Focus on China? Or Just Seeking a Focus?

Is AirSea Battle's focus on China an approach with built-in belligerence? And if not China, what threat out there guides strategic developments of the military?

In spite of this, AirSea Battle and its most recent manifestation, the Joint Operating Access Concept, are controversial. Some critics see it as an attempt by the navy and the air force, after a decade of relative neglect, to grab the lion’s share of a shrinking defence budget—already being trimmed by about $480 billion over the next ten years.

Others fear that although the concept does not mention China by name, it is the only opponent with the range of capabilities the new thinking is designed to counter. (Significantly, the Chinese defence minister did not attend the Shangri-La get-together; see article.) And whereas the 1980s predecessor of AirSea Battle, AirLand Battle, was intended to meet the real threat of a thrust by Soviet forces into Western Europe, the threat from China to America and its regional allies is harder to define. In a speech last month at the Joint Warfighting Conference, General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff until last year, said of AirSea Battle: “To some, it’s becoming the Holy Grail…[but] it’s neither a doctrine nor a scenario.” Worst of all, said General Cartwright, “AirSea Battle is demonising China. That’s not in anybody’s interest.”

Nathan Freier, of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, argues in a recent paper that although conflict with China “might be the most lethal set of circumstances from a traditional military standpoint, it is also the least likely and the most speculative.” North Korea, Pakistan and Iran (with their actual or putative nuclear arsenals) and even Syria all represent more realistic A2/AD challenges, which might well require the insertion of the ground forces that AirSea Battle ignores.

Other critics, such as Noel Williams, an adviser on strategy to the marine corps, point to the risk of escalation—because of the dependence on deep strike against Chinese targets on land—and to the absence of ideas about what happens without ground forces once a strike is made.

By: Brant

Rearranging US Forces Away From COIN

How is the US going to re-orient away from COIN? And what will that future look like? StratFor offers some thoughts:

Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that the U.S. military is not very good at counterinsurgency. One could argue that the United States should improve its counterinsurgency capabilities, but there is little evidence that it could master such capabilities. There is, however, another form of light infantry warfare to consider, and it is a form of warfare the United States is good at. The alternative does not seek to win over the population but is designed to achieve very definable military objectives, from the destruction of facilities to harassing, engaging and possibly destroying enemy forces, including insurgents.

Special Operations Forces are highly useful for meeting these objectives, but we should also include other types of forces. The U.S. Marine Corps is one such example. Rather than occupying territory, and certainly rather than trying to change public opinion, these forces have a conventional mission carried out in relatively small unit operations. Their goal is to assert military force in highly defined if limited missions designed to bypass the population and strike at the opposition's capabilities. This is exemplified best in counterterrorist operations or the assault on specific facilities. These operations are cheap and do not require occupation. More important, these operations are designed to terminate without incurring political cost -- the bane of prolonged counterinsurgency operations. The alternative to counterinsurgency is to avoid occupational warfare by rigorously defining more limited missions.

To illustrate these operations, consider what we regard as a major emerging threat: Non-state actors potentially acquiring land-based anti-ship missiles. Globalism brings with it intensified maritime trade. Meanwhile, we have seen the dissemination of many weapons to non-state actors. It is easy to imagine that the next stage of diffusion would be mobile, land-based anti-ship missiles. A guerrilla group or insurgency, armed with such weapons, could take advantage of land cover for mobility but strike at naval vessels. In fact, we have already seen several instances where groups employ this strategy. Hezbollah did so in operations against Israel in 2006. Pirates off the coast of Africa are a non-state threat to maritime shipping, though they have yet to use such weapons. Likewise, we see this potential in suicide boat bombs launched from the coast of Yemen.

By: Brant

Pakistan's Been Given a Lot of Rope, and is About to Run Out

When the SecDef - one of most patient and genial men in Washington - says we're "losing patience" then it's time for Pakistan to listen.

"It is difficult to achieve peace in Afghanistan as long as there is safe haven for terrorists in Pakistan," said Panetta, speaking in the Afghan capital Kabul where he arrived for talks with military leaders amid rising violence in the war against the Taliban and a spate of deadly attacks, including a NATO air strike said to have killed 18 villagers.
"It is very important for Pakistan to take steps. It is an increasing concern, the issue of safe haven, and we are reaching the limits of our patience," he told reporters.
The United States has long pushed Pakistan to do more to help in the war against militancy, but the relationship has received a series of blows, not least by a unilateral U.S. raid into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden last year that humiliated Islamabad.
Panetta also urged Pakistan to go after the Haqqani militant network, one of the United States' most feared enemies in Afghanistan, and said Washington would exert diplomatic pressure and take any other steps needed to protect its forces.
"It is an increasing concern that safe havens exist and those like the Haqqanis make use of that to attack our forces," he said.
"We are reaching the limits of our patience for that reason. It is extremely important for Pakistan to take action to prevent (giving) the Haqqanis safe havens, and for terrorists to use their country as a safety net to conduct attacks on our forces."

By: Brant

BUB: The "Pacific Pivot"

Lots of news these days about the US re-focusing its long-termstrategies toward the Pacific.


The US is refocusing, without trying to piss anyone off.

As the United States moves to bolster its military position in Asia, it faces severe budget cuts from Congress, an increasingly powerful rival in China and a hornet's nest of regional political sensitivities.
The shift in U.S. policy puts Asia and the Pacific front-and-center of its strategic priorities and is driven by concerns that China has raced ahead in the world's most economically dynamic region while the U.S. was tied up fighting its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in a region rife with disputes and increasingly beholden to China's economic engine, the Pentagon is being careful its "pivot to the Pacific" doesn't create too many waves.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is spearheading the U.S. effort to sell the new strategy in Asia, told regional defense leaders at a major security conference in Singapore that it is only natural for the Asia-Pacific to be in the spotlight because it is home to some of the world's biggest populations and militaries.
Before moving on to Vietnam and India, Panetta said Washington will "of necessity" rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region and vowed 60 percent of the Navy's fleet will be deployed to the Pacific by 2020. He said the U.S. presence will be more agile, flexible and high-tech. Troops may increase overall, but no major influx is expected.

And that new strategy includes significant naval investments, including the new DDG-1000 series of ships.

A super-stealthy warship that could underpin the U.S. navy's China strategy will be able to sneak up on coastlines virtually undetected and pound targets with electromagnetic "railguns" right out of a sci-fi movie.
But at more than $3 billion a pop, critics say the new DDG-1000 destroyer sucks away funds that could be better used to bolster a thinly stretched conventional fleet. One outspoken admiral in China has scoffed that all it would take to sink the high-tech American ship is an armada of explosive-laden fishing boats.
With the first of the new ships set to be delivered in 2014, the stealth destroyer is being heavily promoted by the Pentagon as the most advanced destroyer in history — a silver bullet of stealth. It has been called a perfect fit for what Washington now considers the most strategically important region in the world — Asia and the Pacific.

Some of the particulars mentioned in the article are pretty impressive.

The DDG-1000 and other stealth destroyers of the Zumwalt class feature a wave-piercing hull that leaves almost no wake, electric drive propulsion and advanced sonar and missiles. They are longer and heavier than existing destroyers — but will have half the crew because of automated systems and appear to be little more than a small fishing boat on enemy radar.
Down the road, the ship is to be equipped with an electromagnetic railgun, which uses a magnetic field and electric current to fire a projectile at several times the speed of sound.

Even the Canadians are getting into the act, with a Singapore-based logistics hub on the table.

Singapore said it was studying a proposal from Canada to set up a logistics facility in the city-state for disaster relief efforts, reportedly to support a US military shift to Asia.
Canadian Defence Minister Peter Gordon MacKay said in an interview with The Canadian Press that the proposal was part of Ottawa's efforts to back up the US military "pivot" towards the Asia-Pacific region, which has irked China.
"The Canadians have proposed setting up a logistics support hub in Singapore for their regional humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts," a spokesman for the Singapore foreign ministry told AFP on Sunday.

By: Brant

Who's On First: Afghan Edition

The National Interest tries to make sense of who's on which side in Afghanistan.

There are no constant friends in international politics—only interests formed by shifting sands and temporary alliances subject to rapid change. Nowhere is this truer than in Southwest Asia. Pakistan, a U.S. ally and sole conduit for aid to the Afghan resistance during the 1980s, is now the primary supporter of the Taliban and other insurgents targeting Western forces in Afghanistan.

India, which leaned towards the USSR during the latter part of the Cold War and voiced no opposition to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, is now a U.S. strategic partner and staunch supporter of the international effort in Afghanistan. In today’s Afghan army, Soviet-trained officers have joined with former Afghan resistance commanders to defeat the Taliban and its allies.

During the late 1990s, Washington leaned toward the Taliban to counter Iranian influence and secure pipelines from Central Asia. After 2001, the United States and Iran worked together to create a stable anti-Taliban government in Kabul. As Washington established a permanent presence in southwest Afghanistan close to the Iranian border, Iran began supporting elements of the Taliban—despite the movement’s long history of oppressing Afghanistan’s Shia minority and its role in the 1998 murder of Iranian diplomats.

The Taliban banned the opium trade when it controlled southern Afghanistan, but now it has joined with narcotics traffickers to target Western troops and undermine the Afghan government. Notorious drug lord and former governor of Helmand province Sher Muhammad Akhundzada, was instrumental in helping the United States defeat the Taliban in 2002. When he was ousted as governor in 2005, he told his fighters to join the Taliban.

As the insurgents grew in strength and Washington’s withdrawal drew nearer, the Karzai government began leaning toward the Taliban—so much so that leaders among the non-Pashtun minorities worry he may welcome Mullah Omar into Kabul. Senior Pakistani military and intelligence officials have visited Kabul, attempting to persuade Karzai to resist U.S. pressure.

By: Brant

Tackling Afghanistan's "Future" - And a Few Protestors, too

So world leaders are "set to tackle Afghanistan's future", eh? Here's a question: if we're bringing them into the 20th century, are we tackling their future, our past, or some combination of both?

World leaders weary of war will tackle Afghanistan's post-conflict future — from funding for security forces to upcoming elections — when the NATO summit opens Sunday.
President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will huddle on the sidelines of the summit or an hour-long meeting. Their talks are expected to focus on planning for Afghanistan's 2014 elections, as well as the prospect of a political settlement with the Taliban, a senior Obama administration official said.
Karzai has said repeatedly he will step down from power when his term ends in 2014, paving the way for new elections. NATO's scheduled end of the war was built around those plans, with foreign forces staying until the 2014 election but exiting the country by 2015.
Obama and Karzai will discuss ways to ensure that political rivals can compete fairly in the run-up to the election, as well as ways to reduce fraud and support the winner who emerges, the official said.
Past Afghan elections were riddled with irregularities, and the U.S. applied heavy pressure to Karzai to schedule a second round of voting during the last presidential contest in 2009. The runoff was never held because Karzai's challenger pulled out in protest of what he claimed was an impossible level of corruption.

Meanwhile, a bunch of protesters are planning demonstrations for the NATO summit. Some people just can't help themselves.

Protesters gathering in Chicago for the NATO summit were gearing up for their largest demonstration Sunday, when thousands are expected to march from a downtown park to the lakeside convention center where President Barack Obama and dozens of other world leaders will meet.
Several hundred demonstrators wound through the city's streets for hours Saturday, testing police who used bicycles to barricade off streets and horseback officers to coax them in different directions. Increasingly tense clashes between protesters and police resulted in 18 arrests, Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said.
Most of Saturday's demonstrations remained relatively small and peaceful, including one march to the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff. But a later march stretched for hours as protesters zigzagged back and forth through downtown, some decrying terrorism-related charges leveled against three young men earlier in the day.
Organizers pledged a larger crowd when protesters from the Occupy movement will join forces with an anti-war coalition to mark the opening day of the summit later Sunday.
"We want the world to focus on NATO — they're not important and have no mandate anymore," said Micah Philbrook, an Occupy Chicago spokesman, who criticized the large police presence Saturday. "They're pushing us around and not letting anyone get out of the protest even if they want. They're very aggressive."

By: Brant

US Plans to Strike Iran?

So the US ambassador to Israel openly admits what everyone's known for a while - that the US has 'plans' to attack Iran.

U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms.
Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely civilian purposes.
"It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure than to use military force," Ambassador Dan Shapiro said in remarks about Iran aired by Israel's Army Radio on Thursday.
"But that doesn't mean that option is not fully available - not just available, but it's ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it's ready," said Shapiro, who the radio station said had spoken on Tuesday.

Look, the US has plans to attack damn near everyone. Somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon is a plan to attack Sweden, in case we ever need it. Just because there's a plan doesn't mean we want to / will use it.

By: Brant

SecDef on Transition in Afghanistan

The formal press release of the SecDef welcoming our new Afghani overlords.

“I am very pleased to see that today President Karzai identified the areas that have been selected for the next phase of security transition in Afghanistan. This is another tangible sign of progress in our strategy and in the further development of Afghan leadership and responsibility for their own security.

“With more than 100 districts identified, this third phase will be the largest yet. When implemented, roughly three-fourths of the Afghan people will live in areas undergoing transition to Afghan security lead. It means that transition will be occurring in every province in the country, and in every provincial capital.

“None of this would be possible without the growing strength of the Afghan National Security Forces, which remain essential to our shared goal of an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself. I commend our troops and those of our ISAF partners for their determination and commitment to this vital mission. And I applaud General Allen and Ambassador Crocker for their extraordinary leadership.

“Thanks to their efforts, the transition to Afghan security lead is on track to be completed by the end of 2014. We will continue working toward our shared goal of an Afghanistan that provide security and greater prosperity for its people. Today's announcement marks another significant step on the path to a brighter future for Afghanistan.”

By: Brant

The Sage of Brigade-Based Ops, Douglas MacGregor, Weighs In On Reforming the US Army

How'd we get here? and how do we get back to where we want to be?

In the United States, it’s popular to focus on technology to the exclusion of all else. The Service bureaucracies are comfortable with this approach because it models “gadgets against gadgets” in simulation. This approach treats the anachronistic organizational status quo as irrelevant and unchangeable. The possibility that command structures, organization for combat and human understanding could be at least if not more decisive is not even considered.

It’s the victory of what Don Vandergriff (Major, US Army, retired) attributes to the destructive impact of Frederick Taylor’s industrial age model. Those who dismiss criticality of how we organize our forces and equipment, how we train and educate to fight miss the point that organization in particular reflects cultural patterns that shape thinking and behavior or how we interact with the technology of war and events in action, (an argument Delbrueck made). Ultimately, organization tells you how we think about warfare. If the organizational paradigm never changes, it tells you the thinking, policies and culture have not changed either.

These points notwithstanding, change is not always possible. In 1973, the Egyptian Army’s rigid, top-heavy command structure stifled fresh ideas, tactical flexibility, and honest communication from lower levels. After successfully crossing the Suez in a carefully planned and well-rehearsed operation this military culture contributed decisively to Egypt’s defeat at the hands of the Israel Defense Force. However, in practice, Egypt’s leaders knew Arab culture demanded that every action be scripted from the top down to the individual soldier. The point is: Egyptian national military and political leadership had little choice in the matters of organization, leadership and tactics, let alone operational art. What they did was all that they could do.

A similar dilemma confronted the Soviet military leadership during WW II. The Stavka had to organize and move tens of millions of illiterate, and largely unwilling Slavic and Mongol-Turkic soldiers into battle against a highly educated, competently led German Army. (Ivan’s War is a recent work informed by the NKVD archives now closed, and worth reading on this point). As I was told during an official visit to the Russian General Staff Academy in November 2001, unavoidable tactical rigidity together with the brutal subjugation of millions who did not want to defend Stalin’s Russia produced at least 40 million Soviet dead, twice what the Soviets publicly admitted, but the communists were always great liars.

By: Brant

Sound Off! Mass vs Mobility

Is it more important to...

... overwhelm the enemy with superior numbers, and damn the casualty figures?
... deftly maneuver him into submission with minimal loss of life on either side?

Sound off below!

By: Brant

How Do Norks Keep Getting Away With It?

They're almost Phineas-and-Ferb-like in their ability to attack their southern cousins and suffer no repercussions.

Restraint in the face of such provocation is unusual, in particular for the United States, which has not been shy about using military force when it or its allies are attacked. For example, Manuel Noriega’s military forces harassed Americans in Panama and killed a U.S. marine; the United States invaded and deposed Noriega. In 1986, Libya bombed a West Berlin disco frequented by U.S. servicemen; the U.S. military launched air strikes in Libya, killing Muammar al-Qaddafi’s daughter.

North Korea escapes such punishment thanks to a powerful deterrent. The first leg of Pyongyang’s strategic triad is its “madman” image: the idea that the country might react to retaliation by plunging the peninsula into general war. North Korean officials are not irrational, as so often depicted in the media. Rather, they are following in the tradition of U.S. President Richard Nixon, who spoke of feigning irrationality in order to intimidate his adversaries. Through its wild rhetoric and behavior at home and abroad, Pyongyang has told the world that in the international game of chicken, it will not swerve -- that it is so ready to fight that it will starve its people and devote a quarter of its economy to defense, hack up enemy soldiers with an axe, and even try to assassinate presidents. This reputation has helped convince CFC’s leaders that they cannot rely upon the normal rules of deterrence, that with such an opponent, tit-for-tat retaliation is too risky and too likely to lead to all-out war.

Make no mistake: no one thinks that North Korea would actually win that war. The country is dwarfed economically by South Korea, and the military balance long ago shifted against the North. In the late 1990s, military analysts concluded that CFC would prevail should a war ever be fought, and the ensuing two decades of famine and energy shortages have only weakened North Korea’s position. But even though Pyongyang would lose this war, no one wants to fight it, either. North Korea can still inflict terrible pain on South Korea (and possibly, with its ballistic missiles, on nearby Japan). The city of Seoul, home to more than ten million people, lies well within range of North Korean artillery. North Korea’s leaders know that a second Korean war would be an existential war -- that neither the regime nor they themselves would survive a defeat -- and so they would have an incentive to use every weapon in their arsenal, including weapons of mass destruction. Is North Korea so crazy that if CFC carried out an act of limited retaliation, the country would start a war that would end in its own certain destruction? No one wants to find out.

What do you think? Why does the West keep letting the Norks off the hook?

By: Brant

SecDef Tells CNN 'We're within an inch of war almost every day'

Hey Leon, way to be an optimist!

The United States is prepared for "any contingency" when it comes to dealing with North Korea, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told CNN.
"We're within an inch of war almost every day in that part of the world, and we just have to be very careful about what we say and what we do," Panetta said Wednesday on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."
During a wide-ranging interview at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked about Syria, the Secret Service and North Korea. The two were in Belgium for meetings to prepare for a NATO summit in Chicago next month.
Panetta's assessment of North Korea followed last week's launch by Pyongyang of a long-range rocket. Despite the failure of the launch -- with the rocket breaking apart 81 seconds after liftoff, it drew condemnation from the United States and countries in the region.
When asked whether the threat posed by North Korea kept him awake at night, Panetta said: "Unfortunately these days, there's a hell of a lot that keeps me awake. But that's one that tops the list."

By: Brant

Missile Races Accelerating in Asia

Norks threaten war and South unveils their own cruise missiles.

South Korea announced Thursday it has deployed new cruise missiles capable of destroying targets such as missile and nuclear bases anywhere in the North.
"With such capabilities, our military will sternly and thoroughly punish reckless provocations by North Korea while maintaining our firm readiness," Major General Shin Won-Sik told reporters.

Sure would be nice to see the South shoot back once.

India is countering China's growing missile capability by testing their own nuclear-capable missile... that can range to China.

India announced the successful test launch Thursday of a new nuclear-capable missile that would give it the ability to strike the major Chinese cities of Beijing and Shanghai for the first time, a significant step forward in its aspirations to become a regional and world power.
The Agni-V missile, with a range of 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles), still requires a battery of tests and must clear other bureaucratic hurdles before it can be inducted into India's arsenal in a few years. But officials hailed the launch as proof the country has taken its place among the world's most powerful and scientifically advanced nations.
"The nation stands tall today," Defense Minister A.K. Antony said, according to the Press Trust of India.
The test came just days after North Korea's failed rocket launch, but sparked none of the same global condemnation aimed at Pyongyang, an internationally isolated regime that has been banned by the U.N. from testing missile technology.
China is far ahead of India in the missile race, with intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching anywhere in India. Currently, the longest-range Indian missile, the Agni-III, has a range of 3,500 kilometers (2,100 miles) and falls short of many major Chinese cities.

By: Brant

US Army, After 10 Years of War

Comparing the state of the Army today to about 1974 or so (after 10 years of Vietnam), and Abu Muqawama notes that it's not in bad shape. That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, mind you. An excerpt:

The survey makes explicit what has been implied in defense policy conversations for the past several years: The all-volunteer force, which was never intended to fight a decade of continuous conflict, has nonetheless succeeded beyond all expectations in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of maintaining its health and professionalism. High-profile stories such as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales’ massacre of civilians in Afghanistan have convinced many Americans and others that a decade of war has broken the Army and Marine Corps. But military officers are quick to point out that Bales is the exception, not the rule, in an Army in which 51,270 other soldiers have seen four or more combat deployments, and in which an additional 81,000 soldiers on active duty have seen at least three.

Six out of seven soldiers and Army civilians, the study reveals, trust their senior leaders to make the right decisions for the Army, and 90 percent of those surveyed remain willing to put the Army’s needs above their own. Whereas the soldiers who fought in Vietnam considered themselves amateurs and conscripts, 98 percent of the soldiers in the Army today consider themselves professional fighting men and women. As such, those who serve in the U.S. Army today are in no danger of losing their pride, heart or soul. And based on personal observations from the field, I can report the U.S. Army is today more combat effective than it was when I myself first led a light infantry platoon in Afghanistan in 2002.

There is still cause for concern, though. Among them is the common complaint that, due to the focus on the counterinsurgency fight in Afghanistan, combat units are losing some of their traditional core skills. And indeed, I spent some time a year ago with an armor unit that, having been retrained as light infantry, had not touched its tanks in a year. But also worrisome is the fact that, according to the survey, the Army as an institution is not enforcing high standards in its initial training. New soldiers, commanders have told me, often report to their first units with low levels of physical fitness, which would be less of a concern if many of those units were not walking up and down the hills of eastern Afghanistan each day. Anecdotally, two friends who recently completed Army basic training at Fort Benning -- traditionally, the more difficult Army post for such training -- described the program as easy and reported that their levels of physical fitness had actually declined during the training. I have a tough time believing folks at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot on Parris Island are saying similar things.

In terms of their leaders, meanwhile, soldiers report that their commanding officers are tactically and technically sound in combat, but that they have lost some of their willingness to teach, train and mentor those beneath them -- all critical to preparing the next generation of leaders.

Good article - go read the rest.

By: Brant

Long-Term US-Afghan Relationship?

The Afghans want to know what the US long-term basing strategy is going to be.

Afghanistan wants the United States to clearly spell out what sort of military presence it will leave behind once most of its combat troops leave by the end of 2014, a senior Afghan official said.
It is also pressing Washington in talks over future cooperation to detail to be more forthcoming on what will be on offer for Afghan forces as they ready to take over responsibility security in the country that is still at war.
"These are issues that concern us. We want to know how many bases will be there, how many soldiers and what will be their mission. And what will we get from the United States for our security forces," President Hamid Karzai's chief spokesman Aimal Faizi told Reuters, without specifying what levels he thought would be appropriate.
In negotiations for a Strategic Partnership Deal on long-term cooperation, one of the stumbling blocks is the U.S. plan for a limited military presence to ensure members of al Qaeda and other militant groups do not find a sanctuary again.
Countries such as Russia, China and Pakistan are wary of an indefinite U.S. military presence in the region. Neighboring Iran strongly opposes the plan.

Uh, why are they asking? Shouldn't they control what's going on in their own country? Oh yeah, that's right - they can't.

By: Brant

US Wargaming Possible Fight With Iran?

In an exploratory game, rather than a rehearsal, the US played out a possible shootout with Iran...

A classified war simulation held this month to assess the repercussions of an Israeli attack on Iran forecasts that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.

The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict.

and some details

The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America’s arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program — if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retaliation.

The exercise was designed specifically to test internal military communications and coordination among battle staffs in the Pentagon, Tampa, Fla., where the headquarters of the Central Command is located, and in the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of an Israeli strike. But the exercise was written to assess a pressing, potential, real-world situation.

In the end, the war game reinforced to military officials the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of a strike by Israel, and a counterstrike by Iran, the officials said.

By: Brant

Panetta: US Forces Smaller, More Agile

Per this article from Defense.gov Secretary Panetta says the military will be smaller and more deployable.

To accomplish the new mission sets for the 21st century, the United States needs a smaller, quicker, more agile military, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said today.
That is the basis behind the recently released strategy review that will set the stage for the fiscal 2013 Defense Department budget request.
“Our budget is, basically, designed to reinforce the new missions we are talking about and that agile, deployable and ready force that has to move quickly,” Panetta said during an interview on his way to Fort Bliss, Texas.
Force structure will come down in the years to come, the secretary said, but the military will continue to be able to engage in the full range of conflicts even with spending $487 billion less over the next 10 years. The Army will get smaller, but the reduction will be slow and balanced as recommended by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Panetta said.
The way the force will be used will change under the strategy, the secretary said. While there will remain forces in Asia and the Middle East – two areas of particular focus for the United States – other areas will not be uncovered. Rotational forces – the way Army Special Forces currently deploy – will expand to conventional forces. The rotational deployments mean the military “will be in a position to cover not only the area that will be a primary focus … but we will be able to cover the world,” he said.
The new air-sea battle doctrine will allow the military to handle more than one conflict at a time. “The example I’ve used is if we are in a land war in Korea and Iran does something in the Strait of Hormuz – to go after that and to deal with that threat is largely going to be the responsibility of the Air Force and Navy,” Panetta said. “Same if we are in Afghanistan and something breaks out in the Taiwan Straits or the South China Sea, … confronting that would largely be a naval and air capability.”
The secretary is adamant that the budget will not be reduced on the backs of service members. He specified there will be no changes to military retirement for those serving today.
“We are going to design the requirements for any commission that looks at retirement,” he said. “One of the requirements is that those already serving are fully grandfathered.”

Yep, lipstick on a pig...

By: Brant

What's Next for NATO?

Stephen M. Walt has some ideas on the future of the alliance.

First, declare victory! Europe is experiencing unprecedented sustained peace. If there ever was a moment to take advantage of that climate, it is now. The risks of defense re-nationalization are next to zero and potential conventional threats far over the horizon. Meanwhile, austerity programs are incentivizing Europe to economize military spending via deeper integration -- as Britain and France commenced in 2010. The European security dilemmas that required a heavy American military presence have long been resolved. As but just one recent example, late in 2011, Polish Foreign Minister Radislaw Sikorski stated that: "I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity."

There's an extended checklist of other ideas on the article's home page. Go check it out.

By: Brant

Sound Off! Tactical, Operational, or Strategic

Where is the war won?

... At the tactical level, the land of the NCO, the last 100 yards, where bullets fly and bodies drop?

... At the operational level, where resources are synchronized, multipliers are applied, and the XO loves it when a plan comes together?

... At the strategic level, where the politicians call the shots and the only rifles in use are on parade, where vehicles are bought by the hundreds, and nations are rallied to the cause?

Sound off with your thoughts in the comments below!

By: Brant

Pentagon Announces New Strategy, Follow-Up I

Worried about the intel budget? Don't be.

"We will protect, and in some cases increase our investments in special operations forces, in new technologies like (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance), and unmanned systems, in space and particularly in cyberspace capabilities, and also capacity to quickly mobilize," Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon.

And the Congressional reactions are starting to pour in. You won't find any surprises.

“The current and emerging global threats to our national security are more complex than at any time that I can recall,” said Republican Sen. John McCain, ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Therefore, I will closely, carefully and thoroughly review the defense strategy that the president announced today and examine whether it meets our national security objectives.”

His counterpart in the House, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, did not hesitate to criticize the new strategy.

While the Pentagon press conference was still underway, McKeon tweeted, “New defense strategy is a lead from behind for a left-behind America.”

In a statement issued soon afterward, he said, “The President has packaged our retreat from the world in the guise of a new strategy to mask his divestment of our military and national defense.”

By: Brant