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51. "Left of Bang": The Value of Sociocultural Analysis in Today's Environment

Author:
Michael T. Flynn, James Sisco, and David C. Ellis
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Hard lessons learned during counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, counterterrorist operations across continents, and the Arab Spring all contributed to a growing recognition within the Intelligence Community (IC)1 of the importance of understanding the “human terrain” of operating environments. The Department of Defense (DOD), its Service branches and combatant commands, and the broader IC responded to the demand for sociocultural analysis (SCA) by creating organizations such as the Defense Intelligence Socio-Cultural Capabilities Council, Human Terrain System, and U.S. Central Command's Human Terrain Analysis Branch, among others. For large bureaucracies, DOD and the IC reacted agilely to the requirement, but the robust SCA capabilities generated across the government over the last decade were largely operationally and tactically organized, resourced, and focused. What remains is for the IC to formulate a strategic understanding of SCA and establish a paradigm for incorporating it into the intelligence process.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and Iraq

52. Evolved Irregular Threats

Author:
Ben Fitzgerald and Pia Wanek
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Almost every aspect of national security is colored by uncertainty. While it would be arrogant to consider that this moment in history carries more uncertainty than others, we presently find ourselves facing a multiplicity of uncertainties that pull us simultaneously in different directions. Drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the future implications of those conflicts, the ongoing events of the Arab Spring, the rise and increased assertiveness of near-peer competitors, a variety of nonstate actors with increasingly sophisticated capability, and economic crises in Europe create additional contingencies that require our attention. Simultaneously, economic uncertainty at home limits our means, requiring prioritization and the acceptance of additional risk.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Europe

53. Challenges Developing Host Nation Police Capacity

Author:
James K. Wither
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Stability operations embrace a wide range of civil-military missions in fragile or conflictaffected states, and they range from traditional peacekeeping to combat with well-armed insurgents or criminal elements. Often different activities, including combat, policing, humanitarian assistance, and reconstruction, occur concurrently in the theater of operations. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has described these operations as: military missions, tasks, and activities conducted outside the United States in coordination with other instruments of national power to maintain or reestablish a safe and secure environment, provide essential governmental services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief.
Political Geography:
United States

54. Logistics Islands: The Global Supply Archipelago and the Topologics of Defense

Author:
Pierre Bélanger and Alexander Scott Arroyo
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
For the Department of Defense (DOD), the most important difference between Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in Iraq and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan is neither cultural nor political, but logistical. Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, summed up the difference with terse precision: “We don't have a Kuwait.” Lacking a secure staging ground adjacent to the theater of operations exponentially complicates getting materiel to and from forward operating bases (FOBs) and combat outposts (COPs), in turn requiring a longer and more complex logistical supply chain. Landlocked among non– International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) states, unstable allies (Pakistan and China to the east, Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan to the north), and regional “rogue states” (Iran), Afghanistan is, for logistical operations, a desert island.
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Uzbekistan, and Island

55. The Stabilization Dilemma

Author:
Greg Mills
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Nanette is pleased to have a job at the Hotel Ivoire, the somewhat bizarre, Israeli-designed 1970s grand statement located in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. This elegant woman in her 40s travels 15 kilometers from her home every night, a journey that daily soaks up $6 of her $240 monthly salary. But she is grateful to have a job, especially since her husband is paralyzed from the neck down, the result of an industrial accident. And things are looking up. The hotel is being renovated, occupancy is climbing, and the giant pool surrounding the entire resort has been freshly painted and is once more full of water. Côte d'Ivoire is slowly getting back on its feet after a devastating civil war. In the longer term, Nanette's prosperity—like that of her 21 million countrymen and women—is linked to the things she cannot see and, in a fragile democracy, has little power over: the effectiveness of the process of political reconciliation, economic growth, and the governance necessary to ensure that the growth is spread beyond a tiny elite, and, above all, the maintenance of peace. The role of outside powers in this transition is limited, and they have to learn, first, to do no harm and, second, to link private sector–led growth better with donor interests and flows.
Political Geography:
Israel

56. Political-Military Lessons from U.S. Operations in Vietnam and Afghanistan

Author:
Michael J. Williams
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Using history to understand the present can be a useful tool, but it is also a limited one. Historical cases are not identical to contemporary ones, and there is a danger of conflating challenges in such a manner that, rather than illuminating a present challenge, history obfuscates it. This problem tends to be evident in the inaccurate use of analogies by policymakers, commentators, and analysts. Such may be the case in the contemporary American debate over the state of U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. Since President Barack Obama came to office in 2009 and deployed an additional 60,000 troops to Afghanistan in the first year of his administration, the debate over continued U.S. involvement has been dogged by analogies to Vietnam. But it is not readily apparent that Vietnam is an appropriate analogy for understanding the current challenge the United States faces in Afghanistan.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and America

57. What Is Wrong with the American Way of War?

Author:
Antulio J. Echevarria II
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Our understanding of the American way of war begins in 1973 with the publication of historian Russell Weigley's classic work, The American Way of War: A History of U.S. Military Strategy and Policy. Weigley maintained that after the Civil War, American military strategy essentially narrowed from the practice of two types, annihilation and attrition, to one, annihilation. as the united states experienced a “rapid rise from poverty of resources to plenty,” he argued, so too the American way of war tended to opt for strategies of annihilation, largely because it could. as a consequence, however, the further evolution of strategies of attrition was cut short, and American military strategy became unidimensional, or imbalanced. that, according to Weigley, was part of the problem with the Vietnam conflict. the other part of the problem, in his view, was that the era of using military force rationally to achieve the aims of policy was nearing its end.
Political Geography:
United States, America, and Vietnam

58. Operation Enduring Freedom—Philippines: Civilian Harm and the Indirect Approach

Author:
Geoffrey Lambert, Larry Lewis, and Sarah Sewall
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
This study examines the military support provided by U.S. Joint special operations task Force–Philippines (JSOTF-P) to Philippine military operations. Building upon the 2010 Joint Civilian Casualty Study—the first comprehensive examination of U.S. prevention and mitigation of civilian casualties based on U.S. operations in Afghanistan—this current effort aimed to assess civilian casualties in the different context of indirect U.S. operations. We found that the evolution of Philippine civilian and military strategy since the mid 2000s has reduced the occurrence and salience of civilian casualty issues during combat operations. Additionally, the study revealed many related best practices in JSOTF-P and operation Enduring Freedom–Philippines (OEF-P) more broadly, and provided insights into the possible future evolution of the mission and wider implications for foreign internal defense (FID) in the 21st century.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, America, and Philippines

59. An Interview with J. Brian Atwood

Author:
J. Brian Atwood
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Dambisa Moyo and other critics claim that the global development enterprise has been a failure. What is your response to these critics?

60. The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan

Author:
George Michael
Publication Date:
09-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
As the U.S. military enters its 11th year of operations in Afghanistan, public support for the effort dwindles, according to recent polls, as a solid majority of Americans now believe the war is going badly and is not worth fighting. In The Operators, journalist Michael Hastings explores the recent history of America's longest military campaign through the prism of General Stanley McChrystal and his staff. Not long after his story broke in June 2010 in Rolling Stone magazine, General McChrystal was forced to resign. t he episode illustrated the deepening division between the White house and Pentagon over the appropriate prosecution of the war.
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, and America