The Political Conundrum!

That is what the tankers and mechanized Infantry units used to say all the time back in the day. What it referred to was that they would die before they dismounted their vehicles and had to walk.

This mantra had seemed to come back over the last few years in Afghanistan and Iraq with the advent of up-armored Humvees and MRAPs. Over the last couple of years we have seen more and more forces riding through villages and across the countryside behind inches of bullet-proof glass and heavy armor plating.

Even though that is great for personal protection of our forces, it is terrible for executing COIN and collecting Human Intelligence. I realize that sometimes you need to drive to an objective area in order to get there safely and quickly. However once there, you need to dismount the vehicles and walk the ground. You need to get out among the populous, you need to talk to people.

So the old ideal of ‘death before dismount’ is not fitting well in Afghanistan and I think we will see it will not become the doctrine of choice when trying to execute the COIN missions that are needed in Afghanistan. For one thing, the IED threat is huge in Afghanistan. We ship over bigger vehicles like the MRAPs and they just add more explosives to the IEDs. I think the saying is “the bigger they are, the harder they fall”.

IEDs are placed on roads and common areas of approach and travel. If soldiers dismount several miles out and walk to their objective cross-country, then there is no way an IED cell can predict the exact route of travel and successfully plant an IED. By being on foot, it gives the soldiers more latitude in movement, allows them to separate from each other (allowing for greater survivability) and it allows them to have a better 360 degree view of their surroundings.

And of course it makes it easier for them to interact with the locals, observe people and execute all the fundamentals of COIN in regards to working with the local populous. I wish this mindset was in place when I was in Afghanistan back in 2006-2007 because I think we would have been much more successful than we were.

So as we see the forces in Afghanistan take on the new directives of GEN McChrystal and GEN Rodriguez, I think we will see many more of our light-fighters who were used to walking, go back to that very dependable method of movement. It may have some increase of risk and be slower, but I think the positives benefits far out-weigh the negatives.

Following is an interview I conducted with Nowe Panstwo (Our Times), a Politics and History Journal in Poland. The title of the interview in Polish is "ihad jak joga" which translate to "Jihad like Yoga." In this extensive discussion with Olga Doleśniak-Harczuk, we addressed the current state of the strategic structure of al Qaeda, Europe's readiness to confront the threat, the Obama Administration ability to win a war of ideas over the Jihadists, the necessary Western Rethinking of the conflict, indoctrination and penetration in the US, the role of Oil lobbies, the influence of theological texts on Jihadists, the progress of Islamists in Europe, Western inability to fight this war, and Polish American relations in the war with the Jihadists. This discussion published in Nowe Panstow is aimed at stimulating the debate in Poland's academic and research circles regarding the mounting Jihadi threat across the continent. Poland's role overseas but also its experience with totalitarian ideologies is important in the Transatlantic debate about the confrontation with Jihadi forces.

Here is the original discussion in Polish http://fdd.typepad.com/files/interviewpolish-09.pdf

Following is an English translation of the discussion

While most of the battles fought by U.S. Marines in restive Farah province are against improvised explosive devices and guns, Staff Sgt. Todd Bowers is fighting a war of words -- and music -- to win the hearts and minds of people in rural western Afghanistan.

Today, President Obama visited the National Counterterrorism Center where he told analysts "We will target Al-Qaeda wherever they take root, we will not yield in our pursuit." But asthe United States continues to fight on multiple fronts to disrupt the efforts of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, the U.S. government has slowly come to realize that military force alone cannot defeat radical Islamist extremism. Today, there is a growing consensus that countering the ideology that drives this extremism is a critical element in the overall effort to prevent extremist acts of violence. Despite this greater realization, developing a precise strategy to counter extremism effectively and empower mainstream alternatives has proved challenging. The issue posed a difficult challenge to the Bush administration and remains a daunting and urgent task for the Obama administration.

This week the Journal of National Security Law & Policy published an article by myself and my colleagues J. Scott Carpenter and Michael Jacobson entitled "Confronting the Ideology of Radical Extremism." The full article is available here.

The Army has received an urgent request from Soldiers in the field for a precision guided mortar and has accelerated efforts to develop and deliver the new weapon.

The US military now claims that more than 100 enemy fighters were killed during the Oct. 3 assault on two joint Afghan and US outposts in Nuristan province.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said civilian and military advisers should keep their advice private. The Constitution clearly states that military officers operate under civilian control,but does this amount to a gag order? Some experts think so.

The Navy's latest recruiting slogan is out -- "America's Navy: 'A Global Force for Good'" - along with an ad campaign that uses powerful images and an inspirational narrative to get its message across.

Just weeks before the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, an Afghan immigrant with ties to a senior al-Qaida operative drew the attention of U.S. intelligence organizations, officials familiar with the investigation say.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in February and has since undergone two months of radiation treatment.