Was the Gates Counter-USAF Sortie Fair?

Ok, I gotta get into this fray...

So yesterday Gates dressed down the Air Force during an address at its war college in Alabama. He said getting the service to deploy enough drones to Iraq and Afghanistan was like "pulling teeth" and he cited the struggle as an example of services refusing to adapt to the new era of warfare.

His criticism was greeted with quiet applause by many in the analyst/journalist/military world who are mainly concerned that the Air Force is focusing too much of its efforts on legacy platforms like the F-22. Don't get me wrong, I like it when a defense secretary shows a little backbone and acts like he's leading the services rather than being led by them (or Congress).

But I think we should inject some perspective into his undiplomatic attacks. I'll get this one out of the way first: Can you imagine the outcry if it had been Rumsfeld who delivered this critique? When the former secretary slapped the Army upside the head, he was slammed for being too wedded to an outmoded "revolution in military affairs" mentality and that he favored technology over manpower. Army generals initiated a whisper campaign to discredit him. And after a while it worked. Wonder if the powerful Air Force brass will start the same thing? Only time will tell.

I also think it's a bit unfair to say the Air Force is stuck in the old ways of doing business:

In my view we can do and we should do more to meet the needs of men and women fighting in the current conflicts while their outcome may still be in doubt," he said. "My concern is that our services are still not moving aggressively in wartime to provide resources needed now on the battlefield."

He cited the example of drone aircraft that can watch, hunt and sometimes kill insurgents without risking the life of a pilot. He said the number of such aircraft has grown 25-fold since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to a total of 5,000.

Gates has been trying for months to get the Air Force to send more surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, like the Predator drone that provides real-time surveillance video, to the battlefield.

"Because people were stuck in old ways of doing business, it's been like pulling teeth," Gates said. "While we've doubled this capability in recent months, it is still not good enough."

If you really think about it, the Air Force has been pretty agile in this fight. They've deployed Airmen as provisional convoy security teams, sent over explosive ordnance disposal teams to augment Army, Navy and Marine IED hunters, scattered hundreds of tactical air controllers around the globe to help the ground pounders in close air support missions, their planes fly constantly over Iraq and Afghanistan helping spot IEDs, killing senior insurgent and al Qaeda leaders and tracking bad guy mortar teams. The service has done a lot of filling in on missions it's not traditionally done before and stepped up to the plate with little complaint.

Maybe complaining about the number of UAVs the Air Force has deployed is reasonable. A colleague in one of my email loops put it this way:

Gates apparently does not know about the real issues involved in deploying more Predators, and is paving the way to the inevitable day when an Army Warrior crewed by 19-year-old NCOs has a midair with a loaded C-130, directs a barrage of guided artillery on to a school bus or puts Hellfires through a group of allied vehicles.

The Air Force argues the delay in deploying UAV squadrons is due to training needs back home. My colleague above might be going a little far in his analogy -- I don't think we need winged aviators necessarily to fly UAVs on all missions -- but his point brings up a larger issue that Gates ignores in his UAV critique.

The bottom line is ALL the services need to adapt to a new way of fighting, and in large part they have. Now the Air Force's obsession with the F-22 is an easy mark for critique. But at least someone's thinking about air-to-air while everyone else is handing out soccer balls and building insurgent network wire diagrams.

-- Christian

State Dives Into the Blog Boiling Oil

We all know how the popularity of blogs has exploded over the last few years, and we’re all also tired of hearing how some corporate fat cat has decided it makes for good business to jump into the “blog world” with his or her own ruminations.

No one reads those blogs. Why? Because they’re not credible.

Well, here’s another one for you. And I’ve got to say, I’m torn on whether this is a good idea or not.

According to a short story by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post, the State Department has a small crew of Arabic speakers whose job is to zorch around the internet and dive into Islamic and mid-East-oriented blogs when they take a nasty, anti-American turn.

The State Department, departing from traditional public diplomacy techniques, has what it calls a three-person, "digital outreach team" posting entries in Arabic on "influential" Arabic blogs to challenge misrepresentations of the United States and promote moderate views among Islamic youths in the hopes of steering them from terrorism.
The department's bloggers "speak the language and idiom of the region, know the culture reference points and are often able to converse informally and frankly, rather than adopt the usually more formal persona of a U.S. government spokesperson," Duncan MacInnes, of State's Bureau of International Information Programs, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on terrorism and unconventional threats on Thursday.
"Because blogging tends to be a very informal, chatty way of working," MacInnes said, "it is actually very dangerous to blog." So State has a senior experienced officer, who served in Iraq, acting as supervisor and discussing each posting before it goes up. "We do not make policy," MacInnes added.
The State Department team's approach is to join a blog's conversation, often when it turns to the motivation for U.S. policy toward Iraq, and when others are claiming that the U.S. occupation is meant to help Israel or to secure oil. "Our job is to address that motivation issue and show them that that's not the motivation," MacInnes said.

But it seems to me State’s internet commandos are well aware that they could be raked over the coals, and they’re careful in how they approach the blogosphere.

Even though the State Department employees were not going into hard-core terrorist sites, the worry, MacInnes said, was that after identifying themselves and using their own names, "we would be, in the parlance of the Internet, 'flamed' when we come on" -- meaning their entries would be subjected to intense attacks.
They were not, and there were such posts as, "We don't like your policies but we're sure glad you're here talking to us about it," MacInnes said. As a result, State is expanding the team to six speakers of Arabic, two of Persian and one of Urdu.
To prove that it, too, can plug into the modern media world, the Pentagon's Central Command has a blogging operation at its headquarters. Its Joint Forces Command also has the capability and has even written a brochure on how to do it. "It's an area we're moving into," Navy Capt. Hal Pittman, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for joint communications, told the House panel. He added that Central Command may not be using its own Arabic or Farsi speakers, but rather contract personnel. "We're sharing with State and trying to, you know, better our knowledge on how to do it."
The State-Defense communications approach is also turning to a more sophisticated message, one that moves away from trying to change perceptions of the United States, focusing instead on the self-perceptions of its target audiences. "Our core message must outline an alternative future that is more attractive than the bleak future offered by the terrorists," said Michael Doran, deputy assistant secretary of defense for support of public diplomacy.

Seems to me State has the right to do what they’re doing. And It might just turn a few opinions. But whether they’ll be considered credible when unmasked as agents of the U.S. government is another thing entirely.

-- Christian

Ares Blog: Disband the Air Force!

Fed up with unnecessary gold-plated fighter jet programs, the service’s impatience with counter-insurgency and its anti-China rhetoric, back in August I proposed the disbanding of the U.S. Air Force. The air service’s missions could be folded into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps without any loss in national power — and we’d benefit from cuts to Pentagon overhead.

Now Robert Farley over at The American Prospect has taken up the cause in a new piece, “Abolish the Air Force” (subscription required). To complement the piece, Farley has solicited input from a number of bloggers.

“Does the United States Air Force fit into the post–September 11 world, a world in which the military mission of U.S. forces focuses more on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency?” Farley asks.

Read the rest here.

World War III and the Blogosphere

Defense Tech network member Ned Conger passed this article along to us. I like it because I have great respect for the author, UPI Editor at Large Arnaud De Borchgrave, who has deep sources from both sides of the aisle.

It’s also interesting in that it loosely indicts the blogosphere, giving it more power than I think most of us will agree it deserves.

Anyhow, the scenarios are more plausible than our last glance into the crystal ball.

From UPI:

Journalism of verification in the blogosphere has been displaced by a journalism of assertion where rumors become facts and where facts are censored by omission. Hardly surprising then that 200 million Americans, two-thirds of the population, concede they don’t understand foreign policy issues. And only one-third say they understand major domestic issues. TV comedian Jay Leno's Jaywalking interviews confirm these figures. With 80 million blogs and more than 1 billion people now online, it becomes increasingly difficult to sort factoid from fact and truth from untruth.

Today, all you need to become an online know-it-all is a Web site, a blog and an attitude. Creative reporting is the new genre. And you achieve instant mass readership by turning your darkest suspicions into reality. No wonder newspapers are losing readers and advertising revenue -- and shedding domestic and foreign bureaus. Newspapers are dull next to the fantasy lucubrations dished out as hard news, or an unconfirmed front-page report next to the hard “fact” moving through the blogosphere courtesy of electronic tools that ensure mass diffusion.

A conservative journalist, speaking at a think tank meeting, said he hoped President Bush would order the bombing of Iran in his last few days at the White House in January 2009. Iranian retaliation? “The Iranians are already attacking us in Iraq,” he responded matter-of-factly. The bombs-away-over-Iran advocates are unfazed by Iran’s retaliatory capabilities. They dismiss a wider conflict, much the way they portrayed a cakewalk in Iraq.

But “What World War III May Look Like” is already a cyber favorite. Picture a minor incident involving a U.S. Marine patrol operating out of the new base at Badrah on the Iranian border, posits former CIA operative Philip Giraldi.

Superior Iranian forces claim the Americans strayed inside Iranian territory, and surround the Marines. They refuse to surrender and open fire. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards (which the Senate branded an “international terrorist group”) return fire. Helicopter gunships are called in and artillery fire is directed at Iranian military targets. Bush calls it an act of war and, in an emotional speech to the nation, orders U.S. forces into action.

The rest of the scenario has a plausible ring. The U.N. Security Council votes 17-1 (U.S. veto) urging restraint. In the U.N. General Assembly, only the United States, Israel, Micronesia and Costa Rica support Bush’s decision.

Overwhelming U.S. air and naval superiority destroy Iran’s principal air, naval and army bases. Revolutionary Guard facilities are obliterated, as are known nuclear research and development sites. Population centers are avoided, though smart weapons destroy communications centers and command-and-control facilities. But there are still large numbers of civilian casualties and widespread radioactive contamination as many targeted sites are in or near population centers.

The U.S. media, which had (by and large) backed the administration’s plans to engage Iran, rallies round the flag, praising the surgical strikes designed to cripple Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

No sooner do the Pentagon and the White House call the attacks a complete success than Iran strikes back. With five years to prepare, Iran has successfully hidden and hardened many of its military and nuclear facilities, a large percentage of which are undamaged.

The aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower operating in the Gulf is hit by a Chinese Silkworm cruise missile. Three other support vessels are also hit and are severely damaged when they are attacked by small craft manned by suicide bombers. Pro-Iranian riots break out in Beirut. Lebanese soldiers open fire at the crowds. In the south of Lebanon, Hezbollah fires salvos of rockets into Israel. The Israeli air force responds by bombing Lebanon and Syria. Iranian Shahab-3 missiles also strike Israel, killing a number of civilians. The Israel Defense Forces is mobilized. Syria and Lebanon also mobilize.

Rioters in Baghdad attack U.S. troops. Insurgency mortar shells hit the U.S. Embassy. Snipers target American soldiers all over Iraq. Shiite oil workers sabotage Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil fields. Hundreds of alleged saboteurs are shot dead by Saudi security forces. An oil tanker hits a mine in the Strait of Hormuz. Oil tops $200 a barrel. Wall Street suffers its biggest loss in 20 years. The Dow plummets more than 800 points.

The United States offers Iran a cease-fire. Iran rejects it. Tehran orders the assassination of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf flees to Dubai. Pakistan’s tribal areas that shelter Osama bin Laden declare their independence. U.S. troops fight their way out of Baghdad with heavy casualties. Rioters in Basra cut the main roads to Kuwait that supply U.S. forces.

And it’s downhill from there. Anti-U.S. Pakistani forces seize control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. NATO’s European forces in Afghanistan disengage from what they say is now a civil war. Taliban reconquers Kabul. The Shiite Afghan north and Mazar-i-Sharif secede to join Iran. Waves of Iranian troops cross into Iraq where they are greeted by Iraqi militias. Shiite clerics take over the government in Baghdad. U.S. troops fight their way back into their bases. A Hezbollah-led coalition takes over in Beirut. Iranian Silkworm missiles set Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil fields ablaze. The Saudi monarchy declares its neutrality and pledges not to assist the United States. Kuwait and Egypt follow suit.

In Bahrain, rampaging Shiite crowds depose “King” Sheik Khalifa, establish an Islamic Republic and demand the U.S. 5th Fleet dismantle its headquarters and go home. The Dow Jones loses another 1,000 points. China and Russia refuse U.S. requests for mediation. Suicide bombers attack London, Washington, New York and Los Angeles. Poorly planned. Few casualties, but panic sets in. The White House tells Iran’s theocracy to cease and desist or nukes will be used on select targets. Tehran refuses.

Israel is shelled from Lebanon and Syria. Rioting rocks the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas flees to Cairo. The United States drops a neutron-type bomb on Iran’s nuclear center at Natanz, already bombed and destroyed. Defiant Iran fires volleys of Silkworms at U.S. ships. Russia and China place their nuclear forces on high alert. Pakistan’s religious extremists, backed by radical elements in the army and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, occupy Parliament. India launches a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan’s suspected nuclear centers. But the nukes are elsewhere and Pakistan strikes back -- bombing New Delhi, World War III is under way. Or IV, as the neocons now call what we’re already in against al-Qaida; III was the Cold War.

(Gouge: NC)

-- Christian

Anti-Piracy Missions for Global Hawk

The commander of U.S. Air Force assets in the Pacific said Tuesday he’d like to see high-altitude, long-endurance surveillance drones like the RQ-4 Global Hawk perform non-military missions to protect commerce in the region.

Gen. Paul Hester told a gathering at the Air and Space conference in Washington he’s been in discussions with regional commanders and Pacific Rim governments over the last two years to see how the Air Force could patrol economic choke points, such as the Strait of Malacca, using Global Hawk and other drones.

“There’s a much broader array of things that we can do with ISR platforms, both RQ-1 Predators and Global Hawks,” Hester said. “Where does ISR play into the performance of all of us and our desire for peace and security in the Pacific – to secure [and] guarantee the economies of those countries better throughout the Pacific? And how do we protect those lines of communication – both air and sea lines of communication? Almost half of the world’s oil passes through the Malaccan Straits every day.”

Hester said he’s been talking to regional governments to see if drones could extend their ranges by stopping off at friendly bases – something he called “gas-and-go” operations.

“Is there a way that we can use in a consortium-style operation ... in a way that we can share information?” he wondered.

In the end, though, Hester has a pretty good point. It’s what former Marine Commandant Mike Hagee called “Phase Zero” operations. Those all-seeing eyes could keep potentially bad situations from getting totally out of hand.

“I call it the left end of the low end of operations where we provide those eyes, ears and information for decision makers – both military and political – then we have the ability to solve problems early as opposed to waiting until later when we’ve got our guns drawn and we’re pointing them at each other,” Hester said.

The Global Hawk is scheduled to deploy to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam in 2009 to replace the U-2 missions over the Korean peninsula. Hester said he’s planning a test-run of his economic security theory with a single Global Hawk next year “to see what the Global Hawk can bring us.”

-- Christian

Bombs vs. Bayonets? USAF Picks Bombs

The Air Force may have adopted a doctrine on irregular warfare - combating insurgents and guerrillas while trying to win the hearts and minds of a local population - but it's not about to abandon the advantages of airpower and sophisticated weaponry in the name of "fighting fair."

Maj. Gen. Allen Peck, commander of the Air Force Doctrine Development and Education Center, made that pretty clear today at the Air & Space Conference sponsored by the Air Force Association in Washington, D.C.

Peck - noting that the Air Force's irregular warfare doctrine stipulates that military actions must come second to influencing the population you're trying to win over - heard that an earlier speaker said that just using airpower, even on a legitimate target, gives the enemy a propaganda opportunity.

The argument made by the earlier speaker is that enemy troops will claim the Air Force attacks them from the air but will not come face to face to fight them.

It was obviously not a question Peck usually gets. Or, perhaps, one he’d ever heard.

"We should eschew capabilities that the enemy doesn't have and just drive up and put a bayonet in his chest because that's the only capability they have?" Peck asked. "We're using weapons from the air, and that's cheating? And we're doing it at night and we have precision weapons and they don't? I don't even know how to respond to that."

The fact is, Peck said, "I don't want a fair fight."

The Air Force drew up an irregular warfare doctrine that was approved by Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley on Aug. 24. A key part of the doctrine is that while combating and defeating the enemy, you don't things to turn the civilian population against you.

Legitimacy and influence are critical, according to the doctrine, and "the battle of arms" must work in harmony with "the battle for influence," but not become more important.

Still, it’s warfare. And somebody has to decide when a particular action is necessary - even if it may be viewed negatively by the population.

If the target is a mosque, for example, "chances are something like that, the approval level is going to be pretty high," Peck said, with the person making that call likely being the one who will have to publicly justify it later.

-- Bryant Jordan

Why Bin Laden Isn't Rotting at Gitmo

From our good friends at Stratfor:

The Obstacles to the Capture of Osama bin Laden

Al Qaeda's As-Sahab media arm released a video Sept. 11 to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Although the 47-minute video features a voice-over introduction by Osama bin Laden, the bulk of it is of Abu Musab Waleed al-Shehri, one of the suicide bombers who crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center's north tower. That recording was made prior to al-Shehri's travel to the United States in the spring of 2001.

There is nothing in bin Laden's audio segment to indicate it was recorded recently. The production does include a still photograph of him -- one taken from what appears to be a real bin Laden video released Sept. 7 (in which he sports a dyed beard), but bin Laden's comments about the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi suggest they were recorded during al Qaeda's 2006 media blitz.

The release of two successive bin Laden messages, however, has again focused attention on bin Laden, who before last week had not been seen on video since late October 2004. This increased attention has once again caused people to question why the United States has failed to find bin Laden -- and to wonder whether it ever will.

While the feds generally get their man in the movies or on television, it is very difficult in real life to find a single person who does not want to be found. It is even harder when that person is hiding in an extremely rugged, isolated and lawless area and is sheltered by a heavily armed local population.

The United States and Pakistan have not launched a major military operation to envelop and systematically search the entire region where bin Laden likely is hiding -- an operation that would require tens of thousands of troops and likely result in heavy combat with the tribes residing in the area. Moreover, this is not the kind of operation they will take on in the future. The United States, therefore, will continue intelligence and covert special operations forces efforts, but if it is going to catch bin Laden, it will have to wait patiently for one of those operations to produce a lucky break -- or for bin Laden to make a fatal operational security blunder.

Finding a single man in a large area with rugged terrain is a daunting task, even when a large number of searchers and a vast array of the latest high-tech surveillance equipment are involved. This principle was demonstrated by the manhunt for so-called "Olympic Bomber" Eric Rudolph, who was able to avoid one of the largest manhunts in U.S. history by hiding in North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains. The task force looking for Rudolph at times had hundreds of federal, state and local law enforcement officers assigned to it, while some of its search operations involved thousands of law enforcement and volunteer searchers. The government also employed high-tech surveillance and sensor equipment and even offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Rudolph's capture.

However, Rudolph's capture in May 2003, more than five years after he was listed on the FBI's most-wanted list, was not the result of the organized search for him. Rather, he was caught by a rookie police officer on a routine patrol who found Rudolph rummaging for food in a dumpster behind a grocery store. The officer did not even realize he had captured Rudolph until he had taken him to the police station for booking.

The terrain in the Smoky Mountains is tough and remote, but it is nothing compared to the terrain in the soaring, craggy Safed Koh range that runs along the Pakistani-Afghan border or in the Hindu Kush to the north. Some of the peaks in the Safed Koh range, including Mount Sikaram, are well over twice as high as any peak in the Smokies, while the Hindu Kush contains some of the highest peaks in the world.

But it is not only the terrain that is hostile. In the Great Smokies, there are some people who are not happy to see "revenuers" and other government agents -- or other strangers, for that matter -- but at least the area is under the federal government's control. The same cannot be said of the lawless areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border -- the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The presence of Pakistani military forces is resented in these areas, and troops are regularly attacked by the heavily armed tribesmen living there.

This is not a new phenomenon by any means, though. The Pashtun tribes in the rugged area along the Durand Line (the line set to demarcate the border between the British Raj and Afghanistan, which later became the Afghan-Pakistani border) have always been difficult to control. Even before the establishment of Pakistan, the inhabitants of the area gave the British colonial authorities fits for more than a century. The Britons were never able to gain full control over the region, so they instead granted extensive power to tribal elders, called maliks. Under the deal, the maliks retained their autonomy in exchange for maintaining peace between the tribesmen and the British Raj -- thus allowing commerce to continue unabated.

However, some dramatic flare-ups of violence occurred against the Britons during their time in the region. One of the last of them began in 1936 when a religious leader known as the Faqir of Ipi encouraged his followers to wage jihad on British forces. (Jihad against invading forces is a centuries-old tradition in the region.) The faqir and his followers fought an extended insurgency against the British forces that only ended when they left Pakistan. The United Kingdom attempted to crush the faqir and his followers, but the outmanned and outgunned insurgents used the rugged terrain and the support of the local tribes to their advantage. Efforts to use spies to locate or assassinate the faqir also failed. Although the British and colonial troops pursuing the faqir reportedly numbered more than 40,000 at one point, the faqir was never captured or killed. He died a natural death in 1960.

Under U.S. pressure, the Pakistani military entered the FATA in force in March 2004 to pursue foreign militants -- for the first time since the country's creation -- but the operation resulted in heavy casualties for the Pakistani army, demonstrating how difficult it is for the Pakistani military to fight people so well integrated in the Pashtun tribal badlands. Following that failed operation, the Pakistani government reverted to the British model of negotiating with the maliks in an effort to combat the influence of the Taliban and foreign jihadists -- and has been harshly criticized because of it. Nowadays, jihadist insurgents are attacking Pakistani security and intelligence forces in the Pashtun areas in the Northwest.

The parallels between the hunt for the Faqir of Ipi and bin Laden are obvious -- though it must be noted that bin Laden is a Saudi and not a native-born Pashtun. However, many of the challenges that the United Kingdom faced in that operation are also being faced by the United States today.

Aside from the terrain -- a formidable obstacle in and of itself -- U.S. forces are hampered by the strong, conservative Islamic conviction of the people in the region. This conviction extends beyond the tribes to include some members of the Pakistani military and Pakistan's intelligence agencies -- especially those at the operational level in the region. It must be remembered that prior to 9/11 the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency and military openly supported the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies. In addition to the relationships formed between bin Laden and the so-called "Afghan Arabs" (foreign jihadists) during the war against the Soviets, Pakistani troops also trained and fought alongside the Taliban and al Qaeda in their battles against the Northern Alliance and other foes. Because of these deep and historic ties, there are some in the Pakistani government (specifically within the security apparatus) who remain sympathetic, if not outright loyal, to their friends in the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Additionally, and perhaps just as important, many in the Pakistani government and military do not want to kill their own people -- the Pashtuns, for example -- in order to destroy the much smaller subset of Pakistani and foreign militants. The challenge is to eliminate the militants while causing very little collateral damage to the rest of the population -- and some in the Pakistani government say the airstrikes in places such as Chingai and Damadola have not accomplished this goal. In August, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri told television channel AAJ that Pakistan had done all it can in the war on terrorism and that, "No one should expect anything more from Islamabad."

In an operation such as the manhunt for bin Laden, intelligence is critical. However, the Taliban and al Qaeda so far have used their home-field advantage to establish better intelligence networks in the area than the Americans. According to U.S. counterterrorism sources, U.S. intelligence had gathered some very good leads in the early days of the hunt for bin Laden and other high-value al Qaeda targets, and they shared this intelligence with their counterparts in the Pakistani security apparatus to try to organize operations to act on the intelligence. During this process, people within the intelligence apparatus passed information back to al Qaeda, thus compromising the sources and methods being used to collect the information. These double agents inside the Pakistani government did grave damage to the U.S. human intelligence network.

Double agents within the Pakistani government are not the only problem, however. Following 9/11, there was a rapid increase in the number of case officers assigned to collect information pertaining to al Qaeda and bin Laden, and the CIA was assigned to be the lead agency in the hunt. One big problem with this, according to sources, was that most of these case officers were young, inexperienced and ill-suited to the mission. The CIA really needed people who were more like Rudyard Kipling's character Kim -- savvy case officers who understand the region's culture, issues and actors, and who can move imperceptibly within the local milieu to recruit valuable intelligence sources. Unfortunately for the CIA, it has been unable to find a real-life Kim.

This lack of seasoned, savvy and gritty case officers is complicated by the fact that, operationally, al Qaeda practices better security than do the Americans. First, there are few people permitted to see bin Laden and the other senior leaders, and most of those who are granted access are known and trusted friends and relatives. Someone else who wants to see bin Laden or other senior al Qaeda leaders must wait while a message is first passed via a number of couriers to the organization. If a meeting is granted, the person is picked up at a time of al Qaeda's choosing and taken blindfolded via a circuitous route to a location where he is stripped and searched for bugs, beacons and other tracking devices. The person then reportedly is polygraphed to verify that his story is true. Only then will he be taken -- blindfolded and via a circuitous route -- to another site for the meeting. These types of measures make it very difficult for U.S. intelligence officers to get any of their sources close to the al Qaeda leaders, much less determine where they are hiding out.

The areas where bin Laden likely is hiding are remote and insular. Visitors to the area are quickly recognized and identified -- especially if they happen to be blond guys named Skip. Moreover, residents who spend too much time talking to such outsiders often are labeled as spies and killed. These conditions have served to ensure that the jihadists maintain a superior human intelligence (and counterintelligence) network in the area. It is a network that also stretches deep into the heart of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Islamabad's twin city and home to the Pakistani army's general headquarters.

Although al Qaeda's operational security and the jihadist intelligence network have been able to keep bin Laden alive thus far, they have lost a number of other senior operatives, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abu Faraj al-Libi and others. Most of these have been al Qaeda operational managers, people who, by the very nature of their jobs, need to establish and maintain communications with militant cells.

This drive to recruit new jihadists to the cause and to help continue operational activity is what led to the lucky break that resulted in the 1995 arrest of Abdel Basit, the operational planner and bombmaker responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Basit had tried to recruit a foreign student to assist him in one of the attempts to conduct "Operation Bojinka," a plan to bomb multiple U.S. airliners. Having gotten cold feet, the student revealed the plot, thus allowing Diplomatic Security special agents the opportunity to coordinate an operation to arrest Basit.

Al Qaeda has learned from the mistakes made by the men it has lost and has better secured the methods it uses to communicate with the outside world. This increased security, however, has resulted in increased insulation, which has adversely affected not only communications but also financial transfers and recruiting. Combined with U.S. efforts against al Qaeda, this has resulted in a reduction in operational ability and effectiveness.

The tension between operations and security poses a significant problem for an organization that seeks to maintain and manage a global militant network. By opting to err on the side of security, bin Laden and the others could escape capture indefinitely, though they would remain operationally ineffective. However, should they attempt to become more operationally active and effective -- and decrease their security measures to do so -- they will provide the United States with more opportunities to get the one break it needs to find bin Laden.

(Gouge: NC)

-- Christian

Seeing the Counterinsurgency Forest From the Trees

A couple of weeks ago, it occurred to me that when the Petraeus and Crocker reports hit Washington, there would be all these data points and probably little context within which to make sense of them.

So I contacted a friend of mine to see if he would be willing to help Defense Tech and Military.com readers see the forest from the trees as all these Iraq reports hit the press. Dave Dilegge is editor of the Small Wars Journal, a former intelligence officer in the Marine Corps and a frequent strategic consultant and war gamer for the Corps. He’s very tapped in with the Petraeus, Nagl, Kilcullen, Hoffman (both B. and F.), etc. counterinsurgency brain trust, and knows darn well of what he speaks.

The following is an “excerpt of an excerpt” from a piece I asked Dave to bang out for the Military.com Warfighter’s Forum page. I’d ask you to read the more comprehensive piece HERE, and to make sure you bookmark the Small Wars Journal page as you try to wrap your brain around all the conflicting information we’re going to get in the coming weeks on progress in Iraq.

How to Make Sense of the Petraeus Plan...

What follows are historical principles of COIN operations as outlined in the opening pages of FM 3-24.  I've provided some abbreviated commentary on the "things to look for" and potential roadblocks in regards to recent and ongoing operations in Iraq. Again, not to judge, but to provide an insight on how FM 3-24 is playing out in Iraq.

Historical Principles for Counterinsurgency

1. Legitimacy is the Main Objective

This is a big (and elusive) COIN principle (along with Principle 8: "Long-term Commitment") in Iraq - fostering development of effective governance by a legitimate government.

Things to look for: Increased (or decreased) ability of the central government to provide security; selection of national leaders in a manner considered just and fair by a majority of citizens; high level of popular participation and support for political processes; culturally acceptable level of government corruption; culturally acceptable level and rate of political, economic, and social development; and a high level of acceptance by major social institutions. In the near-term, look for movement on legislative initiatives such as the oil framework law, revenue sharing, and de-Baathification reform.

Roadblocks: Shia insecurity about retaining political dominance, widespread Sunni unwillingness to accept a diminished political status, factional rivalries within the sectarian communities resulting in armed conflict, and the actions of extremists such as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and elements of the Sadrist Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) militia.

2. Unity of Effort Is Essential

Unity of effort is essential at every echelon and by every organization - military and civilian - U.S., other Coalition and Iraqi. Well-intentioned but uncoordinated actions can cancel each other out and/or provide vulnerabilities suited to be exploited by adversaries.

Things to look for: Continued close cooperation and coordination between Amb. Crocker and Gen. Petraeus and their staffs - same with coalition partners. Close coordination, cooperation and combined operations between Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) and military units. Expansion of the PRT program to include access to previously denied areas in Iraq. Close coordination, cooperation and combined operations between U.S. military and PRTs and Iraqi security forces (local and national).

Roadblocks: If and when non-military capabilities significantly increase (PRTs - non governmental organizations, international and regional organizations) the challenge of conducting coordinated and complementary operations by diverse organizations with inherently parochial objectives. The Iraqi national government's ability to meet the basic needs of the general population and its perceived legitimacy by a majority are the primary obstacles. Without the Iraqi government there can be no 'political' unity of effort.

3. Political Factors Are Primary

One rule of thumb is COIN is 80 percent political action and 20 percent military action. All military and non-military actions should contribute to strengthen the national government's legitimacy.

Things to look for: Any and all indicators of a true national government capable (or becoming capable) and willing to take on those tasks associated with governance of a country. Solid steps towards national reconciliation is key. Again, movement on legislative initiatives such as the oil framework law, revenue sharing, and de-Baathification reform are critical.

Roadblocks: The precarious state of the Iraqi Government due to criticism by other members of the major Shia coalition (the United Iraqi Alliance, UIA), Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and other Sunni and Kurdish parties. Increase in divisions between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Sadrists and possible alternate coalitions between Shia factions aimed at constraining Maliki.

4. Counterinsurgents Must Understand the Environment

This is much more than traditional enemy order of battle information.  OIF COIN requires a thorough understanding of Iraqi society and culture. Unfortunately, the insurgents hold a home-field advantage in regards to local knowledge. Therefore, to be effective, Coalition forces and other agencies require expertise in such skills as language and cultural understanding.

Things to look for: Increasing and institutionalizing recent and ongoing efforts across the board in cultural understanding in formal military and non-military doctrine, education, and training. Increasing deployment and integrating with Coalition forces of subject matter experts to include "Human Terrain Teams".

Roadblocks: Time, time and more time to train, educate and deploy. Bureaucratic hurdles in formalizing cultural awareness education, training and doctrine. Availability of subject matter expert advisors in Iraq at the tactical level where the vast majority of diverse cultural interaction occur.

5. Intelligence Drives Operations

Without good intelligence counterinsurgents are blind, wasting energy and often causing unintentional harm while conducting COIN operations. With good intelligence they are like surgeons cutting out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact.

Things to look for: A concerted effort to push intelligence capabilities down to the lowest tactical level.  This includes the capability to conduct intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination.  Human Intelligence capabilities are key. Formalized and properly resourced company-level intelligence cells are key.  Increase in Iraqi civilian's willingness to provide intelligence/information to coalition and Iraqi Security forces.

Roadblocks: Time and resources (trained personnel and intelligence-related equipment) necessary to provide tactical-level commanders more than the current ad-hoc capabilities. Standardized TTP to facilitate seamless sharing of intelligence between tactical commands and during hand-over to follow-on units/organizations. Policy issues that place barriers on intelligence sharing with non-U.S. Coalition partners and non-military organizations.

6. Insurgents Must be Isolated from Their Cause and Support

It is easier to separate an insurgency from its resources and let it die than to kill every insurgent.  While killing or capturing insurgents is often necessary, especially when based in religious or ideological extremism, killing or capturing every insurgent is impossible and can be counterproductive.  Insurgents must be cut off from their sources of power - and the key source is the civilian population.

Things to look for: Continued local reconciliation building towards national reconciliation. As in Anbar, an increase in local Iraqi leaders coming forward, opposing extremists, and establishing provisional units of neighborhood security volunteers. Government of Iraq support in integrating local volunteers into legitimate institutions to help improve local security.

Roadblocks: Continued sectarian violence and the distrust it produces amongst the Iraqi civilian population. Continued attacks by Al Qaeda, associated insurgent groups, and militia extremists. Continued external support to insurgents - especially by Iran.

7. Security Under the Rule of Law is Essential

The COIN cornerstone is security for the civilian population. Without that security no permanent reforms can be implemented and disorder spreads. Transitioning security duties from COIN combat forces to law enforcement is key. Insurgents must be seen as criminals by the local population. In OIF Iraqi law enforcement organizations must be seen as legitimate and operating under the Rule of Law.

Things to look for: Increased Iraqi security operations with minimal U.S. support. Increased Iraqi government capabilities to provide essential services. Increased presence of regional and international Non-Governmental Organizations.

Roadblocks: Again, the ability of the national government to provide security under the rule of law and continued sectarian violence, continued attacks by Al Qaeda, associated insurgent groups, and militia extremists and continued external support to insurgents.

8. Counterinsurgents Should Prepare for a Long-Term Commitment

Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Constant reaffirmations of commitment, backed by deeds, can overcome a common perception that U.S. COIN forces lack staying power. The perception that the national government has similar will and stamina is critical. At the strategic level, gaining and maintaining U.S. public support for a protracted effort is also critical.

Things to look for: This is huge, and is a very dynamic and complex issue. Congressional actions that extend U.S. COIN efforts in Iraq or set conditions and timelines for withdrawal. U.S. public opinion polls as Congress and candidates often utilize these polls to formulate legislation and platforms. Iraqi public opinion polls that reflect perception on U.S. commitment and confidence in the Iraqi national government's future.

Roadblocks: The Washington Clock vs. the Baghdad Clock - time allocated by the National Command Authority vs. the time needed to successfully conduct COIN operations in Iraq. Operational Tempo - the ability for U.S. military forces to sustain security operations on a level necessary to allow for Iraqi national reconciliation. The ability of the Iraqi national government to achieve reconciliation.

We look forward to more content in the future here at Defense Tech from Dave and his colleagues at the Small Wars Journal.

-- Christian

Document Alert

The official report of the Independant Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, otherwise known as the "Jones Report"

An excerpt:

The Commission finds that in general, the Iraqi Security Forces, military and police, have made uneven progress, but that there should be increasing improvement in both their readiness and their capability to provide for the internal security of Iraq. With regard to external dangers, the evidence indicates that the Iraqi Security Forces will not be able to secure Iraqi borders against conventional military threats in the near term.

While severely deficient in combat support and combat service support capabilities, the new Iraqi armed forces, especially the Army, show clear evidence of developing the baseline infrastructures that lead to the successful formation of a national defense capability. The Commission concurs with the view expressed by U.S., Coalition, and Iraqi experts that the Iraqi Army is capable of taking over an increasing amount of day-to-day combat responsibilities from Coalition forces. In any event, the ISF will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently over the next 12-18 months.

In the aggregate, the Commission’s assessment ascribes better progress to the Iraqi Army and the Ministry of Defense and less to the Ministry of Interior, whose dysfunction has hampered the police forces’ ability to achieve the level of effectiveness vital to the security and stability of Iraq.

The Iraqi police are improving at the local level predominantly where the ethnic makeup of the population is relatively homogenous and the police are recruited from the local area. Police forces are hampered by corruption and dysfunction within the Ministry of Interior. In some areas, they have been vulnerable to infiltration, and they are often outmatched in leadership, training, tactics, equipment, and weapons by the terrorists, criminals, and the militias they must combat. The rate of improvement must be accelerated if the Iraqi police are to meet their essential security responsibilities.

-- Christian

The Frogman Speaks

The Senate Armed Services Committee held a confirmation hearing yesterday on the appointment of Vice Adm. Eric Olson to become the head of Special Operations Command. Olson would be the first SEAL to reach that component commander rank and would be the first SEAL to take over a community long dominated by the Army.

I’ve had occasion to interview Adm. Olson in the past and far from the image of a spec ops knuckle dragger, I found him open, honest, confident and comfortable with the media. We at DT wish him luck.

Olson sat beside another very qualified colleague at the hearing who’s been nominated to become the ASD for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.

Michael Vickers probably needs no introduction for DT readers, but if you’ve never heard of him, he’s most famous for managing the on-the-ground equipping of the Afghan Mujahaddin and helping defeat the Red Army on that battlefield in the 1980s. I know him well also, and he’s one of the most experienced, thoughtful, forward-looking military strategists in America and he knows all too well the need to reform the connection between special operations forces and other US government agencies in their global campaign against terrorism.

Aside from the story posted this morning on Military.com, it might be helpful to bring to our readers’ attention the written testimony submitted by both Olson and Vickers. You can read their entire submissions by following the links, but I wanted to pull out a few items for closer examination.

Olson on top SOF challenges:

1.) Prioritizing the employment of SOF in order to gain maximum value from this limited asset.
2.) Sustaining the materiel readiness of our high-end mobility platforms in a resource constrained environment.
3.) Transforming our fixed-wing aviation fleet.
4.) Shifting to a more expeditionary deployment posture.
5.) Establishing the mechanisms and agreements with other agencies of government that will facilitate the best utilization of SOF globally.
6.) Maintaining appropriately streamlined acquisition processes and systems.
7.) Growing the force at the programmed rate while ensuring the quality and maturity that the Nation expects of SOF.

…On GWOT lessons-learned:

There remains a need to enhance the Joint Force Commander’s ability to integrate capabilities and capacities of both SOF and the general purpose forces (GPF) during execution of the GWOT in order to create a joint force that is equally competent in irregular warfare as well as conventional warfare.

Three focus areas to achieving this goal are as follows:

There is an overlap of SOF and GPF capabilities. SOF forces are routinely performing tasks that could be performed by existing GPF capabilities or GPF with additional training. Rebalancing GPF structure to mitigate shortfalls in low density/high demand SOF assets is essential to the GWOT/Irregular Warfare (IW)effort.

Our forces will continue to face an irregular enemy. There exists a necessity to move the IW concept to a full scale capability.

Both SOF and GPF forces require enhanced language and cultural training.

Addressing these focus areas would lead to a joint force with enhanced capabilities for IW and a balanced approach to warfighting that allows it to be as compelling in IW as it is in conventional warfare.

Olson also raised an interesting question with regard to the Marine Corps spec ops force. In response to the question of whether Marine commandos should be “SOF for life” Olson said…

Yes, the career path of Marine SOF should be modeled after the other SOF components.

That seems at odds with what the Corps would prefer to do with the operators’ career progression. With such a small force, Marines need the continued recycling of experience back into their “line” forces. One of the selling points in the opening days of MarSoc was the notion that, while a Marine operator may serve longer in the SOF world than a normal “tour” in, say, an infantry or Recon unit, he’ll be put back into the regular force eventually to help seed the grunts with the spec ops TTPs and ethos.

It’ll be interesting to see how forceful Olson is in this approach to shaping the MarSoc command.

On SOF foreign language training:

We need to make it easier for personnel to train by providing greater access to proven, high quality training that can be delivered more flexibly than the traditional classroom but that has proven, measurable, results that are at least comparable to traditional training. Options that have worked well for us include tailored, low student to teacher ratio classes and delivering live training over the web.

Immersion and iso-immersion are training formats that produce significant results in short periods for students who have already attained basic proficiency (level 1). Since CENTCOM rotations make training time even more scarce, immersion and is-immersion training are effective, if costly, means of maximizing the capability gained in the short periods available.

Our current language proficiency (i.e. testing) measurement process has a direct, negative impact on our training programs and, ultimately, capability. Conversing is the key foreign language skill for special operators; however, current test policy, infrastructure, and capacity focus on the read/listen portion of Defense Language Proficiency Tests that are increasingly constructed to serve users whose military tasks center on listening at proficiency Level 2 and higher.

The result is that our instructors focus on read/listen skills to demonstrate their effectiveness and our students focus on read/listen skills to obtain foreign language incentive pay while our key requirement is for speaking. Special Operations Forces language tasks are most often performed in face-to-face conversations. The listening component of these newer read/listen tests is less relevant to our requirements.

Those willing to dedicate the time should be provided a funded incentive. Funding foreign language incentive pay for personnel whose language proficiency is Level 1 or 1+ is important to increasing our capability. Special Operations personnel generally attend courses that target Level 1 proficiency and will train with a regional focus so that subsequent training and assignments will enhance the individual’s capability over a career in SOF. Incentive pay at 1 and 1+ helps bridge the gap from initial SOF capability to higher levels.

Increased provision of role players, in language, across a wider range of exercises will also help to identify deficiencies while cementing the importance of the cultural and language expertise. In the long-term we need to increase the level of our capability and, as previously alluded to, eventually reaching a "closed-loop" for all SOF operators. Regional orientation for specific units will capitalize on training and experience investments while yielding more expert capability.

And, finally, on the Advanced SEAL Delivery Vehicle effort:

The original requirement for a small fleet of manned dry submersibles is unchanged, but it is clear that more than one of the current ASDS platform is unaffordable unless costs can be reduced. The Department cancelled the original ASDS program. As a result only one ASDS hull exists, and only the correction of reliability problems on that hull (designated ASDS-1) remain to be completed. The Fiscal Year 2008 funding is being used to correct these deficiencies through the installation of a series of design and reliability improvements. The Navy will be conducting an Alternate Material Solutions Analysis to determine how to best meet current and future SOF undersea warfare requirements. The analysis will examine a broad range of potential material solutions and will recommend a solution or combination of solutions to satisfy the capability gaps identified in a recent capability gap analysis performed by the Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command. The Alternate Material Solutions Analysis will also include the respective cost estimates for the various solutions. This will be completed by February 2008 and will inform any future program decisions.

Since this post is already getting a bit long, I’d point DT readers to pages 10 – 15 in Vickers’ testimony. The answers deal with questions of major challenges to SOF and transformation initiatives. It’s a fascinating look at DoD-level priorities from one of the principle authors of the latest QDR.

-- Christian

Walling Out the Bad Guys

Walling off vulnerable Baghdad neighborhoods is critical to breaking the cycle of revenge killings in Iraq, according to U.S. Army General David Petraeus' counter-insurgency advisor.

Portable barriers installed between neighborhoods enable U.S. and Iraqi forces to limit the nighttime movements of death squads and insurgents, says Dr. David Kilcullen, a lieutenant colonel in the Australian army reserve who has spent years studying terror groups and methods for defeating them.

"What we've tried to do is put in a series of blocks to stop that cycle [of violence] from running, and if it does run, to reduce the number of people killed in attacks" by limiting the scale and frequency of attacks, Kilcullen explains.

He uses the term "gated community" to describe the walled-off neighborhoods. The first to be enclosed was Sunni community of Adhamiyah in April. The decision to wall of a particular area is made by the U.S. battalions on the ground.

Not everyone was thrilled by the Adhamiyah barrier. "This will deepen the sectarian strife and only serve to abort efforts aimed at reconciliation," a Sunni shop owner told The New York Times.

Noting such objections, Kilcullen stresses that the walls are temporary. He compares them to tourniquets. "It's something you do when patient is bleeding to death. But you don't leave it there forever or it causes damage."

"We had 130 bodies turning up per day in Baghdad due to sectarian violence last year. Now it's around 20," he says, adding that the negative psychological effects of the barriers are outweighed by "the negative effects of people getting killed."

Barriers are only one tactic of the new U.S. approach in Iraq, Kilcullen says. He also cites smaller, dispersed patrol bases, a renewed reconstruction effort and stepped-up air patrols, all intended to "reduce feelings of intimidation" among everyday Iraqis and therefore "create more space for compromise and political reconciliation."

"It's a multi-year activity that we're talking about," he cautions. "We are going to get there, but it's not going to look like the United States."

One of the major remaining obstacles is creating a "single narrative" for Iraq that is embraced by the Iraqi government and its international partners. "We are still in the process of changing form one way of doing business to another. The single narrative the Americans used to pursue was 'they stand up as we stand down.' That was not terribly comforting to Iraqis."

Now the message is that the coalition is focused on creating security, according to Kilcullen. And sometimes, he says, that means building a wall.

-- David Axe

SEAL Mission Creep

With a mandated boost in special operations forces manpower imposed by Congress over the past couple of years, the services are predictably having a tough time getting the right people in the numbers they require.

What the Virginian Pilot reported today about the difficulty the SEAL community is facing finding frogmen to fill out their teams isn’t really all that new. But there’s a line in there that should raise some concerns – and some interesting questions - over the roles and missions of the SEALs.

The article noted the SEAL community can’t meet its recruiting goal, and for good reason. The demanding nature of BUD/S comes with an exorbitant wash-out rate: only one in four will make it through. That, coupled with the expansion of the special operations ranks throughout the services has made it tough to pin on more SEAL badges.

The 14 young men gathered in a parking lot at Little Creek
Naval Amphibious Base came in two basic shapes: thin and muscular, and thick and muscular. Huddled on a patch of grass, they stretched backs, legs and arms as they braced for a physical and mental onslaught intended to test their bodies and psyche.

The calm erupted when a chiseled special operations sailor dashed toward the group with the speed and malice of an NFL linebacker.

"You're going to fail!" he screamed.

But why is it that the Navy needs more SEALs?

According to the report, it’s because the SEALs’ “most crucial mission” of training foreign militaries is causing a strain on the Teams, leaving them less time to train and sending veterans out of the service for more predictable – and lucrative – assignments with private military companies.

SEALs are stretched so thin and strained by the most vigorous deployment schedule in their 45-year history that defense experts warn about their readiness and ability to contain hot spots around the world. These days, nearly 90 percent of Special Forces deployments are focused in the Middle East, leaving other volatile areas unchecked.

Special Forces are needed to train small foreign units to quell terrorist threats within their national borders, Vice Adm. Eric Olson, deputy commander of Special Operations Command, told senators during an April hearing.

It's perhaps the commandos' most crucial mission, he said: "We know that we cannot kill or talk our way to victory."

Now, I understand that training foreign troops - what’s known in the spec ops world as “foreign internal defense” - to head off the rise of insurgencies and extremist alternatives is a mission for all commandos, including SEALs. But Army Special Forces was founded on this mission and is one of their key strengths.

That mission, coupled with unconventional warfare – raising insurgent armies and employing them to meet U.S. national security goals – have been the Green Berets’ stock in trade since the ‘60s.

While they are acutely trained to play in a wide realm of spec ops missions, the SEALs are undoubtedly one of the most skillful direct action forces in the U.S. military. If you want to take down an oil platform or execute a raid in the maritime realm, it’s the SEALs you call. I know they’ve played a not insignificant role in training foreign militaries, but to call that their “most crucial mission” in the global war on terrorism seems like overkill.

The Marine Corps has a new cadre of special operators trained specifically to work low-risk foreign internal defense missions. The so-called Foreign Military Training Units have deployed to Africa, South America and Eastern Europe and as they continue to stand up, should be able to take the strain off of other special operations communities so others can concentrate on the hard cases and on hunting bad guys.

If the SEALs continue to suffer such potential “mission creep,” stand by for more hardship in recruiting – and let’s hope the pressure from on high doesn’t result in a relaxation of standards. SEALs are finely-tuned instruments and it’s worrisome if their optempo is suffering for jobs others could do with less strain.

-- Christian

'Show of Force' Flights Grow

An interesting item published by Inside the Air Force claims that the use of “Show of Force” flights is on the rise.

Ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are increasingly calling for low-level combat aircraft presence during combat operations, in an attempt to help quell violence and reduce the number of civilian casualties associated with bombing urban environments…

…The tactic -- known as a “show-of-force” -- has become such a vital tool in the Air Force’s counterinsurgency operations that tactical air controllers preparing for deployment are practicing the technique during stateside training missions, officials both overseas and in the United States say.

The story jibes with what we reported last week concerning comments made by Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Buzz Moseley, who told us that air power is inflicting the most casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In our story we noted the latest Centcom airpower report at the time showed not a single lethal air strike, but chronicles several “show of force” flights. The Inside the Air Force story seems to buttress our observations.

The Air Force’s May 1 airpower summary shows two air strikes executed with explosive effects, but about six “show of force” missions to disperse crowds or curtail attacks on coalition forces.

-- Christian

The IAF vs Iran's Nuke Complex

Some of the good folks at MIT have just figured how many bombs it would take for the Israeli Air Force to blow up Iran's entire nuclear weapons infrastructure. Apparently, it isn't so hard after all.

For those keeping score at home, here's what the Israelis would need:

(24) 5,000-pound BLU-113 penetrator warheads to collapse the underground centrifuge halls at Natanz

(2) 2,000-pound bombs to destroy the above ground pilot production plant at Natanz

(12) 2,000-pound BLU-109 penetrator warheads to blow up the underground uranium conversion facility at Esfahan

(10) 2,000-pound GBU-10 laser guided bombs to hit the heavy water production plant and reactor site at Arak

But, according to the MIT report, there is one major catch: the air strike on Natanz could fail if Iran's air defenses succeed in downing only two of the IAF's strike package of 24 F-15Is if each is loaded with a single BLU-113.

MIT concludes, however:

"The foregoing assessment is far from definitive in its evaluation of Israeli military potential. However it does seem to indicate that the IAF, after years of modernization, now possesses the capability to destroy even well-hardened targets in Iran with some degree of confidence. The operation appears to be no more risky than the earlier attack on Osirak and provides at least as much benefit in terms of delaying Iranian development of nuclear weapons."

(You can read the entire study here)

-- Stephen Trimble

CoS: Air Power Most Deadly Component

What’s more effective in the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan: air power or boots on the ground.

Well if you ask the Air Force Chief of staff, he’ll tell you it’s his aircraft providing the greatest combat punch.

“[Air Force] Secretary [Michael] Wynne asked the staff last week to look at which component has had the biggest effect on attrition of hostiles. Staff came back and said ‘it looks like the air component is killing bad guys at a higher rate than anyone else…’ I have anecdotal evidence from the staff that says airpower is the most lethal of the components in wrapping up bad guys.”

“…As far as numbers of people killed, as far as wrapping up bad guys and as far as delivering a kinetic effect the air component – which also includes Marine and Navy air, by the way – is the most lethal of the components. I have not seen those numbers … but I thought that was a useful observation…”

I considered that position – which Moseley revealed during an April 24 interview - this morning when I saw the latest air power summery from Southwest Asia on the Air Force Web site:

4/25/2007 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNEWS) -- Coalition airpower supported coalition ground forces in Iraq and International Security Assistance Force troops in Afghanistan in the following operations April 24, according to Combined Air and Space Operations Center officials here.

In Afghanistan, an Air Force B-1B Lancer provided overwatch for a coalition convoy near Qarah Bagh. No attacks were reported after the B-1B's arrival.

U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets provided a show of force for a coalition forces position near Saraw. A joint terminal attack controller confirmed it was successful and no further attacks were reported. The aircrews also provided overwatch for a coalition patrol in the same area.

French M-2000 Mirages provided a show of force for a coalition forces position near Asadabad. No attacks were reported after the M-2000s arrived.

In total, 41 close-air-support missions were flown in support of ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.

Nine Air Force intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions in support of operations in Afghanistan. Additionally, four U.S. Navy and Royal Air Force aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.

In Iraq, Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons searched for mortar positions and improvised explosive device activity near Baghdad. The pilots were then assigned to look for anti-Iraqi militia hiding nearby. They reported the coordinates of three hot spots.

Other F-16s performed armed overwatch for coalition forces who received small-arms fire near Salman Pak. The pilots reported three individuals hiding along a fence near a mosque.

Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs provided a show of force, releasing multiple flares, for a raid near Baqubah by coalition forces. A JTAC reported the show of force was successful. The pilots also provided reconnaissance in the area and reported suspicious activity to a JTAC.

F/A-18s provided a show of force, releasing multiple flares, for coalition forces receiving small-arms fire near Yusufiyah. A JTAC confirmed it was successful and no further attacks were reported.

RAF GR-4 Tornados provided overwatch to look for snipers for a explosive ordnance disposal team near Yusufiyah. The aircrews then were assigned to look for a truck involved in an engagement with coalition forces. The aircrew found a truck matching the description of the truck in the attack, at a building nearby. Individuals were reported to be unloading objects from the truck.

Other GR-4s provided shows of force for coalition forces near a crowd of approximately 250 people near Baghdad. A JTAC confirmed it dispersed the crowd and no attacks were reported.

In total, coalition aircraft flew 55 close-air-support missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom. These missions supported coalition ground forces, protected key infrastructure, watched over reconstruction activities and helped to deter and disrupt terrorist activities.

Fifteen Air Force, Navy and Royal Australian Air Force ISR aircraft flew missions in support of operations in Iraq. Additionally, three Air Force and RAF fighter aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.

Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft and C-17 Globemaster IIIs provided intra-theater heavy airlift support, helping to sustain operations throughout Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa. More than 125 airlift sorties were flown; nearly 410 tons of cargo were delivered, and approximately 2,200 passengers were transported.

Coalition C-130 crews from Australia, Canada, Iraq, Japan and South Korea flew in support of OIF or OEF.

On April 22, Air Force, French and RAF tankers flew 50 sorties and off-loaded more than 3 million pounds of fuel.

Now, I don’t see any bomb dropping in there. But I’m willing to bet soldiers and Marines have been mixing it up in both Iraq and Afghanistan today, with more lethal effects than popping a few flares to disperse a crowd.

I wonder what the ground-pounders will say about Moseley’s – and the USAF secretary’s - conviction that airpower is killing more bad guys than Joes and Leathernecks.

-- Christian

The PooBahs Speak

Four of the nation’s top military strategists told Congress this week what modernization plans they’d scrap and how they’d change military priorities.

These aren’t the dried up formers who populate the news talk shows with punditry based on a limited rolodex of graying colleagues, but men who have been there and done that. The panel of experts included former military brass and Pentagon officials who are involved in policy-making today - giving their opinions greater weight than those from the cable channels.

The list included former 24th Infantry Division commander and Clinton-era Drug Czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey; former commandant of the Army War College and a man who knows military history better than the back of his hand, Maj. Gen. Robert Scales; former Reagan-era Pentagon official and oft-consulted GWOT critic Lawrence Korb and head of the Center For Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Andy Krepinevich.

Scales is heavily involved in current Army war planning and in the development of new counterinsurgency doctrine. Korb is someone the DoD often talks to for his counterpoints of the Iraq war. McCaffrey has a key to the Oval Office - often providing his insight to administration planners and the president. And Krepinevich had been involved in writing the Quadrennial Defense Review and works on a range of strategic planning for the Army and other services.

In a wide-ranging and fascinating hearing this week, the four told lawmakers what they’d do to change the current DoD modernization plans, realigning resources to areas they say will better position America for the conflicts of the future. Their views were sometimes in conflict, but overall, they were remarkably concurrent – and at times, quite radical.

Here’s a synopsis of their views:

Krepinevich:

(Written Testimony)

Take a “sizable number” of the current Army brigade structure and create irregular warfare units capable of counterinsurgency and humanitarian operations.

Create an “advisor corps.”

Create a Multi-National Security Transition Corps-Iraq (MNSTCI) “in a box” to quickly train indigenous forces to take over security in a counterinsurgency/guerrilla environment.

Build a “Joint Urban Warfare Training Center” that takes the current National Training Center adaptations to the next level.

Need to re-evaluate the Army’s nearly $200 billion Future Combat System program. “That’s an awfully expensive way to deal with irregular forces.”

McCaffrey:

(Written Testimony)

Disagreed with Krepinevich on creating counterinsurgency forces and “going light.” The U.S. may have to confront China at some point, he explained.

Didn’t think bringing U.S. forces back from bases in Europe and Okinawa was a good idea, but said since that’s a done deal, America needs to invest heavily in re-constituting its strategic airlift capability. He called the C-17 Globemaster III a “national asset.”

“I love the C-17 as much as the M-1 [Abrams] tank,” he said.

Thinks the future of FCS needs to be figured out by the beginning of 2009 or it should be turned into a semi-permanent R&D program.

Believes foreign language training is so important that the military should pick out service members “by threes and say ‘you’re going to 90 days of language training.’ ”

Said the U.S. needs to “properly” equip the Afghan and Iraqi army with modern gear. Quit pawning off “junk Soviet armor” and sell them equipment that can help them win, including a fleet of modern helicopters. The Iraqis are getting 70 helos which “aren’t enough for them to control the country,” he said. “We need a new ‘lend-lease’ for our allies.”

Korb:

(Written Testimony)

Extend the purchase of Los Angeles class subs, pushing them off into the future.

Cut down on nuclear weapons stockpile and modernization which will save the Pentagon money for other, more pressing needs. “We need to lead by example,” he said.

Stop spending so much money on ballistic missile defense. The program “is the least likely threat … we spend more on missile defense than on the entire Coast Guard,” Korb pointed out, adding that the Coast Guard deals with a much more realistic threat.

“I can’t understand FCS,” he said. The Army has done a poor job explaining what it will do and what it’s for. The Pentagon should slow down its development.

Marines do not need a new amphibious vehicle, he said, referencing the Corps’ troubled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program.

Stop V-22 production and buy more helicopters.

Set a specific withdrawal date to get out of Iraq to help motive the Iraqi army to shape up for its own defense.

Need to continue supplemental spending bills to bring equipment levels back up to meet current needs.

Scales:

(Written Testimony)

Scrapping the FCS program is “dead wrong” (Scales has been a longtime booster of FCS for the Army), though it “needs some tweaking.”

Need to continue to field “heavy” forces – 81 percent of military deaths are with dismounted infantry, mounted infantry face a 10 percent greater chance of survival when mounted.

The U.S. needs a “full spectrum force,” he added, saying if abandon FCS then you’re confining the military to purchase “old Cold War” gear.

Does not agree with Krepinevich’s “specialization” theory, saying troops trained in a variety of missions can do “full spectrum” operations. What’s important are “skills not structure. … Brigades don’t do that, people do that.”

Need to focus on officer and NCO education by creating a “soldier sabbatical” program that allows them to take time off from the service to go to graduate schools and study “alien cultures and the art of warfare.”

I hope this provides a little food for thought as Congress and the administration consider the 2007 supplemental and 2008 base budgets.

-- Christian