English 2006 Archive

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July-August 2006

Complete Edition

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Front Cover

Table of Contents

2 Family and Future: Five Assignments for Future Leaders

U.S. Representative Ike Skelton

The ranking minority member of the House Armed Services Committee offers assignment advice to Command and General Staff College graduates.

8 Advising Iraqis: Building the Iraqi Army

Lieutenant Colonel Carl D. Grunow, U.S. Army

A straight-from-the-field assessment of the current advisory effort and a prescription for what it takes to succeed in Iraq as an adviser.

18 Countering Evolved Insurgent Networks

Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, USMC, Retired

Insurgency is a competition between human networks. We must understand that salient fact before can we develop and execute a plan to defeat the insurgents.

27 Responding to Bolivian Democracy: Avoiding the Mistakes of Early U.S. Cuban Policy

Waltraud Queiser Morales, Ph.D.

Constructive, collaborative engagement with the Morales government, not reflexive confrontation, will better advance U.S. and Bolivian policy interests.

35 Full-Spectrum Analysis: A New Way of Thinking for a New World

Adrian Wolfberg

The intelligence community must shake cold war thinking and move to “full-spectrum analysis,” the intelligence analogue to full-spectrum operations.

43 USAF Relevance in the 21st Century: A First-Quarter Team in a Four-Quarter Game

Major Andrew S. Kovich, U.S. Air Force

It’s time the Air Force remade itself into a service that provides robust, joint-oriented capabilities across the range of military operations.

WRITING COMPETITION WINNERS

1st Place COIN Competition

50 Producing Victory: Rethinking Conventional Forces in COIN Operations

Lieutenant Colonel Douglas A. Ollivant, U.S. Army

First Lieutenant Eric D. Chewning, U.S. Army

The combined arms maneuver battalion, partnering with indigenous security forces and living among the population it secures, should be the basic tactical unit of counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare.

2nd Place COIN Competition

60 Unit Immersion in Mosul: Establishing Stability in Transition

Major Paul T. Stanton, U.S. Army

Tactical units living and working with the population provide the flexibility to gather and disseminate information, influence host-nation political development, and neutralize threat activity.

1st Place DePuy Competition

71 Hezbollah’s Employment of Suicide Bombing during the 1980’s: The Theological, Political, and Operational Development of a New Tactic

Captain Daniel Isaac Helmer, U.S. Army

Far from being irrational, suicide bombing was conceived to be a militarily effective, theologically justified means to achieve political goals.

LATIN AMERICA

83 A Dragon in the Andes? China, Venezuela, and U.S. Energy Security

Daniel P. Erikson

What should U.S. policymakers do about the deepening ties between China and Venezuela’s anti-American leftist president Hugo Chávez?

90 Castro’s Tactics of Control in Cuba

José Ramón Ponce Solozábal

A former population-control expert under Castro describes how totalitarian regimes systematically and scientifically subjugate their people.

STAND ALONE

101 The All-Volunteer Army: Can We Still Claim Success?

Major General Walter L. Stewart Jr., U.S. Army National Guard, Retired

The conventional center-of-gravity concept can be reconciled with effects-based operations to assist Army planners.

108 Cultural Awareness and Irregular Warfare: French Army Experience in Africa

Colonel Henri Boré, French Army, Retired

French forces are active in Senegal, Djibouti, and elsewhere in Africa, the world’s next hot spot. Here’s how they train for and execute their missions.

INSIGHTS

112 Our Strategic Intelligence Problem

Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, U.S. Army, Retired

The intelligence community and the policymakers who consume its products need a dose of cold, hard reality.

112 BOOK REVIEWS

 

CONTEMPORARY READINGS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL

120 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

 

121 Free Unit Subscriptions

 

Unit subscriptions are free and based on the following distribution.

September-October 2006

Complete Edition

The complete edition as well as all articles are in pdf format. Complete issues may have large file sizes that may take some time to download. Individual articles can be accessed by clicking on the article title below.

Front Cover

Table of Contents

2 American Military Performance in Iraq

F.J. Bing West

The respected analyst of military affairs offers 11 trenchant observations on the war in Iraq.

8 The Human Terrain System: A CORDS for the 21st Century

Jacob Kipp, Ph.D.

Lester Grau

Karl Prinslow

Captain Don Smith III, U.S. Army

Soon to be fielded, the Human Terrain System should help the Army seize the new high ground—peoples and populations.

16 Networks: Terra Incognita and the Case for Ethnographic Intelligence

Lieutenant Colonel Fred Renzi, U.S. Army

To analyze dark networks like Al-Qaeda, we need more than cultural awareness. We need ethnographic intelligence.

24 Organizing Intelligence for Counterinsurgency

Kyle Teamey

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Sweet, U.S. Army

Two contributors to the new counterinsurgency field manual provide a how-to for adapting intelligence practices to the current fight.

30 Intelligent Design: COIN Operations and Intelligence Collection and Analysis

Major Dan Zeytoonian, U.S. Army, et al.

The methodology for IPB—intelligence preparation of the battlefield—has undergone a wholesale change from cold war days.

38 The XVIII Airborne Corps on the Ground in Iraq

Lieutenant General John R. Vines, U.S. Army

The Corps’s commander discusses the operational environment in Iraq, the challenges of theater battle command, and the need to reengineer our predeployment training.

47 Battlefield Victories and Strategic Success: The Path Forward in Iraq

Lieutenant Colonel Chris Gibson, U.S. Army

Called upon to help stabilize both Mosul and Tal Afar, 2-325 Infantry learned valuable lessons about how to win in COIN.

LATIN AMERICA

60 China’s Presence in Latin America: A View on Security from the Southern Cone

Admiral Alejandro Kenny, Argentine Navy, Retired

Using the soft power of its booming economy, China has become an integral player in Latin America.

67 Civilian-Military Relations in Latin America

Dr. Thomas C. Bruneau

Dr. Richard B. Goetze Jr., Major General, U.S. Army, Retired

Bruneau and Goetze argue that Latin American political leaders can no longer afford to be laissez-faire toward their militaries.

WRITING COMPETITION WINNERS

2nd Place DePuy Competition

75 U.S. National Security Policy: Framing an Authentic Preemptive Strategy in the 21st Century

Major Todd Schmidt, U.S. Army

In a seeming paradox, an effective preemptive national security policy must focus on improving the security of individuals across the globe.

3rd Place DePuy Competition

84 Statistics, Real Estate, and the Principles of War: Why There is No Unified Theory of War

Dr. Jan S. Breemer

Because insurgency differs from conventional war, and both differ intrinsically from nuclear war, the principles of war must also differ from conflict to conflict.

STAND ALONE

90 Viewing the Center of Gravity through the Prism of Effects-Based Operations

Major Robert Umstead, U.S. Air Force

Lieutenant Colonel David R. Denhard, U.S. Air Force

The conventional center-of-gravity concept can be reconciled with effects-based operations to assist Army planners.

96 The Expeditionary Sailor in the War on Terror

Captain J. Lee Johnson, U.S. Navy, Retired

The Navy is making broader contributions to the ongoing operations in Iraq and the Global War on Terrorism.

100 It’s Time for a New Round of OER Reform

Lieutenant Colonel Dennis P. Chapman, U.S. Army, National Guard

Inflation continues to haunt the officer evaluation reporting system. Changing to “cohort reporting” might finally exorcise this demon.

INSIGHTS

103 Modernizing U.S. Counterinsurgency Practice: Rethinking Risk and Developing a National Strategy

Sarah Sewall

To win in Iraq, we must overcome our cultural aversion to casualties, and our civilian leaders must take control of the overall effort.

109 The Leadership Battlebook: A Practical Approach to Leader Self-Development

Lieutenant Colonel Ted A. Thomas, U.S. Army, Retired

One way to turn leader self-development from a good idea into an active pursuit is to write it all down.

112 BOOK REVIEWS

 

CONTEMPORARY READINGS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL

121 Free Unit Subscriptions

 

Unit subscriptions are free and based on the following distribution.

November-December 2006

Complete Edition

The complete edition as well as all articles are in pdf format. Complete issues may have large file sizes that may take some time to download. Individual articles can be accessed by clicking on the article title below.

Front Cover

Table of Contents

2 Anatomy of a Successful COIN Operation: OEF Philippines and the Indirect Approach

Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Wilson, U.S. Army

Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines offers a template for how to succeed in counterinsurgency.

13 Vertical versus Horizontal Media: Using Agenda-setting and Audience Agenda-melding to Create Public Information Strategies in the Emerging Papyrus Society

Colonel Donald L. Shaw, Ph.D., U.S. Army, Retired

Dr. Bradley J. Hamm

Thomas C. Terry

People now get their news from a mix of old (mass media) and new (niche media) sources. The change has profound implications for our armed services.

26 Why We Need to Reestablish the U.S. Information Agency

Michael J. Zwiebel

Since 1999, when the USIA was abolished, U.S. public diplomacy efforts have been spotty. Reestablishing the old agency would be one way to fix a glaring problem.

36 Are the Maras Overwhelming Governments in Central America?

Steven C. Boraz, Ph.D.

Thomas C. Bruneau, Ph.D.

Large, well organized, and ruthlessly competent street gangs threaten Latin America’s newest democracies.

41 Osama bin Laden’s Global Jihad: Myth and Movement

Colonel John W. Jandora, Ph.D., U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, Retired

One way to defuse Al-Qaeda is to attack the rationale behind its leader’s pronouncements.

CURRENT OPERATIONS

51 Attacking Insurgent Space: Sanctuary Denial and Border Interdiction

Colonel Joseph D. Celeski, U.S. Army, Retired

Patrolling the capital’s streets is only one part of an effective counterinsurgency campaign. The counterinsurgent must also take care of border areas.

58 Training Indigenous Security Forces at the Upper End of the Counterinsurgency Spectrum

Colonel John R. Martin, U.S. Army, Retired

Success in training indigenous security forces hinges on training and equipping to standard, using transition teams to develop leaders, and establishing partnerships with coalition forces.

TRANSFORMATION

65 Coalition Interoperability: ABCA’s New Focus

General Richard A. Cody, U.S. Army

Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Maginnis, U.S. Army, Retired

A revitalized ABCA (American, British, Canadian, and Australian armies) Program is providing relevant interoperability solutions for operations in the War on Terror.

69 Transforming Army Intelligence

Lieutenant General John F. Kimmons, U.S. Army

Faced with a wily, ruthless enemy, the Army is transforming intelligence at the brigade-combat-team level.

CULTURAL AWARENESS

73 Avoiding the Cookie-Cutter Approach to Culture: Lessons Learned from Operations in East Africa

Major Christopher H. Varhola, U.S. Army Reserves

Lieutenant Colonel Laura R. Varhola, U.S. Army

Lessons from the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa suggest that the Army still has much to learn about how culture affects military operations.

79 Advances in Predeployment Culture Training: The U.S. Marine Corps Approach

Barak A. Salmoni, Ph.D.

The Marine Corps’ Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning is providing leading-edge culture training to deploying Marine units.

89 The Army’s New TRADOC Culture Center

Major Remi Hajjar, U.S. Army

TRADOC’s new Culture Center at Fort Huachuca is a key first step toward developing an Army-wide cultural awareness program.

93 Combat Motivation

Colonel Fernando Rodrigues-Goulart, Army of Brazil

What makes a Soldier risk his or her life on the battlefield? To ascertain why, an ally reviews some of the literature on combat leadership.

INSIGHTS

97 Military Planning for a Middle East Stockpiled with Nuclear Weapons

Richard Russell, Ph.D.

Iran’s bid to acquire nuclear weapons could lead to a Middle East bristling with missiles. The U.S. military should start looking at its options now.

102 BOOK REVIEWS

 

CONTEMPORARY READINGS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL

109 2006 Annual Index and Letters

 

121 Baghdad April

Dr. Steven Metz

Who would have thought even minutes ago; Black Hawk swept from the taupe; Medieval California Kuwait to the quivering sandust of Talil; Sweat, Al-Hilah, Marine bird, older than damp crew, machine; Smell, vibration ammo cammo scraped paint web belts, still; Tighten gray roar and chaos, nose down, brown. Just get us there.

COIN Reader - Special Edition

Complete Edition

The complete edition as well as all articles are in pdf format. Complete issues may have large file sizes that may take some time to download. Individual articles can be accessed by clicking on the article title below.

Front Cover

Preface

Table of Contents

SEP-OCT 2004

2 Winning the War of the Flea: Lessons from Guerrilla Warfare

Lieutenant Colonel Robert M. Cassidy, U.S. Army

America’s enemies use guerrilla tactics to protract the war in Iraq and to erode America’s will.

MAY-JUNE 2005

8 Best Practices in Counterinsurgency

Kalev I. Sepp, Ph.D.

Studying the past century’s insurgent wars can help us discern “best practices” common to successful COIN operations.

JULY-AUG 2005

13 Winning the Peace: The Requirement for Full-Spectrum Operations

Major General Peter W. Chiarelli, U.S. Army

Major Patrick R. Michaelis, U.S. Army

Task Force Baghdad’s campaign plan created the conditions to keep our soldiers safe and our homeland sound.

NOV-DEC 2005

27 Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations

Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, British Army

U.S. Army Transformation needs to focus less on its warfighting capability and more on developing a workforce that is genuinely adaptive.

41 Operation Knockout: COIN in Iraq

Colonel James K. Greer, U.S. Army

In November 2005, coalition and Iraqi forces again demonstrated the flexibility and agility needed in successful COIN operations.

JAN-FEB 2006

45 Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq

Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, U.S. Army

The Army has gained a great deal of experience in Iraq and Afghanistan about COIN operations. Here, one of the Army’s most experienced commanders details 14 lessons learned.

56 The Object Beyond War: Counterinsurgency and the Four Tools of Political Competition

Montgomery McFate, Ph.D.

Andrea V. Jackson

Beating the opposition requires COIN forces to make it worthwhile for the civilian population to support the government. How? By providing security—or taking it away.

MAR-APR 2006

70 So You Want to Be an Adviser

Brigadier General Daniel P. Bolger, U.S. Army

One of the Army’s top advisers in Iraq offers a vivid description of what it is like to train Iraqi security forces.

77 CORDS: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam for the Future

Dale Andrade

Lieutenant Colonel James H. Willbanks, U.S. Army, Retired, Ph.D.

Historians Andrade and Willbanks describe how the Civil Operations Revolutionary Development and Support (CORDS) program worked in Vietnam. A similar program might work in Iraq.

92 Unity of Effort and Victory in Iraq

Major Ross Coffey, U.S. Army

An innovative solution to the unity of effort in Vietnam, CORDS offers a blueprint for realizing the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.

MAY-JUNE 2006

103 Massing Effects in the Information Domain—A Case Study in Aggressive Information Operations

Lieutenant General Thomas F. Metz, U.S. Army, et al.

III Corps’s former commander in Iraq is “absolutely convinced that we must approach IO in a different way and turn it from a passive warfighting discipline to a very active one.”

114 The Decisive Weapon: A Brigade Combat Team Commander’s Perspective on Information Operations

Colonel Ralph O. Baker, U.S. Army

Based on his experiences in Baghdad, Baker tells us how the 1st Armored Division’s 2BCT improvised an effective tactical IO program.

134 “Twenty-Eight Articles”: Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency

Lieutenant Colonel David Kilcullen, Ph.D., Australian Army

Plain speaking from an experienced ally about how to do counterinsurgency at the tactical level.

JUL-AUG 2006

140 Advising Iraqis: An Operating Philosophy for Working with the Iraqi Army

Lieutenant Colonel Carl D. Grunow, U.S. Army

A straight-from-the-field assessment of the current advisory effort and a prescription for what it takes to succeed in Iraq.

150 Countering Evolved Insurgent Networks

Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, USMC, Retired

Insurgency is a competition between human networks. We must understand that salient fact before we can develop and execute a plan to defeat the insurgents.

159 Producing Victory: Rethinking Conventional Forces in COIN Operations

Lieutenant Colonel Douglas A. Ollivant, U.S. Army

First Lieutenant Eric D. Chewning, U.S. Army

The combined arms maneuver battalion, partnering with indigenous security forces and living among the population it secures, should be the basic tactical unit of counterinsurgency warfare.

169 Unit Immersion in Mosul: Establishing Stability in Transition

Major Paul T. Stanton, U.S. Army

Tactical units living and working with the population “provide the flexibility to gather and disseminate information, influence host-nation political development, and neutralize threat activity.”

SEP-OCT 2006

180 Networks: Terra Incognita and the Case for Ethnographic Intelligence

Lieutenant Colonel Fred Renzi, U.S. Army

To analyze dark networks like Al-Qaeda, we need more than cultural awareness. We need ethnographic intelligence.

188 Intelligent Design: COIN and Intelligence Collection and Analysis

Major Dan Zeytoonian, U.S. Army, et al.

The methodology for IPB—intelligence preparation of the battlefield—has undergone a wholesale change since the cold war days.

200 Advertisments and Final Remarks

 

Military Review Unit Subscriptions, Center for Army Lessons Learned, Combat Studies Institute, Galula on Adapting ROE to an Insurgency, Galula on Ideology and Propaganda