Some Hard Truths Glossed Over in our Vocabulary

Dave Maxwell has a very thoughtful article about "Unconventional Warfare" and whether or not it's the exclusive purview of the SF guys (hint: he says "no"). But just as interesting is the way he frames UW. Here's the intro:

“US Army Special Forces is the only force in the Department of Defense organized, trained, equipped, educated, and optimized for the conduct of unconventional warfare.”

I have written those words many times in the past thirty plus years of my military service. With those words I have implied that the unconventional warfare mission belongs solely to US Army Special Forces (SF). I was wrong.

I began to realize this in 2009, when I participated in a working group established by the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School to re-examine the definition of unconventional warfare. The revised definition that resulted was a compromise that did not satisfy everyone in the Special Forces (SF) or wider Special Operations Forces (SOF) community. Nonetheless, the definition currently resides in Joint Publication 1-02 the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms and is now the foundation for US military unconventional warfare doctrine: Unconventional warfare consists of “activities to enable a resistance or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow a government or occupying power through and with an underground, auxiliary, and guerrilla force in a denied area.”

But here's where he goes 90% of the way in tying together the uncomfortable vocabulary that most of us hard core militarists inherently understand, but that the rest of the country is likely loath to admit

Due to the prevailing wisdom that SF owns the UW mission, many senior decision makers, policymakers and strategists both inside the Beltway and at the Geographic Combatant Commands (GCC) rarely consider the strategic option of conducting UW. Furthermore, as evidenced by our myopic view of terrorism, we do not fully comprehend that our enemies are, in fact, conducting unconventional warfare. As a result, we do not consider potential strategies to conduct “counter-unconventional warfare,” instead focusing solely on the means and methods of counterterrorism.

(our emphasis)

See, in admitting that AQ is conducting "unconventional warfare" we can easily hit the button on the Patented GrogNews Vocabulary Substitution Machine™ (not sold in stores) and swap out "UW" for "insurgency":

Due to the prevailing wisdom that SF owns the insurgency mission, many senior decision makers, policymakers and strategists both inside the Beltway and at the Geographic Combatant Commands (GCC) rarely consider the strategic option of conducting insurgencies. Furthermore, as evidenced by our myopic view of terrorism, we do not fully comprehend that our enemies are, in fact, conducting insurgencies. As a result, we do not consider potential strategies to conduct “counter-insurgency,” instead focusing solely on the means and methods of counterterrorism.

Hmmmm... we know we're conducting counter-insurgencies, right? We've been talking about it for 10 years now. We know that AQ is formenting insurgencies all over the world. But we have to be very careful about how we frame the UW-COIN vocabulary substitution. If we admit that AQ has been conducting worldwide UW, but then focus on their terror campaigns, what does it say about the US that we have a dedicated UW doctrine, when UW becomes a synonym for "terrorism"?

So we have a doctrine in the US for conducting UW (read: insurgency). We don't particularly want a doctrine for conducting UW (read: terrorism). And I'm OK with that.

What do you think? How would the US public react if it became explicitly clear that we had, and actively developed, trained, and disseminated doctrine about creating insurgencies in places where we don't like the government? Is it better that we obfuscate the capability behind the kabuki dance of shuffled vocabulary words? Or is this something that deserves a serious and sober conversation with the American public* that they might fully understand the broad spectrum of capabilities that we offer our government through the use of the military?


By: Brant



*note that I am fully aware of the general inability of the American public to make mature and thoughtful decisions regarding complex socio-geo-political issues like this

Mali Military Mutiny Makes Muddied Messages

Paratroopers in Mali are are mutinying in Bamako.

Malian government soldiers fought mutinous paratroops in the capital Bamako on Friday in a clash that threatened to undermine a French-led military operation to drive al Qaeda-allied Islamist rebels from the north.
Local residents fled in panic as heavy gunfire echoed from the Djikoroni-Para paratrooper base on the Niger River in western Bamako as Malian army units with armored vehicles surrounded the camp.
Smoke rose from the base, where mutinous members of the 'red beret' paratroop unit loyal to deposed Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure started firing with their weapons to protest attempts to reassign some of them, Malian officers said.
At least one person was killed, state media reported.
The clash between forces loyal to Mali's current rulers and the Toure partisans revealed splits in the armed forces still lingering after a military coup in March that plunged the previously stable West African state into chaos.
The coup resulted in Tuareg rebels seizing the north in a revolt later hijacked by Islamist radicals. Mali is Africa's third-largest gold producer after Ghana and South Africa.
The Bamako fighting pointed to serious weaknesses in the Malian state which could set back the rapid military gains made by France's four-week-old military intervention in north Mali, which has driven Islamist insurgents from the major urban areas.

Somewhere on the front lines, the French are thinking "WTF?"

By: Brant

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Monday Video: Syrian Opposition Armor

Following the recent capture of a Syrian Army base outside of Damascus, the Syrian opposition is starting to field their own armored force.
h/t Rex
By: Brant

ECOWAS Approves Intervention in Mali

It will be interesting to see how effective the ECOWAS intervention force is in retaking northern Mali for the Islamists.

West African regional leaders have agreed to deploy 3,300 soldiers to Mali to retake the north from Islamist extremists.

At a summit of Ecowas, the group's chairman said it was ready to use force to "dismantle terrorist and transnational criminal networks".

The soldiers would be provided mainly by Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Islamist groups and Tuareg rebels took control of the north after Mali's president was overthrown in March.

Ivory Coast President Alassane Outtara told reporters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, that the soldiers could be deployed as soon as the UN approved the military plan.

He said he hoped the Security Council would approve the plan by late November or early December.

By: Brant

Syrian Military HQ Targeted in Damascus

Large blasts were heard in Damascus as bombers attack Syria military HQ.

Rebels have targeted Syria's army headquarters with two large bomb blasts in the centre of Damascus.

Military officials said one of the bombs had caused damage to the main building of the General Staff.

The anti-regime Free Syrian Army said they had carried out the attack and claimed dozens had been killed. The army said no-one had died.

A BBC reporter in the city said gunfire could still be heard, amid reports that a fierce gun battle had broken out.

Syrian state TV quoted a military source saying no senior personnel were harmed by the explosions, but some of the building's guards were wounded.

It said "terrorist attackers" had opened fire inside the perimeter of the compound and in nearby streets, and security forces had confronted them.

The blasts happened just before 07:00 local time (04:00 GMT) in an area dominated by government buildings.

By: Brant

Jet Shot Down By Rebels in Syria

In addition to all the ground equipment destroyed or captured, the rebels have now shot down a fighter jet in northern Syria.

Rebel fighters trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad shot down a fighter jet as it flew over the northern Syrian town of Atarib in Idlib province, a witness said.
The witness, an independent journalist who asked to remain anonymous, said rebel fighters were attacking a military base near the town when the jet flew over and rebels shot it down with anti-aircraft guns.
Vastly outgunned, rebels say they need surface-to-air missiles to take down planes and helicopters used by the Syrian military to bombard opposition strongholds.
Fighters use outdated anti-aircraft machine guns that are welded to pickup trucks but they are inaccurate and useless if the military aircraft fly above a certain altitude.
On August 27 fighters shot down a helicopter on the outskirts of Damascus and three days later rebels said they had brought down a jet in Idlib, near the Turkish border.

By: Brant

Syrian Rebels Claim Helicopters Destroyed

FSA (or someone affiliated with them) are claiming they destroyed 5 choppers on the ground in a raid. The Syrian government, predictably, denied it.

Syrian rebels said they destroyed five helicopters in a raid on a military airport between the northern cities of Aleppo and Idlib on Wednesday, while state television said the attack was repelled.
Abu Mossab, a rebel who said he took part in the attack, told AFP via Skype that rebels shelled Taftanaz military airport with two tanks captured from the army and destroyed five helicopters.
"We destroyed five helicopters as well as buildings in the airport," Abu Mossab said, although the facility remained in army hands after the raid in which the rebels lost two men before pulling back.
"The regime's MiG planes continue to bomb houses in Taftanaz, which has been emptied of its inhabitants," the rebel added.
Syrian state television said the military repelled the attack with the airport suffering "no material damage."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights earlier reported fierce fighting near the airport and helicopter raids on the nearby town of Taftanaz.

Now, the Syrian government has lost a lot more equipment than they're admitting to, so it's not a surprise they brushed it off. But their army is down more than a brigade's worth of tanks/BMPs, so it's not like you expect them to man up about this one.

By: Brant

Didn't We Build This Game?

Y'know, if the Nigerians had played a run or two through GEMSTONE, they'd know that you can't shoot your way out of an insurgency.

Jonathan's critics say he relies too much on the military to defeat Boko Haram, rather than addressing northerners' grievances, such as poverty and unemployment.
"A security strategy is not enough," the official said.
Military crackdowns have mixed results - hurting Boko Haram in some areas but angering people by their heavy handedness.
Washington will offer Nigeria help with forensics, tracking of suspects and "fusing" disparate strands of police and military intelligence, the U.S. official said.
"We know all too well from our own experiences in both Iraq and Afghanistan what can happen if soldiers and police are not operating under appropriate authorities."
"We will encourage them not to use excessive force and to look at this as a ... law enforcement operation," he added.

See more about GEMSTONE here, and here.

By: Brant

"Lightly Arming" Syrian Opposition - Good Idea?

Doctrine Man thinks this is shades of Afghanistan in the '80s. I think the suggestion that we "lightly arm" the Syrian Opposition shows that we're just trying too hard to hedge our bets: if it goes well then we can claim we 'helped' and if it goes to shit someone unfriendly to the US takes over then we can claim 'we really didn't do much'. The problem is that if it's true in one direction, it's true in the other, and if the opposition wins, they can claim 'we really didn't do much' and that's not going to do much for US foreign policy.

Arming the Syrian opposition is a better option. The Assad regime has shown no hesitation in using artillery and armor against the Syrian people. Equipping Syrian rebels with light anti-tank weapons such as RPG-7s will allow them to combat the regime’s T-55 and T-72 tanks. RPG-7s and lighter anti-tank weaponry are not capable of penetrating U.S. M1 Abrams tanks.

The Middle East is already awash in such weaponry so America wouldn’t be introducing anything new. Getting them quickly and directly into the hands of Syrian resistance fighters will bring the timely turning point needed to end the violence. Keeping an eye on the future after the Assad regime falls, America should stop short of providing small-arms weaponry, such as machine guns which may be used in the turmoil after the regime falls.

By: Brant

Some People Are Going To Have To Face Reality

and accept that their lives are not going to be spent sitting at the grown-up table.

It's not a heart-warming story of successful counterinsurgency, it's the cold, hard reality that no matter how much hand-holding we do, the the Afghan army, government, and people are not ready for the responsibility of behaving with a level of competence that the US would accept as barely adequate.

As the Taliban ramped up its attacks in eastern Afghanistan’s Wardak province this spring, the Afghan soldiers here came to a painful conclusion: They were not ready to take on the fight alone. But it was too late — the Americans were not coming back.

The transition of Combat Outpost Conlon to Afghan control — marked by a flag-raising ceremony and a visit from top U.S. military brass — was an early milestone in the NATO drawdown that will continue through 2014.

But Afghan officials worry that the problems plaguing Conlon could be replicated across the country as the U.S. military hands over authority, leaving 200,000 Afghan soldiers without the equipment or wherewithal to defeat a resilient enemy.

“The Americans left too early, and they left without giving us what we need,” said Lt. Col. Hamidullah Kohdamany, the battalion commander.

U.S. officials say that after years of depending on Americans for tactical and logistical support, Afghan soldiers often struggle to adapt to a sudden surge in responsibility.

“They’ve just never had to rely on their own leaders. They’ve always had the Americans for a backstop,” said Lt. Col. Clint Cox, the head of the U.S. military advisory team that oversees Afghan units in Wardak province. “It’s going to take some time. It’s just like with children — sometimes it takes a hard lesson for them to learn.”

It's not that it's a hard lesson to learn. It seems to be a lesson they are incapable of learning. Their initial allegiances are not to the nation, or even their fellow soldiers. Their logistical tail breaks down because the convoy guys make a delivery to the tribal elders before they ever get to the combat outpost. They've got no electricity because the funds for providing them keep lining the pockets of kleptocrats in Kabul. The vehicles don't work because the spare parts are for sale in bazaars in Kandahar.

We have to quit applying US standards of competence to a nation that seems willfully proud of their inability to even attempt to learn them.

By: Brant

Video Footage From Free Syrian Army

Free Syrian Army ambush that nets them a pair of captured T72s.



h/t Rex

By: Brant

Military Mutiny in Madagascar

Madagascar's army says that the mutiny failed to expand beyond the first military camp.

Mutinous soldiers stormed a military camp near Madagascar's main airport on Sunday and the army said it had contained the fighting and there was no risk of the violence spreading.
The island nation has been wrecked by political turmoil and violence in the three years since then-opposition leader Andry Raojelina ousted president Marc Ravalomanana, who has been in self-imposed exile in South Africa since his overthrow.
"... at 5 a.m. a group of armed soldiers forced their way into the barracks of the 1st RFI (First Regiment of Interventionist Forces) Ivato. The group fired in the air, hindering all attempts to enter into the barracks," an army statement said.
Soldiers and gendarmes were now positioned around the barracks and "the events happening inside the camp do not risk overflowing to the outside", it said.
The army said Corporal Koto Mainty, a former bodyguard of a former army minister and known as "Black", had led the revolt.

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By: Brant

Syrian Civil War Now Officially a... uh... "Civil War"

Red Cross declares Syrian conflict to be civil war - Yahoo! News

Syria's 16-month bloodbath crossed an important symbolic threshold Sunday as the international Red Cross formally declared the conflict a civil war, a status with implications for potential war crimes prosecutions.
The Red Cross statement came as United Nations observers gathered new details on what happened in a village where dozens were reported killed in a regime assault. After a second visit to Tremseh on Sunday, the team said Syrian troops went door-to-door in the small farming community, checking residents' IDs and then killing some and taking others away.
According to the U.N., the attack appeared to target army defectors and activists.
"Pools of blood and brain matter were observed in a number of homes," a U.N. statement said.
Syria denied U.N. claims that government forces had used heavy weapons such as tanks, artillery and helicopters during the attack Thursday.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the violence was not a massacre — as activists and many foreign leaders have alleged — but a military operation targeting armed fighters who had taken control of the village.

By: Brant

Defections from Syria Speeding Up

Another mass defection to Turkey.

Eighty-five Syrian soldiers, including one general and at least 14 lower-ranking officers, fled into southern Turkey’s Hatay Province on Monday, Turkish news agencies reported. It was one of the largest mass military defections since the Syrian conflict began 16 months ago.

A Turkish broadcaster, T.R.T. Haber, said the defectors entered the town of Reyhanli as part of a group of 293 refugees “fleeing atrocities in Syria.” It said the defectors were placed in the Apaydin refugee camp, where there are already about 2,000 former members of the Syrian military who have abandoned allegiance to President Bashar al-Assad. The civilians in the group were sent to another camp along the shared border with Syria.

Turkey’s Anatolia news agency said the 14 lower-ranking officers included a colonel and a lieutenant colonel.

The once-close relationship between Turkey and Syria has badly frayed with Mr. Assad’s harsh repression of an uprising that began last year in March as a peaceful political protest and has since evolved into an armed insurgency.

Turkey’s government is now allowing the insurgent Free Syrian Army to operate from bases inside the Turkish border and is housing more than 35,000 Syrian civilians who have sought refuge from the conflict. The Turks also have sent antiaircraft batteries to the border in response to the June 22 downing of a Turkish military plane by Syrian gunners. On Monday, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said it scrambled warplanes from its Incirlik air base in southern Turkey when three Syrian military helicopters were seen approaching the border.

By: Brant

Fighting around Syrian capital

Attacks around Damascus have includeda military barracks.

State forces and rebels were locked in heavy fighting in several areas outside Damascus on Tuesday, activists said, in the worst violence to hit the suburbs of the Syrian capital since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 16 months ago.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported heavy fighting near the Republican Guard headquarters in Qudsiya, and in the suburbs of al-Hama and Mashrou' Dumar, just 9 km (6 miles) outside Damascus.
Samir al-Shami, an activist in Damascus, said tanks and armoured vehicles were also out on the streets of the suburbs and some activists reported that one tank had been blown up.

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Isn't This How We Won the American Revolution?

A Navy SEAL has penned an interesting column called "Things I Learned from People Who Tried to Kill Me", and the discussion of the insurgents sounds a lot like the US forces in the AWI.

The insurgents operated in small teams across the countryside with relative impunity. Sleeping in the mountains or as house guests at night, the Taliban spent the entirety of their days in the villages – not maintaining and defending outposts where they could enjoy the comforts of western civilization. They were unimpeded by burdensome equipment and had relatively infrequent contact with their commanders, at least compared with our daily reports and operational approvals. The Taliban leadership had an inherently decentralized command structure, managing fighters and shadow government officials spread over hundreds of square kilometers and countless villages. However, the regional commander and shadow governors were remarkably in tune with the district’s populace and made earnest efforts at gaining their support through regular interaction – not “drive by shuras” after flying in from Kabul or the provincial capital. Likewise, the Taliban had an omnipresence that was felt by coalition forces and villagers alike. They possessed an uncanny ability to act as puppet masters over the populace, issuing decrees and administering justice based on persistent verification – not sporadic visits like absentee Afghan officials or “day tripping” coalition forces who neither spoke the language nor had spent enough time in the villages to understand the complex social dynamics.

By: Brant

COA Analysis: Uprisings and Reform

(republishing this one in light of recent events in Egypt / Syria; it originally ran in February of 2011)

As uprisings sweep the across the Muslim/Arab world, what comes next?

There are 4 courses of action there to consider. Which do you think is most likely, and why? How might it play out per the next 6-8 months?


By: Brant

Syria Lashed Out At US "Interference" - And Accepts Russian Choppers for Delivery

Syria tells the US to stop interfering.

The rebel pullout came as Syria lashed out at the United States after Washington warned of possible mass killings in Haffa.
Syria's foreign ministry said the remarks by a State Department spokeswoman warning that President Bashar Assad's forces could commit massacres in Haffa coincided with stepped-up attacks by rebels in the area. The ministry's statement was reported Wednesday by the state-run news agency, SANA.
"The U.S. administration is continuing its blatant interference in the internal affairs of Syria, its open support for the terrorists, covering up the terrorists' crimes," the statement said.
Haffa is one of several areas where Syrian government forces are battling rebels for control. It is particularly important, because the town is about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Assad's hometown of Kardaha in Latakia province along the Mediterranean coast. Latakia is the heartland of the Alawite minority to which Assad and the ruling elite belong, although there is a mix of religious groups.

But Russian interference? We don't mind so much.

"There's no doubt that the onslaught continues, the use of heavy artillery and the like," Clinton told a discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres hosted by the Brookings Institution.
Washington had pressed Moscow, a longstanding ally of Damascus, to stop what Clinton called "continued arms shipments to Syria."
"They have from time to time said that we shouldn't worry, that everything they're shipping is unrelated to their actions internally. That's patently untrue," the top US diplomat insisted.
"We are concerned about the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria, which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically," Clinton added.

By: Brant

Another Syrian Massacre - This One Far More Intentional

With over 100 dead, and most of them shot in their houses, there's no way for Syria to dodge this one.

"I believe at this point, and I would stress we are at very preliminary stages, that under 20 of the 108 can be attributed to artillery and tank fire," he told a news briefing in Geneva.
Some 49 children and 34 women were among the known victims, but the toll was not definitive, he said, adding: "There are reports of more deaths."
"Almost half of the ones we know of so far are children - that is totally unpardonable - and a very large number of women as well," Colville said.
"At this point it looks like entire families were shot in their houses."

The problem is, what do you do about it? Do you put boots on the ground? Bomb people? Sanctions won't work because there's no way to cut off the country's borders. What courses of action are there for dealing with Syria?

By: Brant

Sharia State Coming in Mali?

Two major rebel fronts in Mali have agreed to form a Sharia state in Northern Mali.

Two rebel groups that seized northern Mali two months ago have agreed to merge and turn their territory into an Islamist state, both sides say.

The Tuareg MNLA, a secular rebel group, and the Islamist group Ansar Dine signed the deal in the town of Gao, spokespeople said.

Ansar Dine, which has ties to al-Qaeda, has already begun to impose Sharia law in some towns.

The groups took advantage of a coup in March to seize the territory.

Correspondents say the deal is yet another worrying development for Mali and may complicate efforts to stabilise the country.

By: Brant