Happy Veterans Day

First and foremost, I would like to thank all those men and women who have served or are currently serving in the military. We would remiss not to also acknowledge the service of the Intelligence Community. It was not too long ago that the CIA put its 90th star on its Memorial Wall in honor of fellow Floridian Gregg Wenzel who died in the line of duty in Kenya. As a civilian, I do not feel like I have much to add to these tributes besides restate the moving sentiment of veterans like this one, which honors each and every member of the military, from the good folks at Blackfive.

My own small tribute has been not on this blog but in the classroom with my course “Narratives of War, 1865-Present.” Although the goal of the course is to expose students to a wide range of literature and film about war as well as issues confronting warfighters and their families, there has been an unexpected and perhaps greater significance to my class.  As the semester progresses, a growing number of students who have family or loved ones in the military have told me that the works we have read have given them an insight into their experiences and sacrifices. It is incredibly rewarding to hear a student remark that a book or film has given him or her a greater understanding of their father, mother, brother, sister, or other loved one.

Even then, it is hard not to feel somehow inadequate in the face of so many–including members of my own family–who have given so much in service of the United States of America.  For now, this is all I have to offer.

Remembering 9/11 through Teaching

This semester, I have been teaching a survey of American Literature course at the University of Florida titled “Narratives of War, 1865-present.” (For the initial draft of my syllabus, see this post. I have changed it since then.)

We began the class with Walt Whitman’s Civil War poetry such as “The Wound-Dresser,” Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, and Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Each has had its unique teaching moments. With Whitman, it was the complex emotions towards war ranging from near-jingoistic patriotism to his profound sympathy for those wounded and killed on both sides of the conflict. Crane gave us a chance to explore the trauma and transformation of a young soldier whose expectations more closely resembled the fantasies of 300 than the realities of the Civil War. Then, we read Bierce’s short story as the last moments of–to borrow Kilcullen’s phrase–”an accidental guerrilla.”

On the anniversary of the September 11th Attacks, we moved forward in time and for the first time addressed a conflict that all my students had experienced in one way or another. Indeed, I underestimated the extent of their experience. Most were only 11 or 12 when these attacks occurred, so I thought it would be necessary to remind them how scared we all were on that day. However, they too had been afraid. Those who had had been living near or on military installations repeated the same thing: “we thought we would be next.” Some teachers had sheltered them from the coverage, because they had family members who might be at the World Trade Center, Pentagon, or otherwise involved. However, there was sense among almost all of them that something was wrong. Many parents came to get their children and took them home. As I look back at that day now, it was not merely fear that motivated these parents. There was a collective reaching out to friends and family on that day and afterward that was made more palpable in light of those on the hijacked airliners and in the World Trade Center and Pentagon who were forever lost to their loved ones.

Over the summer, I struggled with what would be the most appropriate commemoration of that terrible day and those who died and settled on Paul Greengrass’ 2006 film United 93. As always, a memorial–film or otherwise–is a painful thing. Some students cried watching the film; others were demonstrably moved in class. I lectured more than wanted, which was more difficult than I expected. This film’s teaching moments had even higher stakes than the other cultural works we have studied so far. We discussed the ethical and artistic choices that Greengrass made in representing the hijackers and their victims. It was necessary to explain so much: the cultural and religious forces driving Al Qaeda, the history of Western intervention in the Middle East, and tragic ignorance of pre-9/11 America. Moreover, the class reopened a wound of my own–much less of a wound than so many but a wound nevertheless–and I found it difficult to focus.

Throughout it all, students wanted to understand how and why this could happen. There were the inevitable questions: “How could the terrorists bring knives aboard?” and “Why didn’t someone try to stop them before 9/11?” Regardless of question, no explanation was adequate.

If today’s class was any indication, it will be members of this generation who are the harshest critic of our failure to stop the attacks. It is not that they have forgotten. They were afraid. They were most vulnerable. Most importantly, they were just old enough to remember yet young enough to believe that they had been safe.

‘Contractors Gone Wild’ News Round-Up

After a crazy summer myself, I am returning to blogging to comment on some even crazier times at the Embassy in Kabul. As I am sure you have read by now, private security contractors under the employ of Armor Group were dismissed for some very juvenile behavior caught on film. Before we go further, it is important to note that there are great people–some of whom I have had the pleasure of meeting throughout my research–in the PSC community. When I see contractors depicted as mustache twirling villains such as in District 9, my first reaction is to cringe at the narrow representation of a very diverse group. This same prejudice has colored the reception of this news if not the coverage itself. However, there has been some thought provoking discussion to come from it.

The Combat Operator, for one, points to a need for greater oversight and accountability of the PSC industry:

The command structure, the rules, regulations, policies, guidelines and standing operating procedures which are normal in any military organization do not exist to any meaningful degree within the private security/military industry. At best you have a few companies who, relatively speaking, do better than most but even that’s a pretty low standard to meet.

Furthermore, the consequences for breaking rules (that is…the few rules that actually exist) is virtually non-existent. In the U.S. military the UCMJ governs service personnel and all soldiers, airmen and Marines know that failure to comply with any lawful order, law or rule or even policy or guideline runs the risk of prosecution non-judicial punishment (NJP), or court martial under the UCMJ. Again, nothing even close to this exists within the world of private security. There really is no accountability comparable to the UCMJ and NJP amounts only to dismissal from your current contract. And we all know that this is, in reality, no punishment at all since the offender often simply pop-ups somewhere else for another firm in a matter of weeks or months.

However, TCO also points to a failure of leadership at the State Department:

Now then.  That takes care of the industry side of the equation.   What about the client side?  Increasingly it is coming to light that government clients, in contrast with private clients, are systemically inept at managing the procurement, selection and oversight of security contracts.  I have personally worked on contracts which have both private clients and government clients and though neither do a very good job, the government side and in particular the U.S. State Department are painfully ill equipped to do this work.  The reasons for this are puzzling, especially as at this stage, after 8 years of war in Afghanistan and 6+ years in Iraq there are literally hundreds of senior contractors with multiple years of operational management experience who could be hired by State in to sit on the ‘client side’ of the table during contract negotiations as well as during the later phases of contract execution.

For decades the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Services (DSS) program was always a sleepy little backwater in the security world.  It was, and to some degree still is,  full of lifelong government civil servants who, despite their hard work and good intentions, have not been able to adapt to the pace and complexity that operating in a war-zone imposed on them.  They got pushed into a fast-paced and complex game that they were not prepared for.

But to date this has been like asking a local high school football coach, no matter good his record has been at that level,  to jump into the NFL.   Oh sure, on the surface there are many similarities,  the field is the same dimensions, it’s still 11 vs. 11 players  and the rules are mostly the same and certainly the concepts is the same in principle.  But the speed, level of complexity and knowledge and experience to say nothing of the media attention necessary to perform at the highest level make it impossible for him to take go from High School to the NFL without a natural maturation process which usually involves a stop for many years at the university level.

The DSS small staff of only a couple thousand agents oversees (and I am using that term lightly) over 30′000 contract personnel in the protection of over 200 Embassies and consulates around the world.  But, the problem is that your standard, run-of-the-mill, contract and mission to protect the Embassy in Berlin or even Kuala Lumpur or Mumbai  is still about three solar-systems away from what is required to protect the Kabul embassy.  Kabul and Baghdad are the big leagues and the DSS has not demonstrated anything near the capability of playing on that field.  They certainly do not have a commanding position of respect or authority over the security firms they are supposed to supervise.  At best they are perceived as an administrative nuisance which should be avoided at every opportunity.

To some degree the State Department knows they are are in over their head and they have relied, far too heavily, on the professionalism (I use that term lightly as well…) of the private security sector to pull their bacon out of the fire.  But, as I have alluded to before the professionalism they desire and frankly rely on generally just does not exist.

Free Range International offers another take on the incident and the larger problems that, as the author writes, “have little to do with the behavior highlighted in the tsunami of international coverage.” This speaks to the PSC talent pool, how much contractors are paid, and how they are treated:

Managing contracts of this size in Iraq or Afghanistan is an impossible job and there is a very small pool of talent who have the ability and energy to do it well. I came to Kabul from the American Embassy in Baghdad where I first joined the circuit with a British firm. I received a call around Midnight on a Sunday from the company recruiter who I could barely understand and he said in a very loud voice “mate do you have your kit?” I replied in the affirmative and he says “I need a fill in Baghdad mate can you leave in two days?” I again said yes and he yelled “great mate see you in 24 hours.” The next morning I had a ticket to London and I left the following day. It was a weird thing to do but I hated being retired and was a really crappy civilian. I was lucky, the project manager in Baghdad, who would come to back fill me in Kabul two years later was one of the best I have ever seen. He was from Zimbabwe, had extensive combat experience, was of the quiet confident type who paid keen attention to what his expats did both on and off duty.

Camp Happy on the day we assumed the duty at the US Embassy – this dump housed over 300 Expats and TCN’s and it sucked. The upside to being in a real shit sandwich like this was that everyone had to respect the need for off shift personnel to sleep so everyone was excessively considerate. We had to pull one 24 hour shift in order to allow our night shift to sleep – the roof was still being attached and the rooms built so they were never able to get any sleep off shift for the first two weeks of the contract.

[...]

The main reason why managing these contracts is so difficult is that it is impossible to stay ahead of the stupidity curve your men will generate. There is no way to anticipate it because some of these guys do the most unbelievably stupid things sober; add alcohol and the potential for Darwin Award level stupidity goes up exponentially. In the military I knew my Marines well because we spent so much time together – often in prolonged field exercises. Your average young enlisted Marine has the ability to do stupid things too but they fall into an easily anticipated set of behaviors which savvy leadership can recognize and at times circumvent. Not true with contractors – some of stories I have heard are amazing.

[...]

When Armor Group won they were heading down the same path as MVM but at the last minute the CEO came in, immediately fired his management team and entered into negotiations with the existing project manager for him and his crew to come aboard. I am hesitant to go into detail due to an acute congenital fear of lawyers. Runs in my family according to my Father, but suffice it say the pay for new joins was low and did not favor Americans who cannot be paid on leave by an American company without becoming an employee with the full benefit and tax load. That lasted a little less than a year until the PM got bored and left which caused the immediate exodus of all the old guards who Armor group wanted to be rid of so they could bring in guys at a much reduced daily rate. You get what you pay for in this industry and Armor Group was not paying much.

The pay thing is a problem which can worked through with good on the ground leadership and incentives for people who are on their second, third or fourth year of the contract; the real problem is with the living conditions and job requirements of the guard force. The average living space per man in Camp Sullivan is less than the square footage required for inmates in federal penitentiaries. I put that in writing in a memo to the RSO when the camp was being built which may help explain the stained relationship I had with him. The recreation facilities are inadequate and the gym full of third rate Turkish equipment. There is no space on the camp for the men to do anything outside of their crammed barracks and they have little ability to get off camp. When you are designing camps to house hundreds of guards for years at a time you have to pay attention to their morale recreation and welfare needs which is something the military excels at. If you do not think through what they are going to do off duty as thoroughly as their on duty tasks than you are set up to fail.

Personally, what I find most disturbing is that part of this failure can be traced to that prejudice I mentioned earlier:

But that contract will still be have a ton of problems and the men working there will continue to be even more miserable than the FOB bound military who at least have good gyms, pizza hut, lots of girls on their bases, green beans coffee houses etc..

There is only way to fix the Embassy contract and that is to cut the number of guards in half, make them all Americans and pull them into the embassy where they can work and live along side the other Americans. The security guards are not now and never have been able to use the gyms or bars or tennis courts or swimming pool which are all reserved for embassy staff. That should change. The security guard contract should also be combined with the Ambassadors PSD contract (currently Blackwater and before them DynCorp) so that guards joining the contract can work their way up onto the Ambassador’s detail – that way when a new guy joins that team he has a clue about Afghanistan. Knowing how to “evasive drive” or shoot is useless here – knowing the people, how they drive and what is normal behavior is critical and you can’t learn that in security “operator” school. What are the chances that the State Department is aware enough to recognize the problems they created on this contract and then really fix them? Absolutely zero. Like I said I hated working that contract because the people you are serving are just plain rude, arrogant and worse yet completely clueless about what is happening outside the walls of their plush digs.

At the very least, this compartmentalization speaks to a condescension towards those who provide security for embassies. More importantly, this prejudice creates blinders that inhibit real solutions on the ground.

Some of the Tools behind the Iranian DDoS Attacks

If you have been following #iranelection like I have, you might have heard about the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that the opposition has used against government web sites.  On the SANS Internet Storm Center, Bojan Zdrnja includes some details of the attacks.

In last couple of days we posted two diaries (http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=6601 and http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=6613)  with information about Slowloris, a tool that was released last week that performs a resource exhaustion DoS attack on Apache web servers.

There has been a lot of chat about the tool on the web, so it was just a matter of time when we would see it using in real DoS attacks. Last week I posted a diary about two groups launching DDoS attacks on Iranian web sites (http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=6583). Both of these attacks were relatively simple and used existing, old tools for performing DoS attacks.

However, over the weekend some forums and web sites asking people to run DDoS attacks “expanded” their selection of tools by including Slowloris – nothing we didn’t really expect to see.

If you follow the links in the post, there is a lucid explication of the tools and methods behind the attacks. Even if you are not a technophile, the “nuts and bolts” of a DDoS is pretty interesting stuff.

Iran’s Firewall and Election Protests

Craig Labovitz from Security to the Core has some interesting observations on the Iranian firewall. I was most interested in what traffic isn’t filtered:

While the rapidly evolving Iranian firewall has blocked web, video and most forms of interactive communication, not all Internet applications appear impacted. Interestingly, game protocols like xbox and World of Warcraft show little evidence of government manipulation.

Perhaps games provide a possible source of covert channels (e.g. “Bring your elves to the castle on the island of Azeroth and we’ll plan the next Ahmadinejad protest rally?”)

Of course, World of Warcraft has not escaped the scrutiny of the ODNI and others in the United States. For commentary, see these posts at Danger Room (here and here) and Schneier on Security.

Check out Arbor Network’s “Security to the Core” for more.

America’s Army 3 available today

Via @USArmy. Today, the US Army will release a new version of its video game and recruitment tool, America’s Army. According Grafton Pritchartt of Army.mil, America’s Army 3 will introduce a number of new features that will provide a better simulation of combat for prospective recruits:

The original game has been out since July 4, 2002, but the new version will provide gamers with improved features, thanks in part to the use of Unreal Engine 3.

Unreal Engine 3 will allow the game to have effects like lighting and shadowing and rendering. The effects make the 14 different choices of characters more realistic, project developer and creator Col. Casey Wardynski said.

“America’s Army 3 involves enhancements of the technology from America’s Army’s original version, which has made the sound (and graphics) dramatically better,” Wardynski said. “This gives them a chance to test drive the army. Instead of it being all the stuff they think they know from the movies, it demonstrates what it is really like because this game is made by the Army.”

A trailer for the video game is available here. Or, if you can bring yourself to set down your Baudrillard for a moment, go download a copy and join the fray. You can “pre-load” the game at the America’s Army website, and the game will “unlock” around 3:00 PM EST.

Teaching American Literature through Narratives of War

Jeff Withington, posting at the US Naval Institute blog, shared an email exchange he had with Admiral Jim Stavridis on the value of an English major and the impact it has had on his life.  Admiral Stavridis also recommends a “must-read” list for midshipmen before receiving their commission. Well, I have one-upped the admiral.  In the fall, I will be offering an American literature course entitled “Survey of American Literature: Narratives of War, 1865-Present.”  You don’t even have to be a midshipman or an English major–only a student at the University of Florida.

“Narratives of War” will focus on novels, short stories, films, and memoir that deal with aspects of armed conflict since the end of the Civil War.  The course will encourage students to think critically about an number of issues including but not limited to post-traumatic stress disorder, women in the military, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” Arab-Americans after 9/11, Revolution in Military Affairs, and counterinsurgency.

My inspiration for the course was John Nagl’s characterization of American military culture as one of survival in the face of existential threats. That culture of survival permeates all of American culture including the struggles facing various waves of immigration, the GLBT community, and Arab Americans post-9/11. As diverse as America itself, our military faces many of these same challenges.

There are no shortage of texts, so it is inevitable that I will miss some here or there. My goal was to cover a wide swath of historical periods and genres. There may be some changes, but here it is as it stands today:

Week 1
Monday (8/24): Course overview and introductions; reading journal explained

Wednesday (8/26): American Civil War; Walt Whitman, selected poems

Friday (8/28): Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (1-75)

Week 2
Monday (8/31): Crane, The Red Badge of Courage (76-152)

Wednesday (9/2): selection, Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” “A Son of the Gods,” “One Officer, One Man,” and “One of the Missing” (Available at The Ambrose Bierce Project, http://www.ambrosebierce.org/works.html)

Friday (9/4): Spanish-American War; Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” [Available at http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/kipling.html]; Mark Twain, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” [Available at http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/twain.htm]

Week 3
Monday (9/7): No class

Wednesday (9/9): Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat” [Available at http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/CraOpen.html]

Friday (9/11): September 11th; Flight 93, directed by Peter Markle (in-class screening)

Week 4
Monday (9/14): 9/11 and Arab Americans; Randa Jarrar, “Lost in Freakin’ Yonkers” and “A Frame for the Sky” (course packet)

Wednesday (9/16): Introduction to Research Writing: Asking Questions and Finding Answers; Group Activity on Topics, Questions, and Problems

Friday (9/18): World War I; selection, Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (3 – 35) [course packet]

Week 5
Monday (9/21): Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory (36 – 74) [course packet]

Wednesday (9/23): Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home”

Friday (9/25): Research Writing, continued: Sources and Citation

Week 6
Monday (9/28): World War II; Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (part 1)

Wednesday (9/30): Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (part 2)

Friday (10/2): Research Writing, continued: Claims and Support; for class discussion, watch the following WWII Disney Propaganda films: “The Spirit of ‘43″ [Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqMVpcbhpqw], “Der Fuerher’s Face” [Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZiRiIpZVF4], “Commando Duck” [Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H81Nna8fo5g]

Week 7
Monday (10/5): Vietnam War; selection, Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried

Wednesday (10/7): selected poems, Yusef Komunyakaa

Friday (10/9): Revolution in Military Affairs; selected military technology articles; Donald Rumsfeld, “Secretary Rumsfeld Speaks on ‘21st Century Transformation’ of U.S. Armed Forces,” US Department of Defense, January 31, 2002 [Available at http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=183]; John Nagl’s and Frederick Kagan’s responses in Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife [e-reserve] and Finding The Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy [e-reserve]

Week 8
Monday (10/12): Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers (1-75)

Wednesday (10/14): Heinlein, Starship Troopers (75-150)

Friday (10/16): No class

Week 9
Monday (10/19): Heinlein, Starship Troopers (150-225)

Wednesday (10/21): Heinlein, Starship Troopers (225-272)

Friday (10/23): 1991 Gulf War; Jean Baudrillard, “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place,” Jarhead [in-class screening]; Reading Response Paper due

Week 10
Monday (10/26): Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; selection, Gabe Hudson, Dear Mr. President; James J. Lindsay, Jerome Johnson, E.G. “Buck” Shuler Jr. and Joseph J. Went, “Gays and The Military: A Bad Fit,” The Washington Post, 15 April 2009, A19; Andrew Exum, “DADT and the Age Gap,” Abu Muqawama

Wednesday (10/28): The War in Afghanistan and the 2003 Iraq War; Colby Buzzell, My War: Killing Time in Iraq (1-75)

Friday (10/30): Buzzell, My War: Killing Time in Iraq (75-150)

Week 11
Monday (11/2): Buzzell, My War: Killing Time in Iraq (150-225)

Wednesday (11/4): Buzzell, My War: Killing Time in Iraq (225-300)

Friday (11/6): Buzzell, My War: Killing Time in Iraq (300-368)

Week 12
Monday (11/9): Women in the Military; Kayla Williams, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army (1-75)

Wednesday (11/11): No class

Friday (11/13): Williams, Love My Rifle More Than You (75-150)

Week 13
Monday (11/16): Williams, Love My Rifle More Than You (150-225)

Wednesday (11/18):Williams, Love My Rifle More Than You (225-300)

Friday (11/20): Williams, Love My Rifle More Than You (300-320)

Week 14
Monday (11/23): Counterinsurgency; Spenser Ackerman, “Women Prominent in Defense Movement (Seventh in a Series: The Rise of the Counterinsurgents),” The Washington Independent; Research Paper (First Draft) due

Wednesday (11/25): Montgomery McFate, “The Military Utility of Understanding Adversary Culture”; Roberto J. González, “Towards mercenary anthropology? The new US Army counterinsurgency manual FM 3-24 and the military-anthropology complex”; Montgomery McFate, “Building Bridges or Burning Heretics?”

Friday (11/27): No class

Week 15
Monday (11/30): No class; student conferences (required)

Wednesday (12/2): No class; student conferences (required)

Friday (12/4): No class; student conferences (required)

Week 16:
Monday (12/7): Unmanned Systems; Sig Christenson, “Air Force looks to keep more pilots grounded,” MySA.com; David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum, “Death from above, outrage from below,” Eagle Eye, directed by DJ Caruso [in-class screening]

Wednesday (12/9): Conclusion; Research Paper (Final Draft) due

I will be interested to hear your feedback on the syllabus. If you are a student at UF, the course is AML2070: Section 1625. I would welcome any cadets or midshipmen from the ROTC program.

I may require a blogging component to students’ reading journal, because I am sure students will have some great perspectives not only on the works themselves but also the issues we will cover together.

Education as War, War as Education

Recently, I had the chance to read Martin Evans’ Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics for the first time. One of the things that struck me most was  it struck me how education (specifically, the philosophies of education) was a marked fissure in the rise of the Taliban. According to Evan’s account, a divide opened up between those who received a secular education from institutions such as the Law Faculty of Kabul University and members of the Taliban who have their roots in Deobandi madrassas. As Evans writes, “[i]t is not merely the ethnic or tribal divide that separates the Taliban from such ‘Islamists’ as Rabbani, Hekmatyar and Massoud, but also the fact that the latter were educated in ‘modern’, rather than ‘traditional’, educational institutions” (204-205).

As I thought about it more, I began to see education as a significant thread throughout the Long War.  Indeed, the theory and doctrine of counterinsurgency is intertwined with the notion of education. COIN, so says FM3-24, “is not just thinking man’s warfare—it is the graduate level of war.” More important, it is a difficult, ongoing, and perhaps impossible education. One of the most widely read books on the subject, John Nagl’s Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam says so much in its title, borrowed from the writings of COIN icon T. E. Lawrence. Lawrence himself was a practicing archeologist before he found his way into the Arab Revolt to promote British interests. He was a warrior-intellectual in a time when, as documented by Fussell and others, British commanders’ lack of creativity lead to the needless slaughter of tens of thousands.

As embodied by the likes of General David Petraeus, the warrior-intellectual is the new vogue. Among them is Craig Mullaney, author The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education.  On his website, he remarks on the difficulties of educating counterinsurgents:

The ideal soldier would be a micro-financier with a doctorate in anthropology, speak Dari and Pashto, be an expert marksman, and have served as a mayor in a farming community. The military doesn’t have the resources or time to produce this bionic counterinsurgent, but it can do a better job educating soldiers so that they’re faster at learning and adapting in unfamiliar environments. We do a great job of making sure units have the weapons they need to fight, but in a counterinsurgency, often the best weapons don’t shoot. The challenge is to fertilize units with the right mix of additional specialties so that they’ve got the right “weapons” for this kind of fight.

Indeed, this fact that the best weapon does not shoot complicates the the education of the soldier who must yet rely on weapons that do shoot. As Dave Grossman wrote in On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, overcoming the resistance to killing involves a number of factors including the creation of cultural distance between the warfighter and the enemy. At the same time, counterinsurgents promote collapsing that distance through ever-greater cultural awareness.

The way we think about education our fighting men and women has been challenged in a number of other ways.  Tom Ricks has opened the debate on the closing of the military academies. Others like Gian Gentile have argued against the increasingly dominant position of COIN, making the case manuals such as FM3-24 have divorced the actual fighting of war from doctrine. Others still debate our focus on training for counterinsurgencies and whether it has diminished our capacity to fight conventional “peer competitors” and hybrid threats.

This is by no means an exhaustive list how education plays a role in our current conflicts, but I intend to follow this thread again in the future.

In Honor of Memorial Day

Over the last few months, my dissertation research has kept me from blogging, but I wanted to make sure I took the time today to acknowledge those men and women who have died in the service of the United States of America. This year, there have been a number of remarkable tributes to these individuals, and I want to highlight two of them in particular.

The first is Map the Fallen, a Google Maps project developed by Sean Askay. A developer for Google Earth, Askay describes his work:

This Memorial Day I would like to share with you a personal project of mine that uses Google Earth to honor the more than 5,700 American and Coalition servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have created a map for Google Earth that will connect you with each of their stories—you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died.

Screenshot of "Map the Fallen"

The second is They Have Names. The site’s mission is to “tell the individual stories of our Troops who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom. We believe that Americans NEED to know about the lives of each and every fallen hero. Through this knowledge, they will cease to become mere numbers and start to become real people.” Their goal is to post one soldier a week until every American warfighter who has given his or her life in the line of duty has been acknowledged.

This week, They Have Names honored Army Specialist Holly J. McGeogh who, at the age of 19, died in 2004 as result of an IED attack. Her story is one of an adventurous little girl called to the U. S. Army. Her mother, Paula Zasadnym tells the story of little girl who was “quick, fearless, and got into everything”:

One day around the age of 2 1/2 or 3, she decided that one of the family’s Chinese fighting fish might make a tasty treat. In the minute or two that Paula turned to fold clothes in the living room, she managed to catch the fish from a 10-gallon tank and give it a quick taste test-she bit it in half and ate the back part. She then ran to her mother and, rubbing her tummy, let out a huge, “Mmmmmm.” Paula couldn’t believe it and called Poison Control (she joked that this was something she had to do often with Holly, and she knew the number by heart and even a few of the names of people working there). It turned out that the fins could be poisonous and after some ipecac syrup, Holly was ok.

SPC McGeogh demonstrated this same fearlessness serving in Iraq:

Holly was deployed on April 2, 2003 to Tikrit, Iraq at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. It would be about five or six months until they were able to establish proper restroom and shower facilities, but Holly never complained and even joked about it. She told her mom, “It’s no big deal, Mom. We all smell the same.” Her only complaint was that too many of the older, male soldiers were looking out for her and that she had too many fathers in Iraq. This was because Holly was always getting in trouble, trying to sneak in vehicles on raids and missions. She volunteered for everything and never wanted to be left out, even if it meant risking her own life.

I encourage you all to read the whole story. It is one of the many stories goes untold, because it strays from the cynical narratives that rear their ugly head even on Memorial Day to disparage and dishonor those who have been killed and injured on the behalf of a nation that scarcely recognizes their sacrifice.

Without qualification, I want to extend my sincerest gratitude to all those men and women of the Armed Services and Intelligence Community who have given everything in service of the United States–not just today, but everyday.

China’s Ascending Naval Power and Risk Aversion as Policy

In “The Pentagon’s Culture of Risk-Aversion and the Infantry Automatic Rifle (IAR) Solicitation,” I argued that risk aversion–more than threat assessment, technological requirements, or even the so-called “good ole boys” network–has come to drive weapons procurement in the United States. The IAR solicitation is one example, but there are many others that show a growing tendency to adopt weapons systems that pose the least risk. The significance of this pervasive culture of risk aversion is that the United States is not simply ignoring the “best” weapons systems but rather is choosing the wrong weapon systems for the threats facing America and, in turn, following wrongheaded policies founded upon risk aversion.

US Naval Institute Blog contributor “Galrahn” makes a similar argument regarding American policymakers’ reaction to China’s development of the DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missile system in “Risk Averse Political Policy Requires High End Focus.”

The DF-21 anti-ship ballistic missile system represents in one capability the most important discussion the Navy is not having, and considering how many discussions the Navy is not having with the American people and Congress; I think that is saying something. The capability specifically raises the fundamental strategic choices that Congress faces, likely in total ignorance, when looking to how many and what type of ships the US Navy needs to build. Countering this weapon system is going to require very expensive ships, and several of them per high value unit (carriers and amphibs). Countering the capability requires additional assets, like rapidly deployable satellite systems, Air Force tankers, UCAVs to extend the strike range of the carrier air wings, and newer, more capable long range strike platforms that may include replacements for the highly capable but enormously expensive Ohio class SSGNs. The range of attack and defense for the US Navy will not only extend out to 2000 nautical miles, but will also be required to range up, perhaps to specifically engage satellite systems that provide guidance to those weapon systems. Most importantly, the US Navy will require large numbers of these very expensive systems, and anything less would represent a calculated political decision to accept the risk. If large numbers of very expensive and capable ships is not the political option available, then Congress needs to be open to other ideas.

Right now, there is absolutely ZERO evidence Congress is open to other ideas no matter what they say, and in person I observed in shock the evidence last week.

As I have thought through the challenges these type of emerging kill weapons bring to the maritime domain, my thoughts have been trending towards the necessity for a new fleet survivability discussion similar to the one raised in the late 1990s regarding littoral warfare by Cebrowski and Hughes. Hughes in particular raises the fleet survivability discussion in his book Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, noting that one hallmark of naval combat in history is that it becomes a war of attrition. As a theory, this is accurate, but there is a major political pressure against the theory of attrition that prevents the discussion from even taking place.

I encourage you to read the whole article. It is fascinating reading. Clearly, this is further evidence that risk aversion has lead war planners and policy makers to look to technological solutions (often without adequately addressing threats) rather than confronting the institutional culture of the national security establishment that keeps leading warfighters down this path.