Recruiting for SWC members because....

[Madhu]

I know some of the well known members quit visiting/participating because of the quality of participants (hopefully I'm not one of "those people") and the focus of the site, topics.

Yeah, I sorta got that vibe and I always hope I'm not one of "those people" too. I try and include links to academic papers to make up for it but what can you do? Not everyone will be interested in the same topics.

All great sites wax and wane, or simply wane after periods of intense interest. I can't think of one site I regularly visit that has the same traffic as in years past.

People get tired of social media, the time committment becomes too much, there is so much competition for eyeballs (look at War on the Rocks and the Infinity Journals), and specialist sites sometimes become overrun by people like me (sorry), outsiders that may ruin it a bit for specialists.

Regular commenters often want to start their own sites too which is the natural function of serial commenting, you start to imagine your own site dedicated to your own interests and with the sorts of participants you want.

[Old Eagle]

Thanks for resurrecting the thread, David.

I read a lot of the threads, but simply don't post as much as previously. Not sure why.

I would certainly like to see Rob, TomO and some of the old timers chime back in from time to time.

I find that folks outside any given discipline often bring new perspectives that we old dogs don't have.

I remain impressed with the overall quality of the forum, and thank the moderators for assisting to keep it that way.

[jcustis]

David, I'll second Old Eagle's comments and say your efforts have done immeasurable good here.

[Stan]

If I could have just 36 hours in a day to manage my interests and still hang onto a job

The old farts are still around and most do wander in as time permits.

Sufficient interesting topics, more than enough intelligent people from every walk of life, just not enough time.

My excuse

[TheCurmudgeon]

OK, first, I have had several beers, so my ramblings may be slightly more incoherent then they usually are, but I feel I must contribute. Right now we are in a funk. The Gentile's of the world are trying to convince everyone that small wars are no longer relevant. (to the theme song of the Beverly Hillbillies) "Near Peer competitors are just terrific, so they packed up their strategy and pivoted to the Pacific". Yeah, you go with that girl. As I heard Barrett say once: "China all grown up ... gonna be a looker." Here is the real deal. The next time troops will be put in harms way it will be in a small war. And if we don't do something about it, we will repeat the same mistakes we have in the past.

I for one am not willing to do that. With alcohol as my witness, I believe it is up to us to make this Journal into something that makes the news. I am not sure how, but I know why. I remember seeing a picture once that was entitled "the long grey line". It depicted West Point Cadets marching out of a fog. The representation was meant to demonstrate that there was a long history behind the Academy, but to me it was more generic (being an OCS type of guy). It represented the Soldiers past, present, and future. We will make the same mistakes again if those of us who have witnessed it first hand don't help find the answers.

To any of you still reading this rant, please, PLEASE, contribute to this journal. Even if you think you comments are not worthy. I asked for help with a project I was working on under the RFI section. I have over 1800 view, but only 47 posts (and half of those are mine). Come on people -- let us know what you think. Your opinion matters! That is why we fought the Germans at Pearl Harbor (sorry FUCHS).

OK, I am done now ...and I need another beer.

Please help keep this endeavor alive. It really is worth the effort.

The Curmudgeon (AKA LTC Stan Wiechnik)

[jmm99]

Da Cur....

2000 views vs 47 posts, over a week, doesn't seem too bad to me. That's 42.5 views per post; and 285 views per day. I've had a long-running thread, The Rules - Engaging HVTs & OBL (from May 2011), with 20500 views vs 166 posts, over ca. 800 days. That's 123.5 views per post; and 25.6 views per day. So, I'd say you beat expectations for what (IMO) was a somewhat specialized topic.

As the other Stan just said, there's a time factor to all of this - as well as the competing influences of the other parts of our lives. I don't sweat the eventual outcome - keep on trucking.

Regards - have a virtual Guiness stout on me

Mike

[TheCurmudgeon]

It is not the the time factor that bothers me. It is that so many people viewed without comment. People, please say something! Even if it is that you think we are crazy. Clausewitz did not cross the Potomac so that you could sit on your ... behinds and not contribute your two cents worth. Samual Adams did not give up needlepoint and take up brewing so that you could site on your hands. It is just not the internet way. Please, for the love of whatever you feel is wholey, contribute!

[Steve Blair]

Part of the challenge is getting people to look back. As cropped up in one of the linked blog posts, at least 2-3 generations of U.S. students and "leaders" have been conditioned to value law degrees, engineering, and the like above liberal arts (including history and geography). People like to forget that during the "good old days" of the Powell Doctrine we were scattering penny packets of troops all over the place in humanitarian assistance, advising, and the like. Like it or not, our military has historically been involved in small wars more than they have conventional conflicts. Even the fiction about Afghanistan being our "longest war" doesn't hold up to historical examination. That's absolutely no knock on the folks doing the heavy lifting there, but between 1865 and 1890 the Army was involved in this little thing called the Indian Wars. It may not look impressive now, but it absorbed about 75% of the Army's field strength (either in garrison duties or campaigning). It wasn't popular "at home" (when people even remembered there was fighting going on), there were locals seeking to make a profit of the government's presence, and West Point didn't even bother teaching tactics to match the environment (they were still busy fighting the Civil War).

I could go on, but the short version is that I agree with both Stans. This stuff is important, and if we don't keep up the chatter too many important lessons will slip away again and have to be relearned the hard way.

[slapout9]

OK, first, I have had several beers, so my ramblings may be slightly more incoherent then they usually are, but I feel I must contribute.

Beer Thinking is often Strategic Thinking

[Bill Moore]

For the group at large, many have commented that here we go again, we're going to forget all the lessons learnt about Small Wars just like we did after Vietnam. What lessons do you feel are critical that we allegedly learned since 9/11 that we are at risk of losing?

This is an important question, because so far no one has really addressed it.

I'll challenge some comments I find to be illogical that are offered up by small wars advocates:

1. DOD pushed the "Rebalance to the Asia-Pacific" so they could focus on big wars and ignore small wars. This is wrong on all accounts. The rebalance to the Asia-Pacific was directed by our National Leadership (not DOD) for very sound strategic reasons. It just so happens that there are a number of potential scenarios in the region that could result in a state on state conflict of significant severity. DOD is focused on preventing those, if that fails we have to be ready to fight. The number of U.S. service members that would be killed in a conventional conflict would most likely be significantly higher than those killed in Small Wars. Bottom line we have to be ready for the unlikely, because the unlikely is more important to our national interests than the very often exaggerated threat from small wars to our interests. Second, there are more small wars in the PACOM area of responsibility than any other. There are over 20 separatist, insurgencies and terrorist movements in India along, and the number rapidly increases as you start moving east through Bangladesh, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, etc. The PACOM conducts FID in a number of countries (at different levels), so no one is exactly running away from Small Wars, but at the same time our leaders have an appreciation of the full spectrum of threats and what ones pose significant risk to us, and which ones simply counter some of our interest.

2. There are more small wars than larger state on state wars. That is very true, and lets hope that remains the case. However, in and of itself that is not a strong argument for the U.S. military to focus on Small Wars, because the vast majority of them we have little or nothing to do with. On the other hand, it is important to note that sometimes it is very much in our interests to engage in Small Wars for strategic reasons (not just because there are more of them).

3. We lost our Small Wars knowledge after Vietnam? What small wars skills did we gain during Vietnam that we lost? I admit many in the conventional army and Marines (especially LTCs and below in the 90s couldn't spell insurgency) may have ignored them, but Special Forces and some elements of general purpose forces were constantly engaged in small wars around the globe since the end of the Vietnam until 9/11. I came in during the late 70s and most of my career was focused on so called small wars and irregular warfare.

4. At the tactical and operational level what did we learn since 9/11 that we need to maintain that we're at risk of losing? I don't want to touch policy an and strategy, because we apparently didn't learn much in that regard. I can think of a few things, but want to hear your comments first.

The point of this effort is to move beyond the empty rhetoric of here we go again repeating history and tossing the baby out with the bath water and identify specific skills and knowledge we're at risk of losing. Once identified we can develop recommended ways to preserve these skills/knowledge.

I'm not convinced our military was as ate up as some of you seem to think. Our guys were doing back to back rotations in Bosnia and Kosovo prior to going into Afghanistan and Iraq, and that was certainly a messy small war by definition. 3d Special Forces Group (many of them) deployed to Afghanistan shortly after redeploying from Africa where they were supporting Peace Operations (small wars in this case), we had a long history of conducting counter narcotics missions globally (small wars sort of), and the list goes on. Go back to the 80s the list gets much more extensive. We seemed to do pretty well initially in Afghanistan with a few extraordinary men, local partners, and bombers. It got stupid when the policy got stupid. We did well in Iraq, to include the SF units working with Kurds who played a significant role in the decisive operations to oust Saddam. It was our politicians who denied we faced an insurgency that delayed the military's adaption to the threat. Not saying big Army was prepared for what came, but it wasn't as simple as some here seem to imply it was.

[Bob's World]

We have learned how to do the wrong things better, but at the same time have somehow convinced ourselves that any strategic failures in the face of that tactical prowess are the fault of others - the host, the congress, the unwillingness to fully commit to a Clausewitzian or Galulaian solution either one, etc.


I for one hope that the primary lesson learned is that we still are not very good at this and that our "new" approaches are no better than our old ones at actually helping some place become more naturally stable; and that forced conditions of artificial stability by our hands are harder to create and less durable to sustain in the emerging environment. They also will remain hotbeds for follow-on insurgencies and recruiting grounds for acts of transnational terrorism.

In the words of Huey Lewis, we "need a new drug."