Over at OpFor, old comrade LTCOL P asks some thought-provoking questions as he links to an article by AOLDefense’s Sydney Freedberg.  The article covers the happenings at UNIFIED QUEST, the United States Army’s Title 10 Wargame being held at The Army War College at Carlisle Barracks.

Go there.  Ponder his questions, and read the article.  Well worth your time.

UNIFIED QUEST is usually a pretty illuminating event,  a “futures game” which posits the incorporation of as-yet unfielded technology or force structure, and the effects of that technology or structure on tactics and doctrine.  Occasional bits of self-delusion occur (tactical “offensive cyber” being launched at a Bn Commander’s say-so with a server dropped into a remote airfield comes to mind), but overall, the game is well conducted and has had (in my years of participation at least) a very sharp and aggressive “Red Team”.  This year appears to be no different.

What stands out in the AOLDefense article, fairly leaps from the page, is this exchange:

“You needed ports, [the enemy] knew you needed ports,” he said. “They were ready for you.” While the US-led task force maneuvered elaborately by sea and air to deceive the enemy commanders where they would land, ultimately the coalition had no way to bring in the supplies its own forces needed, let alone humanitarian aid, without controlling a handful of major seaports. So the enemy commanders ignored the feints — their militiamen lacked the kind of mobile reserve force that would have been needed to try to counter them anyway — and simply dug in where they knew the US would eventually have to come to them.

“We had to go here; we’re very predictable,” sighed one US Army officer later in the briefing. The military has invested in the capability to bring forces ashore where there is no port — formally called JLOTS, Joint Logistics Over The Shore — but the Army and Navy together only have enough such assets to move supplies for one reinforced Army brigade, while the Marines can land another brigade-plus. That’s only a fraction of the force required in this scenario. While the the resulting dependence on established infrastructure — seaports, airfields, bases in friendly countries — is often thought of as a purely logistical problem, in this kind of conflict it can have bloody tactical consequences.

We have spent a decade and a half (or more) talking about seizure of ports as the cheap and easy alternative to landing over a beach.  Time and again, the refrain that port seizure was the far preferable alternative to coming ashore at the surf line was drummed into our ears.  “Ports are smart, beaches are dumb” was how one senior Navy Officer explained it, somewhat condescendingly.  Problem is, seizing a port which is surrounded by built-up area, under the noses of an enemy that knows you need it and knows it is, in fact, your critical vulnerability, never was going to be as easy as those port seizure advocates assumed it would be.   (I did happen to notice none of them ever seemed to be infantrymen.)

Urban combat is never easy in the best of circumstances, but becomes especially challenging when you have a limited ability to transition forces from afloat to ashore without securing the very objective you are fighting for.  Even an unsophisticated and largely immobile adversary can defend effectively if he knows where you are going and why.   Cherbourg was destroyed by second-rate German garrison troops in June of 1944, even as US forces drove into the Cotentin Peninsula.  The loss of that port affected the Allied drive across Europe into 1945.

One other point worth mentioning:  The aforementioned JLOTS is not a system that can be used in an assault echelon.  The loading of the ships and craft are not according to the Commander of the Landing Force’s (CLF) Landing Plan.  JLOTS is a national asset which requires a secure beach over which to transit.   The brigade coming ashore isn’t doing so in fighting trim.  Very effective for bringing in follow-on assets, but not for forcing an entry.

So once again the value of landing combat-ready forces over a beach is highlighted.  As is the paucity of current capacity to do so, which includes the near non-existent Naval Gunfire capability of the United States Navy.

Kudos to the Red Team at UNIFIED QUEST.  Their job is to poke holes through the invalid assumptions in Blue Forces’ planning and execution, and they have done so here in a major way.   Our assumptions regarding port seizures are at the top of this year’s list.

With a “Strategic Pivot” toward the Pacific, let’s hope those who read the Lessons Learned from UQ 12 are paying attention.

Posted by UltimaRatioReg in Air Force, Army, Aviation, Books, Coast Guard, Foreign Policy, Hard Power, History, Marine Corps, Maritime Security, Merchant Marine, Naval Institute, Navy, Proceedings, Uncategorized | read comments (10)

Every era has had something that service members came of age with. From the Dreadnaught era to the advent of submarines; the Sailors of the interwar period saw naval aviation come of age; Jets after the close of the second world war, guided missiles and nuclear propulsion.

For my generation, among the first of the 21st Century, we have seen the initial steps towards cyber capabilities and the mass adoption of unmanned systems. But, we’ve seen something more as well tangentially related to cyber: blogging and the online discourse writ large concerning the maritime services.

I am willing to say that at no other time has the discourse been as important for the maritime services as it is today. Certainly, it has never been more well appointed or contributed to. From those with an earnest interest in naval and maritime affairs, to deckplate Sailors and junior officers, to even the most senior admirals and generals. Their voices are present and count towards our understanding of ourselves, profession and the way forward for the Nation and Services.

For five years Information Dissemination has played a vital role in this discourse and enhanced discourse at USNI/USNI blog. To Raymond and the gang at Information Dissemination thanks for five years of great posts and for adding much appreciated voices to the dialog. Cheers!

Posted by YN2(SW) H. Lucien Gauthier III in Aviation, Coast Guard, Foreign Policy, Hard Power, History, Marine Corps, Maritime Security, Naval Institute, Navy, Piracy, Proceedings, Soft Power, Uncategorized | read comments (0)

The conversation on professional naval issues is alive and well. It happens in many forums and at many levels. From seamen on the mess decks to admirals in the Pentagon, wardrooms to Proceedings, the conversation is happening, but what are we talking about? My feeling is that the conversation is weighted entirely on the strategic level. Heated discussions occur on how many ships should be in the Navy? How many carriers should we have? Is China the next Russia? These are all important conversations that should continue but we are missing something important. Where are the conversations about how best to tactically incorporate new systems like the LCS and the predator drone? Where were the tactical lessons learned from Operation New Dawn? What is the best way to find and approach pirates off Somalia? In the last year there has been a call out to Junior Officers to join the professional discussion. However, the discussion that was happening was at the strategic level. Junior Officers have something to add in that arena as well, but the strategic level issues are not the ones that most JOs handle every day. As a Junior Officer we should be reading, writing, and studying to perfect our knowledge of the tactical employment of whatever platform we are on. That is what the JO discussion should focus on and we as a community are not fostering that discussion.

Naval Officers join the navy to lead sailors and be officers in the profession of maritime war. We did not join Maersk or MSC. Those sailors are excellent at their craft but that is not us. I joined to be a Surface Warfare Officer but I have to seek out the conversation that supports the warfare side of my community. In the CNOs “Sailing Directions” he says that we need “warfighting first, be ready to fight and win today, while building the ability to win tomorrow”.  But could we do it if we were called on? We have the platforms but do we know how best to employ them in combat? Instead of talking tactics we have been preparing for the next certification or inspection. While the country has been heavily involved in two land wars, the navy has been largely at peace, and we have gotten complacent in our thoughts.

Twenty-six years ago, Captain Wayne Hughes wrote Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice, which is still regarded as one of the preeminent works on Naval Tactics.  In it he stated “Good tactics in wartime derive from good tactical study in peacetime” and then went on to state:

Articles on tactics should dominate the Naval Institute Proceedings, as they did in the period from 1900 to 1910. The hard core of the Naval War College curriculum should be naval operations, as it was in the 1930s. War games should stress not merely training and experience but the lessons learned from each game’s outcome, as in the 1920s and 1930s.

I don’t know that tactics need to dominate the entire naval discussion, as with most things in the Navy, it is important to have a “hi low mix”. The discussion also no longer has to be limited to Proceedings. USNI would like to have more discussion on tactics there, but so would the USNI blog, Information Dissemination, CIMSEC, Sailorbob, Small Wars Journal, Alidade and a host of other online forums. This is a huge topic and there is enough to go around for all.

In many of these forums innovation has been a buzzword recently. LT Benjamin Kohlman started a wonderful conversation about Disruptive Thinking and innovation on the Small Wars Journal Blog that has gone viral. I have thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I agree with many of his points and I do believe that innovation at all levels is important; however, as Wayne Hughes would say, technical innovation without tactical innovation that will incorporate new technologies is useless in naval battle.

One thing that is hindering the open discussion of tactics is the concern that it will endanger classified information. Many believe that it is impossible to have a true discussion of tactics in an unclass forum. This is not true. Those that are in the conversation need to be very careful to know what is and what is not classified but there are plenty of important conversations that can be debated and learned from in an open forum. The use of historical examples, hypothetical environments, and general tactical principles all provide ways to have that open discussion without crossing the boundary into the classified realm.

The conversation on tactical innovation is especially important for the Junior Officers but it should not be limited to them. Senior officers and those that have gone before us have a wealth of knowledge on tactics. They have been there and know where the sinkholes are. Only by learning what has been done before can we keep from making the same mistakes over again. We have the forums. Once again it is time for us to read, think, speak and write about tactics.

LT Rob McFall is a Surface Warfare Officer that did two tours on USS WINSTON S. CHURCHIILL. He is on the Editorial Board of the United States Naval Institute and is on the Board of Directors of the Surface Naval Association. 

Posted by admin in Aviation, Hard Power, History, Marine Corps, Maritime Security, Naval Institute, Navy, Proceedings | read comments (31)

A week after Galrahn — mostly in passing — raised the question of whether there would someday be a replacement program for the Cyclone-class coastal patrol boats, the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command announced the award of a $30 million contract for the first of as many as 48 85-foot Mark VI-class patrol boats, slated for delivery in 2014. Less than half the length of the Cyclones, the Mark VIs are slated to replace even smaller craft with the Maritime Expeditionary Security Force (MESF), not the Cyclone PCs (five of which are forward deployed in Bahrain).

But as the MESF scales up, how does that change the middle, in-between space that exists between the forthcoming Mk VI boats and the two Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) configurations? The LCS program is well chronicled here, and that is not the question I hope to raise. The reality is that the Navy has 20 LCS hulls in the works, which will slowly overtake the remaining Oliver Hazard Perry frigates outfitted with the same 25mm Mk38 Mod 2s as the new Mk VIs. And as Galrahn points out, the remaining Cyclones — even with upgrades — are inching inexorably towards the end of their service lives without any programmed replacement.

Whatever the changes to the space between the Mk VIs and the LCS, the space in-between still seems pretty enormous. And it is a critical space, however the Department of the Navy decides to count it in terms of battle force ships. Global maritime traffic and the sea lanes the U.S. Navy is charged with guaranteeing continue to become more crowded and congested. Many of these essential waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca — are neither appropriately nor efficiently covered by large, high-end surface combatants.

How much, on the one end of the spectrum, can the LCS cover — as it exists today, not as it was envisioned? And has doctrine and force structure planning caught up to this new reality? What additional capability does the Mk VI promise at the opposite end of the spectrum? As the U.S. Coast Guard once rode several of the Cyclone-class PCs hard to help manage gaps in coverage, should the Navy now be looking closely at the USCG’s new Sentinel class Fast Response Cutters? And as an institution, how does the Navy view this space? Is it appropriately incentivized as a career path?  Does it dedicate enough resources to thinking about — much less managing — it?

Two reality checks. First: Iran’s ability to threaten safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz has been a clear and present danger for years now. As the War in Iraq began to deteriorate,  Iranian aggressiveness mounted — and then the global economy began to struggle, only heightening Iran’s leverage by means of threatening the Strait. Yet only recently, was there a force posture shift in the Gulf. Right now, four additional Avenger-class mine countermeasures ships are enroute to Bahrain to reinforce the four already forward deployed there — as well as British and other allied minesweepers. Additional MCM helicopters and the USS Ponce (currently being converted) are not far behind. They join five Cyclone-class patrol boats. The only question to my mind is why now, and what took so long? Is this latent appreciation of the imperative to provide a compelling capability — compelling not on paper, or in pure military terms, but compelling to the commercial world — and the markets — to guarantee the Straits. And are there not more PCs enroute because we don’t need them or because the existing combination of aging ships and crews cannot support any more hulls deployed forward?

Second: when I think of the dirty work of patrol boats and minesweeping, I can’t help but think of the example of the U.S. Air Force’s irrepressible (and ongoing) disdain for the A-10 (which also, it turns out, have some utility in this space).

Are we good enough at this space? Are we ready for more serious challenges to international sea lanes in this space? And do we have the tools and dedicated personnel to persevere when called upon to do so?

Posted by nhughes in Hard Power, Maritime Security, Navy | read comments (2)

I began writing this during the 11th hour of Joint Warfighter, feeling like I had something of an information hangover. Coffee was having no effect. Concepts and ideas were jumbled into an atemporal mess in my mind–it has been a long couple of conferences.

After the last session a woman walked past me and remarked that the panel was uninformative. I’ve now heard this sentiment twice in the last two days. In terms of this, I can agree that perhaps the actual information given by panelists might not be new, novel, or insightful. But, at best such a reality is decided on a case-by-case basis, since those in the audience have each been privy to different types, amounts, and quality of data. What was not profound to you, could have very well been profound to someone else. In short, the fact that you might not have found anything new in the discussion is irrelevant. But, it does point my thinking towards a new paradigm for conferences is needed.

There is little information that will be given to you in person that could not have been read elsewhere. The volume of data and information availed online is huge–you want to know about the Navy, you can learn most everything online. You can be given nuance from blogs and context from history. However, it is in person is where you learn about what people are thinking, and what they haven’t decided on. You see the person and all those subconscious things that denote what they’re really thinking.

That is the power of panels, that is why it is worth traveling so very far and spending so much: Experience. My Boss says that nothing supplants meeting someone in person, and he’s right. You can share emotion via the Internet, but you cannot truly experience emotion with someone, not even the subtle emotion felt when one is posed with a difficult question–as is often done in panels.

The division between audience and panel needs to be broken down. I struggle to articulate how to do this short of some hippie-esq ‘let’s-circle-our-chairs-and-hold-hands’ nonsense. But, the answer must be in there somewhere between the connectivity enabled by the Internet and being there in person.

*****
AirSea Battle is in trouble. I don’t really know what it is, and even with engaging with the panel today, I still don’t think there is anyone out there who has the whole story. But. What truly troubles me, is that from the question I asked today.

I asked how AirSea Battle Strategy (anyone know what the word ‘battle’ is doing in a strategy?) would affect the tactical level. From what I remember of the answer, almost nothing will change except that there will be more jointness (termed ‘interoperability’ if I remember correctly) and tactical units will be smaller and enabled to mass quickly if a concentration of forces are needed.

Additionally, the design for AirSea is such that it will be layered over the tactical and operational COCOM level. This is where I really get lost–and I need your help to make sense of.

Wasn’t one of the greatest critiques of COIN that it wasn’t a true strategy, but rather a collection of tactics jumbled together and called strategy? If we are overlaying this strategy on top our existing operational and tactical paradigms, aren’t we doing the same thing COIN is accused of? What I understand of strategy is that it is the larger goals and combination of ends, ways and means towards reaching those goals.  In attempting to draft a strategy that does not perturb current tactical paradigms, are we creating a strategy that changes nothing?

I really hope we aren’t, but I will need to be convinced we aren’t.

Another thing is that the crowd drawn to such Conferences are more industry than strategist. The questions routinely posed to the panels concerned acquisition more than they did anything else. There’s nothing wrong with this, but I’m not a contractor and so I am more I am more interested in strategy and tactics. What’s more is that because of the majority of the questions it is now hard for me to separate the future tools for implementing AirSea from the strategy itself.

Is AirSea a collection of new capabilities rather than a strategy in its own right?

While I was told that AirSea was not to have any major impact on the tactical level, there is one area in which I do see it having a major impact.  AirSea seems to support the notion of acquiring 5+ generation fighters, new comms gear, and making everything stealth.  The fielding of such gear will necessarily drive the need for new tactics, and operational models.  From what I understand of the F-22, the logistics and maintenance requirement are quite different from having 15s, 16s and 18s downrange.  In addition, if the services are to specialize further in niche but vital capabilities, interoperability is going to demand another round of relocating units CONUS for training purposes.  If the Army has an Electronic Warfare requirement for a mission the Navy will have to fill that role.  But, odds are that EW Squadron is in Northern Virginia, but the Combat Brigade is located in North Carolina or Georgia.  For these two units to train together to be fully interoperable, they will need to train together almost constantly.  I struggle to see how this will be cost effective, in the age of austerity with sequestration looming.

There is way too much that has gone unsaid regarding AirSea.  I appreciate OPSEC needs as much as the next guy.  But, AirSea is starting to be discussed widely across strategy and military focused blogs.  The Chief of Staff of the Air Force and the Chief of Naval Operations are appearing together to present this strategy to the American People, and the message is thus far garbled.  As we’re in the opening stages of the messaging campaign, I can appreciate that there is tweaking that will be done to it towards answering the myriad of questions we all have regarding AirSea.  But, it will be a struggle.  My sense is that many bloggers, strategists, and journalists are suspect of AirSea.  After nearly ten years of coin being vigorously debated, any new strategy will have an uphill battle.

*****

I saw a lot of GOFO’s over the course of Joint Warfighter. Just about as many as are at SHAPE. But, what is important is that I got to listen to them, at some length. General Allen, COMISAF, VTC’d in for an hour (and it was roughly 2100L AFG). Despite weather delays GEN Dempsey was present for an hour. I don’t know how much experience everyone has will trying to get on a GOFO’s schedule. But, average availability is around 15 minutes. An hour is an insane amount of time.

GENs Cartwright, Allen, and Dempsey all spoke without the use of PowerPoint or notes. They were able to navigate through multiple topics, ensuring that key messages were hit and came across as relaxed. They were all polished and impressive. GEN Cartwright had the luxury of no longer being in uniform and so his candor was particularly poignant.

General Cartwright

General Allen

General Dempsey

*****

I asked a lot of questions, and the way I worded a lot of questions was not readily understood. I’m pretty sure I had to rephrase every question I asked. It sucks when you’ve got a minute or seven standing behind the mic, listening to the other questions being asked, answers that touch upon the one you’re about to ask, and you’re thinking of a myriad of permutations of how you could ask your question. It’s like roulette, you don’t know when the moderator is going to call on you, and where ever your mind is at when you’re asked is the question that comes out.

*Remember, identify your self and your affiliation.*

One question got me asked if I wanted to work on the Joint Staff, and the answer to that is still an emphatic yes (if you want to see how that went down, watch the video. I won’t elaborate further).

*****

During one such evening, at the USNI Member Event, I turned a corner, and Mary stopped me and introduced me to John Nagl. Yes, that John Nagl. Amazing, right? I love the Naval Institute… For more than just this one instance.

In 2007 I attended my first conference. It was Joint Warfighter, and the day I attended ADM Stavridis gave the keynote at Lunch.

I became aware of the conference while I was underway, and emailed the Institute asking how I could pay for the lunches.  I was told that the Institute saves a few tickets for Enlisted members, and that I needn’t worry about paying to attend the luncheon keynote.  Because of this, I became aware of ADM Stavridis, and sought out everything I could find of his writing.  Eventually I found him on facebook as well, and in 2010 this all came together in enabling me to come work for him at SHAPE.  It is directly because of the Naval Institute that I am who I am today.

*****

The last keynote of the Conference was from Google’s Chief Technology Advocate.  He presented a number of fascinating things Google does as “hobbies”.  Google is all about gathering real world information and organizing and availing that information through the internet.  I consider this a noble and laudable goal.  What’s more is that they are doing an exceptional job at all of it.

However, such a goal is fraught with challenges and disturbing implications.  Arthur C. Clark has some very good words to this point

The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it presents. But it is vital to remember that information — in the sense of raw data — is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is not foresight. But information is the first essential step to all of these.

Google gets this, and they are actively engaged in finding the right answers to such dilemmas. They seek out expert advice from guys like GEN Colin Powell.  They seek to understand the implications of the capabilities and technologies they develop–they seek to build wisdom as much as they compile information.

I think it is important for this conversation to take place, as well as for it to be transparent and done in public.  If Google can develop technologies that have significant security implications, it does us no good to bury this fact, as it denies us the ability to develop the wisdom required to understand our new abilities.  Further more, if Google can do it, then eventually anyone could do it, being quiet about it won’t prevent this from happening.

*****

All Around It was an excellent conference, I was especially pleased to see so many of our Allies stationed at Allied Command Transformation in attendance.  Seeing French, British, German, and Spanish uniforms in the crowd made me feel a little bit like I was back home at SHAPE.  Going forward, I think it would be a good thing to try to engage with our Allies more in such conferences.  With more focus on Asia being demanded, deepening engagement and ties with our European Allies in other ways is important.  An easy, and smart way to do this is with conferences like Joint Warfighter.  Plus, JCWC has a nice ring to it (Joint-Combined Warfighter Conference).

Posted by YN2(SW) H. Lucien Gauthier III in Army, Aviation, Coast Guard, Foreign Policy, Hard Power, History, Homeland Security, Marine Corps, Maritime Security, Naval Institute, Navy, Proceedings, Soft Power | read comments (6)

To do a complete stoplight review of China’s Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic levers/influencers of national power is much more than one post on a blog, but you can broad-brush a few things.

In the last couple of decades, China’s “Diplomatic” and “Military” areas are a solid green with up-arrows. Though I would give “Information” a yellow with an up arrow, I will give a nod to those who would give the Communists a green.

Economic? That is a lot trickier than people think. I lean towards the demographic-wonk mantra, “China will get old before they get rich,” – but if you want a good look at another view on China’s “Economic” that you won’t get from Thomas Friedman, a nice primmer would be Reihan Salam’s latest at NR.

Without a sound economy … the dragon may not be as large or as scary, as some think – but it may be more dangerous for other reasons.

… across a wide range of economic, technological, and military indicators, the United States is actually, in the words of political scientist Michael Beckley, “wealthier, more innovative, and more militarily powerful compared to China than it was in 1991.” As Beckley explains in a recent article in International Security, China’s growth in per capita income, value added in high technology, and military spending is impressive primarily because China is starting from such a low base. That the United States has continued to grow across all of these dimensions is making it exceedingly difficult for China to catch up. Beckley thus concludes that China is “rising in place.” That is, while China is improving its economic and military position in absolute terms, it is stagnating relative to America, even in an era of sluggish U.S. growth.
…
While we can expect China at some point to have an economy somewhat larger than that of the United States — after all, China has four times our population — the country is plagued by pervasive corruption and bad debts that are already undermining its growth prospects.
…
China’s population is aging rapidly, and soon the country will have to carry the weight of tens and eventually hundreds of millions of retirees. … China’s growth is already slowing as a result. Since 2001, China has grown at an annual rate of 10.1 percent. This year, however, Chinese GDP is expected to grow at 7.5 percent. Further, the official statistics almost certainly conceal the extent of the decline.
…
The real threat from China is not that it will grow so economically strong that it will bestride the world like a colossus. Rather, it is that it will become so weak and vulnerable as to collapse, or to lash out at its neighbors.

When you build the next military – do you ponder how to deal with a near competitor in 25-years, or how to handle the violent collapse of a nation 4-times your size in 25-years? How would they look different, and how do you hedge one outcome vs the other?

Posted by CDRSalamander in Foreign Policy, Hard Power | read comments (9)
Tags: China, Economics

…is still very likely my enemy.  The Associated Press, via WAPO, tells us that US intelligence sources think it likely that Al Qaeda is now in Syria, taking advantage of the strife.   This little surmise should surprise nobody, and serve as yet another data point for the assertion that Al Qaeda is subsuming the “Arab Spring” and bringing rise to Islamists and Islamist-dominated governments across the Middle East and northern Africa.

A curious comment from SECDEF Leon Panetta:

“Frankly we need to continue to do everything we can to determine what kind of influence they’re trying to exert there,” Panetta said.

We do?  After eleven years of war, and AQ migration to Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia, we need to determine what kind of influence they’re trying to assert?   Seems we have a pretty good idea already.   (Before the shrieks that MB is not AQ, those two organizations are tightly linked both philosophically and physically.  The success of one is the success of the other.)

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney informs:

“We do not believe this kind of attack that you saw in Damascus is representative of the opposition,” Carney said. “There are clearly extremist elements in Syria, as we have said all along, who are trying to take advantage of the chaos in that country — chaos brought about by Assad’s brutal assault on his own people.”

CJCS General Dempsey echoes Carney, in a Fox News piece:

“We do know that there have been extremist elements that are trying to make inroads in Syria,” he said. “That is to be distinct from the opposition. I’m not tying those together.”

But, as the Fox article asserts, sometimes the line between them is unclear.  It will get increasingly blurred.  The Al Nusrah Front is an Al Qaeda affiliate, merging with AQ similarly to how Al Shabaab in Somalia has done.

Perhaps at this juncture such attacks as the bombings in Damascus are not representative, but soon they will be.  Al Qaeda will increase its influence and quickly push genuine opposition to Assad’s regime aside, and pave the way yet again for hard-line Islamists to firmly grip the levers of power.   As they have done successfully in Egypt, and in Libya, and Tunisia, and are attempting in Yemen and Morocco.

Kudos to the Obama Administration for not rushing willy-nilly to provide weapons and support for the Syrian opposition.  Even if they had started out as a viable counter to a repressive anti-Western dictatorship, the interjection (welcome or not, see: Al Shabaab) of Al Qaeda and the Islamic extremists into the vacuum of instability would quickly make such support an exceedingly ill-advised policy.   +1

However, the President’s recent declaration of the demise of Al Qaeda and the end of the War on Terror (whatever one thinks of the name) is equally ill-advised, and does not reflect a realistic understanding of our enemies and their continued relevance in the Muslim world.   At the very least, someone should have included a resilient, networked, and elusive enemy on the distribution list of the memo ending the GWOT.  -1

In addition, there is the Administration’s abject refusal to name our enemies for what they are, Islamic Extremists, bent on the destruction of Israel and subjugation of the West.  Recent publicity surrounding what was reported to be an anti-Islamic course of study by the Joint Forces Staff College will cause further reluctance to publicly identify our enemies, adding to the loss of focus and dissipation of the efforts to defeat an enemy that has vowed a multi-generational struggle against us.  -2

Posted by UltimaRatioReg in Air Force, Army, Books, Foreign Policy, Hard Power, History, Homeland Security, Marine Corps, Maritime Security, Naval Institute, Navy, Uncategorized | read comments (1)

Maybe it won’t be a great day for you–be careful what you wish for… In recognition of the success that Kony2012 had in rasing money for a niche geopolitical cause, students at MIT created a faux webpage “Kick Starter” pretending to raise money for things on the opposite side of use of force continuum – a mobile black site for intensive interrogations, among other things.

The reason for doing this was to demonstrate the ability to crowsource funding for initiatives that are championed by ideologies that are on the hard-power end of foreign policy.

As the last blog I posted demonstrates, the ability for motivated individuals to become active in a conflict exists and is very real.  What amounts to DIY intervention can have an impact upon the course of World events (similar to the warning given to us service members from the SECDEF).  To me, what this says is that citizens no longer only vote for a foreign policy with their ballots, but they can also–directly–do so with their wallets, time and skill-sets.

The conditions are right, and the historical precedent is now set for the ‘memetic stew’ to bring forth a Non-Governmental Organization as a third option that takes elements from Kony2012, private security firms, and Kiva for those who wish to see some sort of change in the World.

What strikes me as ironic, is that the words typically espoused towards supporting World peace, are now the intellectual foundation under which we may see a new method for hard power applied in the World.  This is not to say that the end goals of those who see the utility of hard power is all that different from those who see greater utility in soft power.

Rather, in the long term, I am interested to see if the potential I’ve outlined here coalesces to incorporate both hard and soft power elements.  Such a coalescing would amount to a private sector analog to a nation’s foreign policy.  Which would, arguably, be the tipping point for the replacement of the Westphalian era, where an organizational paradigm like a government is no longer required to bring together the ends, ways and means to execute foreign policy.

Posted by YN2(SW) H. Lucien Gauthier III in Hard Power, History, Soft Power, Uncategorized | read comments (4)

Nick Velez is a former Marine.  He is opening a sports pub in the LA suburb of Downey, CA.  It seems some don’t like the name he chose, nor do they understand why he chose it.   The Marine Corps Times has a great article.

Seems Nick was a member of Second Battalion, Fourth Marines.  Every Devil Dog knows their nickname.  “The Magnificent Bastards”.  A nickname bestowed upon them by their Battalion Commander during the fierce fighting around Leatherneck Square in Vietnam in 1966.

At least one City Councilman gets it:

He will be opening it,” said City Councilman Mario Guerra, who supports Bastards.

Guerra, the father of a former Marine, heard that some locals plan to picket Bastards. One woman asked what she should tell her young son the name “Bastards” means.

Guerra said to tell her son the story of 2/4 and the Bastard Marines who have fought, died and served in combat for their country.

Semper Fi, Nick.  And best of luck with the new venture.  I served alongside 2/4 in those hard, bloody days in Ramadi in 2004, when that Battalion paid a heavy price, but put an ass-whipping on the enemy.   Below are the words of then-LtCol Paul Kennedy, CO of 2/4 during those months of sharp combat:

Early in the morning we exchanged gunfire with a group of insurgents without significant loss. As morning progressed, the enemy fed more men into the fight and we responded with stronger force. Unfortunately, this led to injuries as our Marines and sailors started clearing the city block by block. The enemy did not run; they fought us like soldiers. And we destroyed the enemy like only Marines can. By the end of the evening the local hospital was so full of their dead and wounded that they ran out of space to put them. Your husbands were awesome all night they stayed at the job of securing the streets and nobody challenged them as the hours wore on. They did not surrender an inch nor did flinch from the next potential threat. Previous to yesterday the terrorist thought that we were soft enough to challenge. As of tonight the message is loud and clear that the Marines will not be beaten.

Magnificent Bastards, all.    The name on the sign of Nick Velez’s establishment is fine tribute to them.  If you are in Downey, stop in for a frosty mug and some wings.

h/t  Al “Hard Justice”

Posted by UltimaRatioReg in Hard Power, Marine Corps, Navy, Uncategorized | read comments (10)
Tags: Alexander Martin

Lots of traffic over at Salamander’s Place, and at POGO, regarding continued problems with the Littoral Combat Ship program.    I have commented on this struggling and costly program several times, and will refrain from doing so here, with the exception of a paraphrase of a comment that Sid made at Sal’s:

The Littoral Combat Ship is not built to survive combat in the littorals.

LCS was constructed to house weapons “modules” that do not exist, and in fact, consist largely of the theoretical.

Speed was going to be the capability which allowed LCS to avoid trouble.   And now that single capability is negated by the fragility of the design that was required to reach those speeds.

Summed up thus:

IT (IS A)  COMBAT SEAFRAME THAT CANNOT PERFORM ITS MISSION IN COMBAT THAT IT CANNOT BE EMPLOYED IN while RELYING ON SPEED THAT IT CANNOT MAKE, (THAT) WILL COMPRISE THE MAJORITY OF THE SURFACE COMBATANT FLEET OF THE US NAVY… 

Someone, ANYONE, with a wide stripe on a sleeve tell us that he is wrong.  And WHY he is wrong.

Posted by UltimaRatioReg in Aviation, Foreign Policy, Hard Power, History, Homeland Security, Marine Corps, Maritime Security, Naval Institute, Navy, Proceedings, Uncategorized | read comments (36)
Tags: Alexander Martin