I'd love to see a poll where we find out just how many presidential candidates could identify who Muqtada al-Sadr actually was, or what religious sect he was from.
I'm betting we'd see a pass rate under 50%.
"Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"
The Eaglet from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
To be fair, Lind didn't say America should (or more importantly, could) put Sadr in charge. He wrote: "The one chance of victory we have left is to get out of the way of al-Sadr and anyone else in Iraq who might be able to re-create an Iraqi state"...
Obviously Sadr is not a good guy, but from what I understand he is far more of an Iraqi nationalist than most of the Shiite parties, like SCIRI (forget their new name), which are closer to Iran.
Of course, if we had a real deal with Iran, that wouldn't be as big a plus. Surprised no one has mentioned Lind's talk of rapprochement, that seemed to me to be the boldest thing in the article.
Metz said:
Unlike West and Coulter, Limbaugh actually supports Gen. Petraeus and the counterinsurgency strategy he is implementing in Iraq. He wants to see the military be given a chance to succeed. I am not sure what you would find wrong with that.But Lind (and Luttwak) I would think actually want to be taken seriously by policymakers. Writing stuff like this erodes that possibility. What worries me is that while most people who are in a position to influence policy realize that West, Coulter, Limbaugh etc are entertainers and not policy analysts, there are people who take Lind (and Luttwak) seriously.
Al-Sadr as an alternative? Really? Thats a new level of insanity I hadn't considered before. Al-Sadr is setting himself and the MM as the new Hizballah/Hamas of Iraq. He has spent the last year separating the MM from the government and playing tight with Iran. Iran is playing bth SCIRI and the MM but a well tuned and compliant proxy force in Iraq that ignores the central government and empowered with hard killing advanced weapons like EFPs is in their interest and has already yielded long term resuslts in Lebanon. Hala Jaber's Hezbollah-Born with a Vengence (1st Edition) really captures this strategy of enter, ignore, supply Charity, build trust then build an army.. the MM have it sort of backwards but they did stand up to the US army three years ago and that bought a measure of respect. Enough respect to be a deal-maker or breaker to PM Maliki. He is intending to go on his own with the IRGC supporting him, but will the Badr and SCIRI allow it ... MAS is not someone we should bank on.
Putting Foot to Al Qaeda Ass Since 1993
Very good article in the Jul 07 Jane's Intelligence Review: Shia backlash - Anti-coalition Sadrist factions in Iraq, for those with access:Originally Posted by Abu Buckwheat
I also want to second Abu Buckwheat's recommendation of Hala Jaber's Hezbollah-Born with a Vengence....Although many Iraqi Shia groups are highly suspicious of Iranian motives, they are also in desperate need of financial and logistics support, as well as training. It is notable that Tehran's military assistance comprises weapons that are principally for use against coalition forces and bases - stand-off weapons such as armour-piercing roadside bombs, sniper rifles and indirect fire weapons. Tehran has also sought to dissuade its clients from undertaking internecine attacks and has acted as an intermediary in recent clashes between factions in Basra and other areas of southern and central Iraq.
This focus on anti-coalition attacks has opened up new relationships between Iran and the break-away Sadrist militias that are opposed to Iranian influence. Instead of courting Moqtada al-Sadr to attain high-level influence over the Sadrist movement, the Iranians appear to be taking a grassroots approach to influence the smaller militias....
"Speak English! said the Eaglet. "I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do either!"
The Eaglet from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland
1. Nothing against Mr Lind personally, except I think his writing and agendas have damaged US military thought, almost beyond repair and sowed confusion where none was needed.
2. Could someone tell me WHY D.O. is required? Not why the USMC wants to do it, but why anyone would be doing it?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I think in many circles the whole DO thing fits into similar theoretical constructs that deal with satellite patrolling, ink drop tactics, hive theory, etc.
Besides the sexy factor, I believe that the only reasonable and rational impetus comes from a desire to reduce the size of our formations (from an enemy targeting perspective). I haven't really tuned myself in to even why the Marine Corps wants to do it, since I heard from sources inside the issue what the equipment headaches would look like.
We are struggling to field even decent individual webbing equipment to the whole force, so I cast a dim eye when doctrinal constructs lean on technology (e.g. we get more capable optics, but don't train folks well on the basic Steiners we already have) too much.
Wilf,
What interests me about Lind's writings is the whole non-nation state enemy idea. It has serious implications for law enforcement. I know there's always been battles between a nation's military forces and networks, tribes, cartels, mafias, etc., but Lind seems to be talking about them having a "monopoly" on violence in the future. If that turns out to be true then LE will be a bigger player than ever before.
As far as MW, DO, 4GW and other Lind ideas go, I don't know. He may be out to lunch from a military perspective. But I read Lind from an LE perspective.
"Pick up a rifle and you change instantly from a subject to a citizen." - Jeff Cooper
I thought about your question above in more depth as I drove home from work today. As I said above, I'm a little on the fringe when it comes to what Colonels and Generals alike have said about why we need DO, but at the core (and beyond the sexiness) I think the impetus may be an urge to match enemy assymetric capabilities.2. Could someone tell me WHY D.O. is required? Not why the USMC wants to do it, but why anyone would be doing it?
Think of Taliban/AQ elements in the Afghanistan context. We haven't done that good of a job running them to ground while lumbering around in large formations. In the current scheme of things, the lowest-level unit capable of extended and independent operations may be X size. Well, we aren't killing a lot of bad guys with X size units, so some probably feel we need to reduce our signature and footprint in order to gain that edge in surprise.
The problem is that while it may have worked okay enough when both antagonists in a conflict were foreigners (Germans vs. Commonwealth in N. Africa...Chindits vs. Japanese in S.E. Asia...etc.) in a strange land, things become a bit more tenuous when the enemy is swimming in the sea and you're nothing more than a fisherman trying to avoid falling out of the canoe. That's why I think we need to have the ability to revert to DO when the time/space permits itself, but we are in for an ass-whoopin' if we want to kid ourselves that that is the only way to go, and we can just aggregate to meet larger threats.
Well let's not forget LE was originally a military task. The dividing line between LE and Military is pretty blurred sometimes. We, the British, got it more right than most in terms of our colonial experience.
To my mind, LE is about countering commercial endeavours, while military is about countering violent political endeavours. Where they cross, you get the fusion or synthesis of the two areas (or should). Look at Colombia, Sierra Leone and the Niger delta for a snap shot of this type of event. Where the enemy are your countrymen, and/or acting in your sovereign territory, then the police should have primacy.
...now pretty much all the serious thinkers in this area, including yourself, can reach this conclusion without too much trouble, yet Lind seems to live in some other reality where supporting the idea, regardless of the evidence, seems paramount.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Humbled by your concern!
Excellent point and I have high lighted your very useful insight. Many thanks!The problem is that while it may have worked okay enough when both antagonists in a conflict were foreigners (Germans vs. Commonwealth in N. Africa...Chindits vs. Japanese in S.E. Asia...etc.) in a strange land, things become a bit more tenuous when the enemy is swimming in the sea and you're nothing more than a fisherman trying to avoid falling out of the canoe. That's why I think we need to have the ability to revert to DO when the time/space permits itself, but we are in for an ass-whoopin' if we want to kid ourselves that that is the only way to go, and we can just aggregate to meet larger threats.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
A while back I finally found an affordable paperback copy of The Maneuver Warfare Handbook by William S. Lind. I thought it was a very impressive book especially the appendix by Colonel Wyly "The Fundamentals Of Tactics."
He lists 5:
1-Surfaces and Gaps
2-Mission Tactics
3-The Main Effort
4-Concept Of The Objective
5-Concept Of The Reserve
On other threads we have had discussions of some of the liabilities of the MW concept but when I read the original book I don't see any problems with it. In fact it may be very useful to adopt MW thinking in our War On Terrorism or what ever we are now calling it.
One concept that comes to mind immediately is the Main Effort. Colonel Wyly points out that this may be the most important concept of all and indeed it makes sense to me. Our fundamental problem seems to be that we do not have a Main Effort in the WOT. Thoughts and Comments?
Somewhere I just heard Wilf's head explode......
Actually, I tend to think that MW is like any other concept...there is good in it, but when carried to bizarre extremes of dogmatism it becomes bad. The same can be said for the XGW theories of warfare, reliance on conventional (or nuclear) deterrence and so on.
"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
I thought that booklet was actually quite good at the time when I read it, but that was years ago. There's worse stuff available. It sounded at times quite like a very, very long statement of belief.
Today I would likely begin to criticize many things in that booklet that began to differ from my views in the meantime, but that doesn't mean much. This will be unavoidable with every book until I completed my own one.
I came across Lind's book in the back of a library, and remembering this thread and your recommendation I picked it up. Very easy to read - got through it in a few hours.
I am not convinced, however, having weighed up the criticisms for and against MW. It seems to be a great framework 70% of this time, which renders it somewhat flawed as a construct for fighting your wars.
I did like the importance by Lind and later Col Wyly stressed upon recon-pull. It's common sense but something I have never done or seen done well, being happier to palm off 'recce' to Bn elm and then wander (bumble?) around as a Pl complete, without a recce screen fd. Live and learn.
In explaining battlefield success as a series of belief statements as Fuch termed it I think Lind is right for the wrong reasons. The MW Handbook makes it sound very easy, but I doubt the utility of the ideas when the going gets tough and you have to go head to head with the enemy's strength.
My preference is for working to Stephen Biddle's 'Modern System' he outlined in Military Power. While his work was not prescriptive for success ala a handbook, he outlined the reasons behind mission comd, dispersion, depth, combined arms, fire and manoeuvre etc in a way that I found faultless. The unfortunate thing is that he does not offer quick 'cheats' to success as Lind does, possibly because there is no such thing as quick fixes to warfighting success.
Further, I think MW is perfectly suited to the likes of the Israeli's who have inbred initiative and msn command into their organisational culture. I think the British system is far more disposed towards methodical, concentrated deliberate operations against enemy strength as opposed to the flash, sexy MW image. Trying to impose or achieve highly decentralised tactics won't work as effectively in this culture, and ignoring the aesthetic attractions of military ballet ala MW, the last century of Anglo-Saxon dominance on the battlefield has been achieved without MW philosophy.
While I'm being overly critical as to the merits of the concept, I did enjoy the handbook and found it a very good thought-provoking read that deserves a second going-over in the future.
'...the gods of war are capricious, and boldness often brings better results than reason would predict.'
Donald Kagan
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