GWOT... Nope. Long War... Nope. Overseas Contingency Operation... Yes!

[Schmedlap]

If people are concerned about the funding and others think that the naming game is a lot of bluster over nothing, then I have a compromise suggestion: sell the naming rights (there's your funding) for the war to the highest bidder, just like you would with a stadium. For example, the Gillette War on Terror, or The Long War sponsored by Ford (built to last!), or The Overseas Contingency Operation, sponsored by Virgin Atlantic (whether you're flying overseas or fighting overseas, book your flight with Virgin!). Just a thought.

[Tom Odom]

If people are concerned about the funding and others think that the naming game is a lot of bluster over nothing, then I have a compromise suggestion: sell the naming rights (there's your funding) for the war to the highest bidder, just like you would with a stadium. For example, the Gillette War on Terror, or The Long War sponsored by Ford (built to last!), or The Overseas Contingency Operation, sponsored by Virgin Atlantic (whether you're flying overseas or fighting overseas, book your flight with Virgin!). Just a thought.

Well given that we just had the first organized western tour group here in Baghdad, I can see what you propose happening. Besides who needs a Fujji or Goodyear blimp when we have aerostats with advertising space just going to waste..

Best
Tom

[J Wolfsberger]

If people are concerned about the funding and others think that the naming game is a lot of bluster over nothing, then I have a compromise suggestion: sell the naming rights (there's your funding) for the war to the highest bidder, just like you would with a stadium. For example, the Gillette War on Terror, or The Long War sponsored by Ford (built to last!), or The Overseas Contingency Operation, sponsored by Virgin Atlantic (whether you're flying overseas or fighting overseas, book your flight with Virgin!). Just a thought.

The U.S. Army has already officially licensed the use 1st ID marks and insignias to Sears, maybe we could also sell sponsorship of the units. 82nd ABN by Chevron? 24th ID by Ford?

As Tom points out, there's an awful lot of advertising real estate going to waste ...

[patmc]

"Sir, today's BUB is brought to you by Milwaukee's Best Light, Brewed to a Man's Taste!"

And Staff slides could have sponsorship logo's, like in NASCAR.



Note to my original post: On "Fox and Friends" yesterday morning, getting ready for formation, one of the guests made a pretty good joke. It was something along the lines of, "Our Soldiers are at war with the OCO. Beatles' fans tried that for years and failed."

[Schmedlap]

"Sir, today's BUB is brought to you by Milwaukee's Best Light, Brewed to a Man's Taste!"

Even the CTC's could get in on the action: "Sir, the AAR for this abortion is brought to you by Planned Parenthood."

[Bob's World]

Or Cialis:

"If you have a briefing that lasts longer than 4 hours, see a doctor."

[J Wolfsberger]

I'm not even going to try to top those.

Er, wait ...

[Cavguy]

From an contact of mine in DoD:

Colleagues:

The phrase "contingency operation" is a term of art in Title 10, United States Code, which is tied to the deployment of U.S. forces at home and abroad:

As outlined in the DoD definition (http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/dod...c/01233.html):

"Definition: (DOD) A military operation that is either designated by the Secretary of Defense as a contingency operation or becomes a contingency operation as a matter of law (10 USC 101(a)(13)). It is a military operation that a. is designated by the Secretary of Defense as an operation in which members of the Armed Forces are or may become involved in military actions, operations, or hostilities against an enemy of the United States or against an opposing force; or b. is created by definition of law. Under 10 USC 101 (a)(13)(B), a contingency operation exists if a military operation results in the (1) callup to (or retention on) active duty of members of the uniformed Services under certain Enumerated Statutes (10 USC Sections 688, 12301(a), 12302, 12304, 12305, 12406, or 331-335) (2) the callup to (or retention on) active duty of members of the uniformed Services under other (non-enumerated) statutes during war or national emergency declared by the President or Congress."


To this definition, I would add that "contingency operation" has specific meaning and force of law in the legal area -- with respect to 1) the triggering of UCMJ jurisdiction, and 2) the triggering of certain federal acquisition authorities, among other things.

I would speculate that the choice of this phrase was deliberate -- to bring the policy and budgetary nomenclature in line with each other. Further attempts at exegesis, and other tea-leaf reading efforts to divine meaning from this, may not produce any more substantive explanation.

[Cavguy]

At today's pentagon press conference today, the issue was addressed. Apparently this is a budgetary/policy change and not a politcial one - yet. From a reporter contact of mine:

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell clarifies debate over GWOT term v. overseas contingency term.
Please see highlights.


MR. MORRELL: I've never received such a directive. I think the White House and OMB for that matter have been very clear about this as well, that they have never issued such a directive.

I think they've explained that perhaps somebody within OMB may have been a little overexuberant and done so. But I can just tell you, I'm the one who speaks publicly about these matters. And I have never been told which words to use or not to use. So I don't think there's anything to the story.

Q You still use the phrase.

MR. MORRELL: I think I have used it. I think I have. I don't avoid it. I don't seek it out. If it's appropriate, I'll use it. I could be wrong, but I think the president has used it. But, so I don't -- I was surprised to see that story, as well, because I know of no directive prohibiting the use of that term.

Q What's your preferred nomenclature?

MR. MORRELL: I don't really have one. I mean, I don't think a whole lot about it. I think that we are involved in global operations to protect the homeland and the American people. And a large part of that is going after terrorists, seeking them out, wherever they are, wherever they're plotting, wherever they are training to launch attacks against us.

So --

Q (Off mike) -- GWOT, global war on terror, lumps together an entire -- you know, the entire Muslim faith and an entire region.

Do you see that as a concern?

MR. MORRELL: Well, I don't think there's anything in that term that identifies any particular faith or ethnicity. I mean, there are terrorists of all faiths, of all colors, of all races and ethnicities. And so perhaps a better -- another way to refer to it would be, you know, a campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm.

I mean, there's a variety of ways to describe this. But I don't -- the point is, there has been no mandate from anybody as to how we should talk about this.

Q How do you feel about overseas contingency --

MR. MORRELL: I think that is -- that is -- the new way of referring to war spending is that overseas contingency -- it's still new to me, so let me get it right -- overseas contingency operations budget.

So.

Q So more of a budgetary term, would you say, than a kind of broader term of the administration to describe the military campaigns and --

MR. MORRELL: No, this is a budget term. I mean, this is -- this replaces supplementals. But it's not just a -- this is not a matter of semantics. There is a difference here. And the difference here is that the overseas contingency operations budget will be sent to the Hill with the DOD base budget and considered with it so that the Congress will be able to assess it together and make determinations together with the base budget. So I think there is -- even though it is above and beyond the base, it is coupled with the base, it's part of the president's budget, it goes up there packaged together and they will consider them together.

[jmm99]

Well, Cav, you DoD contact has it wired right - correlation of legal, policy and appropriations terminology. IIRC, a number of manuals (not sitting here in front of me) have been using that terminology for a long time. E.g., Operational Law Handbook 2007, has 36 hits on "contingency operations":

p.60
II. DOCTRINAL TYPES OF OPERATIONS

Military operations are divided into three major categories: 1) Major Operations and Campaigns; 2) Crisis Response and Limited Contingency Operations; and 3) Military Engagement, Security Cooperation, and Deterrence.[2] Joint Pub 3-07 further lists the following types of operations: Arms Control, Combating Terrorism, DoD Support to Counterdrug Operations, Enforcement of Sanctions/Maritime Intercept Operations, Enforcing Exclusion Zones, Ensuring Freedom of Navigation and Overflight, Humanitarian Assistance, Military Support to Civilian Authorities, Nation Assistance/Support to Counterinsurgency, Noncombatant Evacuation Operations, Peace Operations, Protection of Shipping, Recovery Operations, Show of Force Operations, Strikes and Raids, and Support to Insurgency.

Major Operations and Campaigns will most likely involve the triggering of Common Article Two. Other types of operations, however, will likely not. Of those, Peace Operations are the most common type of operation likely to involve large numbers of military forces, including JAs and Paralegals.

and

p.231
4. The Participating Nation Exception. As the JA proceeds through the regulatory flowchart of required analysis and actions, the most important and frequently-encountered problem is the “participating nation” determination. [27] This is because most overseas contingency operations do not generate the first, third, or fourth types of environmental events listed above. Accordingly, a premium is placed upon the interpretation of the second type of environmental event (i.e., major federal actions that significantly harm the environment of a foreign nation that is not involved in the action).

So, "overseas contingency operations" is a much broader term than say GWOT - of which more below.

---------------------------------------
The Pentagon spokesman was pathetic - "I mean, I don't think a whole lot about it." So, off the top of his head: "...a campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm." Which now proves (tin foil hat wearers, listen up) that the Pentagon has successfully completed the long-awaited ESP project - and we now can positively identify our "extremist" enemies based upon what they "wish" to do to us. As the Chinese guy said: Know your enemy.

In terms of GWOT (which IMO cannot be defined either legally or from a national policy standpoint), the Pentagon guy could have said: We are engaged in an armed conflict with persons who are members of, or substantial supporters of, AQ, Taliban and associated groups. See AUMF re: Astan and 9/11.

Having said all of that, we must realize (in accord with our DHS secretary) that we are dealing with "human-caused disasters". So, instead of "terrorists", we should be calling our misguided brethren - "human-caused disaster implementers", or HUDIMPS. Yes, son, I fought in the HUDIMP War.

[Jason Port]

Absolutely great stuff in the definition of the HUDIMP. However, it fails to answer the question of which law applies - Local laws and regulations (State and Federal Statutes) or the laws of warfare (UCMJ/Geneva Convention). I am ok with either, so long as there is an outcome to the processing of the HUDIMP

[jmm99]

from JP
the question of which law applies - Local laws and regulations (State and Federal Statutes) or the laws of warfare (UCMJ/Geneva Convention).

cut across a number of currently on-going threads. The answers are NOT matters of law only, although the Rule of Law (local and international) and the Laws of War do come into play.

Two levels will come into play, besides law:

1. The current study of "irregular warfare" and the military policies that will be developed from that, including the applicable SROEs.

2. The national strategic policy that is currently under development - not for the far future, but the policy that will be in effect for, say, 2010 (not 4 or 10 years in the future).

This is complicated because one size will not fit all of the situations. From a legal standpoint - and from the military SROE standpoint, I see at least four different situations that the military will have to confront:

1. Conventional warfare.

2. Insurgency (primarily focused on one nation which has one or more Domestic Violent Non-State Actors - DVNSA, with or without external support by one or more State or Non-State Actors).

3. Military action against Transnational Violent Non-State Actors (TVNSA), such as AQ, who launch attacks across international borders. Related to this is the permissible scope of civilian agency paramilitary action against the same TVNSA target. Two approaches have been taken: "War ROEs" and "LE ROEs" (these are in quotes because there are different views internationally as to what "War ROEs" should be, and what "LE ROEs" should be). Adoption of one or the other as a default does not necessarily preclude use of the other in certain defined situations. There is a huge conflict here.

4. Military assistance in LE (Law Enforcement) Operations, which may involve groups that are either DVNSAs or TVNSAs, but as to which the political decision has been made NOT to raise the status of the problem to that of an "armed conflict". In short, these generally will be regarded as domestic criminal law problems.

All of these situations require reasoned political decisions (national policy level); and hopefully mission tasking type orders to the military to allow it to formulate appropriate SROEs, and particular ROEs on a case by case basis - which will have to fit the military strategy, operations and tactics adopted for each case.

My problem (now through 15 Apr) is devoting enough time to these questions to present some coherent view of what is both a military and legal problem.

For those who want to do something in the meantime, I suggest becoming familiar with the "kill or capture" concepts inherent in the two basic types of ROEs:

1. Status-Based ROEs (based on the status of the "kill or capture" target).

2. Conduct-Based ROEs (based on the conduct of the "kill or capture" target).

The status-based ROEs are more "War ROEs"; the conduct-based ROEs are more "LE ROEs". With some digging with Google, etc., you will find discussions about this topic.

Sorry I can't be more explicit now; so, this will have to do for a start.

PS: HUDIMPS was a joke - based on experience with the imps at HUD.

[patmc]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php...show_article=1

Clinton: New team not using 'war on terror' term

Mar 30 04:03 PM US/Eastern
By ANNE GEARAN
AP Military Writer

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the Obama administration has indeed abandoned the term "global war on terror."
Clinton says that while she hasn't seen any specific orders, the new administration in Washington simply isn't using the phrase.