Has America Become Neurotic Superpower?

What will I do...What will I do.....

Thomas Barnett steps up to declare that Afghanistan is about more than just the United States. To media driven, war weary Americans who seem to believe that all we have to do is bring all the troops home tomorrow for a return to the heady days of either the late 60's for the Great Society crowd, or the boom times of the 80's or post Cold War 90's for Yuppies and dot.Com's. Compared to other wars, like World War II where some weeks casualty lists exceeded the total for eight years of Iraq and Afghanistan, or Vietnam with some years yielding over 10,000, our human cost touches far fewer, but is used in geometric illustrations The dying marine: What the hell was the AP thinking? to shape policy.

Barnett writes in this week's World Politics Review that the debate over our strategy in Afghanistan has taken a decidedly self-centered tone. He notes that defections are coming from all corners of the political spectrum.

Nonetheless, defections from the "good war" are occurring across the ideological spectrum. On the right, Washington Post columnist George Will has declared it's "time to get out of Afghanistan," while on the left, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi warns that congressional support for more troops is fast dwindling. Most tellingly, that avatar of the American middle, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, now confesses that he fears our "babysitting" job in Afghanistan has morphed into a full-fledged "adoption." In sum, our nation's elite are finally grasping just how far into the future a counterinsurgency/nation-building effort in rugged, backward Afghanistan may extend -- i.e., way beyond the 2010 midterm elections.

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But what's especially odd about this debate is its stunningly self-centered tone: What are America's national interests? How long can America last? How much will America be forced to spend in blood and treasure? What will happen to America's standing if we withdraw? The whole conversation feels like a neurotic superpower talking to its therapist.

At least it took Will, eight years to abandon his support of the current engagement strategy and opt to go the route of off-shore punishment and containment to contain the unruly tribes and suppress the Taliban. Tom Friedman is another story. He went from Teacher, Can We Leave Now? No., By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, New York Times, July 18, 2009 featured in my earlier post, It's The Schools Stupid!

Where he said:

I confess, I find it hard to come to Afghanistan and not ask: Why are we here? Who cares about the Taliban? Al Qaeda is gone. And if its leaders come back, well, that’s why God created cruise missiles.

But every time I start writing that column, something stills my hand. This week it was something very powerful. I watched Greg Mortenson, the famed author of “Three Cups of Tea,” open one of his schools for girls in this remote Afghan village in the Hindu Kush mountains. I must say, after witnessing the delight in the faces of those little Afghan girls crowded three to a desk waiting to learn, I found it very hard to write, “Let’s just get out of here.”

And them finish with

So there you have it. In grand strategic terms, I still don’t know if this Afghan war makes sense anymore. I was dubious before I arrived, and I still am. But when you see two little Afghan girls crouched on the front steps of their new school, clutching tightly with both arms the notebooks handed to them by a U.S. admiral — as if they were their first dolls — it’s hard to say: “Let’s just walk away.” Not yet.

To his current stance this week.

It may still be worth doing, but one thing I know for sure, it must be debated anew. This is a much bigger undertaking than we originally signed up for. Before we adopt a new baby — Afghanistan — we need to have a new national discussion about this project: what it will cost, how much time it could take, what U.S. interests make it compelling, and, most of all, who is going to oversee this policy?

Looks like Friedman has joined Will in asking God to make more cruise missiles to shoot from offshore. Kind of sad to see him go from sticking to our commitment to let's talk about leaving, in less that 60 days.

Back to Barnett, he recommends that we broaden our tent to include Afghanistan's next door neighbors, Russia, India, Iran and China who each have a vested interest in seeing Afghanistan stable and peaceful.

He pulls no punches in criticizing our current path.

Given all that, why don't we hear any American politicians or experts arguing about how we need to spread ownership of this problem regionally, instead of further burning out our own forces and those of NATO? Because for them, that would be handing "victory" over to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or the "axis of diesel" -- signaling, no doubt, the onset of a "post-American world."

Read more: In Afghanistan, It's About More Than Just the U.S.

Riskless War = Losing the High Ground

Small Wars Journal linked this story, Death From Above, Outrage Down Below by David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum in the New York Times Opinion Section.

Their opinion in part:

The appeal of drone attacks for policy makers is clear. For one thing, their effects are measurable. Military commanders and intelligence officials point out that drone attacks have disrupted terrorist networks in Pakistan, killing key leaders and hampering operations. Drone attacks create a sense of insecurity among militants and constrain their interactions with suspected informers. And, because they kill remotely, drone strikes avoid American casualties.

But on balance, the costs outweigh these benefits for three reasons...

Read the whole thing: Death From Above, Outrage Down Below

This next story, goes hand in hand with Death from Above, Outrage down below, and how we are losing the war to win the hearts and minds of those we are supposed to help.

It begins:

With overwhelming firepower, Western armies rarely lose in combat to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. But in the communications battle, the militants appear to hold the edge. The gap has grown especially wide in the Afghan war zone, analysts say. Using FM transmitters, the Internet, and threatening notes known as "night letters" (TIME), Taliban operating from the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan have proven effective at either cowing citizens or winning them over to their message of jihad. U.S. special representative Richard Holbrooke told journalists in March 2009 that "the information issue--sometimes called psychological operations or strategic communication" has become a "major, major gap to be filled" before U.S.-led forces can regain the upper hand.

Read more: Winning the Information War in Afghanistan and Pakistan by SWJ Editors.

Support for the arguments presented above, come from this earlier post at Small Wars Journal, Riskless War Technology, Coercive Diplomacy, and the Lure of Limited War by Dr. Douglas Peifer.

Peifer writes in part:

Few analysts dispute that robots and unmanned aerial and ground systems have already proven very useful at the tactical level, performing the dangerous jobs of IED disposal, minesweeping, and tactical reconnaissance; the dirty tasks of chemical and radiation detection; and the dull duties of aerial reconnaissance, surveillance and presence. Unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Reaper and Predator have rendered valuable support to ground troops engaged in urban combat, and are threatening to displace manned aircraft as the premier providers of air to ground “kinetic action” against insurgents and terrorists.iii Their growing effectiveness at the tactical level has led some to conclude that these systems will have a dramatic impact at the strategic level of war in the medium term future, as unmanned systems and robots become increasingly sophisticated and mainstream. The most enthusiastic visionaries proclaim that in the not so distant future, the United States will be able to wage remote-controlled wars entailing little risk to its military personnel or citizens. Wars, in the words of Peter Singer, will become a matter of “playing God from afar, just with unmanned weapon systems substituting for thunderbolts.”iv A writer for Harper’s, describing the “The Coming Robot Army,” predicts that “Within our lifetime, robots will give us the ability to wage war without committing ourselves to the human cost of actually fighting a war.”

Dr. Peifer draws upon historical examples of Western countries using what at the time were advanced technology to defeat less advanced defenses in order to impose sanctions, win concessions and punish insurgencies. By offering examples ranging from gunboat diplomacy to the use of air power by France and Great Britain to control and punish intransigent subjects in far flung colonies, Peifer builds a case that for the ineffectiveness of riskless war when trying to gain the loyalty and fidelity of those you are trying to bring into your tent.

Read the whole piece. Riskless War.

This all tracks to a couple of posts I had last week, Collateral Damage and A Soldier, His Rifle, His Courage. The current war in Afghanistan is more complicated than Iraq, where much of the country had the human and physical resources to grow and sustain itself as a functioning nation state. Afghanistan lacks all of the elements at this point in time to make that transition. Economy of Afghanistan, Education in Afghanistan, Transport in Afghanistan. If we are to make any kind progress we have to show the citizens of Afghanistan that connecting to the greater world community is better for their children, than what the Taliban offer. This requires not only confronting the Taliban with surgical kinetic force, but with an investment in human terms even greater than the surging battle force we have arrayed to date. The debate we need to have as a nation is whether we are willing to make the kind of investment in what can only be described as a Millennium Project, where we will attempt to move a country's infrastructure and level of connectivity forward 1000 years, in a few decades. The question is has anyone really asked the Afghan people if they want us to do that for them? Or just as importantly, where is the national discussion by our current leadership to convince Americans why Afghanistan matters?

I myself, find compelling arguments for staying. Convincing my fellow Americans is the job of our current administration, now tasked with explaining why we must persevere.

UPDATE: Drone Kills 25; Calls for ‘Moratorium’ Hit New York Times

Mr. Obama's War? - Washington Post

Collateral Damage

Bombing mission Afghanistan

Hawker Beechcraft T-6 Attack Configuration

A1D Skyraider

Stryker Force

Corvette

Reading the 8 May SWJ Roundup by SWJ Editors the articles about Afghan civilian deaths caused by airstrikes on suspected Taliban targets tiggered a flashback of forty year old memories. Air strikes in the proxmity of civilians seem to be our Achilles' heel, also known as Collateral damage that first surfaced during our long war in Vietnam and appears again, as we try to swat suspected sites from 20,000 feet. The lesson lost on most, is that when you kill some farmer's wife or child you will have endorsed a irrevocable contract with the farmer and your enemy to see you dead or gone.

Afghan Civilian Deaths Present US With Strategic Problem - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post.

US Admits Civilians Died in Afghan Raids - Elisabeth Bumiller and Carlotta Gall, New York Times.

Reading these reports bring to mind times in Vietnam when air strikes were called and we would wait to see who would show up. Early in the war 1965-67 often times it would be the A1D Skyraiders, slow moving almost indestructible fighter-bombers who could carry the same payload of a B-17 of World War II fame. The Official Website of the A-1 Skyraider Association.

When the Spads, as they were called, showed up, the ordnance was usually placed right on target as the pilot was able to see where he was dropping his load. The throb of their piston engines played the overture, as they roared in, 20's blazing at a tree line before a package of 500 lbs bombs shredded the enemies lines saving many a trooper to fight another day. If it were the fast movers the F-4's and F-100's, they would come in either at a steep dive bomb slope or zip by dropping their load at speeds that left little chance for correction, hence it seemed that to keep from hitting our guys they would error on the side of caution and often times the ordnance would hit wide of the mark. This is not to denigrate those brave souls flying the fast movers,

they were there to protect us at great risk to themselves and for that they will always deserve my undying gratitude.

But when, we are working in areas like Afghanistan where the innocent and the bad guys are blended into the same soup, we need to consider other means to pick the fly shit out of the pepper.

In a related post, Galrahn of Information Dissemination turns from the sea to look at Wings Over Somalia as a way of furthering the discussion on what to buy to meet the security challenges of the next decade.

I found this link within the post to illustrate that finding a way to put ordnance on target and reduce civilian deaths is getting a lot of traction. AF Mulls COIN Wing, New Planes has solicited 64 Comments » which shows the level of interest in finding a solution to this problem. The reality is, we need to have alternative platforms to preform the missions that appear to be the current bread and butter of the air assets of this nation. The A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" has been preforming this service in Iraq and Afghanistan and as noted, takes an incredible amount of maintenance time to keep them flying. They continue to be up-graded and rebuilt to extend their long service life. But they are getting old and the replacement the F35 is an expensive platform that is yet to be proven. The discussion now centers on finding an light to medium attack aircraft that is better suited to small wars.

The Army and Marine Corps land forces have been in the forefront of adopting to this new environment by adjusting from heavy tracked fighting vehicles to the wheeled Stryker and LAV 25 and the up-armored HMMWV which are more capable of operations in areas like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The challenge for the Air Force and the Navy is to adjust to the conditions that require more risk. Sending out soldiers and airman to confront the enemy close-up will expose them to the enemy fire. I understand the trade off, you are not going to risk a billion dollar investment against the collateral damage that may occur. But, when it does happen, paying off the families survivors is only the tip of the iceberg. When that family, in the traditional law of revenge, allows the Taliban to set up an ambush that kills an American soldier or two, what have we gained? If we strike back by bombing the families compound and kill the rest, their extended families will just sharpen their daggers to be ready to carve another notch in their AK's stock when they draw the inevitable American blood.

The Navy has been finding that sending battleships to chase pirates is turning out to be expensive and not very successful. In response to the tremors to introduce mission capable ships echoing across the blogs,Where is the 10% in the Navy's fleet constitution strategy? and Influence Squadrons - The Next Evolution, to the halls of congress Notes From Last Thursday's House Subcommittee Hearing and onto the desks of planners in the Pentagon is demands for smaller craft that hearken back to the days of sail and gunboats, when sailors would see the eyes of their enemy.

Since this type of war is fought for the hearts and minds of the indigenous people of the nation we are trying to help, blowing them up along with the enemy will only guarantee the enemies success by convincing them that we are the bigger threat. As we remained engaged in Southwest Asia and someday soon in Africa, we need to have the tools to surgically remove the threat without destroying the patient.

UPDATE:

The Small Wars Journal has this post, by James A. Gavrilis, a former Special Forces officer who has served two tours in Iraq, who writes.

One of the most profound changes the U.S. military must make to be effective at countering insurgency is to shift strategic centers of gravity from the physical to the human aspects of warfare.

The nature of counterinsurgency, or unconventional warfare, differs from conventional warfare in a very important way: the population is the center of gravity. We say this, but what does it mean? How does it change operations? How do we implement this idea? Many of our military leaders are still trying to answer these questions. Our military has a predisposition to focus on enemy forces and capabilities and the confrontation between friendly and enemy forces, with little emphasis on the social or political context within which the confrontation takes place.

Read more: A Model for Population-Centered Warfare

This bookends the argument that winning the hearts and minds is the mission and the source code to defeating a counterinsurgency.

Piracy: Dateline Somalia

The hijacking of the United State flagged vessel Maersk Alabama and the retaking of the ship by the crew is the gist of the lore of the sea. It is none too ironic that a ship named for a state who's motto is We Dare Defend Our Rights would not let a few pirates hold them for long. The blogs have been covering this breaking story better than the MSM and with faster spins and analysis. For a rundown of the latest I am linking a few sites that offer the best analysis to date.

Leading off are these two posts from the United States Naval Institute Blog and posted by Galrahn and his colleague Eagle1.

I understand that piracy is not a serious strategic threat to the United States. I also observe the tactics of Somali pirates and observe a 21st century commerce raiding model that should have naval leaders globally very concerned. Something does not have to be a strategic threat to represent a very serious issue the Navy needs to be seriously engaged in.
Just in case someone might be wondering to what degree piracy should be a priority for the United States, and for what purpose we might have a Navy at all, a brief review of the United States Constitution may apply.

Read more:

To Provide and Maintain a Navy…

And Eagle1 write this post which he cross-posted at his site and details a way to beat the pirates without bringing the Marines to kick in the door of Somalia in a massive forced entry.

It’s been noted here (see here) and other places that the Somalia pirates have shifted some of their operations to a sea lane about 400 - 500 nautical miles off the east coast of Somalia. They are able to find ships in that area because despite the vast size of the Indian Ocean, most ships follow time tested routes that save time and fuel and carry them to ports. These routes are logical and well known.Take a look at the nearby maps. At the top is an older map (Map 1) showing the dhow routes that have been sailed since ancient times. There’s a pattern to the flow of dhows. ***

Eagle1 concludes.

Now, I know very well that what I said before about time and money are negative motivators for merchant ships to wait for convoys to be formed. And, after all, the odds of being nabbed by pirates are pretty slim. However, there are some risk adverse ship owners who will accept the convoys, especially if their insurance carrier will lower premiums for convoy participants.
I said it before and I’ll say it again - given a chance - convoys work.
And, if you aren’t going to invade Somalia to take out pirate havens, you don’t really have a lot of other options.

Read more:

How to Beat the Somali Pirates

The master and commander of Information Dissemination the intrepid Galrahn writes this analysis of the conditions, tactics and strategy of combating piracy off Somalia.

Understanding Somali Maritime Conditions

Somali pirates are criminals, not victims. There is a tendency in western society to suggest Somali pirates are victims of conditions of Somalia. Lets be clear, Somali pirates contribute to the conditions in Somalia as much as anyone. Somalia is starving, the maritime region between Somalia and Yemen is currently where the largest maritime migration of smuggled people occurs in the world as people flee conditions in Somalia. The United Nations has a refugee program along the southern coast of Yemen that deals with around 20,000 Somali migrants annually. Thousands more are thought to die annually in that maritime journey, and the smugglers who are engaged in the human trafficking of that area are from the same communities as the pirates.

Tactical Issues

The news folks are talking a lot about motherships, but there is context. Somali fisherman usually tow 3-4 skiffs behind a larger fishing vessel well out to sea, then the fisherman will use the skiffs to fish larger areas of the sea in coordination with the mothership for large catches. The fishing off Somalia helps feeds large numbers of people in the Somalia coastal communities, and for that reason the WFP is delivering food in more urban areas and into land, not along the coastal communities that are able to leverage the Indian Ocean for food.

Policy, Strategy,Technology, and Creativity

There have been zero hostage rescue operations conducted against a ship being held for ransom by pirates. Ransoms to pirates in just the last year have topped $150 million. Counting ransoms, additional operations costs, maritime insurance premiums, labor union requirements for hazard pay in the region, and costs for additional security measures the total cost to the maritime industry in the region over the last year is estimated to be between $500 million $750 million. The total cost of US Navy operations in the region over the same period could be estimated to be around $250 million for piracy alone, so when one adds the costs of naval vessels from China, India, Russia, UK, France, Greece, Turkey, Portugal, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Spain, and Saudi Arabia (plus whoever I forgot) the costs of maritime security are clearly very high, probably higher than the costs of piracy itself.

Read more:

Somalia Piracy - A Backgrounder

The cost of keeping the ships of a dozen nations patrolling an area the size of the State of Texas in an effort to stop pirates that seem to be as allusive as if they were hiding deep in a tropical jungle. The best efforts have only resulted in two uninvolved fishing boats being sunk and a few pirates captured and released or handed over to Kenya for trial at some later date. After reading the above posts I find Galrahn's comments about the U.S. Navy and I would add all the navies of the world lacking in tactical surface situations since 1945.

Galrahn's comments are direct and honest.

I think the inability of the US Navy to do anything about the small stuff like piracy is embarrassing. I think the unwillingness to do it is troubling. Finally, I think the reasons are fairly easy to explain. The number of days the Surface Warfare Community of the United States Navy has actually been engaged in combat since 1945 is less than the number of leap years since 1945. I think it is both telling and incredible that ZERO surface warfare officers have published under a real name an alternative to the much maligned 313-ship fleet produced in 2005. This suggests to me that the surface warfare community, as a whole, has been silenced into becoming an echo chamber absent creativity or constructive friction. It is clear to me that today's US Navy leadership promotes and fosters a culture that is prohibitive to new and alternative strategic ideas.

That is probably a really bad thing for one of the two elements of the entire joint military force of the United States defense establishment that hasn't faced a realistic strategic challenge since 1945. One would think under those conditions, the SWO community would be the most conscience towards insuring they are promoting creative thinking and alternative viewpoints.

In defense, the U.S. Navy did have similar experience in operation Market Time during the Vietnam War. In that war we engaged with brown and green water patrol vessels to interdict arms shipments and support coastal operations with small patrol vessels capable of speed and firepower. But most of those who cut their teeth on this kind of service have long passed into the ranks of the also served or as for one chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee. Now This Could Be a Fascinating Conversation, also courtesy of Galrahn.

UPDATE!

Expanding on issues and ideas raised in earlier posts and by your host above, Galrahn weighs in with this update.

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The current approach taken by the worlds Navy's, due primarily to a highly restrictive Rules of Engagement driven by a law enforcement political policy, has been to use limited available naval resources to consolidate the area to protect as a safe shipping lane and utilize convoy systems when available. This is an effective approach with limited resources, but the problem with this approach is that it doesn't change the security conditions, so the strategy does not have a real goal or achievement to work towards. Understanding the ultimate solution is solved on land, it is also important for the Navy to recognize that long term maritime security means there is work that needs to also be done at sea. The Navy needs to be prepared to discuss options.

Read More:

Observing the Obama Administration Somali Piracy Policy

Barnett Describes How Globalization and Intervention Have Led to a Safer World

Fragile States

Conflict States

Mini Atlas of Human Security

If anyone wants more evidence that Thomas Barnett's Great Powers: America and the World After Bush is on the right track in defining our world since the end of the Cold War, they only have to read Barnett's latest column where he summarizes growing evidence that state on state war has declined to the lowest levels in modern history.

Here are some of the highlights

The just-released "Mini Atlas of Human Security," published by the World Bank and Canada's Simon Fraser University, details the pacifying impact of globalization's advance. That globalization is a direct descendant of America's post-World War II international liberal trade order that has been consistently defended by U.S. military forces in the decades since, but at unprecedented high frequency since the early 1990s.

Armed conflicts worldwide have decreased 40 percent since then, with casualties decreasing by a stunning 80 percent.

Civil wars have decreased in frequency by 75 percent from 1992 through 2005, while the internationalized version of the same now stands at its lowest levels since the mid-1970s, a trend described by the report's authors as constituting the "most sustained decline in two centuries."

The Cold War was not a stable period and should not be romanticized as such by those who now try to sell us the image of "perpetual war" and "chaos" caused by some combination of globalization's advance and America's willingness to defend it with military force.

But, as the report highlights, 1992 marked "the beginning of a sharp decline" worldwide, albeit one unevenly divided between those regions with strong connectivity to the global economy and those lacking such stabilizing ties.

Read more:Thomas Barnett: Globalization and American intervention spread peace

Here is the link to the MINI ATLAS OF HUMAN SECURITY. Take a long look, it is filled with data that at first blush makes several countries like the United State, Great Britain, France along with Russia look like the fabled Spartans for participating in the most conflicts. But if one considers that almost all of these were peace keeping missions or interventions in failed states the pattern begins to change.

Some data, is somewhat misleading. The United State is shown to be one of the countries that used child soldiers, giving the impression to someone uninformed on our laws that the United States uses children in combat on the same plane as the infamous "Blood Diamond" wars. The only way someone under 18 can join the U.S. military is if their parents give written permission when they are 17. It might be further noted that no America soldier under 18 has been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Getting past those first maps will reveal the pattern that Barnett has so adeptly argued since introducing his first book, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century in 2004.

The choice seems clear. We here in the United States have two choices. We can do as the Ming Chinese did in the 15th century when based on the reports brought back from the Treasure Fleets that their empire possessed all that was needed to sustain their cultural and economic superiority and further contact would not be worth the effort. We could wall ourselves off by withdrawing from these trouble spots and erect protectionist tariffs and risk suffering the same fate as China as the rest of the world passed them by in the 19th century.

The rapid growth of globalization would not give us three centuries to see the effect of non-participation take it's toll. The second choice, is to continue to lead in concert with fellow nations, efforts to raise humanity to levels exceeding those already achieved during the past decades as connectivity and economic empowerment has led to more people on the planet living better than any time in human existence.