Military Affairs

Kilcullen on TV

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Kilcullen, the Australian adviser to Col. Petraeus, has been mentioned several times here. His television appearances lately include an interview with Charlie Rose and a panel discussion with Ali Allawi (former Iraqi Minister of Defense and author of “The Occupation of Iraq”), Jon Lee Anderson (“The Fall of Baghdad”), Phebe Marr (“The Modern History of Iraq”), and George Packer (“The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq”) at the New Yorker Festival. Played twice this weekend on C-Span, it will be repeated tomorrow morning at 6:00 EST. Packer’s profile of Kilcullen demonstrates the New Yorker‘s encouragement of a certain interesting style and its willingness to give a writer space. Earlier references from the extraordinarily knowledgeable Zenpundit: Cutting Edge Military Theory: A Primer (Part I.) and Colonel Kilcullen, the “Surge” and The Guardian

On War, Comprehension and Persuasion

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There must be something in the water lately as I have been getting an upsurge of inquiries and public comments regarding information operations, public diplomacy, “soft power” agents of influence, 5GW and similar matters. There are other blogs I can recommend as being better on this score – Beacon, MountainRunner, Kent’s Imperative, Swedish Meatballs Confidential and Whirledview to name but a few. Also, I would suggest that interested readers search the archives of Studies in Intelligence, PARAMETERS, The Strategic Studies Institute, Combined Arms Research Library and the threads at The Small Wars Council. Genuine expertise may be found there and for discussions of theory and emerging trends, I recommend Dreaming 5GW.

That being said, I will offer my two cents anyway.

One point of agreement across the political spectrum and that of informed opinion is that the USG has not done a particularly good job of managing “the war of ideas” in the conflict with Islamist terrorism. Or against state adversaries. Or with persuading neutrals and even our own allies to our point of view. When you are having difficulty drawing even in global popularity contest with a crowd of bearded fanatics who put beheading videos on the internet, it’s time to admit there’s a problem.

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Learning to Eat Soup With A Knife -Book Review

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Learning to Eat Soup With A Knife
by Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl
University of Chicago Press

In writing Learning to Eat Soup With A Knife, LTC John A. Nagl set out to discover the lessons learned and not learned in counterinsurgency warfare with a comparative study of the experiences of the British and American armies fighting Communist insurgencies in Southeast Asia. Nagl has done so, admirably and concisely; even readers familiar with the extensive literature on the Vietnam War will find many of his examples instructive. More than that, in measuring British success against American failure in waging counterinsurgency, Nagl has pointed to a larger explanation on why complex organizations succeed or fail when faced with unexpected challenges.

Well crafted comparative histories are difficult, even for accomplished historians and Colonel Nagl succeeds brilliantly. The case studies are as well chosen as comparative history might permit; the 1950s’ “Malayan Emergency” of the largely ethnic Chinese and Communist revolt against waning British rule and incipient Malayan domination, and the 1960s’ Second Indochina War that featured massive American intervention in South Vietnam to crush the Viet Cong insurgency sponsored by North Vietnam. The superficial similarities of the British and Americans armies served Nagl well in highlighting the deep organizational and cultural differences separating the two militaries.

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Vindication Is So Sweet

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Way back October of 2004 I posted a critique of a study published in the Lancet that purported to show that:

…about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths.

I called foul immediately, and I ended up writing a series of posts detailing my arguments. Now I find out from Michelle Malkin (via Instapundit) that David Kane, Institute Fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University has authored a paper, soon to be presented, that demonstrates using detailed statistics just how deceptive (my adjective) the original study was.

Kane shows that if the Falluja cluster is included in the statistical calculations, the confidence interval dips below zero, which is a big no-no. Since the study’s raw data remain a closely guarded secret, Kane cannot be absolutely certain that the inclusion of the Falluja cluster renders the study mathematically invalid…

…but that’s the way to bet.

In science, replication is the iron test. I find it revealing that no other source or study has come close to replicating the original study. All my original points still stand.

Ah, vindication is sweet.

Decentralization: Myths of 4G Warfare Part II

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In part one, I examined the myth that Fourth Generational Warfare Groups (4GWGs) do not depend on the resources of an integral state, or do not have a territorial base, and as such offer no target which an opponent can attack or neutralize. In this post, I examine the second myth of 4GW: the myth of decentralized forces.

The myth holds that 4GWGs lack any cohesive or centralized command structure. Instead, small autonomous units strike on their own initiative (at least until the terminal phase of the campaign). If true, this state of affairs would render 4GWGs nearly immune from most forms of military attack. Fortunately, it is not true.

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