I got a copy but got diverted by this thing called a job. Still have to read it.Originally Posted by FascistLibertarian
In any case with regards to the terrs and SWJ, we can outpost 'em till their eyes bleed...
Tom
SWJ and the book
It seems to me that we are the decentralized kind of group that Robb argues we need.
The way we bounce ideas off each other is much better than if we had one leader and 9 paid people below them.
Technology has really made this place possible.
If we cant defeat the terrorists we can at least be happy that they cant defeat the SWJ........
Anyways I am re-reading the book and will be posting more of what I think, I hope people are still up for some debating.
I got a copy but got diverted by this thing called a job. Still have to read it.
In any case with regards to the terrs and SWJ, we can outpost 'em till their eyes bleed...
Tom
on page 4 Robb states
"their single most important asset is their organizational structure, an open-sourced community network"
Seems like what we have going on here
Huh?
What book?
"But suppose everybody on our side felt that way?"
"Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn't I?"
Brave New War by John Robb
check out his blog here
http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/
hes wicked (Canadian slang)
Oh, thanks. I'll put on my list.
"But suppose everybody on our side felt that way?"
"Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn't I?"
I got the book but unfortunately I also got a dozen books added to my reading list.
I'll read it on Friday and post some thoughts.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
You can read a book like that in a day? I wish I can do that. It may take me a couple of weeks to get through something like "Imperial Grunts". The subject matter is just too intense. I'll get through a couple of chapters and be mentally exhausted. And one of my majors was History. I guess I'm getting older.
"But suppose everybody on our side felt that way?"
"Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way. Wouldn't I?"
Grad school works your fortitude up.
I have a "stupid" question. What is the difference between low intensity conflicts and small wars?
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
In reality, nothing.
Of course, there are plenty of folks who will argue the toss about definitions - like the 4,000 insurgency definitions we have and the 10,000 or so terrorism ones. Bottom line, if if walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck......
Cheers,
Mark
Last edited by Mark O'Neill; 07-12-2007 at 10:44 AM. Reason: spelling
'Low intensity conflict' was the U.S.' doctrinal phrase during the 1980s and 1990s. In included counterinsurgency, support to insurgency, counterterrorism, and multinational peacekeeping. It was eventually replaced by military operations other than war, then simply operations other than wars.
So, I think there is a difference. "Small wars" would focus on the warfighting dimension. Some things which were part of low intensity conflict--peacekeeping and counterterrorism--would not, to me, be war.
Today, the primary doctrinal and strategy phrases are irregular warfare (IW) or irregular challenges, and stability, security, transition and reconstruction operations (SSTR)
LIC etc
Hi Sam--
To expand on Steve's response a bit (even though you didn't really want to know), we - the USG and US military - have always had a hard time coming up with a descriptive and acceptable term. In 1973, the Army was using Stability Operations. This was after it had used COIN throughout the Vietnam War. In 1981, following from the writing of Frank Kitson - a Brit - the term Low Intensity Conflict (Kitson's term was low intensity operations) came into currency. It survived through FM 100-20 of 1990. FM 100-5 of 1993 introduced the term Operations Other Than War (OOTW) which the Joint community modified in Joint Pub 3.0 to Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW). By 1997 the Army was trying to move away from OOTW/MOOTW and came up with Stabilty & Support Operations (SASO) - haven't we been there before? This year the Army and MC published FM 3-24 the COIN manual, deja vu all over again.
As to Small Wars. I first found the term in COL C. E. Callwell's 1896 publication Small Wars. In 1940 the USMC published the Small Wars Manual. Both volumes address nearly all the types of conflict that are found in LIC, SASO, OOTW, MOOTW, and COIN.
I don't think there really is much difference then, between (among) these terms. My personal bias (perhaps due to serving in the Southcom Small Wars Operations Research Directorate (which began life as the Southcom Low Intensity Conflict Cell [SLICC]) is Small Wars. But I will be glad to discuss substantive issues under any terminology
Cheers
JohnT
PS The only term that has legal currency is LIC. It is found in the Cohen-Nunn Amendment to the 1986 Defense Appropriations Act and creates the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict (ASD-SO/LIC), the only ASD that is created by law.
Last edited by John T. Fishel; 07-12-2007 at 03:23 PM.
I maintain a dissenting view - I think the 'small wars' label tends to be all encompassing. If one took the USMC manual as an example, it is about far more than 'merely' warfighting. That is the reason why it was written - most military people get the 'warfighting' piece - it is all the other stuff rolled into the label (pol, legal, dev etc) that required amplification and expansion. The rational is evident in C.E Calwell's work.
I think the posts have substantiated the view that our lexicon is problematic and remains contested.
Good on ya
Mark--
Just one more word. the term Small Wars as used by Callwell and the USMC 1940 appears to apply to conflicts that involve regular forces and what we today call non-state actors. To me, that seems a good enough definition for a term that, for all the tinkerig, hasn't been improved upon.
Cheers
JohnT
I like the way this discussion is shaping up....
.... though Bill and I did buy the domain name licmootwootwiwcoinsmallwarssasosstr.com just in case.
I bet there was not too much competition for that one!
I can't top that!
Hooah!!! Oorah!!! Hip, hip, hooray!!!
Was about to say the same thing. After all, isn't the consensus view that politics is generally more important than military force in the majority of small wars?
Another term for the mix is "aid to the civil power." The Brits used that one back in the day.
I'll hop on the "small wars" bandwagon as well.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
Make it a 4-some
The very nature of small wars make them high risk because while they ideally are done out of sight, out of mind, they are politically explosive at all times.
Tom
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