as the first nuclear-delivery platforms for both countries. This ushered the Indian Air Force (IAF) and the PAF into the limelight of the strategic military equation and reduced the strategic significance of Indian and Pakistani armies and navies. Worried that the Air Force might lay claim to a lion's share of the strategic military expansion, the Army and Navy campaigned for strategic roles--the Army by laying claim to the surface-to-surface ballistic missile force, the Navy by harping on the sea-based dimension of the nuclear deterrence triad. Indo/Pak armies garnered strategic roles by gaining control of the nuclear-tipped, surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs), while their navies are still endeavoring to develop a nuclear capability to justify their strategic role. Nuclearization shifted the objective of war from territorial occupation to destruction operations because annexation of sizeable territory was considered much more likely to violate the other side's nuclear threshold than controlled destruction of an adversary's military and economic potential. This transformation reduced the significance of the larger Indo/Pak armies and enhanced the importance of the air forces because they were more suitably equipped and configured for effective destruction campaigns. Strategic affairs analyst Subhash Kapila says India's strategic military objectives should "shift from capturing bits of Pakistan territory in small-scale, multiple offensives to be used as bargaining chips after the cease fire and focus on the destruction of the Pakistani Army and its military machine without much collateral damage to Pakistani civilians. …

Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq

Abstract: Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq When U.S. Army General Dwight D. Elsenhower described reporters at his headquarters as "quasi-staff officers," few showed the slightest resentment. In fact, many of the journalists at British Army General Bernard Montgomery's headquarters were reportedly considering outright enlistment. As an option for war correspondents, enlistment seemed to fade after those first patriotic days, but the urge by reporters (and their editors) to get ever closer to the action continued unabated. By the Vietnam war, 600 to 700 reporters became war correspondents merely by appearing on the scene. But even in those days of information overload, reporters still had to take it upon themselves to find the battles and get to the scene pretty much through their own ingenuity or prestige. Recently, Pentagon official Bryan Whitman was tasked with putting together a program for Operation Iraqi Freedom that would supplant the almost universally unloved "press pools" that had sputtered along for a decade. Whitman took a new look at embedding reporters-the media all the while aeknowledging that by doing so he would "get reporting of the good, the bad, and the ugly," The term "embedded media," itself, probably a spin-off from "cyberese," has been around the military since at least the Persian Gulf war to describe reporter who were housed with eombat units. So Whitman did not invent embedding, he simply took real war in real time into more American living rooms than any reporting of any armed conflict in history. Whitman also had to guard against unjust reiulti of embedding, such as that produced by reporter Tom Ricks in a 1995 Wall Street Journal article in which he describes how during a soldiers' briefing before deployment to Bosnia, he overheard a U.S. Army colonel expressing the opinion that the U.S. commitment in Bosnia could exceed Washington's forecast of one year.1 The fallout from Ricks' article was that the colonel's once-promising career did not last much more than a year after his Bosnia tour was over. Ironically, the U.S. military presence in Bosnia has now reached 8 years and counting. By the time Operation Iraqi Freedom was spinning up, the unfortunate colonel's words were forgotten, Bosnia was on the back burner, and "real time" was the buzzword. Editors were pushing to cover the war from the front, alongside the troops, in real time. Meanwhile, according to Whitman, as quoted in Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson's book Embedded: The Media At War In Iraq, the Pentagon was seeking ways to mitigate Saddam Hussein's decade of success with his constantly shifting campaign of denial, deception, and outright lies.2 A solution came to mind that seemed to please everyone-resurrect embedding for independent, uncensored reporters who would, definitely not consider themselves as quasi-staff officers. With reporters wed to a military unit on the battlefield, the relationship would be symbiotic. Self-censorship could be expected if reporters knew that exposure of operational secrete would erank enemy artillery areund their foxholes following the 6 o'clock news. In addition, reporters throughout the battlefield could, in real lime, refute Saddam's disinformation. So Instead of a Pentagon spokesman saying, "Today we had an incident and some civilians were killed," we read Washington Post reporter William Branigin's account of an incident it a roadblock when, for whatever reason, several Iraqi citizens ended up dead because their speeding car refused to yield to repeated warnings. …

Winning the War of the Flea: Lessons from Guerrilla Warfare

Abstract: Analogically, the guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog's disadvantages: too much to defend; too small, ubiquitous, and agile an enemy to come to grips with If the war continues long enough-this is the theory-the dog succumbs to exhaustion and anemia without ever having found anything on which to close its jaws or to rake with its claws -Robert Taber1 COUNTERGUERRILLA warfare, or the "war against the flea," is more difficult than operations against enemies who fight according to the conventional paradigm America's enemies in the Global War on Terrorism, including those connected to "the base" (al-Qaeda), are fighting the war of the flea in Iraq and Afghanistan Employing terror to attack the United States at home and abroad, they strive to disrupt coalition efforts by using guerrilla tactics and bombings to protract the war in Iraq and elsewhere and to erode America's will to persevere The war on al-Qaeda and its surrogates can be viewed as a global counterinsurgency in which the United States and its coalition partners endeavor to isolate and eradicate the base and other networked terrorist groups who seek sanctuary, support, and recruits in ungoverned or poorly governed areas where the humiliated and the have-nots struggle to survive The US military's preference for the big-war paradigm has heretofore impeded the Army from seriously studying counterinsurgency operations As a result, the Army has failed to incorporate many lessons from successful counterin-surgency operations Because countering insurgents and terrorists remains a central mission of the US military for the foreseeable future, it is better to incorporate lessons learned than to relearn lessons during combat With the right mindset and with a broader, deeper knowledge of lessons from previous successes, the war against the flea can be won The Army has successfully fought counterguerrilla wars However, the contradiction emanating from America's unsuccessful expedition in Vietnam is that, because the experience was perceived as anathema to the US military's core culture, hard lessons learned there about fighting guerrillas were not preserved or rooted in the Army's institutional memory The US military culture's efforts to exorcise the specter of Vietnam, epitomized by the shibboleth "No More Vietnams," also precluded the Army, as an institution, from actually learning from those lessons The Army's intellectual renaissance after Vietnam has focused almost exclusively on the culturally preferred, conventional big-war paradigm2 Army doctrine conceals the term "counterinsurgency" under the innocuous categories of stability operations and foreign internal defense Many lessons exist in the US military's historical experience with small wars, but the lessons from Vietnam are the most voluminous-and the least read The end of the Cold War has made it improbable that conventional or symmetric war will ever again be the norm, and the Army is making genuine efforts to transform its culture and mindset Senior civilian and military leaders of the Army and the Office of the secretary of Defense realized a change in military culture was a precondition for innovative approaches to a more complex security landscape in which adversaries adopt unorthodox strategies and tactics to undermine US technological superiority in an orthodox or conventional war Military culture is the sum total of embedded beliefs and attitudes within a military organization that shape that organization's preference on when and how military force should be used Cultural propensities can block innovation in ways of warfare that are outside perceived central or core roles A preference for a big-war paradigm has hitherto been an obstacle to learning how to fight guerrillas3 The Army must analyze US involvement in, and the nature of, small wars, insurgencies, and counterinsurgencies Without some sense of historical continuity, American soldiers will have to relearn the lessons of history each time they face a new small war …

Center of Gravity Analysis

Abstract: MILITARY STUDENTS defining the concept of the center of gravity (COG) are like blind men describing an elephant. They know a definition exists, but they describe it according to their own experiences, and invariably someone will define COG as "the will of the people." The center of gravity is too important a concept to guess at. Joint Publication (JP) 5-0 (Draft 2), Doctrine for Joint Planning Operations, clearly states the critical role of COG analysis: "The most important task confronting campaign planners in this process is being able to identify friendly and adversary strategic centers of gravity; that is, the sources of strength, power, and resistance."1 The reason identifying centers of gravity is the most important task is because a "faulty analysis of friendly or adversary centers of gravity can have very serious consequences; specifically, the inability to accomplish the military objectives at an acceptable cost and the unconscionable expenditure of lives, time, and materiel in efforts that do not produce decisive strategic or operational results."2 There are two reasons why centers of gravity are so difficult to identify or define. First, the armed services suffered because in 1997, they agreed from years of conflicting definitions for center of gravity. Not until 1997 did they agree to the current joint definition.3 second, the services teach a COG theory without a practical framework to make the theory useful. Fixing the problem is easy; the joint community must agree on a simple definition and provide a framework. What are Centers of Gravity? Centers of gravity are sources of power. Joseph Strange of the U.S. Marine Corps War College defines centers of gravity as the "primary sources of moral or physical strength, power, and resistance."4 A center of gravity is the source of power that creates a force or a critical capability that allows an entity to act or accomplish a task or purpose. Ignore the joint definition; it only leads to confusion and debate. Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz states, "Out of the characteristics a certain center of gravity develops, the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends. That is the point against which all our energies should be directed."5 However, Clausewitz's definition, according to U.S. Army and joint doctrine, misses the mark, so the joint community changed it by limiting sources of power to military systems and by defining centers of gravity as "those characteristics, capabilities, or localities from which a military force derives its freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight."6 According to this definition, only military forces have centers of gravity; nations and other systems do not. Most planners and strategists ignore this limitation, but the definition is flawed, nonetheless. The joint definition also gives the impression that military forces are not centers of gravity themselves but only possess them. The current joint definition should replace "military force" with something like "system" or "entity." This change would broaden the definition to include nations or organizations. Next, the definition should be simplified by replacing "characteristics, capabilities, or localities" with simple words like "source," "agent," or "things." Next, we should drop terms like "freedom of action," "physical strength," or "will to fight" and replace them with the plainer "ability to act." We should drop "physical strength" and "will to fight" entirely because they are prerequisites for freedom of action. Without "will" or "strength," one cannot act, and the ability to act is a definition of power.7 The simplified joint definition of center of gravity then becomes "a system's source of power to act." Requirements and Vulnerabilities Once having defined "center of gravity," we next need to build a framework for understanding and identifying it. Essential to understanding the center of gravity is understanding "critical capabilities," "critical requirements," and "critical vulnerabilities. …

Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines: What Would Sun Tzu Say?

Abstract: IN THE GLOBAL War on Terrorism (GWOT), while Operation Enduring Freedom aims to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines (OEF-P) continues with little fanfare. The operation began in response to the kidnappings of U.S. citizens by the Abu Sayyef Group (ASG), a radical Muslim organization backed by al-Qaeda. From the U.S. perspective, the GWOT is a counterinsurgency operation on a global scale-a fight pitting those who believe in democracy and freedom against those who seek to enslave the world in an Islamic dictatorship. To successfully counter this threat, the United States and its allies must- * Deny sanctuary to terrorists and insurgents. * Eliminate their ability to move throughout their desired operational area (in this case, the world). * Deny them direct or indirect support from sympathizers and nation-states. * Wage psychological and civil affairs campaigns to separate the insurgency from the population using all the elements of national power: diplomatic, economic, informational, and military. The United States is executing this strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq, but it is not being effective in Asia. Before 11 September 2001, the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) was already interested in events in the Philippines. In August 2001, ASG kidnapped a U.S. citizen, Jeffrey Schilling. The U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific (SOCPAC) deployed a Department of State-funded mobile training team to provide the Philippine government with a national counterterrorist capability. A U.S. Special Forces (SF) unit trained and equipped a Philippine light reaction company (LRC) drawn from the ranks of the Philippine army's special forces and scout ranger organizations. From February to july 2001, while the LRC was being trained, the ASG kidnapped three more U.S. citizens. One key issue the LRC training identified was that, while the Philippines government could develop a tactically proficient counterterrorism force, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) did not have a command and control structure to properly employ the LRC or to integrate it with other forces and current operations. Two days after completing training, the LRC deployed to the island of Basilan in the southern Philippine province of Mindanao in response to the ASG hostage crisis. However, the LRC deployed as a conventional unit, not as a national-level counterter-rorist force. Before the LRC deployed, American SF advisers had requested that they accompany the unit, but SOCPAC approved only a follow-on assessment mission and took no action until the tragedy of 11 September 2001. In October 2001, the assessment mission developed a plan for the PACOM commander that called for the deployment of about 160 American SF advisers to Basilan to train, advise, and assist AFP units. In February 2002, under the guise of an exercise named Balikatan ("shoulder-to-shoulder"), the operation began. Elements of it continue to this day. Mission and Intent The mission on Basilan was to conduct unconventional warfare operations in the Southern Philippines through, by, and with the AFP to help the Philippine government separate the population from and to destroy terrorist organizations. The plan's intent was to provide all SF elements on Basilan with unifying guidance that would help harmonize counterterrorist and counted nsurgency operations in the Southern Philippines with initial focus on Basilan. The key tasks Special Forces were to perform included- * Denying the ASG sanctuary. * Surveilling, controlling, and denying ASG routes. * Surveilling supporting villages and key personnel. * Conducting local training to overcome AFP weaknesses and sustain AFP strengths. * Supporting operations by the AFP "strike force" (LRC) in the area of responsibility (AOR). * Conducting and supporting civil affairs operations in the AOR. …

The Modular Army

Abstract: We deliver relevant and ready land combat power to the combatant commanders and the joint team ... Our Army must move toward modular capabilities-based unit designs, nested within the joint networks, and enabled by a joint expeditionary mindset. --CSA General Peter J. Schoomaker (1) CHIEF OF STAFF, of the Army General Peter J. Schoomaker's vision for the Army's Current and Future Forces provides the joint force commander a campaign-quality Army that will dominate this century's highly complex, uncertain, and dynamic security environments. To do so the Army will reorganize its combat and institutional organizations to best meet the needs and requirements operating today and tomorrow. The Army seeks to solve the organizational design dilemma by retaining the advantages of relatively fixed structures as the basis for tailoring the force while furthering a commander's ability to creatively reorganize it to meet specific tasks. To achieve strategic responsiveness, deployability, modularity, and tailorability, the Army needs self-contained combined arms units smaller than current divisions. Now might be the time for the Army to break free of old concepts and refocus on its previous traditional tactical echelon--the brigade--to restructure the Army for the 21st century. Employing modular, capabilities-based units for rapid packaging into lethal forces for sustained employment by combatant commanders requires the Army to create modular brigade units of action (UA). As the basic combined arms building block for force projection, the UA is smaller and more agile than divisions. The Army's organizational design for ground combat has historically swung back and forth from totally fixed structures to totally ad hoc organizations. (See figure 1.) The challenge of organizational design is to maintain the advantages of relatively fixed organizations (strategic deployment, sustainment, and joint planning) while providing creative opportunities for adaptive, flexible task organization. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] During the 1990s, strategists viewed units smaller than a division as the basis for information age or third-wave warfare. In War and Antiwan futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler describe their organizational concept for future warfare: "Until recently the 10,000-18,000-man division was thought to be the smallest combat unit capable of operating on its own for a sustained period.... But the day is approaching when a capital-intensive Third Wave brigade of 4,000-5,000 troops may be able to do what it took a full-size division to do in the past." (2) In 1997, U.S. Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor advocated a new organizational approach in his controversial book Breaking the Phalanx: A New Design for Landpower in the 21st Century. (3) He suggested "reorganizing the Army into mobile combat groups [4,000-5,000 personnel]" because units "smaller than the contemporary Army division will have to operate independently for long periods of time." (4) Schoomaker, Macgregor, and the Tofflers believe that the brigade, not the division, might be the primary unit of ground combat in future warfare. Separate brigades have officially existed since the implementation of the Reorganization Objectives Army Division in the early 1960s, but independent combined arms brigades capable of decisive action existed much earlier in the form of combined arms tactical units smaller than a division but larger than a regiment or battalion. Early Brigades Since 1776, the Army has often exercised the operational doctrine of employing elements smaller than a division on independent missions. During the Revolutionary War, General George Washington (who had been a colonial militia brigade commander in the French and Indian War) made the brigade the basic maneuver element of the Continental Army. After taking command of the rebel army at Boston in 1775, Washington imposed greater organizational flexibility and control by introducing divisions and brigades as administrative echelons between his headquarters and the regiments. …

Military Application of Performance-Enhancement Psychology

Abstract: Nathaniel Zinsser, PhD; Colonel Larry D Perkins, US Army, Retired; Major Pierre D Gervais, US Army; and Major Gregory A Burbelo, US Army THE US Military Academy's (USMA) Center for Enhanced Performance has developed a program to improve performance in military training Many of the program's elements, particularly teambuilding, have implications for the 21st-century Army Performance enhancement is the deliberate cultivation of an effective perspective on achievement and the systematic use of effective cognitive skills A soldier can maximize performance by mastering thinking habits and emotional and physical states These training methods, derived from applied sport psychology used in training professional and Olympic athletes, are also applicable in other human-performance contexts Using the mind's power to find a competitive edge has become an indispensable element in training modern athletes Army Transformation is similar in many respects to changes in sport, but no physical facility or group of trainers existed to train the mental science of warfighting-until now The USMA Performance Enhancement Center (PEC), a state-of-the-art facility for training in applied sport psychology, was established in 1989 to educate and train West Point cadets in performance-enhancement techniques to foster their full development as leaders of character In 1992, the Academy's Reading and Study Skills Program joined PEC to form the Center for Enhanced Performance (CEP) CEP offers cadets a unique "student success course," which combines instruction in applied sport psychology topics such as goal setting, cognitive control, and stress management with study skills such as textbook marking, test preparation, and note taking CEP also offers performance-enhancement training in the areas of academic, athletic, and leadership performance Each year over 300 cadets voluntarily participate in this training, seeking the mental edge for success in competitive sports; in military applications such as marksmanship, combat diving, and parachuting; and in academic excellence CEP, the only center in the Army dedicated to training the mental-toughness aspect of performance, follows an educational rather than a clinical model with performance improvement as the major goal of all education and training In cases where performance problems manifest themselves as clinical issues, referral to qualified counseling services is initiated Enhanced-Performance Elements The USMA Performance Enhancement Program integrates five key elements of applied psychology into a systematic approach to empower individuals and organizations, including- * Cognitive foundations Understanding the psychology of high performance (what athletes describe as being in the zone) and knowing how the mind works allows performers to gain confidence and operate in the most effective manner Skills include controlling self-talk, restructuring ineffective beliefs, and cultivating a powerful self-image * Goal setting Goal setting is the process of identifying the underlying rationale for work/participation and long-term performance objectives, then creating action plans for goal attainment * Attention control Attention control includes selectively attending to important cues, shifting one's field of awareness, and developing simple standard operating procedures and routines that streamline the execution of repetitive tasks to attain optimum focus and concentration * Stress management Understanding how stress operates in the human system and mastering techniques of recovery and energy management is an antidote to burnout and fatigue * Imagery and visualization The process of seeing, feeling, and experiencing desired outcomes and taking actions to attain them builds confidence and a readiness to move forward These competencies improve individual and team performance by empowering individuals to- * Create effective thinking habits and perform with confidence …

Deconstructing Army Leadership

Abstract: ARECENT STUDY at the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) drew interesting conclusions about how the staff and faculty defined leadership, both individually and collectively; for example, the definition of the ideal leader is based on personal and cultural expectations of what each of us believe good leaders should be. Overall, the study revealed a healthy diversity of ideas. As an institution, however, the Army does not embrace this diversity. Despite the fact that "there is no universally agreed on definition of leadership," the Army seeks consensus on a single hierarchical theory of leadership.' This theory is not necessarily the mental model each of us actually applies when entering the Army's leadership echelons. Although current Army doctrine might inform our personal convictions, most of us have developed our own theories of effective leadership, which are heavily influenced by our up-bringing, experiences, education, and training. The Army's beliefs about leadership, and the ones I present here, should not go unchallenged. Being a seasoned military professional is all about acknowledging assumptions and examining alternatives. This introspective process is an excellent method for professional development. The Affirmative Postmodern Method The affirmative postmodern research methodology used here * Requires all the instruments of traditional criticism and more to deconstruct (identify and criticize) beliefs and assumptions we take for granted. * sees the professional's duty as pursuing revolutionary challenges to conventional wisdom. * Mixes and matches styles to achieve an aesthetic, interdisciplinary approach to research. * Develops an important creative tension that can lead to transcendence of old ways of thinking because, while postmodern research is informed by traditional research, postmodernists are ambivalent toward it. * Both celebrates and denies tradition and the myth of progress. * Emphasizes paradox, irony, eclecticism, and pluralism. * Suspects paradigmatic consensus as an outmoded value; hence, paradigm consensus is an outmoded goal of social science inquiry; for example, embracing diverse positions rather than synthesizing them. * Believes that the dangerous dogma of normal science prevents necessary shifting among competing paradigms. Affirmative postmodern research assumes * Certain aspects of the contemporary world can be reevaluated. * Margins and softer voices can have as much meaning as majority positions or the mythical mean. * It is possible to transgress propriety, challenge convention, and articulate voices previously silenced. * There is a real world that can and should be systematically investigated through coherent and outof-the-box sensemaking. * There is a difference between puzzle-solving (using traditional paradigms and theories to explain phenomena) and innovation (using bold conjecture, controlled by self-criticism). * The objective world created by traditional social scientists is really a subjective interpretation. (These models have been socially constructed; that is, invented by humans, but traditional social seientists tend to forget that they are and that they are value-laden and not objective.)2 The key to this critical discourse is to identify underlying assumptions that might be taken as fact and then argue for alternative assumptions.3 The deconstructive process "look[s] for those spaces where the text is more likely to be submerging 'its other.' It is there that the text is attempting to construct its own 'truth'-where it can be shown to omit, ignore, or devalue its opposite-and where it is likely to contradict its own claims."4 Two types of outcomes are possible after deconstruction. One is that the Army's current leadership paradigm will be strengthened because the paradigm held up well to attack. If so, deconstruction will be a reinforcing process, and only incremental changes to the Army's theory will be necessary. …

Understanding the Standing Joint Force Headquarters

Abstract: THE U.S. JOINT FORCES Command (JFCOM) has developed a joint concept development and experimentation strategy along two paths: a joint concept development path and a joint prototype path. The concept development path explores a broad range of ideas and concepts, while the prototype path pursues rapid fielding of capabilities that improve joint warfighting in the near term. For several years, JFCOM has experimented with various concepts for future command and control (C2) elements. A May 2000 white paper discusses an adaptive joint C2 concept, which is "a redesigned, functionally oriented, standing core headquarters element [to] support operational requirements described in the emerging Rapid Decisive Operations (RDO) concept. (1) In the summer of 2000, JFCOM sponsored an RDO war game to consider a standing C2 organization. Unified Vision 2001 findings reinforced the value of establishing a standing organization, and in 2002, JFCOM formed a prototype standing joint force headquarters (SJFHQ) to demonstrate this concept during Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02). (2) MC02 MC02 involved all services, most combatant commands, other Department of Defense organizations, and several federal agencies. Future force concepts and capabilities from various services were represented, such as an airborne command post, the U.S. Air Force's Expeditionary Aerospace Force, the U.S. Army's Stryker brigade, and a joint Army-Navy high-speed vessel. The scenario was a high-end, small-scale contingency having the potential of escalating to a major theater war. Variously described as training, an exercise, an experiment, a test, and a demonstration, MC02 actually served all these purposes. Participants were situated at locations stretching from ships off California to installations on the Atlantic coast. Over 20,000 members of all services participated in live, virtual, or constructive environments, all coordinated from JFCOM. The Army elected to integrate several events, from conducting training involving an airborne forced entry and the Stryker at Fort Irwin, California, to exercising C2 from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. JFCOM's goals and objectives included assessing concepts and capabilities and hardware and software to measure a joint task force's (JTF's) ability to implement advanced warfighting concepts when equipped with transformational capabilities. The SJFHQ was one of these capabilities. Each service participated on a unique basis. Originally intended as a proving ground for the RDO concept, MC02 morphed into the first significant application of effects-based operations (EBO) as defined by JFCOM. Initially intended to support RDO, EBO became the houseguest who not only would not leave, but who slowly took over the household. EBO evolved into a primary prototype concept, while RDO faded. However, real-world requirements produced a better demonstration than RDO could have. The three-star headquarters originally designated to participate in MC02 received a real-world mission that required it to be replaced by another headquarters at the last minute. One of the direct results of MC02 was instruction from the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) to implement SJFHQ. Joint doctrine has not kept up with the latest transformational initiatives such as the SJFHQ, however. Consequently, outside the joint community and the combatant commands, the implications of the initiative are not widely known or well understood. The SJFHQ and JTF Formation The SJFHQ organization is relatively simple. All services are represented in the SJFHQ, as most combat support and combat service support elements are. Administratively, the SJFHQ is composed of six groups: command, information superiority, plans, operations, knowledge management, and logistics. Functionally, it has four primary teams: information superiority, plans, operations, and knowledge management. Logistics members are merged into the various teams. …

Suicide Bombings in Operation Iraqi Freedom

Abstract: This article, reprinted with permission of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), is adapted from the original copyrighted article published in September 2004 by the Institute of Land Warfare (ILW) as Land Warfare Paper No. 46W. A USA and ILW publications are available on the A USA web page at . The ILW's purpose is to extend AUSA's educational work by sponsoring scholarly publications, including books, monographs, and essays on key defense issues, as well as workshops and symposia. A work selected for publication as an ILW paper represents research by the authors that, in the opinion of the editorial board, will contribute to a better understanding of defense or national security issues. ********** SUICIDE BOMBING is the act of blowing oneself up while trying to kill (destroy) or injure (damage) a target. The target might be military or civilian or both. Typically, the killing or physical destruction of the target is less important than the terror generated by the act. Suicide bombing is a disruptive firepower capability (based on bond-relationship targeting) used by opposing forces (OPFORs) that lack traditional destructive firepower. (1) Suicide bombing is a criminal warfighting technique because it almost always falls within the not crime/not war overlap of nonstate OPFOR operations. When state forces, such as the Iraqi military, use the technique, they violate the rules of war by taking off their uniforms to appear as noncombatants (thus mimicking nonstate OPFORs) for stealth-masking purposes. The Japanese use of Kamikaze aircraft during World War II is considered a legitimate use of military force against military force, but that early prototype form of suicide bombing has not been used for almost 60 years. Persistent suicide bombings during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) (in pre-, trans-, and postmajor combat operations) suggest this "criminal-warfighting" technique will be used with increasing frequency against U.S. Army and allied forces deployed for combat and humanitarian missions in and around Islamic lands. (2) Therefore, U.S. Army, Marine, and constabulary personnel must develop appropriate intelligence, countermeasure, and force-protection capabilities to interdict, mitigate, and respond to what has become a threat against U.S. forces in the global war against radical Islamic terrorism and insurgency. Suicide Operations and Military Traditions Suicide operations (bombings and attacks) fall within three dominant philosophical military traditions: Western, Oriental, and Islamic, each of which holds varying views on this offensive technique at individual and unit levels of doctrinal employment. Western tradition. At the individual level, the Western tradition does not advocate suicide operations. Soldiers or pilots might, on their own initiative and typically when mortally wounded, take as many opposing soldiers with them as possible. In this instance, the combatant has nothing to lose, as in the case of a dying U.S. torpedo-bomber pilot ramming his aircraft into a Japanese warship during World War II. In rare instances, uninjured individuals heroically sacrifice their lives against hopeless odds in defense of their comrades, as did two Delta snipers in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993, who chose to help a downed Black Hawk crew. (3) At the unit level, desperation in war can result in suicidal or near-suicidal operations. The holding action of King Leonidas and his Spartan bodyguards at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. forms the basis of what might be considered a "heroic" activity. More than a millennium and a half later, the battles of Verdun and The Somme during World War I were clearly suicidal operations as opposing forces repeatedly attempted to break the trench stalemate with massed human-wave attacks. In the early days of the Korean War, Task Force Smith's hasty blocking action was almost suicidal but required by dire circumstances. …

Information Operations in Iraq

Abstract: Mid-level Baathists . . . are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerrilla-type campaign against us. - General John Abizaid1 AM AMERICAN infantry team rolls through an Iraqi town in the Sunni triangle, an area west of Baghdad in the fertile Euphrates River valley. The team is distinctly identifiable to the residents as a foreign force. The soldiers dismount and secure the area and with little warning, kick in the door, roust the residents out of the house, and search and ransack the home. The search finds nothing. Hot, homesick, and angry young soldiers sometimes overreact and "humiliate the men, offend the women, and alienate the very people who are supposed to be providing intelligence about terrorists and Baathist holdouts."2 The typical result of such searches is that no weapons or targeted individuals are found. The team releases the family to return to their ransacked home and moves to the next target or back behind the protective wall of U.S. forces where they await the next mission, which might be based on late or dubious information. Did the team arrive late, was the target tipped off, or was the target even legitimate? Most likely the information was valid, but the guerrillas' information network provided advance warning so the target could react. Iraq's population has little reason to cooperate with U.S. forces or to not cooperate with the guerrillas. Failure of U.S. forces to adapt in mindset, organization, and command and control (C2) adversely affects their ability to win the counter-insurgency battle. U.S. forces need to understand how control of the population is a strength for the guerrillas and how to make it a weakness. U.S. forces must perform basic problem-solving to develop a solution rather than treat a symptom. Once military commanders and planners understand how Iraqi guerrillas differ from a conventional foe, they can affect the guerrillas' environment by applying an information operations (IO) strategy to the unconventional problem. Information operations are "actions taken to affect an adversary and influence others' decision-making process, information, and information systems, while protecting one's own information and information systems."3 Understanding how Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz's trinity-people, army, and government-differs in low- and high-intensity conflicts and why rational people continue to support guerrillas instead of the liberating U.S. forces is important.4 Trinitarian Model of Conflict Analyst Gordon McCormick developed a trinitarian model of conflict to demonstrate how people, the army, and the government play different roles in low- and high-intensity conflict.5 For high-intensity conflict in this model, the conventional force defeats its adversary's military; the government falls, and directs the population to cooperate with the enemy; and the people comply. Examples are Germany and Japan surrendering during World War II. High-intensity conflict is the most efficient and logical method of war for a state with a force advantage, such as the United States. The United States has relied on it force advantage since the 1990 Persian Gulf war, when it applied the Powell Doctrine, which dictates the "use of overwhelming force in the military encounter-rather than a proportional response."6 A guerrilla force does not have the strength to fight a state or invading force directly and relies on actions in the information environment to gain an advantage.7 In a low-intensity conflict, guerrillas have the information advantage. They can see the state's military forces and remain unseen themselves and choose when and how to engage opposing forces. The guerrillas approach the trinitarian model of conflict in the reverse order of a high-intensity conflict approach: first, they confront the people; then, the state; and finally, the army.8 The guerrillas gain the confidence of, or at least control of, the population, allowing them to attack the state on their own terms. …