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JANUARY 2008
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J O U R N A L
ESTABLISHED 1863
$ 7. 9 5
Heavy
and agile
MAJ. DANIEL L. DAVIS
Nine steps to a more effective force
ALSO
AFRICA COMMAND’S PROSPECTS
PHILIP KAO
AND
DEBATING THE COIN MANUAL
MAJ. CHRIS ROGERS
LT. COL. GIAN GENTILE
RELIGIOUS BIAS AND MILITARY LEADERSHIP
BARRY S. FAGIN & LT. COL. JAMES E. PARCO
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MISSION EFFECTIVENESS I ORGANIZATION & CHANGE I INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY I SYSTEMS ENGINEERING & INTEGRATION I LOGISTICS I STRATEGY
Unpredictable threats.
Adaptive enemies.
Emerging technologies.
Increasing cost pressures.
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12/12/2007
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JAMES J. LEE, AFJ
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AFJ
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J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 ■ F E AT U R E S
COVER PHOTO BY JAMES J. LEE, AFJ; COVER DESIGN BY LISA ZILKA CHAVEZ, AFJ
14
22
26
30
COVER STORY
HEAVY AND AGILE
Beefing up military equipment to fight future wars
will take more than a reliance on technology
BY MAJ. DANIEL L. DAVIS
THE BIG CHILL
Talk of a renewed Cold War underscores common
misunderstandings of geopolitical flirtation
BY DMITRY SHLAPENTOKH
INTO AFRICA
There are opportunities and pitfalls in stepping up
U.S. initiatives on a war-ravaged continent
BY PHILIP KAO
BOOM AND BUST
The strengths and weaknesses of Taiwan’s defense
strategy emerge
BY CHRISTOPHER GRIFFIN
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JAN UARY 200 8 AFJ 3
DENIS SINYAKOV, AFP
Stryker vehicles cross the desert from Mosul to Rawah, Iraq.
14
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ROB CURTIS, AFJ
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JANUARY 2008 ■
D E PA RT M E N T S
6
8
10
36
40
40
Religious bias and coercion undermine
military leadership and trust.
Page 4
48
50
CONTRIBUTORS
INSIDE THE BELTWAY
Asking for more
BY WILLIAM MATTHEWS
FLASHPOINT
The Pakistan problem
BY PETER BROOKES
PERSPECTIVES
More soup, please
BY MAJ. CHRIS ROGERS
COIN: A response
BY LT. COL. GIAN P. GENTILE
PERSPECTIVES
A question of faith
BY BARRY S. FAGIN AND
LT. COL. JAMES E. PARCO
BLOGS OF WAR
In a bit of a state
BY CHRISTOPHER GRIFFIN
DARTS & LAURELS
NONWORD
AFJ
ARMED FORCES JOURNAL
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Correction
A caption for a photograph used to illustrate a feature on private contractors
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4 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
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AFJ
CONTRIBUTORS
ARMED FORCES JOURNAL
In this issue
ADVERTISING
VICE PRESIDENT, ADVERTISING
Donna Peterson, e-mail: [email protected]
phone: (703) 750-8172; fax: (703) 750-8607
DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
Maurice Grant, e-mail: [email protected]
phone: (703) 750-8021; fax: (703) 642-7372
ASSISTANT VP - EASTERN REGION
Janet Berta, e-mail: [email protected]
phone: (703) 642-7335
Army transformation and force modernization are
doing some things well with the right goals in sight.
However, there are major disconnects that will leave the
U.S. vulnerable if they are not soon addressed. That’s the
principle underpinning Maj. Danny Davis’ examination of
the strengths and weaknesses of the force modernization
plan.
Chief among his concerns are an overreliance on highKaren Walker, Editor
tech, networked systems that cannot survive a bloody
nose in battle, and a potentially fatal tendency to underestimate the need for effective heavy armor.
An Army cavalry officer who fought in Operation Desert Storm in
1991 and served in Afghanistan in 2005, Davis brings front-line experience to his analysis. As an operations officer and capabilities manager for Training and Doctrine Command-Future Combat Systems,
he also sees firsthand the future force technologies as
they are developed and tested at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Our feature package this month spans the globe.
Davis
Phil Kao looks at the how the U.S. and the new Africa
Command can best enable Africa to help itself. Dmitry Shlapentokh
analyzes the frosty rhetoric emanating from Moscow. And Chris
Griffin examines Taiwan’s defense strategy through
the lens of its military exercises.
Kao
In Perspectives, a lively debate continues on counterinsurgency doctrine. Maj. Chris Rogers and Lt. Col. Gian Gentile
pick their preferred COIN soup-eating utensils; we suspect this meal
is far from finished.
Barry Fagin and Lt. Col. Jim Parco co-author a
thoughtful piece on military leadership and religious
Griffin
bias.
Pete Brookes ponders what’s next for Pakistan and the
Washington-Karachi relationship.
And Bill Matthews kicks off with a timely look at what Congress
should consider as it weighs how to get the most bang for its 2009
Rogers
defense budget bucks.
ASSISTANT VP - WESTERN REGION
Amanda Graham, e-mail: [email protected]
phone: (703) 750-8678
SALES REPRESENTATIVES
NORTH AMERICA
DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC ACCOUNTS, VA, DC
Kirk D. Brown, (703) 642-7380
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DIRECTOR, MAJOR ACCOUNTS
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Janet Berta, (703) 642-7335
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OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA
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I N S I D E T H E B E LT WAY
Asking for more
Services up the wish-list ante amid fears of a 2009 budget squeeze
BY WILLIAM MATTHEWS
I
n October, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne and Chief of
Staff Michael Moseley told the House Armed Services
Committee they needed an extra $20 billion a year to buy
all of the planes they say they need.
The Army says it will need $12 billion or $13 billion a year
for several years after the Iraq war ends to replace its worn and
damaged equipment. And if the Navy ever hopes to build a
313-ship fleet — 33 more ships than it has today — it calculates that it needs a shipbuilding budget of about $22 billion a
year, not the $13.6 billion allocated for 2008.
In November, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. military needs a budget equal to 4
percent of the gross domestic product, not the 3.3 percent it’s
getting now. That’s a $94 billion a year increase. In his budget
calculations, Mullen wasn’t counting the $200 billion now
being spent each year on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How much of the extra money the services say they need
will wind up in the 2009 budget request the Pentagon sends to
Congress in early February remains to be seen. But with
defense spending at its highest (in inflation-adjusted dollars)
since World War II, some lawmakers have suggested that the
requests for more simply may be unrealistic.
In response to the Air Force request for $20 billion more a year,
Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, snapped at Wynne: “Everything of which you speak
— whether it’s people or planes or equipment — is budget-driven. I have heard no word about strategic thought of where the Air
Force ... fits into the defense and security of our nation.”
And Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., chairman of the House
Appropriations subcommittee on defense, warned the Army
that it is unlikely the service will see most of the next-generation vehicles it hopes for from the Future Combat Systems program. “As soon as this war is over, the money is going to dry up”
for FCS, Murtha said after Congress passed the 2008 Defense
Appropriations Act in November. With that in mind, he said the
Army should focus on developing the most promising technology “spinouts” of the FCS program and install them in the
tanks, fighting vehicles and other equipment it already owns.
But the Pentagon is methodically pushing for more. It likely
sees the 2009 budget as a final opportunity to boost defense
spending before a new — and possibly Democratic — administration starts drafting defense budgets.
It will be up to Congress to impose any discipline on
defense spending; but will it, and where might some fiscal
sense best be applied?
8 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
Lawmakers could start by halting the F-22 program at 183
planes. That had been the plan since 2004, but defense appropriators opened the door to the possibility of more F-22s in the
2008 defense budget. They suggested the Air Force use $526
million originally intended to shut down the F-22 production
line as a down payment on 20 additional planes.
The Air Force has long insisted it needs at least 381 F-22s,
and its allies in Congress have been happy to go along with
that, citing vague threats such as new Russian fighters, the rising Chinese military and the performance of the Indian Air
Force during a war game.
The most recent boost for the F-22 comes from apparent
fatigue troubles discovered in the F-15 fleet. The Air Force
grounded F-15s twice in November, providing F-22 supporters
an irresistible excuse to call for building more F-22s.
But there are lots of good reasons to end the F-22. One is
cost — it’s $360 million per plane. An F-15, by contrast, would
cost about $60 million. The F-22 was designed in the 1980s to
shoot down Soviet fighters over Europe. But the Soviet Union
collapsed long before the F-22 became operational, and the
Air Force has been looking for missions for it ever since —
dropping bombs (it can’t carry very many), electronic eavesdropping, chasing down cruise missiles fired by enemy ships
off the U.S. coast. F-22s have played no role in the wars in Iraq
or Afghanistan. They have not fired a shot in combat. So far,
the U.S. military hasn’t gotten much for the $62 billion it has
spent on F-22s. With no Sovietlike threat on the horizon, the
planned 183 planes augmented by the soon-to-arrive F-35
Joint Strike Fighters should suffice.
SI N K TH E E FV
While holding the line on F-22, Congress should also kill the
EFV — the Marine Corps’ expeditionary fighting vehicle.
Conceived of in 1995, the EFV was supposed to be a highspeed amphibious assault vehicle. It was intended to speed
Marines from ship to shore at 25 knots and then travel overland at 45 miles an hour.
What has been produced so far is a vehicle that breaks
down every eight hours on average, is unpredictable to steer in
the water and has increased in price from $12.3 million to
$22.3 million per vehicle. And the emergence of improvised
explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq pointed out another EFV problem. The flat hull that enables the vehicle to skim over the
water appears to make it more vulnerable on land. With a program price tag now topping $12.6 billion, up from $8.7 billion,
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and with the first deliveries delayed until 2015, lawmakers
should give serious thought to pulling the EFV’s plug.
The coming session of Congress might also be a good time
to finish what the House Armed Services Committee started
last spring — ending the Airborne Laser program. Citing the
“high-risk nature of the ABL program and its history of past
delays and cost increases, the House Armed Services
Committee cut $250 million of the $550 million the Missile
Defense Agency requested. “The committee does not believe it
is prudent to continue to spend over $500 million a year on a
high-risk program that will provide very little
near-term capability,” House lawmakers wrote.
By 2009, when a four-times-delayed missile
shoot-down test is scheduled to occur, the
Airborne Laser will have cost $5.1 billion and
taken 14 years. If it works — many are skeptical —
each airborne laser then could cost $1.5 billion. “If
we continue to move forward on the present
course, the nation could potentially spend over
$20 billion on ABL to obtain very limited capability,” the Armed Services Committee said.
House lawmakers wanted to reduce ABL to a
demonstration program. Given the military’s
many other requirements, $298 million a year
is a lot to spend on a demonstration.
ward to deploy and may find few uses outside Iraq.
Although the Army is a heavier force, it has spent years trying to make itself lighter and more deployable. If the need for
MRAPs declines, Congress should be quick to cut MRAP buys.
However, lawmakers should resist Air Force efforts to push
C-5 cargo planes into retirement. Service leaders say they want
to retire 30 of the oldest C-5s and buy 30 new C-17s as replacements. They’ve been pushing hard for Congress to change legislation that prohibits them from retiring C-5s, KC-135Es and
other planes, including some C-130s, U-2s and B-52s.
The Air Force accuses Congress of micromanaging its fleet. But some lawmakers worry
that the Air Force is too eager to dispose of old,
but still useful, aircraft to bolster its seemingly
insatiable appetite for new aircraft — fighters,
refueling tankers, helicopters and cargo planes
large and small.
The C-5’s biggest supporter may be Sen. Tom
Carper, D-Del., who argues that despite their age
— the oldest C-5s are 39 years old — the giant
planes may be good for another 25 years. New
avionics, new engines and other upgrades are
being tested to see whether they reduce the C-5’s
current high operating costs and rather abysmal
mission-capable rates. If upgrades work, Carper
contends the Air Force can have a fleet of rejuvenated, reliable
C-5s for $11.6 billion total, or $83 million a plane. C-17s, on the
other hand, cost upward of $200 million a plane.
In September, however, the Air Force announced that the
cost of upgrading C-5s had dramatically jumped. According to
Air Force calculations, it will cost $16 billion, or $120 million a
plane. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., called it “strangely peculiar”
that the Air Force’s new, higher cost estimates were sent to the
Senate the day before a hearing on the C-5 upgrades.
“The true cost of the C-5 modernization is in dispute. It is
not easily determined,” Carper said.
Three upgraded C-5s are scheduled to undergo test flights
until June 2010. “We would be wise to abstain from making
declarations about the C-5M’s growing cost” until the test
results are in, Carper said.
It would be wise, too, with defense spending — the base
budget, war funding, nuclear weapons and other costs —
already more than $680 billion a year, for Congress to weigh
what is really needed. But that may be too much to hope for in
an election year. AFJ
The Pentagon
likely sees the
2009 budget
as a final
opportunity to
boost defense
spending.
OVE R R E AC T I O N
During 2007, Congress showed it can be decisive when it
wants to be. Lawmakers added $11.6 billion to the Defense
Appropriations Act so the services can start buying Mine
Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles. The 20- to 40ton vehicles are designed to protect troops against IEDs, and
so far, the Pentagon has ordered more than 8,800 of them.
This is something Congress needs to keep a close eye on.
“It’s a perfect example of Congress and the defense industry
overreacting to a genuine problem,” said Christopher
Hellman, a defense analyst for the Center for Arms Control
and Non-Proliferation. Weeks after Congress acted, the Marine
Corps concluded that its share of the MRAP buy was too high.
The Corps cut its request for 3,700 MRAPS to 2,300, for a savings of about $1.7 billion. The Corps’ logic? As security in Iraq
improves and the number of U.S. troops in Iraq decreases —
as it will during 2008 — the need for MRAPs also will diminish.
For Marines, who usually operate as lightly armed expeditionary forces, MRAPs are behemoths that are slow and awk-
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FLASHPOINT
The Pakistan problem
Musharraf is a troublesome ally
BY PETER BROOKES
P
CHRIS BROZ, AFJ
erhaps no word better describes Pakistan today than
So what if Musharraf isn’t calling the shots after the polls?
“uncertainty.” From questions about the security of its
For American interests, the answer is unclear. Many see
nuclear arsenal to its political turmoil, from the resurBhutto, the leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, as a progence of the Taliban and al-Qaida to its trying relations with
West secularist who will promote democracy and human
India, the moniker fits.
rights, battle extremism and terrorism, and keep peace in the
Indeed, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in his national
region. Indeed, the U.S. even helped broker her return from
address Nov. 3, following his decision to suspend the constituself-exile in October and tried to foster a power-sharing
tion and declare a state of emergency, said:
arrangement between her and the
PAKISTAN
“Pakistan is at the brink of a very dangergeneral. Emergency rule may now
ous situation.”
have killed any prospect of political
CHINA
Truer words were, perhaps, never spoken.
cooperation between the two.
But what about Sharif? The former
AFGHANISTAN
P O L IT I CAL P OT H O L E S
prime minister, who accepted a 10IRAN
Islamabad
Although Musharraf was peacefully sworn
year exile in exchange for the dropLahore
in as president for a second five-year term
ping of corruption and conspiracy
in late November, after taking off his seccharges, returned to Pakistan in
PAKISTAN
ond hat as army chief, there is good reason
November against Musharraf’s wishINDIA
to question whether he will be able to rule
es. Sharif first tried to return to
Karachi
— or if he even will complete another term.
Pakistan in September but was never
Indian
Ignoring outside counsel, Musharraf
allowed to leave his aircraft at the
Ocean
imposed emergency rule in Pakistan in
Islamabad airport, then was sent
DETAIL
early November, citing growing militancy.
ignominiously back into exile in
N
Miles
The decision plunged the country into criSaudi Arabia. But Sharif was able to
0
500
sis and support for Musharraf to new
persuade the Saudi regime to support
depths. Critics charge Musharraf wanted to
his return, despite a Musharraf visit
neuter an adversarial Supreme Court, fearto the kingdom to intervene. If
ing it would invalidate his Oct. 6 election. They were probably
Sharif’s star rises, Riyadh could have significant influence in
right, considering Musharraf’s previous donnybrook with the
Islamabad with the man who was at the helm when Pakistan
judiciary in March.
joined the nuclear club in 1998.
But emergency rule is only one aspect of the immense politSharif is seen as much closer to Saudi Arabia’s position on
ical tensions in Pakistan: Enter former prime ministers Benazir
the political aspects of Islam, and he could turn into a strategic
Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who both returned to Pakistan this
asset for Riyadh in its dealings with an increasingly confident,
fall from exile following Musharraf’s 1999 bloodless coup. Both
and possibly nuclear, Tehran — Saudi Arabia’s biggest nightintend to make a run for the prime minister’s post in the
mare. Some U.S. experts are concerned that Sharif, as leader of
January polls if emergency rule is lifted, ostensibly allowing for
the Pakistan Muslim League, is close to Pakistani Islamist parfree and fair elections. Whether either would cooperate with
ties and could be soft on radicalism, especially the Taliban.
Musharraf — or one another — isn’t quite clear.
These ties also might reverse growth-fostering economic
Elections in January will bring new leadership to the prime
reforms. With plenty of bad blood with Washington from his
minister’s job, an office that shares power with the presidency in
days as prime minister, it’s also likely Sharif won’t be as proPakistan’s political system. Indeed, in the past, Pakistan’s prime
U.S. as Musharraf or Bhutto. He’s likely none too pleased by
minister was frequently more powerful than the president.
the White House’s embrace of the man who overthrew him.
PETER BROOKES is a Heritage Foundation senior fellow and a former
deputy assistant secretary of defense who also served in the Navy, with
the CIA and on Capitol Hill.
10 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
LO OS E N U K E S
Besides politics, what about other U.S. national security
interests?
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Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is sworn in as a civilian president at the presidential palace in Islamabad on Nov. 29 after
giving up his position as Army chief.
The Pakistanis insist that their nuclear arsenal, of at least 50
to 100 nuclear weapons, is safely under lock and key. Indeed,
considering the $100 million in assistance from Washington,
Musharraf may have the situation in hand. Experts assert the
program is under the Pakistani military’s control, uses permissive action links, keeps nuclear cores and detonators — as
well as warheads and delivery vehicles — apart, and requires
two-man authentication, reducing the likelihood of unauthorized launches.
But although all of this is reassuring, one can’t help but be
haunted by the ghost of A.Q. Khan, father of the Pakistani
bomb, and his now-infamous assistance to the likes of Iran,
North Korea, Libya and perhaps others, too. For instance, it’s
now being posited that Khan’s cohorts also may have had substantive contact with Syria, based on Israel’s September strike
on a suspected nuclear facility near the Turkish border.
More disturbing, some Pakistani nuclear scientists reportedly had contact with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in
Afghanistan in the days before Sept. 11, 2001. These scientists
are believed to be in custody today.
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But with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons industry active at some
12 facilities, the concern of nuclear know-how and material
proliferating beyond their walls is real, even with recently
instituted background checks.
TAL I BAN T R O U B L E
The past year has been the deadliest since the Taliban regime
fell in late 2001. So far, more than 250 soldiers from U.S., coalition and NATO-led forces have fallen in Afghanistan.
Although the ability of Taliban fighters to find refuge in the
tribal areas of Pakistan hasn’t helped the fight in Afghanistan,
the turmoil in Pakistani politics, which could prove to be a distraction, won’t improve the situation, either. A leaked National
Security Council document says that although coalition troops
have been successful in individual military battles against the
Taliban, the militants still appear to be able to recruit large
numbers of fighters, many from Pakistan’s Pashtun tribes.
This year also has proved the worst year for suicide bombings in Afghan history. More than 140 suicide bombings were
carried out by extremists, killing hundreds of Afghan civilians
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FLASHPOINT
in 2007. According to the United Nations’ mission in
Afghanistan, the recruitment of suicide bombers reaches into
the tribal areas of Pakistan. Pakistani madrassas — religious
schools — appear to be a major source of these bombers. Of
course, Pakistani and Afghan authorities, especially Musharraf
and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, have repeatedly pointed
the finger at each other for failing to prevent cross-border
attacks by Taliban militants. But one thing is clear: The problem won’t be resolved as long as both sides
remain in a state of denial about the Taliban
problem — which has roots in both countries
— and, instead, keep blaming each other.
AL-QAI DA AN G ST
I N D IA I SS U E S
Although Pakistan seems to be swimming in a sea of chaos
with its political problems and the challenges of al-Qaida and
the Taliban, its future relationship with its
rival and nuclear neighbor, India, cannot be
ignored. Even though relations between
Islamabad and New Delhi have been relatively
stable in recent years, even improved, India
has no interest in seeing jihadis of any sort —
al-Qaida, Taliban or Kashmiri — take over
Pakistan, especially while Kashmir remains
unresolved.
Kashmir, a land both Pakistan and India
have claimed since their birth in 1947, contains the seeds of conflict that has the potential for escalation, especially in light of India’s
superior conventional forces. Representative
of this concern, as chief of the army,
Musharraf led the 1999 border clash with
India at Kargil in an ill-advised land grab.
Sharif tried to fire Musharraf over the disaster,
leading to the general’s coup against the former prime minister. More troubling, as president, Musharraf allowed tensions to rise to
the boiling point with India in 2002, which
some believe might have led both countries to look into the
nuclear abyss if not for American diplomatic intervention.
A country such as Pakistan — the world’s second most populous Muslim nation, which shares borders with India, China,
Afghanistan and Iran — is of unquestionable strategic importance to American interests. Not to mention, Pakistan’s location near the mouth of the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf
is significant for issues of energy security. And one can’t ignore
the fact that 50 percent to 75 percent of U.S. supplies for
Afghanistan fly over, or go through, Pakistan.
The challenge for the U.S. will be to successfully manage
this relationship, which won’t be easy but is critical to
American homeland security, the battle against radicalism,
fighting terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation and stability in
South Asia. AFJ
Some speculate
the step-up
in al-Qaida
communications
is a disturbing
sign of how
secure the
group’s
leadership feels
in Pakistan’s
frontier region.
Pakistan’s tribal areas are also the home to the
most robust element of post-9/11 al-Qaida,
which has vowed for months to bring down
the Musharraf government, and also to take
its jihad abroad to Europe — and the U.S.
Indeed, intelligence agencies have been
tracking Europeans heading for Pakistan in
preparation for missions in the West.
European passports allow easy access to
Western countries, resulting in attacks such as
the 7/7 London bombings in 2005. Not surprisingly, the U.S. intelligence community’s
best estimates place al-Qaida’s bin Laden and
his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, not in
Afghanistan but in the tribal areas of Pakistan
along the Pakistani-Afghan border.
Calling on European governments to abandon the fight in
Afghanistan, bin Laden issued one of his rare videos in late
November — the latest in an increasing number of audio and
video messages produced by al-Qaida’s al-Sahab media outfit.
Al-Sahab has issued more than 90 messages this year — double the number in 2006. Some speculate that the step-up in alQaida communications is a disturbing sign of how secure the
group’s leadership feels in Pakistan’s frontier region. This,
unfortunately, coincides with a notable lack of al-Qaida operatives killed or captured recently in Pakistan, despite what is
reportedly a treasure trove of actionable intelligence passed on
to Pakistani intelligence and security forces. In fairness, it
should be noted that a large number — indeed, hundreds —
of al-Qaida operatives, including senior 9/11 mastermind
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have been captured in Pakistan
12 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
since 9/11. Some analysts believe this shortcoming has more
to do with a lack of Pakistani political resolve and the military’s
unwillingness to act against fellow Muslims than the ability of
these extremists to evade Pakistani forces.
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COVER STORY
Heavy
& agile
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Nine steps to a more effective force
BY MAJ. DANIEL L. DAVIS
JAMES J. LEE, AFJ
THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT IS MODERNIZING AND transforming itself into a force designed to dominate all challengers
in any future battle. At the heart of this transformation is the
concept of network-centric warfare, which seeks to exploit technology and link dispersed war-fighting platforms, soldiers and a
vast array of intelligence assets and sensors, with various means
of attack. Although some components of the Defense
Department’s efforts are outstanding and promise significant
advantage to future American forces, other elements are so far
off the mark that if remedial actions are not taken, American
forces could suffer a significant battlefield defeat in a future war.
Our defense modernization program had its genesis in the
aftermath of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Before the initiation of hostilities, the Iraqi Army was widely portrayed in the
media as a menacing force, hardened by years of war with
Iran, loaded with thousands of tanks and artillery pieces, and
protected by a sophisticated web of modern air-defense
weapons. When the U.S.-led coalition utterly routed Saddam
Hussein’s forces from Kuwait, the victory was widely viewed as
a product of America’s technological prowess and heralded the
beginnings of a revolution in military affairs (RMA). The years
that followed saw an abundance of articles written by military
MAJ. DANIEL L. DAVIS is an Army cavalry officer who fought in
Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and served in Afghanistan in 2005. He
is the operations officer for Training and Doctrine Command Capabilities
Manager-Future Combat Systems at Fort Bliss, Texas. The views
expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those
of the Army, Defense Department or U.S. government.
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thinkers who shared their vision of what this revolution would
mean for the U.S. and how it would transform the way wars
were fought. A number of prominent flag officers in the
Defense Department led the way.
One of the initial proponents of RMA theory was Adm.
William A. Owens, at the time vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. In February 1996, he wrote “The Emerging U.S.
System-of-Systems,” in which he laid out his vision of future
warfare that would rely heavily on technology and feature the
RMA prominently. That was followed a few years later by thenArmy Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, who announced his
intent to make Owens’ ideas operational in the form of a “family of systems” known as Future Combat Systems (FCS). The
ideas laid out by these two men, and effectively adopted as
Defense Department policy in a series of documents published shortly after, established the conceptual underpinning
that would later be used to create the future force. Some components of this high-tech vision are demonstrably outstanding, while others, regrettably, are decidedly not.
The U.S. Army senior leadership articulated its vision of
what the future Army would be capable of in the 2004 Army
Transformation Roadmap: “Knowledge-based Army forces
exploit advanced information technologies and space-based
assets for network-enabled battle command, while fully integrated within the joint, interagency and multinational environment. Unlike past, predictable operations, Army forces
respond within days and fight on arrival in the joint operations
area through multiple entry points. These capabilities allow
the JFC [joint forces commander] to pre-empt enemy actions,
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We must not fall prey to the belief that awesome technology
will always provide us combat overmatch against all opponents.
assure access, seize the initiative and shape the battle space.”
But given the current state of technology, the probability of
future development in nations across the globe, and a historical
perspective on the performance of new and emerging technologies in the past, does this theory stand up to rigorous examination? I argue that it does not. Aside from a near-faith-based,
unsubstantiated belief in the efficacy of technology to do anything and everything imaginable, one of the primary factors
upon which this assessment is based is its failure to give proper
consideration to the capabilities of the future enemy force.
One of the major problems in discussing the foundations for
our modernization program is that the very military victory
hailed as the proof of American technological dominance —
Desert Storm (and later the conventional phase of Operation
Iraqi Freedom) — was not primarily a result of technology. It
resulted from a combination of two factors: (1) the American
force was highly trained, well-led and effectively equipped; and
(2) the Iraq force was pathetically led, even more poorly trained
and marginally equipped. In other words, no matter what we
did in Desert Storm and OIF, the U.S. would have won. Had we
faced a competent foe, we may well have won anyway, but we
would have seen the limits of technology. As it is, we cite Desert
Storm as unimpeachable proof of the dominant ability of our
current military technology, and most of our projections about
future capability envision an enemy as impotent as Iraq. Our
failure to create a force based on facing a credible, robust and
capable enemy force that has access to modern technology and
is as clever as we are in its deadly application is one of the greatest failures of our modernization program.
U N P R OT E C T E D AN D U N R E AL I ST I C
But the greatest threat such an unrealistic view of combat poses
to our future force is the misguided decision to reduce both the
amount of armor protection for the fighting vehicles and the
number of vehicles themselves without any substantive data.
Army plans call for the creation of 15 FCS brigade combat
teams (FBCTs) by 2030. Each of these FBCTs will be composed
of 14 systems, including manned and unmanned ground vehicles, two classes of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), a comprehensive network, plus the soldier (for a detailed description of
the entire FCS system, see the Army FCS Web site at http://
www.army.mil/fcs). In the perfectly valid interest of lowering
logistical requirements, the Army chose to use a common chassis for all FCS vehicles. The consequence of that decision was
the design of vehicles that are less armored than existing plat16 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
forms and therefore less survivable in combat, which is illogical
when one considers the certainty that time and technology will
continue to see the development of stronger and more powerful weapon systems. How then, does it make sense to design a
future fighting platform less survivable than today’s vehicles?
Consider recent combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The enemy in both of those wars is not a shell of the powerful future enemy we may someday face, and yet this decidedly
low-tech, insurgent enemy has been able to scrounge for sufficient numbers of powerful roadside weapons that have forced
the U.S. to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to add armor
to every combat vehicle in our inventory — including the 70ton M1 Abrams tank and the 30-ton Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
If we recognize the need to upgrade the armor protection on
the vehicles in our fleet that already possess the greatest
degree of protection, what logic could lead one to conclude
that it makes sense to develop lighter vehicles, possessing less
armored protection, potentially going up against a state
equipped with a full arsenal of modern weapons? The Defense
Department’s apparent answer: Information.
PAI N F U L L E SS O N 1
Operation Anaconda conducted against al-Qaida in Afghanistan in March 2002 provides painful lessons about the limitations of technology. In a paper for the Army War College, thenLt. Col. H.R. McMaster described the key points of that battle:
“On March 2, infantry air assaulted almost directly on top of
undetected enemy positions. Soldiers came under immediate
fire from small arms, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and
machineguns as their helicopters landed. Battalion and
brigade command posts were pinned down and commanders
fought alongside their men. Apache helicopters responding to
provide direct fire support were hit and rendered inoperable.
The planned second lift of soldiers had to be cancelled. Some
units were pinned down by enemy fire during the first night of
the battle and through the next day; they, including many of
the wounded, could not be extracted until the following night.
The unit had deployed with no artillery under the assumption
that surveillance combined with precision fires from the air
would be adequate. Even the most precise bombs proved ineffective against small, elusive groups of enemy infantry so soldiers relied heavily on small mortars. As the fight developed
over the next ten days, it became apparent that over half of the
enemy positions and at least three hundred fifty al Qaeda
fighters had gone undetected.”
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Significantly increasing the armor on the planned Mounted
Combat System would give FCS a vehicle that could go head
to head with the best Chinese and Russian tanks.
It is reasonable to ask how, 11 years after Desert Storm, with
billions of dollars spent on refining the technological advances
so touted a decade earlier, we encountered such stiff resistance
against an enemy that had no UAVs, no access to satellites, no
armored vehicles, no digitized battle command network, no
helicopters and very little in the way of sophisticated weaponry.
Since the early 1990s, senior military leaders have been
preaching what amounts to a faith-based belief in the efficacy
of future technology. We are always told that “soon” we will see
“unprecedented” capabilities as a result of technology, and that
our troops, so equipped, will enjoy “overmatch” against any
opponent. However, when it has come to combat operations in
which theory has met reality, a different story has emerged.
PAI N F U L L E SS O N 2
An equally problematic encounter occurred during the initial
march to Baghdad by our mechanized forces. One of the leading elements of the 3rd Infantry Division (3ID) drive to
Baghdad, Lt. Col. Ernest Marcone, battalion commander in
3ID’s 69th Armored Regiment, approached a key bridge over
the Euphrates River that would be necessary for the advance to
the capital by the remainder of the division. Every technological advantage should have belonged to Marcone’s armor battalion, particularly with respect to intelligence of enemy movements. The Iraqi enemy had access to no satellites, limited
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radio communications, no UAVs, no fighter jets, no helicopters
and only rudimentary command-and-control technology.
The U.S. side was equipped with unprecedented
technology. During the war, hundreds of aircraft- and satellitemounted motion sensors, heat detectors, and image and communications eavesdroppers hovered above Iraq. The armed
services coordinated their actions as never before. U.S. commanders in Qatar and Kuwait enjoyed 42 times the bandwidth
available to their counterparts in the first Persian Gulf War.
High-bandwidth links were set up for intelligence units in the
field. A new vehicle-tracking system marked the location of
key U.S. fighting units and even allowed text e-mails to reach
front-line tanks. This digital firepower convinced many in the
Pentagon that the war could be fought with a far smaller force
than the one it expected to encounter. If ever there was going
to be overmatch, it should have been here. But as in Afghanistan, when theory met reality in combat, reality prevailed
because even a technologically overmatched enemy has a vote
in the outcome.
As Marcone’s battalion approached the bridge, he was
unable to get intelligence on the nature of the threat he might
face. According to a November 2004 article in Technology
Review, “How Technology Failed in Iraq,”as the battle developed, “the situation grew threatening. Marcone arrayed his
battalion in a defensive position on the far side of the bridge
and awaited the arrival of bogged-down reinforcements. One
communications intercept did reach him: a single Iraqi
brigade was moving south from the airport. But Marcone says
no sensors, no network, conveyed the far more dangerous
reality, which confronted him at 3:00 a.m. April 3. He faced not
one brigade but three: between 25 and 30 tanks, plus 70 to 80
armored personnel carriers, artillery, and between 5,000 and
10,000 Iraqi soldiers coming from three directions.”
Because the American soldiers were so well-trained and wellequipped, in both cases they were able to overcome the uncertainty created by the failure of technology. In our current force,
soldiers don’t expect to have all the information. They are
explicitly trained to expect that intelligence reports are approximations, and that once contact is made they discover ground
truth, adapt to the situation presented and still expect to prevail.
In the future force, however, it will be far more difficult for soldiers to overcome inaccurate or incomplete intelligence reports
because the platforms in which they’ll fight are physically less
capable of surviving direct-fire engagements in combat.
The concept of our future ground force is such that it trades
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The greatest threat to our future force is the misguided decision to
reduce armor protection and the number of fighting vehicles.
armor protection for enhanced information, positing that with
dominant battlespace knowledge, we will know where the
enemy is and what he is doing, and take pre-emptive action
against him. Thus, we always gain and maintain the initiative,
keeping enemy forces continually off balance and on the
defensive.
But as these two critical tactical vignettes show, the other
side is quite capable; the technology upon which we primarily
base our intelligence, communication and precision strike
capabilities will not always do what we hope; and at other
times, circumstances simply will not be in our favor. If we do
not have a force like Marcone had at that Euphrates bridge —
heavily armored tanks and infantry fighting vehicles that
enabled him to fight for information in an uncertain environment — then we will at times be at a disadvantage against an
enemy who is so equipped.
M O D E R N I Z AT I O N’S M I S MATC H E S
To ensure, therefore, our future force does not encounter a situation in which it is overmatched by an enemy force, we must
conduct a thorough force-on-force analysis of potential future
opponents. Only by making a direct comparison to these
forces can one hope to determine whether the correct course
of action has been taken in terms of future development.
Without question, the country that currently possesses the
most robust military capability and is investing most heavily
for the future is the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
This article takes no position on the likelihood of whether
the PRC and the U.S. ever will go to war, but addresses the
capabilities that these two giants possess now and are likely to
possess in the future and illuminates potential Chinese advantages over future American forces.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA), in an effort to create
combat forces with the ability to effectively execute China’s
emerging modernization doctrine, has been improving its
training in terms of realism and sophistication with a focus on
joint and combined-arms operations. In recent years, China
has increased the difficulty of training exercises by presenting
its leaders with unexpected problems. In January, the PLA
General Staff Department (GSD) issued its 2007 Training
Guidelines, which emphasize realism.
It is clear that China’s doctrine and supporting training
programs are focused on precisely the capabilities the U.S.
possesses now and is likely to have in the future. China has
also invested heavily in the weapon systems needed to attack
18 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
American vulnerabilities. China has aggressively produced an
entire array of high-tech systems and advanced weapons
designed to attack areas of American vulnerability, particularly in regard to FCS. It is for this reason we must be cautious when touting the strengths of the system; we must not
fail to take into consideration that other intelligent people
are actively engaged in seeking ways to defeat U.S. military
capabilities.
MAD E I N AM E R I CA — AN D EVE RY WH E R E E L S E
The world has not stood passively by since Desert Storm. It has
studied American performance in extraordinary detail and
spent billions of dollars and years of research focused on the
desire to defeat the most prominent capabilities we have now
and those we are projected to have in the future. We, therefore,
must be sober and aware of what capabilities the world is producing, expend considerable mental power trying to devise
counteractions and, perhaps above all, shed the hubris
endemic throughout our force that would have us believe we
cannot possibly be challenged on a conventional battlefield.
The facts argue persuasively against such belief.
It is critical that with eyes wide open, we educate ourselves
as to global military developments, analyze those capabilities
in light of our platforms and systems, ascertain our areas of
potential vulnerability — and then constantly seek ways to
mitigate those vulnerabilities, acknowledge that our opponent
will score some victories, and with that understanding, seek
solutions that will allow us to win anyway. If we always prepare
ourselves to face the best capabilities a potential enemy might
throw at us, we will have a chance to win every time.
Ironically, the Defense Department claims to use such a
“capabilities-based” approach to future force development.
According to Defense’s 2002 Annual Report to the President
and the Congress, although it is impossible to know which state
or group of states might pose a future threat to the U.S. or its
vital national interests, it is possible “to anticipate the capabilities that an adversary might employ to coerce its neighbors,
deter the U.S. from acting in defense of its allies and friends, or
directly attack the U.S. or its deployed forces. A capabilitiesbased model ... requires identifying capabilities that U.S. military forces will need to deter and defeat. ... Because such adversaries are looking for U.S. military vulnerabilities and building
capabilities to exploit them, the department is shoring up
potential weak spots to close off such avenues of attack.” If
actions followed these words, then this essay would be hailing
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the Defense Department’s focus. Unfortunately, there is a significant mismatch between stated policy and actions.
In the 2004 Army Transformation Roadmap, the Army
defines “Future Challenge Risk” as “anticipating future
threats and adjusting capabilities to maintain a military
advantage against them.” And yet when it explicitly defines
this risk in relation to the FCS, it lists three ways by which it
will attain this goal: providing program stability through testing and procurement; spiraling capabilities forward; and
accelerating the fielding of an intelligence distribution system. There is no mention of any analysis of current or emerging enemy capabilities.
It is my assessment that the three essential enemy capabilities the U.S. must focus on are:
å Future adversaries who possess rapidly evolving technological capabilities that will soon — and in some key categories already do — give them skills equal to those of the U.S.
These categories include (but are not limited to) deployed
satellite constellations for navigation, intelligence-gathering,
communication, and telemetry for precision-guided weapons;
the ability to shoot down U.S. satellites, deploy fleets of
unmanned aerial systems and field increasingly modern fighter jets and bombers; and advanced C4ISR capabilities.
å Future adversaries who are developing increasingly powerful armored vehicles, particularly main battle tanks designed to
go head to head with the M1 Abrams tank, along with more
sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles, precision-fired artillery
pieces and advanced rotary-winged aircraft designed to allow
them to compete on the conventional battlefield against the U.S.
å Future adversaries who seek to mitigate U.S. strengths by
fighting in cities, intermingling with civilian populations; make
use of new and existing signature-reduction technology; discover
creative ways to deceive our expansive sensor array; and employ
robust countertechnology forces designed to interfere with,
deceive, corrupt and destroy U.S. computer and communication
systems; and aggressively seek to shoot down UAVs.
Our future force is designed to go against an enemy who has
only a few of the capabilities listed above; if unforeseen circumstances in the future were to require it to fight against an enemy
who is able to do most of the things on the above list, our force
would be vulnerable to defeat. The U.S. should, therefore, shift
course immediately and embark on a path expressly designed
to create a military able to defeat the best that any enemy could
throw at us, endure a bloody nose (because it must be clearly
understood that a worthy opponent can inflict lethal blows),
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Information technology is a critical tool on the modern
battlefield, but it can lead us to exaggerate our capabilities.
and provide the means to win despite his best efforts. To accomplish that objective, the Defense Department in general and the
Army in particular must make changes to its futures programs.
O U R B E ST C HAN C E
Making recommendations for change does not imply we would
junk all the modernization efforts conducted to date by the
Defense Department or the Army. Many — indeed, most — elements of current modernization are good to excellent, both in
theory and practice. For example, Army senior leaders are correct in their assessment that the global trend is clearly moving
toward network-enabled forces that use sensors, unmanned
aerial platforms, satellites, precision-guided weapons, and other
advanced computer and communications gear; as an economic
and military superpower, the U.S. must ensure it remains the
world leader in this movement. Moreover, a number of elements of the FCS program ought to be supported and in some
cases expanded. Several classes of robot vehicles already have
demonstrated notable utility in combat; the none-line-of-sight
launch system, mortar and cannon all provide significant
improvements over existing capabilities. The concept of linking
platforms via an integrated network is sound. Linking sensor
fields with aerial platforms and soldier observations enables the
forces to attack targets outside direct-fire range and provides the
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Too often, we exaggerate what technology can do for us
and underestimate what the enemy can do.
Army with the ability to increase lethality.
Although many aspects of the FCS system have great potential, significant vulnerabilities also exist. Problems arise when
the network experiences latency or when the enemy force successfully attacks the UAVs, disables or destroys the sensors,
knocks down the satellites, successfully employs camouflage,
deceives the sensors, or employs a mass attack that can’t be
destroyed fast enough. In such cases, the FCS system as
designed would be at a marked disadvantage because,
stripped of its ability to engage beyond line of sight and out of
contact, it could not trade body blows with a heavily armored
enemy and survive. The first step in rectifying this deficiency
must be either to increase significantly the armor protection of
the Mounted Combat System (FCS’ main direct-fire system) or
expressly produce a new tank for the FBCT that can go head to
head with high quality systems such as the Ukrainian T84U,
the Chinese Type 99 and/or the Russian Black Eagle.
B R I N G BAC K T H E CAVAL RY
One of the most significant errors committed during Army
reorganization was the elimination of the heavy divisional cavalry squadron. Before being disbanded, this organization was
composed of three ground troops equipped with 27 tanks, 41
Bradleys and six mortars, and two aerial reconnaissance
troops equipped with 16 OH-58 Scout helicopters. This formation had the ability to conduct reconnaissance in any environment conceivable. If bad weather, poor intelligence or just the
fog of war clouded the situation, the squadron could develop
the situation for the supported maneuver commander so that
when he had to engage the enemy, he had an adequate picture
of the enemy. As programmed, FCS has replaced this robust
formation with what’s known as an RSTA (reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition) squadron composed of four platoons of UAVs and two aerial reconnaissance troops composed of 10 scout helicopters.
Within each combined-arms brigade there exists a lightly
armored ground reconnaissance troop, but the RSTA squadron
has no ground troops, only aerial assets. In an ideal environment, these platforms would be able to provide valuable information to the maneuver commander but would have only a limited ability to thoroughly conduct route reconnaissance, limited
capability to find enemy forces making effective use of camouflage, and no ability to engage enemy forces with direct fire. But
the biggest weakness of all is its susceptibility to being grounded
by bad weather and shot down by enemy anti-air assets.
20 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
During both Desert Storm and OIF, significant dust storms
covered the battle area at the most inopportune times,
grounding virtually all tactical UAVs and helicopters. That did
not represent a serious problem to the Army’s ground forces in
either war because they possessed a sufficiently robust and
powerful armored reconnaissance force with which to fight for
information. I fought with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment
at the Battle of 73 Easting in a blinding sandstorm in 1991. We
would have preferred to have had the aero scouts flying the
normal six to 10 kilometers in front of us, but their absence
represented limited concern to us because our ground troops
found the enemy and had enough indigenous firepower and
armored protection to survive any unexpected encounter. Had
an FCS-equipped force run into the same sandstorm, all its
aerial platforms would have been grounded, denying the supported maneuver force commander of information about
enemy disposition or strength and requiring him to engage
blindly. It is critical, then, that the reconnaissance squadron be
reorganized to include ground troops equipped with the ability to fight for information when conditions are not optimal. To
go into combat in the future with vulnerable reconnaissance
capability would be unwise.
Virtually every competent armed force possesses unmanned
aerial systems, and a growing number possess the ability to
attack space-based platforms. Therefore, we must create the
ability within our force to both defend against such attacks and
to launch counterstrikes. Like it or not, space has been added
as a dimension of war. Our potential adversaries possess the
ability to shoot down, blind, deceive or outright destroy the
space platforms upon which we critically rely. If we don’t protect our satellites and improve our ability to employ precision
weapons against hostile enemy forces, we incur an avoidable,
unacceptable vulnerability.
T H E E SS E NT IAL UAV
Because of its effect on the tactical and operational fight, the
UAV has become a key asset of the battlefield commander. In
the context of global force modernization, most discussion to
date about UAVs has centered on their ability to perform ISR
and precision strike functions, but there has been far too little
discussion regarding counter-UAV operations. If it is agreed
that the UAV is a valuable tool used by both sides in an operation, it stands to reason then that there is also value in denying
this ability to our opponent. Just as a common part of a conventional battle plan on the ground is the counter-reconnais-
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The Desert Storm victory, cited as proof of U.S. technological
dominance, was primarily the result of a highly trained, wellled American force engaging an impotent foe.
sance phase to identify enemy intentions and strip away
enemy reconnaissance assets, likewise it now must become a
requirement to conduct counter-UAV operations to identify
enemy intentions/capabilities and to strip away the enemy’s
fleet of drones and blind him to our intentions.
We must, therefore, develop a UAV variant whose purpose it
is to seek out and destroy enemy platforms. When one considers that China has virtually identical UAV variants to the FCS’
Class I and IV vehicles, it becomes clearer why it is important
to develop this counter-UAV capability. If we believe the possession of these platforms serves a critical function in precision-fire engagements, then it becomes all the more important
to deny the enemy the ability to target our force with same.
But although the UAV has importance at the tactical and
operational level, satellites have great significance to the joint
force commander at the strategic level. The loss of UAVs might
affect companies, battalions and brigades; the loss of satellites
affects a nation’s entire force. We need redundant capabilities,
and we must not rely exclusively on those assets to perform
critical functions. We need to employ things such as stationary
inflatables, remotely piloted vehicles and other alternative
technologies to satellites that will limit our vulnerability.
China, Russia and other states in Asia are developing new
fleets of fighter jets intended for use as close-air support for
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maneuver units. The last contested air campaign conducted by
the U.S. was the Linebacker II offensive against North Vietnam
in December 1972. Since then, we have faced the fearsome
Grenadans, the horrible Haitians, the mighty Serbian military
and the “elite” Republican Guard of Iraq — none of whom had
anything resembling a credible air force. It would be a tragic
mistake, however, to assume that condition will continue into
infinity. So long as potential enemies of the U.S. possess the
capacity to strike American ground troops with attack aviation,
we must maintain air defense units at the tactical level.
Numerous senior Defense Department leaders have emphasized their intent to develop the capacity to build a force capable of rapid deployment anywhere in the world. If we want to
be capable of executing that intent and pose a serious operational threat to future enemies, we must posses the necessary
assets. To meet that requirement, we need a sufficient number
of transport aircraft large and tough enough to do the job.
In an October memorandum to senior leaders of the U.S.
Military Academy, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey wrote: “We
must create the strategic national military airlift and air-to-air
refuel capability (600+ C-17 aircraft) to project national military and humanitarian power in the global environment. We
currently have an inadequate capability with 150 aircraft supported by an aging refueling fleet. ... If we are to pose a serious
deterrent capability in the dangerous world arena, then we
must credibly be able to project power back into future combat areas to sustain allies at risk. The C-17 represents the
capacity to carry out this strategic power projections mission.”
Complementing the aircraft, we also need to expand and
modernize landing-strip-building “Red Horse” squadrons. A
Red Horse squadron is an engineer unit designed to perform
damage repair required for recovery of critical Air Force facilities and utility systems, and aircraft launch and recovery. In
addition, Red Horse units accomplish engineer support for
bed-down of weapon systems required to initiate and sustain
operations in an austere, bare-base environment, including
remote hostile locations. These formations should be strengthened and increased in number to provide the joint force with
the capability to establish airfields where none previously
existed. We need to give the force commander the ability to
send in airborne or air assault troops to secure a piece of
selected terrain suitable for the construction of an airfield,
protect the approaches, then insert a Red Horse squadron,
FORCE MODERNIZATION continued on Page 46
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The
big
chill
Talk of a renewed
Cold War underscores
common misunderstanding
of geopolitical flirtation
BY DMITRY SHLAPENTOKH
DENIS SINYAKOV, AFP
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THOSE OBSERVING CURRENT RUSSIAN-AMERICAN,
Russian-European and European-American relationships
might assume that the Cold War is back in a new edition. The
U.S. plan to place an anti-ballistic missile system in Europe
seems to signal a new chill in the Russian-Western relationship.
The U.S. claims it is just a preventive measure against Iran
and other “rogue” states. Russian President Vladimir Putin dismisses these claims and says it is designed to tip the balance
of power toward the West — implicitly a continuation of the
Ronald Reagan “Star Wars” program of more than a generation
ago to protect the West from a Soviet missile attack. The rancor
over missiles goes along with other harsh statements by Putin,
one in Munich and another during a celebration of the Soviet
Union’s victory in World War II, when he compared — at least
in the view of some pundits — the U.S. to Nazi Germany.
The rancor over the Iraq war — when the split between the
U.S. and what former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
called Old Europe threatened the very existence of NATO —
seems to be gone. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and even
the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, have demonstrated
friendliness to the U.S. This rekindling of relations seems to
have put an end to rumors of divorce from the U.S. The transAtlantic geopolitical marriage is, surprisingly enough, especially strong on the French side.
The trans-Atlantic marriage of the U.S. and Old Europe
seems to have been restored, and the West once again stands
firm against Russia. Putin has been chastised for falling back
on Soviet-style smashing of dissent and bullying small Russian
neighbors, and Russia again has emerged as the anti-Western,
Asian/Eurasian country it was for decades, if not centuries. But
the external picture could be deceptive, and a close look suggests the situation is very different. The Russia/West European
trend continues, and the rekindling of love between Europe
and the U.S. is deceptive or, perhaps, a prelude to a new marriage contract. This provides Russia a good chance to pursue
its policy of European integration, or at least a close relationship with Europe. In general, geopolitical arrangements have
continued to be quite fluid.
The notion that the West is once again united and poses a
mortal threat for Russia, as was often the case in the past,
implies a certain Russian response. Russia’s policy for centuries
DMITRY SHLAPENTOKH is an associate professor of history at
Indiana University South Bend. He graduated from Moscow State
University and has taught at Harvard and Stanford universities.
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has been to search for allies. In the 13th century, Prince
Alexander embraced the Mongols to counter an attack from the
West. More recently, Stalin courted the Japanese when he saw a
Nazi onslaught in the future. And today, Putin, if he sees a united West as a real military threat, also should look to the East,
even more so because of Russia’s apparent natural ally — Iran.
Regardless of whether the current American/Iranian standoff will lead to war, Iran and the U.S. are sworn enemies. Iran's
strong anti-American stance makes it seem a perfect candidate for a military alliance with Russia. In fact, some influential Russian intellectuals, such as Alexander Dugin, regard
alliance with Iran as the linchpin of Russia’s greatness — the
way to create a mighty Eurasian empire and end American
global domination. Dugin and similar-thinking pundits have
even suggested that Russia should help Iran develop nuclear
weapons, which would limit America’s ability to engage in
wars of aggression.
AR M I N G I RAN
This musing about rapprochement with Iran is not abstract
talk. Since the mid-1990s, Russia has actively engaged in the
sale of weapons to Iran and, some observers suggest, provided the know-how for potential Iranian development of
nuclear weapons. Russia began to build the Iranian nuclear
plant at Bushehr when Boris Yeltsin was professing
unbounded love for the West in general and the U.S. in particular. Putin apparently proceeded in the same direction. He
sold Iran sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, continued the
work at Bushehr, and continued to reiterate that Russia is a
faithful and dedicated Iranian partner that would not let the
U.S. attack Iran. One might suggest, in what seems to be
increasing tension in the West, that Putin would make a more
decisive move toward Iran.
But the unexpected happened. In response to President
Bush’s assertion that new bases in Poland and the Czech
Republic would serve to counter an Iranian missile attack,
Putin proposed instead that the U.S. use the Russian-controlled Kabala radar station in Azerbaijan. Putin was implying
that the Americans could control Iranian moves much better
from near the Iranian border than from Central/Eastern
Europe. The message, at least from the Russian perspective, is
clear: Russia does not regard Iran as a potential ally or care
much about the Iranian attitude. Russia’s attention is still
directed to Europe, and Putin believes that a geopolitical or
economic marriage with Europe is possible, despite all the verJAN UARY 200 8 AFJ 23
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The Cold War rhetoric of Russia and some members of the Western
community conceals more complicated drifts in global politics.
bal rancor and saber-rattling. Russia’s claim is not groundless,
because it can offer what Europe needs — gas and oil. The
relationship between Old Europe and the U.S. is far from trouble-free. And this also provides Russia with a good chance to
woo Europe, regardless of harsh statements from European
capitals.
LO R D O F GAS AN D O I L
Chinese leaders have emphasized that China’s present rise will
be “peaceful.” This is not just diplomatic politeness. In the
present world, a state’s power and influence depend in many
ways on its economic resources. And China’s increasing economic might — its peaceful “weapon” — could indeed lead to
a position of global power different from that in the past.
Russia has followed this road, and assumed that it has influence over Europe because of natural resources, not missiles.
The country’s final rapprochement with the continent ultimately depends on European dependence on Russian monopolization of gas and oil. In May, Putin achieved an apparent
landmark deal with the key gas-producing countries in Central
Asia, which ensured a supply of gas to “Old Europe” or, more
precisely, to Germany.
The reasons for Central Asian leaders to strike the deal with
Russia but not with the U.S., which still has bases in the
region, were manifold. One major reason is security. Central
Asia is extremely insecure. Post-Soviet poverty and the presence of Iran and especially Afghanistan make the region a
powder keg for revolts and the rise of fundamentalism. At the
beginning of the Bush administration, the Central Asian countries assumed that the U.S. presence would guarantee their
security, a major reason why they allowed American bases in
the area. But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made
them question America’s ability to guarantee their security.
Russia has emerged as a viable alternative. Russia’s protracted
war in Chechnya demonstrated that despite all its problems
with the Russian army, it can endure conflict much longer
than the U.S.
Chechenization of the conflict looks much more successful
than Iraqization and, of course, Vietnamization. This consideration played the most important role in seeing Russia as the
more reliable patron. The subsequent gas deal made Russia
crucially important for the delivery of at least a good part of
Central Asian gas to Europe. Russians believed that this economic pragmatism will finally push Europe to embrace Russia
and that the supposed rekindling of a marriage between
24 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
America and Old Europe should be taken with a grain of salt.
For all the importance of the relationship of Europe and the
U.S. and Russia, the most important for Europeans is still their
internal relationships. They have reached an important milestone: Despite Polish and U.K. objections, an agreement
signed in June considerably strengthens the European Union
(EU). It creates a stronger presidency and a more unified foreign policy. In fact, the EU, after almost two years of slumber,
is moving in the direction of being a sort of United States of
Europe. The biggest states, the Charlemagne core — those that
emerged 1,000 years ago from Charlemagne’s empire, mostly
Germany and France — will benefit most from the new
arrangements and emerge as the leaders of the new grand
state. But whether they have indeed resumed their love affair
with the U.S. needs to be scrutinized. Observers who see such
a move usually point to Sarkozy’s positive approach to the U.S.
Some have even proclaimed that he is the most pro-American
French leader since Louis XVI, the king executed during the
French Revolution. This seems to be a remarkable sign of
rekindled love if we remember that the French were the
strongest opponent of the U.S. in West Europe.
But one should accept this external manifestation with
skepticism. As everybody knows, it is not firm handshakes and
external cordiality but contracts leading to paychecks that
count in the world of business and academia, and politics, as
well. And so far, the French have offered nothing. France has
not one soldier in Iraq and no visible increased presence in
Afghanistan. France made clear that the bases planned in the
Czech Republic and Poland are American and are not
approved by all Europeans. And both France and Germany
have implied that even if Russia is not in America’s mind — as
claimed — the Kabala radar station in Azerbaijan is a good
option for a missile defense base.
Of most importance is Germany’s position. Merkel publicly
scolded Putin for his authoritarian drive, but she willingly
accepted Putin’s plan to build a gas pipeline through the Baltic
Sea directly to Germany, bypassing Poland, eliciting a strong
protest by Poland and others that wish to put a stop to the
enterprise. The Russians can plainly see an Old Europe whose
goal is the creation of a unified Europe, a megastate that Old
Europe would lead. A good relationship with Russia would be
crucial. To start with, Russian natural resources — especially
gas — would be essential for the European economic
machine. As a matter of fact, the Europeans have little choice
— most of the gas from Central Asia also will be controlled by
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Russia if the May agreement goes through. And the fact that
ture. At the beginning of the Bush presidency, the ruling elite
most, if not all, gas would be controlled by Germany, the cenfully believed in the U.S.’s absolute preponderance, pretty
tral state in the Charlemagne core, would help streamline the
much discarding diplomatic niceties. It was assumed that the
cohesiveness of the European Union and discipline wayward
American military fist would solve any problems, that
members such as Poland.
American diplomacy could be reduced to the simple, no-nonThose who observed the recent clash between Poland and
sense parlance of the Spartans from the recent movie “300.” As
Old Europe members of the EU, especially Germany, could
U.S. problems in the Middle East mount, diplomatic sophistiassume that it was exclusively
cation has acquired more imporbecause of Poland’s reluctance to play
tance. Despite the harsh statements,
second fiddle in European arrangethe pro-Western, and especially the
ments. This is true, but it is not the
pro-European, direction of Russia’s
only truth. Poland played the role of
foreign policy has continued. Russia
Trojan horse, an American proxy.
believes that its control of the flow of
Germany and other Old Europeans
oil and, especially, gas — ensured by
approached the U.S. decision to place
the recent agreement in Central Asia
the missile defense system in Poland
— will compel Old Europe to continas implicitly directed against not
ue its rapprochement with Russia.
Iranians, or even Russians, but Old
Old Europe is now most conEurope.
cerned with consolidation of the
The Americans are, of course, not
European Union, the creation of a
concerned about actual French or
new megastate and a unified foreign
German attacks. The bases ensure
policy. While trying to rearrange the
America’s presence in Europe and prerelationship with a post-imperial and
vent solidification of the EU as a
much weaker U.S., Old Europe at the
megastate whose economic and
same time does not want to spoil its
geopolitical weight could exceed its
relationship with Russia, which it
own. Here, the monopolization of the
needs for economic and geopolitical
gas supply in the hands of Germany
reasons. The relationship provides
and other Old Europe states could
Old Europe with a solidified EU, plus
upset American designs. The gas
bargaining chips in dealing with
should compel Poland to be a good
Washington. Sending positive signals,
Vladimir Putin meets with Mahmoud
member of the EU, not just a junior
its leaders have intimated that they
Ahmadinejad in Tehran.
American partner — an American
would not mind reasserting transTrojan horse in Europe. For Russia, the
Atlantic relations, but on a new basis:
gas and, to some degree, oil supply should provide insurance
A united Europe should be an equal partner, and the transthat Europe will not discard Russia and will proceed with longAtlantic alliance should not preclude Europeans engaging with
term economic and geopolitical rapprochement. But, does this
other powers, regardless of their relationship with Washington.
overture toward the U.S. need not be taken seriously? No, it is
Thus, the Cold War rhetoric of Russia and some members of
just the other side of the Old Europe geopolitical posture.
the Western community actually conceals much more compliWhile preserving its general pro-European direction, Russia
cated drifts in global politics and Russia’s place in it. It also
has made advances toward its neighbors on the East and even
implies that global arrangements are quite fluid and the most
winked at Washington. Indeed, despite his harsh statements
unexpected combinations might emerge in the future. All this
toward the U.S., Putin has noted that he regards Bush as a
requires observers to be attentive to new trends and avoid
“good person.” Finally, the U.S. — facing increasing geopolitirigid model-making that supposedly explains all events in the
cal and economic difficulties — has started to change its pospast, present and future. AFJ
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Into
Africa
There are opportunities
and pitfalls in stepping up
U.S. initiatives on a
war-ravaged continent
BY PHILIP KAO
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NASA SATELLITE IMAGE
AFRICA CONTINUES TO BE, FOR MANY, THAT HOPELESS
and impenetrable heart of darkness — a continent ravaged by
disease, poverty, corruption and eternal violence. Will the close
of the 21st century offer a different outlook?
At worst, and amid the rubble of time, the human voice still
may find a way to utter the cadences of despair and protest.
But let us hope for better. Africa has piqued the interest of
Western governments and, most notably, defense institutions
in the aftermath of Sept. 11. The U.S. has created a separate
geographic combatant command dedicated solely to Africa.
President Bush said that “Africa Command will enhance our
efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and
promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy and economic growth in Africa.”
The Defense Department is concerned with the growing
threat of terrorism — the unknowns emanating from
“ungoverned spaces” — and with securing economic and
energy interests. Drawing from the three Ds (diplomacy, development and defense), Western countries such as the U.S. are
stepping up their initiatives in Africa. As an example, the U.S.
is working on regional engagement strategies in the Gulf of
Guinea that look to cross-link military actions with nonmilitary interagency processes and economic development outcomes. Africa, which was once (and may still be for some) the
object of desire for the so-called civilizing mission, is now
more than just a laboratory site for military administrators and
defense bureaucracies.
The post-9/11 ethos and largesse of defense budgets has
allowed the U.S. military to task itself substantially with more
nontraditional defense missions. The DIME paradigm (diplomatic, information, military and economic) still reigns over
our operational planning consciousness. In essence, DIME
amounts to the various national instruments of power available for deployment in theater. Because Africa’s challenges
have more to do with diplomacy (politics), information and
economic development, the Defense Department is stuck in a
bit of a quagmire. For one thing, development goals, and what
some military planners have coined “netcentric peace,” suggest that the U.S. military should be organized to support
other nonmilitary agencies, but because of our global presPHILIP KAO is a civil servant with the U.S. Joint Forces Command. He
was educated at the University of Chicago and the London School of
Economics. His views do not reflect those of the U.S. Government or
U.S. Joint Forces Command.
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ence and resource delivery capabilities, we are going to be,
more often than not, in the lead, unfortunately.
Given the global security concerns at the dawn of the 21st
century, it is no surprise that leading militaries around the
world view security as a precursor to sustainable development
and a foundation for effective nation-building. The thesis that
security is a necessary aspect of development is hard to disagree with, but even the most obvious and well-intentioned
tautologies have their limits. In certain cases, there is a positive
correlation between increased security and economic development. Such a statistical relationship, however, is not a universal axiom of development; it is clearer that the relationship
between security and development is one of mere correlation,
and rarely straightforward causation.
Above all else, there is, indeed, a role for an enhanced
African military capability to better curb and respond to violent
conflicts internally. In conjunction with adequate institutional
frameworks, a robust and well-trained African military may
help to cultivate a democratically infused political will by raising social capital in the name of unity, human rights and stability. However, professionalizing militaries in Africa should never
become a mere end goal, per se. One of the crucial issues really
amounts to asking: Is an emboldened and professional African
military (whether at the level of individual African countries or
in the form of an African Standby Force) a vehicle for positive
change, or a catalyst for explosive violence? Pundits over the
years have looked to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and
the People’s Armed Police as an informative example of how a
robust, organized and sufficiently funded military can stimulate and direct investments toward modernization, institution
building and control. Needless to say, China’s initiatives are
controversial because of their ideological import. The ideology
of self-sufficiency in Maoist China paved the way temporarily
for basic investment and marshalling of resources, but even
these initiatives were soon felt to be inadequate, exhibiting
what in development studies is commonly referred to as “path
dependency.” In fact, China began divesting former militaryowned enterprises back in the 1980s to jump-start economic
growth and to make state-business enterprises less corrupt and
more efficient. In the long and short of it, Africa is not faced
with conventional Westphalian nation-state enemies outside its
continent, and does not have at its fingertips a unifying pool of
ideologies to mobilize. Rather, over the course of its history, the
real enemy for Africa has been unsuccessful interventions in
the name of colonialism and progress.
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The real ‘enemy’ for Africa has been unsuccessful interventions
in the name of colonialism and progress.
The military is often seen as part of the problem and not the
solution, but recently, institutional planners have turned to the
military as an enabler for marshalling resources and delivering
development — whether in Iraq or Africa. To begin with, several policymakers see military institutions as playing a crucial
role in education. Military outreach in Africa is more specifically oriented toward training the trainers and enhancing regional
disaster-response capabilities. Aside from professionalizing
African militaries, Western militaries are making their presence
felt in humanitarian projects via consulting and logistics support. In working with host-nation governments, Western militaries aim to instill a culture of planning and to support the
buildup of institutional frameworks. An unstated assumption
in all of this is that militaries are postured to lend assistance in
the realm of governance, because they represent the crucible of
society’s positive values and possess deep knowledge of leadership, authority and organizational planning.
In its role as a security provider, the military also has been
touted as playing an invaluable part in assisting economic development. Military-to-military partnerships help to shape the
political economy for stimulating pro-growth investment and
entrepreneurialism, and capturing positive economic spill-over
effects. Military planners are also pressed to ensure that the
breakdown of traditional group solidarities does not turn violent.
Effective security can prevent local dispute mechanisms from
turning sour and spreading more corruption by resuscitating
state structures and facilitating the legitimate delivery and
(re)distribution of resources. As a juncture for the interagency,
military partnerships act as a lightning rod, calling forth nonmilitary agencies and organizations to plan more effectively together.
Despite political differences and nuances, what the U.S.
shares with other countries is an interest in a stable, peaceful
and prosperous Africa. Foreign militaries in Africa can help
respond to humanitarian crises by providing training and logistics support, but in the end, peaceful and legitimate political
settlements, sustainable economic growth and humanitariancrisis management reside with the final stakeholders: Africans.
AVO I D I N G D I SAST E R
Before moving ahead, it is crucial to understand that military
interventions in African politics and the economy have been, for
the most part, disastrous. Good intentions delivered and packaged in the form of military-to-military training, along with
other regional security engagement initiatives that involve both
military and nonmilitary entities, have certainly caught the
28 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
attention of military leaders. On the upside, there is potential in
advancing working partnerships with Africans to cultivate
mutual training objectives and co-evolve new domains of interest, such as promoting and enhancing maritime sector development — which encapsulates both security and economic development aspects. On a less positive note, African militaries historically have been used to control people (i.e. slaves), and
negative sentiments and wounds very well may linger that
inhibit African militaries from making constructive inroads into
contemporary African politics. Additionally, the buildup of an
African Armed Forces may benefit soldiers economically, but for
the rest of the populace, the effects of militarization may
increase social stratification, exacerbating inequality, and thus
undermining one of the main tenets of human development.
The best way to support Africans is to enable them to make
better decisions, while having them shape choices that matter
most to them. A good approach would be to enable Africans to
develop and leverage the necessary planning toolkits and
methodologies in accordance with their own timetables.
African militaries should continue developing greater security
awareness and enforcement capabilities by seeking out and
developing key partnerships that will help them maximize their
assets, and coordinating the necessary changes in governance
and institutional frameworks. The problems in Africa have less
to do with traditional warfare than complex contingencies that
straddle peacekeeping, disease, natural disasters, human rights
abuses and emergent civil-military relationships. Western militaries and governments can help by lending credible and continuous support in terms of resources and, most importantly,
intellectual capital. International partnerships in Africa must
foster trust and invest in a long-term commitment.
On another note, economic dependence as a result of tied
aid and debt mismanagement functioned to keep African
countries from realizing economic growth in the 1980s and
1990s. Any future military outreach should shy away from
installing new modes of dependency for the continent.
Military engagements in Africa should never leave Africans
worse off. In fact, mismanaged political relationships and economic debt may instigate further corruption and violence.
Regardless of whether the future militaries of Africa reside
more prominently within each nation-state — to be called
upon for regional cooperation — or form an African Standby
Force, there are many common and recurring challenges. To
begin with, African militaries must be funded adequately in
terms of both equipment and pay. Centralization of funds is
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ferent today. Instead of ostracizing China, the U.S. — along
with other countries — need to begin partnering with China to
share responsibility in Africa. Countries should look to partner
with China, not only because of its growing bed of resources,
but also because Africa is becoming more amenable to the
Beijing model of strict government control and high economic
growth. No matter what, political interaction in Africa should not leave the continent, once again, the passive victim in an
imperial race for resources.
Secondly, successful partnerships are
always a two-way street. To create meaningful working relationships, Western
countries need to be in a position and
mind-set to be able to learn something
from Africans. Without this, any involvement in Africa will be stuck in an
unhealthy power relation, with the delineation of a technical superior holding the
seat of legitimacy and a passive inferior
looking to resist and subvert “knowledge.”
Western countries still have much to learn
from Africa, including social entrepreneurP R O C E E D WIT H CAUT I O N
ship, the strength and beauty of human
Interventions to prop up military capacidiversity, human rights, and dignity.
ties and capabilities in Africa need to proThirdly, Western militaries are already
ceed cautiously, rather than impatiently.
cognizant that their uniformed presence
The international community must take
in humanitarian outreach can be a detriU.S. training efforts should help African
certain actions to avoid potential misunment. Military-to-military training does
militaries to help themselves.
derstandings and future disasters. In parnot pose a problem, but in the context of
ticular, there are five areas where governdevelopment work and humanitarianments and militaries around the world — helping Africa help
crisis response, armed military presence can be off-putting
itself — can add incredible value.
and counterproductive in certain contexts. Additionally, in recFirst of all, Western countries such as the U.S. are increasingognizing that engagements in Africa need to have more of a
ly viewing China’s involvement in Africa as threatening. These
civilian face, Western countries should educate their own nonconcerns exhibit similar fears and attributes as those coming
governmental organizations and nonmilitary communities
out of China’s recent bid for Unocal Corp. Competition is not
before unleashing dysfunctional civilian-military relationships
necessarily absolutely inimical to national security. During the
and half-worked-out interagency constructs in the field.
early period of the Cold War, China’s involvement in Africa was
Next, drawing on the theme of economic development,
spearheaded by Mao’s attempt to treat African countries (e.g.
Western governments and militaries need to spend more time
Mozambique and Angola) first and foremost as a flank against
in their assessment of the relationships between security and
Western powers. China also sought to support nations underdevelopment. Military and commercial ties play a significant
going similar revolutions in the Third World as a show of its
role in the economies of most countries. In a recent ethnopolitical commitment and solidarity. With the dominance of
world markets and global capitalism, geopolitics is slightly difAFRICA continued on Page 44
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AFP
one possibility for allowing nations to provide assistance during crises in areas outside their immediate sovereignties and
interests. Funds must be made available for training so that
battalions that have to cross linguistic and cultural barriers
know how to operate together, realize common operating procedures and agree on definitions, especially with respect to end
states. Additionally, governments and
stakeholders must identify the spectrum
of resources and types of money available for different mission sets. In terms of
education, there is still much to be
desired by embedding peacekeeping and
human rights aspects more thoroughly in
the military planning process. To offer
one final example, African-grown militaries might look to ensure that civil
police organizations are brought into the
fold to reap the benefits from training,
technology, and ongoing changes in doctrine and standard operating procedures.
International militaries have a substantial
educational role to play here.
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Boomand
bust
The strengths and weaknesses
of Taiwan’s defense strategy emerge
BY CHRISTOPHER GRIFFIN
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A MOCK DEFENSE OF TAIWAN’S BUSTLING SUAO BAY
naval base in May, conducted as a part of the Han Kuang, or
“Chinese Glory,” live-fire military exercises, presented a snapshot of Taiwan’s evolving military. New capabilities were on
display, but the failures of antiquated weapons stole the show.
Civilian officials in the viewing stand demanded explanations,
a far cry from the island’s long history of military domination
under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek.
Taiwan’s progress was apparent, but so was the array of
challenges in military strategy, procurement and personnel
reform if the island is going to be able to defend itself in the
future.
These challenges are rooted in the transformation of
Taiwan’s military strategy since 2000, when Chen Shui-bian of
the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) beat the long-ruling
Kuomintang (KMT) to become president of the Republic of
China (ROC). Chen inherited an army-centric military that had
been designed over nearly 50 years of KMT rule to focus on the
defense of the island’s physical territory. Chen feared this focus
would turn Taiwan’s densely populated cities into urban combat zones if conflict with China ever came, and instead decided to pursue “decisive offshore operations” that would employ
air and naval power to carry the fight into the Taiwan Strait
and, if necessary, to the mainland. The immediate obstacle for
Chen’s strategy was Washington’s reluctance to sell Taipei the
types of advanced weapons systems necessary for such a
defensive strategy after the U.S. promised to reduce its sales to
Taiwan in a 1982 Sino-American joint communiqué.
The election of President Bush provided Chen an opportunity to break through this barrier. In April 2001, Bush famously
declared that he would do “whatever it takes” to defend the
island, despite the absence of a formal security treaty, and
approved a series of arms sales that by the summer of 2003
would amount to $30 billion on the table. This flood of offers
followed two decades during which Taipei had never
processed a single purchase from the U.S. greater than $500
and quickly blew bureaucratic circuits at Taiwan’s Ministry of
National Defense, which found itself responsible for mountains of documentation on planning, programming, budgets
and systems analysis.
As Washington sent a slew of arms offers in Taiwan’s direcCHRISTOPHER GRIFFIN is a research associate in Asian studies at
the American Enterprise Institute.
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tion, the ROC was undergoing fundamental reforms to the way
its military did business and related to its civilian leadership.
In 2002 and 2003, Taiwan’s legislature, the Legislative Yuan
(LY), adopted the National Defense Law and National Defense
Organization Act, which former U.S. Defense Department official Mark Stokes has compared to being “equal to the U.S.
National Defense Act of 1947 and the Goldwater-Nichols Act of
1986 combined.” These laws established firm civilian leadership over the military, creating an institution inside the
Ministry of National Defense equivalent to Washington’s Office
of the Secretary of Defense — a civilian organization to oversee almost every facet of Taiwan’s defense policy.
While the newly reorganized bureaucracy was grappling
with a previously unimaginable series of arms sales offers,
Taiwan’s political leadership was also trying to find its own
bearings. Just as the KMT found itself in the unaccustomed
role of the political opposition, the Legislative Yuan was newly
empowered to exercise oversight and budgetary control over
the government. When the Chen government requested that
the LY approve a single $18 billion “special budget” to pay for
the procurement of submarines, P-3C maritime patrol aircraft
and Patriot missile batteries, the KMT balked. The subsequent
stalemate over defense spending has begun to undermine
Washington’s confidence in Taipei’s commitment to its own
defense.
Although Taiwan’s military too often feels it is caught in the
crossfire among these many changes, it is nonetheless taking
substantive steps toward establishing a force that can execute
the types of offshore operations it has been charged with conducting. When I visited Taipei in May to observe the 23rd
annual Han Kuang exercises, I saw these changes first-hand,
as well as the major barriers that Taiwan’s military must yet
overcome.
O R GAN I Z I N G F O R O F FS H O R E O P E RAT I O N S
Since 2000, Taiwan’s strategy of decisive offshore operations
has served multiple goals. It has sought to remove Taiwan’s
population and economic centers from the battlefield. It has
shifted power away from the army, a service that many DPP
leaders identified as being an anti-democratic element of the
old regime and bolstered the relative prestige of the navy and
air force. Most importantly, it is also a response to the “revolution in military affairs,” a shift in war fighting that has left relatively static, army-centric forces vulnerable to more integrated
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Taiwan’s strategy of decisive offshore operations has served
multiple goals.
militaries with strong air and naval capabilities — the model
that Beijing is pursuing today.
The problem that such operations pose is that they require
a military reorganization that is time-consuming, expensive,
and necessitates fundamental changes in personnel and command structures. The Chinese term for this task captures the
concept neatly: xinxihua, which translates to the clumsy
English term, “informationalization.” The centerpiece of the
Taiwanese military’s effort to catch up with the challenge of
informationalization is the Po Sheng (Broad Victory) program,
a $2.3 billion modernization effort launched in 2003 to
enhance the C4ISR capabilities of its military.
The centrality of the Po Sheng program to Taiwan’s broader
modernization effort is captured simply by the fact that for
years, its aircraft and naval vessels could not effectively communicate with one another, its soldiers depended upon cell
phones more than radios, and its central military command,
the Joint Operations Control Center (JOCC), could not monitor military operations in real time. The net consequence of
these deficiencies was that the goal of joint operations
remained a dream: Without the means to share data and integrate command structures, the Taiwanese military services
could not expect but to fight independently, implying a
sequence of air, naval and land battles as each service met an
invading force from the mainland.
Although Taiwan’s C4ISR program is a work in progress, its
successes so far were demonstrated by the structure of the
April 16-20 Command Post Exercise (CPX) conducted by the
Taiwanese military as the first leg of the Han Kuang exercises.
The CPX was an extensive, five-day war game that linked
Taiwan’s various field headquarters to the JOCC, where game
managers created a scenario that forced the military to
respond to a rapidly evolving crisis scenario through the joint
employment of Taiwan’s military forces.
The CPX posited a scenario set in 2012 in which mainland
China launched a massive attack in response to Taipei’s intransigence toward Beijing’s demands for unification talks. The
scenario captured the principal concerns of Taiwan’s defense
leadership today. The mainland prefaced its assault with a
massive missile barrage that destroyed much of the island’s
infrastructure and military installations, and the two-week
timeline of the hypothetical scenario represented Taipei’s fear
that the mainland would attempt to execute an invasion
before American forces could reach the theater.
In the CPX scenario, mainland China employed a two32 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
phased strategy in its assault on Taiwan. The first phase was an
air war in which Beijing sought to destroy Taiwan’s air defenses
and wreak havoc on the Taiwanese government. China has
invested heavily in means to target Taiwan’s air defense in
recent years, including its purchase of Israeli-made Harpy
anti-radiation drones, which are designed to home in on and
destroy the radiation emissions of air defense radars. Even
where Taiwan’s radar systems are not vulnerable, it suffers
from a notable lack of logistical support for its air defenses.
Many surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems are outdated, and
it can be difficult for Taipei to procure spare missiles from
Washington.
Over the initial days of combat, the CPX scenario predicted
that the mainland would seek to exploit its suppression of
Taiwanese air defenses to establish air superiority over the
Taiwan Strait. China already possesses some 400 fourth-generation aircraft, comprising advanced Su-27, J-11 and Su-30
fighters poised to attack Taiwan, and is investing to upgrade
the rest of its air fleet by 2012. While ever more advanced
Chinese aircraft patrol the skies, they will be supported from
the ground by S-300PMU2 surface-to-air missile batteries,
which will be able to strike any aircraft flying over Taiwan’s
west coast.
The final portion of China’s first-phase operations was the
employment of its short- and medium-range ballistic missile
batteries, as well as airstrikes and special operations forces, to
strike a wide array of civilian and military targets on the island.
These attacks disrupted the government and forced Taiwan’s
military to seek shelter in hardened bunkers. While these
attacks occurred, the bulk of Taiwan’s military was sheltered on
the east coast of the island, where PRC submarine forces were
attempting to force a blockade on the movement of ships into
and out of port. Although the CPX planners assumed that
Taiwan would be bloodied in the opening phase of a war, they
also argued that it would be possible to save the bulk of the
force.
In the second phase of the exercise, Chinese forces attempted a major amphibious landing on Taiwanese soil, forcing the
ROC military to employ its decisive offshore battle concept in
a joint naval-air interdiction of the amphibious force. Having
assembled the bulk of its naval and air power on the east coast
of Taiwan, the military had a single-shot opportunity to interdict and destroy the amphibious Chinese force. According to
CPX planners, the penultimate battle was so successful in the
game that the red force had to be reconstituted for the follow-
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defenses will be a central component to any interdiction of an
amphibious force headed for Taiwan. More important,
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense believes that the Han
Kuang CPX exercise demonstrated that the offshore decisive
battle strategy is the key to victory if Beijing should attempt to
invade the island. But no plan survives contact with the
enemy, and it remains to be seen whether Taiwan will develop
the necessary capabilities for its actual forces to conduct the
type of interdiction operation that was the key to the CPX scenario victory.
T H E C HAL L E N G E O F P R O C U R E M E NT
A Taiwanese F-16 fighter takes off from a highway during the
Han Kuang exercise in May.
ing land battle. The stakes involved in this single battle were
emphasized when Taiwan’s deputy chief of general staff for
operations and planning told The Associated Press afterward
that because of China’s superior submarines and jet fighters,
“we would suffer great damage to our force.”
The successful interdiction of the Chinese amphibious
force was also a source of much controversy in Washington
when Taiwanese briefers announced after the exercise that
their military had employed a “tactical shore-based missile for
fire suppression” to buy the striking force a window when
China’s missile forces, radar stations and airfields would be
temporarily crippled. This euphemism was widely interpreted
to be a reference to the HsiungFeng-2E (HF-2E) land attack
cruise missile that Taiwan reportedly has been developing for
several years, and immediately prompted U.S. criticism.
National Security Council official Dennis Wilder stated that
“offensive capabilities on either side of the Strait are destabilizing and therefore not in the interest of peace and security,”
and called on neither Taipei nor Beijing to develop ballistic or
cruise missiles.
Despite Washington’s criticism, Taipei will likely continue to
develop the HF-2E or similar systems that allow it to attack the
Chinese mainland directly. According to the predictions of the
CPX scenario, after all, the capability to strike China’s air
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Even the most finely tuned strategy cannot succeed if the military is unprepared to execute it, and on May 15-18, the
Taiwanese military conducted a series of field training exercises (FTX) to test the concepts developed in the April CPX simulation. The Han Kuang FTX is the island’s largest annual livefire exercise and is, indeed, one of the rare opportunities for
Taiwan’s troops to use live fire in their training. The first, and
most telegenic, exercise was the landing of pairs of fighter aircraft — F-16s, Mirage 2000s and Indigenous Defense Fighters
(IDFs) — on a strip of Taiwan’s main highway near Taizhong
on April 15 to demonstrate how the ROC Air Force would protect its aircraft even if its airfields were destroyed by Chinese
missile and special operations forces attacks. The islandwide
exercises soon expanded to include offshore defenses, engagements with mock paratroopers and preparations at bases on
Taiwan’s east coast to break out of a blockade.
The May 16 exercises at Suao Naval Base in Ilan County
were one portion of these exercises, testing the type of interdiction battle that Taiwan is betting its victory in a real conflict
with the mainland. The Suao exercise involved some 2,163
military personnel from the three services and was conducted
as a series of missile launches at aircraft drones and ships from
a combination of air, ground and sea-based platforms. The
action involving Kidd-class destroyers occurred some 72 kilometers from the viewing stand but gradually ranged into Suao
Bay, where the majority of interceptions involved direct fires
from AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, as well as a combination
of F-16s, Mirage 2000s and IDFs.
The beginning of the exercises was wholly successful, as a
variety of naval platforms and all of the aircraft involved in the
exercise destroyed their targets, but the exercise took a turn for
the worse when the ROC Army’s missile corps repeatedly failed
to strike targets with Hawk, Chaparral and Avenger missiles.
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Taipei will likely continue to develop the HF-2E or similar systems
that allow it to attack the Chinese mainland directly.
The medium-range surface-to-air Hawk missile was tested relatively early in the exercise, but one of the missiles failed upon
firing and crash-landed into a cemetery before reaching the
coast. The Chaparral, a ground-launched version of the air-toair Sidewinder missile, had a less spectacular failure when the
first missile launched failed to hit its assigned target, necessitating a successful strike by a backup missile.
The most unsatisfactory mark was posted by an Avenger
missile system that failed to hit its target drone at all. Using a
Humvee-launched version of the Stinger missile, the Avenger
operators tried twice to strike a relatively low and slowly flying
drone target, failing on both attempts. The drone made its prescribed flight path over Suao Bay, turned and returned to the
ocean, presumably having dropped its imaginary payload
somewhere near the viewing stand.
The failure of the missile strikes at Suao Bay is a reminder
that if the Taiwanese government is going to fully implement a
strategy of pushing future battles with China offshore, it must
have the necessary military equipment to do so. The mixed
fleet of fighter aircraft delivered over the 1990s is a useful start,
and the Kidd-class destroyers are a major step forward for
Taiwan’s navy, but the country still faces several major capability gaps.
The first of these is the threat posed by China’s growing missile capabilities, which the Taiwanese Ministry of National
Defense estimates has almost doubled since 2000 to nearly
800 Dongfeng-11A and Dongfeng-15A short- and mediumrange missiles. In 2001, the U.S. and Taiwan agreed to a twotracked response to this missile threat. The first track emphasizes hardened C4ISR and other continuity of government
measures to ensure that even a significant missile strike will
not fundamentally cripple Taiwan. The second track was the
combined upgrading of Taiwan’s existing Patriot missile
launchers to Patriot Advance Capability 3 (PAC-3) batteries, as
well as the purchase of six additional PAC-3 fire units.
The PAC-3 offer was ultimately included in the “special
budget” that Chen submitted to the LY in late 2003 and that
included funding to develop a diesel-electric submarine program and purchase P-3C maritime patrol aircraft. The special
budget stalled as the KMT-controlled legislature dug its heels
in and focused instead on a bruising political fight with Chen
through the 2004 election and beyond. Only in June did the LY
pass a budget to cover the upgrade for its existing Patriot batteries, losing some four years on the procurement of a vital
defensive system that can compliment such aging systems as
3 4 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
the Hawk and Chaparral, which were phased out of the U.S.
military in the 1990s.
The passage of the 2007 defense budget also raised an additional procurement challenge as Taiwan looks at its mixed fleet
of F-16s, Mirage 2000 and IDF aircraft. In June, the LY
approved a $400 million budget to begin purchasing
American-made F-16C/D aircraft, a significant upgrade on its
existing air forces. Moreover, the added F-16s would complement the broader Po Sheng C4ISR effort, because it would
increase the number of Taiwan’s fighters that are directly tied
into the JOCC’s operational picture through the Link-16 tactical data communications system.
Despite these advantages of procuring the new aircraft,
Taiwan’s request for new F-16 sales has been shunned by
Washington in response to a brewing political fight over the
country’s planned referendum on whether to apply to the
U.N. under the name of “Taiwan,” instead of the constitutional title of “Republic of China.” In short, while the U.S. has
accused Taiwan of treating defense spending as a domestic
political football, it does the same when it tries to use the
approval of sales as a stick or carrot in its management of
cross-Strait relations.
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Attempts to strike target drones with surface-to-air missiles
were largely unsuccessful during Taiwan’s Han Kuang
military exercise.
Procurement will remain a litmus test of Taiwan’s ability to
implement its national defensive strategy. Continuing to build
on the June 2007 budget is one way for Taiwan to make a more
credible demonstration in this regard, but even a wellequipped Taiwanese military will face significant obstacles to
achieving its maximum possible effectiveness.
When President Chen first arrived in office in April 2000, he
inherited a military that was staffed with some 400,000 conscripts who served between two- and three-year terms based
upon their military specialties. The troops perceived this system as unfair, unnecessary, and corrupt — a 2001 survey
revealed that some 50 percent of enlisted men believed that if
they had come from richer families, they could have avoided
military service altogether, while only 15 percent viewed conscription as vital to national survival. For Chen’s strategy of
fighting Taiwan’s defense, conscription was inefficient, a drain
on precious budgetary resources and a system that bolstered
the army’s traditional domination among the military services.
The Chen government decided to shift away from the
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expensive and inefficient manpower system by simultaneously
dismantling the conscription system and investing in the
development of an all-volunteer force (AVF). Overall troop
numbers have fallen by more than 125,000 men, and conscription commitments have fallen precipitously in recent years to
only 12 months from 2008, but creating an AVF has proved
more difficult. Volunteer recruitment began in 2004, but less
than 30,000 soldiers have been recruited for service to date.
The promised pay raises for volunteers have been difficult to
implement, and the military’s claims that it will have a force
that is 60 percent volunteer by 2008 is only possible by counting officers and NCOs who re-enlisted following the end of
their conscription terms.
The result of this process is that the enlistment durations of
many Taiwanese soldiers, sailors and airmen has fallen in
recent years, but there has been little increase in volunteer
troops to fill the gap. As a result, Taiwan’s weapons systems will
soon be manned by troops who only have two to three months
of training before shipping out to serve their nine-month
durations of service. The implications for Taiwan’s military
preparedness were demonstrated at exercises I attended on
May 17 at the Hukou army base in Hsinchu County, about
50 kilometers southwest of Taipei.
The Hukou exercise involved a simulated airborne invasion
in which the red force troops captured a series of Taiwanese
command posts, followed by a simulated blue force counterlanding and armored assault. Because of a combination of
rainy weather and perhaps responding to a training accident
the week before in which the crash of an F-5F Tiger II trainer
killed a three Singaporean soldiers on the base, there were no
actual airborne troop maneuvers (helicopters flew in and out
without carrying any soldiers) or strikes by F-16 and IDF fighters that were supposed to be supporting the attack.
The culmination of the Hukou exercise was a joint maneuver by M60A3 Patton tanks, CM21 Armored Personnel Carriers
(APCs) and infantry troops to destroy targets and take objectives downrange from the observing stand. To some degree,
the exercise reflected Taiwan’s military tradition of doing more
with less: the CM21 APCs were built indigenously by adapting
the American-made M113 armored personnel carrier hull to
include a set of side gun hatches that permit the soldiers traveling inside to fire from the vehicle.
But the Hukou exercise was also notable because the lines
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PERSPECTIVES
More soup, please
COIN manual provides guidance for modern-day tactical commanders
BY MAJ. CHRIS ROGERS
MAJ. CHRIS ROGERS has served in light infantry, mechanized infantry
and combined arms battalions through his 15-year Army career. During
the past 12 months in Baghdad, he served first as the operations officer
and now as the executive officer of 1-5 Cavalry.
3 6 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
The tactical commander and student of our profession who
applies the construct of operational design knows that tactical
successes must be linked to strategic goals — which, according
to the very theorist whom Gentile quotes — are crucial to
achieving the desired political outcome. The apparent paradox
that “tactical success guarantees nothing”
simply means that tactical success may not
achieve the outcome our strategic planners
and policymakers had envisioned. I believe
history clearly bears out that in every war
that has produced both a winner and a
loser, the losing side has had to accept the
fact that its tactics — no matter how effective or successful at any given time — ultimately did not guarantee victory.
The salient point from this paradox is
not that tactics mean nothing — it is that
tactics must be employed as part of a larger design aimed at achieving strategic
goals. Something close to this thought is
offered when the article states that the tactical commander “comes away thinking
that he has to move beyond tactics, he
can’t just focus on raids, he can’t just focus
on killing the enemy, because just doing
those things and not the other important
operations in COIN means he will ultimately
fail.” Absolutely, he will most likely fail, but employing “the
other important operations in COIN” are still tactical — they
are just not kinetic and offensive and about killing. In short,
tactics are not merely limited to killing the enemy. What
becomes the crux of this argument is how “tactics” are defined
or, more precisely, which definition is chosen.
According to FM 1-02, “Operational Terms and Graphics,”
there are two similar definitions for the word “tactics” — one
provided by the Army, the other by the Defense Department.
The Army defines tactics as “The employment of units in combat. It includes the ordered arrangement and maneuver of
units in relation to each other, the terrain and the enemy in
order to translate potential combat power into victorious battles and engagements.”
This definition is clearly rooted in the era of force-on-force,
conventional battle. That does not make it bad, by any stretch
— but it is either incomplete or too complete to the point of
being restrictive. By being incomplete, I believe that the secJOHN HARMAN, AFJ
I
n his thought-provoking article “Eating soup with a spoon”
[AFJ, September], Lt. Col. Gian Gentile argues that our current doctrine on counterinsurgency lacks the fundamental
essence of war: fighting. The foundation of this claim rests on
two paradoxes that appear in the first chapter of the manual
and that he claims establish the theoretical
framework for how the rest of the doctrine
should be read.
These two paradoxes do and should
frame the thinking of the reader, but I disagree that this framework contains the
reader; rather, it provides a framework
upon which the tactical commander can
and should build.
The paradoxes that Gentile references —
“tactical successes guarantee nothing” and
“the more you protect yourself, the less
secure you are” — have both, in my experience serving in a combined arms battalion
in Baghdad for the past year, been borne
out to be absolutely true. What is interesting is that they are both true for counterinsurgency operations and also for conventional warfare. Narrowing the scope of the
application of the paradoxes gives insufficient credit to our tactical commanders and
senior leaders in their individual and combined
abilities to understand our doctrinal framework and apply it in
an ambiguous, complex and lethal environment. After more
than a year in western Baghdad, I’ve observed that there still
exists — despite the paradoxes — plenty of fight left in our
doctrine and in our Army.
In the case of “tactical success guarantees nothing,” the idea
is presented that the tactical commander interprets this paradox as “tactics, in and of themselves, just are not that important.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Tactics are the
fundamental building blocks of all military action — they are,
as defined by doctrine, the employment of units in combat. If
they were not important, we would, by extension, have no use
for military forces.
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ond half of the definition, beginning with the phrase “It
made a difference. Their tactics did not lead to strategic effects
includes,” should continue with the often-assumed extension
— they appeared successful because they were killing the
“but is not limited to.” This logical extension would not limit
enemy by the bushel — but in truth, they were ineffective
the thinking, imagination or employment of combat forces by
because the killing did not lead to achieving strategic aims that
the tactical commander. However, it would allow that comresulted in the desired political outcome.
mander to build upon the theoretical framework rather than
The modern-day Army has taught us that at the tactical
letting the doctrinal definition box him in.
level, planning horizons were short. They were
The Defense Department definition is similar,
short because we applied the restrictive definiyet less restrictive (because it is less complete) in
tion of tactics. We planned, trained and
that the purpose is not related to “victorious batemployed our forces almost exclusively in battles
tles and engagements” but instead focuses on
and engagements. We spent months preparing
Lt. Col. Gian
achieving potential. It defines tactics as “the
for National Training Center rotations and drilled
Gentile
continues
employment of units in combat, and the ordered
our staffs on how to plan more quickly — how to
the debate.
arrangement and maneuver of units in relation
shorten the process to be able to employ our
to each other and/or to the enemy in order to
forces in the shortest amount of time possible. In
See Page 39.
use their full potentialities.” This definition —
the counterinsurgency in Iraq, that world is gone;
focusing on potential — does not impose restricour planning horizons, in many cases, extend
tions, either written or assumed, on tactical commanders, but
well beyond a battalion’s time in country. We do not plan batallows them the flexibility to employ their forces to achieve
tles and engagements, we are forced to plan the employment
objectives across a full range of possibilities.
of our forces across a broader range of options over a longer
The definitions essentially say the same thing, but the
period of time — we employ tactics across multiple lines of
choice of the words used in each definition forces the tactical
operation. It is not always kinetic, it is not always killing, but it
commander to make interpretations about their functionality.
is still tactics.
The lieutenant and lieutenant colonel who, no matter what
One of the lines of operation that, when kinetic fighting is
the analysis of the environment and enemy situation reveals,
most prevalent, tends to draw the most attention is that of
come to focus solely on raids and killing the enemy are the
“security.” The point of security operations in counterinsurofficers who subscribe to the definition that tactics must be
gency, however, is not that they should focus inward — at our
limited to battles and engagements. These officers have no
own soldiers — but outward toward the populace that we are
place in counterinsurgency warfare. Lieutenants and lieutrying to influence. It is not a matter of where we sit, where we
tenant colonels who choose to focus on the potential of their
stand or even where we sleep at night, but rather it is about
unit across a full spectrum of capabilities presume that tactical
how we employ our forces (remember that phrase, our tactics)
units are capable of much more than killing the enemy — in
and on what or whom they focus. Put simply, the emphasis is
fact, they may be capable of “the other important operations
on a group of people other than ourselves. In a counterinsurin COIN.”
gency, the people are, most often, the objective — much like in
This confusion between the application of these two interconventional operations, terrain or the enemy is the
pretations of tactics is highlighted by a meeting between
objective.In the example that Gentile provides, it is possible to
opposing commanders in the years following the Vietnam War:
illustrate an important point about how and where we focus
the now highly publicized return of Army Col. Harry Summers
our efforts to achieve a desired outcome. Col. Joshua
to Hanoi in 1975. While meeting with his North Vietnamese
Chamberlain at the battle of Little Round Top was defending a
counterpart, a Col. Tu, he proclaimed, “You know, you never
piece of terrain that protected the entire flank of the Union
defeated us on the battlefield.” Tu responded, “That may be so,
Army. While he was concerned for the security of his forces,
but it is also irrelevant.”
and he placed them on that hill to afford them maximum proThe U.S. may have been better at killing the Viet Cong and
tection, he understood that his ultimate objective was not the
the North Vietnamese Army, but that didn’t matter — they
protection of his men, but the protection of the Union Army
were not better at employing their forces in a manner that
by way of that decisive piece of terrain. After fighting off sever-
Author’s
response
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PERSPECTIVES
al waves of infantrymen from atop the hill, he was faced with
the dilemma of how best to deny that terrain to the enemy
with limited resources. He chose to leave the hill — and the
protection it afforded — to do the only remaining thing that
could ultimately protect the Union Army. We all remember the
call to “fix bayonets” in the theatrical representation of that
battle, just before Chamberlain led his men to charge down
the hill to a resounding tactical victory. It was not a dogmatic
application of a method — it was a focusing of his combat
power at the right time, at the right place, at the right objective, with both his mission and his men in mind.
While serving in western Baghdad, our battalion has, as have many others, simultaneously operated from both the relatively austere
combat outposts and the relatively plush forward operating bases, such as Camp Liberty.
We have focused, at the right time and place,
on the population, while still providing adequate protection for our soldiers. It has been
neither dogmatic nor has it resulted in
supreme tactical vulnerability. On the contrary,
it has, as can be seen all across Baghdad these
days, resulted in the tactical defeat of al-Qaida
in Iraq, a call from Muqtada al-Sadr to cease
direct action against coalition forces, and a
period during which total attacks against coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Iraqi
civilians have reached a two-year low in
Baghdad and across all of Iraq. In the village of
Amariyah, where my battalion operates, we
have not seen an improvised explosive device
or an attack on American soldiers or ISF for
nearly three months. This has allowed us to
focus our tactics on other lines of operation — the “other
important operations in COIN.” This focus has subsequently
resulted in economic growth, re-opening scores of local businesses, the formation of a functional local council, and has
allowed essential services — headed by the Belidiyah, which is
predominately Shiite — to return to the streets of this Sunnidominated community and begin removing trash and restoring electrical power.
This current state in Amariyah does not mean we have not
made mistakes; we have made plenty. Nor does it mean that
the use of combat outposts that resulted from the surge of
available combat power is the sole reason for this significant
decline in enemy actions. There were many other factors in
this complex interaction between friendly and enemy forces
— such as the employment of local volunteer forces, the establishment of safe neighborhoods, and the effective coordination between conventional and special operating forces — that
ultimately worked in concert with the combat outposts to
achieve an overwhelming effect on the enemy’s capabilities.
Finally, it does not mean that Gentile made mistakes or did
not achieve tactical successes during his tour in western
Baghdad — I have seen first-hand the results of many of his
successes. What it does mean, however, is that as a battalion —
and as an Army — we have learned from both
our successes and our failures how to apply our
doctrine according to the circumstances in
which we find ourselves.
Fighting has not left the ranks of the Army —
on the contrary, we have come to realize that
fighting encompasses an even greater range of
options available to the tactical commander.
We have learned that we may fight the enemy
not only by killing him, but also by denying
him the very comforts of his own protection —
the ability to hide amongst the local populace.
We fight him with bullets when he presents
himself, or we root him out with intelligence
derived from our own forces — or, better yet,
from intelligence provided by the local populace — and we fight him with services, money
and information. In the complexities of winning the peace, these are all necessary tools in
fighting counterinsurgency warfare.
We who grew up in the Army knowing
Vietnam only from the history books may long
for the good old days of force-on-force battles and an enemy
who will stand and fight. But the reality is that we have to fight
the war we are in. In some cases, to achieve the strategic
objectives and the desired political outcome, our tactics must
not be “blunt and violent and dirty.”
The fight has not left our doctrine, it has not left our Army,
and it has most certainly not left our soldiers — it has simply
grown and adapted to the circumstances of our environment.
Our tactical commanders and senior leaders have used our
doctrine the way it was intended, as a guide for employing
U.S. forces under varying, difficult and often nonviolent circumstances in a vague and complex environment. AFJ
In some cases,
to achieve the
strategic
objectives and
the desired
political
outcome, our
tactics must
not be “blunt
and violent
and dirty.”
3 8 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
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Our COIN doctrine removes the enemy from the essence of war
BY LT. COL. GIAN P. GENTILE
T
he centerpiece of the Army’s operational doctrine is no
longer FM 3-0, “Operations,” it is FM 3-24, “Counterinsurgency.” The full implications of this shift are, as
yet, unknown, but the conventional wisdom that the era of
battles and wars of decision — as Clausewitz described them
in “On War” — is a thing of the past seems to have prevailed.
For the moment, the application of counterinsurgency
practices embodied in FM 3-24 are being touted as bringing
about substantial security progress during the “surge.”
However, we may be misreading or seeing too much in the
events of the past few months in Iraq, and building a counterinsurgency-only Army that puts our ability to address nonCOIN contingencies at risk. Maj. Chris Rogers raises important
points that deserve serious consideration.
From 1976-1982, more than 110 articles written for military
magazines and journals fundamentally questioned the emerging
operational doctrine that would become known as AirLand
Battle. Today, however, by my count, there have been no more
than five or six articles over the past three years that deeply challenge FM 3-24 (including its early drafts) and the fact that it has
become our Army’s overall operational doctrine.
My basic argument in “Eating soup with a spoon” was that
the theoretical premise of the manual embodied in Chapter
One’s various paradoxes, specifically two emblematic ones,
removed the essence of war — fighting — from its pages. This
was largely an impressionistic view of the manual based on
my personal experience in western Baghdad as a tactical battalion commander in 2006. Rogers has a different impression
of the manual based on his experience in Baghdad in 2007. He
claims that I argued that a fighting spirit has left our Army and
our soldiers, which I absolutely did not and never would do.
However, his critique of my article does present the popular
case for focusing narrowly on counterinsurgency to the point
where, I fear, it may cloud our ability to see things as they actually
are and then devise plans and military policy for a future that may
not exist. It is as if our COIN doctrine, with all of its seductive simplicity, operates like a secret recipe: “do this, and then this, and at
the right moment add this and ... you win,” as scholar Michael
Vlahos shrewdly noted in a recent issue of Military Review.
The belief that COIN doctrine and its application in places
LT. COL. GIAN GENTILE commanded 8-10 Cavalry armored reconnaissance squadron for three years until his posting last year to the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He commanded his squadron during a deployment to western Baghdad in 2006.
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such as Baghdad has reduced levels of violence since last summer is widespread and, to be sure, it has played a role. Still, a
number of other factors in a complex country such as Iraq
with a population of 25 million, including the decision to ally
with our former enemies (e.g., the non-al-Qaida Sunni insurgents), the pause in activities by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Jaish al
Mahdi, and the separation of rival factions in Baghdad stemming from sectarian cleansing in 2006-2007, have all arguably
played an even bigger role. Our leaders and soldiers have
seized these opportunities — embracing FM 3-24’s mantra to
“learn and adapt” — but, in the absence of these other emerging conditions, levels of violence very likely would have
remained high or even higher in the face of additional troops
and new counterinsurgency methods.
Yet, the predisposition to focus exclusively on ourselves and
our doctrine leads us potentially to violate the guidance of one
of the oldest philosophers of war, Sun Tzu, to know oneself and
the enemy and the environment, too. Our doctrine directs us to
believe that in a counterinsurgency war, the people are the center of gravity. In this theory, the enemy is removed from the
essence of war and placed at the fringes. Then, within this socalled war devoid of an enemy, applied scientific processes align
the people to their government. Because the enemy is removed
as the central element in war, the element of friction in war is
gone, too. With the recent lowering of violence in Iraq, we
assume that counterinsurgency doctrine applied by competent
military outfits has reduced and almost removed the enemy
from the equation in Baghdad. It is very possible, however, that
the enemy has removed himself temporarily and is waiting for
the opportunity to renew the fight when he feels ready.
This is obviously an explanation that many in and out of
uniform will not want to hear because it appears to downplay
our sacrifices in blood and treasure and the practical effects of
applied counterinsurgency doctrine in Baghdad. But it is,
nonetheless, an explanation that must not be disregarded. It
needs to be considered in a measured way as we look to future
policy in Iraq, as well as the Army’s ability to carry out COIN
and non-COIN operations elsewhere.
In a conflict such as the one in Iraq, there is no certainty. As
Georgetown University scholar Colin Kahl warns in his recent
review of FM 3-24, overconfidence in ourselves and in the manual’s validity may tempt us, and others, to take us down this
road more often in the future. There might be certain roads,
however, on which we should not be traveling, even if we have
plenty of soup to eat for sustenance and cocksureness. AFJ
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PERSPECTIVES
A question of faith
Religious bias and coercion undermine military leadership and trust
BY BARRY S. FAGIN AND LT. COL. JAMES E. PARCO
BARRY S. FAGIN is a professor at the Air Force Academy.
LT. COL. JAMES E. PARCO is associate professor, Department of
Strategy and Leadership, at the Air Force Air Command and Staff
College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. The views expressed in this article are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect those of the Air Force,
the Defense Department or the U.S. government.
4 0 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
lar leader because of who the leader is, the leader has referent
power over the follower. To influence followers, leaders have
only their knowledge and intuition on which to rely to guide
them — both largely determined by their education and life
experiences. When encountering a situation in which the
leader has neither training nor experience, he tends to rely on
his value system — those ideals from which his beliefs and
actions flow. In many cases, these values are manifest in the
type of individual whom the armed services attracts and are consistent with the core
values of the various military institutions.
We refer to the internalization of these
values as character. Most would agree that
character is paramount to the military
leader. Men and women of high character
have an advantage because followers typically respect those with high levels of character more so than those without. In terms
of referent power, those with strong character often have more referent power over followers compared with those perceived to
have lesser character, especially in organizations where culture revolves around articulated core values. It is important to note that
it is not so much the actual measurable difference in comparing the character of different leaders but rather the follower’s perception of what sound character is within
context of the organizational culture.
If having the right values yields high referent power to an
individual, then we could conclude that if he is properly
trained and competent (sufficient expert power) for the position of responsibility to which he is assigned (level of legitimate power), he has the potential to positively influence subordinate behavior. To the extent that he can build trust within his unit, he is poised to be an effective leader. But it also is
important to note that referent power isn’t a possession to be
obtained by a leader, but rather a dependency created by the
follower. This is a monumental aspect for effective leaders to
comprehend because of the great responsibility they have to
satisfy the dependency in an appropriate fashion. The successful leader will note what behaviors are appropriate and
inappropriate in terms of their organizational — and
constitutional — responsibilities as leaders.
So why do otherwise effective leaders fail? In the most ambiguROB CURTIS, AFJ
C
ompetent leadership is fundamental to military effectiveness. Although there are countless definitions of
leadership, the simple truth is that leadership is merely influencing others to act in concert toward achieving a goal
that they might not have achieved on their own. The art of
leadership speaks to a leader’s ability to appropriately influence subordinate behavior in a given situation. To do so, leaders can invoke several forms power: legitimate, reward, coercive, expert and referent.
Although there is a time and place for
rewards, punishment and a rank-based system for giving orders, the most effective
units are traditionally those with leaders
who rely less on sticks and carrots and more
on the transformational aspects of leadership. When leaders rely on expert and referent power to influence subordinate behavior, research indicates that their units exhibit greater levels of morale and cohesion
leading to increased levels of mutual trust.
Leaders who possess knowledge viewed
to be relevant and valued by others have
license to exercise power over others who
yield to their expertise. One of the more
recent and impassioned calls for increased
expertise within the ranks of senior leadership was put forth by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling
on these pages [“A Failure in Generalship,”
May]. Regardless of whether one agrees
with his claims, it is hard to contest his basic premise that
expertise matters greatly in a prescriptive approach to positively influencing follower behavior to achieve a common goal.
But even more so than expert power, it is likely that referent
power has the greatest potential for developing the necessary
dependent relationship between a leader and his followers.
Referent power is the cornucopia of values, expectations,
training, education and life experience that is attractive to followers. To the extent that a follower places value on a particu-
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ous of situations, it is an individual’s character that informs her of
how to behave in the course of influencing others. Particularly in
situations that have ethical dimensions, possessing the “right values” and “right character” is of extreme importance so leaders
may rely on “good judgment” at critical moments. In times of
great crisis, it is unlikely that leaders will have had specific training
on what course of action to take — particularly in the presence of
ambiguity or when facing ethical dilemmas. It is at such times
that leaders rely on their character and values
to make the decisions they believe to be best.
But from what are an individual’s ethical values derived? Again, education and experience; and for many, this is where religious
training might enter the fray. Sometimes the
best-intentioned people invoke behaviors
based on tenets of their religion, even if
unknowingly, because they fundamentally
believe them to be the best course of action.
A classic example emerged during the
late 1990s and early 2000s, when the Air
Force Academy was working through a multitude of sexual harassment issues. Some
argued that the genesis of the problems was
a “failure of leadership,” and others claimed
it was because the academy had lost sight
of its values. Not long afterward, the “Bring
Me Men” ramp was changed to the “Core Values” ramp and
new leaders were inserted to bring the institution through the
dark period by reinstating its values. From a power perspective, the institution placed importance on the need for its leaders to have relevant expertise and strong character to correct
the issues at hand. More than anything, the institution needed
a leader — an exemplar — with tremendous referent power to
turn the tide and rebuild the trust within the organization. By
bringing in commanders and staff who were regarded as
exceptionally moral, the organizational climate that was
claimed to be responsible for the sexual harassment scandals
was “fixed,” but it was then replaced with another
organizational climate that turned out to be conducive to religious intolerance.
a brick is guilty of sinking. The real failure was likely not having
sufficient organizational structures in place to preserve the
wide-reaching expertise needed to collectively navigate the
institution through its more challenging periods. As organizational expertise waned in light of excessive personnel turnover,
the stress on the institution became too much to withstand.
Not only did it become evident that policies, procedures and
training were lacking, but more disturbingly, few individuals in
the organization who could have directed
and helped manage the change remained
at the institution to recognize the deficiencies and make pre-emptive course corrections. Absent the sufficient relevant expertise, many leaders relied on their character
to gain the trust and respect of their followers, while also doing what they could to
strengthen the character of their followers.
Whether intentional or not, a climate conducive to religious proselytization emerged.
Such examples are neither unique nor
confined to the Air Force Academy or even
the Air Force at large. Over the past several
years, the popular press has reported on
more than one general officer who has
articulated his value system in a way that
has created controversy. Appearing in uniform and speaking before a religious group in 2003, Army Lt.
Gen. William Boykin claimed that Islamic extremists hated the
U.S. because “we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christians ... and the enemy is a
guy named Satan.” Upon investigation, it was revealed that
these weren’t flippant comments made out of context.
Ten years earlier, the record showed that Boykin told an
audience about a particular Army battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia: “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew
that my God was a real God and his was an idol.” Last summer,
the Defense Department Inspector General’s Office released a
report finding that seven officers, including four generals,
engaged in misconduct by allowing an evangelical Christian
group to come into their Pentagon offices and film them in
uniform using their official titles to bear witness to Jesus
Christ. Clearly, the issue at hand is what the criteria should be
for superiors who wish to expand their referent power to satisfy the dependencies created in their followers, particularly
when one’s personal religious beliefs come into play.
Well-meaning
people doing what
they believed was
best “fixed” sexual
harassment at the
cost of creating an
entirely new
problem: religious
intolerance.
O N E P R O B L E M S O LVE D, A N EW O N E C R E AT E D
Well-meaning people doing what they believed was best
“fixed” sexual harassment at the cost of creating an entirely
new problem. This was no more a “failure of leadership” than
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PERSPECTIVES
In the writings of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison
manifested in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in
1786, which formed the basis of the First Amendment of the
Constitution, two things are clear. First, they anticipated the
tension between the Free Exercise Clause and the
Establishment Clause. The passionate and intense debate with
regard to government’s role in religion (and vice versa) that was
evidently common in their day is relatively unchanged more
than two centuries later. And second, they apparently
understood the need to frame the church-state debate in the
simplest terms: There should “be a high wall” between the two.
Both men recognized that our individual civil rights should
have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than
our opinions in chemistry or calculus. In Jefferson’s words,
“believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely
between man and his God, that he owes account to none other
for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with
sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which
declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,
thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”
Similarly, James Madison believed that “an alliance or coalition” between government and religion “cannot be too carefully
guarded against.” “Every new and successful example therefore
of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters
is of importance,” he wrote. “Religion and government will
both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
The history books and legal archives are replete with supporting facts and court decisions, but the message is the same
as Jefferson and Madison intended. The two shouldn’t mix, but
when they do, beware.
Thus, the criteria for what a leader can and cannot do in
terms of advocating religious beliefs in the capacity of his official position seems fairly clear. This is why every officer of the
U.S. armed forces takes a single oath of allegiance to one
thing: not to the president or to the nation generally, but to the
U.S. Constitution. The liberty and freedoms for which our
forefathers fought so valiantly depend on its survival and
enforcement. However, as illustrated by the popular press stories alleging “religious misconduct” by senior leaders, it is clear
that some individual leaders genuinely face a dilemma
between upholding their constitutional oath and adhering to
the mandates of their religious faith tradition.
This dilemma can probably be best understood by consid42 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
ering the unique challenges that evangelical faith traditions
face in a military environment. On the one hand, members of
the military live with the fact that they could be asked to surrender their lives at any moment. Those who see combat face
life-and-death issues on a regular basis and are forced to grapple with the fundamental questions of existence in a way those
they protect likely will never face.
This means that for many, if not most, in the military,
religion is part and parcel of their original decision to serve,
their loyalty to country and family, and their source of strength
in times of great stress. Although patriotism and loyalty to the
Constitution are the only common requirements for military
service, it’s unrealistic to expect the spiritual beliefs of soldiers
to vanish once they put on a uniform. Indeed, the explicit
enforcement of such a requirement prior to enlistment would
likely cause the armed forces to shrink to unacceptable levels.
But a genuine danger exists for military organizations when
their leaders cross the line of acceptable religious expression,
particularly when on duty or while in uniform.
The fact that we observe instances of religious misconduct is
telling, but not entirely surprising. For leaders who yearn to be
increasingly effective, we should expect them to use all the tools
available to them to gain the trust and respect of those under
them. And it seems apparent from the noted examples that these
leaders used the appeal of religious convictions to generate referent power among those around them. For those followers who
share the religious convictions of the leader, the act of promoting
one’s religiosity may very well increase the referent power of the
leader dramatically, and in light of the religious demographics of
the armed forces, such an act would likely appeal to the majority.
But quite the opposite effect occurs with those in the minority
when they are denied the trust and respect of their leader so that
their perception, well-founded or not, is that they are regarded as
second-class citizens, service members and human beings.
AN O F F I C E R’S OAT H
Leaders’ statements in the form of mere platitudes about
respect, dignity and teamwork in the face of such facts are insufficient to reinstate referent power. Instead, a direct and forceful
affirmation of military service is required: All men and women
in uniform operate under the same presumption of high ethical
standards, loyalty, patriotism and integrity, regardless of professed religious belief or lack thereof. To help eliminate the evident lack of trust created by the events over the past few years of
pervasive religiosity, we would like to see all officers in positions
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of command publicly attest to the truth of the statement below.
We call it the “Oath of Equal Character” (previously published in
The Humanist, September). We believe that a public affirmation
of this oath would go a long way toward removing any doubts
followers may have about how they might be viewed. And for
every leader who utters it forthrightly and honestly, it would go
a long way toward building on the foundation by which they
wield referent power over all those in their command.
The Oath of Equal Character
(Note: We have written the oath from a Christian’s perspective but would expect “Muslim,” “Jew,”
“atheist,” “Buddhist,” “Hindu,” “Wiccan,”
“nontheist” or any other chosen identification to be used as applicable.)
“I am a <Christian>. I will not use my position to influence individuals or the chain of
command to adopt <Christianity>, because I
believe that soldiers who are not <Christians>
are just as trustworthy, honorable and good
as those who are. Their standards are as high
as mine. Their integrity is beyond reproach.
They will not lie, cheat or steal, and they will
not fail when called upon to serve. I trust
them completely and without reservation.
They can trust me in exactly the same way.”
It does no good to say, as some clearly
will, that the above states the obvious. Our
interaction with military members from
non-evangelical, nonmajority faith traditions tells us that they
believe their character is impugned on a regular basis because
of their differing belief systems. If something like the statement above had been articulated clearly and forcefully from
the senior leaders under fire, the religious climate of many
subunits of the armed forces would be very different — and
better — today.
Consider, for example, how the following situations might have
been different had the Oath of Equal Character been involved:
å In 2004, fliers promoting Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the
Christ” were placed on tables at the Air Force Academy’s dining facility during the mandatory lunch formation.
å PowerPoint slides were shown at mandatory briefings
routinely promoting organizationally endorsed Bible studies
or “Thoughts for the Day” from the Christian New Testament,
even in the presence of allied international officers who do not
share these beliefs.
å What if, instead of asserting the “right to evangelize the
unchurched” — as the Air Force chaplaincy did in a July 12,
2005, New York Times article — the Air Force chaplaincy had
publicly endorsed the Oath of Equal Character?
It is imperative for leaders to prescriptively consider their own
actions and estimate their effect on those that they intend to
influence in a proper manner. Leaders who attempt to increase
their influence over subordinates by promoting their religiosity
risk destroying trust within the rank and file over whom they preside and, more disturbingly, risk abdicating their Oath of
Allegiance. Even if being a good leader is
independent of being a good follower, it is of
paramount importance for leaders to continually get inside the hearts and minds of
their subordinates, shed their biases and
perspectives, and instead genuinely attempt
to see the world through the eyes of those
who yearn to be dependent upon them for
the wisdom, guidance and support to do
what is required to remain the most effective fighting force in defense of our nation’s
freedom. As leaders foster dependencies
among their followers, it also is paramount
that such power not be abused.
Our armed forces have grappled with
racial and gender discrimination over the
decades and continue to strive to provide
every military member the equal opportunity to succeed. But in the face of different belief systems, we
must recognize the need to maintain the plurality of belief systems within our organizations and refrain from taking any
actions that might adversely influence followers to believe differently than they may otherwise and independently choose.
The only permissible discrimination in the armed forces is
in the ability to do a job. There can be no other. Beliefs remain
a right and a privilege, and freedom of conscience is among
the oldest and most precious freedoms enshrined in the history of America’s founding. But as members of the armed forces,
we have all taken an Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution of
the United States. Those who believe that those who don’t
share their religious beliefs are less likely to have good character should leave the military and seek another career.
Exercising referent power over followers by using one’s faith
tradition in the capacity of a governmental official is subversive to our constitutional values AFJ
Those who believe
that those who
don’t share their
religious beliefs are
less likely to have
good character
should leave the
military and seek
another career.
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AFRICA continued from Page 29
graphic study of economic regulation in
Chad, author Janet Roitman discovers
that the military-commercial nexus does
not undermine the nation-state, but
rather exists alongside state fiscal authority and control. Sometimes, the relationship is antagonistic, but at other times, it
is one of complicity. Illicit trade and rent
seekers in the informal economy provide
the government with secondary and tertiary income and wealth redistribution.
Policymakers and military planners need
to abandon simplistic rhetoric to gain a
better assessment of the economic
dynamics on the ground, especially in
understanding the reproduction of systems of licit and illicit trade. A sophisticated understanding of politics, culture
and economics can arise from a sincere
engagement with African militaries.
Additionally, militaries in Africa
should not be trained to view the outbreak of civil war and conflict as somehow alien and exogenous to an otherwise peaceful status quo. Social
processes always consist of violent currents and volatility. By simplifying the
message and pushing the same old
rhetoric of transparency, regulation and
market discipline, Africans will continue
to view Western countries as hypocritical and untrustworthy.
Lastly, we need to start thinking more
creatively — and less land-centrically. To
this effect, Western countries can make a
positive contribution toward improving
maritime security. Even though most
countries in the Gulf of Guinea have
small navies, if any, there is a need to
help African coastal countries take full
stock of their maritime assets. Increased
maritime domain awareness will allow
African countries to manage and control
the channeling and distribution of
resources toward pro-growth policies
and strategies. A greater network of
African countries involved in shoring up
criminal activity, human trafficking,
piracy and the exploitation of valuable
economic resources will help to invigorate the need for identifying key gaps in
governance structures. By investing in
maritime security development, African
navies working alongside their Western
military counterparts can contribute to
economic development.
Employing the military for political
4 4 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
TAIWAN continued from Page 35
and economic interventions is difficult,
and rather tendentious, especially given
our recent experience post-9/11. If anything, African military forces in the
future, whether they are organized and
owned by respective countries or under
the aegis of the African Union in the
form of an African Standby Force, should
embody institutional-governing checks
and balances to stave off the spread of
corruption. African military forces
should focus on responding to humanitarian and natural crises rather than conventional warfare, even though violent
conflicts do occur during complex crises.
Far from just pouring more money into
Africa and expecting institutional change
as the result of military-to-military
engagements, Africa would do much
better to realize and come to terms with
its own needs and self-assessments.
Working partnerships can help Africans
capitalize and groom the required stock
of assets, but the key issue is not determining externally what the right model
should be for Africa. Harnessing time
into the equation will allow the participatory process to unfold, ensuring that
Africans are ultimately the empowered
stakeholders. Extrapolating from static
state models will not hold water, especially when African countries are in a
position to move substantially and
dynamically along the growth curve.
There has to be a dialectic process
among and between institutions and
nations involving resource identification
and (re)distribution during dynamic
periods of growth and change.
Furthermore, economic growth does
not have to be violent; development is
not a de facto promethean process
involving the inevitable cycle of human
bloodshed. Rather than treating Africa
as just another battlefield tilled over
again for resource hoarding and hegemonic chest-beating, a more enlightened approach suggests that instead of
polarizing and dividing the world in
antagonizing competition, Africa can be
the road to Damascus for realizing a
more civilized geopolitics based on
equality. By enabling Africa to help
itself, we may usher in a new political
paradigm for the world based on
human rights, civilized economic
growth and true development. AFJ
of maneuver for the units participating
in the final joint armor and infantry
assault exercise were strictly proscribed
in advance and diverged toward individual target ranges rather than a single
objective. As a consequence, the participating units did not demonstrate the
ability to provide covering fire while
moving forward in alternating lanes of
advance. The commanding officer of
the drill explained afterwards that he
had ordered the troops and tanks “not
to proceed at top speed, because it is
extremely muddy and slippery because
of the rain,” but the exercise still raised
questions about the progress of training
Taiwan’s troops for complex, joint operations in the future.
Reflecting the unpopularity of the
conscription system, KMT presidential
candidate Ma Ying-jeou promised in a
September 2007 speech that he will
move Taiwan to a wholly all-volunteer
force within three to four years if he is
elected, but this is a challenge that the
DPP government has pursued for years
with only partial success. Moving from
conscription to an AVF is a tremendous
challenge, and the country will very
likely maintain some form of conscript
system to man its reserves even after
the transition is complete. But the task
for Taipei is clear — it must develop a
sufficiently robust personnel structure
to operate the ever more sophisticated
weapon systems that it seeks to deploy.
U.S. R O L E I N TAIWAN D E F E N S E
Taiwan’s 2007 Han Kuang exercises were
a test of the military strategy of taking
Taiwan’s defense offshore and fighting
jointly. The exercises demonstrated that
such a strategy is within Taiwan’s grasp
but also served as a reminder that
Taiwan’s military is yet undergoing a
wrenching transformation as it adapts
to greater civilian control and a more
professionalized force, carries out major
arms purchases, and maintains an
increasingly antiquated arsenal. This
effort will require years before it is completed to the satisfaction of policymakers in either Taipei or Washington, be
they DPP or KMT, Republican or
Democrat.
The U.S. has played a positive, bipartisan role in this effort. The decision to
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support major upgrades to Taiwan’s
C4ISR system dates back to the latter
years of the administration of President
Clinton, and the American interest in
Taiwan’s possessing a credible selfdefense will long outlast the final years
of the Bush administration.
Washington can take concrete steps in
guaranteeing that this interest continues to be realized.
As Taiwan continues to improve and
test its C4ISR capabilities, its potential
to serve as an ad hoc coalition partner
in the event of either a cross-Strait crisis
or a humanitarian disaster in the region
will grow significantly. Under the Po
Sheng program, Taiwan has procured a
set of capabilities that can plug directly
into the U.S. C4ISR system in the western Pacific, both providing and receiving critical data when the two sides
work together. If the U.S. is to bolster
this latent ability, it must enhance the
level of dialogue between the two sides.
One example would be to lift the nearly
30-year ban on visits to Taiwan by serving U.S. flag and general officers, so the
managers of American command-andcontrol systems could visit their colleagues at Taiwan’s JOCC and field
headquarters.
The U.S. should also support Taiwan’s
continued acquisition of weapons systems for its defense. Although Taiwan’s
defense spending as a share of GDP
remains at a relatively low 2.7 percent,
both the DPP and KMT candidates in
March’s presidential election have indicated that they plan to increase it past 3
percent. As Taiwan seeks to shoulder a
larger share of the defense burden,
Washington should also play a more
productive role.
The recent experience with Taiwan’s
request to purchase F-16s is a clear
example of how not to handle this relationship. Taipei’s regular arms purchases should be handled as a matter of
course in U.S. security assistance and
sales programs, not as an instrument
for punishing or rewarding Taipei’s
behavior on tangential matters.
Likewise, the CPX seems to have
demonstrated a useful role for a
Taiwanese land-attack cruise missile.
Washington may not prefer that Taiwan
develop that particular capability, but it
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Page 45
is not obvious why Taipei should be
expected to foreswear options for striking military facilities on the mainland
while it lives under the shadow of
Beijing’s growing missiles force.
Finally, the Han Kuang exercises serve
as a reminder that although Taiwan
aims to defend itself through the initial
stages of a conflict with the People’s
Republic of China, its military would
suffer tremendous attrition during such
a conflict. The U.S. must be prepared to
accept a leading role in the defense of
Taiwan, including providing a major
naval and tactical air presence in
defense, even in the face of advanced
Chinese submarine and SAM capabilities. Surviving Taiwanese forces would
also require significant logistical support
after the opening weeks of a conflict.
While no one seeks a war in the Taiwan
Strait, such a scenario is yet a plausible
outcome and one that demands
Washington remain prepared. AFJ
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For more information visit www.mecomilitary.com or call 1(866) 363-0813.
JAN UARY 200 8 AFJ 45
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FORCE MODERNIZATION continued from Page 21
which would use state-of-the-art components to construct an airfield capable
of handling C-17 transports within 12
hours of arrival. Once completed, an
aerial beachhead would be established
and expanded to serve as a rapidly
emplaced aerial point for forced-entry
operations.
Just as we need to bolster our ability
to transport maneuver forces via C-17,
we likewise need to modernize and
increase our capacity to move heavy
forces rapidly via fast sealift. To increase
the deterrent our military poses to any
nation considering military action
against the U.S., we need to continue
the development of capable, fast sea
transport and invest in the development
of sea basing for power projection of
land forces. Although air transport can
rapidly emplace forces, it would take an
inordinate number of sorties to move
heavy forces into an area when that was
required. Sealift — fast sealift — would
give the U.S. the ability to insert forces
into an emergency immediately if needed, but then rapidly deploy forces heavy
enough to engage anything the enemy
could throw out, and sustain those
forces over the long term. Associated
with this capability is the concept of “sea
basing.” The concept is still not mature,
but the idea holds great potential. If the
Navy can figure a way to safeguard a
floating base so that it is not overly vulnerable to anti-shipping weapons, this
capability could add significantly to
America’s power projection capability.
OWN I N G T H E S K I E S
Historically speaking, nothing gives an
army the chance to dominate on the
ground like an air force that dominates
the skies. It is said that the arm of decision is the ground force, but history has
provided strong evidence that the nation
that owns the skies owns the ground.
Certainly, air power alone cannot win
major wars, but without it, ground
forces become extremely vulnerable. In
the future, we may well succeed in producing the most powerful land force in
the world. But for that force to win the
nation’s wars at the lowest possible cost,
it is imperative that we own the skies.
Whether it’s the F-22, the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter or some other airframe,
4 6 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
the U.S. must invest to ensure the Air
Force continues to dominate the skies.
Without question, as technology has
advanced and proliferated over the past
three or four decades, ballistic and
guided missiles have become the
weapon of choice for militaries across
the world. Our defense against them
must likewise increase.
China, Russia, India and Pakistan, of
course, have highly advanced arsenals
of tactical and theater missiles. But
there are scores of other nations — such
as Iran and North Korea — that have a
growing and sophisticated capability in
this area. If we do not invest in a robust
capability to defend against this rapidly
advancing threat, whatever force we put
in the field will be increasingly vulnerable. It is critical that we build a robust
and credible missile defense, both at the
tactical and theater levels.
Force modernization is not all about
platforms, software and high technology. A modernization program also must
include a training development program. If we advance the way we fight by
adding new capabilities, we must concurrently train our troops how best to
apply them. As we develop new fighting
doctrine and equip the force with the
latest technology, we must never fail to
understand that war is a brutish,
bloody, chaotic and unpredictable
affair. It is important, therefore, that as
we design training plans to support new
concepts it be done with the understanding that the essential principles of
war are not negated by modernization.
Today, our Army is sharply focused
on the counterinsurgency fight, which is
appropriate. But the requirement to
succeed in the present fight must not
detract from the need to prepare for
tougher fights in the future. Bluntly put,
the counterinsurgency fight does not
represent an existential threat to the
U.S. It may cause problems, it may
result in a loss of prestige, but the U.S.
isn’t going to collapse, even if we overtly
lost in Iraq; get preparation for the conventional fight wrong, however, and we
run the risk of being unprepared for an
enemy that has the ability to inflict catastrophic damage both to our armed
forces and the American way of life.
Getting transformation right and effec-
tive combat-focused training are
absolute requirements to prevent that
from happening.
We must tailor our future training
programs to counter the capabilities
inherent in the countries with the most
potent military capabilities. We must,
therefore, resist the temptation to conduct command-post exercises, simulations and field-training exercises that
are so scripted and controlled that
everything always works, communications are always up, and significant time
is always given for preparation,
rehearsals, etc. More problematic, however, is our tendency to portray an
enemy force that is docile, unimaginative and poorly equipped.
I have participated in numerous division-level Warfighter exercises and
corps command-post exercises, and
countless numbers of simulation exercises at the battalion level and below. In
virtually every one of these, the enemy
force is equipped with significantly
weaker forces than those of the friendly
unit. Particularly at the division level,
rehearsals and practice exercises are
done months in advance of the Warfighter, and often as much as two weeks
before the exercise, headquarters and
signal troops will establish the division
main command post to ensure that
every phone line, every satellite communications device and every radio is
up and running. I recall the commanding general exploding during one
exercise because one of his telephones
went down. I wondered what this officer
would have done in combat when half
his assets were down as a result of a
combination of terrain masking, atmospheric conditions and enemy action.
While we spend enormous amounts
of money developing and fielding awesome technology, we must not fall prey
to the belief that such equipment
always will provide us combat overmatch against all opponents. Presently,
we depict exactly this in the vast majority of our training exercises and simulations. To give our future forces the best
chance of success when we face a tough
opponent, we must reverse this trend.
To summarize, the following nine
changes and additions should be made
to the Defense Department
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modernization program:
1. Improve the armored protection of
our armored fighting platforms.
2. Increase the ability of reconnaissance forces to fight for information in a
degraded mode.
3. Implement a counter-UAV and
space-defense program.
4. Return air defense to the tactical
formation in recognition of improving
threat capabilities.
5. Expand our air transport fleet to
enable rapid strategic and operational
movement and maneuver.
6. Improve the ability of land forces to
engage in operations worldwide via fast
sealift and sea basing.
7. Field significant numbers of
advanced fighter aircraft to ensure air
superiority.
8. Strengthen missile defense.
9. Place an increased emphasis on
training the force in light of emerging
capabilities with a focus on the realities
of ground combat.
If substantive changes are not made
in the way the Defense Department
6:45 AM
Page 47
transforms the Army, based on the correlation of forces and overall analysis of
the preceding sections of this study, the
U.S. faces the very real possibility that if
it takes on a determined, well-equipped
and well-trained foe, we could suffer
our first major defeat since the Chinese
hordes came pouring across the Yalu
River in North Korea on Thanksgiving
Day 1950.
Too often, we exaggerate what technology can do for us and underestimate
what the enemy can do. Of our own
volition, we have reduced the combat
power of current organizations in the
hope that technology will give us an
advantage in the future; in the belief
that our air- and space-based intelligence platforms will always give us critical information about the enemy, we
have dissolved the most powerful
reconnaissance formation in our
nation’s history and replaced it with an
organization that has no ground reconnaissance capability; we are replacing
what has been proven in combat as the
world’s best main battle tank with a
lightly armored vehicle that cannot survive direct-fire engagements with
enemy tanks and which depends on an
uninterrupted flow of information for
its survival; despite numerous, highlevel Defense Department and governmental studies explicitly quantifying
China’s military modernization and the
specific threats it poses to future
American forces, no changes to formations or fighting doctrine have occurred;
and almost exclusively, we prepare our
forces to face a docile, weak and
unimaginative enemy in future combat,
despite the potentially hostile forces in
the world today with demonstrated
capabilities well above those we depict.
Although we are heading in the
wrong direction, the future has not yet
been irreversibly determined.
There is still time to make course corrections. But if we hold on to current
plans despite the presence of so much
evidence that demands change, the
future battlefield could become an
American tragedy.
The time for action is now. AFJ
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B L O G S O F WA R
In a bit of a State
Sympathy runs dry for Rice’s fiasco-laden agency
BY CHRISTOPHER GRIFFIN
W
ith any luck, fall 2007 will one day be regarded as the
take an overly aggressive posture because of screwed up priornadir of the State Department’s fortunes. During
ities. And State hasn’t intervened when American reconstrucSeptember hearings, Ambassador to Iraq Ryan
tion contractors screw the Iraqi government.”
Crocker said progress there was based on a grass-roots rejection
The tempest in the milblogosphere has been matched by
of al-Qaida, not a State-brokered compromise among Iraq’s fracintensive navel-gazing on the part of diplomat bloggers. The
tured political leadership. Less than a week later, Blackwater USA
State Department’s official blog site, DipNote, has been a hub
security contractors escorting State officials to the Baghdad
of contention on the matter, for although the postings generally
Green Zone caused at least 17 Iraqi fatalities in a
represent official policy, the comment sections
controversial firefight. Finally, when a handful of
have provided FSOs a forum where they can
BLOG ROLL
foreign service officers (FSOs) decried compulvent and present all sides of the issue.
ABU MUQAWAMA
sory service in Iraq as a “potential death senOne of the most controversial DipNote posthttp://abumuqawama.blogspot.com
tence” at a November town hall meeting, the
ings has been an open letter from John Matel,
BLACKFIVE
department’s eviscerated morale was revealed
a long-serving FSO who is leading a provincial
http://www.blackfive.net
for the whole world to see.
reconstruction team (PRT) in Iraq. Advising his
The town hall kerfuffle has initiated a
“vexed and overwrought colleagues” to “take a
AKINOLUNA
http://akinoluna.blogspot.com
friendly-fire barrage from milbloggers, most of
deep breath and calm down,” he reminds FSOs
whom are unsympathetic to the State
that although he would just as well not have to
MOUNTAINRUNNER
Department’s plight. “Abu Muqawama”
babysit anyone who does not want to join his
http://mountainrunner.us
intones that “State has brought this one on
PRT, he suggests that his colleagues who are
DIPNOTE
themselves” by publicly complaining when
not willing to serve at the president’s discretion
http://blogs.state.gov
soldiers — and many FSOs — are serving quimight best “consider the type of job that does
etly and effectively in Iraq and Afghanistan.
not require worldwide availability.”
“Subsunk” at Blackfive pipes in that although both FSOs and
Matel’s posting set off a chain of comments that ranged from
military service members take an oath to obey the
denunciations of the “cowardice” of FSOs by one retired Army
Constitution and serve the country, “it just appears that some
officer to accusations that Matel would have made a model fasfolks place more weight on their oaths than others.”
cist stooge. One of the most thoughtful observations was conA few bloggers have been more empathetic. “Akinoluna,” a
tributed by an FSO in Portugal, who criticizes the absence of
female Marine supply sergeant who has daily contact with
proper training for FSOs, even after six years of war: “At the end
American diplomats while serving at a U.S. Embassy, observes
of the day, taking FSOs with no Arabic language skills, no Middle
that “State Department employees spend most of their careers
Eastern experience, no job-specific skills (repairing electrical
overseas and many of those years [are] at ... hardship posts. ... I
grids? water systems?), and especially no security training, and
can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard military people comsending them to Iraq is foolish. Hundreds of FSOs are in Arabic
plaining about being outside of the United States, but I’ve never
training right now; job-specific training is lagging but underway.
heard a foreign service officer say that. Usually they are comThese people will probably do good work in Iraq when ready.
plaining about being forced back to D.C. for a couple years.”
Many of those being sent now, however, are just totems, sent for
Raising the level of debate, Matt Armstrong at
no other reason than to show that they are there.”
MountainRunner lays the blame for the fiascoes on the failure
In late November, Defense Secretary Robert Gates joined the
of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s agenda of “transforfray when he challenged U.S. civilian agencies to undertake a
mational diplomacy”: “Rice has not prepared her department
greater share of the burden for post-conflict stabilization and
for the mission she’s suddenly demanded. We’re now four
reconstruction. Generously deflecting blame from his colleague
years into Iraq, six years into Afghanistan, and her department
Rice toward a decade of dystrophy, as the post-Cold War “peace
still hasn’t mobilized ... for war to the extent that even a few
dividend” was largely paid by the State Department, the U.S.
months ago Crocker had to go public with staffing problems.
Agency for International Development and the former U.S.
State/DynCorp have messed up policing. State permitted
Information Agency, he called for developing such civilian
(some, like me, might say encouraged) their security escorts to
capacity as a sufficiently funded State Department and a readi4 8 AFJ JAN UARY 200 8
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ly deployable corps of civilians who can fill the technical jobs
required to accomplish reconstruction operations.
Gates frames the problem perfectly. Just as many of the
technical skills required for stabilization and reconstruction
are not inculcated through military training, nor will they ever
be native to even the best-trained diplomat. This is why the
reserves and National Guard have been in such high demand
in Iraq and Afghanistan, for they deliver civilian expertise in
such fields as policing and civil engineering that neither the
full-time soldier nor the statesman can be expected to master.
But even with the development of such a civilian capability,
which the State Department’s coordinator for reconstruction
and stabilization hopes to develop into a several-thousandstrong deployable corps of civilian experts, State will still require
a cultural shift to manage such missions. This is one point on
which the debate on DipNote and other professional sources
diverge: What makes the best foreign service officer? The master
of memo writing and diplomatic communication? Or the manager who can oversee a range of reconstruction projects and
extract performance from the civilians and soldiers under his
watch? Both skill sets may be necessary, but the department
does not have a tradition of training and promoting the latter.
The crisis in Foggy Bottom, as well as Gates’ call for reform,
has opened a window for reforming the State Department in
preparation for what will likely remain a “Long War” against
Islamist extremism. If this opportunity is embraced, then State
has an opportunity to reverse its slide into interagency irrelevancy. If this opportunity is missed, State appears poised to
continue disappointing its military counterparts and to fail to
effect American foreign policy. AFJ
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DA R T S & L A U R E L S
Nuking it out MRAP rethink Health check
TO PRESIDENT BUSH,
for losing the propaganda battle over the
Iran nukes fiasco. It’s
bad enough that the
U.S. again is being served humble pie
over weapons-of-mass-destruction allegations. But this time around, it would
have been wise for the White House to
have eaten the pie, however unappetizing. Instead, just two days after the intelligence report said Iran halted its nuclear
weapons program four years ago, Bush
told Tehran to “come clean” about its
nuclear activities. No one believes that
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is up to anything good. But the
U.S. handed a public relations gem to a
tyrant who will use it for all it’s worth.
Rather than continue the saber-rattling
rhetoric from such a poor position, Bush
and his key advisers need to stop,
regroup and work out a plan that outsmarts a dangerous but containable
threat.
TO GEN. JAMES T.
CONWAY, for having
the courage to do a
sharp about-face and
cut the Marine Corps’
request for bomb-resistant vehicles
from 3,700 to 2,300.
The original plan was for every
Marine outside the wire in Iraq to travel
in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
(MRAP) vehicle. Lawmakers, to their
credit, quickly stepped up to the plate
and pushed hard to get billions of dollars of funding for the MRAP program.
Which made it an even tougher call
for the Corps’ commandant to admit
this probably is not a good use of taxpayers’ money. But Conway’s decision
was based on changing conditions and
the recognition that the less-than-agile
MRAP vehicles would risk the Corps’
ability to execute its core expeditionary
mission.
FORUM PICK From our online discussion boards
“One of the major factors responsible for the near-debacle in
Iraq is the total failure of law and order due to the complete
absence of both the Army and the police from carrying out
internal security duties in terrain that they knew inside out.
What is happening now was both predictable and
avoidable. So, must we allow to go unanswered questions
as to why the intellectual horsepower in and available to
Congress, the White House, the State Department, the
Pentagon and Central Command failed to realize that it
would not be necessary or helpful to disband both the Iraqi
Army and police after Saddam was taken out?”
TO THE ARMY, for its
handling of the case of
Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside,
the reservist who led a
unit of medics in Iraq
and then suffered a
mental breakdown, possibly triggered
by the stresses of war, during which she
waved a gun at a psychiatric nurse on
her unit, fired into the ceiling, then shut
herself in a room and shot herself in the
stomach.
Whiteside, whose story was detailed
in The Washington Post, was taken to
Walter Reed Army Medical Center,
where she was diagnosed with severe
mental disorder. Yet the Army offered
her only the chance to resign under a
status that would have left her without
the veterans’ medical benefits she will
need as the result of her severe
injuries. The Army also filed criminal
charges against her for endangering
the life of another soldier and for
attempting suicide.
In December, the investigating officer
conducting a preliminary hearing recommended that the charges be dismissed, saying it was the only moral
course. Army leaders from top to bottom must all recognize the critical
importance of protecting — and, where
necessary, healing — the mental health
of its war-stressed soldiers.
— BARRISTER
Post your thoughts and continue the debate at http://www.armedforces
journal.com/forums.
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