United States Government Counterinsurgency Initiative

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Briefly, the Departments of State and Defense held a joint conference late September 2006 on counter-insurgency (COIN). Attendees included senior officials from the National Security Council; the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and the Treasury; the U.S. Agency for International Development; and the intelligence community; as well as members of Congress and their staff; and representatives from think tanks, academia, the media; and the Governments of the United Kingdom and Australia.

Unfortunately, MountainRunner wasn’t invited as media this time (maybe next?).

At present I don’t have many comments about the content at the web site (more later as I have time to delve deeper), www.usgcoin.org, save one on Dr. Eliot Cohen’s keynote address. I found it odd that he used our war (is that what we call it now?) on the American Indians as an example of how "winning hearts and minds" isn’t always possible:

There was no question of winning Indian hearts and minds; merely of quelling their resistance and herding them, eventually into reservations. [T]here might be local episodes of American diplomacy to secure the assistance or neutrality of some tribes, but in the long run, this was a contest that could have, and did have, only one outcome – the complete subjugation of the native Americans. The style of warfare that emerged reflected these imbalances.

Is this example really instructive for today? This model, no matter where you stand, is based on imperialist expansion usurping rights and constant breaking of trust by the US Government. Pacification or at least peaceful co-existence was never an option unless the Indian was completely subjugated and put off to the side where the White Man wanted them. Is this really the model Dr. Cohen wants to suggest is our plan in today’s world? That’s not counter-insurgency, that’s called imperialism and I can’t see how the COIN best practices of the conferences contributors could be applied because of this.

Rummy says Farewell at Kansas State

~ Matt Armstrong

I was watching Secretary Rumsfeld talk live at Kansas State University yesterday on the Pentagon Channel and I was struck by his answer to a question from the audience (transcript available here) when asked on what advice he’d give to a young person today:

Study history… We need context. We’ve staked everything in this country — if you think about the gamble, we stake everything on the people, that they can — given sufficient information, will make the right decisions. They need context. We need context. History provides that context. And if there’s one piece of advice I could give, it would be to focus on that and think about it and understand it. It will improve the ability of all of us to function as citizens in this great republic.

I have no doubt the SecDef felt he was doing the right thing, but the conflict between the reality and his statement above is, quite literally, awesome.

Technorati tags: GWOT, Rumsfeld, War

Reporters without Borders: dodging the blame

~ Matt Armstrong

A recent analysis by Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans Frontiers, or RSF) paints a disturbing picture of the United States: we have less freedom of the press. According to their Press Freedom Index 2006, is tied for 53rd in press freedom with Botswana, Croatia, and Tonga.

This makes for an interesting dichotomy. On the one side you have people complaining about the liberal anti-war press looking for every opportunity to bash the Administration and the Iraq War. On the other, you have (rather had) people complaining about Fox News being the mouthpiece of the Administration. Remember Jon Stewart joking that when Tony Snow got his new job, nothing was really changing but the logo on the screen?

On the first point, sentiment like this is heard:

“The people of America have no clue what it really happening here and that is because they are being spoon fed anti administration propaganda by a democratic leaning media.”

I’m continually fascinated by this revisionist argument that isn’t supported by the facts. The real blame, which RSF places displaces onto the Administration and away from the reporters, is the Administration for keeping the effort from an ‘all out’ effort and hiding / obfuscating facts and requirements from the press. The RSF report declares the US media as significantly not free while ignoring the media’s own self-censorship to play along with the hand that feeds.

Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.

The “necessity” to play along with the Scott McClellan / Tony Snow show is ignored. Also ignored is the self-enforced point that the media ITSELF does not feel they have a story UNLESS they have somebody inside the Administration / Government to speak against the same government (this is called “indexing”, Robert Entman writes about this). You can easily trace the traction and trajectory of stories through these means to get a better idea. I still love hearing that Fox News is part of the liberal media bias… even the Administration’s own cheerleaders have been turning against them, which is ignored in sentiments like that above.

Technorati tags: Media, Iraq, GWOT

Project Valour IT and supporting the severely wounded

~ Matt Armstrong

A couple of months ago I had the priviledge to meet Captain Dennis Skelton who was working at the Pentagon with the severely wounded. Dennis is a great kid and has been at least a few news programs to talk about the program (Dennis himself was severely wounded by an IED attack on his Stryker unit in Iraq).

Oddly enough, minutes before I read that Armchair Generalist relayed a call to bloggers to support Project Valour IT, I just dropped an email to Dennis and a private sector individual looking to contribute to the same cause. 

Calling up Military Severely Injured Support (click here for info about the unit) at the Pentagon to follow up on the info AG posted, I learned the following, which I’m passing along for your information:

  • The Pentagon already coordinates with Soldiers’ Angels, the sponsor of Project Valour IT (see details on the project here).
  • Additional resources for mil support can be found at Amerca Supports You, a sort of clearing house of support information run by the DoD.

Just passing along the information…

Artillery Usage, up to OIF

~ Matt Armstrong

MunitionsWhile researching cluster munitions, I came across this interesting chart in a 2004 presentation available from DTIC. Highlights from the brief presentation are below:

  • Non-precision munitions still have a role – but need more accuracy and less volume
  • Area delivered munitions problematic
  • High dud rates with cluster munitions vs. unitary warheads
  • Artillery round precision & collateral damage
  • Continued effort needed to improve responsiveness of precision fires
  • Improvements to Battle-Damage Assessment needed

One Year Left for the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction

~ Matt Armstrong

I don’t know if this is related to the budgeted party celebrating victory in Iraq, but shutting down the SIG could buy a few more ice sculptures for added ambiance. The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (HR5122), the full text available here at THOMAS and here on GovTrack, terminates the Office of the Inspector General on "October 1, 2007, with transition operations authorized to continue through December 31, 2007." Clearly we’ll be done with reconstruction in the next eleven months…

Paving the way for US Military Operations in CONUS

~ Matt Armstrong

Just quickly, here are a few interesting highlights on expanding DOD activities within the continental United States (CONUS) from the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (HR5122). The full text is available here at THOMAS and here on GovTrack. I have highlighted some parts I found particularly interesting, but I’d be interested in reading what Opinio Juris and other legal websites have to say about this. 

Continue reading “Paving the way for US Military Operations in CONUS
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If you’re going to oppose Private Military Companies, understand the issues first

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 3 Comments

We've been hearing for a while about private military companies seeking to jump on the Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) gravy train. Blackwater has been notably vocal in this, most recently in a Washington Times article and on Slate. Typical opposition goes like this, from the Glittering Eye:

Nearly 400 years ago Europeans met in desperation to solve a problem: war without end; war everywhere; war against everyone. The solution they came up with led to modern nation-states. States have a monopoly on military force.

Continue reading “If you’re going to oppose Private Military Companies, understand the issues first
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On mountains…

~ Matt Armstrong

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms
their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
— John Muir

Book Review – Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror

~ Matt Armstrong

Licensed to Kill is Robert Young Pelton’s broad survey of the modern world of mercenaries. Strike that, of contractors. Mercenaries, after all, as Doug Brooks of IPOA (International Peace Operations Association) said in the movie Shadow Company: anyone convicted as being a mercenary should be shot along with his lawyer (Doug, pardon my paraphrasing). Regardless, Pelton’s subtitle captures what these guys are: hired guns. Or as one of the contractors in the book put it: “guns with legs”.

Pelton’s book is (or can be) a quick read. It’s conversational, often with the feel that you’re sitting in a pub having a beer while he tells you a story (as you do in his World’s Most Dangerous Places books). For me, however, it wasn’t a quick read. I found myself highlighting sentences, scribbling in the margins, and applying colored flags for quick and future reference. Pelton may challenge the journalist\ community with how he gets into the action (journos not always being the type who will ride with the bad guy when something might happen), but this is how he gets the facts, the story, and the respect that opens doors later. A perpetual cycle, his access gets him more access and so on. Unlike other others who seek to justify a point of view, Pelton comes off balanced, telling it like it is and, very importantly, with context.

Licensed to Kill is more than a narrative of private operators, it is almost a forensic look into the use of private military forces. High profile actors in the world of hired guns, such as Erik Prince and Blackwater, Tim Spicer, Simon Mann, and Michael Grunburg (profiled deeper in Three Worlds Gone Mad) of various ventures, and even a con-artist who’s convinced he’s the greatest American hero.

This book is a great resource the pulls the curtain aside to see how the firms operate and their motivations, and where they are being used. If you’re not provoked to learn more, you’re not paying attention.

There have been numerous references to this book on this site, look for more in the future. There’d be more now in this review, except Ioaned out my copy…

American Mercenaries of Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

The United States increasingly relies private military companies to carry out its foreign policy. This is a statement of fact and yet it is a bit dodgy to say. In “contested” spaces such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan (inside Pakistan actually), Philippines, Colombia (don’t forget the American contractors still held there), Africa (West, East, you name it), the Balkans, etc., private military companies and their contractors carry out the will of the President. Perhaps more importantly and clearly less recognized is the direct and lasting impact these contractor have on the local populations they interact with.
From training military forces in the Balkans to compelling warring parties to meet at Dayton, to providing personal security to Hamid Karzai, Haitian dictators, and more, these companies extend the foreign policy options of the United States in ways too few care to see or appreciate. In March 2004, a most public example of their utility in shaping the image of America happened in Fallujah when contractors were ambushed, burned, dragged through the streets, and ultimately hung from a bridge. The attack on these men was not motivated by their higher pay. These men were attacked as agents of the United States Government (specifically the CIA). The fallout from this ambush was arguably a milestone in the Iraq War as the war of images, perceptions, actions, and words heated up against the United States.

Other examples of contractors representing the United States on the ground include the infamous Aegis video. However, perhaps more long-lasting are the impressions made by our non-security contractors. Failures to build schools, bridges, and other facilities will stand as demonstrations of how the Americans did not truly want to better Iraq. We don’t have to look to KBR and other firms and allegations of running empty trucks on dangerous routes in order to bill the US Government more money. No, we can look at companies that performed like Custer Battles that through greed did their own part to sabotage our efforts at peace and stability in Iraq. The same can be said of the sadistic contractors in Abu Gharib who got little actionable intel from their inhumane treatment (it is hard to argue they didn’t create more enemies globally than they tried to learn about through their actions).

This isn’t to say all contractors or their companies are corrupt. There are good men with good intentions working hard and giving their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, contractors, whether they are the “bad apples” or good guys doing good, shape the perceptions of America and our mission in troubled areas of the world. The reasons the Executive Branch turns to contractors in lieu of US Government resources varies from a lack of political or economic capital or expediency or political favoritism. Whatever the reason, private contractors are agents of the United States.

The private military industry in general has a direct and immediate impact on foreign populations which American policymakers and the media do not see or accept overall. Although the media has been increasingly critical, it has thus far largely relegated project failures and shortcomings to the company and barely connected the company back to the US and local populations now altered perception of America and its power.

In the case of Iraq, the private military industry is frequently in the “last three feet” of contact with the Iraqi public. Waving guns, driving the wrong way and ready to pop a round into a radiator of a “deserving” vehicle in a (appropriately) paranoid environment (see the US Army view of this activity in Afghanistan), they operate with immunity (relative or actual) and radically and substantially alter Iraqi public opinion of Americans and America by their behavior. These contractors do not wear the uniform of the US military and yet this “Coalition of the Billing” directly represents the US and the “Coalition” whether we like it or not.

In the war on terror, when “hearts and minds” are needing to be won, or at least not pissed off, how are these de facto agents of the US, which the US does not acknowledge as extensions of the US Government, contribute to shaping the perception of the US?

Do they contribute to the American image at all?

At the University of Southern California, on October 17th, 2006, I will be hosting discussions that will look at the private security industry in Iraq, looking beyond the Haliburtons and Custer Battles and into the realm of the armed contractors who frequently are in the ‘last three feet’  of contact with the local population. At 6p, there will be a screening of the movie Shadow Company (http://shadowcompanythemovie.com/), followed by a question & answer session with a panel of experts:

  • Nick Bicanic, the movie’s producer / director (confirmed)
  • Robert Young Pelton, author / adventurer; his latest book is Licensed to Kill (confirmed)
  • Pratap Chatterjee of CorpWatch, http://corpwatch.org, author of Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation (confirmed)
  • Dr. Robert English, USC Professor of International Relations (confirmed)
  • A Former Blackwater contractor with 6 tours in Iraq (confirmed)

Sponsored by the Center for International Studies, with support from the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, this event aims to increase awareness about the impact of the private military industry, notably the private security contractors. Some of the questions to be explored: If war is ‘not merely an act of policy but a true political instrument’, what is the impact of outsourcing war on foreign and domestic policy? Does the state cede ownership and responsibility of this violence in a way that is different than traditional notions of ‘plausible deniability’? To what degree do the armed contractors represent the contracting state in the eyes of the local population and to what effect?

Private military companies, as employed by the United States, impact international relations, domestic politics, public diplomacy, and even the vocabulary of reporting on war. Please join as they ask these and other questions after the screening of Shadow Company.

Date: Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Time: 6p – 9p
Location: ASC Auditorium Theater (G26)
Cost: Free
DETAILS, DIRECTIONS, and RSVP HERE: http://ascweb.usc.edu/asc.php?pageID=110&story=773

A video of the of the Q&A will be available online after the screening.

(It is noteworthy that the USC Center for Public Diplomacy does not support this event and refused to include it in its regular email newsletter. This is even more interesting as I am a grad student in the public diplomacy program at USC and had to find sponsors and supporters outside of CPD to put on this event. The discussants, whom I knew previously due to my work on private military companies, agreed to come for the price of a hotel, for the cost of gas, or for free.)

ABC News: Iraqi Sunni support of insurgency up to 75% from 14% 3yrs ago

~ Matt Armstrong

Briefly, from ABC News the other day comes this story about a confidential Pentagon assessment.

…Officials won’t say how the assessment was made but found that support for the insurgency has never been higher, with approximately 75 percent of the country’s Sunni Muslims in agreement.

When the Pentagon started surveying Iraqi public opinion in 2003, Sunni support for the insurgents stood at approximately 14 percent…

“Where is the government?” one man asked. “Where is the promise of security? Where is the prime minister?”

‘Bush would send troops inside Pakistan…’

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 5 Comments

Did you catch the CNN headline story that Bush would sendtroops into Pakistan to hunt for OBL (or UBL depending on which side you drive
on)? This headline from CNN just now sounds like news, but according to Robert Young Pelton in his new book Licensed to Kill, hired guns (private security contractors) are already there and have been there…using private security contractors.

President Bush said Wednesday he would order U.S. forces
to go after Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan if he received good intelligence on
the fugitive al Qaeda leader’s location. 

"Absolutely," Bush told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in
an interview scheduled for air Wednesday afternoon.

Although Pakistan has said it won’t allow U.S. troops to
operate within its territory, "we would take the action necessary to bring
him to justice." 

But Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, told
reporters Wednesday at the United Nations that his government would oppose any
U.S. action in its territory.

The key word is "troops"…
contractors provide a shield of deniability for both sides.

Looking into Meyer’s National Military Strategy

~ Matt Armstrong

Briefly, I recently read through the National Military Strategy of the US for 2004. Put together under the previous Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Medal of Freedom winner General Richard Meyers, it just isn’t an exciting document that isn’t very interesting, except for these excerpts:

  • "When directed, commanders will preempt in self-defense those adversaries that pose an unmistakable threat of grave harm and which are not otherwise deterrable." [p9, this one we knew and was part of the National Security Strategy, no big deal]
  • When directed, the Armed Forces provide military support to civil authorities, including capabilities to manage the consequences of an attack. [p10, in response to Katrina… wait, it was one year before Katrina…]
  • When directed, the Armed Forces will temporarily employ military capabilities to support law enforcement agencies during special events. [p10, laid down before Katrina… who cares about Posse Comitatus]

It should be interesting to see what General Pace’s NMS looks like considering the difference in personalities and time.

NMS available here at DefenseLink.mil and locally cached here.

More on Civil v Military… an Update on the Supporting Revised Tribunals

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Briefly, in today’s New York Times, Military Lawyers Caught in Middle on Tribunals:

On Wednesday evening, the night before a crucial Senate vote on the Bush administration plan for the interrogations and trials of terrorism suspects, the Pentagon general counsel, William J. Haynes II, summoned the senior uniformed lawyers from each military service to a meeting…

Mr. Haynes sought to enlist the lawyers on the administration’s side by asking whether any would object to signing a letter lending their support to aspects of the White House proposal over which they had voiced little concern.

The lawyers agreed, but only after hours of negotiating over specific words, so that they would not appear to be wholly endorsing the plan.

What followed was a scuffle that left at least some of the military lawyers embittered and stoked old tensions at the Pentagon between civilian leaders and uniformed military officers, who under Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld have often found themselves privately at odds…

The top uniformed Marine lawyer, Brig. Gen. James C. Walker, said in his testimony that no civilized country ought to deny defendants the right to see evidence against them and that the United States “should not be the first.’’ The lawyers stand by those objections, military officials said…

A participant in the meeting said Admiral MacDonald told his colleagues that he could not sign a letter saying he supported the Common Article 3 definition in the White House legislation because he advocated a broader definition that relied more on international law, rather than a narrow interpretation of American constitutional law.

In the end, the military lawyers all agreed to language in the letter saying they “do not object“ to the provisions in the administration bill.

But the letter included a sentence that the clarification would be “helpful to our fighting men and women at war on behalf of their country.”

White House officials said that sentence demonstrated the military lawyers’ support.

General Dunlap said in his mind that signing the letter meant just to convey that trying to clarify ambiguous language was helpful and that it did not mean that he and his colleagues fully endorsed the administration view.

New Poll on Pentagon’s Role in Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

What do you think about the Defense Department running America’s Public Diplomacy efforts?


Should the Defense Department be given control over the creation and execution of America’s public diplomacy? If so, what should its role be?
Yes and it should be the primary and lead in formulating and carrying out America’s PD
Yes, but it should be co-equals with the State Dept in creation and execution
Yes, but it should only within a limited scope and in deference to State/Other Civilian ownership
No, at most it should be given specific tasks
No, it has no business participating in America’s Public Diplomacy efforts
Other or What’s Public Diplomacy?
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