Center for a New American Security

I received a paper copy of this a few days ago and understood it was embargoed so I didn't post it. But now I'm starting to receive it over email as a .pdf, so I figure it's out there already and that readers of this blog should get the chance to read it. My first thoughts on this are very positive.

qdr_feb_2010

William Safire's obituary in the Economist was one of the cleverest I have read, but the Onion's obituary for J.D. Salinger is pretty awesome as well.

Tom highlights a quote from Ike:

French divisions are always a questionable asset." -- Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1945.

Well, yeah, and I can imagine what Eisenhower thought of the Wehrmacht, too. But that just makes me wonder what he would make of NATO in Afghanistan today. Up is down and down is up? Or, as a French diplomat friend of mine complained in frustration, "Look, aside from 45 days in 1940, we're really a quite martial people."

That made me chuckle when he said it, but he's right, of course. The way Americans view the French military has been long overdue for a revision, and I think that revision has taken place to a degree -- driven by study of Galula and Trinquier and Bigeard and at the expense, perhaps, of the Germans -- in the U.S. military's officer corps if not in public perceptions.

Big news in defense policy circles. A draft of the QDR has been leaked to Inside Defense. It -- the QDR, not the leak -- has a strong whiff of Brimley about it. I would post the .pdf on my Scribd account, but the security settings on the file are too strict.

Update: Nevermind. One my tech-genius readers figured out how I could share the document.

qdr_2010_draft

So the quants, not content with mucking up the financial world, have turned their attention to the dynamics of irregular war. I may be a PECOTA guy when it comes to baseball, but I am wary of many quantitative efforts made to "explain" the dynamics of war. Strategic studies scholars I admire like Steve Biddle show the utility of quantitative analysis in their own work, and Steve in particular makes a strong case for why policy papers and academic research backed up by quantitative analysis have more of an impact than do papers based on strictly qualitative or theoretical work. But I think the pressure PhD students and junior professors in political science and international relations feel to check the three magic boxes -- qualitative, quantitative and theoretical -- when writing their dissertations and papers has contributed to the growing irrelevance of their fields in policy discussions. You shouldn't need two semesters of statistics to understand a policy paper on strategy or military operations. Acquisitions or budgeting, fine, but neither this book nor this book nor this book nor this book -- all enduring classics in the field of strategic studies -- rely on quantitative analysis. (This favorite of the blog, yes, but the key observations in the first half are all based on historical evidence.)

Anyway, you guys could probably care less why I never read the APSR. But based upon my limited personal experience in high-intensity and low-intensity conflict as well as my academic research -- to include field research in several active combat zones -- human or "moral" factors often explain war far better than number-crunching. (At its worst, the aforementioned number-crunching you see in scholarly journals is just qualitative judgements assigned numerical value, i.e. if 10="good" and 1="bad".) And all methods of analysis are inherently limited in their explanatory value.

That said, there is an article in Nature on the "unified model of insurgency". And Josh Foust and his gang of hired assassins have posted a critique of it on Registan.net worth checking out. Josh & Co. laud the authors of the Nature article for the way in which they have approached their subject. (And yeah, actually, they should be lauded, because honestly, God bless them for tackling a complicated issue with such methodological rigor.) What I get from the critique, though, is that the model the authors have constructed is -- surprise! -- too simple to reflect the realities of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies. And it reminds me of the way in which Quants on Wall Street discovered that all of their complicated computer models had failed to reflect the actual behavior of markets and indeed hastened the destruction of the very funds for which they had been constructed to generate income. (Honestly, didn't we learn our lesson with LTCM in 1998?)

I'm not trying to come off as one of those analytical dinosaurs the gang at Fire Joe Morgan used to poke fun at (you know, the guys who value "grit" and "hustle" over OPS), but we have to admit that in certain chaotic "systems" involving real live humans acting both rationally and irrationally -- such as international finance, or war -- the explanatory value of quantitative analysis might have its limits.

My officemate Abe has a good new report he edited on the global commons worth checking out.

This priceless email report is from Beirut-based Mitch Prothero, of The National:

The President of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council Sayyed Ammar Hakim visited the resting place of martyr Commander Hajj Imad Moghnieh, in Rawdat al-Shahidain cemetery. After placing a wreath of flowers at the martyr's shrine and reciting prayers for all the martyrs at the cemetery, he considered his presence "At this sacred place, a confirmation of solidarity, support and emotional interaction with the martyrs of the Islamic Resistance, who stood, fought, struggled and sacrificed a great deal for Lebanon, the Arabs and all Muslims, for the just cause in this region, manifested in standing up to the Zionist enemy."

Allow a friend of mine to put this in perspective: "So the guy we killed hundreds of thousands of people to put in power just prayed over the grave of the most efficient killer of Americans ever. I mean, other than the Wendy's triple decker bacon cheese burger."

No comment from Londonstani on this, but read the article and comment at will.

Ok, maybe a few excerpts would be useful:

"Foreign Secretary David Miliband was under pressure today to explain why there had been cutbacks in counter-terrorism programmes in Pakistan because of the falling value of the pound.

"...The Foreign Office (FCO) is trying to deal with a shortfall of £110 million, a figure expected to grow in 2010-11, due to fluctuations in sterling.

"...Baroness Kinnock caused astonishment by disclosing that programmes to tackle terrorism and radicalisation in Pakistan had been hit as a result.

"...Her revelation in the House of Lords came hours after Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Commons that the "crucible of terrorism" on the Afghan-Pakistan border remained the "number one security threat to the West".

And, in case you thought this was due to some sort of unforseen international economic situation:

"Mr Hague said the cuts were the "direct consequence of Labour's decision to remove the FCO's protection against exchange rate movements".

UPDATE:

And where are the cuts landing?

"Kim Howells, a former foreign minister who is now chair of the intelligence and security committee that oversees MI5, MI6 and other intelligence agencies, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning that he was surprised at the timing of Kinnock's comments, but not the content.

"It is well known that obviously if a currency devalues against other currencies than you buy less than your money," said Howells.

He did not believe these cuts would affect "the hard end" of counterterrorism activities, he said, before adding: "Undoubtedly what it will affect are those softer diplomatic efforts ... for example, trying to convince the Pakistani government and the regional governments in Pakistan that they should try to improve the material lives of people that will make them less susceptible to the overtures of al-Qaida, the Taliban and so on."

So like in the areas where many analysts think we have the best opportunity to make substantial changes

A few of you inquired as to the title of that new anthology on counterinsurgency for which Dave Kilcullen contributed an excellent chapter on intelligence. It has not been published yet, but you can pre-order it here. I myself have a chapter in the anthology on information operations, and I'll confess to wishing I had read Joanna Nathan's useful chapter on the Taliban's information operations before writing my own (which does not focus on Afghanistan and instead looks at Lebanon and Hizballah). Her chapter can be found in Antonio Giustozzi's latest edited volume, from which I read on the train yesterday and have been really enjoying.

Since ISAF and the Pakistani forces are not doing so well at countering the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Tehreek-e-Taliban in Pakistan, it seems the two organisations have decided to compete with each other instead.

On Monday, the Taliban launched the kind of attack in Kabul that Pakistan has seen plenty of in recent months. Multiple attackers, suicide bombers, gunmen, co-ordination. Yep, it could have been Rawalpindi, Lahore or even Mumbai. The Afghans blamed the Pakistanis, as did the Indians. But amid the finger pointing, Londonstani is thinking that it's very possible that the groups carrying out these attacks are developing, deploying and then sharing tactics like its going out of fashion - even if they are officially meant to not like each other. This is all slightly alarming and suggests they aren't under the kind of pressure that ISAF forces and the Pakistanis have suggested. 

If Londonstani were a Taliban commander he'd be taking it easy right now (maybe figuring out how to run double agent operations). "The information operations are going well. The seeds have been planted and the vicious circle is rolling in the right direction. The Americans and the British are running in circles while throwing money in the air and the Pakistanis are increasingly seeing the errors of their corrupt, slave rulers. All the while, the Muslim world is seeing how we take on a regional power and a superpower all at the same time. Now what? volleyball? stolen humvee racing? I know, I'll show that annoying arse Hakimullah that he's not the only one that can make like the action movies."

UPDATE: The BBC's John Simpson sums it up well with this comment: "...there are other ways to win a war than simply fighting. And persuading the world that the Taliban can strike when and how they want is one of them."... Back to the communications and comprehensive approach discussion.

A few months ago, my buddy George Feese, a USMA graduate and two-time Iraq veteran with whom I attended both the infantry officer basic course and Ranger School, introduced me over email to Tim Harford, the consistently thought-provoking "Undercover Economist" who writes for the Financial Times. Tim was exploring areas in which contemporary conflict and economics intersect. As I boarded a plane at London Heathrow this past weekend, I read the column that resulted from Tim's investigation. It's really interesting:

Some of the more successful tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan have indeed been built on the simple economists’ prescription: if you want to change behaviour, change incentives. For example, killing insurgents without holding territory did not encourage co-operation from bystanders, as anyone who had collaborated would be killed when the insurgents returned. When coalition forces switched to the tactic of holding territory and preventing the return of insurgents, people became happier to share information.

 

The more psychologically detailed insights of behavioural economics may also be promising. [Andrew] Mackay and [Steve] Tatham cite Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Programme as an example of the “choice architecture” described by policy guru Cass Sunstein and the behavioural economist Richard Thaler. The NSP handed out grants to villages, provided the village leaders were elected by secret ballot, held communal meetings, and posted accounts in a public place: a nudge towards better governance.

Readers of this blog will remember I'm a big fan of the NSP, but specific programs aside, the connection between COIN and "choice architecture" is a really interesting one that provides a useful social science framework for officers conducting operations in parts of Afghanistan. The wider connection between counterinsurgency and the social sciences, of course, is well understood. David Kilcullen argues in a new anthology, for example, that intelligence in counterinsurgency is like conducting ethnography -- but the "ethnography of hell":

...it is carried out in appallingly violent circumstances in which people and societies suffer incredible brutality and unbearable pressure, where informants are under intense threat, information is often impossible (or impossibly risky) to acquire or verify, the object of study is changing rapidly, and intelligence officers themselves work under starkly difficult and dangerous circumstances."

Difficulties aside, most U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers are not trained as social anthropologists or ethnographers. Economics, though, is more accesible. It is, at the most basic level, the science of decision-making. How people make decisions and what incentives drive them to make decisions (or not make decisions) is a question we can all ask and, again, a useful framework for thinking about the conflict environment in Afghanistan. Harford, though, interestingly concludes that we might look to Afghanistan to understand the world of finance and not visa versa:

Whether or not generals can learn from economists, economists can certainly learn from generals. I have been as guilty as anyone of being fascinated by behavioural economics. But the financial system did not fail because of some psychological trait, but because it was riddled with damaging incentives that were hard to spot because the system was complex and changing quickly. So, too, with counter-insurgency: Mackay started by thinking about economic psychology but ended up focusing on complexity, and what it takes to create an organisation capable of adapting to complexity. It has taken me too long to come to the same conclusion myself.

Thoughts from the readership on all of this are, as always, highly welcome.

I was on a plane to the Middle East on Sunday evening when I spotted these lines from Leon Panetta's op-ed in the Washington Post:

The main lesson from this attack is that, like our military, CIA officers are on the front lines against al-Qaeda and its violent allies. They take risks to confront the enemy, gathering information to destroy its networks and disrupt its operations. This is a vicious foe, one that has struck our country before and is determined to do so again.

As an agency, we have found consolation in the strength and heroism of our fallen colleagues and their families.

We have found no consolation, however, in public commentary suggesting that those who gave their lives somehow brought it upon themselves because of "poor tradecraft." That's like saying Marines who die in a firefight brought it upon themselves because they have poor war-fighting skills.

The op-ed was, written, I believe, in response to commentary like this op-ed by Reuel Marc Gerecht arguing that poor tradcraft was, in fact, at least in part to blame for the deaths of seven U.S. operatives and one Jordian agent. I myself do not know much of anything about the tradecraft of an intelligence officer at the CIA, so I am not going to pass judgment on what happened in eastern Afghanistan. What Panetta wrote above, though, sure does trouble me.

Panetta assumes that is beyond the pale to say that Marines or U.S. soldiers died in a firefight due to poor war-fighting skills, but that in fact has happened quite regularly over the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every single firefight U.S. soldiers and Marines engage in is subject to an admirably honest after action review (AAR). Readers of this blog no doubt count themselves as veterans of many an AAR held everywhere from Fort Polk, Louisiana to Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan. In some military mini-disasters -- like the hapless convoy that was ambushed during the Battle of Nasiriyah and resulted in the capture of Jessica Lynch -- an extensive AAR process reveals that soldiers died because they did, in fact, possess poor war-fighting skills. (After Nasiriyah, that particular finding led many within the U.S. Army to stress the importance of basic rifle marksmanship and maintenance for even so-called "support" soldiers.)

The military is, by now, used to engaging in a pretty frightful AAR process that, when successful, lays bare the weaknesses of fighting organizations tested by realistic training or combat. When aggressive national security journalists don't think the U.S. Army or Marine Corps is being honest enough, they do not hesistate to say so. (Exhibit A.) So in conclusion, it is not, in fact, taboo to say that Marines died because they have poor war-fighting skills. Marines do sometimes die because they have poor war-fighting skills. And when that happens, the U.S. Marine Corps relies, like the U.S. Army, on a vigorous AAR process to identify faults in training, leadership and equipment.

One can only hope that the CIA is engaged in a similar process today. But when the director pre-emptively says that the "main lesson" of this loss is that "CIA officers are on the front lines against al-Qaeda and its violent allies", it makes me think the director, at least, is on the defensive. Because that's a pretty anodyne main lesson to draw from this. A visit to any tactical U.S. military unit in Iraq or Afghanistan -- where successes and failings are analyzed and provoke reforms on a daily basis -- tells you it doesn't have to be that way.

The CIA is, of course, conducting an investigation. But an investigation can be a lot different in tone and scope than an AAR. An investigation has a prosecutorial air about it and can focus on factors outside an organization. An AAR, by contrast, should focus on dynamics inside an organization. It should also be conductd in such a way as to encourage honesty from subordinate leaders and participants -- no one should fear for their career. A how-to guide can be found here. Tips and techniques from readers on how to conduct an effective AAR are encouraged in the comments section.

In related news, the report on the failings of U.S. military intelligence in Afghanistan -- and the accompanying recommendations for a way forward -- has been downloaded 9,864 times as of yesterday. That's a new record for a CNAS report. I heard the director of one of the civilian intelligence agencies thought the Flynn report was in part directed toward his agency. It wasn't, but his alleged knee-jerk response -- angry and defensive -- was revealing.

There was a good article in the Independent today about the situation in Yemen. Keeping in mind the recent discussion on this blog about what to do, two paragraphs particularly stood out.

"But, in an office guarded by soldiers with AK-47s and crowded with lieutenants and allies including a uniformed army brigadier, he added: "There are no new troops, no new army." The governor said he lacked helicopters needed to pursue militants if there was an incident outside the capital.

Mr al-Misri went out of his way to stress that "social development" help from the international community was urgently needed for his country, the poorest in the Arab world. Airstrikes and military force were not the "solution", he added. "We need more help to get the tribes to kick them [al-Qai'da] out. The government does not have the resources to do that."

Abu Muqawama and Richard Fountaine rode into this argument early on in their On the Knife Edge policy brief arguing for a "whole of government" approach while Marc Lynch has said that we should we careful of expensive and potentially pointless blundering (yes, it's fun linking to the Tehran Times re-print of his piece).

Steve Tatham and Andrew Mackay support a point David Kilcullen makes when addressing these Yemen-style conflicts we are bound to see more of in the future:

"‘(W)e typically design physical operations first, then craft supporting information operations to explain our actions. This is the reverse of al-Qaida’s approach. For all our professionalism, compared to the enemy’s, our public information is an afterthought. In military terms, for al-Qaida the “main effort” is information; for us, information is a ‘supporting effort'."

In Londonstani's opinion, this really hits the nail on the head and is absolutely relevent to Yemen. Al Qaeda chose to establish themselves in Yemen. The success or failure of the underwear bomber was probably not judged to be as important as the spotlight it will cast on a country with multiple problems which play into the hands of AQ strategists. In the international game of Judo playing out over multiple timezones, AQ is  making the West use its force against itself again and again.

Londonstani has a little experience of Yemen, and remembers it as being very similar to Pakistan and Afghanistan's Pashtun territories in many ways. The danger is that AQ will be able to do what it has done in Pakistan. It has failed to make the population rise up in its support but it has succeeded in allowing the Western world to make itself so deeply unpopular that in the longer term the outlook of AQ is changing the ideological structure of the society.

Reading Tatham and Mackay and relating their arguments back to Pakistan, Londonstani is increasingly convinced that the answer will come from information and influence and building that into aid and diplomacy. If Washington and London can convince Yemenis (and others) that AQ "isn't probably right" and its allies and domestic supporters aren't the only people who can provide justice, peace and security that would be a good start. It can't be about "tricking the natives with plastic beads" but effectively communicating your intentions and achievements. It sounds easy, but even that start is pretty far off.

UPDATE: Also, take a very good look at al Qaeda's own "comprehensive approach"

"Only a fraction of pledged Western aid has been disbursed because of serious corruption and capacity problems in Yemen's government, with the result that per capita development aid is significantly below that of some poor African countries...

...Saying the jobless toll in Abyan is 50 per cent, compared with an estimated national average of 40 per cent, in a country where 45 per cent live on less than $2 a day, he describes how al-Qa'ida adherents insert themselves into local tribes, often nomads who do not see TV and know little of the movement's existence. First, he asserts, a member who belongs to the particular tribe will introduce others who will bring financial and practical help – like the digging of water wells – to the local community.

"Say the government is paying someone $50, they will pay $100. At the same time al-Qa'ida Islamic "scholars" will "collect" some of the tribe's young people, jobless and naturally religious, to begin "training", while also providing them with occasional financial help. Mr al-Misri says he cannot tell how many adherents it has but adds: "they are growing because the environment in Abyan helps the groups to grow because of the economic and employment problems."

A few months ago, I allowed my housemate's subscription to the Washington Post to lapse and used my Delta Skymiles to buy a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. I quite like the Journal, even though its news side has perhaps grown unncessarily partisan in the past year, because it forces me to read articles about subjects -- namely, finance -- that I would not normally study. Also, longtime friends Yochi Dreazen and Charles Levinson report for the paper, and Jason Gay's sports column is one of the funniest things you'll read in any given week. (He had a line about the Washington Wizards' "shooting percentage" that caused me to snort oatmeal last week.)

Today, though, my newfound friends at the Journal mention me in the lead editorial in such a way that I need to slightly correct the record. In a rare editorial praising the president, the Journal's editorial board gives a big thumbs up to drone strikes against al-Qaeda but add:

"Critics such as counterinsurgency writers David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum allege that drones have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians."

The Journal is not saying "Kilcullen and Exum are idiots", but they are, I think, twisting an argument the two of us have raised.

To begin, the Journal seems most concerned -- understandably, I might add -- with how many civilians are actually being killed. The reason Dave and I cited open source reporting out of Pakistan is because we were more concerned with how many civilians are perceived to be dying in drone strikes. There's a difference there, and it goes back to my larger concern that drone strikes are a tactic unaccompanied by a more comprehensive strategy incorporating an effective strategic communications plan. Here's what we wrote:

Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent — hardly “precision.” American officials vehemently dispute these figures, and it is likely that more militants and fewer civilians have been killed than is reported by the press in Pakistan.

I'm not saying drone strikes cannot be part of the solution (as Dave and I have said time and time again), but I am saying that right now, they're a part of the problem. If I thought drone strikes were incorporated into a coherent strategy rather than a convenient tactic substituting for a strategy, two thirds of my objections would go away.

Just this week, a friend of mine asked me to participate in a panel discussion on drone strikes, and here is how I responded:

I would be up for that as long as no one expects me to be some anti-drone fundamentalist. I have serious reservations about our reliance on drone strikes as a tactic and think they need to be integrated into a more comprehensive strategy. And I think the military should do them, mainly so that we would have the kinds of checks and balances and accountability we (should) get when the U.S. military executes an operation. I’m sure folks in Langley might want my head on a platter for saying this, but I wish our nation’s intelligence services would stop trying to be so operational and would stick to gathering intelligence.

This concern, about which agency or department is the most appropriate agency or department for carrying out these strikes, is a question left unaddressed by the Journal's editorial but one that I think should be asked. I fret drone strikes have become a way for a certain agency in the U.S. government to justify its budget share and relevance in the fight against al-Qaeda. 

I got my first taste of everyone in the 202 area code hating me when Dave and I wrote this op-ed on drone strikes seven months ago and was told by many that I should avoid writing such things lest I hurt my career. (Cue laughter from the readership.) But I am glad there is now a real and more mature debate on the strikes, their merits and their limits today than there was then. And if our op-ed helped start a debate, then I figure I'm doing my job -- even if it annoys the administration and the intelligence community.

The two latest from Antonio Giustozzi. I got a good review of this book from a girl riding the Green Line a week or two ago* and read a good review of this book on Registan.

*God bless the nerdish reading habits of DC metro customers.

My friends Laura Rozen and Michael Cohen are way off base if they think the report written by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn on the failure of military intelligence in Afghanistan constitutes a crisis in civil-military relations. Some folks in the public affairs shop at the Pentagon were predictably upset that they were not in the loop regarding the report's release, but this is Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell speaking today on behalf of his civilian boss, the Secretary of Defense:

[The report] is exactly the type of candid, critical self-assessment that the secretary believes is a sign of a strong and healthy organization. This kind of honest appraisal enriches what has been a very real and hearty and vigorous debate that, frankly, has been taking place within this building, within this department and within this government for years now.

So, uh... where, exactly, is this civ-mil crisis that Michael and Laura are worried about? I am writing as a guy who both served as a volunteer advising the Obama Campaign on defense policy issues and as a guy who served a volunteer advising Gen. McChrystal on operations in Afghanistan.* I fail to see, yet again, how the latter is supposedly undermining the former. The report that Maj. Gen. Flynn published through CNAS was above all an indictment of his own branch of the U.S. Army. (General officers have no branch, I know, but Maj. Gen. Flynn rose up through the ranks as a military intelligence officer and currently serves as Gen. McChrystal's intelligence chief.) This report should cause some shockwaves, but those waves should be felt primarily within the defense intelligence community. After all, this report was in part prompted by the inability of military intelligence officers to get their civilian bosses the kind of answers they requested this fall. How an attempt to better serve civilian decision-makers gets spun into a revolt on the part of uniformed officers is, as my dad says, more twisted than color TV.

*I had to settle down Evan Hill, one of the editors of the awesome website The Majlis, regarding my "work" for the Obama Campaign. I never advised the Obama Campaign on Afghanistan issues, and I ceased all work for the campaign in November 2008 before starting my work at CNAS in March 2009. My "work" for the campaign was decidedly unsexy, too. I was just one of what I suspect were hundreds of graduate students who volunteered for a few hours a week. Longtime readers of this blog will remember that I did not allow any discussion of the 2008 presidential campaign on the blog in order to keep our discussion of COIN operations and strategy as nonpartisan as possible. The only reason I mentioned the fact that I had volunteered on the campaign was to note that I quite admire the president and Gen. McChrystal and can't understand those who think the latter is out to get the former.

Spencer Ackerman and Matthew Yglesias have an idea as to who should headline the CNAS June conference: Vo Nguyen Giap. I, for one, think this would be a brilliant idea. Our two most high-profile programs at CNAS are, arguably, our Asia-Pacific Security program and our projects examining America's current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. What a great way to combine the two! Vo could speak about COIN (albeit with the C and the O) and could provide insight on Asian security. Genius!

The News on Sunday newspaper printed a list of "obsessions" Pakistan could do without in 2010. It's sort of like a list of New Year resolutions. But away from politics (as much as anything can be in Pakistan) it's a fun, alternative look at Pakistani society from the inside.

Read the whole thing here:

Londonstani's favourite is this:

"Membership of one Ummah

We strongly believe in the idea. Ummah, one single body that goes beyond the considerations of borders, tribes, castes and nationhood... It is binding upon us to help Muslims wherever they are. We in this country are more concerned about the problems and miseries of our fellow brethren from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Chechnya and Kashmir rather than those living close-by. Problems faced by Muslims in these countries form the subject matter of sermons of our clergy. One can hardly find prayer leaders talking about the problems of Muslims living in Pakistan. Ironically, the Ummah seems equally oblivious about Pakistan."

Well, it's between this and the one on sex.

The thought-provoking (Stewart) and the sublime (Bleuer). With respect to the latter and by my own count, I have at times been guilty of #9, #14, #17, #21 and #26.

With respect to the former, meanwhile, I found myself agreeing with the lion's share of what Rory Stewart wrote as well as his major conclusions. I worry, though, that we will observe a tension in the coming year between political and strategic decision-makers seeking to chart a minimalist course on Afghanistan and operational commanders and representatives seeking maximalist means to get there. Count me as one of those who believe the president will not accept the kind of resource and time-intensive COIN strategy outlined in FM 3-24 and that operational commanders in Afghanistan should then ruthlessly triage with respect to their priorities. I have faith they are doing that, as evidenced by the priority they seem to be giving to the training of the ANSF over all else.

This touches upon a longer research question I will be working on that deals with politics in COIN -- both domestic politics as well as seeking leverage over host nations in third-party interventions. I noted to a reporter yesterday that FM 3-24's primary flaw is that it is apolitical. It does not adequately address the public's impatience with long and resource-intensive military campaigns, nor does it address (at all, really) the idea that the interests of the host nation might not line up with those of the counterinsurgent. Steve Biddle and Mark Moyar have written on this, so I can only hope to build upon what they have done. Your thoughts, of course, are always welcome. I pledge to shamelessly steal them, after all (#12).

Londonstani is still processing the news that the suicide bomber who killed the CIA officers in Khost was a Jordanian double agent working for the Pakistani Taliban.

Apart from reading like the backcover of a Fredrick Forsyth novel, this illustrates the point of the CNAS report AM posted in the previous entry.

The former official said that the fact that militants could carry out a successful attack using a double agent showed their strength even after a steady barrage of missile strikes fired by C.I.A. drone aircraft.

“Double agent operations are really complex,” he said. “The fact that they can pull this off shows that they are not really on the run. They have the ability to kick back and think about these things.”

This isn't even the Afghan Taliban, its the Pakistani Taliban. They are supposed to be getting hammered by the Pakistani army.