Armchair Generalist

Casual Fridays

Doug Stanton's "Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan" is pretty extraordinary, and not just because of the length of its subtitle. I guess he didn't want people to confuse it with the John Wayne film of the same name. Stanton shows in the back of the book that he has done a good deal of research on Special Operations forces and in particular the events when they went into Afghanistan in October and November 2001. He goes into great detail as to what the US soldiers were thinking and saying during their deployment, - and not only them but their Afghani compatriots.

This gets a little annoying in some cases - I'm not saying that Stanton is making it up, but you get the impression that much of the book was "based" on actual events and that he developed the narratives. As a result, much of the dialogue (and even people's thoughts) is in short, clipped tones. The description of people, the terrain, and just about everything in the book pops with sound and color. "The Taliban were pouring through the  Gap ... [c]oming at them like a storm." "At times, they couldn't see anything except the a skim of stars overhead, like ice crystals thrown against a black dome." It's as if it were prepared for a movie development.

The first teams who went into Afghanistan were really blazing the trail for everyone else, and you do get a good impression of the challenges they faced in preparing for and sustaining operations in the field. They had to work with Afghanis when none of them knew the language, and with a small group, advise two major Afghani commanders who really didn't like each other. It's a tribute to their skills that they were able to befriend the commanders and, supported by significant air power, to route the Taliban forces. The air coordination is particularly amusing, as the pilots and forward controllers initially tell the SF troops that they won't bomb below 20,000 feet (for fear of antiaircraft guns and rockets) and they won't bomb targets that are not definitively marked as enemy troops.  

This book reads like a first-person adventure strip, complete with stories of Army wives worrying at home and the plucky Afghani resistance against the Taliban. As such, if you like melodramatic combat stories, this is a great book. Buried in the book are insights as to how the Afghani commanders think and act in the grand scheme of things - that is to say, casually at times, with their own agendas. Alliances go back and forth, and cultural differences complicate things. This book is not the one to pick up if you want to ask "so why are we still there?" I had to wonder myself, if we figured out how to work the Northern Alliance troops and were able to push back the Taliban, where did we lose the bubble? Was it when we "took" Kabul and declared victory, moving back to Iraq? You don't get that answer.

My one dislike was a sentence near the end of the book that talks to al Qaeda's ties to Pakistan and Afghanistan. "The CIA was picking up intelligence that approximately thirty-five Al Qaeda members, based in Pakistan, were planning to blow up the US Consulate in Peshawar. Moreover, it appeared that Al Qaeda planned to use Pakistan's nuclear capability for further attacks." I had to snort in amazement there - maybe, just maybe there was some dream in an al Qaeda leader's head about Pakistani nukes, but the book expresses this more as a fact - and it would be wrong. I think Stanton was way off in including that item without elaborating on it.

This book also covers the story of Michael Spann, a CIA field agent who was killed when a group of Taliban prisoners broke free and attacked their holders. Also involved in that story was the American John Walker Lindh who had joined the Taliban to fight for the Taliban and against bad Muslim governments. It's an interesting story, but again, told with a bit too much drama for my taste. Overall, though, this is a great book to get a feel for what the issues were at the beginning of the war and how the courageous troops overcame great adversity to win the initial conflicts. Many of those soldiers died later in Iraq, and that's more the tragedy. It makes you wonder how we could lose sight of what was initially a noble goal and that has turned into such a sausage-grinder.

Karl Malden, RIP

Karl Malden, an amazingly talented actor, has passed away at the age of 97.

Karl Malden, a versatile Oscar-winning actor who built a six-decade Hollywood career playing heroes and heavies -- and, often, relatable ordinary men -- yet who was certain he was best known as a commercial pitchman for American Express, has died. He was 97.

Malden died Wednesday of natural causes at his Brentwood home, said Mila Doerner, a daughter.

He received his Academy Award for playing Mitch in the 1951 film “A Streetcar Named Desire,” a role he originated on Broadway. Two decades later, he starred in the 1970s TV series "The Streets of San Francisco" with Michael Douglas, then in his late 20s.
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In addition to his wife of 70 years and his daughters, Malden is survived by three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

I was a little too young to appreciate  "Streets of San Francisco," but of course I have seen him act as Gen. Omar Bradley in the movie "Patton." I really thought that he and George C. Scott played off each other extremely well.

Patton: I don't know why, but the image of a bullet coming straight for my nose was more horrifying than anything else.
Bradley: Well, I can understand that, George, it's such a handsome nose.

I hope the media machine that is so closely grinding on the story of where Michael Jackson will be buried and how his estate will be divided up can take a break to give Malden an appropriate salute for his years of acting and service to his country.

Traveling Salesmen, Old Pitch

The Graham-Talent bioscare show is still touring the United States. This week, they went to Jim Talent's current employer, The Heritage Foundation, which always enjoys a good escape from reality. There isn't anything new to report - well, the study was just completed six months ago - but I wonder if they confuse people with their statements that, while a bioterrorist incident is easier to prepare for as opposed to a terrorist nuclear incident, our government remains woefully behind. These guys, as former senators in Congress, aren't used to having to justify the remarks they make, and that's clear whenever they talk about this subject. In CQ Homeland Security (subscription required), there's a longer version of this event that includes a few key quotes.

"It has been very difficult to get the American people and its elected officials to focus on the immediacy and the severity of WMD use somewhere in the world,” said Bob Graham, the former Democratic senator from Florida who serves as the commission’s chairman.

Yeah, funny about that - seems that whenever eight years go by since the last "WMD" incident in America, the public tends to downplay the event. Maybe it's the daily routine of other more visible dangers like a war in the Middle East, pandemic flu, identify theft, being out of work for months, you know, silly stuff like that. Or maybe we can just blame American Idol for dumbing down Americans.

“We’re more vulnerable today than we were 10 years ago,” Graham said, adding later that a complicating factor is the decentralization of leadership in al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in recent years. “Our opponent has become more nimble."

Interesting observation, considering the billions of dollars invested into not just biodefense measures but counterterrorism measures since 9/11.  Probably a mistaken observation too. And as for our dangerous opponent... nimble? Not the word I would use, no evidence that the generic terrorist front has anything more sophisticated than internet recipes for ricin and hydrogen cyanide devices, neither being a mass-casualty weapon. 

Talent said biological compounds are much easier to adapt, weaponize and stockpile than nuclear materials.

"Part of the problem is institutional, he said. From the start, nuclear scientists knew they were working with potentially dangerous materials. Biological and life sciences, on the other hand, have been around much longer, desensitizing scientists to the idea that these disciplines can pose a threat.

That's a vast oversimplification. Biological compounds are not easy to grow, weaponize, or stockpile because they are living organisms requiring pretty particular conditions to 1) create in significant quantity, 2) disperse effectively to create a mass casualty event, and 3) keep alive in a stockpile. Fissile materials, once you get the right technology, stay around for years and years without much maintenance. Anyone who's worked in this area understands this. Talent obviously doesn't understand or is deliberately exaggerating. And as a matter of history, the mature effort to develop biological weapons is not really any older than the corresponding efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

This attitude is underscored by the fact that three federal agencies regulate the life sciences, creating regulatory redundancies and other problems, Talent said.

“It’s everything that’s bad about oversight and nothing that’s good,” he said.

Instead, the Department of Health and Human Services alone should be responsible for regulations, streamlining oversight to make it more sensible and safer, Talent said.

Yes, because DHHS has done SO WELL in executing BioShield and developing new products. Five years after it was given the responsibility, the national strategic stockpile still only has anthrax and smallpox vaccines, along with a collection of general medical treatments and other equipment. The problem has been and continues to be the lack of solid leadership and the inability to fix the FDA's snail-slow regulatory stranglehold on the process of developing medical countermeasures.

This WMD commission's report has good recommendations, don't get me wrong. Suggesting that the vice president be the WMD czar isn't one of them, but let's let that one go for now. The Graham-Talent show has to pack up its bags and quietly go home. They did their job. They shouldn't continue to embarrass themselves by overhyping this threat and showing their ignorance.

The Stupidity Is Overwhelming

SHORTER John Bolton: "Now that the Iranian elections are over, we should bomb them. It's only prudent."

Honestly. What a jackass thing to suggest as the protests in Iran are still continuing. But the bigger jackass is Fred Hiatt for allowing this insane trash-talk to be printed in the Washington Post.

Meanwhile, Michael Scheuer claims that we need bin Laden to nuke a city in the United States so that we Americans will wake up to the need for more stringent security measures. Glenn Beck nods sagely and says "so if I were him, that would be the last thing I would do right now."

What fools these mortals be.

Burma's Nuke Program?

I've been meaning to comment on the US government's tracking the North Korean ship that was trudging its way toward Burma (not Myanmar - that's an illegitimate name that the military leaders gave it). The suspicion is that there might be nuclear technologies and missile systems on board.

North Korea has used Myanmar ports and airstrips to transfer arms and contraband to third countries, including Iran, these officials said. Myanmar's military government also has purchased on the open market technologies that are potentially usable in a nuclear program, and North Korean arms companies involved in the nuclear trade have become active in Myanmar, said U.S., Asian and United Nations officials.
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Several Myanmar citizens, some of them expatriates, have claimed direct knowledge of a nuclear-weapons program, including a reactor under construction near Maymyo, according to Myanmar experts. But the remote area is off-limits to outsiders without government permission and the reports haven't been independently confirmed.

My first reaction was, come on, Burma? Developing a nuclear weapons program? Pull the other leg. I do see a lot of hits on the topic, but honestly, the country has so many other problems, there's no way they could pull it off. I'd rather suspect that Burma is just a stop-over for North Korean cargo that's going to the Middle East. In any event, I didn't think that the US government had any rationale to stop the ship, since it was under an nK flag and going to a Burma port. But who knows where the hell it's going now?

Amitai Etzioni, a former senior advisor to the Carter administration, asks whether progressives have the nerve to admit that we can, in fact, address proliferation without using force. He's right - we ought to be able to say, yes, there is a multilateral approach to nonproliferation that works, and in this case, the US govt did the right thing by not forcing the issue. 

Questioning the Continued VH-71 Project

The Ares defense blog has a great guest blogger who questions why DoD needs ten more years - after the six already spent - to develop its Navy acquisition project that is supposed to be so important.

In case people have forgotten, Ben Rich delivered the F-117 Nighthawk in 5 years, Kelly Johnson the SR-71 in 6 years, and the Apollo leadership team put a man on the moon in 8. Are we as educated people seriously OK with claims that it will take 16 years to modify an existing, certified, and already very safe military aircraft so it will be suitable to fly our President?

When I flew for the Navy accountability and responsibility were pretty simple: if something went wrong there was a mishap board to sort out who did what and why, and the consequences of the board could be anything from exoneration to the end of a career. With Navy Surface Warfare the process of accountability was even simpler; for one example, a ship runs aground and the Captain is relieved, and then the investigation starts.

The point is in both cases there is an urgent need to solve the fundamental problem before anymore lives are at stake, and being in charge means being accountable. Given the costs and intrinsic risk to operators and passengers shouldn't significant aviation procurement programs be run the same way?

Really, really good question. I would love to see acquisition managers treated as tough as commanders in the field. You screw up, you get fired. It ought to be that easy, but it isn't. 

Budget Bullshit

It's bad enough when the Heritage Foundation decides to lie with statistics about the defense budget. It's the usual conservative argument saying that we need to spend 4% or more on defense, because otherwise we're spending less than since 9/11 (gasp!!). It's not surprising to see the National Review hawk this falsehood. Worse when the usually reliable Defense Tech decides to buy into the lie. John Noonan from OpFor writes this post for Defense Tech:

I'll try to stay off my soapbox, but two points are worth mentioning. First, as noted by McNeal, is that the primary function of the federal government is to provide for the common defense -- not health care, green initiatives (readers: please don't try to combine global warming projections into security, as some are wont to do. It's lame) and corporate bailouts.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, is the fact that our powerful military exists to prevent a war as much as it exists to win a war. Si vis pacem, para bellum, if you will. One can argue that our strategic nuclear deterrent accomplishes this well enough, but I'm not convinced. I'd rather spend 5%-6% of our GDP on ensuring we never have to suffer through another WWI or WWII. 

Fortunately, we have Ben Friedman at CATO to set them straight on budget issues and statistics.

It’s true that defense spending will probably decline as a percentage of GDP, assuming the economy recovers. But that’s because GDP grows. Ours is more than six times bigger than it was in 1950.  Meanwhile, we spend more on defense in real, inflation adjusted terms, than we did then, at the height of the Cold War. The denoninator has grown faster than the numerator. 

By saying that defense spending needs to grow with GDP to be “level,” you are arguing for an annual increase in defense spending without saying so directly. That’s the point, of course.

To be straight with readers, charts that show defense spending as a percentage of GDP should either show GDP growth over time or include a line that shows defense spending in real terms. Otherwise they fail to demonstrate that the decline in defense spending as a percentage of GDP is a consequence of growing GDP, not lower spending.

Don't buy into the lie, John. Think before you buy into the Heritage Foundation's bullshit arguments. You'll be helping the Defense Department by forcing it to use its hundreds of billions in research, development, and acquisition better instead of suggesting that we flood DoD with more unnecessary funds.

Gitmo Prisoners - A Good Investment

We may find out this week what President Obama wants to do with the Gitmo detainees. Hopefully it will be something other than the former administration's idea of using the military to be the judge and jury. After all, the point wasn't to close Gitmo - it was to change the policy of lifetime detention without trial. Even if they are the "worst of the worst" and there isn't enough evidence (or the US govt screwed it up by torturing people), there needs to be a legal ruling or throw them back into the ocean. 

But as for housing the Gitmo detainees on American soil, it ends up that there are quite a few communities who would be very willing to get federal funding to hold these people. Once you get past the Repub bullshit and the Dem lack of courage, there is a market out there.

For more than 25 years, rural towns have been lobbying, cajoling and nearly bribing governmental institutions to give them prisons. I lived in and studied two such towns for more than a year. One was Florence, Colo., where some of the current controversy is focused. It is the home to ADX Florence, the so-called Alcatraz of the Rockies, where the federal government houses its most disruptive inmates under supermax conditions. It is home to "Unabomber" Theodore Kaczynski, would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid and 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, among others. And the town of Florence actually raised money to pay the federal government for the privilege of housing these inmates. 

Stories like this have become commonplace in rural America. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation used to refer to the process of selecting a community to house a new prison as DAD (decide, announce and defend). Today's process would better be described as LLC: lobby, lobby and celebrate.

In the past, the government bore the burden of convincing towns of the benefits of having a prison. Today, communities must show the government why they are the best location for a prison. 

So let's let the market work out this issue. The Repubs ought to like that.

So Confused

Huh - this is funny. Just as the US government is deciding to stop its crop eradication policy and to focus on the drug lords in Afghanistan, the British government's policy - and for that matter, the Afghan government - is set on continuing the crop eradication program. I am so confused.

The British Government said destroying poppy fields remained a key deterrent to growers and one of the "seven pillars" of its anti-opium strategy in Helmand province, just a day after Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan, said that destroying the crop only drove poor farmers to join the insurgency.

In a reversal of policy, he said the United States would stop funding poppy eradication and instead concentrate on encouraging farmers to grow alternative crops.

The Afghan government backed Britain's stance and defended its previous efforts, which relied heavily on ripping up or flattening poppy plants, as "perfect".

General Khodaidad, Afghan minister for counter narcotics, said his strategy had been "the right path".

"We are happy with our strategy and we are working according to our strategy. I don't see any deficiencies in our strategy, our strategy is perfect, our strategy is good."

No arguments here. I'd love to come over and use a 1950s flamethrower on the poppy fields. It'll help fertilize the ground for the food crops that they might plant after the farmers give up on supporting the illegal drug trade. And no, NVH, I don't buy legalization of heroin as an alternative. Marijuana maybe, but not the hard stuff.

Aiding the Somali Govt

The recent news is that the US government is sending 40 tons of small arms and ammunition, about $10 million worth, to Somalia. And you just have to gawk and ask, why? Do they need MORE ammo and guns in that country? No, I have to agree with Steven at Realistic Defense:

I'm not sure that aiding the Somali government is something the United States should be actively doing. Officials in the State Department and the Pentagon have predicted Somalia as the next terrorist incubator for years now. If Somalia falls to radical Islamists, is the United States adversely effected? I think the whole failed states as terrorist havens is an idea that dominates most of the foreign policy establishment, but is severely misguided. Terrorism is a phenomenon that can exist in a variety of states. The liberal democracies of western Europe were home to numerous terrorist groups between the 60's and 90's, so it's not an occurrence isolated to third world countries. And while the United States has not had the same experiences of domestic terrorism as some other countries, several groups from Puerto Rican nationalists to Aryan Nations have been able to operate successfully.

Look at Afghanistan. al-Qaeda was able to set up a permanent base for operations only with the help of the Taliban, which exerted powerful rule over the country. Terrorists need a stable environment, it does them no good to be involved in civil wars, as that only misdirects their energy and resources. We should keep an eye on Somalia, but this sort of offshore balancing is not likely to help either the Somalis or Americans.

So where is that smart power that we've been hearing about? Is it just not turned on yet? Does anyone really want to throw gasoline onto the fire that is consuming Somalia? How exactly is the United States going to make sure that the Somali pirates or militia groups don't get this "aid"? All I can think about is that there must be Bush moles still planted in the State and Defense Department. 

UPDATE: More to the point, does the US government have (or has it ever had) a coherent policy on how to stabilize Somalia? Is AFRICOM engaged or just watching?

Conservative Hawks Fail on Nukes

I think it's great how the Wall Street Journal is always willing to entertain the passionate mutterings of neocons and conservatives when they feel like telling us what we ought to be doing in defense. It's really too easy to mock them. Here's Richard "what failed Iraq strategy" Perle and his buddy Sen. Jon "where's my majority" Kyl.

In the nuclear-free world that ended in 1945 there was neither peace nor security. Since then there have indeed been many wars but none has come close to the carnage that occurred regularly before the development of nuclear weapons, and none has pitted nuclear powers against each other.

So what we need are more nations with nuclear weapons. Then no one will fight each other, right?

Thus, in his Prague speech, Mr. Obama announced that the U.S. would "immediately and aggressively" pursue ratification of the comprehensive ban on the testing of nuclear weapons. The administration believes, without evidence, that ratification of the test-ban treaty will discourage other countries from developing nuclear weapons.

That's not true at all. The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is supposed to convince other nations that they don't need the bomb. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is supposed to just make the United States honest about popping the occasional nuke as a test along with the other signatories.

For the foreseeable future, the U.S. and many of our allies rely on our nuclear deterrent. And as long as the U.S. possesses nuclear weapons, they must be -- as Mr. Obama recognized in Prague -- "safe, secure and effective." Yet his proposed 2010 budget fails to take the necessary steps to do that.

Actually, that's not true, the budget does put down quite a few billion for the nuclear weapons stockpile. It doesn't fund the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, for which people use the code words "safe, secure, and effective." Be nice if there were any nuclear weapons experts who could articulate something other than "we need more nukes."

If we were to approach zero nuclear weapons today, others would almost certainly try even harder to catapult to superpower status by acquiring a bomb or two. A robust American nuclear force is an essential discouragement to nuclear proliferators; a weak or uncertain force just the opposite.

And of course, no one, especially President Obama, is suggesting either a unilateral disarmament or doing it today. But what the hell, it's not as if Kyl and Perle haven't lied out their asses in attempts to badmouth progressive defense experts. Why should they start being honest now?

Britain's Secret CW History

From the dusty drawers of history comes this story about chemical warfare research during World War II. There were no holds barred in the hunt for offensive measures to keep the Germans off of British soil. So here's one attempt:

Research scientists thought clouds of poison darts, blasted from canisters high above the battlefield, could be even more lethal against enemy troop concentrations than high-explosive shells.

Mustard gas compounds in the needles would ensure anyone whose skin was broken would die a swift and horrible death, or at least have terrible injuries.

Assessing the effectiveness of the darts one report notes: "If penetrating into the flesh, will cause death if not plucked out within 30 seconds.

"If plucked out within this time, will cause disablement by collapse.

"Collapse occurs within one to five minutes, and death within 30 minutes."

A hand-written comment written next to this observed: "I doubt whether the darts can be plucked out. The paper tail would come off."

I have heard of research that attempted to make poisoned flechettes for artillery rounds or aerial bombs, but the logic fails when the operational commander says "So if I can hit them with arty or bombs, why not use high explosive instead? So much easier and less complicated." I am not sure that mustard agent would have been the preferred agent - the Allies didn't have nerve agent, but mustard agent was around. I just don't know if a small dose of subdural injected mustard would be so quickly lethal. But then again, I'm not up on medical effects.

Hat tip to Ray!

Saddam Didn't Have the WMDs

This isn't news, but you have to wonder why it took a FOIA request to get it out of the federal government.

The FBI interrogations of the toppled tyrant - codename "Desert Spider" - were declassified after a Freedom of Information Act request.

The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.

Of all his enemies, Iraq's ex-president - who insisted he still held office during captivity - hated Iran most.

Asked how he would have faced "fanatic" Iranian ayatollahs if Iraq had been proven toothless by UN weapons inspectors in 2003, Saddam said he would have cut a deal with Bush.

"Hussein replied Iraq would have been extremely vulnerable to attack from Iran and would have sought a security agreement with the U.S. to protect it from threats in the region," according to a 2004 FBI report among the declassified files.

Saddam Hussein was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid. Unfortunately, our administration was.

Interdicting Afghan Poppy Trade

Richard Holbrooke is telling Congress that the Obama administration is all set to fix the mistakes made by the Bush administration regarding the poppy trade in Afghanistan. I'd prefer burning out the crops, but this way might be better.

Testifying to Congress, Holbrooke said the United States had "a continued focus on stopping the drug trade, but within that we are downgrading our efforts to eradicate crops -- spraying -- a policy we think is totally ineffectual."

"We are going to increase efforts in interdiction and going after the drug lords. So we're not downgrading narcotics, we're downgrading crop eradication," Holbrooke said.
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US military authorities acknowledge that an eight-year anti-drug effort in Afghanistan has failed to step the heroin trade, which is estimated to fund the Taliban to a tune of close to 100 million dollars a year.

In October last year, NATO nations for the first time authorized the international force in Afghanistan to take action against drug traffickers and their facilities.

Yes, it's only taken eight years to figure out that we need an effective way to stop the Taliban's cash crop. Let's see if the new team can do it.

UPDATE: Of course, things would go smoother if the US govt didn't enable the poppy trade.

Casual Fridays

Charlie Stevenson has written a great book titled "Warriors and Politicians: US Civil-Military Relations under Stress." I reviewed his second book, "SecDef" earlier in the month. While the second book focused on management styles of a number of secretaries of defense, this book focused more on the historical relationship between Congress, the president, and military leaders. Stevenson explains that while many authors have talked about the president and military leaders, not many have examined the role of Congress in dealing with military issues. That's the real value of this book.

Stevenson examines three specific "challenges" - addressing military issues during conflicts, addressing the rearmament after conflicts, and addressing the issue of transformation. What makes this really interesting is how the author demonstrates that it isn't just one administration in each example who had to face these challenges. In fact, while some things stayed the same, in many cases, Congress has learned from previous administrations and grown its responsibilities. 

In the warfight, he examines Washington, Lincoln, and LBJ as they fought to work with Congress and the military. All three are good stories, but LBJ's story is particularly interesting - LBJ had McNamara working his new theories of reprisal (attacking the NVA in response to its attacks) while the service chiefs wanted to be unleashed. The Congressional Democrats who were in the majority had their doubts, but they let the president have his war. It wasn't until Nixon was elected that the chiefs got to get their way, and then Congress began to take measures to try to restrain the conflict.

 

In the rearmament case, he examines John Adams, the second president, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. The Adams story is particularly interesting as the Congress was still figuring out what it ought to be doing with the military. I was not aware of how much Harry Truman dragged his feet to create and maintain an armed force before Korea. In fact, he insisted up to the month of the invasion that there was no chance of war in the near future. Congress had to deal with the Air Force and Navy fighting over control of the budget - the Navy lost, with the Air Force strategic bomber winning. And of course, there was this other little thing to consider - building and testing hydrogen bombs.

The transformation discussion talks to Teddy Roosevelt , McNamara, and the Goldwater-Nichols act (which is a very fascinating discussion). It of course has to include Rumsfeld and Bush working their magic with Congress. This will surprise no one that Congress was more than willing to support transformation programs - after 9/11. There isn't as much talk about specific congressional persons in this section, which is disappointing, because all of the other case studies do identify specific personalities. Stevenson emailed me and explained that he didn't get as much on Rumsfeld's era due to the need to finish the book and get it published. The assessments on Rumsfeld ends in 2004. I really would like to see Stevenson dedicate a book to evaluating relations betweenCongress and the Bush administration.

 

In the final chapter, Stevenson looks at developing a unifying theory as to the civil-military relations in our government. I'm paraphrasing here for the sake of brevity.

• The president and SecDef get to direct the military on use of force and strategy.
• Congress controls the military's size, equipment, and organization.
• The military understands the controls but insists on having a say in the decisions.
• Presidents consider the military advice on use of force as a go/no go decision.
• Military leaders don't use that veto, but insist on particular terms and conditions.
• Military will always support the president on budget and use of force, but reserve the right to tell Congress what they really think.
• Congress doesn't really care about military preferences as much as it does the individual political opinions of its members.
• Military complies when the president and Congress agree; when one or the other disagree, the military sides with whoever benefits them, but not at the cost of directly disobeying the president.

Some of these may seem self-evident, and obviously they are not strict rules that apply to all administrations. But Stevenson makes the case that these generalities do apply across the 250+ years of US military-civil affairs. And that's a good thing - I think we can all live with this relationship, even when the political-military-industrial complex affairs get odious.

No Troops Allowed

Ray in the UK is sharing the finding of an old artifact formerly belonging to the Ministry of Defence. He monitors natural reserves of ancient woodlands, part of England's attempts to keep its beautiful countryside whole. He found this fifty-year old sign deep in the forest, probably used to inform soldiers that they were straying out of their training grounds. 

Ray says that the woods are a little more friendly these days - people are allowed into this neck of the woods today, even soldiers on the occasional exercise. I guess they're less destructive these days.

Farrah Fawcett Has Died

A cultural icon of the seventies has passed on way too early. Bye, Angel. 

I feel so old now.

UPDATE: Michael Jackson dies at the age of 50. There goes our cultural icon of the eighties. Hell of a day.

Bacevich 1, Exum 0

I had some time to look at the video presentations of the recent CNAS conference titled "Striking a Balance: A New American Security" - very nice of CNAS to keep these very interesting briefs online for those of us who couldn't get away from our day jobs. I wanted to point out the second panel in particular, with the subject of "what to do" in Af-Pakover the next year. Andrew Exum (a.k.a Abu M) led off the discussion, but the guy I really want to talk about is Andrew Bacevich. His presentation starts around 33.5 minutes into the panel.

The panel has some fun poking Bacevich as the "glorious heretic" who they fully anticipate coming out against the CNAS report of the same name of the panel. He doesn't disappoint, stating that their assumptions - that Afghanistan constitutes a vital national security interest to the United States and that a blend of COIN and nation building will provide an affordable and effective way to meet that interest - are both wrong. He points out that if the US government wants to prevent future 9/11s, the key failure was the lack of federal, state and local defenses to stop such an event. Trying to fix Afghanistan as a solution is both unnecessary and implausible.

Why not fix Mexico, which has much more strategic importance to the United States? The idea of sending 60K military personnel into Mexico and spending 10s or 100s of billions of dollars to overcome Mexico's political corruption, suppress the drug smuggling, create security institutions, and redeem its school system would seem insane to most. And yet, when the same solution set is outlined for Afghanistan, everyone thinks it's the obvious answer. Our national security interests are distorted - we need to treat Afghanistan as if it were any one of the many other small nations with which the US government does business and develop astrategy that invests the lowest possible costs. As for Nagl's idea of a global COIN campaign, we do not need and cannot afford that.

When it came time for questions, Exum came up with this lame line about their report having an operational focus and not a grand strategy focus. He thought Bacevich's idea was "completely divorced from political realities facing this administration" and that we have to commit toward a long haul of at least 5-6 more years in Af-Pak. I thought to myself, wow, he really doesn't get it, that this myopic "operational focus" is exactly the reason why our Army leadership is so frakked up. It's because you don't start with the grand strategy that you propose such idealistic and unachievable plans.

Bacevich admitted that the Washington DC beltway crowd wasn't going to listen to him, but the historian in him couldn't help but notice that the US government's activities in the Middle East since 1980 really haven't delivered any positive benefits to the nation, with its assumption that US military power could overcome all obstacles (I might disagree with this as overstating the issue, but I understand his point). Over the past eight years, after spending a trillion dollars on this adventure and considering where the US economy is, maybe it was time to try something different. He thought it was ironic how the original military strategy of "shock and awe" was based on the wrong assumption that warfare had been transformed, that all conflicts would be short and affordable, producing decisive outcomes. Now the assumption is that war is a perpetual condition, with conflicts lasting 10-15 years and producing ambiguous results. Is this really smart?

I admit I am a big Bacevich fan, and it's arguments such as his - in less than ten minutes, he outlines everything that is wrong with the past and current Af-Pak strategies - that win me over. Exum is a smart guy and has been very fortunate to get his current position at CNAS, but he really needs to step back from his lofty perch and consider the larger picture - he still doesn't see it. Here's some advice, Mr. Exum: "Memento mori." Don't get caught up into thinking that you're all that - you're on the right road, but don't disregard the old bull's wisdom.

Reshaping the Future Combat System

This week, Under Secretary of Defense for AT&L Ash Carter announced the end of the Future Combat System and the beginning of the Army's reformed modernization program. To be clear, while FCS is cancelled, the requirement remains and the funding will still go on.

The Pentagon today canceled the $159 billion Future Combat Systems of manned and unmanned vehicles joined by a wireless network, splitting it into five programs, according to Undersecretary for Acquisition Ashton Carter.

Boeing Co. was the lead contractor on the system and will retain that role on only one program, which involves overseeing construction of communications networks, robots and drones as well as ground sensors for detecting an enemy, Carter said in an interview.

This contract will apply to only seven of the Army’s 73 active-duty and National Guard combat brigades. Boeing must compete for the other four programs, which apply to the remaining 66 brigades, he said. No values have been assigned to any of the five programs.

The one contract Boeing is assured of will be “fixed- price” instead of the “cost-plus” type that Boeing had under the original program, Carter said. Under the cost-plus formula, the government is required to reimburse companies for their costs and pay all overruns.

Carter, at his nomination hearing in March, said he favored greater use of fixed-price contracts and would seek to end an acquisition culture that’s led to a “pervasive failure of programs to meet their cost, schedule and performance goals.”

Two quick points, other than the obvious that FCS will continue in spirit if not in name as the "Brigade Combat Team Modernization" project. First of all, the problem with fixed-price contracts is that when (not if) the government decides that it wants something different, something more than what it originally bid, it can't change the contract to adjust the price. It's a limited tool, and while some contractors may be guilty of abusing cost-plus contracts, it's more contingent on the government to ensure it gets its requirements right to begin with. And since it doesn't...

Second, as for the acquisition culture that's led to a "pervasive failure of programs to meet their cost, schedule, and performance goals," I hope SecDef Gates isn't under the illusion that changing the type of contract will somehow magically make defense acquisition programs more efficient. It's the failure of government program and project managers to make tough decisions when needed, to see that their projects aren't on schedule or are overspending and to make changes to get them back on course, that makes the difference. It's not the contractors - we do what we're told, because we like happy clients who give return business. 

But hey, have a great time reforming the DOD acquisition program, SecDef Gates. And when you're gone, it'll go back to business as usual. 

Chem Demil Update

Here's a tale of two cities, Hermiston, Oregon, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It's the worst of times for Hermiston - a judge denied the local environmental activists their bid to stop the Army from incinerating mustard agent.

The petitioners feel that the burning of mustard agent is harmful to the environment and the people who live near the depot, where the chemical agent disposal facility is located. The unknown levels of mercury in the mustard when burned and released into the atmosphere is risky, GAP said.

"We're asking the court to stop the burning, which we believe poses a serious health threat to citizens of Oregon and Washington state," GAP Senior Counsel Richard Condit said.

According to GAP, unlike the chemical disposal plants with this type of mustard agent, the quantities of hazardous wastes in the ton containers stored at the depot - 63 percent by weight of all stockpiled munitions - have never been determined because "the EQC (Environmental Quality Commission) and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) have refused to require testing of each of the ton containers."

DEQ is requiring the Umatilla Chemical Agent Disposal Facility to sample 120 ton containers, said Bob Dikeman, project general manager for Washington Defense Group, the contractor for the facility.

It's a bitch when you find out that the Army is actually doing everything safe and legal and there's nothing your Luddite ideology can do to stop it. I weep for the poor GAPpers. Meanwhile, in Pine Bluff, it's the best of times. In fact, the local community, who actually LIKES the Army, supports speeding up the disposal process.

Stu Soffer, a member of the arsenal’s Citizens Advisory Commission, commented on “the high level of confidence we have” in those involved in the burn. They include ADEQ, the U.S. Army and the contractor hired for disposal, Washington Defense Group, EG&G Division of URS Corp.

“We’ve got the highest regard for their ability,” he said, adding, “I believe the community also has the same high degree of confidence. I think that confidence is evident here tonight.”

Soffer predicted at last month’s commission meeting that “there’s not going to be anybody at White Hall City Hall for the public hearing.”

Several commissioners commented on how the facility here had not received the kind of public opposition as other disposal sites have.

Same agent, same incineration process at both facilities. It's a funny world, but fortunately the Army is cruising along with its chemical demilitarization program - except for the ACWA project that is inching forward in Kentucky and Colorado. But that's on Mitch McConnell.

Al Qaeda's Nuclear Dreams

Dan Drezner puts the Reuter's report about al Qaeda seeking Pakistan's nuclear weapons into context.

Reuters' Inal Ersan reports on a shocking announcement from Al Qaeda: 

If it were in a position to do so, Al Qaeda would use Pakistan's nuclear weapons in its fight against the United States, a top leader of the group said in remarks aired Sunday....

"God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans," Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of al Qaeda's in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.

Well, blow me down!!  I had no idea that this would have been their intent!  It's a good thing Al Qaeda clarified their policy on nuclear weapons, because there had been some ambiguity on the matter.  I, for one, am also unclear about Al Qaeda's position on Israel, or whether they think Adam Lambert got jobbed in American Idol. 

Couldn't have said it better myself. Al Qaeda may want to grab Pakistani nuclear weapons, but if they did,and assuming they could arm it, could they get them transported out of the country, across the ocean, into the United States, and successfully detonate it? I really doubt it. 

That Was SO 1985

Remember the good old days when Saddam Hussein was an ally - of sorts - to the United States, in as far as acting as the wall against expansion of the post-Shah Persian threat? Well, SecDef Bob Gates would like us to go back to the future there.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Persian Gulf states to support Iraq as a way to strengthen regional security and as a buffer against Iran.

“The embrace of Iraq by its fellow Gulf states will help contain the ambitions of Iran,” Gates told a Washington conference of top defense officials from 11 countries in the energy-rich region. General David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East and Central Asia, is hosting the event to coordinate on issues such as fighting terrorism and military modernization.

The Obama administration wants Persian Gulf states to cooperate more closely in assisting Iraq’s development as U.S. troops withdraw. American forces have a June 30 deadline under an agreement with Iraq to pull back from urban areas, and all combat troops are due to exit the country by the end of 2011.

Yeah, here's the thing. That strategy worked well when there was a Sunni government in charge of Iraq and it could rely on Sunni neighbors to pile on against the Shi'ite government of Iran. You don't have that any more... instead, you have Iraq who is dependent on trade and, to a degree, security from Iran. They're friends now, so taking actions to benefit Iraq is going to benefit Iran. Iraq's Shi'ite-led government isn't going to get any favorable treatment from Saudi Arabia or Syria or Egypt. Funny how there can be consequences to overthrowing the one government who was willing to stand up to Iran.

Alarming News

The Government Accountability Office has released another report on DNDO's attempts to replace its current portal radiation monitors with a more advanced detector to cut down on its false (or "innocent") alarms. The Washington Post has this to say:

The new GAO report focuses on another round of testing showing that the new devices perform better than existing equipment when the radioactive material is lightly shielded in something such as a cargo container. That advantage decreased when more substantial shielding such as lead was used, as likely would be the case if a terrorist were trying to import the material, the GAO said.

The GAO report also found difficulties in integrating the equipment at border crossings. In one instance, officials at Customs and Border Protection "suspended field validation of the system after 2 weeks because of serious performance problems that may require software revisions," the report said. The ASPs [Advanced Spectroscopic Portals] were sending more false alarms than the older equipment.

And DNDO has not moved forward on potential techniques to improve the sensitivity of existing radiation detection equipment. If those machines performed better, Congress might be less likely to approve the costlier ASPs, the report said.

Part of DHS's concern is probably that it has federal funds to spend on these new ASPs and Congress has prohibited that spending until this little issue about effectiveness is cleared up. And let there be no doubt, these are expensive monitors. From the GAO report:

Since 2005, DNDO has been developing and testing advanced spectroscopic portals (ASP), a new type of portal monitor designed to both detect radiation and identify the source. The new portal monitors use technology similar to that in handheld identification devices currently used for secondary screening. Key differences from handheld identification devices include a larger number of detectors, more sophisticated software, and a more extensive library of radiation signatures that may provide more consistent and rapid screening and may increase the likelihood of correct identification. DNDO hopes to use the new portal monitors to replace at least some PVTs currently used for primary screening, as well as PVTs and handheld identification devices currently used for secondary screening. However, the new portal monitors cost significantly more than PVTs. We estimated in September 2008 that the lifecycle cost of each standard cargo version of the ASP (including deployment costs) is about $822,000, compared with about $308,000 for the PVT standard cargo portal, and that the total program cost for DNDO’s latest plan for deploying radiation portal monitors—which relies on a combination of ASPs and PVTs and does not deploy radiation portal monitors at all border crossings—would be about $2 billion.2 Moreover, CBP officials expect operation and maintenance costs to be significantly higher for ASPs than for PVTs because of the greater complexity of ASP equipment.

The question has to be, is the cost worth the potential reduction in "innocent" alarms. People who develop CBRN detectors know the golden rule: you can have two of the three following qualities in a detector - inexpensive, sensitive to hazards, and low false alarm rate. You don't get all three. The GAO report uses the port of Los Angeles/Long Beach, through which 45 percent of all sea containers arrive in the United States, as an example. The current portal monitors cause up to 600 "innocent" alarms per day. That's significant, when you consider the time invested in screening millions of containers every year and the delays in processing these false alarms. When you multiply the number of air and sea ports, border crossings, and major cities that DNDO wants to put radiation monitors, it quickly becomes apparent that this is not an affordable concept, even if you believe the alarmist claptrap of people screaming about the threat of nuclear terrorism. 

I use quotes around the word "innocent" because it's a new term that I'm not familiar with. Usually, we just say "false positives" when we get a detector that alarms to a material that isn't hazardous. In this case, the report uses the term "innocent alarm" because the monitors are actually alarming to radiation - but it's not fissile material, it's natural radiation in materials such as cat litter. Interestingly, the DNDO trials of the new ASP use as an assumption that terrorists will not try to shield radiological material from detection. It's because they know that if there is anything more than light shielding material, it's going to be highly unlikely that any radiation monitor - current or future - will be able to detect its presence. But hey, when you're desperate to move a program forward regardless of its actual ability to meet your desired goals, you do funny things.

I'll Take That Challenge

Quotes from the Global Security Newswire (yesterday):

I would love to have a debate with someone who said that Job No. 1 isn't stopping a mushroom cloud from occurring.
-- Former U.S. intelligence official Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, arguing the International Atomic Energy Agency should increase focus on eliminating the nuclear black market.

Yeah, Rolf is a big-shot buddy of Graham Allison, former CIA official, hot shot intel guy. But he's really overblowing the whole "nuclear terrorists will kill us all!" meme. Hmmmm, jobs that require more focus than "stopping a mushroom cloud":

• Pandemic influenza flu 
• Mexico collapsing as a failed state
• Gun violence in major urban cities
• Thousands of pounds of missing high explosives in the Middle East 
• Drug-related violence on the south border  
• The polar ice caps disappearing  
• Any number of indigenous diseases that cause tens of thousands of deaths every year   

I'm sure you all can think of a few others. And then there's today's winner:

Massive nuclear arsenals that are capable of annihilating entire nations within an hour are more of a liability than an asset because they breed mistrust and worst case assumptions among other states.
--Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association.

Oh, I don't know, I suppose it depends which nation you're intending to destroy within an hour. North Korea, not really a challenge to annihilate, probably wouldn't take more than a few dozen. Personally, I like to have more nukes than the competition. You know, just in case you need a few extra for those unexpected minor contingencies.

Understanding the Term "Contingencies"

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is a breath of fresh air compared to the lying bastards who worked the position for the Bush administration, but I think he's got some learning to do about what the term "contingency" means. From Monday's press brief:

Q    Okay.  And on a separate foreign policy issue, the President referred to North Korea in his interview this weekend.  Can you give us an update on that threat and how worried the people in Hawaii need to be about a potential long-range missile?

MR. GIBBS:  Well, Jeff, I can assure you and anybody listening, anybody in Hawaii , anybody in the United States , that the government is taking every precaution necessary to deal with threats throughout the world or threats that might be coming from the North Koreans.  That's -- obviously the President's first task is to keep the American people safe, and I can assure you that steps have been and are being taken to make sure that's the case.

Look, in terms of the North Koreans, I'm not sure that we're a whole lot different than we were in the past few days or past few weeks.  The North Koreans continue to make statements, bellicose statements, threatening different actions.  Many times what they threaten they eventually do.  That further alienates North Korea from the rest of the world.  And I think that has helped the world take unified action, strong steps to ensure that we're taking all necessary action to ensure that there isn't the ability for North Korea to export weapons or export material that would lead to proliferation.  That's been our focus.

Q    And the President said, when he was asked in the interview, that taking contingencies did not mean a military response necessarily.  So what -- how else can one understand that?  What else could "contingencies" mean?

MR. GIBBS:  Well, again, I think the President -- what the President referred to is taking all necessary steps to deal with whatever threat comes out of North Korea .

Q    What does that mean?

MR. GIBBS:  What does that mean?  I think I'd refer you to what Secretary Gates said last week about moving different systems out into the Pacific in order to ensure the protection of the United States of America .

Q    That very language was used when we went into Korea -- I mean, in Vietnam .

MR. GIBBS:  Well, no, I was speaking more about the sort of the outer edge of the United States.

Getting past the stupid-ass decision to deploy military air defense systems in Hawaii to guard against North Korean missiles that will never get within range of Hawaii, I think that Gibbs is confused. It shows where he says, "ah, I'm not saying that the president's use of the term 'contingency' was a military term, but ask SecDef Bob Gates about that issue."