Recruiting for SWC members because....

[Steve Blair]

I agree with you, John, and have commented many times here about the similarities I feared (and am seeing) between what the Army (and military generally) did after Vietnam and what they're doing now. It's been something of a historical pattern for the US, and one that is concerning (or should be, at least). Information, knowledge, discussion, and historical context for small wars are all things that need to be preserved and continued. If not us, who?

[Fuchs]

The pattern which irritates me is that the U.S. returns into the wars of choice business again and again, no matter how poor an investment it is.

I don't care about whether it's a very poor or skilled and thus simple poor investment. Neither should be done.

[slapout9]

I go all the way back to the Urban Operations Journal (precursor to the Small Wars Journal) I can still remember when we couldn't even break 100 as far as members go. So what happened? It is pretty typical as far systems thinking goes. We went from the formative phase to the normative phase (which lead to the revamped Journal section) to where we are now.........the adaptive or integrative phase. We have to change(adapt) or we will get all extinct and stuff Not a good option. More is less...we need to focus. The Journal is competing with the Council....not good IMO.... we may need to kill it! Or we need to kill the Council but we have to choose IMO. I always felt all naked and stuff when I posted at the Journal.... it is nice and cozy over here.....that might be good but could also be bad.

Some of us are facing age and health issues that were not present at the Big Bang. Nobody knows where Ken White is! We are in deep sh@@ just like the country. Only one thing left to or figure out. We need a great Strategic Reawakening(is that a word?) anyway just my random thoughts from the cultural center of the Universe.

[Bill Moore]

I agree with you, John, and have commented many times here about the similarities I feared (and am seeing) between what the Army (and military generally) did after Vietnam and what they're doing now. It's been something of a historical pattern for the US, and one that is concerning (or should be, at least). Information, knowledge, discussion, and historical context for small wars are all things that need to be preserved and continued. If not us, who?

Institutionally yes, at the individual level I still see a high level of interest. Those of us in the SW community have to take some responsibility also, because we have a number of amateurish articles that claim all future wars will be small wars, and there has been too much non-critical comments on our COIN doctrine within our own community. In many ways the Small Wars tribe isn't that much different than the Big Wars tribe.

If we were more self-critical and receptive to non-doctrinal ideas instead of being perceived as COIN doctrine Kool-Aid drinkers (doesn't apply to all, or even most, but it does to many of our most vocal and well known SW advocates), and we provided options that supported achieving the balance between capabilities that SECDEF Gates advocated we may be in a different place. I too share your concerns that we'll throw the baby out with the bathwater, based on the past decade of far less than successful small wars. If our community provides options for future defense policy makers that address all security concerns (and hopefully our diehards in SWJ realize there are more security concerns than Small Wars) then maybe we'll bring the more rational and deep thinkers on war back into the community? SWJ has provided a great service to the national security discussions from the tactical to strategic levels, we just need to realize where our nation is at now and find a way to contribute to that dialogue in way that keeps small wars in the discussion.

[Steve Blair]

Institutionally yes, at the individual level I still see a high level of interest. Those of us in the SW community have to take some responsibility also, because we have a number of amateurish articles that claim all future wars will be small wars, and there has been too much non-critical comments on our COIN doctrine within our own community. In many ways the Small Wars tribe isn't that much different than the Big Wars tribe.

If we were more self-critical and receptive to non-doctrinal ideas instead of being perceived as COIN doctrine Kool-Aid drinkers (doesn't apply to all, or even most, but it does to many of our most vocal and well known SW advocates), and we provided options that supported achieving the balance between capabilities that SECDEF Gates advocated we may be in a different place. I too share your concerns that we'll throw the baby out with the bathwater, based on the past decade of far less than successful small wars. If our community provides options for future defense policy makers that address all security concerns (and hopefully our diehards in SWJ realize there are more security concerns than Small Wars) then maybe we'll bring the more rational and deep thinkers on war back into the community? SWJ has provided a great service to the national security discussions from the tactical to strategic levels, we just need to realize where our nation is at now and find a way to contribute to that dialogue in way that keeps small wars in the discussion.

Bill,

One of the problems I've seen historically is that this topic is usually viewed as an "either/or" sort of statement. There's too often a tendency to shove one of the topics off the table to make room for the other (or the "flavor of the month"). Obviously there are more security concerns than Small Wars, but small wars are the problem that just doesn't want to go away. I don't vocally advocate for one over the other: obviously they're equally important in a sense, with one or the other getting priority depending on the international situation. But I do worry that (yet again) we'll shed any number of hard-learned lessons (or learn the wrong ones) in our rush away from the current situation. We've done that so well too many times in the past.

[gute]

Maybe some of our council discussions, opinions of the majority (or not) should make its way into SWJ as editorials. Maybe SWC Calls for Papers done through the forums and edited by the SWJ for publication on the website - dumb idea?

Just tryin to think outside the box.

[jmm99]

Admittedly, we at SWC are "Part of the Small Wars Journal Empire" ; but the "Empire" is neither the Rand Corp. nor the Brookings Inst. - its editorial staff is limited and SWJ articles receive no or minor editing. SWJ articles are very much a "roll your own" proposition.

The rules for submitting content to SWJ and its Blog are here, Submit Content. Those same rules provide a framework for creating full fledged articles within the confines of SWC.

First, write up the article in any word processor. I'd use .rtf format and then print the file to .pdf (I use doPDF; link). The .pdf file is then attached to an SWC post in the relevant thread (new or old); limit of 4 .pdf files per post, with 195KB per file.

To check file sizes, I selected the text from two recent SWJ articles: Back to the Basics: Chess, Poker & the Future of Warfare; and Thinking and Writing About COIN. DoPDF creates .pdf files of 65KB and 80KB respectively.

So, I think your idea is basically sound and a good one, but the SWC poster who aspires to article publication will have to do the heavy lifting.

----------------
Bill, Steve et al.

While I think post-Vietnam is material history, we shouldn't forget that reform of the Army and Marines was the end result - albeit with more than a little trauma. Surely, there will be a lot to talk about - e.g, how to provide effective low-, medium- and high-intensity forces on a limited budget.

I'd say take a knee and watch what happens over the coming year; and see what 2014 will bring.

Regards

Mike

[slapout9]

We did really lousy at the fund raiser this year to.

[Bob's World]

I suspect that the SWC was built on several pillars, such as frustration, interest and hope.

Hope came with innocence, and a belief that we could "fix" these problems, or "win" these conflicts on our terms.

That innocence is lost, hope is forlorn, and interest is waning. This is human nature.

Perhaps the members, like the services, are gathering up their lessons learned from this experience and leaning forward for the next, hopefully "better" conflict.

One of the big tactical ideas born of the past decade was that of "population-centric approaches." The idea being that because people are so important in these types of conflicts that we must focus our efforts on understanding each valley, village and person, and then focus our engagement on "fixing" or "winning" them to what it is we hoped to accomplish. That is a very tactical view of populations and their role in these populace-based conflicts.

Applying a strategic lens to this sound concept reveals the reality that one cannot simply bribe, develop or secure a populace to what some illegitimate foreign system of governance wants for them; instead those illegitimate foreign systems must take their understanding of these local populations where they believe their foreign interests to be at stake and ask "how do I tailor my own actions and goals in a manner to be consistent with the fundamental needs of these people my actions will impact, and how do I best pursue those interests in a manner consistent with their culture(s).

It is about changing us, not them. It is about fixing our approach to governance, not theirs. Someday we will learn this, but at the institutional level it is an insight that escapes us.

So long as we continue to cast strategic problems in tactical terms, and recognize, select and promote strategic leaders for tactical prowess in the face of strategic failure this will likely continue to remain beyond our grasp.