re: "Abu Muqawama: State, USAID Must Learn From Afghanistan Errors"

Andrew Exum wrote an article for WPR ("World Politics Review") that anyone in a position of leadership at State Dept. really ought to read.

Money quote(s):

"No one escapes criticism in Chandrasekaran's narrative, this columnist included, but the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Marine Corps come under especially heavy fire.

The reaction from the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. military as a whole has been to add the book and its criticisms to the list of lessons that need to be learned from the disastrous U.S. experience in Afghanistan. The State Department and USAID, by contrast, have reacted angrily to Chandrasekaran's account, blaming the messenger rather than looking into what they might learn from the message."

&

"Since at least the First Gulf War, American society has raised the U.S. military onto a pedestal, constantly praising the military, even when its performance has been, by objective standards, not terribly great. Is it any wonder U.S. military leaders feel they have room for introspection and self-criticism?

The State Department rarely garners similar praise from the American people or its elected leaders. Republican congressmen on Capitol Hill talk a big game on national security and vow never to cut the military's budget, while at the same time threatening to slash the International Affairs budget by 20 percent. U.S. military officers and troops are held up as the best of what America has to offer, while diplomats . . . well, few Americans are quite sure of what diplomats even do.

That's a pity because, despite bungling the admittedly challenging Afghanistan mission, the State Department has a pretty good story to tell about itself." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

It's one of those perennial delusion of the American body politic: that foreign aid and diplomacy (State and USAID) are where all the money goes, when quite the reverse is true.

(This is not to say that the dollar amounts aren't large, from any individual citizen's perspective. It's certainly more than I'll ever have in my wallet or bank account. Even my Swiss and Caymen accounts. But they amount to rounding errors in the context of the federal budget as a whole.)

"One of the illicit delights of reading the WikiLeaks cables has been to discover what wonderful diplomats the United States has in its service. The reports written by U.S. ambassadors and their subordinates are knowledgeable, literate, pithy and often amusing. They confirm, in a larger sample size, my anecdotal experiences visiting embassies around the globe. I remember, for example, spending an afternoon with the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh in 2010 and being blown away by the competence and professionalism of the staff. Many foreign service officers were on their third tours in the country, and even the newest officer -- charged with running the motor pool, of all things -- spoke fluent classical Arabic as well as several dialects."

CAA has not, of course, actually read anything at the Wikileaks site. That's still a no-no.

But CAA did read a few of the articles which were written about those State cables which were leaked, and they tended to echo Mr. Exum's impression: well-written, insightful, and honest; telling "truth to power" as it were.

And as for the motor pool officer.... it's helpful, in foreign countries, if the guy in charge of the motor pool's drivers and mechanics can actually speak their language. That tends to help with little things like telling them what you want them to do.

"Unfortunately, the State Department is not very good at telling its story to either the U.S. Congress or the American people. When people effectively stand up for the budget of the State Department and make the case for a larger International Affairs budget, it is too often either U.S. military officers or conservative, "pro-military" defense intellectuals. The State Department and its foreign service officers deserve some of the blame here. I recently finished John Lewis Gaddis’ biography of George F. Kennan, and Kennan’s life is a reminder that those Americans who are most knowledgeable about other cultures can often be the most contemptuous and ignorant of U.S. domestic political culture. Foreign service officers who do not hesitate to spend endless afternoons drinking chai with Central Asian warlords somehow can't, by and large, stomach the occasional coffee with a junior congressman from Nebraska." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

State has gotten better, having taken a leaf from the DoD and individual uniformed services books and established a permanent liaison presence on Capitol Hill itself, for both houses of Congress. Those folks work daily to increase Congresional awareness of what State (and the Foreign Service) have to offer them in terms that they understand, such as helping members of Congress in providing constituent services (to use a consular example).

So I'm not sure what Mr. Exum means in terms of avoiding coffee with congressmen. For FSOs abroad, generally the last thing visiting CODELs want to do is talk with U.S. diplomats so when they're abroad finding facts. They can talk to State Dept. people when they're in Washington, by gum!

"The result is that the State Department as an organization constantly feels that it is under pressure and underappreciated by its appropriators. We should not wonder, then, why such an organization fails to be introspective or critical of itself. That shortchanges both America and the State Department"

&

"A military can defend -- or learn from -- its performance during a war, but diplomats and aid workers can rarely demonstrate how their efforts toward conflict-prevention preclude a need for the military to get involved in the first place. And the efforts of diplomats and aid workers rarely benefit the economies of congressional districts in the same way military bases or the arms industry does.

Nonetheless, if the State Department and USAID are ever going to have the confidence to be as self-critical as the U.S. military, they have to better sell their efforts to the American people and its representatives in Washington."

It's like Al Pacino said in The Recruit: "Our failures are known. Our successes...are not." When a country doesn't fall apart, collapse into civil war, or things don't otherwise get worse; was that because the U.S. was effective in that country or would it have happened anyways. It's always hard to prove a negative.

That being said, as a consular manager, CAA likes to take whatever opportunities he can to garner a little American good will for the State Department, for the Foreign Service, and of course for the dedicated and wonderful people who make up what used to be called the Consular Service.

How to do that? Well, in terms of Congress itself and congress members specifically, be timely and appropriately respectful in responding to congressional inquiries. This should be a given, of course, but it should at least be mentioned.

Some parts of the federal government think that stonewalling or otherwise blowing off questions or requests from the people who vote on their agency's budgets is a good idea. I've never gotten that impression about State, but let's not slack off on this.

Have an office SOP (standard operating procedure) for responding to congressional inquiries which includes things like setting a suspense date when they're received, some simple process for recording and tracking each inquiry's progress, an easily understood scheme for assigning individual responsibility for researching and then drafting a response, and some form of review process by a manager.

CAA likes for the staff under his supervision to have as much "ownership" of their caseload as is practical. So if an inquiry has to do with a particular employees caseload or portfolio, such as a visa case that they handled themselves, then CAA would always have that FSO research and draft the response.

For one thing, every FSO should know how to correctly write an official letter to a congressmen using the correct protocol and forms of address. This is pretty basic stuff, but there's nothing like doing it to gain familiarity and a level of professional comfort.

For another thing, CAA believes in empowering subordinates. This goes along with owning your portfolio or caseload. Supervisors and leaders should set goals, set standards, and then get the Hell out of the way and not micro-manage if they can avoid it. Sometimes being a leader means butting back into a particular case, but if your staff is properly trained (and HR didn't send you an idiot), this shouldn't happen all that often.

Proper formats for responses, including standard language (i.e., boilerplate) should be standardized and readily available for FSO (or local staff) to consult or plagiarize.

And CAA's FSO staff could put their own signature block on their responses if they wanted, or CAA would put his; however the FSO was most comfortable. In some cases, it will be wiser to put a more senior person's name on it, but when that happens it's best to explain to your FSOs why you made that decision.

An example is when an inquiry may be controversial and you want to divert any lightning bolts from Mount Olympus away from your junior officers.

(If you're the leader, providing top cover to your followers is just part of why they pay you the big bucks, after all.)

CAA also likes to respond to congressional inquiries in the medium by which they are received. If an inquiry comes in electronically, then by email shall it be answered; but with a hard copy to follow by mail.

In fact, CAA used to send an electronic copy of his office's responses as email attachments even when the inquiry itself arrived in hard copy, just to let the congressional offices know that a response to their question was on its way, with a sneak preview so they weren't being held in suspense or anything.

CAA once dated a congressional staffer who had as a major part of her responsibilities the logging and tracking of correspondence her congress member's office received, much of which fell under the heading of congressional inquiries that were relayed to individual agencies.

(This was a few years before meeting Mrs. CAA, but that's not really germane.)

The point is that the handling of such matters is a core function of any congressional office. So FSOs would be wise to bear that in mind.

The further point is that good congressmen know how to field requests and questions by their constituents, and like good players of America's pastime, they know how to field the balls that come their way.

So FSOs need to do the same, and with the same understanding of their importance. They really do come from the people who pay our salaries and they are routed to us by the people who set those salaries.

(There are other ways FSOs can implement outreach to congress or the U.S. citizens, but that'll have to wait for another post on another day.)

7/25

re: "What You Need to Know About the CIA Getting Rolled Up in Lebanon. That, and Larry Munson."

Andrew Exum at Abu Muquwama examined a major intelligence setback in Lebanon.

Money quote(s):

"As some of you may or may not already know, Hizballah, together with the Lebanese government, has rolled up what is believed to be the vast majority of the assets of the Central Intelligence Agency in Lebanon."

As Dr. Exum implies, Hizballah and the Lebanese government are sufficiently interpenetrated as to be considered unitary at this point. I suppose a Venn Diagram might show the Lebanese government as comprising two overlapping circles: the circle belonging to Syria, the circle belonging to Hizballah, and a mutual zone which serves two masters.

"I know about as much about clandestine operations and running agents as I do about playing linebacker in the NFL, but I do know a little about Lebanon, and I also know something about what my boss John Nagl likes to refer to as "learning organizations," a concept I believe to be relevant here. I first heard about this story from a journalist over lunch last week, and I'll relate to you what I told him and some of what he told me.

1. As many of you know, Hizballah and Lebanese intelligence have been quite good at rolling up Israeli intelligence assets since 2006. (Contrary to what I would have thought, Israel managed to keep a pretty good human intelligence network alive in Lebanon after its withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.) Our intelligence assets were vulnerable to the same counter-intelligence methods that did in the Israelis, but we apparently blew off the warnings."

Be sure to read the rebuttal comment as to what the CIA did or didn't manage to do.

"2. Given that negligence, if I am a member of the U.S. Congress, I am going to ask if it is really true that the station chief in Beirut was subsequently promoted within the ranks of the CIA. If told this is in fact true, I am going to ask who, if anyone, is being held accountable.

3. I am also, if I am a member of the U.S. Congress, going to be asking whether or not CIA tradecraft has eroded over the past decade as the agency has chased the bright shiny ball we'll call "drone-strikes-in-Pakistan". (A question that, quite frankly, needed to be asked afterthe 2009 bombing in Khost.) It's great to have an intelligence agency with a knife in its teeth, but the primary mission of an intelligence organization is to gather and analyze intelligence, not to thwack bad guys. If you fail in that primary mission, questions have to be asked as to why you are failing."

Sometimes you lose. Consider that in an environment like Lebanon, you're not just running an intelligence operation. You're simultaneously trying to run intelligence operations, counter-intelligence operations to protect your intelligence operations, and counter-counterintelligence operations (against your targets counterintelligence) as well.

And it only gets worse from there. Lebanon is a hostile, if not actually completely denied area for U.S. intelligence.

"In the same way that the U.S. Army has an institutional interest in convincing policy makers that every general officer is equal to another, the CIA has an interest in convincing outsiders that external evaluation will compromise valuable tactics, techniques and procedures and will endanger operational security. (This is not a good recipe for an organization that learns from its mistakes and solicits external criticism in an effort to be more effective.) All organizations resist criticism, but intelligence organizations resist criticism and then wrap themselves in the cloak of all-important operational security to avoid it."

Intelligence organizations, for reasons good and prudent, find it abhorant to "solicit external criticism."

(Frankly, "external criticism" is not much in short supply, particularly that of the uninformed variety.)

Now, CAA is perfectly aware of a tendancy towards over-classification on that part of those who would wish to shield themselves from the criticism which they are due, but that's as much a trait of political leadership as it is of the professional intelligence cadre.

"(T)hat's what it really comes down to: poor tradecraft. This is not a matter of some Lebanese Karla lurking out there, out-smarting us. This is our premier intelligence agency getting sloppy, resulting in the death or incarceration of some brave U.S. allies."

Might could be. Or they simply were better or luckier, on their home turf, than we were with our away game.

A commenter rebuttal included the following:

"1. Your statement that the CIA "apparently blew off the (counter-intelligence) warnings" is overly harsh. CI penetrations emanate from multiple vectors - whether from poor trade-craft or an asset that is posing as a double agent - and the problem is augmented when attempting to infiltrate a highly secretive and closed organization such as Hizballah. Rightfully, in a scenario such as this, the maximum amount of defensive CI measures should be implemented in order to thwart the efforts by the hostile intelligence services. Because of the "cloak of security," we will most likely not be privy to the efforts (if any) that were taken to mitigate the CI threat and protect the assets."

11/21

re: "Getting to Zero"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama gave a short statement of the long view.

Money quote(s):

"(W)ars, like history, do not stop when America decides it no longer wants to be involved. This is worth remembering, both in terms of what is taking place in Iraq today as well as what might take place in Afghanistan in 2014. So by all means, say U.S. involvement in the war has ended. But think carefully before saying the war has ended."

Conflict in Iraq is multilateral and the co-belligerents are both internal and external. Taking just one side (ours) off the battlefield means only that we no longer have much influence over what occurs there.

10/21

re: "Quote of the Day"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama publicized a good quote but was having trouble allocating shame/blame:

"The enemy of my enemy isn't really a terrorist if his lobbying is really, really good."

&

"Shameful move by the Dept. of State.

Update: Former Obama Administration State official Tamara Cofman Wittes says I should be blaming the Congress, not the Dept. of State."

Oh, they're terrorists right enough, or were (and have never owned up to it).

5/15

re: "On Capability vs. Intent, Part II"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") examined the significance of uncertainty in intelligence analysis.

Money quote(s):

"(I)n my World Politics Review column this week, I tackle the intelligence problems related to intent, which are normally much more difficult than those related to capability. Specifically, I tackle the (understandable) failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to determine whether or not Israel will attack Iran -- a failure that matches my own inability to do so." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

He fleshed that out a little bit more with reference to reading and conversation.

(It'll only take a moment to read.)

4/18

re: "Your Dumb Government at Work"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muquwama discussed another military absurdity.

Money quote(s):

"(H)e had cancelled a presentation he was scheduled to give at the British International Studies Association conference in Edinburgh, Scotland because EUCOM regulations stipulate he must first ... wait for it ... go through SERE training before traveling to western Europe."

CAA has been to Edinburgh himself, after much personal preparation.

Said preparation did not include any survival, evasion, resistance, or escape components.

"Although the SERE training in question is not the hellish full two-week course but rather the one-day course, this is absurd nonetheless. Just yesterday, I met with a collection of junior U.S. Army officers, and we all agreed that U.S. military personnel -- and officers in particular, because they are often de facto ambassadors for the United States -- were better at their jobs if they had traveled widely or, even better, had lived abroad. But it can be a nightmare for U.S. military personnel to travel internationally, such have we elevated force protection to ridiculous importance."

The purpose, in any organization, of a manager or higher executive functionary is to:

a.) Set policy; and

b.) Make exceptions to policy as needed.

Someone is failing at one, or both, of these functions.

"(I)f we are willing to send young men and women to fight and die in Helmand Province, we should go out of our way to be accomodating when U.S. military personnel want to broaden their experiences by traveling to countries with which we are not at war." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

12/13

re: "A Question for Rick Perry"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") asked a question regarding our old friends the PMOI.

Money quote(s):

"(O)ne of Perry's informal advisors, Gen. (Ret.) Peter Pace, has been shilling for the terrorist group Mujahedeen Khalq along with a boatload of other people from both sides of the aisle -- including former Obama Administration National Security Advisor Gen. (Ret.) Jim Jones.

What is the appropriate response here? Should Gov. Perry distance himself from those who have associated with and advocated on behalf of Mujahedeen Khalq?"

Given the Generals Pace and Jones' former access to the full stories on the MEK/PMOI, I think we should assume they made an informed decision before advocating on their behalf.

8/14

re: "On Nation Building"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") considers the do-ability of nation-building.

Money quote(s):

"I firmly believe that when you decide to go to war, you should be prepared to use any and all means at your disposal to effect victory. If that means building institutions of the state, as we have done in both Iraq and Afghanistan, okay. You can't "win" in either place, after all, without at least creating strong police forces to take your place and keep public order so that a peaceful political process and economy can thrive. You have to create a secure environment in any post-conflict state, and unless you plan on staying forever, that means building up competent local security forces. That's a form of nation-building that I can support."

I remain unconvinced that victory is unattainable unless some sort of nation-buiding is implemented by the military victor. Of course, if you make that part of your definition of victory, then the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. Or self-defeating.

Clearly, if our invasion of Iraq was actually tied to GWOT-related goals, then "draining the swamp" so that whatever replaced Saddam is no longer a supporter and enabler of terrorism has to be part of your war aims. And at least a limited reconstruction is then required. This goes double for Afghanistan but is complicated by Pakistan's role as both a sanctuary and a supporter for the Taliban. Similarly, our efforts in Iraq are complicated by Iran's operations against us there and, to a lesser extent, by Syria's.

"(E)mploying whatever means you need after the United States enters a conflict and deciding to intervene in the first place are two different things. I, for one, in large part because I am all too familiar with what a "resource suck" wars can become, am reluctant to intervene in places like Libya in the first place. And, had anyone asked me about Iraq in 2002 or 2003, I would have offered the same opinion there. But I whole-heartedly endorse the U.S. decision to rebuild and train Iraqi military and polices forces after the invasion."

This is why the differences between a punitive raid or expedition and an invasion are so critical. U.S. (and Coalition) forces immediately develop a "footprint" that becomes a magnet for those who would do us harm, either as a local resistance or as transnational actors.

" In Afghanistan, at least, our aid and development projects have arguably exacerbated the drivers of conflict. We have created a rentier state on steroids, and as we begin to withdraw the majority of our aid and development funds, it will take a minor miracle to avoid Afghanistan's economic collapse. The only area in which we are reasonably competent is in building military organizations, which we have a lot of experience doing, but even there, we are better at building military organizations in our own image rather than the kinds of police/gendarme forces countries like Afghanistan really need.

Why do we suck at nation-building? A lot of reasons. Here are just a few: (1) We are ignorant. We do not know enough about the cultural, political and social contexts of foreign environments to fully appreciate how our interventions will affect those environments. Thus our aid and development spending (and military operations, to be fair), meant to ameliorate drivers of conflict, often exacerbate them. (2) We do not provide enough oversight and accountability for the projects we initiate. This is boring but important. We have spent ungodly sums of money in both Iraq and Afghanistan and have not provided enough contracting officers to effectively oversee the money we have spent. How do we just give tens of millions of dollars to agencies and departments in the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan without any oversight? Lack of contracting officers. How are contracts in Afghanistan divided up between shady sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors, with tax-payer money falling into the hands of the Taliban and warlords? Lack of contracting officers. (3) We do not have any patience -- and we have limited resources. Nation-building takes time. Where we can nation-build at relatively low-cost over an extended period of time, as in Colombia, we can be successful. But asking Americans to spend massive amounts of money for an extended period of time in Iraq or Afghanistan is a recipe for ... turning your average U.S. tax-payer into an isolationist. " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Disclosure: CAA is not a contracting officer. Not anymore, at least.

re: "Campaign Design and Strategy in Libya"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("a blog that focuses on small wars and insurgencies in addition to regional issues in the Middle East") reviews U.S. strategy for Libya.

Money quote(s):

"The U.S. and allied military campaign in Libya is an embarassment. From the very beginning, U.S. and allied political and strategic objectives have been unclear, and thus U.S. and allied military forces have been asked to carry out military operations without a clear commander's intent or end state. Out of all the operations orders that have been issued by the U.S. military for operations in Libya, in fact, only one -- the order to carry out the evacuation of non-combatants -- included an end state. None of the other orders issued to and by the U.S. military included an end state, in large part because senior military and civilian leaders either could not or chose not to explicitly articulate what the end state might be. The U.S. and allied military intervention is thus the very definition of an open-ended military intervention -- the kind in which most U.S. decision-makers swore we would never again engage after Iraq and Afghanistan." (Empasis in original text. - CAA.)

This has been, in turn, alternately and simultaneously an aggravation, an infuriation, and an embarrassment. WTF, over?

If I have to say this again; I will shed no tears on the day Col. Qadhafy is confirmed dead. None. He's been a long-time resident on my better-off-dead roster for decades now.

That being said, I'm clueless as to how going after Col. Qadhafy is intended, in a foreign policy objective sense, to disincentivize rogue statesmen from pursuing their own WMD proliferation.

"The U.S. Army, in response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (in which the military was asked to operate in a complex environment with often unclear policy guidance), developed commander's appreciation and campaign design (.pdf) to help officers properly frame and understand the problems in front of them."

That's an interesting TRADOC product linked therein.

"Campaign design is a great tool for commanders, but it is also the reflection of a bigger problem -- one identified and described most eloquently by Hew Strachan in this essay in Survival. It is what happens when you leave military commanders to figure out strategy and policy for themselves."

Mr. Strachan's essay is well worth reading.

"(T)he United States has now been applying force in Libya for over two months without explaining why. What is the political end we are trying to achieve? The United States needs to be honest with both its allies and its military. Because we should expect the U.S. military to go to great lengths to understand the environment and the enemy, but what makes the military intervention in Libya so embarassing is that the U.S. military is once again in the position of laboring to divine the intent of its own elected and appointed leaders." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Somewhere out there, not even in uniform yet, is a young man or woman who will write, for the Libyan intervention, what H.R. McMasters wrote for the Vietnam war.

re: "It's War!"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("following issues related to comtemprary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactis and strategy") has a definite opinion.

Money quote(s):

"I'm no lawyer, I'll admit, but I do know thing or two about shooting wars, having been in a few and having studied others, and the conflict in which we have intervened in Libya is most certainly a war. The reason why the Obama Administration's legalistic determination that it is not a war is ridiculous is not because we've gotten to the point where we care most about which lawyers were smarter than other lawyers but because it does not pass the "common sense test" or "laugh test" of most Americans."

&

"(T)his latest episode, which to most Americans I suspect looks like a bunch of eggheads arguing about how many bombs you have to drop for it to be "hostilities" and, while they're at it, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, is simply one of the stupidest things I've read in some time. It does not pass the laugh test, and the administration has handed an empty net to anyone looking to score points off of this."

re: "Quote of the Day"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") liked what SecDef Gates said recently.

Money quote(s):

"From the perspective of many U.S. legislators and tax-payers, one of the reasons the states of Europe enjoy such nice social welfare programs is because the United States has effectively subsidized the continent's defense spending since 1989. A few weeks back, I was in a meeting with some representatives from one of our NATO allies, who warned me that if the United States moved troops out of Europe, European states would respond by only developing military organizations capable of operating in Europe and North Africa.

I responded that would be a real improvement!

Currently, the European states seem unable to carry out mid-sized military operations independently."

One of the, at the time, touted advantages of the NATO military alliances was sort of an economy of scale. With all these different nations pooling their military resources, each didn't have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, and were thus able to specialize somewhat, rather than suffer multiple duplications of effort so that each country had their own full range of military capabilities.

Unfortunately, what we have today is, rather than national specializations, is something more akin to a collection of boutique militaries, each expecting Big Sam to provide all those over-arching (and expensive) capabilities like reconnaissance, logistics, aircraft carrier battle groups, and the like.

"This kind of reckoning between the United States and the states of Europe has been long overdue. Some European states have proven themselves serious about both the alliance and their own national defense. (I'm looking at you, Denmark.) Others have not. If Germans complain with justification that their workers subsidize Greek hair-dressers taking early retirements, it's perfectly fair for the United States to complain German workers enjoy comfy state benefits in part because U.S. tax-payers underwrite their national defense."

re: "The Greatest U.S. Army Jokes Ever"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama exhibits some rather dark humor with his list.

re: "Random Bits"

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") has his head screwed the right way on and his priorities in order.

Money quote(s):

"I was not too angry about the fact that the United States is conducting clandestine operations in Libya. Frankly, I support liaising with the rebels (though not arming them), and I also support observing air strikes. Air strikes are generally more effective at doing what you want them to do -- and not doing what you do not want them to do, like kill civilians -- when they are observed. What makes me mad is the inability of officials to understand that clandestine operations are no longer clandestine after you blab about them to Mark Mazetti and Eric Schmitt. Now, if officials in the administration leaked this information as part of a carefully planned, tightly coordinated information operation designed to hasten Gadhafi's departure from Libya, I take back all my criticism and indeed salute the administration. If, by contrast, this information was leaked because of domestic political pressure and in response to complaints the administration was not doing enough to support the rebels, then I know of a circle of hell Dante forgot in which the leakers will someday find themselves residing. These kinds of leaks -- which involve disclosing the presence and activities of men in harm's way -- are the kind that make me want to run around Washington, DC kicking "officials" in their sensitive parts."

re: "Static, One-Dimensional Analysis 1; Dynamic, Multi-Dimensional Analysis 0"

Andrew at Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") gives credit where it's due.

Money quote(s):

"Since the intelligence community is so rarely congratulated when they get something right, it's worth pointing out that had they been wrong, we would not be conducting combat operations in Libya right now. But their order-of-battle analysis, sadly, proved all too accurate. Readers, if you will, join me in a quiet golf clap for the men and women at Langley, Fort Meade and Bolling AFB."

re: "U.S. Policy in Mubarak's Egypt: Harder Than It Looks "

Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") at the Center for New American Security ("Developing Strong, Pragmatic and Principled National Security and Defense Policies") highlights some on-point thinking by Pincus.

Money quote(s):

"In short, it was relatively easy to predict the trainwreck on the horizon. It was difficult, by contrast, to use what leverage the United States had over Egypt to avert the disaster. "

re: "Egypt: The Blame Game Begins. Sigh. "

Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") at the Center for New American Security ("Developing Strong, Pragmatic and Principled National Security and Defense Policies") demonstrates uncommon good sense.

Money quote(s):

"(I)t was inevitable that in Washington, people would start asking "Who Lost Egypt?" before it was even clear what, exactly, is happening there."

&

"(L)ong ago the U.S. government had identified the fall or death of Hosni Mubarak as a likely contingency to plan toward. Everyone knew this was going to happen eventually. So I think the blame being heaped on the intelligence community here is a little silly. Intelligence cannot predict the future, though it can assist policy-makers in gaming out possible contingencies, and I think our intelligence services did that here."

&

"Even when administrations have decided to pressure Mubarak, by the way, they have found that the ~$1.5b we give Egypt annually has been a largely ineffective source of leverage. (Though it has, I would argue, helped foster now-invaluable connections with Egypt's military. Those last two sentences should serve as a warning for any legislators out there threatening to cut our aid.)"

re: "Just Admit It: The Surge Worked (Updated)"

Abu Muqawama at CNAS ("an independent and nonpartisan research institution") came to a reasonable conclusion.

Money quote(s):

"If you really move the goal posts, defining up "success" as the Surge having not only reduced levels of violence and addressed immediate drivers of conflict but having also managed to fix all the problems in Iraq's political process, then yeah, it failed. But I don't recall that ever being the aim of the operation in 2007, and I don't think it's reasonable to expect the U.S. military and its friends in the diplomatic corps to be able to settle the political affairs of a host nation."

&

"(T)here can be no denying that a space has indeed been created for a more or less peaceful political process to take place. Acts of heinous violence still take place in Baghdad, but so too does a relatively peaceful political process.

If you want to argue that getting involved in Iraq in the first place was a stupid decision, fine. I agree with you. But trying to argue that the Surge "failed" at this point -- even if Iraq someday descends anew into civil war -- simply isn't a credible option anymore."


Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit ("the intersection between advanced technologies and individual liberty").

re: "Barno on Afghanistan; Exum still in his pajamas"

Abu Muqawama ("a blog dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") is clearly a "coffee achiever."

Money quote(s):

"Federal employees are supposed to arrive to work two hours late today, so taking my cue from them, I'm going to have that extra cup of coffee this morning before walking to the Metro in what will look like a scene out of Napoleon's retreat from Russia."

"Barno was one of those rare commanders in Afghanistan who actually put some thought into a little thing called "strategy," so his words are always valuable. Why we let this guy retire I have no idea. Perhaps it was because Barno made the mistake of spending too much time in the suspect 75th Imperial Ranger Regiment rather than that secretive and elite group of war-fighters known as the "U.S. Military Academy Department of Social Sciences." (Which, as we all know, is running the wars. That's right. The nerds you used to beat up in high school are now colonels and generals in the U.S. Army. No, I'm not sure how it happened either.)"

&

"This article really underlines the importance of partnering every combat operation with effective information operations in Afghanistan. If you don't have a plan to craft a narrative for what you're doing and to explain your actions to the population, you simply do not have a plan for success. This article illustrates precisely what happens when you let the other side run its information operations unopposed."

re: "Dear U.S. Army: Please stop threatening to kill your anthropologists"

Abu Muqawama ("dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy") has a good suggestion.

Money quote(s):

"I thought that not killing your HTT would have been, you know, SOP or something. Maybe not doctrine, but certainly SOP."

&

"(I)n case some of you out there in Afghanistan or Iraq are thinking of killing your anthropologists, we here at the blogging team of Abu Muqawama would respectfully ask you not to do so. That is not cool. The anthropologists are our friends."