The new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy . . .

Andrew Exum has an article at The New Republic that makes a lot of sense as usual. He's the namesake blogger on Abu Muqawama (link on the left side of this blog).

The strategy is pretty vague so far, those of us who have read the white paper on the strategy are concerned by the overwhelming lack of any detail on pretty much anything other than troop numbers, which of course, can help, but can't win the war.

Exum correctly asserts that the key lies in improving governance in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and doing so takes more civilian that military boots on the ground. This is a mission for USAID to take the lead in, while most of the military provides them security and trains the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, SOF hunts for the really bad guys, and State coordinates the regional players, EU, Iran, Russia, India, and sure enough, China (the number one investor in Afghanistan).

House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces

That's kind of a mouthful, but basically, in the House there is a committee on the Armed Services. Within this committee is a subcommittee whose responsibility is the oversight of the US Navy, US Marine Corps, and US Coast Guard. Well they had one of this blog's favorite strategic thinkers over to testify on Thursday, and a lot of important things got said there. I wasn't there personally, but Thomas P.M. Barnett testified and has a couple blog posts about the hearing on his weblog if you want to clicky the link on the left.

Notable was the agreement that the budget will be reduced. Naturally, there were differing opinions on where the cuts should come from. This blogger supports a drastic decrease in Carrier Strike Groups. Currently the requirement is 12 Carrier Strike Groups, and 11 Expeditionary Strike Groups. The standard 1/3 operating ratio means that only 4 Carriers are deployable at any given time. That is an awful lot of power concentrated on very few platforms. And any risk to these platforms in necessarily utterly unacceptable. Expeditionary Strike Groups are divided among 3 major vessel types in addition to their surface combatant escorts:

• LHA/LHD's are like smaller aircraft carriers that bring helicopter and fixed-wing close air support.
• LPD's carry tanks, vehicles, and the hovercraft we use to put them ashore. The big ship in the center of the picture above is a San Antonio-class LPD.
  
• LSD's carry additional hovercraft and equipment. The ship in the lead of the formation in the picture is a Whidbey Island-class LSD.
  

This means that for 11 Expeditionary Strike Groups you actually get 33 major platforms that can spread US influence and operate with Global Partnership Stations, support Marines or other ground forces, hunt pirates, or look for terrorists. The only thing they can't do is carry the larger fixed-wing aircraft needed for long range air support. At the beginning of the century the battleship replaced the dreadnought. Following Pearl Harbor, the Battleship was replaced by the Aircraft Carrier as the primary means of force projection. And even though it never fired a shot, the real key to naval power projection during the Cold War was the nuclear submarine, both attack and ballistic missile types. Today, it is the Amphibious warship that most represents the means by which we project power and influence. They alone, among major naval platforms can exert influence in the littoral regions. In combination with the LCS, they provide a powerful tool for exerting control in the most important regions of the world's ocean's, the places where the people are. For this reason, I believe the number of Carriers should be reduced from 12 to 6, and the number of Amphibious warships expanded from 33 to 45, for a total of 15 Expeditionary Strike Groups.

Used Ship salesman?

An interesting idea being floated ::groan:: by the likes of Bob Work and Thomas P.M. Barnett is to sell LCS to developing navies and coast guards around the world after we use them. Not only does it help us recoup some of the procurement cost, but it helps build a truly global cooperative coast guard in the spirit of the National Maritime Strategy. I think it's is a brilliant example of how we can export security and help to stabilize the global system in a more meaningful manner than simply selling more guns.

Our Supranational World . . .

The Supranational World, an estimate of the global map in 2020, by moi.

With global trade talks somewhat stalled and trade protectionism on the rise, much to the chargin of anyone familiar with economics or the history of recessions, I wonder if regional trade organizations will take a front seat for the next 5-10 years or so until the US can get back on track as a leader in spreading the global community.

While coordinated global action is important, especially from groups like the G-20, regional organizations have an advantage in that the danger of sudden exposure to the global economy is lessened by first having to compete on a regional level.  Countries that share borders also tend to share other economic and political interests, making faster coordination and integration possible.  

I also think building such organizations should be a primary US foreign policy tool, rogue regimes are much less likely to continue their shennanigans when they have to answer to their regional partners rather than just the Great Imperialist Power.  It's hard to deny, for example, that the Southern African countries have been able to exert more influence than the US in Zimbabwe.

Iran - admittance to either the Gulf Cooperation Council or the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation could be a powerful carrot to regulate Iranian behavior through economic sanctions or free trade.

North Korea - would be hard pressed not to accept access to a not yet existant East Asian Economic Community.  The Chinese and South Koreans would both put a lot of pressure on them to lower their isolationist stance.

Cuba - admittance to CariCom in exchange for Human Rights improvements . . .

Pakistan

Since it has been out in the public for awhile now, I'll comment on the basing of Predator UAV's, (not DoD's by the way) inside Pakistan. I suppose one way to avoid unseemly border confrontations is to avoid having to cross the border in the first place.  A good question to ask might be whether or not the drone basing rights were issued under the Musharraf or Zadari governments.

Also, according to the Pashtun Peace Forum, Pakistani's in the Tribal regions don't totally hate the drone strikes:

-- Do the militant organizations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%)

-- Do you see drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No 55%)

-- Do you think the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%)

-- Do you think anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently? (Yes 42%, No 58%)

-- Should Pakistan military carry out targeted strikes at the militant organizations? (Yes 70%, No 30%)

-- Do the militant organizations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%)

Operationalizing COIN strategy and definitions

In response to Janine Davidson's talk at the Combined Arms Center Senior Leadership Conference.

We could use a definition of where the military hands off command to USAID, and where USAID hands off command to State. This way everybody has something to work towards, a general set of goals, starting with a focus on security, moving to governance and economic infrastructure development, and THEN working on making it 'perfect' (a transparent and open democratic state).

Obviously these things all need to be worked on simultaneously, the key is where the focus is. From this we can then derive a series of clear, concise, and achievable goals at each stage of operations. Such distinctions would have to be made on a region-by-region basis. After OIF I, for example, the Kurdish regions were ready to be handed off to State almost immediately. Handing off command doesn't mean you pack up an leave, it just means the mission has transitioned to a new focus. Unless someone decides to start arming the USAID workers, the military will still have to show up in a big way.

Iraq and the Surge

Just wanted to put up this map of various kinetic events across the occupation in Iraq.  One can't help but be amazed at what the Coalition and the Iraqis were able to do, pulling that nation back from the abyss the way they did.

A SOFA, not a love seat.

As most people in the foreign policy community expected, there wasn't much daylight between the President's plan and the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) already hammered out between the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government.

I am still concerned by the rush by a great many smart people to jump on the bandwagon regarding expectations of Iraq's security situation over the next year and a half or so.  Everyone is making the assumption that the situation will continue to improve or stay roughly the same.  Certainly, this is the most likely scenario.  But what if security rapidly deteriorates?  Especially if it does so in a direct correlation with troop level reductions, the war started under the previous administrations will now be the current administration's to lose.  There are all kinds of very possible, if improbable, scenarios regarding large scale ethnic cleansing, accommodation of radicalists who use Iraq as a base to strike at moderate regimes throughout the region, etc

I'm not saying the withdrawal timeline is a bad idea.  I think in a war among the people, it is vital that the people are aware of the broad strokes of the strategy, if not the operational details.  Iraqi public opinion and US public opinion are bound together with regards to withdrawal.  As Thomas P.M. Barnett is fond of saying, victory in Iraq will have been achieved when they vote to kick us out.  All I'm saying is, if there is one vital lesson about Iraq, its that hope is not a plan.  We need a strategy in place if things go bad.