Revised FM 3-24 to Hit the Street Soon

Military to unveil new counterinsurgency field manual

by, Stars and Stripes

The part that has always intrigued me ...

"A large number of experts, including academics and active-duty and retired veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, provided input for the rewrite ..."

That's just totally outside my own frame of reference.  I wish it weren't.

 

It's the Troops' Fault

The SECDEF

In a sign that the Obama Administration may have moved on past its propensity to blame the preceding administration for its own ineptitude, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, seeking to blunt media criticism of the administration's aimlessness in Afghanistan--and to divert discussion away from this administration's headlong rush to gut the military via the budget process--blames the troops.

Obama, Afghanistan, and the Election of 2012

The president says that "now is the time for us to transition," i.e., to end the war in Afghanistan.  The Army Times puts the headline thus: "Obama: Time has come to wind down Afghan war."

The Army Times is typical of the sycophantic, leftist press.  Not a word in the article about the conditions on the ground in the theater of operations, or of the effect a swift pull-out may have upon national security.  Not a syllable in the article that the president's taking the line that "it's time to end the war" might be a way to enhance his chances at reelection.  Lots of filler about Syria and high gas prices.  And FIVE PARAGRAPHS on the Sandra Fluke story and the president's situation in terms of women voters.

There you have it.  Two national disgraces in a single story:  The Army Times and the president of the United States.

Army Force Management School, Part IV

Sean Naylor's book

The biggest challenge of the last couple of days in the Army Force Management Course has been to stay awake. We had had our first test on Friday (I passed) then settled in to learning about the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS).  I went through a two-week course on JCIDS back in October, so going through the chain of documents and milestone decisions for a second time is, to use a military euphemism, a challenge.  The most interesting blocks of instruction (death by PowerPoint) have been the Future Force Warfighting Concept Development and Experimentation; Science and Technology and Army Modernization; and, believe it or not, the class on Cost-Benefit Analysis Overview.

During my down time, I am enjoying reading Sean Naylor's account of the early days of the war in Afghanistan, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda.  I actually started it back home, but because of I was so busy and had several other books started, it was difficult to get in to; but, with all those distractions removed, I'm finding it a riveting read.  There is a very interesting review of the book on the Pritzker Military Library's website, here.

Full Spectrum Operations vs. Countinsurgency

Please don't extrapolate from the title of this entry that I am saying that counterinsurgency (COIN) and full spectrum operations are mutually exclusive terms. That's not what I'm saying. It is, however, what a writer from the Los Angeles Times, aided and abetted by a former DOD big-wig and a Colonel on the Army Staff, appears precisely to be saying.

A Case of Poor Judgment

The recent flap over General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and the subject of a hit piece in Rolling Stone magazine has led me to one inescapable conclusion ... that the general did indeed exercise poor judgment --- in 2008 when he voted for Barack Hussein Obama.