The story of interest over the past days in regard to Rolling Stone's "The Runaway General –  Stanley McChrystal, Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House" does not go down easily, for more than just the obvious reasons.  I am reminded of General Rupert Smith's comment used in the completing post for the core What Kind of War series:

... we are living in a world of confrontations and conflicts rather than one of war and peace; one in which the clear categories of security and defence – the basic purposes for which force is used – have merged… This is no longer industrial war… absolute and clear threats in recognizable groupings, and… stable political contexts for operations… The threats ... are of and amongst the people – in the flesh and in the media – and it is there that the fight takes place. (My emphasis added)

1. War, warfare, violence, and conflict in this century


2. How we view, categorize, and respond to crisis


3. Control and impact of the narrative


4. Impact of the information sphere on organizational response, the media, rumor, how we think, how we decide


5. System perturbation, purposeful or unintended, in a system-of-system world existing in a state of unstable equilibrium


6. Leadership in complex environments

Over the jump, 10 articles from CNN, Foreign Policy, World Politics Review, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, World Policy Institute, and Military.Com

1) Islamist websites: McChrystal fired because war is lost (CNN)

The recent change in commanders in Afghanistan is proof the U.S and its allies have lost the war, statements posted on two Islamist websites said Thursday… The Taliban spokesman said the change in command is useless because Petraeus, the new Afghan commander, is weak.  "Indeed, he has got no (more) special qualities than General McChrystal had," Ahmadi said in his statement…. In another statement, a group calling itself the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan said Petraeus is mentally worn out because of the lengthy war, which began in October 2001. ..."Nine years of military actions, different strategies and back-breaking monetary and life damages at the hands of mujahideen have left the crusaders totally in distress," the statement said.

Hastings clearly demonstrates a keen eye for off-color detail, but fails to weave the threads into something more coherent or meaningful. Getting the facts straight and reporting them is one thing; knowing your subject and making sense of it is quite another.

When you form a team, why do you try to form a team? Because teamwork builds trust and trust builds speed. There's always the undercurrent of a little friction in that team, but if that's made public, then it can deteriorate the public trust between people. Whoever hasn't violated that trust should cast the first stone."

If you read the Rolling Stone article carefully, you can see that the reporter, Michael Hastings, has woven three stories together. One story is the story of General McChrystal trying to keep up morale in a tough war with his troops thinking he is too worried about civilian casualties …I bet this is the story Hastings pitched to McChrystal's staff and the story McChrystal thought was being reported. ... The second story is Hastings's rather tendentious reporting on what McChrystal's enemies and critics say against him—their complaints, and their doubts about the war. ... I suspect that this is the story Hastings pitched to his editor. The whole thing has the feel of a hungry guy hoping to hunt a big trophy kill: taking down a four-star hero and showing that his war plan … is fatally flawed and doomed to failure ….The problem for McChrystal is that there is a third story woven through the article. This is the story of McChrystal and his staff on an unexpected layover in Paris when a plane is grounded because of the volcano. This part of the story has a "weekend in Vegas" feel to it. ...This third story was an accident – serendipity for the reporter and a train-wreck for McChrystal.  The underlying facts are not surprising or accidental at all.

 ...after Vietnam, an ethos of exposure swept the culture. The assumption among many journalists was that the establishment may seem upstanding, but there is a secret corruption deep down. It became the task of journalism to expose the underbelly of public life, to hunt for impurity, assuming that the dark hidden lives of public officials were more important than the official performances. Then came cable, the Internet, and the profusion of media sources. Now you have outlets, shows and Web sites whose only real interest is the kvetching and inside baseball.  In other words, over the course of 50 years, what had once been considered the least important part of government became the most important. These days, the inner soap opera is the most discussed and the most fraught arena of political life.

And into this world walks Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

... those who focus on McChrystal's impolitic commentsas justification for his departure risk missing the larger point—namely, the contradictions and fecklessness of a policy that created the frustration on the ground to begin with, and which led some members of McChrystal's staff to vent their feelings to a Rolling Stone reporter. 
... the comments seem to reflect frustration with the administration's tolerance of political maneuvering, both in Washington and Kabul, that runs counter to that strategy's effective implementation.

First, the president himself announced plans to begin withdrawing forces from Afghanistan in July 2011, sending the signal to a range of factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan that they should begin maneuvering for position after the U.S. withdrawal. ...
Second, the U.S. civil-military team in Afghanistan is clearly dysfunctional. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, an accomplished former general who commanded in Afghanistan, notoriously sent two cables to Washington second-guessing McChrystal's operational plans and trashing Afghan President Hamid Karzai as an unreliable partner. ...
Third, the Rolling Stone article raises the question of the role played by Richard Holbrooke, an accomplished and distinguished, if somewhat temperamental, diplomat and the president's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Is such a role even necessary? The president already has a secretary of state, a secretary of defense, an ambassador (normally the president's representative in the country to which he or she is posted), a national security adviser, a regional combatant commander (at CENTCOM), and a commanding general in the field. With that many cooks in the kitchen, no wonder they cannot all get along

Civilian control of the military is as essential to our Republic as is a free press.  But does anyone believe that the dynamic between office dwellers from Foggy Bottom and academia and political cronies with authority over snake eaters, captured through the prism of the media (more office dwellers), will result in something productive?

The general and his aides had faced down terrorists and the enemies of America. They had welcomed into their midst journalists from top news outlets. The result had been stories that mostly made the men running the war in Afghanistan look like a bunch of can-do warriors…. But Team McChrystal and its leader met their downfall this week because they failed to recognize, as soldiers like to say, that the opponent, and the situation on the ground, had changed. ... It appears now that the hardheaded, make-my-own-rules military man didn't recognize that the latest in a series of interlocutors was not like the others. Michael Hastings was the most dangerous kind of adversary — a kindred spirit.

It was not in fact a term born in Iraq — the practice of chroniclers traveling with soldiers is as old as war, and even the word "embedding" itself was in use in the 1990s. But Iraq was certainly where it crossed over into the wider lexicon. Within the military there may now be some debate about whether embedding survives in its current form, after a journalist granted close access helped bring about the downfall of a four-star general within the very military system which spawned it.

According to McChrystal, the "Afghan people are at the center of our mission…in reality they are the mission." These sentiments are reflective of what has become the new way of American war—population centric counter-insurgency (COIN). The focus on COIN doctrine was enshrined by Gen. David Petraeus and the 2006 publication of the Army and Marine counter-insurgency manual, FM 3-24, which calls for a military approach that seeks to convince the population that counter-insurgents, acting on behalf of a sovereign government, can be trusted and are worthy of popular support.
            With its seemingly progressive and humanistic approach, FM 3-24, and counterinsurgency in general, offer a seductive ideal for the future of American war-fighting. But the veneration of COIN conceals a brutal reality. The history of counter-insurgency in the twentieth century is not a story of warm and fuzzy war, of benevolent soldiers providing essential government services to grateful natives, of armed social work, or of the gentleman soldier's antidote to the Shermanesque notion of Total War. Instead, counter-insurgency is a repeated tale of coercion and violence directed largely against unarmed civilians. And this defines both those COIN efforts that have been successful—and those that have failed.

A general is gone, another arrives, 70 plus days into Deepwater Horizon – What do we learn?

There was a time when Americans seemed to view suicide attacks as a sign of the complete conviction of the enemy, an immutable dedication to their cause that many people found terrifying and cause for soul-searching.  "What could we have done to provoke such anger?" Yet with time, American views of suicide attacks have matured and become more grounded. 

Firstly, Americans in particular are far less afraid of suicide attackers and extremely unlikely to capitulate with anyone who attacks on American soil.  Suicide attackers hit American soil.  In Iraq and Afghanistan, they have become commonplace. 

Secondly, most importantly, wild use of suicide attackers is seen not as evidence that we are attacking the "wrong people" whose dedication to their cause is unstoppable, but as concrete evidence that we are attacking the right people and that they should be destroyed. ... Overuse of suicide attackers does not appear to cause Americans to cower, but to evoke Americans to want to kill the perpetrator. (March 25, 2010 – Michael Yon)

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, civilian casualties cause the people to turn against the side perpetrating the casualties. This photo was taken after a suicide bombing in Mosul, Iraq, in May 2005. The neighborhood had been pro-insurgent. After this bomb in the midst of children, the neighborhood turned against the terrorists. The little girl's name was Farah. She died shortly after this moment. (Michael Yon Photo)

*****************************************************

While asking "what kind of war is it?" it's important to reflect on the old adage "you may not be interested in war, but WAR is certainly interested in you!" if you're not a follower of Michael Yon, you should be. (From his site) "Michael Yon is a former Green Beret, native of Winter Haven, Fl. who has been reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan since December 2004.  No other reporter has spent as much time with combat troops in these two wars.  Michael's dispatches from the front lines have earned him the reputation as the premier independent combat journalist of his generation.  His work has been featured on "Good Morning America," The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, ABC, FOX, as well as hundreds of other major media outlets all around the world."

His 25 March, 2010 "dispatch" from Afghanistan on suicide bombers closes with:

In 2009, one report indicated there were 148 suicide bombings or attempts in Afghanistan.  Suicide murders continue to occur a short drive from here that are not meeting the above requirements.  Taliban continue to hit all manner of targets, and regularly slaughter non-combatant men, women and children.  Within a week subsequent to the publication of this dispatch, suicide murderers will likely kill innocent people here.  The Taliban's efforts at repackaging themselves as kinder, gentler mass-murderers is failing.  Their suicide bombing campaign is backfiring.  The Taliban are losing their cool.  Something is in the air.  The enemy remains very deadly, yet the scent of their weakness is growing stronger while our people close in. (emphasis added)

For further reading on the issue of cults read Hakim Hazim's American Realism Revisited: Lethal – maybe enlightening -Minds & Latent Threats ("There is no shortage of militant cults, and, unfortunately, those who are eager and willing to follow them. Hazim invites you to take a journey and gain insight into lethal minds and latent threats facing our country today.")

We continue to discuss the idea of "team of leaders."  This video well worth your time. Thanks to John Robb at Global Guerrilllas.  See his site for comments.

But let's take this one step further into the context of  "What kind of war"  determination as impacting how we approach "the war" once we have determined "what kind."  Consider the comments from  the Blog – Challenge COIN; Perspectives on the evolving U.S. Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism doctrine. What works, what does not, and what we think we know: "COIN/CT Lessons from drug induced dancing."

... The main lesson to walk away with is how crucial it was to easily mimic the dance. Were this a difficult dance, the originator would have been nothing more than an observed solo performer. Also the role of the first follower made it acceptable for a few more people to join. Once the first follower's friends join in, the tipping point is then reached at 1:15. From then on, people join in groups and the originator or "leader" is irrelevant as the movement has a life of his own. Only the music ending stops everyone from dancing, not the "leader."

Now take that template and apply it to al Qaeda in Iraq. What sort of impact would killing or capturing the leadership have today? This is precisely why the classic insurgency texts emphasized the need to destroy an insurgency at its onset. Otherwise it becomes an integrated part of a society for at least a generation if not longer. So how do we end the al Qaeda-styled movements? Find the music and turn it off…

See Targeted for death -  the killing of Hamas' Mahmoud Mabhouh.  (See  background report on the operation itself)

Los Angeles Times' Marjorie Miller sought the views of an array of military and human rights lawyers on the legality and legitimacy of targeted killings.

So what kind of war or warfare or confrontation or conflict against non-state actors is war amongst the people? How do you fight, how do you survive, how does a country do both and yet maintain its sense of right and wrong?

Over the jump, key thoughts from the above article.

 If new to this site or the What Kind of War series please see the first article: EEI #15 So What Kind of War Is It?

Philip Alston
U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings

If a foreign intelligence agency was responsible for the killing of Mabhouh, the matter should clearly be classified as an extrajudicial execution. There is no legal justification for the cold-blooded murder of a man who, if alleged to have committed crimes, could have been arrested and charged. Political murders of this type undermine the fabric of international law as well as stoke the fires of conflict

Amos Guiora
Professor of Law, S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah

I have long advocated person-specific operational counter-terrorism as a means to protect the state and to protect innocent lives… targeted killings are lawful, predicated on the following caveats.

When is a person a legitimate target in the context of lawful, preemptive self-defense? There is a requirement for an intelligence picture suggesting significant future action that endangers national security.

There are four categories of legitimate targets in the suicide-bombing infrastructure: 1) the mastermind—quarterback—who identifies targets, recruits the bombers and plans the action; 2) the suicide bomber; 3) the person responsible for logistics—the driver, the person who makes the bomb and facilitates the bombing. 4) the financier

People who object to targeted killing often seem to have a covert premise that amounts to functional pacifism—yes, of course you can protect yourselves, but any practicable ways of doing so are, sorry, illegal.

But targeted killing can be an important, discrete, discriminating way of projecting lethal force. Sometimes people mistakenly think that any time you're using force, it must be better to do it in the open, transparent and acknowledged. However, the ability to use force can allow you to take out someone who is a genuine threat without raising the circumstances into open, overt, large-scale war, which could have drastically worse consequences for everyone…

"armed conflict" in a legal sense—and perhaps surprisingly to the non-lawyers—isn't the only basis for using force in international law. The U.S. and many other countries have traditionally relied on at least the international law of self-defense, permitting uses of force even though the fighting does not rise to the level of an "armed conflict" against a nonstate actor.

My view is that there's no question but that the Dubai operation, if it was Israel, is illegal. Under international law, it's a basic rule that you don't operate in another state without its consent. This is a pretty clear violation of Dubai's sovereignty, presumably without the Emirates' consent; Dubai seems to have a murder case on its hands.

So let's talk consequences: Imagine a Chechen leader, considered extremely threatening by Russia, makes his way to the United States. Russian authorities decide they cannot seek his extradition from the United States back to Russia for any number of reasons, and because he is perceived as such a great threat, Russia mounts an operation to kill this person in the United States. Are we OK with that?

The Dubai killing could be a harbinger of a lawlessness in which any state that sees a threat out there can use force in another state to stop it. International law may not always be enforceable, but it provides a sense of settled expectations about how states are to behave. If Israel did it, and if we consent to its use of force in this situation, then what is the principled response to another state's similar action in the United States or elsewhere?

... In the pre-9/11 era, the U.S. would have considered such a targeted killing to be an "assassination," which, under a presidential executive order in effect since the Ford administration, was prohibited if done by U.S. intelligence officers. Indeed, the CIA could not even share intelligence with a foreign intelligence service, including our close allies, if there were any chance it could be used to target and kill an identified terrorist.

Today, that executive order is still on the books.
Our moral code and policy pronouncements once reflected an understanding that such treacherous killing was not how a great nation should defend itself—unless, like Israel, its very survival is at stake. At one time, the United States did not kill in the shadows—until we became as afraid for our lives as the Israelis have been for decades. But are we really afraid now for our survival as a nation? How can a bunch of thugs reduce us to this?

Targeted assassinations can be justified when the target is a legitimate enemy who is actively engaged in planning or organizing or carrying out criminal or terrorist activities, and when it's possible to hit the target without killing innocent people. Also, when it's not possible to bring the targeted person to justice in a normal way; when he isn't living in a zone of peace where law and order prevails and policemen make arrests, but when he is living in something more like a zone of war. When those conditions are met, I think this is a legitimate response to international terrorism.
... It should be the policy of the United States in Afghanistan, and probably in Pakistan too, that after you carry out one of these raids, you should be prepared to defend it. You're using the coercive power of the state in a lethal way, and in a democracy—in a country committed to the rule of law—actions of that sort should be subject to some kind of public scrutiny. 

Someone who changed history….

Making war upon insurgents is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife.  T.E. Lawrence

In a new think piece, one of the best writer/thinkers on line, Mark Safranski at Zenpundit in "The Post-COIN Era is Here; Learning to eat Soup with a Spoon Again" -provides not only more detail on the COIN ("or not") debate and its significance (real or imaginary), but also gives serious thought to the possible fallout, noting the following:

• ... to father a doctrine does not mean that you can control how others interpret and make use of it.


• COIN is an excellent operational tool, brought back by John Nagl & co. (Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam) from the dark oblivion that Big Army partisans consigned it to cover up their own strategic failures in Vietnam. As good as COIN is though, it is not something akin to magic with which to work policy miracles or to substitute for America not having a cohesive and realistic grand strategy.


•  We are all COINdinistas now. Instead of being controversial, COIN having a secure place in our operational arsenal of ideas has become the new "conventional" wisdom; it is past time to look at some of the other serious challenges America has ahead.

The Post-COIN article has received significant discussion on other blogs, critical review, and comment including from author of The Pentagon's New Map, Thomas P.M. Barnett. One line of reasoning introduced by Barnett is the degree to which COIN and the debate and decisions have impact on the larger defense and security issues facing DOD and the nation.

In  preliminary articles (EEI's #6, #7, #10) to the "what kind of war" series, the point was made that as we move in time from 9-11, the  force structure and technical direction decisions made by and for DOD will impact decisions on risk mitigation, risk management, and  level of risk acceptance that the homeland security, public safety and first responder organizations nation-wide will have left on their plate. Understanding these issues, it would seem then , is essential and critical for citizens, private sector and local government alike.  In that sense, to what degree counter insurgency, COIN, is considered method, tactic, tool or core to strategic thinking has significant ramifications –

Gates is attempting to change not just what the Pentagon is buying, but its fundamental understanding of what it is procuring weapon systems for and why. Cold War-era weapons with such focused utility as the F-22 are not what he believes the Pentagon needs with an uncertain future… Gates is attempting a more fundamental reorientation of the entire Pentagon, with greater emphasis on the current campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, 'hybrid wars' and 'fourth-generation' warfare. (STRATFOR analysis on the F-22 decision)

Please read the original AND the comments: The Post-COIN Era is Here by Mark Safranski.

1.  So What Kind of War Is It? (First in a Series)  [Von Lubitz, Beakley]


2. On War, On Crime – the Intersection  [Sullivan, et. al]


3. Civilian Courts no place for terrorists  [Brooks]


4. War? What War?  [Krauthammer]


5. Boundary Layers [Beakley]


6. 5 Myths about keeping America safe from terrorism [Flynn]


7. The war of new words: Why military history trumps buzzwords [Owen]


8. No Exit  [Bacevich]


9. Square Pegs, Round Holes vs. "War Amongst the People"  [Smith]


10. Definitions or Targets [Ganor]


11.  Science, defence and strategy… and John Boyd [Elkus]

While the question what kind of war is it remains unanswered, this appears an appropriate place to suspend the series, at least for now, with one final thought from British General Sir Rupert Smith:

 ... we are living in a world of confrontations and conflicts rather than one of war and peace; one in which the clear categories of security and defence – the basic purposes for which force is used – have merged…

This is no longer industrial war… absolute and clear threats in recognizable groupings, and… stable political contexts for operations… our opponents are formless and their leaders and operatives are outside the structures in which we order the world and society… The threats they pose are not directly to our states or territories but to the security of our people, of other peoples, our assets and way of life… They are of and amongst the people – in the flesh and in the media – and it is there that the fight takes place. 

 Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

( From The Counter Terrorism Puzzle; A Guide for Decision Makers, used with permission of the author, Dr. Boaz Ganor, the Associate Dean of the Lauder School of Government, at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel, and the founder and Executive Director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism )

The above graphic placing terrorism in context of war and the definitions below of many of the terms used throughout the "What kind of war" series are intended only as reference, not as anyone's formal authorized definition.  They have been gleaned from multiple sources.  Of particular note should be the degree of overlap and ambiguity.

Definitions: Special Operations, Asymmetric Warfare, Terrorism, Guerrilla Warfare, Irregular Warfare, Unconventional Warfare, The Long War, Fourth Generation Warfare, Hybrid Warfare:

Special operations are military operations that are considered "special" (that is, unconventional).

Special operations are typically performed independently or in conjunction with conventional military operations. The primary goal is to achieve a political or military objective where a conventional force requirement does not exist or might affect the overall strategic outcome. Special operations are usually conducted in a low-profile manner that typically aim to achieve the advantage of speed, surprise, and violence of action against an unsuspecting target. Special ops are typically carried out with limited numbers of highly trained personnel that are able to operate in all environments, utilize self-reliance, are able to easily adapt and overcome obstacles, and use unconventional combat skills and equipment to complete objectives. Special operations are usually implemented through specific or tailored intelligence

Asymmetric warfare is war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly.

"Asymmetric warfare" can describe a conflict in which the resources of two belligerents differ in essence and in the struggle, interact and attempt to exploit each other's characteristic weaknesses. Such struggles often involve strategies and tactics of unconventional warfare, the "weaker" combatants attempting to use strategy to offset deficiencies in quantity or quality.  Such strategies may not necessarily be militarized. This is in contrast to symmetric warfare, where two powers have similar military power and resources and rely on tactics that are similar overall, differing only in details and execution.

Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. At present, there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism. Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians).

Some definitions also include acts of unlawful violence and war. The history of terrorist organizations suggests that they do not select terrorism for its political effectiveness.  Individual terrorists tend to be motivated more by a desire for social solidarity with other members of their organization than by political platforms or strategic objectives, which are often murky and undefined.

Guerrilla warfare is combat in which a small group of combatants use mobile military tactics in the form of ambushes and raids to combat a larger and less mobile formal army.

The term means "little war" in Spanish and was created during the Peninsular War. The concept acknowledges a conflict between armed civilians against a powerful nation state army, either foreign or domestic and uses tactics such as ambush, sabotage and mobility in attacking vulnerable targets in enemy territory. The tactics of guerrilla warfare were used successfully in the recent 20th century by among others the People's Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War, Fidel Castro's rebel army in the Cuban Revolution, and by the Viet Cong, the North Vietnam Army in the Vietnam War, the Kosovo Liberation Army in the Kosovo War and the Bosnian War . Most factions of the Iraqi Insurgency, Colombia's FARC, and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) are said to be engaged in some form of guerrilla warfare — as was, until recently, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Irregular warfare (IW) is warfare in which one or more combatants are irregular military rather than regular forces. Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare, and so is asymmetric warfare.

Irregular warfare favors indirect and asymmetric warfare approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capabilities, in order to erode an adversary's power, influence, and will. It is inherently a protracted struggle that will test the resolve of a nation and its strategic partners.  Concepts associated with irregular warfare are not as recent as the irregular warfare term itself.

Unconventional warfare  is the opposite of conventional warfare. Where conventional warfare is used to reduce an opponent's military capability, unconventional warfare is an attempt to achieve military victory through acquiescence, capitulation, or clandestine support for one side of an existing conflict.

On the surface, UW contrasts with conventional warfare in that: forces or objectives are covert or not well-defined, tactics and weapons intensify environments of subversion or intimidation, and the general or long-term goals are coercive or subversive to a political body.

The Long War is a term used by the administration of US President George W. Bush referring to US actions against various governments and terrorist organisations, as a reaction to the September 11 attacks. Other designations are the "War on Terrorism", the "War on Terror", the "Global War On Terror (G.W.O.T.)" and the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE)". It has been criticized as a justification for perpetual war.

Fourth generation warfare (4GW) is conflict characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, soldier and civilian.

The military doctrine was first defined in 1989 by a team of United States analysts, including William S. Lind, used to describe warfare's return to a decentralized form. In terms of generational modern warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states' loss of their near-monopoly on combat forces, returning to modes of conflict common in pre-modern times.  The simplest definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is not a state but rather a violent non-state actor.  As such, fourth generation warfare uses classical tactics—tactics deemed unacceptable by more traditional thinking—to weaken the advantaged opponent's will to win.

Hybrid warfare incorporates a range of different modes of warfare, including conventional capabilities, irregular tactics and formations, terrorists acts including indiscriminate violence and coercion, and criminal disorder.  These multi-modal activities can be conducted by separate units, or even by the same unit, but are generally operationally and tactically directed and coordinated within the main battlespace to achieve synergistic effects.  Hybrid wars can be conducted by both states and a variety of non-state actors.

Essential Elements of Information for a Culture of Preparedness

There seems to be a trend toward treating events of terrorism as if they were specifically a law-enforcement problem , rather than  enemy operations in the context of war and warfare. Both require application of force  "but for force to be effective the desired outcome of its use must be understood in such detail that the context is defined as well as the point of application." (The Utility of Force; The Art of War in the Modern World by General Sir Rupert Smith)

The issue here is not crime or war, the context is rather that war plays out "amongst the people" – not only in the villages of Afghanistan, but as readily in the airports, cities, communities, and courtrooms of all nations.  The application of force, -whether by police or military – AND  of law are essential.

Consider the following  3 new points (original list provided in EEI# 15) based on the Christmas Day attempted airline bombing:

• In the wake of the failed Christmas Day airplane bombing, President Obama ordered speedy reviews of how the air security system failed and the Transportation Security Administration began enhanced screening for passengers traveling through 14 nations.


• Eight years after WTC and Pentagon attacks, actionable intelligence still can't seem to get across intelligence agency boundaries so as to create "action."


• Nigerian-born Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab who tried to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear as a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, made its approach to Detroit, Michigan has been read his Miranda rights.

 The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia at the end of the Thirty Year War essentially made war and warfare a function of the state and was in part at least an attempt to limit or control devastation among non-combatants.  The 1949 Geneva Conventions set the standards in international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war and established the qualifications for being considered a lawful combatant  – must have conducted military operations according to the laws and customs of war, be part of a chain of command, wear a "fixed distinctive marking, visible from a distance" and bear arms openly.

Does not the above list  give one pause to think, that maybe, just maybe in light of those long standing and current established rules and protocols, we are laboring most vigorously,  quoting General George Patton, to make circumstances meet the plans and rules, rather than adapting as necessary to a very complex and dynamic set of events. Former CIA Chief of the bin Laden Issue Station, Michael Scheuer, asked are we in a war or chasing Thelma and Louise?  The answer would appear to be BOTH, and without succinct definition of the specific kind of war as back-plane for understanding events as they occur and without either usable definition or following rules, we're continually trying to shoe horn square pegs in round holes.

It seems appropriate here to reflect upon some of the introductory words in General Smith's The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern world:

On every occasion that I have been sent to achieve some military objective in order to serve a political purpose, I, and those with me, have had to change our method and reorganize in order to succeed.  Until this was done we could not use our force effectively.

... it became obvious to me that the extant theories of military organization and application and the unfolding realities were wide apart.  No more was I part of a world of wars in which the civilian and military establishments each had its distinct role in distinct stages.  The new situations were always a complex combination of political and military circumstances, though there appeared to be little comprehension as to how the two became intertwined – nor far more seriously from the perspective of the military practitioner, how they constantly influenced each other as events unfolded…. I realized we were now in a new era of conflict – in fact a new paradigm –

... from armies with comparable forces doing battle on a field to strategic confrontation between a range of combatants, not all of which are armies, and using different types of weapons, often improvised.  The old paradigm was that of interstate industrial war.  The new one is the paradigm of war amongst the people.

The next post will provide some discussion of these terms by way of seeking at least a reference point of terminology .