Thoughts From a Talk by LTC John Nagl

Nagl says that the major lesson that the US military establishment drew from the first Gulf War was that the combined AirLand doctrine that utterly destroyed the relatively respected Iraqi forces was an absolute success, but it required more investment to ensure that the US retained its advantage in the field. From the hatch of a tank the view point was different and therefore the lessons that were learned also differed. Nagl left his Gulf War experience convinced that for the foreseeable future no one would bother to challenge the US in conventional warfare. This dominance (and the world's tacit acknowledgment of it) would push future wars either to the top (WMD) or the bottom (guerrilla/insurgency tactics). The book had already been written on WMD, but the American military's counter-insurgency manual had been gathering dust for years. The experience (and more specifically the failures) of the Vietnam War, rather than challenging the military to devise better ways of dealing with low level warfare, led to it neutering the counter-insurgency capabilities it had gained during the war. [This topic is also well covered in the New American Militarism by Andrew Bacevich]
Nagl emphasizes the importance of the military learning by long term institutionalization of changes rather than merely adapting with short term change in tactics and was adament in his belief that "this is the kind of war we will be fighting for the foreseeable future." Besides the importance of making good decisions with regard to doctrine, tools, technology and emphasis, it is even more important to be able to get inside the 'decision loop' of the enemy. It is not enough to design, approve and implement new technology to stop a certain design of IEDs when it only takes a week or two for the insurgents to defeat it with 12 dollar radio shack parts. US forces must be able to innovate and change ahead of the insurgents.
The focus of the new COIN doctrine is to first empower each individual soldier as decision maker, and then make the knowledge that the "best weapons [against an insurgency] don't shoot bullets" at the fore of every soldier's thought process. Killing insurgents is only valuable if it helps in building and maintaining the SWEAT-MS infrastructure (acknowledging the military's excessive love for acronyms, I still like this one; Sewer, Water, Electricity, Academics, Trash, Medical, Security.) Otherwise the dead insurgent's shoes will merely be filled by another disgruntled individual.
On a side note, an audience member brought up Sir Aylmer Haldane's work, "The Insurrection in Mesopotamia" (about the British experience putting down the Iraqi revolt in 1920) and asked if that experience proved that low-force, 'hearts and minds' COIN campaigns were mistaken strategy. I believe that the opposite is true. To paraphrase what other much wiser commentators have said, history doesn't repeat, it merely rhymes. The methods used in that case are not applicable to the Iraq of today. The Roman subjugation method of 'kill, salt and burn' and the Japanese Three All doctrine (Kill all, Burn All, Loot All) cannot be done by the US military in the 21th century. The information revolution has ensured that.In the end, the lesson that should and must be drawn from Iraq, no matter how the situation turns out, is that either conventional war fighting capabilities are not enough, or the mission's the US military should be called upon to perform should be much more limited.

Selections from Maulana Wahiduddin Khan's "Islam Rediscovered"

Maulana Khan is known for his strong anti-violence teachings. He has passionately devoted his life to showing Islam to the world as a religion of peace and tolerance instead of violence and hate. Islam Rediscovered took me a while to really get into (the translation is weak and much of his introductory rationalizations for belief are rudimentary and flimsy), but he eventually gets onto the subject of the dangers and mistakes in the most popular current interpretations of Islam. That was interesting to me. The main points he makes in this section:

1. The current Muslim mindset believes that Islam only provides a model for action in a position of strength (Muslim dominance...the dar al-Islam), not of modesty (Muslim minority...the dar al-harb).

2. The real struggle that the Muslim Ummah are called into is not the political, but the ideological spread of Islam through peaceful da'wah. -- He argues that this problematic tendency is derived from drawing inspiration from the political glory of early Muslim history rather than the Qur'an and Sunnah.

I was impressed by a few quotes in particular. With regard to point #1:

Muslims fight for their communal objectives, but they call it Islamic Jihad. Their leaders form political parties, they enter into violent conflict with other rulers in order to gain power, but they carry out all these activities in the name of Islam. Power play, pure and simple, is given the name of Islamic politics. The so-called Islamic jihad is the most glaring example of engaging in non-Islamic activities under the banner of Islam.

and,

A state of affairs has developed in which Muslims have come to believe that the cause of Islam can be served only through jihad activism, that is, armed struggle. With this mindset, they are unable to understand the significance of peaceful struggle. Anyone who talked in terms of peace and tolerance finds his integrity in question. Any attempt at making them understand the importance of peaceful struggle is seen as a conspiracy to keep them from performing jihad as a "religious duty." It is thus an extremely difficult task to call Muslims to peaceful Islam. Such a mission involves the risk of being dis-credited among one's own co-religionists.

With regard to point #2:

If the Qur'an and Sunnah are taken to be the true sources of knowledge of God's will, all mankind, in the words of a hadith, will be regarded by the believers as God's family; the whole of humanity will become their concern: whereas, when the mind is shaped by hsitory, Muslims see themselves as rulers, and others as subjects.

First published in 2001 in India, my host sister gave me this book when I was studying in
Oman. I would like to get a better feeling for how widespread teaching like Khan's really is. I know the Indian school of teaching (I know there is a better description, but i mean roughly the Tabligh movement) is very different from many other 'schools,' but it would be nice to know more. I'll dig around.

When will they realize?

...That Bush is not running for office in 2008.... Here is Michael Moore's blowing on his Horn of Righteous Indignation and delivering a powerful battle cry for 2008.

A new year has begun. And before we've had a chance to break our New Year's resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now occupies three countries and a white house.Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and if there's a way to blow this election, they will find it and do it with gusto.

Oh wait... it is the same battle cry that has been lobbed at the American people for almost a decade. Stop Bush! Keep his evil from pervading the water supply! It is ridiculous. No candidates on either side revolt me as much as the extremist banner carriers that claim to represent the "true heart" of their respective parties.

Domestic Politics (of Iraq): the Kurds and the Sunni?

One of the biggest potential stories of the New Year is the new coalition" between the PUK, KDP and the Sunni Islamic Party. If the coalition shows legs it will raise many questions for Iraq's future:

Have the Kurds abandoned their alliance which was based on the concept of the Shiite and Kurdish suffering during Saddam Hussain's era? Will the new Talabani-Barazani-Hashemi alliance overthrow Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's government? Will former Prime Minister Iyad Alawi join the new Kurdish Sunni alliance? (The picture is thanks to SotalIraq and Abu Ardvark)

Though no union of love and happiness, the new political triangle has powerful possibilities for either a potential meltdown or greater long term stability. Or both. Before the outcry, hear me out. The political "stability" of a weak Maliki government isn't really getting anything done. It is however ensuring that working out a reasonable oil law and an appropriate level of local vs central control is oh-so-difficult. The failure of the present government will open the door to chaos and it would likely force the major Shi'ite parties to adjust their stances. If any of the smaller Shi'ite parties join the coalition (on this likelihood I am completely uninformed) it would really shake some boats. In the face of such opposition a complete degradation of the political situation could occur down sectarian lines, or more postively, a softening could occur and many of the desires of the minority groups would be met through the political process, thus legitimizing it in the eyes of many who currently feel abandoned or even threatened by the central government. The hard line Maliki's government has held toward both Kurdish (oil and Kirkuk) and Sunni (reconciliation and Al-Hashemi's "national political project") desires has seemingly pushed the groups into each other's arms. What that holds will be integral to Iraq's future.

More thoughts the new coalition can be found here at Abu Aardvark's blog and here at Badger's Missing Links -- it's a regular zoo out there.