re: "Is the United States a Militaristic Imperialists Nation?"

TOWNIE 76 at OP-FOR examined the continued usefulness of regional combatant commands.

Money quote(s):

"Several weeks ago, Tom Dispatch published an extended article on the shadow war in Africa. In part it questioned why the United States military has divided the world into six fiefdoms or Combatant Commands."

Note to State Dept. readers: don't click on any of the Tom Dispatch links since you'll just get one of those scary "wikileaks" warning notices.

"The short answer is they are a continuation of our division of the world during World War II into Theaters of War. In fact they are often referred to as Theaters by today’s military. But that is not the sole reason. The United States being the dominate Western partner in our Cold War against global communism required the ability to establish priorities for the employment of our military. Lastly, today’s Combatant Commands and the defined power of the Commander[1], is an outgrowth of the debacle that was Grenada and Lebanon in the early 80’s. In the case of Grenada it was each service Chief adding their forces to the mix resulting in a Cluster Firetruck. In the case of Lebanon it was the failure of United State European Command to accept responsibility of the bombing in Beirut that left countless Marines dead. As a result in the Goldwater-Nichols Act the power of the services over operational matters was severely constrained and the Combatant Commanders were ultimately responsible for determining which military capabilities were required for a specific operation."

Townie76 noted three consequences of the above, including these two:

"(T)he Combatant Commanders have become de Facto Pro Counsels (sic) for their respective Regional Commands. In many cases they are the representatives of the United States Government who have the most exposure in their particular Theater. As such Military Power has become the dominat (sic) element of the United States National Power (Diplomatic, Informational, Military, Economic.)

Second, the Department of Defense regional division of the world differs from the Department of State regional division of the world. Thus the Department of State Regional Director for Near East must coordinate diplomatic activities in two Combatant Commanders Areas of Responsibility (Africa Command and Central Command). More importantly, while attempted with Africa Command, there is generally no high ranking member of the Foreign Service within the Headquarters of the Regional Combatant Commands. The only presence in the Regional Combatant Commands is the Political Advisor who is a Senior Member of the Foreign Service but from my experience has little influence inside the State Department."

The morphing of military commanders into imperial proconsuls is a criticism that's been leveled before, going back many years. Combatant commanders used to be called commanders-in-chief until the point was made, forcibly, that under the Constitution there is only one commander-in-chief.

Political advisors, despite their relatively high rank within the Foreign Service (i.e., flag or general officer equivalents) encumber positions which are, not surprisingly, advisory. They exist within the combatant command's headquarters, without bringing any non-DoD resources to the table other than their own expertise, as staff officers.

(This is not meant as a criticism, only to realistically define their role.)

"The question that should be debated not only by the military but also by an informed citizenry is the organization of the Regional Combatant Commands making the United States imperialistic in the execution of its foreign policy?

I have believed for a long time that there is a need for a new National Security Act for the 21^st Century.[2] Among the provision I would like to see is the common alignment of Regions across the entire federal government. While there may be arguments for different divisions it seems that a whole government approach would benefit from all the players reading off the same script. I think it also time to consider rather than having the Department of Defense Combatant Commanders being the lead that perhaps it is time of the Department of State to take the lead."

7/29

re: "Ordinary People My Ass!!"

TOWNIE 76 at Op-For ("Fair Specimens of Citizen Soldiers...") had high praise for Prince Harry's statement.

Money quote(s):

"Prince Harry, the third in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, who many believe to be a dullard, uttered perhaps the best line about those who serve Queen and Country. I have serious doubt, that other than McCain and Webb who both have sons who have served, any American public official could be quite so eloquent."

Read the whole thing here.

12/19

re: "Curious, but Sloppy"

George Smiley at In From the Cold ("Musings on Life, Love, Politics, Military Affairs, the Media, the Intelligence Community and Just About Anything Else that Captures Our Interest") pondered this assassination plot.

Money quote(s):

"We're still scratching our heads over the alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. Not that the scheme isn't credible; Tehran has a long list of scores to settle with Riyadh, ranging from the kingdom's backing of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s Iran-Iraq War, to its more recent support of Bahrain, during that nation's crackdown against anti-regime protesters, who were aided by elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps."

Motive?

Check.

"Iran has no shortage of reasons for wanting to kill the senior Saudi diplomat in America.

But if that was the case, why was the "plot" conceived is such ham-handed fashion? According to court papers (and the comments of various U.S. officials), the key figure in the operation was Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old Iranian-American used car salesman from Texas. Arbabsiar reportedly attempted to enlist assistance from Mexico's infamous Zetas drug cartel in acquiring explosives and carrying out the attack. The plan reportedly involved detonating a bomb inside one of the ambassador's favorite D.C. restaurants while he ate."

Is nowhere sacred? Not that CAA is likely to share the same taste in D.C. restaurants as the Saudi ambassador. But still....

"Sources indicate the assassination plot involved high-level officials in the Qods force, the clandestine arm of the IRGC. Turk al-Faisal, a former Saudi ambassador to the U.S. told reporters this afternoon that "the burden of proof and amount of evidence in the case is overwhelming, and clearly shows official Iranian responsibility for this...someone in Iran will have to pay the price." "

What's left unstated is how unsurprising the idea of an arm of the Iranian government engaging in an assassination plot. This sort of behavior is, since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, utterly unremarkable. Nothing to see here. It's just how they roll.

Students of strategy know that warfare can be waged in more dimensions than the battlefield (or, as is fashionable to call it, the "battlespace"). Covert operations, as distinct from intelligence operations, and including assassinations are a form of controlled violence waged in places not generally perceived as being included in the "battlespace."

In other words, campaigns of assassination are a political tool by which Iran wages war against its enemies, at home or abroad. They are not the only form of warfare that Iran routinely engages in.

The key point being, as should be blindingly obvious, is that Iran is at war with its adversaries, whether they realize (or respond to) it or not.

"(S)ome western diplomats have expressed skepticism about the plot, saying it was highly unlikely that senior Iranian officials would sign off on such a plan. And they have a point; if Tehran wanted to kill Ambassador al-Jubeir, why entrust the enterprise to someone who hardly fits the profile of a professional Qods force operative.

The U.S. military has spent years battling Qods force agents in Iraq and Afghanistan; intelligence officers will tell you they represent the most capable elements in the IRGC. Put another way, there are plenty of Qods force operatives who could easily enter the United States, carry out the plot and make a clean get-away."

This reminds us of the famous "America is not at war" signs. And yet, America's military has been at war since 9/11, fighting the enemies that attack us, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, whereever. And those attacking enemies have consistently included Iran.

"(T)he assassination plot may have been a deliberate ruse, aimed at shifting intelligence and law enforcement resources away from other teams preparing to carry out separate attacks. You'd better believe the folks at FBI Headquarters, Langley and Fort Meade are double-checking their information, looking for clues that might lead to other (and perhaps more menacing) Iranian plots while Arbabsiar spins his tale for investigators.

There's also a chance the assassination scheme was launched by rogue elements within the IRGC and Iranian political circles (yes, we realize that is an oxymoron)."

Yes, "rogue elements within the IRGC and Iranian political circles" is indeed an oxymoron.

Whenever someone, in discussions of Iran, wonders aloud what "Iran" wants, what "Iran's" goals are, what "Iran" hopes to gain with its nuclear program, what "Iran" really wants to do about Israel; CAA asks the questions: Which "Iran"? And which Iranians?

Just as communism was not, always, monolithic, neither can "Iran," even within its government, be considered as a unitary entity.

One would think that Americans, possessing not only fifty semi-sovereign individual states (including the "Commonwealth" states of Masschutsetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky) but three co-equal branches of federal government, would be able to better grasp that essential fact.

"(Y)ou can't rule out the option that senior Iranian officials endorsed (and participated in) the hare-brained scheme. Intelligence and covert ops organizations have a long history of launching plots that are breathtakingly dumb. Readers will recall that the CIA engaged in a series of operations aimed at killing Fidel Castro, involving such diverse elements as an exploding cigar and the U.S. mafia. None of those plots came close to succeeding, but the boys at Langley kept trying, anyway. The men running the Qods Force are not immune to bad ideas, either."

10/12

re: "Not Very Helpful"

LTCOL P at OPFOR ("Fair Specimens of Citizen Soldiers") summed this up nicely:

"Putting aside the gross irony of the Taliban calling anything barbaric, this is an unwelcome development at an inopportune moment."

1/12

re: "I Love the Swiss"

LTCOL P at OPFOR ("Fair Specimens of Citizen Soldiers...") proposed the following:

"Think Swiss. Act Swiss."

Here's why:

"The Swiss have a long tradition of muscular self-defense, and are now intent on beefing up the size and strength of their army. …"

6/27

Last Week's Links

Joerg Wolf at Atlantic Review ("A Press Digest for Transatlantic Affairs") in "The U.S. is increasingly looking to new partners."

Money quote(s):

"For the European Union stating the obvious is already progress."

So it is.

-----

Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") in "Now Comes the Purge."

Money quote(s):

"(A)ll work is easy if somebody else has to do it."

If at first you don't succeed, don't worry about it: someone else will do it for you.

"(O)ne of the joys of punditry: One need only have a strongly held opinion, not any subject matter expertise."

CAA really tries, you understand, to opine on those subjects he actually knows something about.

"The general is targeted because he gave his soundest military advice, based upon decades of personal experience, to the National Command Authority, as he was duty bound to do."

So are we all, by our oaths of office, duty bound to give the best professional opinions we can provide, not merely parrot whatever the popular party line or flavor of the month might be.

&

"It is not enough for Mr. Cohen to win the policy fight. Those who opposed him cannot have done so from any principled standpoint, and they are therefor unfit to serve. The ranks must be purged."

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Lt.Col P at OPFOR ("Fair Specimens of Citizen Soldiers") at "Marine Corps Commandant Has To Stay."

Money quote(s):

"I detect also a note of good-war-ism; you know, those old WWII movies were great because WWII was the last good war, not what we have today with these awful provincial people and their tacky state university degrees who beat up on various Third Worlders and refuse to love gays."

WWII was also the last good war, in certain circles, because the socialists (at least of the non-NDSAP variety) were on the same side as the U.S., (at least once the national socialists in Germany launched their attack on the soviet socialists in Russia and her near-abroad).

(Until they did that, at least once Stalin and Hitler had made their mutual non-aggression pact, WWII wasn't a "good" war at all.)

(History matters. Especially the inconvenient kind.)

"(T)hose of us who have served know that Hollywood can't match reality, and that the real soldiers and Marines in the platoons aren't simply pets or mascots for the chattering classes."

Remind me to discuss the whole "hero" phenomenon sometime.

"When he writes "education and training" what he really means is "re-education and indoctrination." Those who lived through the purge-trial aftermath of Tailhook will know what I mean."

Active duty personnel can look forward to eve more hours and hours of mandatory "homosexual awareness" training. Yes, that's what it's actually called and has been going on since Pres. Clinton signed DADT into law way back when.

Good thing nobody needed any of those training hours to prepare them to fight a war or anything.

"The Commandant is stating his considered professional opinion that repeal of this law will have a detrimental effect on the combat readiness of his service, and furthermore that doing so during active overseas operations is a particularly ill-conceived course of action. Remember how long this man has been in uniform, and the positions he has held. He understands his Corps, and what makes it tick, and he has been entrusted with shepherding it through the next four years of war."

&

"Unit cohesion keeps the force together when things aren't going well. Unit cohesion is born of hundreds of Americans dedicated to a single cause, welded together into a fighting instrument by hard realists who do sometimes hold contrary opinions. But what has no place in the realm of unit cohesion, or of any aspect of combat readiness, is compulsory acceptance of behaviors that most find distracting at best and deviant at worst. The gay soldier or Marine who subordinates his behavior for the greater good of his unit gets treated like a soldier or Marine, like one of the family."

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Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive in "Concealed carry is counterterrorism."

Money quote(s):

"We simply do not have the resources to expect that we will have police wherever the terrorists decide to attack us. They have obviously figured out that our soft underbelly is nationwide. What is going to happen when the jihadi maroons stop failing at bomb-building and decide to succeed at firing a gun into a crowd? Ignorant as these goat-raping clowns are, they can pull that off. At that point any who is not armed is a victim in waiting. But if the swine happen to hit a food court at the Mall where I am having a snack, it will turn out quite differently.

At the risk of revealing my true arrogance, I do not recognize the right of any individual or group to disarm me. So regardless of what rules petty bureaucrats may enact, I will retain my right to self defense."

Which is why the terrorists will lose against us in the end. Badly.

"This type of response is most likely to happen in red state areas and if the jihadis had any intellectual firepower they would concentrate their efforts in Chicago, NYC and DC where the government has disarmed the populace."

&

"The bottom line is that when seconds count the police are minutes away. Yet the unorganized militia is all around, kinda like the Founders figgered."

Personally, I prefer the formulation "Militia of One."

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Bing West at the Small Wars Journal blog ("facilitates the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field") in "Bigotry as Opportunism."

Money quote(s):

"Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote that the Commandant of the Marine Corps “is one step short of being a bigot.” Cohen, who strongly supports homosexuals in the military, insisted that the Commandant be fired because he held a different view. According to the dictionary, ‘a bigot is one who is strongly attached to his view of politics and intolerant of those who differ.’ It is Cohen, not the Commandant of Marines, who defines the word bigot."

"His column is a clarion call to incite the very divisiveness the legislation was intended to expunge."

&

"The best way to treat a bigot is to ignore his opportunistic self-promotion. Let the Washington Post correspondents who risk their lives alongside Marines deal with Cohen and his warped journalistic ethics."

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Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") in "Green Light."

Money quote(s):

"Ivy League schools provided the services with gifted officers for the front lines, many of whom served heroically in combat before coming home, tempered by both experiences, to build a great nation. It also provided undergraduate students who lacked the money and connections a fully-funded opportunity for a first rate education at our country’s flagship universities. All of that ended at certain Ivies during the culture turmoils of the late 1960s."

The Ivies have a golden opportunity to make themselves relevant again to the nation beyond the academic ghettos and law firms of the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Washington corridor. Or they can simply beclown themselves in an orgy of self-parody. I expect a mixed set of results, with perhaps a third of them taking the opportunity to redeem themselves.

"Now that the dreadful discrimination of DADT has been swept into the ash bin of history, the rationale for the prohibition against on-campus ROTC has lost whatever veneer of plausibility it once held."

And a thin veneer that was, a mere vapor of substance.

&

"(I)t is not just the military who have shifted south (and west). The country is doing so, or at least those who can afford to; those who are not immobilized by joblessness or the paucity of after-tax income traceable to Ivy League social and economic theories. Both the working and entreprenurial classes have seen what modern day political liberalism has to offer and are voting with their feet. The heart of America is shifting south, and it does not much surprise that the military is moving with them.

As for the Ivies, it appears the rest of us have decided that, when it comes to building and defending our nation, we might just have to do it without them."

Relevance, to coin a phrase, matters.

re: "GWOT's The Point?"

Lt Col P at OPFOR ("a blog dedicated towards expanding milblogging topics to include foreign policy, wargaming, grand strategy, and hippy bashing") notes that the war hasn't gone anywhere, by whatever name.

Money quote(s):

"I never liked the term, Global War on Terror, or GWOT. I found that it failed singularly to identify the enemy, a fine but crucial point. Words have meaning. Like so many of the previous administration's efforts, it was a game try but only a partial success. ("The Long War" was a much, much better choice.) But at least it identified a global war going on out there."

&

"The first step in solving a problem is to admit that you have one. If you don't square up to the fact that you're in a war, that some other entity is not only wishing harm on you and your interests but is actively pursuing the policy, you're ceding the initiative. No amount of euphemizing will wish away the facts: we are at war. We didn't ask for it, we didn't start it. The previous administration might not have fought the war as well as they should have, but at least they fought it."