The Pentagon makes an eminently sensible decision in exactly the way we’ve come to expect:
The Pentagon this week approved a major policy directive that elevates the military’s mission of “irregular warfare” — the increasingly prevalent campaigns to battle insurgents and terrorists, often with foreign partners and sometimes clandestinely — to an equal footing with traditional combat.
The directive, signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England on Monday, requires the Pentagon to step up its capabilities across the board to fight unconventionally, such as by working with foreign security forces, surrogates and indigenous resistance movements to shore up fragile states, extend the reach of U.S. forces into denied areas or battle hostile regimes.
It only took five years! That’s lightning fast, by DoD standards.
The article goes on to quote DoD sources and SecDef Gates noting that the US has “considerable overmatch in traditional” warfighting capabilities, and goes on to cite engagement in “Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa” and elsewhere as a reason for the policy shift. It incorporates a manpower intensive use of ground forces with a predisposition towards training indigenous forces rather than doing their fighting for them, and will have a “big effect” on resource expenditures.
It’s SysAdmin and Leviathan.
Hopefully, defense strategists will remember that SysAdmin and Leviathan are complimentary: You can, as Barnett points out, lose your seed corn for Leviathan if you don’t get SysAdmin right (although I wonder if he still considers Iraq “hopeless”). But the capability to deploy Leviathan is also a precondition to inserting SysAdmin, as well as an enabling/supporting force once inserted.
It’s also worth pointing out that the existence of an over-match capability is what has prevented us from having to engage in “evenly matched” conventional warfare. There’s a considerable difference between choosing defeat and having it imposed upon you.
Can we walk and chew gum at the same time? So far, history has not been kind…
Good idea! We’ll just have to quadruple the size of Green Berets and Civil Affairs groups, though. Need to get the language schools going full bore as well. Hard to do that synergy thing if you don’t have good comms.
It’s the doing both bit that worries me.
We’re running a lot of Reagan-era antiques out there…and that equipment has been run damned hard. And while SPECOPS is sexy, the classical importance of conventional force, especially seapower, can’t be forgotten.
Well,
There is something to be said about looking out from your ivory tower and seeing 90,000 tons of floating airfield sitting on the horizon.
Say what you will about gunboat diplomacy, but there are certainly times and places for it. Negotiating from a position of strength is always the wisest choice.
Even Chairman Mao recognized that “political power grows from the barrel of a gun”.
AW1 Tim
Political power comes from the orifice of a tube, alright, but a flesh colored and slightly more flexible one than a gun barrel. Numbers count, as the Serbs found out after the Albanian feet people “occupied” a large part of their country and as Europe is finding out as it is being transmorgified into “Eurabia” before our very eyes, and we here in the US are seeing our borders dissolve and the ability to speak the Spanish language become a pre- requisite for many jobs. Having a lot of big guns is indeed necessary, but hardly sufficient to solve our long-term problem of national survival.
Virgil,
Ain’t disagreeing with you. Just saying it’s nice to be able to bring an Abrams to a knife fight.
It’s also nice to be able to deal with the locals in an effective and supportive manner, to help them understand that we can help them to help themselves.
But yeah, there’s that whole invasion thing by a certain demographic going on that needs some VERY serious attention if we (and the rest of western civilization) want to celebrate these United State’s 300th birthday.
Kind of mixing apples and oranges here…but I have a thought related to tactics, capabilities, current events, and thinking outside the box:
How about the introduction of Q-Ships into the Somali Pirate situation? Is this being done? Any precedence in the recent past? USN policy regarding this? Discuss…
@Mark, Re: Somali Pirate situation and USN Policy w/ mixture of apples and oranges. Any time you begin to discuss irregular warfare, you’ll run into new mixtures and relevant doctrinal Military issues. The Pentagon is ordering the full integration of irregular warfare into Military Doctrine. The “9/11 Report” tell us to “get out of the box thinking.” My point is this, what do we do with the box? DO NOT THROW IT AWAY! IT CONTAINS A LARGE AMOUNT OF HISTORY AND TRADITION. The history will act as a teacher as we move forward, it will teach us what to do as well as what not to do.
The issue of Q-Ships is a delicate issue, it’s actually a form of “bait and switch”. The way I would look at this is to examine your platform of attack. My suggestion would be a high altitude, weaponized, recon UAV’s. This would be a network communicating with the ships of the region and each other. Now as they watch the pirates, they are building a basic information on their behavior patterns. Now as the UAV’s, observe these particular behavior patterns, at some point. the UAV’s drop down and give the pirates the attention they so deeply crave.
Attention all hands! Lt. Decatur, please contact your detailer. He has a new assignment for you.
That is all.
AW1 Tim
Maybe we should resurrect a few more like James Lawrence and Oliver Hazard Perry as well…
Virgil,
Why yes…. a Farragut, Preble and Hull as well.
Then again, perhaps a simple culling of the JAG corps might be more in order. Trying to find the correct way to approach any issue militarily these days is not at all unlike the “Cheese Shop” skit from Monty Python.
AW1 Tim
Roger that!
AW1, There’s Josiah Tatnall, too, who famously said “Blood is thicker than water” when he was a USN officer in China. Later, he was a CSN officer at Hampton Roads….
Justthisguy,
There were two near-mutinies during the Civil War. One on the Federal side, the other on the Confederate, and both involved traditions.
The Federal sailors went ballistic when SecNav Gideon Welles decided that rum was so 18th century and banished the rum ration on Navy ships.
Over on the other side of the conflict, the Confederate seamen were no less riled when informed that their blue uniforms were to be replaced with grey ones. The near-universal missive of “Who ever heard of a sailor wearing grey” went round the fleet, but not much could be done. The Confederacy still had a few sailors in Blue till mid-war, wearing British regulation frocks and trousers until the supply was exhausted, but from that point on, it was pretty much a steel-grey clothed service.
Interestingly enough, the last combat action of the Confederate Navy against Federal forces occurred on land. Tucker’s Naval brigade, made up of Confederate sailors from the Richmond batteries, and the scuttled vessels on the James, gallantly fought as infantry with Ewell’s II Corps at, fittingly, Saylor’s Creek, Virginia, where they were forced to surrender just 2 days before Lee surrendered the ANV.
respects,
Oh yeah, gray uniforms for sailors is just crazy. We tried it for a little while in WWII and evverbody was all WTF.
All navies, at all times and places, have always worn blue.
(except in the summer, when the USN has their officers wear those white uniforms which make any woman who sees them have to change her panties for a dry pair.
Oh, and there was the wimmins’ mutiny in Richmond, when food got very very expensive in Confederate money. That really scared Jeff Davis, that wimmin were willing to resort to violence
Yes indeed. Hard to hide the true state of affairs from the press and public when there are bread riots in the streets just a short distance from the capitol building.
Oops.
Grumpy
Couldn’t agree more about chucking “THE BOX”. Don’t!!
Management’s fine line here (as always) is indeed innovation to handle the new problems/threats without losing focus/capability regarding the boogeymen we can plainly see. Difficult with politics, budgets, etc…
Regarding the bait and switch that are Q-Ships (or their high-tech equivalent): Is the problem one of Maritime Law, International Conventions/Treaties, doctrine, political will…or all of the above? It would seem that creating irresistable targets for the bad guys, then giving them that “attention” you referred to is a rather obvious play that has a history of success.
Love the UAV twist…Thank you for the reply.
Mark, thank you, for the reply.
As I see it, it is not that I would not prefer a 5o calibre resolution to the pirates’ issues. I’ll let the Navy’s JAGs solve the International legal issues, I would not qualify as an authority.
You try to assess the responsibility of dealing with the piracy issues. In viewing it from the American viewpoint, who has the Nation’s responsibility for dealing with it? When I say this, let me be very specific, I am talking about a pirate attack on one of America’s vessels. Other Nations must decide on their own strategy, this includes our allies. But we need to be careful of the use of “private security contractors”.
Now, as I see it, I see this as a Navy specific responsibility This is in direct opposition of the use of the Coast Guard, in such a mission. The Coast Guard’s core mission should be only one of Continental US Security Vision.
Why the UAV? I see our future requires us to find cost-effective, but also effective in dealing with the problem. We need to find a way to secure these vessels. But we also need to remember, we will still be the most powerful Navy, but we will be a smaller Navy. Even though we will be smaller, but we will be the most effective Navy. How will we do this? We will learn how to fight smarter, not just harder.
Grumpy,
Our very first anti-piracy effort of this century was carried out by putting soldiers of the USA National Guard on our ships to protect them with gunfire as they sailed into pirate waters. That lasted as long as it took the Navy to stand up the Mobile Security Force and relieve the Army of this duty.
At the same time, or a little later, the USN confessed to the USMC that perhaps RIVERINE operations were a Navy function and after training up sailors to the task took the job from both the AUSA in Iraq and the USMC. For at least the first 3 rotations we operated USMC boats since we had none of our own.
Pretty sad isn’t it? The nation had to turn first to the Army for protection of its shipping and then to the Marines for somebody to patrol the rivers and waterways. You want to know what really sucks? The service that provided most of the assets for protecting critical overseas offshore infrastructure was…..wait for it…………….
the Coast Guard.
Curtis, You might want to watch how much more you load on the smallest branch of our Military. Right now, “She” has the protection responsibilities of the Military District of Washington, DC. This change was a post 9/11 event.
Let’s just face some very hard cold facts. This is not worst it has been for the Navy. Get ready to embrace the SUCK, but there was a time when there was NO US NAVY, AT ALL! This was during the Spanish American War, The French were fighting our naval piracy battles. How does that sound to you? How many generations will be paying for this misadventure in Iraq and Afghanistan? The really sad thing is I don’t believe this thing is over for a long time. Then we can start paying the bills. How and where does that grab you?
What I hate about the Coast Guard:
their motto sucks. Semper Paratus. It’s like they don’t even know English. What a bunch of Roman lovers!
When every sane person has decided to cease and desist from all flight ops these idiot Coast Guard losers are just gearing up to go flying expensive helicopters into dangerous conditions with no thought whatsoever for the HARDWORKING taxpayers who paid for those machines and who would be appalled at the risks that these copter jockies are willing to face just for the bravery in it. Losers!!!!
It’s not bad enough that they risk expensive flying thingies, they also have lifeboats which they persist in arrogantly taking into angry seas in order show off! The bastards!
OK, OK. I have enormous respect for the men and women of the United States Coast Guard. I always have. Plucky little devils.
I bet ya that old Huilo won’t be around long
Huilo,
If your sister does all that for $20, can I get her number?
Thanks. Nose
Hey Look!
Someone must be doing something right, ’cause we got a case of spam in the comments!
Not anymore.