Combat Studies Institute Press

Combined Arms Center

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

The Proceedings of the Combat Studies Institute

2007 Military History Symposium 007 Military History Symposium

Kendall D. Gott endall D. Gott

Managing Editor anaging Editor

Michael G. Brooks ichael G. Brooks

General Editor eneral Editor

Warfare in the Age arfare in the Age

of Non-State Actors: f Non-State Actors:

Implications for the US Army mplications for the US Army
The Proceedings of the Combat Studies Institute

2007 Military History Symposium

Warfare in the Age

of Non-State Actors

Implications for the U.S. Army

Combat Studies Institute Press

US Army Combined Arms Center

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

Kendall D. Gott

Managing Editor

Michael G. Brooks

General Editor
ii

Book Design by Michael G. Brooks

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Warfare in the age of non-state actors : implications for the US Army / Kendall D. Gott,managing editor ; Michael G. Brooks, general editor.

 p. cm.

 1. War. 2. Military art and science. I. Gott, Kendall D. II. Brooks, Michael G.

 U21.W37 2007

 355.02--dc22

 2007039159

CSI Press publications cover a variety of military history topics. The views expressed in this 

CSI Press publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Department 

of the Army, or the Department of Defense. A full list of CSI Press publications, many of 

them available for downloading, can be found at:http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/csi/RandP/

CSIpubs.asp

The seal of the Combat Studies Institute authenticates this document as an offi cial 

publication of the CSI. It is prohibited to use CSI’s offi cial seal on any republication of this material 

without the expressed written permission of the Director of CSI.

First Printing: December 2007
iii

Contents

Foreword ............................................................................................................. vii

Keynote Address

 The Army and the Global War on Terrorism

General (Retired) Barry R. McCaffrey ......................................................... 1

 Question and Answer ..................................................................................... 17

Day 1, Panel 1: International Perspectives

 A French View on the War in French-Algeria

by Lieutenant Colonel (FR) Philippe Francois ............................................. 21

Political Consequences of Military Operations in the

 Long War: The Israeli Experience, 2000-2006

by Mr. Adam Harmon ................................................................................... 41

 Question and Answer .................................................................................... 49

Day 1, Panel 2: The Role of Culture

 Caliphate and Islamofascism: Two Irrelevant Factors

 in the Long War

 by Dr. Michael Scheuer ................................................................................. 59

The American Culture of War

 by Dr. Adrian Lewis ...................................................................................... 65

 Question and Answer .................................................................................... 85

Day 1, Panel 3: Shaping the Battlefi eld

 The Policing Paradox: The Dilemma of Colonial Policing

 and Military Security in the Age of Terrorism

 by Dr. Derek Catsam ..................................................................................... 93

 Shaping the Conditions for a Post Confl ict Environment

by Major(P) Douglas Davids. ...................................................................... 103

 Question and Answer ................................................................................... 127

Day 2, Featured Speaker

Strategic Communications—The Information Battlefi eld

by Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV .......................................... 141

 Question and Answer ................................................................................... 167
iv

Day 2, Panel 4: On the Ground in Iraq

The Challenge of Providing Security in the Post-Combat

 Phase Urban Environment

by Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Farrell, Ph.D. ............................................... 179

 The Baghdad Security Plan and Non-State Actors

by Ms. Linda Robinson ............................................................................... 189

 Question and Answer .................................................................................. 201

Day 2, Panel 5: Non-State Actors, the US Army, and the Law of War

At War with Non-State Entities

by Mr. Lee A. Casey ................................................................................... 209

 Legal Doctrines for War Among the People

by Dr. Michael F. Noone, Jr. ....................................................................... 231

 Question and Answer ................................................................................... 241

Day 2, Featured Speaker

 The Army and the Future of Irregular Confl ict

Major General (Retired) Robert H. Scales, Jr. ............................................ 249

 Question and Answer ................................................................................... 263

Day 3, Leadership Lecture Series Guest Speaker

US Representative Ike Skelton, IV (D. MO)

Chairman, House Armed Services Committee ........................................... 273

 Question and Answer ................................................................................... 281

Day 3, Panel 6: Middle East Perspective

 Hezbollah as a Non-State Actor in the Second Lebanon

 War: An Operational Analysis

by Lieutenant Colonel Abe Marrero, Ph.D. ................................................ 287

 Iraq and Global Insurgency: Dien Bien Phu or Khe Sahn?

by Dr. Wm. J. Olson .................................................................................... 297

Question and Answer ................................................................................... 317

Day 3, Featured Speaker

 The Nature of Irregular Confl ict in the 21st Century

by Mr. Ralph Peters .................................................................................... 325

Question and Answer ................................................................................... 343
v

Day 3, Featured Speaker

 Global Security: Continuing Confl ict in the Middle East

by Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett ........................................................................ 351

Question and Answer ................................................................................... 385

Appendix A: Conference Program ................................................................... 391

Appendix B: About the Presenters ................................................................... 395
vii

Foreword

The annual Combat Studies Institute Military History Symposium, now in its fifth year, provides a forum for the interchange of ideas on historical topics pertinent to the current doctrinal 

concerns of the United States Army. Furthermore, the Symposium solicits input from a diverse 

group of military personnel, government historians, civilian academicians, journalists and 

thinkers in a setting that promotes the exchange of ideas and information. With the support of 

the US Army Command and General Staff School staff, this year’s Symposium was held 11-13 

September 2007 at the new Lewis and Clark Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The 2007 symposium’s theme, “Warfare in the Age of Non-State Actors: Implications for the 

US Army” explored the challenges associated with conflict between nation states and transnational religious, ethnic, or criminal groups. It examined the historical experiences of both the 

United States and other nations in this most asymmetric of environments in an attempt to distill 

the insights from the past can provide us guidance into the future.

In addition to the many excellent panelists who presented their research, this year we were 

fortunate again to have a number very distinguished featured speakers. Representative Ike Skelton IV and General (Retired) Barry R. McCaffrey not only addressed the symposium, but the 

entire student body of the Command and General Staff College. Lieutenant General William B. 

Caldwell IV, Commanding General of the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth shared 

his recent experience in Iraq as the Director of Strategic Effects for Multination Forces-Iraq. 

These proceedings contain the papers and presentations of all the speakers and panelists, as 

well as the transcriptions of selected question and answer periods following the presentations. 

These materials are also posted on-line at http://usacac.army.mil/cac/csi/conference07.asp.

These annual symposia continue to be an important event, for the past has much to offer in the 

analysis of contemporary military challenges. The Army also continues to derive many important insights from non-military historians and thinkers who add to the Army’s own historical 

efforts. The phrase “history with a purpose” captures the goal of all Combat Studies Institute 

publications. We intend for the readers of this volume to find the experience useful in their current and future endeavors. CSI - The Past is Prologue.

Timothy R. Reese

Colonel, Armor

Director, Combat Studies Institute
1

Day 1—Keynote Speaker

(Addressing Symposium Members and the

Command and General Staff College Student Body)

The Army and the Global War on Terrorism

(Transcript of Presentation)

General (Retired) Barry R. McCaffrey

Adjunct Professor of International Relations

United States Military Academy

Thank you all for the invitation to be out here, and I very much appreciate the chance to 

come here and share some ideas. Let me . . . with your permission, what I’ll do is I’m going 

to run through some slides. I sort of miss the old place. This is the first year in the new building. . . there used to be a giant pit right in front of the speakers, and the only way I can get the 

Infantry officers to pay attention to me, I’d hang my toes right over the edge, and they’d be in 

just a paroxysm of hope that I’d fall in sometime during the presentation. I never fell in, though 

I have seen one person go off. There was a net down there. Did you know that? A net for the 

wayward generals blundering over the edge.

You know, some of this, combat leadership, 75% of the officers in CGSC have one or more 

tours in combat. Some of them have more combat time than anyone in uniform since World 

War II. We’ve had some fights out there in Iraq, and small unit actions in Afghanistan that are 

just tough as it gets. Fallujah, Stalingrad, Tarawa, it’s all the same stuff. We’ve been committed 

now, peacekeeping or war fighting, essentially since the Balkans. Damn near since 1996, 1994, 

DESERT SHIELD prior to that. It’s continuous operations. We’re pretty experienced.

Let me review some of these ideas, then perhaps, we can have an open conversation, and 

you can table your own thoughts, and I can respond to your own interests. We can talk about 

whatever you want. You know, I try and use my hat as a professor up at West Point to get nonpartisan, objective engagement in national security and homeland security. I’m in and out of 

Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, the Russian Federation, etcetera, trying to 

understand the situation and then be supportive of a strong national defense. A lot of times in 

front of Congressional committees, and then trying to help explain the national security challenge through the media to the American people. So let me run through some ideas, and then 

we can have an open conversation.

One thing I would underscore, for the American officers in particular, they are part of an 

organization of 2.4 million men and women, active, guard, reserves, civilian component. A giant enterprise, enormously sophisticated, spread across the face of the Earth, spending literally 

hundreds of billions of dollars in a steady cash flow. That war we’re fighting is $12 billion a 

month. So this immensely complex structure. But at the end of the day, it boils down to we’re 

fighting battalions, and squadrons, and ships.

How do you get them into action, support them? The rest of us are merely supporting that 

reality. That’s it. Don’t forget that. Understand you’re trying to, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 
2

two current, immediate, point of the spear conflicts we’ve got going on, that’s what we’re doing. That’s sort of my own sort of understanding of here’s what we’re trying to do. And by the 

way, this is a mission. The fact you got it by default . . . you know, some of the most brilliant 

people in our government, hands down, are foreign service officers. Three, four hundred applicants for each position. But at the end of the day, if you’re dealing in a lawless part of the world, 

chaotic, dangerous, you have to have people that can go and do projects, spend money, support 

political, and economic, and military development, we turn around and we ask the armed forces 

to do it. You’re carrying a nine millimeter pistol, you got a driver, you got a generator, you’ll 

follow orders. So we’re going to ask you to step in when we have a hurricane, when there’s a 

mail strike, when there’s a crisis, we’re going to ask you to do it. So a lot of these activities may 

not have been optimal for the US armed forces, but it’s your job.

The Army is also still charged with fighting, with never getting in a fair fight, with destroying threats to your unit, to your mission. And finally . . . periodically I like to remind people, 

you’re not only protecting the physical security and reputation of the military units you’re 

in command of. You’re also protecting our honor. The worst thing that can happen to you in 

combat is not to get killed, it’s to lose your honor. Occasionally we slip away from that. Sort of 

the fundamental description, how do you decide those great issues of integrity? Can I tell my 

mother what I’m about to do and feel proud of it or not? And if the answer is no, don’t do it. 

Protect the honor of the soldiers under your command.

You know all this. You talk about it. You’re exposed to the media. You understand it’s a 

new reality. We went a long time, we went the better part of three generations where essentially, 

our entire template of doctrinal design, equipment, training, was governed by counter force deterrence to a single, coherent threat. It’s gone, never coming back. Hopefully we’ll never again 

be in a confrontation with another power block. Now every smart officer out there on the face 

of the Earth is thinking, “How do I counter US military power, or allied coalition operations?” 

And the last way to do it is to directly confront a tank/mech infantry unit of the 1st CAV, 3d ID, 

1st ID in combat. That’s not the way to go about it. Or an air-to-air direct confrontation with a 

Navy carrier.

So asymmetrical warfare, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, counter drug operations to 

support. You’ve got to take on those missions. That’s part of defending the American people. 

We are engaged in a global war on terror. I sometimes think we have made a mistake using that 

metaphor, that organizing conceptual architecture around a war on terror. We’re sort of stuck 

with the language. We’ve got to understand to some extent that terrorism threat you and I face, 

and our allies face, is more akin to a cancer affecting the international community than it is 

to a war fighting operation. The way to deal with the global war on terror, many of us would 

argue, is more preventative and educational, information warfare, and engaging the other tools 

of American power, diplomatic covert action, new legal treaties, alliances, than it is in war 

fighting capabilities.

You’re also stuck in this challenge. The United States Army and Marine Corps are too 

damn small. We’ve got a strategy that probably requires 800,000 plus soldiers, and we’re trying to do it with the smallest Army since 1939. With a pathetic attempt to build that force at 

7,000 people a year, and maybe we’ll get it up to 30,000 people a year. This is a country with 
3

300 million people in the nation. When my dad sat in here in 1942, we put together a military 

that went from a quarter of a million to 16 million, and we did it in four years. So I think, to be 

blunt, we have a mismatch between strategy and resources. And part of that is infrastructure. 

But that’s something you’ve got to deal with. This is an unending challenge, and a change. And 

we don’t do it very well in the US armed forces.

It seems to me we’ve got to get into a mindset that says this is a permanent reality that 

you’re going to operate under the scrutiny of digital global communications, and that this is 

not an anomaly. It’s not an information warfare. It’s your responsibility as a military officer to 

respond to that scrutiny. This one’s sort of new. This used to be . . . protecting human rights was 

just a mark of a disciplined military force. Now it may well be the object of a military operation.

And then finally, I don’t want us to walk away from this on a bet. There is a continuing 

threat of high intensity combat employing nuclear weapons. We’ve got to take that into account. We have to have the doctrine to deal with it. You’ve got to study it. You’ve got to understand that at some point, that could be in your future. We’ve seen examples of it, certainly 

again, Fallujah, Ramadi, some of the 1st Armored Division fighting south of Baghdad. But at 

some point, there could be a blunder in the international community and we’ve have to take 

down the North Korean armed forces. And that’s a permanent responsibility to understand how 

to do it and to organize for that capability.

Afghanistan is the non-Iraq. Everything about Afghanistan is different. Bigger country, 

more people, unbelievably beautiful scene. Many of you have been there. Twenty-five to 50 

years from now when we get the mines up, and the war is over, and it’s a thriving economy, 

it will be a major tourist destination. Tremendous people, survivors, trying to come out of 

14th century poverty and constant warfare. Having said that, both Iraq and Afghanistan have 

elements of bitter sectarian strife, a.k.a. civil war, tribal struggles, ethnic struggles, on top of 

which there’s . . . you know, the biggest challenge for most societies is how do you deal with 

criminal behavior, corruption? How do you construct a system of justice, prosecutors, defense 

attorneys, prisons, police who have integrity and courage?

How do you take nice boys who now will be happy to go into the military academy and 

become a soldier, how do you get the same sense of service to have them go become police officers? And by the way, it’s harder to produce good policemen than good Marines and soldiers. 

You’ve got to start at around 21. You don’t want to start at 17 or 18. You want them to get five 

years of experience before you really start getting a capable law enforcement officer. And if 

the kid joins a criminal organization in police uniforms, he’ll never get there. So you’ve got a 

challenge in both of these societies of the lack of an operative police force. 

And then you’ve got foreign jihadist interventions, hijacked Islam, call it what you will. Islam is a religion of peace and cooperation, hospitality. There’s no reason . . . there’s absolutely 

no reason why Islam has to be congruent with distrust of foreigners in the West, but that’s there. 

We’ve got to take into account, and particularly as a secular society in the United States, we 

have a difficult time talking to that issue and understanding it. Then we’ve got a challenge, you 

know. None of these things happen in isolation.
4

Both Iraq and Afghanistan are surrounded by neighbors, some of them wish them well, 

and some of them don’t. The Saudis are playing a hugely positive role in the region, but others aren’t. How do we balance the . . . we can talk about this, your poor Iranians, with their 

shattered economy, with their goofy leadership, they’re going nuclear, they’re going to do it. 

They’re going to end up with 35 nuclear weapons and the delivery systems to make it operate. 

So how are we going to get the political leadership in the surrounding region, where there are 

vital national security interests of many other nations in the international community, how do 

you get all this to come out right? Well, we’ve got to deal with that.

Here’s a nice assertion of an infantry officer, you know, frequently wrong, but never in 

doubt. We’re in the last 36 months in Iraq. That’s it. We’re coming out of there. The Iraqis know 

it. You know it. Our allies in the region know it. You could see this turn around if the Iraqis can 

tamp down this bitter struggle for political power and survival in the post-US environment. But 

I think basically what you’re going to see in the remaining 16 months, we’ll draw down somewhat, we’re going to hang in there. The next Administration will have to address it. They’ll 

have to do it in a regional context. That dialog has started with the Syrians, the Iranians, the 

Saudis, but at some point, we’ll be out of there with a 22 brigade combat force. We’re not going 

to stay in there at nine billion a month with 1,000 killed and wounded. The American people 

have walked away from the war. That’s in the background.

So how do you end up with a stable nation? With a powerful, obedient security force. We 

sometimes had a hard time explaining to our own political system weakness invites violence, 

not strength. The Iraqis have got to have a powerful internal security force, and an Armed 

Forces capable of maintaining national sovereignty, and the same thing for the Afghans. That’s 

a hard row to hoe there. We need a functioning democratic state. It doesn’t have to be perfect 

democracy, but it shouldn’t be a threat to its own minorities, not a threat to its neighbors, and 

we don’t want to see the continued proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

One of the major challenges of poor Iranians is they’re going to prompt a reaction by the 

GCC states, by the Sunni Muslim Arab population to counter a Persian Shiite weapon with a 

Sunni Arab weapon. Nobody gets safer when there’s a proliferation of these WMD.

Let me just talk through some ideas. A lot of this is combat leadership that you’ve already 

practiced, you’ve already observed. It seems to me that one of the central themes that you 

ought to talk to each other about, that you should benefit reading from history, from examples 

of leadership, is how you get complex organizations under stress, with inadequate resources, 

and a timeline to do difficult work? Three thoughts. Most of our leadership discussions start 

with, “Okay, I’m in charge. I’ve got 12 soldiers, I’ve got 26,000, I’m a reinforced division commander in combat, theater commander at some level ...” And by the way, it’s easier to explain 

who you’re leading if you’re a company commander or battalion commander than if you’re a 

staff officer, but you’re always in charge of somebody.

So we have a discussion on leading your subordinates, and some of that you can learn out of 

studying leadership theory. Most of it we think you learn out of observation, and a grab bag of 

techniques. You observe people doing things wrong, and resolve to not do them. You do things 

right yourself, they work for you, you internalize them. And then I think basically leaders have 

a responsibility to assemble a bag of tricks dealing with subordinates that you routinely do. You 

eat last. You get in the first helicopter into combat. You act as a servant to soldiers.
5

A grab bag of techniques, but at the end of the day, I think we look at elite organizations, 

things that do everything right. One of the things we note is that in every high performing unit, 

you see strong horizontal bonds of leadership. Basically the platoon sergeants in the company 

are cooperating with one another. The battalion XOs, competition has been minimized.

There’s a peer group attempt to influence each other in which we shore you up, we recognize and applaud and celebrate your strengths, and we counsel you and try and improve you on 

your shortcomings. Peer group, horizontal lines of leadership control. And then one of them, I 

think, that we have a tough time as Americans is noting that there’s a leadership responsibility 

up the chain of command. You know, I tell people, I’ve met a couple of three people in 32 years 

in uniform that were nearly perfect, and none of them are in this room.

Mostly, when you start looking at the people who are your battalion brigade commanders, 

the senior people in your operation, you’re going to see people of great organizational skill, 

lots of integrity, lots of energy, probably a good deal of experience, but they get tired and confused, and occasionally they get selfish, and occasionally they have lapses of judgment, and 

you, madam or sir , are supposed to step in there, and in appropriate ways, reinforce your senior 

leadership, provide feedback. When you told us to do this, ma’am, it made a huge, positive difference in our operation, and I wanted you to know that. When you did the following, it was 

harmful to our soldier’s personal time, personal interest. You’ve got to provide feedback. We 

have a hard time doing that.

We don’t want to be viewed as obsequious, cheese eating, self serving, apple polishing, and 

we darn sure are fearful of taking on, in inappropriate ways, people who are senior to us. But 

again, let me just underscore, in great units, this kind of thing is self-evident.

Big deal to me. I have the better part of four combat tours, you know, from company grade 

on up to division commander. It is entirely appropriate that the military has, in huge amounts, 

authority power. If you’re a company commander in combat, you have more legal authority 

over your soldiers, given to you under the law, than does a district federal judge, a school district superintendent, a police chief, you name it. Enormous authority. Give people orders that 

are likely to result in the loss of their life, and enforce them under a judicial code.

If you’re a division commander, general court martial authority, you know you have the 

ability to charge people with criminal offenses, to assemble a grand jury, to send people home 

in disgrace, to give them high awards, to promote them to higher rank. Tremendous authority 

power. And it’s appropriate, and it’s useful, without which the organization wouldn’t operate. 

We know from, certainly, studying combat leadership examples, that the strongest, influence 

over why soldiers will do what you say under crisis situations is their recognition of expert 

power. Over time, they have formed a judgment that every time we do what she says it comes 

out okay, and therefore we ought to do it this time.

By the way, it can be assisted by credentials. You’re wearing a Ranger tab, you’re a master 

parachutist. They know you have finished the appropriate military schooling. Credentialing 

adds to credibility, where people will give you the latitude of obedience, because in combat, as 

you know, we talk about the unspoken vote, where you’re hearing over a radio instructions to 

do something, and the last reason you’re going to do it is because of the coercive authority of 

the chain of command. That’s not why our soldiers fight.
6

How many soldiers since 1865 have we executed for failure to carry out orders in the face 

of the enemy? Somebody knows the answer. Come on, come on. Who’s the one? What’s the 

guy’s name. Private Eddie Slovik. I took an OPD as a battalion commander, you know, walk 

them through the Battle of the Bulge. This poor 20-year-old loser kid, scared, 35,000 deserters 

at the height of the Battle of the Bulge, freezing weather, dealing with the Wehrmacht and their 

final counter offensive, and finally poor General Eisenhower said, “We’ve got to shoot one of 

them to set an example.” And so we brought poor Eddie Slovik out, and 11 of his buddies shot 

him dead. The only soldier we’ve executed. The Germans, the Brits, some first rate military 

powers shot hundreds of their people, World War I or World War II. They didn’t want our soldiers to fight. We’ve got to remind ourselves it’s expert power.

And then finally, we don’t talk about this enough either. We know that there’s huge impact 

on people when the soldier looks at the Captain and says, “I’d like to be more like him. I think 

that’s a person of character, of integrity. It’s someone who’s example I want to follow.” Reverent power. And, of course, the way you get reverent power is choose your leadership carefully. 

Don’t let people get into your NCO corps, get into your officer corps, who’s first characteristic 

wasn’t strong character, strong values. Some of that you can work on. You can create values, 

starting at age 18, but basically we want kids who come out of families where they learned the 

value of respect, obedience, trust, dealing with other people, reverent power.

You know, one of the things that drives me completely nuts . . . you know, you don’t have 

to tell company commanders they’re in charge, but any operation . . . if you walk into a gang of 

soldiers of any sort, and you ask them, “Who told you to do the mission you’re now engaged 

in? What is the mission? How long were you given to get it finished? Who will you tell when 

you’re done? By what criteria will you know you’ve accomplished your mission?” If you 

can’t get answers to those questions, nobody’s in charge. There is no plan. You must have a 

plan. Otherwise, you have brown in molecular motion, random movement of molecules bumping into each other.

Frequently, that’s what you’ll see when we don’t have people that say, “When I’m in charge, 

I will take charge.” Here’s a big challenge to your generation. Our communications capability 

is beyond belief today. We’re running global encrypted video teleconferencing. We can tap in 

from a JCS morning CNN program and watch your roadblock . . . I was just at Nellis Air Force 

Base looking at the magic of Predator operations, global Predator operations, with Reaper coming, with Global Hawk, with Shadow. We can conduct operations from a centralized location 

now. You can collect data through GPS geodata. It’s just unbelievable.

I would argue the power of the military—of you, when you’re commanding a battalion—is 

to see down two levels, command down one. Decentralize authority, and resources, and holding people accountable. You’re not in charge of 800 soldiers. You’re in charge of five company 

commanders. You’re supposed to see operations at platoon and section level. If you’re a division commander . . . I remember I had a couple of DESERT STORM reporters in there acting 

in a very laudatory manner on what we had accomplished. I said, “You know actually, commanding a division isn’t as hard as commanding a company.”

A division commander, you’re dealing with 13 full Colonel brigade commanders. And I 

had seven separate battalion commanders. If you can’t get brigade commanders to do what you 
7

want, there’s something seriously wrong with you. It’s harder work, where the challenges of 

less trained people, or more chaotic conditions are operative. Command down one level, see 

down two.

A lot of discussion about this, an adequate force, legal force . . . and by the way, let me sort 

of counter any implication of that. As a rifle company commander in combat, one of the sort 

of axioms I held was it’s not wrong to get killed in action because you didn’t pull the trigger. 

There are times in which you’ve got to judge when you’re going to fire, when you’re going to 

use force. And if you’re hesitant, and it turns out you made a mistake, that’s okay. Once you 

decide to use military force, though, you’d better use violent speed and mass, and don’t get in 

fair fights. Your notion is to saturate with violence people that are opposing you.

I think this is a big deal for . . . particularly as you get a Lieutenant Colonel, battalion commander and above. You can’t get satisfied. You’re never off duty. You have a responsibility to 

make sure your soldiers are rested and fed, and that they have time to write, and that they have 

time to stand down. You’re not off duty, period.

And then finally, here’s another one. It’s a function of this unbelievable command and 

control system we’re creating. There’s a real tendency, since you’re driven by sometimes the 

capability of micro-management from above to stay where your communications are best. 

Where you can respond to higher level demands for information. Where you can best give instructions, and I would argue that this is the end of us when we fall into that trap. At every level 

there should be a company XO, battalion XO, division chief staff, brigade deputy commander, 

somebody’s got to be at a fixed command and control location with perfect access to information. But you, madam or sir, should go to where the operation is most likely to go wrong, and 

personally put yourself in that environment.

It doesn’t mean you have to take charge at the site, but it seems to me you do have to associate yourself with the outcome. If it goes wrong, I’m going to get killed with the rest of 

them. Or where you can see, and feel, and hear what the problems are. You’ve got to go first. 

One of the saddest things that I rebelled against was when officers get killed or badly wounded, 

having the weenies of the world ask if they were in the wrong place, as if it’s illegitimate for a 

battalion commander, a division commander, to place themselves in physical danger. Go where 

the problem is most intense.

This used to get a great cheer out here. I don’t know what they’re . . . everybody would hoot 

and carry on, SAM students throw hairballs at their instructors. I think it’s important, if you’re 

going to be a sophisticated person, you read Jomini and Clausewitz. By the way, you know, I 

read that about three or four times. Comic book version of Clausewitz at West Point, and then 

the summarized form at the advanced course, and then they finally tricked us into reading it and 

writing a paper about it at the Army War College. You do have to understand military theory, 

and certainly military history, for God’s sakes. If that isn’t a central preoccupation with you, 

you’re missing a good way to prepare for the next war.

But at the end of the day, this is what it’s all about. Go look at the weather, the enemy, and 

the terrain. That’s it. The most important thing that a company commander has in combat is a 

marked map. What are the graphic control measures? How are you going to use this terrain, 
8

this weather situation? I think the other thing you start running, the more you go up the military 

chain of command in combat, is logistics, communications, and supporting fire. What you put 

together, and then the rest of it.

Division combat, you’ve got . . . now you’ve got four brigades, getting really complicated. 

You used to have three, so you could do one up, two back, two up, one back, three up, none 

back. That was it. You could attack on the left, on the right. You could weigh things. But basically you’ve got to organize logistics, communications, having thought your way through to the 

objective, and then backward plan to how did we end up succeeding.

One of our studies, World War II, you’ve read Infantry Attacks, Rommel, an incredible officer of the Austrian campaign. But subsequent studies have all said you start looking at characteristics of successful battle leaders, and oddly enough, a lot of things fall out. You know, deep 

religious expression, strength of character, physical strength, on and on. But one of the things, 

every time, comes out is a commitment to personal reconnaissance of the battlefield.

You can do that a lot of ways, obviously. If you’ve got Predator overhead, and Shadow, you 

can do some of this electronically. But I think successful battle leaders try and ensure that they 

personally have seen the route of the operations, the terrain. You’ve got to do personal leaders 

reconnaissance.

This is a big deal, the lonesome end, General Carpenter used to threaten people, and I used 

to love to listen to him do it. The death of the Army is when you take 99% of the time available 

to write perfect plans instead of getting a warning order out. The only real people in the Army 

are Platoon Sergeants. They’re the people who are supposed to get soldiers personally ready to 

go, to get machinery so it’s ready to operate. If you haven’t given warning orders and allowed 

the unit to lean forward in the foxhole, you’re not doing your job. Don’t do perfect orders, issue 

simple mission and warning orders through ops channels.

And then finally, this is a tough one. Information warfare requires your leadership. Now, 

we used to say when you write a plan, you got three options. You always give the General, the 

Colonel, three options, the big one, the middle one, the little one. The middle one is always the 

right one. If you don’t think he’s getting it, you have to say, “Sir, it’s the middle one. That’s 

the one you want.” Now, you’ve finished, and he’s selected a course of action. The second 

thing you did was a deception plan. You try to say, “How are we going to portray this operation? How are we going to protect some information and accelerate others?” The third thing 

you’ve got to sort through is information warfare. How will we communicate what we’re up 

to to favorably influence the outcome of this action? And that’s hard work, particularly when 

you’re in a low intensity conflict situation. You absolutely have to take into account the media, 

to include US media, and therefore they can’t be part of the deception plan, NGOs, Civil Affairs, etcetera.

I’ve rewritten this a couple of times. A variant of this was . . . these ten points were the 

last thing I passed out to every company, battalion, brigade commander before conducting an 

attack into Iraq. Ten guidelines conducting combat operations. I don’t think they’re very sophisticated. This one has always bothered me. US soldiers won’t stay scared more than three 

days if they’re not shot at. How do you keep people . . . and by the way, this was hands down, 
9

the most disciplined Army and Marine combat team I’ve ever seen. ECPs, the attention to detail. But how do you end up ensuring security? Real security? Rehearsals, company cohesion, 

big confusing battlefield out there. Civilians all over the battlefield. They’re going to be part 

of your force. Contractors, they’re going to run your electronic communications, going to feed 

your troops.

Everybody in the battlefield should know who my captain and first sergeant is, and if they 

don’t there’s a failure in organization. I hear about, you know, direct support, op con, they’re all 

valid ways of putting coherence to the battlefield, but at the end of the day, who’s the captain 

and the first sergeant I’m supposed to be responding to?

We can talk about this a little bit later on. I think one of the challenges to all of us as leaders is personal health, taking care of ourselves. I think this is a big deal. With the continuous 

combat operations that the Armed Forces is on now, at some point you’ve got to make sure 

soldiers have an ability to step aside and do nothing. A lot of them are teenagers. How do they 

have time to write letters, kick soccer balls, get off stage?

Casualties. Some of the things we do the best on the face of the Earth are medical services. 

Basically, if you get hit, if you’re still alive when we put you in the Blackhawk helicopter, the 

chances are overwhelming that you’ll live and regain a functional life. The chances are hugely 

significant we’re going to get you back into your unit. That, of course, means that you’ve got 

to be smart enough to do first responder and keep them alive. And then, of course, I again try 

to underscore protect your honor.

Sort of a wrap up. Our field grade officers are in an interesting age right now. You know, at 

age 25 or below, you can do anything you want. You can pound ten beers down at night, get two 

hours sleep, have smashed 15 candy bars in your face every day for 15 days, and be ten pounds 

overweight, and probably get away with it. But if you are to command a battalion, or serve as a 

G-3 successfully, you must protect your physical health. You can’t be overweight.

The biggest problem we end up with among officers is alcohol consumption. Let me just 

tell you this straight, right out. It’s all well and good the camaraderie of the Army, and fighting 

knights, and we’re off duty, but if you are not capable of responding to our phone call at 2:00 in 

the morning because you have impaired yourself with alcohol consumption, we will not allow 

you to become a senior officer. We can’t risk it. Don’t you kid yourself, that’s going to happen. 

If there’s a hint of that that gets out, it will attach itself to you. Take that into account, think 

about it. It’s a challenge to all of us.

Tobacco, exercise, etcetera. You’ve got to maintain your capacity, otherwise you won’t 

make cool headed decisions under crisis situations. Tobacco, for God’s sakes . . . you know, as 

Drug Policy Director for five years, go down to Johns Hopkins University, thousands of little 

white lab rats, little pink feet, little pink nose. And you give a lab rat an option of pushing a 

lever to get water or methamphetamines, they’ll dehydrate and die. Give them an option of 

pushing a lever and get food or heroine, they’ll go for opiates and die malnourished. You give 

them an option of pushing a lever to get ecstasy, or to open a trap door, and there’s a lady lab rat 

wearing lipstick on the other side, and they’ll forego that for drugs. The only drug you cannot 

get a lab rat to self administer is cigarette smoke. They’re simply not that stupid.
10

I say that as a former smoker. Two packs a day as a rifle company commander in combat. I 

thought the height of joy was being under a poncho liner with yellow, shriveled fingers, bloodshot eyes, sharing a damp Pall Mall with my platoon sergeants.

This always outrages the doctors in the group. Down at the [inaudible] doing a leadership 

seminar, and the corps surgeon was all bent out of shape with me. I said, “Sir, sir, for God’s 

sakes, it’s a floor, it’s not a ceiling. You’ve got to get three and a half hours sleep. I personally 

think you can operate forever. You won’t be a lot of fun to be around, but you know, if you sort 

of pick up a battle tempo, 1:00 to 3:00 in the morning, and then 90 minutes sleeping on the 

floor of a track between, let’s say 10:30 and noon, you can keep that up a long time. Five and a 

half hours is better, but you do have to say, “For God sakes, I’m going to get sleep. I’m going 

to have an ops officer or somebody who will stand over me. I’ll eat two meals, I’ll stay clean, 

etcetera.” You have to devote yourself, even in high intensity combat to doing that.

A lot of you guys don’t know. You know what the biggest challenge to a rifle platoon leader 

in combat is? I just sort of share this, and some of the infantry officers, of course, know this. 

You wake up in the morning, 5:00 a.m. It’s freezing cold, or boiling hot. You’ve got six canteens of water, one canteen cup. You know you’ve got to make coffee, brush your teeth, wash 

your crotch, and you’ve got to get it in the right order.

And I think again, you got to remind yourself what you’re up to. Our officers have such 

an opportunity to be part of this organization of courage, and integrity, and commitment. They 

have got to watch their honor. We wandered a bit from our values there. This whole thing with 

Abu Ghraib and abuse of detainees, the bottom line, it seems to me, is that you and I say to ourselves, “If we break into that house at 2:00 in the morning, we are going in there to shoot you 

dead. But if you’ve fallen under our control as a prisoner, as a detainee, as a civilian refugee, 

we will protect you. Not just your physical safety, but your dignity.”

We are governed by the law. We take pride in that. We’ve got to teach each other that. 

We’ve got to make sure that we watch the words that will allow us to creep into abuse of people 

in our zone. We’ve got to watch the character of the soldiers that we’ll tolerate in our ranks. 

Where we think they lack character, we’ve got to get rid of them. It’s just too much responsibility carrying a gun and wearing our uniform in combat to allow that.

I think there may be one last view graph. See if there’s one more comes up. This is not 

good news slide for a democracy. You know, 300 million of us, we’ve constructed this incredible system of economic growth, producing wealth at unbelievable rates. We have incredible 

number of commitments to associations and publications. We’ve professionalized the society, 

we pay our taxes at enormous rates. We have huge rates of people going to church, probably 

higher than anywhere except in Ireland, and for God’s sakes, they don’t know why they’re going to church. 

But at the end of the day, this society works because of that Constitution, and that says that 

the Congress is a co-equal branch of government, and we understand that a democracy can’t 

operate unless we have respect for an aggressive, free press. And we understand that the Supreme Court is another separate branch of government that’s central to our future. What it tells 

you is since Vietnam there’s been a steady degradation of our confidence in our institution of 
11

government, except for the US Armed Forces. 

And you’re part of the most trusted institution in American life. There’s a reason for it, and 

it’s not how verbal and cute our Admirals and Generals are. It’s because the sons and daughters 

of that 2.4 million person force are writing their moms and dads, and saying, “This organization I joined is an organization of courage, and integrity, and they treat me with dignity and 

respect, and they’re developing me as a person.” And that’s what the American people now 

think of you. And they watch you on TV when they ask you what’s going on. They watch your 

responses. It’s a huge honor, it seems to me, for you to be wearing this uniform and understand 

the trust the American people have in you. 

[break in audio]

... election. The problem is he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Like a lot of soldiers, he 

thinks he can run an economy by top down direction, so he gives orders. And then it doesn’t 

work, so he finds enemies. So his enemies are the US, the Colombians, the Venezuelan Armed 

Forces, the Catholic Church, the oil industry leadership, on and on. He’s going to wreck Venezuela. Uncertain outcome. 

And this one probably deserves some discussion. The Iranians are going nuclear, period. 

They decided that a decade ago. They think they’re going to be safer. That country’s sort of in 

trouble. Half of it isn’t Persian, half of it’s some other group of peoples that were thrown there 

by these galactic warring forces over the last several centuries. The economy’s not doing well. 

The youngsters don’t like this theological dictatorship they’ve got. But I think most of them believe they’re better off, they’ll regain the glory of the Persian Empire if they’re nuclear armed. 

They’re not going to be safer.

That’s the argument we made in the FS Use States when we got in there trying to corral 

up all the nukes. “You guys have these things, Mr. Ahmadinejad. If you’ve got 35 nukes and 

the means to use them, we’re going to try and find where your warheads are, your delivery 

systems, your command and control. We’re going to target you. And we’re going to wait, and 

if there’s a physical confrontation in the Gulf, and somebody accidentally hits one of our carriers, or knocks down an aircraft with 180 troops on it, somebody like me will walk into the 

President of the United States and say, ‘They’re at H minus one and holding. I recommend a 

preemptive strike.’ And we’ll do it. Don’t you ever misjudge that. We’ll never get in a position 

where we think we’re at risk of the first strike.” These people aren’t going to be safer with 

nuclear weapons.

And by the way, the Saudis, the GCC, the Sunni Arabs, are going to go nuclear. You’ve 

already seen the, “We need nuclear power to replace the energy supplies when they run out.” 

These people are going to end up with a bomb to counter the Persian Shiite bomb. But what 

are we supposed to do in the interim now to prevent that outcome ten or 15 years from now? 

And I think there is, actually, the beginnings of a sensible policy. I think Dr. Rice is starting to 

engage the Iranians, the Syrians, and others. The Saudi’s are playing a pretty useful role. But 

we’re going to have to . . . and clearly nobody in his right mind should think that a conventional 

military strike on the Iranians is the way to deal with the problem. Seventy, question mark, 

nuclear suspect sites up there. Do we know where they are? Can we get them with conven-
12

tional weapons? Maybe a couple of thousand aircraft for a six month air campaign, with a lay 

down all over Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq, with our faithful allies endorsing such a move, 

we could probably wreck most of the vertical structures in Iran. But this is not a good way to 

threaten the Iranians.

Though I think, essentially, you’ve got to build a new coalition. You’ve got to conduct a 

20, 40 year campaign to hedge these people, and in the mean time, it clearly increases the risk, 

mostly to our allies. The Iranians aren’t a direct nuclear threat to the United States two years 

from now. Nor are the North Koreans. But they are to our allies, so we’ve got to pay attention 

to it.

Okay, one final slide. It’s always good for a military audience. This is a bad news slide for 

democracy. Since Vietnam, US confidence, citizens, 300 million of us, the most powerful economic body in the history of mankind, tremendous freedoms and political energy. I try and be 

objective looking at this society. I travel all over and look at mayors, and county government. 

The diversity of our citizenship, the opportunity to participate, the economic wealth we created. 

It’s remarkable. We don’t trust our democratic institutions.

It is not good news for you and I that Congress is held in such disrepute, or that the media, 

who are central, I would argue, to an operating democratic system, are held in equal lack of 

regard. What’s also astonishing is that consistently the US Armed Forces is the most trusted institution in American society. I would suggest it has little to do with the nature of our Admirals 

and Generals. It has everything to do with America’s sons and daughters, writing their parents, 

and their home room teacher, and saying, “Dad, I’m in the Army. I’m a Marine. I’m an Airman. 

I’m a Sailor. These people are treating me with confidence and integrity. It’s an institution of 

courage. I’m being developed as a person.” That’s what’s done this. Over time, I think, those 

of you who are privileged to wear a uniform should understand that that’s a lot of confidence 

the American people are placing in the institution, with good reason, I would suggest.

I think you have allowed me another five minutes, or ten minutes, or something. I’d be glad 

to accept any comments from the group. Thanks very much.
13

General (Ret) Barry R. McCaffrey Slide Addendum:

The Army and the Global War on Terrorism

GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM

Presentation to: Presentation to:

Combat Studies Institute Symposium Combat Studies Institute Symposium 

BARRY R. McCAFFREY

GENERAL, USA (RETIRED) GENERAL, USA (RETIRED)

ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY

11 September 2007 11 September 2007

Adjunct Professor of International Affairs

United States Military Academy at West Point

2900 South Quincy Street, Suite 300A

Arlington, VA 22206

brm@mccaffreyassociates.com

703-824-5160

SIX INSIGHTS ON THE WAR ON TERROR

• The threat terrorist organizations have been intimidated and badly damaged.

• The threat has morphed and remains a huge danger to the US and our allies.

• Global animosity toward US foreign policy and the Administration is 

universal, intense, and growing.

• Homeland security has improved immeasurably since 9/11 (not withstanding 

Katrina).

• Homeland security is grossly under-resourced, lacks congressional support, 

and remains incoherent.

• The proliferation of WMD nation states and technology remains the principal 

threat to the American people and our allies.

GEN (R) Barry R. McCaffrey

7 September 2007

Slide 1

Slide 2
14

Slide 3

Slide 4

1st – The appointment of General Dave Petraeus as Joint Commander in Iraq and Ryan Crocker as Ambassador holds 

out promise of a successful new strategy to deal with the Iraq Civil War.

2nd – Secretary Gates and Secretary Rice are now a new and hugely positive team dealing with the challenges in the 

Middle East.

3rd - The morale, fighting effectiveness, and confidence of U.S. combat forces continue to be simply awe-inspiring. 

Political reconciliation talks with the Sunnis show initial positive response.

4th – The Iraqi Army is real, growing, and much more willing to fight. However, they are still not adequately equipped. 

The Iraqi Police are a disaster and now the focus of enormous new efforts.

5th – The Maliki Administration is dysfunctional. Governance is broken. The nation is gripped with fear and distrust.

However, the government is now beginning to respond to US pressure to reach out to the Sunnis and Kurds.

6th – US Special Operations Forces have largely succeeded in neutralizing the foreign jihadist threat at a strategic and 

operational level. The Mahdi Army in Baghdad has – for now – decided not to fight US or ISF Forces.

7th – U.S. combat forces need to reduce their footprint to get down to ten combat brigades by July 2008. We are going 

to break the US Army.

8th - Iraq cannot sustain economic recovery without enhanced, long-term U.S. budgetary support. Congressional 

support is lacking.

EIGHT OBSERVATIONS ON IRAQ

GEN (R) Barry R. McCaffrey

7 September 2007

1st - Afghanistan has in five years moved from a situation of: mindless violence, cruelty, poverty, massive production of drugs, 

the absence of government, and isolation -- to a nation with a struggling democratic government; an exploding economy; a 

rapidly growing, disciplined Army; a vibrant free press, and active diplomatic and economic ties with its neighbors and the 

world.

2nd - There is little question that the level of fighting has intensified rapidly in the past year. Fortunately – we have significantly

increased US combat forces in Afghanistan. (Two infantry brigades). NATO now has lead for the entire effort. (37 nations 

and 40,000 troops – 22,000 US)

3rd - The assumption by NATO of a lead role in supporting the Afghan government is a triumph. However, NATO is seriously 

under-resourced for the task at hand. The assumption of ISAF command by US General Dan McNeill will dramatically 

increase our command flexibility.

4th - Afghanistan is a Narco-state which produces more than 95% of the world’s opium poppy -- and is also the world’s largest 

heroin producing and trafficking country. $3 Billion in criminal money. 900,000 drug users.

5th - The creation of 40,000 troops for ANA Forces in 48 months is an enormous success story. They are the most disciplined, 

and effective military force in Afghanistan’s history. In general, these troops are very courageous, and aggressive in field 

operations. The Afghan Army is miserably under-resourced. Fortunately – new resources have been requested.

6th - The Afghan National Police are vital to establishing order in the urban and rural areas. (60,000 Afghan National Police ANP 

nominally exist). They are in a disastrous condition: badly equipped, corrupt, incompetent, poorly led and trained, and 

lacking adequate national police infrastructure. Fortunately – help is on the way in terms of US military (2500) and civilian 

mentors (1000), greatly increased equipment (12,000 vehicles), and huge new levels of funding. ($2 Billion)

7th - We must eradicate the opium crops each growing season -- and massively resource alternative economic development. 

Fortunately, the Administration has significantly increased their funding for this effort -- with State Dept. INL as the lead.

SEVEN OBSERVATIONS ON AFGHANISTAN

GEN (R) Barry R. McCaffrey

7 September 2007
15

WHAT IS IN OUR FUTURE?

1st – The US economy will continue to dominate the global marketplace.

2nd – US – Japanese economic, military, and political cooperation grows even more intense.

3rd – Saudi Arabia continues to modernize, maintains stability, dramatically improves capabilities of Armed Forces and internal 

security.

4th – Relations with Europe will dramatically improve with the next Administration.

5th – Relations with China, India, and Pakistan (unstable) are now immeasurably better than pre-9/11.

6th – US-Russia relations grow more tense but avoid military/political/economic confrontation.

7th – North Korea will come apart.

8th – Terrorists will strike at America.

9th – Crisis in Iraq -- uncertain outcome. (30,000 US killed and wounded -- $9 Billion per month).

10th – Showdown in Afghanistan – situation will improve this coming year with the massive new resources. ($10.6 Billion in 

economic and military aid).

11th – The death of Castro -- meltdown of repression – 500,000 refugees within 24 months.

12th – Confrontation with Chavez -- instability and oil.

13th – Iran goes nuclear – instability in the Persian Gulf. GEN (R) Barry R. McCaffrey

7 September 2007

Source: The Gallup Organization, Poll dated June 4, 2006

19%

30%

31%

33%

37%

38%

40%

49%

52%

58%

73%

20%

Congress

Newspapers

Television news

President

Public Schools

Medical Systems

Supreme Court

Banks

Religion

Police

US Military

0% 40% 60% 80%

US MILITARY TOPS CONFIDENCE POLL

GEN (R) Barry R. McCaffrey

Slide 5

Slide 6
17

Day 1—Keynote Speaker

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

General (Retired) Barry R. McCaffrey

Adjunct Professor of International Relations

United States Military Academy

Audience Member

As always happens in these discussions, not a word about Africa. Africa, the Horn, in terms of 

the possibility of terrorists attacks, as a source for oil, as a source for political instability. Do 

you have any comments about that, or, you know, as usual is it going to be sort of left in the 

wayside?

General McCaffrey

Well, I didn’t mention Greenland either. You know, I mean there’s a whole bunch of things you 

could ... by omission. I’ll be honest with you, and I don’t think I have the time to develop it. 

First of all, I know less about Africa, by far, than you do. I know a lot about Latin America. I 

didn’t do too much talking about that either. It’s of huge importance to us.

Let me put one provocative point on the table. I personally believe African command is a mistake. I do not believe we should be trying to put together ... you know the old rule of thumb, big 

joke is, for every star you get 200 staff officers. We’ll end up with 800 to 1,200 people. We’ll 

never get into Africa, and if we do it will be a mistake with that headquarters. The guy will end 

up captured in Lagos or something. It was a great idea to get SOUTHCOM headquarters out 

of Panama. Every other CINC for Latin America ended up as a police chief in Panama. I don’t 

think putting together African command was ... then you say, “Don’t worry about it. For God’s 

sake, we’re going to work HIV, we’re going to work poverty, we’re going to work ...” Really? 

With a military headquarters?

Why don’t we give the mission and build the institutions to the agencies of government that are 

supposed to be doing that work? It should be a State lead, US Aide lead. And by the way, one of 

the problems with Africa, I was a J-5 when we didn’t intervene in Rwanda, and a million people 

got murdered. We could have gone in there and solved that thing with modest US resources. We 

do the same thing in Darfur today. But there’s no political will to do it, because there are, in my 

view, no vital national interests at stake. Nor were there in the Balkans. We should have told 

the Europeans, “You go sort it out. We’ll provide the US Air Force as your airline of choice, 

you put the people on the ground.”

So I don’t want to see us involved in trying to sort out the hundred year struggle to end injustice, desperate poverty, illness in Africa. And if anybody takes the lead, it seems to me it 

ought to be the State Department. Why we’d have 900 guys bumbling around Stuttgart, writing 

papers about Africa is beyond me. Count me out on that one. We’ve got enough on our plate. 
18

Audience Member

Israel has nuclear weapons, and I’m concerned about their concern about Iran. Do you see any 

potential problems?

General McCaffrey

You never know. I think the Israelis are smart. They’re trying to survive. I think the chance 

of them conducting a unilateral strike on the Iranians are zero, I hope. They couldn’t possibly 

begin to do it. US Air Force and Naval Air, given six months campaign, could really wreck the 

country. The Israelis can’t. They’d have to go nuclear. So they’re not going to do that. Not at 

this stage of the thing.

Now the problem is, 15 years from now, if we haven’t figured out a way to deal with this 

problem, then we’ll have nuclear armed hostile states, many of which will legitimately see 

themselves at risk. Pakistanis versus Indians, Iranians versus the Sunni Arabs. Israelis versus 

the Arabs in general. Not a good outcome. I personally think the Israeli nuclear deterrence has 

probably helped to keep the peace. It’s been a good thing, not a bad thing. When the Saudis and 

the Egyptians jointly have a bomb 35 years from now, it won’t be a good thing.

Audience Member

Yes, sir. Rich DiNardo, Marine Corps Command and Staff College. You described NATO in 

Afghanistan as a “shaky reed”. Do you think that NATOs time as a military organization came 

and went with the Cold War, and needs to be replaced by something else?

General McCaffrey

You know, that’s a huge question, isn’t it? It deserves to be talked about. Honestly, I think the 

next Administration ought to open that dialog. I personally believe NATO has huge continuing 

value. It kept the peace to include among the NATO allies at 16. Arguably it’s been a major 

force for good, east, west, trying to mitigate the consequences of a 50 year Cold War. It now 

does have an out of area capability, and it has used it in defense of America post-9/11, never 

mind in Iraq. It’s got a kind of a mission in Iraq. It’s got a substantial presence, obviously, in 

Afghanistan.

I personally believe that America would be ill advised, along with the Canadians, to walk away 

from a continuing determined connection with the Europeans. Not just in the military realm, 

but political, and economic, and intelligence, etcetera. We’ve got to go back and fix that. We 

have really pissed off the Europeans. Some of it they deserved. But this shouldn’t be personal. 

We’ve got to hammer out our differences. These are two huge economic entities with similar 

political values, and they ought to have, at some extent, a comprehensive and complimentary 

joint defense, and NATO is the mechanism. So put me in that camp solidly, but it probably 

needs to be debated and revised. We’ve got to rediscover NATO. 

The Europeans have got to decide are they going to defend themselves, yes or no? Except 

for the Brits, almost nobody’s capable of conducting global operations with sophisticated air 
19

power. The Europeans have got to buy that. I mean it’s shameful we can’t get a dozen helicopters to Afghanistan. Completely ridiculous. I think there’s over 1,000 in the NATO forces. A 

lot of lack of political will. Tremendous fighters. I mean, God the Portuguese got some rifle 

company in there, it’s really a bunch of ass kickers. But if you’re the NATO Commander, I’d 

go in there, I’d say “We’ve got three terrorists. They tell us there’s a restaurant at such and such 

a street address in downtown Kabul.” He says, “I run through the force structure I got, who’s 

capable of conducting military operations, number one. Who politically has announced ROE 

that would allow me to use them, and then finally, who do I think has unarticulated ROE that 

will emerge and hamper my future operations if I ask them to do it?” He said, “You’ll end up 

with two, three, four nations that are willing to take on military actions.” And some of it’s just 

completely international politics. The French have got some of the best Special Ops people on 

the face of the Earth. So when they’re all on the coalition side, they have immense value. But 

if you put them under ROE for NATO, they ... much more constrained.

Audience Member

On your first slide, you talked about the global hostility, animosity, toward US foreign policy. 

And then directly said wrapped around hostility to Bush. Only on your last slide, the one about 

our future, did you mention in passing domestic policy. How do you see domestic animosity 

toward foreign policy, and particularly President Bush and Congressional animosity, as affecting our ability to effect all of those bullets that you listed on the “What is Our Future” slide 

between now and the next Inaugural in January ’09?

General McCaffrey

Boy, that’s a subject of another long debate. I think it’s very discouraging. The levels of domestic political opposition, the automatic counter-punching out of the Democrats to whatever the 

Administration says. And that’s not just Iraq policy. It’s on immigration, Social Security, you 

name it. There’s really very little attempt to solve ... a lot of these problems aren’t even that 

tough to solve.

I mean Social Security, if I take any five of you at random, you can come up with three options, 

the big one, the medium, the little one. It’s only three variables. I mean if you’re an Army helicopter pilot, for God’s sakes, you got to do ten, 15 things at the same time. And Social Security 

you can reduce the benefits, increase the payments, or delay the initiation of ... that’s the three 

options. Pick one and try and get some consensus before the thing overwhelms you. Immigration is not tough to think through, but there’s been a lack of will to hammer out consensus. 

There’s certainly, in the short run, no reason to believe it’s going to change. 

We’ve got some good candidates out there now for the next ... Mitt Romney, you know, is a 

first class human being. Senator Clinton is an absolutely competent, capable, public servant. 

We’ve got a lot of these guys out there that can probably do it, if the country decides we’re in 

trouble and spends eight years trying to achieve consensus around some of the big problems 

facing us. We need a more civil discourse. The rudest damn group of people I’ve ever seen in 

my life.

The Congressional hearings yesterday were pretty good, because they were afraid of screw-
20

ing with Petraeus, because you’re such a respected institution. But other than that, there’s a 

complete ... people don’t listen to other people’s viewpoints. A lot of it turns into ad hominem 

attacks. There’s a lot of wounded feelings out there, a lot of “get even” built up in the Democratic party. We’ll have to see if we can sort this out. Normally we do, by the way. We’ve been 

in worse periods of our country’s history than this before. Post Civil War and that kind of thing. 

One last question and I think I’d better get off stage. You’ve got other things to do.

Audience Member

You mentioned something about the idea that you didn’t think that we would have [inaudible] 

3% in a 2006 survey that we’re at the top, where are we going to get these young men and 

women? And do we outsource?

General McCaffrey

I’m not sure what outsource is. You mean do we hire mercenary forces?

Audience Member

I would say maybe ...

General McCaffrey

To some extent, we’re already outsourcing. We couldn’t [inaudible] without KBR, L3. I mean 

they’re feeding our soldiers. We outsourced a Russian Aeroflot equipped transportation. So 

that’s already ... first of all, there’s no guarantees in America. I would give it as a fixed opinion, 

there won’t be a draft, period, unless the country gets in a national emergency, where there are 

huge levels of bloodshed. This is 33,000 killed and wounded. This is a real war going on in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. If you’re a Staff Sergeant and a Marine Gunnery Sergeant, you’re actually in 

combat operations, but the country doesn’t feel in peril. The country isn’t at war. The CIA and 

the Armed Forces are at war.

And so I think what I don’t want to see happen, and I believe it’s possible, if we tried to maintain 22 or 24 brigades in combat through the end of the Administration, we will bust the US 

Army. So we’re going to bring up the National Guard again. We’ve got orders out to four of 

their brigades. It’s going to go to nine quickly. Second 18 month tour, involuntary. They didn’t 

sign up for that. And by the way, if you imperil the National Guard, you imperil America’s 

security. So we’ve got a problem. We’re not going to solve it through the draft.

And on that note, good luck for the rest of the conference.
21

Panel 1—International Perspectives

(Transcript of Presentation)

The French-Algeria War

Lieutenant Colonel Philippe François (FR Army)

French Center of Army Forces Employment Doctrine

Dr. Ricardo Herrera (Moderator)

Good morning. I’m Dr. Rick Herrera. I’m with the Combat Studies Institute. This morning 

we’ll be listening to two very interesting and pertinent presentations dealing with warfare in the 

age of non-state actors from an international perspective.

Our first panelist is Lieutenant Colonel Philippe François of the French Army. Lieutenant 

Colonel François has served as a platoon leader, company commander, and S-3 in France’s 

Marine Infantry. His assignments have included operations in the Balkans and in Africa. He’s 

now a Staff Officer at the French Army’s Center of Forces Employment Doctrine, where he 

oversees the lessons learned development board. This morning, Lieutenant Colonel François 

will address the French–Algerian War, as well as its legacy for the French Army.

Lieutenant Colonel Philippe François

Thank you very much. Just a few words. Try to figure out a war waged by US forces outside the continental USA igniting a series of events, two military coups, a drastic change of the 

US Constitution, assassination which narrowly succeeded against the President of the United 

States; one million refugees; US citizens going to the US; a covert terrorist type war waged by 

part of the Army against the French leg of the government; and then you will have what the 

French went through during the war in Algeria between inside the French Colonial Empire.

So some preliminary remarks. The topics ... the focus of this brief is to use history to give 

lessons. I am not a historian. The focus is to see from past operation what could be useful for us. 

The context was very unique. There were one million French citizens on the French territory. 

Algeria was the product of the French Administration. There was no such thing as an Algerian 

nation before the war. It was an operational success, even a brilliant one. I will try to prove that. 

But it was a strategical and political failure.

This briefing will be in two parts. The first will be a general overview, in the second I will 

try to describe the three lines of operation, which came to achieve the operational victory. The 

political one—the will to keep Algeria; the control of the population; and last but not least, the 

destruction of the enemy, which was the FLN/ALN.

The background first, in the general overview. Where is Algeria? It was very close to 

France, in fact, across the Mediterranean Sea. The capital was of paramount importance with 

nearly 10% of the population in Algeria. The Berbers, were the first settlers and true natives of 
22

the country many centuries ago. Then the Muslim Arabs invaded from the East.

The French allowed colonization in 1830 and by 1954 there were one million pieds-noir 

settlers. That represents 10% of the population. Jewish and foreign colonists were quickly 

given French citizenship, whereas the Berber Arab Muslims had to renounce part of their Islamic law to become citizens, hence they felt disenfranchised and disillusionized. This is a very 

important point to explain what fueled the insurgency against the French.

So the ratio was 8.4 million natives, and 1 million pieds-noir colonists. The liberation 

army, with the political and military branch, and insurgents was a revolutionary movement. 

The focus, the aim, was the independence and equality for all men living in Algeria. The focus 

was to attract international attention because it was at the beginning, we have to remember, a 

domestic problem.

Algeria was a part of the French Territory, so the first step was for the insurgents to attract 

international attention. The fuel was inequity and different religion, even if the war in Algeria 

was not, I don’t think so, it was not a religious war. But religion was part, of course, of the 

identity of the new nation.

FLN had full political control on the armed branch, which was the ALN, the Armee de Liberation Nationale, liberation arm. It was organized in compartmentalized cells, as some sort of 

terrorist organization. It followed the territorial organization throughout Algeria in eight guerillas. That was some sort of a greeting. The war territory was cut into eight with responsibles 

in each guerilla. The TTPs were first the political control of the population, revolutionary type 

movement, PsyOps with pamphlets, articles, newspaper, free radio, guerilla in rural areas and 

terror in towns. The ALN, which was the armed part of the organization, was equipped with 

light weapons. By 1957, around 40,000 troops were inside the borders of Algeria.

Briefly, the four stages of the war. Phase One saw the spreading and the growing ... and 

the growth of the FLN, with no reaction from France. Phase Two, from 1955 to ’58, saw more 

violent, to include French response against it. FLN rised to shatter the government status with 

intel cells and so and so. Phase Three, between ’58 and ’61, was the most important phase in the 

war. It saw the defeat of the ALN and the FLN, the beginning of the negotiations for Algerian 

independence. ALN was forced to wait outside Algerian borders, and operated from Morocco 

and Tunisia. FLN, the political head of the FLN, was exiled in Tunisia waiting for independence. Phase Four, the end of French Algeria. Algeria was granted independence.

We’ll go into ... I was very brief on the background because we have just 25 minutes, and 

the main focus is that. I’ve tried to rebuild the Algerian war from a strategical perspective, that 

is what would we do now? I have tried to identify three lines of operation, a political one, the 

political will to keep Algeria, that is the government gives an un-state to the military, and this 

un-state will be the same during the entire war. The second was the control of the population, 

because that’s the most important thing. And the third is the destruction of the FLN, that is of 

the enemy, his political organization as well as his military branch.

So to sum up, in the political will or to lose a military victory by lack of a clear and remaining political will. There were three different un-states during the war. First the two faceted 
23

society with two kinds of citizens, full citizens and off citizens, mostly under arrest. French 

citizenship was granted too late to the Muslim in 1958. It was decided to grant them citizenship, 

but it was rather too late for them because part of them had already rejoined the FLN.

And the last step, self-determination. That is, do what you want with your future, and independence was chosen. But there were catastrophic conditions towards independence, which 

explained very bad relationship between Algeria and France afterwards. And De Gaulle came 

to power with a new constitution, completely different from the other one.

The lessons learned in this sub-line of operation, we have to design an obtainable political 

un-state, giving hope to the population to meet the insurgent’s goal and stick to it. Part of the 

goal of the insurgents was to have equality. It was given, but too late. Declare quickly the state 

of emergency of a war, state of war, to adapt laws and restrain abusive use of democratic loopholes for the terrorists. Democracy, of course, is very useful for terrorist activity. When you 

restrain freedom, you can have a free hand in managing terrorists. So there’s balance between 

democratic laws to be enforced, of course, and the need to fight terrorism. It was met rather 

satisfactorily in the Algerian war.

Ensure unity of action and guarantee inter-agency cooperation. This was well done during 

this war. Promote public opinion support to the forces, domestic as well as international. It was 

not done. There was no domestic support for the war, due to the draftees being sent to fight the 

strength of the Communist Party in France at that time. It was nearly 20% of the electorate, so 

something very strong. International, the Soviets were against it, and the US didn’t support it, 

because they saw colonization as the best, and they were right in many cases.

Develop an international strategy denying access around Algeria so that to be sure that support is get from the outside. And don’t leave the military unchecked because you have the ... 

the politicians have to take their own responsibilities, and the easy way was to give the military 

all the powers in Algeria. This was done with the result we have seen.

Second sub-line of operation, the control of the population. In fact, that’s the most important. The center of gravity for both sides is the population. There was a very favorable 

strength ratio for [inaudible] in fact, compared with other wars, there were something like eight 

Muslims against one French citizen, and part of the Muslim population was in favor of being 

granted French citizenship. So we had very good condition to wage [inaudible] warfare.

Some lessons learned, we have to provide the population lasting security. We have to promote and empower indigenous elites as applicable, and not too late. In fact, it was done too 

late. Part of the elites had been slaughtered by the FLN, or had been ... had joined the FLN, so 

it was too late to give them power.

Provide administrative and social support to the population. Algeria suffered from high 

unemployment, bad economic conditions, and under administration by the French government. 

So we tried to fill the gap. It was done very quickly, and with success. We have to convince the 

population that the control will last, and insurgencies past. Once you have secured a village, 

you have to remain there. If you leave, the insurgent will come back, slaughter the guys who 

supported you. It was done.
24

Establish a census with ID cards as applicable. That’s the result of under administration. 

There was no census, no ID cards given to the Muslims. We had to fill the gap too, and it was 

very effective to know who is who, where is who, and what anybody is doing. A balance was 

to be stricken between the user force, which causes traumas, and the campaign for hearts and 

minds. It was not done so satisfactorily, in particular during the battles of Algeria. And of 

course, launch economic and social modernization programs to give hope, to give long-term 

perspective to the population, and to testify of the will to keep the country.

Last line of operation, the destruction of the FLN/ALN. I will go into further detail in that, 

but we will see that this line operation is tightly connected to the two other ones, of course. 

Just to focus on the French military organization at that time. There were, at the climax of the 

French participation, something like 400,000 troops in Algeria, for a population of ten million, 

so a very high ratio. Inter-agency cooperation was done for unity of command. It worked rather 

well between the police, secret services, the Army, and all the administration and so and so. It 

was well done.

The military organization was based on an administrative one. There were three main sectors, called [inaudible], corresponding to three Army corps. Fifteen departments, 15 divisions 

with seventy-two small regiments. A regiment is the equivalent of a battalion, in fact, with four 

or five companies. 90% mobile and light infantry. This was a war waged by the infantry. The 

non-infantry units were transferred into infantry ones. Indigenous troops at every level, from 

battalion level to the corps level, they were always indigenous troops to make reconnaissance 

duties and so and so, and to gather intelligence.

Reliance on Airborne Corps Reserve to provide operational mobility and fire support. We 

had two elite airborne divisions who had something like ten years of war behind them, war in 

France, war in Indochina, with the defeat of Dien Bien Phu, and so and so. So they had time to 

get lessons from that, and they didn’t want to lose again.

The principles, the cog is the population, the center of gravity. You have to hold areas once 

destruction is complete. You need to extend and keep control. That is paramount. If you leave, 

you will lose. Develop indigenous troops, familiar to the culture and the terrain for search 

operations. This is where there are key commandos, very effective, very powerful, and very 

deadly. Promote self-defense in villages as applicable, empowering the elites, empowering the 

inhabitants for their own protection.

Victory means destruction of armed insurgents, as well as the political structure. There 

were four types of air operations. In fact, we can cut that into four different areas of operation. 

The neighboring countries around Algeria, that is Tunisia at the east, Morocco at the west. The 

towns, the main towns, what we could call following [inaudible] wording, interval areas, that is 

the rural areas. The areas between the towns and the refuge areas, and to finish with the refuge 

areas, which were used by the ALN and FLN to hide, to get logistical support, to prepare the 

operations.

So I will go area by area to see, to try to show you how we did manage to crush the enemy 

in all those areas. Just a focus about the intelligence. The problem of [inaudible] is to find any 

hidden enemy among the population or in refuges. It’s based on population control through 
25

census. There is a large use of indigenous people and renegades to infiltrate cells and groups of 

soldiers everywhere, and [inaudible] in order to invade the organization cell by cell.

So we go in the four area of operations. The external support was cut. FLN lost control of 

the towns very quickly. Interval areas were secured, and refuge areas were searched and ALN/

FLN was destroyed. So first, the lessons learned in sealing off the insurgents, the support to the 

insurgents. A barrier was built, combining fences as a fish net, and mobile search and destroy 

units. This example has been followed afterwards. The General (McCaffrey) just told that 30 

minutes earlier. Seal off air and maritime routes so that to try to cut any shipment of arms. Use 

covert actions to neutralize outside support. And don’t use disastrous overt action against supporting foreign countries. There were two tries, the Suez Operation, made with the Brits and 

the Israelis, which was a brilliant military success, but a political catastrophe. And the second 

bombing was a little Tunisian village close to the border of Algeria. It was bombed, and there 

were many civilians killed. It was a drama of international scandal.

Second point, the battles to control towns. I will have a focus on the two battles of Algiers, 

very briefly. Terrorism was a means for FLN to seize control of urban population through very 

dramatic actions. It was no longer a simple law and order issue. Police couldn’t face this organization, so there was a need to wage a specific warfare made of police and armed action. It 

was a brand new type of warfare, which was experienced at that time.

There were two battles of Algiers, the first one was a military battle supported by police. 

The second one, following that, was a police action supported by the military. Just an example 

of the organization of the FLN/ALN in Algiers, you can see the compartmentalized structure 

with the cells. Each cell with three men, henchmen, collector, chief. The henchman and the collector know only the chief, so when you try to invade the organization, you have to break cell 

by cell, so that’s a very difficult work that was made.

The bombings in Algiers, you just had a look on the Casbah. Casbah was part of Algiers, 

a beautiful place, but a nightmare to conduct urban fighting. Tiny streets, very easy to go from 

one building to the other and so and so. So the first step was to break up the strike organized 

by the FLN. The Army took all the guys in their home and put them at work. Second step, putting [inaudible] population control method into place. You see organization, one responsible 

for a house, block, building, district, and so and so, with informers everywhere. Very effective, 

Soviet type control.

Three, waging surface warfare with checkpoints, patrols, cordon and siege operation, and 

covert warfare, based on intelligence, to destroy the networks. The key factors, the state of 

emergency to [inaudible], the right to search homes and to detain people, unity and freedom 

of action of all the services, population control from the census, effective intelligence, and the 

greeting by the elite Airborne Division. But it was a huge moral failure due to culture. In fact, 

we had to pay a high price for that.

The last sub-line of operation, all the units of the FLN were destroyed in the interval areas. With the system in place, there were some strategic hamlets where the population would 

be protected, promotion of self-defense, administrative support, and a very good cooperation 

between all services.
26

The last step, the refuge areas were secured. The FLN never exceeded battalion size, so that 

with two battalions, it was possible to destroy the units for airborne operations. Intelligence 

and support was given by territorial assets, and the typical missions would be territorial units to 

search and fix, followed by the reserve units coming from the corps. All infrastructure for the 

insurgents was destroyed to deny any further use as a refuge area.

So what? The war in Algeria was very useful for study, but it is still a very sore subject for 

France. Very sore. This is the first time, in fact, that a French officer has come to speak about 

the war in Algeria in the US, so you can see that it makes ... it took many, many years to speak 

about that. Thanks to you, because you have rediscovered the war in Algeria.

A clear political management and un-state is paramount. If not, the use of force is useless. 

The moral and technical problem of interrogation methods remains unresolved. Nobody has 

the answer about that, between efficiency and the respect of democratic rules. The Algerian war 

has left a mixed legacy in the French Army. The conflict is still painful. It is painful to military, 

a sense of betrayal, a long lack of trust between the Army and political power, and between the 

Army and the population.

We have just seen the polls that show support of the US Army among the population. 

France has the same support, but it took many, many years to go to there. It reinforced the 

dominant culture of colonial troops based on low-level autonomy of leaders being able to conduct actions alone and so and so. And this experience has been in use for Africa in the past four 

decades. There was a continuity in this experience.

Thank you very much for your attention.
27

LCL Philippe François Slide Addendum:

The French-Algeria War

Slide 1

Slide 2

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

Preliminary Preliminary remarks remarks

• Focus: use history to get lessons for COIN.

• The context of the war in Algeria was very

unique (1million FR & FR territory) 

• Algeria was the product of the FR 

administration: there was no Algerian nation 

before the war!

• An operational success, a strategical & 

political failure

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

Briefing

• 1.General overview

11. Background

12.The FLN/ALN insurgents

13.The four stages of the war

• 2.The lines of operation to achieve only an 

operational victory

21.The political will to keep Algeria

22.The control of the population

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN
28

Slide 4

Slide 3

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

FR ALGERIA IN ITS REGION

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

The Capitol, Algiers The Capitol, Algiers
29

Slide 6

Slide 5

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

Population Population

• Berbers were the first settlers & true natives

• Muslim Arabs invaded from the East 

• From 1830 Gov’t encouraged European “pieds

noirs” settlement – 1 million by 1954

• Jewish and foreign colonists given FR citizenship

• Berber/Arab Muslims had to renounce part of the 

Islamic law to become citizens ; they felt 

disenfranchised, disillusioned

8,4 M Natives / 1M “pieds noirs colonists”

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

13.The FLN/ALN insurgents 13.The FLN/ALN insurgents

• Type: a revolutionary movement

• Aim: independence and equality

• Focus: attract international attention

• Fuel: inequity and different religion

• FLN ensures polical control and drives ALN

• Organized in compartmentalized cells 

• Territorial organization (gridding) in 8 Wilayas

• TTPs: political control, psyops (Pamphlets, 

articles in newspapers, free radio), guerilla, and 

terror
30

Slide 8

Slide 7

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

ALN

• Equipped with light weapons. 

• By 1957 ALN is a disciplined fighting force of 

nearly 40,000. 

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

A four- phased war phased war

Phase I: (1954-55) the spreading and growth of the 

FLN

Phase II: (1955-58) more violent to include French 

response, FLN rises to “shadow government 

status” with intel cells over the country. Hit and 

run tactics, bombings

Phase III: (1958-61) Defeat of the ALN and FLN, 

negotiations started for Algerian independence.

ALN forced to wait in sanctuaries for negotiations, 

the FLN exiled to operate in Tunisia

Phase IV: (1961-62) Algeria is granted 

independence
31

Slide 10

Slide 9

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

21.The political will to keep Algeria 21.The political will to keep Algeria

• How to lose a military victory by lack of a 

clear & remaining political will...

• No fixed end state:

• From a two speed society (1848 – 1958)

• French citizenship granted too late to Muslims (1958)

• Self determination: a free choice for independence 

(1960)

• DE GAULLE came to power with a new 

constitution

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

21.The political will to keep Algeria 21.The political will to keep Algeria

Lessons Lessons learned learned in political political line of line of operations operations

• (-)Design an obtainable political end state giving

hope to the population to meet the insurgent goal and 

stick to it.

• (-)Declare quickly the state of emergency or war to 

adapt laws & restrain abusive use of « democratic

loopholes » for the terrorists

• (+)Ensure unity of action and guarantee interagency

cooperation

• (-)Promote public opinion (domestic and

international) support for the forces

• (-)Develop an international strategy supporting COIN

• Don’t leave the military unchecked!
32

Slide 12

Slide 11

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

22.The control of the population 22.The control of the population

• Very favorable strength ratio for COIN 

– For every 8 Muslims, there is one FR 

citizen determined to keep Algeria French 

and to fully cooperate with FR forces.

– Part of the muslim population was in favor

of getting FR citizenship.

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

22.The control of the population 22.The control of the population

Lessons Lessons learned learned in population control line of in population control line of 

operations operations

• (+)Provide lasting security

• (-)Promote and empower indigenous elites ASAP: too

late

• (+)Provide administrative and social support

• (+)Convince them that the control will last and

insurgency is past

• (+)Establish a census with ID cards ASAP

• (-)Balance between use of force and campaign for 

hearts and minds

• (+)Launch economic and social modernization

programs
33

Slide 14

Slide 13

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN

FR Military Military organization organization

• Interagency cooperation through unity of 

command

• Military organization based on administrative

one:

– 3 main sectors(Igamies)= 3 Army corps

– 15 departments= 15 divisions

– 72 arrondissements= 72 regiments

• 90% mobile and light infantry

• Indigenous troops at every level(Intel)

• Reliance on an airborne corps reserve to

provide operational mobility and fire support

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN

• Principles applied in COIN:

– COG is for both opponents the population, not 

the terrain . 

– Hold inhabited areas once destruction is complete

IOT extend & keep control

– Develop indigenous troops familiar to the culture & 

the terrain for search OPNs: «Harkis» commandos

– Promote self defense in villages ASAP

– Victory means destruction of armed insurgents as 

well as the political structure

– 4 types of AOs: neighboring countries, towns, 

interval areas, refuge areas
34

Slide 16

Slide 15

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN

Intelligence Intelligence was paramount paramount

• COIN: find any hidden enemy among the 

population or in refuges

• Hinged upon population control(census) 

• Large use of indigenous people and

renegades to infiltrate cells and groups of 

soldiers

• Thorough and relentless analysis IOT unveil

FLN/ALN organizations cell by cell

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN

Destruction (or neutralization) was achieved

through 4 subordinate lines of operations: 

• External support was cut

• FLN lost control of the towns

• Interval areas (between towns and refuge)

were secured

• Refuge areas were searched and FLN/ALN 

destroyed
35

Slide 18

Slide 17

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN

LL in sealing sealing off the off the insurgents insurgents

• (+)Build a barrier combining fences (as a 

fishnet) & mobile search & destroy units

• (+)Seal off air & maritime routes

• (+)Use covert actions to neutralize outside

support

• (-)Do not use disatrous overt actions against

supporting foreign countries (Suez, Sakhiet)

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN

FLN lost control of the control of the towns

• The battles to control towns

– Terrorism was a means for FLN to seize 

control of urban population

– No longer a simple law & order issue

– Need to wage a specific warfare made of

police & armed action

– 2 battles of Algiers
36

Slide 20

Slide 19

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

ALGIERS ALN ORGANIZATION

Deputy

Yacef

Saadi

Deputy

Section

Section

Deputy

Section

Section

Section

Section

Section

BOMB CELL

Section

Section Group

Group

Group

Cell

Cell

Cell

SPECIAL

SPECIAL

SPECIAL

SPECIAL

POLICE CELL

SPECIAL CELL

LOGISTICS

(Ali « La Pointe »)

CHIEF

COLLECTOR

HENCHMAN

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

Main phases of the Main phases of the battle

• 1.Breaking up the strike organized by 

FLN
37

Slide 22

Slide 21

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

Main phases of the Main phases of the battle

• 2.Putting Trinquier’s population control 

method into place

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

POPULATION CONTROL

• Colonel Trinquier method

• Set-up Urban protection (DPU)

house

district

building block

. Numbering of the houses

. Census of the Muslim 

population ( ID cards)

. Informers everywhere
38

Slide 24

Slide 23

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

Main phases of the Main phases of the battle

• 3.Waging: 

– surface warfare with:

• check points, 

• patrols supported by FLN renegades, 

• Cordon and search

– covert warfare based on intelligence in 

particular renegades to destroy enemy

networks

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

Key factors factors of success success in Algiers Algiers battle

• (+)State of emergency to empower Gal 

Massu:

– right to search homes and to detain people)

– unity and freedom of action of secret services, 

administration, police , Army

• (+)Population control through census

• (+)Effective intelligence based upon:

– Infiltration 

– Destruction of terrorist networks

– Interrogation techniques

• (+)Gridding by elite airborne division

• (-)Huge moral failure due to torture
39

Slide 26

Slide 25

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN

Interval Interval areas were secured secured

– Gridding system in place

– Strategic hamlets/ Evacuation of noncontrolled villages

– Relentless intelligence

– Promotion of self-defense

– Administrative & social support from SAS 

to CIMIC to alleviate suffering due to COIN

– Good cooperation between all services

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

23.The destruction of the FLN/ALN

Refuge areas Refuge areas were searched searched to destroy ALN to destroy ALN 

– FLN never exceeded battalion size; hence

a maximum of one brigade was needed to 

destroy them

– Intelligence & support through territorial 

gridding

– Typical COA:

• territorial units seach & fix

• Reserve units destroyed through swift airborne

operations

All infrastructure for insurgents was destroyed

to deny any further use as a refuge area
40

Slide 28

Slide 27

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

Conclusion: Conclusion: so what?

• Useful LL for COIN

• It is still a sore issue for France

• A clear political management & end state is

paramount: if not, the use of force is useless

• Moral & technical problem of interrogation 

methods remains unresolved.

• Algerian war has left a mixed legacy in the FR 

Army

CDEF / RESEARCH - LESSONS LEARNED

A mixed A mixed legacy in the FR in the FR Army

• The conflict is still painful due to 2 military

coups & a sense of betrayal

• It took decades to rebuild trust between the 

Army & politicians & public opinion

• It reinforced the dominant culture of colonial 

troops, based on low level autonomy.

• The experience has been in use throughout

Africa in the past four decades
41

Panel 1—International Perspectives

(Transcript of Presentation)

Political Consequences of Military Operations

in the Long War: The Israeli Experience, 2000-2006

Mr. Adam Harmon

Author; Military Consultant

Dr. Ricardo Herrera (Moderator)

Thank you. Our second panelist is Adam Harmon, an author and commentator who has 

served with the Israeli paratroopers and the Special Operations Reserve unit since 1990. In 

serving with the Israelis, Adam has conducted operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and 

missions in the West Bank and Gaza. Since 2003, Mr. Harmon has been a consultant for the 

US Marine Corps and the US Army. He is the author of Lonely Soldier: The Memoir of an 

American in the Israeli Army, which has received starred reviews from Publisher’s Weekly. Mr. 

Harmon will discuss the political consequences of the Israeli military operations in the Long 

War, 2000 to 2007.

Mr. Adam Harmon

First off, I’d like to say I’m happy to be here today, so thank you for inviting me to your 

conference. So here’s the agenda. We’ll be talking about the central political objectives of Israel between 2000 and 2007, key military operations and their political consequences, lessons 

learned from the Israeli perspective, implications for the US military, and what Israel should 

learn from the US experience in Iraq.

These are kind of the three primary objectives, finalize a peace deal with the Palestinian 

authority, gain local and international recognition for borders, and dramatically improve security for the Israeli civilian population. These here are the key military operations. In 2000, you 

have the withdrawal from Lebanon and maintaining limited operations in the West Bank and 

Gaza. We’ll get into that.

In 2000–2002, you have just the maintaining of that, those same operations in the West 

Bank and Gaza. Defensive Shield in 2002, continuation of that policy for the next three years. 

2005, a withdrawal from Gaza. In 2006, the medium scale operations in Gaza and Lebanon, 

which I just want to point out, they are obviously separate operations in Gaza and Lebanon. 

I’ve kind of put them together though, because the catalyst, as well as the Israeli response to 

both of those incidents between Hamas and Hezbollah, were pretty similar. So for the purpose 

of this presentation, I’ve combined them.

Okay, 2000. Unilateral withdrawal from desired political end state. Decrease the domestic 

international criticism of our continuing presence in Lebanon. That was the main driver. Also, 
42

there was a desire to get local and international recognition of the border in the north. Increase 

security for Israeli citizens, that was the hope. Weaken Hezbollah’s political rationale.

As many of you know, Hezbollah, they’re stated purpose is to move Israel away from occupying Lebanese territory. The idea was that if we move out, we kind of kick the leg under their 

political rationale for maintaining power there. Military operation, just withdrawal of Israeli 

forces from the security zone, maintained through sensors and controls to monitor that border 

and make sure there wasn’t any crossed borders.

End state. There was actually a surprise win there from the Israeli perspective. There was 

international recognition of the border. The UN certified that that withdrawal was complete. 

Unfortunately, probably not a surprise, Hezbollah took advantage of potential point of conflict 

at the Shebaa Farms, and declared that Israel had not completed its withdrawal, and used that 

as another rationale to continue its presence. The security of Israeli citizens actually didn’t diminish. Hezbollah was perceived as the victor, and deployed even further south in many cases, 

within meters of the border, and, as we know, used that opportunity, the Israeli withdrawal, 

to increase troop size, training methodologies, as well as, obviously, the systems at their disposal.

It’s also important to point out that many believe that the Israeli withdrawal in May may 

have influenced Arafat’s decision in Camp David a couple of months later to reject the Israeli 

position, and back in September, this same year, when you have the beginning of the al-Aqsa 

intifada.

2000, this really kind of goes back to 1993, which was the beginning of the Oslo Peace 

Process, where the Israeli military withdrew its forces from all of the Palestinian main population centers and empowered the PLO and fatah to actually maintain order and create a proto 

government. We’ll talk a little bit about that in a minute. And so, in terms of the political end 

state, let’s get this peace deal done. Let’s ensure that we have recognition of the borders. As 

you’ll see, this continues to come up as a key goal for Israel.

End of large scale organized Palestinian terror attacks against the Israelis. Military operations are fairly limited. We’ve withdrawn from those population centers. You have mainly 

some limited patrols, ambushes, check points. The mention of the sensor that is actually—for 

the Israel perspective—critical. Because we didn’t have access to the actual cities, but all the 

Palestinians were required to have an identity card. That identity card was part of a very large 

and continuously updated database system, so when you had Palestinians going from Nablus 

to Jenin, it’s possible ... or they knew they could be encountered to a check point where the 

soldiers, somebody who could be a private, could be a corporal, would have a master check list 

that would be able to ... we called it a bingo card ... that they would be able to look at just the 

numbers clearly, and immediately identify if that was a wanted individual.

2000–2002 is actually much of the same. We’re still looking for that comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians. We’re looking to control the amount of terrorism. Military operations are pretty much the same, fairly limited. At Camp David, subsequent negotiations at 

Taba, they failed to kind of achieve results. You have the al-Aqsa intifada begins, and there’s a 

dramatic spike in terror attacks.
43

Just keep in mind that, since Oslo in ’93, you already have a very large increase in the 

number of terror attacks that are occurring within the Israeli territory, but after ... when al-Aqsa 

begins in 2000, it even spikes further. So Israel’s having, actually, the worst spate of terror attacks that it has ever experienced in its entire history. The Israeli public, at this point, in this 

period here, becomes substantially less willing to continue this Oslo peace process.

2002, there is a change of strategy. There is a sense that these negotiations, this peace process, is not bearing the fruit that we’re looking for, so really the key here is to delegitimize the 

Palestinian authority and its leadership on the political end, and really to just limit the amount 

of international and local criticism that Israel gets in order to conduct the operation. The operation is to reestablish complete military control over all Palestinian population centers.

This is a large-scale joint military intelligence operation, it’s a lot of Israeli troops since the 

1982 war. 30,000 reservists, all put in the field. We continue, at the same time, pinpoint attacks 

against terrorists in Gaza, and maintain that border, but the focus of all operations are primarily 

in the West Bank. There was also a covert and overt operation to keep Hezbollah from opening 

an additional front along the northern border.

As you may know, there was a lot of shelling, and there was a large possibility that, when 

Operation Defensive Shield was launched, that was going to expand. The end state achieved, 

Israel did establish its military control; there is a dramatic reduction, an immediate reduction, in 

terror attacks in Israel, and surprisingly—despite a lot of the media frenzy at this time—there’s 

negligible pressure on Israel to pull back forces. That is actually kind of a first for Israel.

2002–2005, it’s really a continuation of Operation Defensive Shield, although the operation itself has ended. Again, it’s really all about delegitimizing the Palestinian Authority, and 

extending that delegitimization beyond the international realm, now focusing also on the local 

population. Again, limit international criticism of the operation so that they can keep doing, and 

cripple the terrorist’s ability to strike.

In 2003, the Shinbet released a report that in the year intervening between the launching of 

the operation there had been a 90% reduction in the successful amount of terror attacks within 

Israel. That number actually goes up year over year.

Military operations, monitor and mitigate terror activity in the ways that you all know. Kill 

and capture. And one of the interesting things that we start doing, which is different than the 

Oslo period, is to try to create a correlation between terror attacks on Israelis and consequences 

for the Palestinian population. Again, pinpoint activities in Gaza.

End state achieved. Continue to maintain that control over the West Bank, dramatic reduction in terror attacks. There is negligible pressure on Israel to either pull out or reduce the 

breadth of its campaign. On the other side, radical Islamic groups, who obviously existed, 

are really strengthening. So you have Hamas, Islamic Jihad, who are starting to gain in real 

strength.

2005, as a movement forward 1993 and 2002, you have what we call the peace process. In 

2002 you have an “All right, let’s get back to status quo.” Israel is now in control of this terri-
44

tory. And now in 2005, you have the beginning of a new concept, which is basically unilateral 

implementation of the Israeli vision of the two state solution. Again, the hope to enable this 

operation to decrease international criticism by removing this idea of Israel as an occupier, at 

least in Gaza. Kind of take a little bit less focus on that, and gain local ... there was a sense at 

the time, with Gaza, that in a perfect world it would reduce the amount of terrorism, but I think 

that most people really saw it in terms of the political goal, and not the military. There was the 

hope that the situation there just simply wouldn’t change.

Military operations, continue to monitor the fence and the coastline. Arrest and kill wanted 

individuals. There were, as you know, pinpoint operations against the known terrorists. Maintain tight control of the West Bank. We did see what we were looking for, which is decreased 

international criticism. On the other side, there’s dramatic increase in the number of attempts to 

breach the fence, and the showering of Qassam rockets against Israeli towns. Nearly six months 

later, Hamas wins the Palestinian parliamentary elections.

2006, you know, obviously, it’s hard to capture everything that occurred in a single slide, 

and within 25 minutes, so I’ve tried to reduce it a little bit. So obviously the goal here is to restrict the growing political strength and military strength of both Hamas and Hezbollah. Again, 

in moving back to what we were talking about earlier with the West Bank, it’s this idea of make 

the Palestinian and Lebanese populations blame or understand that Hamas and Hezbollah are 

responsible. That’s one of the reasons why you saw the Israeli Air Force bombing infrastructure 

in Lebanon, as well as power plants in Gaza. There was an attack on Israel, Palestinian people, 

Lebanese people, to enable them to understand that hosting these non-state actors and supporting them is going to come at a price. To mute international criticism so that Israel can do what 

it wants to from a military perspective, and to strengthen Israeli deterrence, vis–a–vis Hamas, 

Hezbollah, and other nation states.

As I said here, the new strategy is to hold the central governments responsible for terror 

activity, terror organizations that are working within their countries, and a limited ground invasion to clear border of terrorist placements, terrorist cells, obviously, and their systems.

The end state. At the outset, something really interesting happened from an Israeli perspective. You had countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, even Lebanon, coming out and kind of 

understanding that Israel kind of had to do what it had to do. Of course, as time went on, and 

the operation continued for a little over a month, those supporting statements, that understanding, the calling of it in that venture certainly diminished. That is, from the Israeli perspective, 

a movement forward.

You also do have the Lebanese military deploying along the Israeli border. It does take 

a little bit more active stance against its militia recently, the Fatah al-Islam. The Palestinian 

Authority present, Abbas stands firm in opposition to Hamas. You know, there was certainly a 

consideration that he would then embrace, as a part of the operation in Gaza, he would embrace 

this opportunity to create a unity government with Hamas, but he chose not to do that, and 

stood fast with his connections with the western world.

On the downside, you also have the questions over legal ownership of the Shebaa Farms, 

which had been an achievement in 2000, now goes away. The UN, which had initially certi-
45

fied Israel, is now reopening that discussion and, even though it’s a very short sentence there, 

the impact on deterrence is debatable. There are probably strong opinions on both sides of the 

argument. It’s a little bit beyond the scope of this presentation, but certainly be willing to talk 

about that off line.

2007, the political consequences of the 2006 confrontations. The Palestinian Authority, 

you have ... Abbas loses control of Gaza. That’s a quarter of the entire Palestinian population. 

Abbas is at this point, I believe, now where he needs to choose between civil war, something 

that he has, in true intervention against Hamas, is something that he has not been willing to do, 

to date. He has to choose, I believe, between civil war or accept a more Islamic state and fewer 

powers for fatah.

On the Israel side, Israeli leaders are very strongly, as I’m sure you all know, preparing the 

public for additional conflict, and the military spending is on a rise. Israeli population is unwilling to support further unilateral moves. So 2005, this attempt to withdraw from Gaza, and there 

was, at the time, discussion that the West Bank was next. That conversation, at least politically, 

now is over as a result of 2006. Government decision making is limited by a population that’s 

no longer really ready for that.

Lebanon, you have some interesting things going on here. Not to exaggerate them, but the 

central government defeats a small militia, Fatah Al-Islam. This really is kind of a first for the 

central government, and maybe this is a signal to Hezbollah. Maybe they’re testing the waters. 

I think, obviously, time will tell, but it’s interesting.

The Lebanese government, as I said, they deployed south, but they really haven’t taken 

any authority. The south is still, for the most part, controlled by Hezbollah. Hezbollah political 

position, although initially did improve slightly, hasn’t in the long run. Its capabilities and also 

its manpower has increased dramatically over the last year. Syria and Iran, who obviously are 

partners, or interested parties to this conflict, they’ve strengthened their public resolve against 

the US and Israel, and increased their coordination to a great extent.

One of the things that I wanted to bring up here is just that with ... everyone’s got their own 

opinion. You can look at the same event and you can see it very differently. So I just wanted to 

quickly point out that 2007, you’ve got people looking at things from different perspectives. 

From the Israeli point of view, they look at the Palestinian Authority, and they have this hope 

that there’s going to be increased flexibility because they’re under such pressure from Hamas. 

And then from Hezbollah, Syria, there’s a strong belief, a widespread belief, that the next 

round is coming, and it’s coming soon. From the Palestinian side, they look and say, “Wow, 

the Israeli’s, they can’t defeat Hamas or Hezbollah.” And so they see themselves in actually a 

strong political position because they see the Israelis have no other viable partner.

At the same time, though, there’s a real, real grasp of the fact that this idea that was primary 

for fatah from the past, of a secular, democratic Palestine, is really [inaudible] right now. From 

Lebanon, I think there is an understanding that radical groups like Hezbollah and Fatah Al-Islam are endangering their country, and maybe not quite the will or the capability to do anything 

about it, but at least there’s an understanding there, and that’s a change.
46

Just some thoughts over the next six months. I would expect the Palestinian Authority is 

going to harden its political stance, and anti-Israel rhetoric. We’re starting to see a little bit of 

that now. Don’t really have a lot of strong expectations for the November conference. Hamas 

fighting with the Palestinian Authority is going to intensify. Hamas is going to step up attacks. 

They’ve already started to do that against Israel to ensure that everybody in the area is aware 

of their importance.

Israel is, as you can see even today, is focusing on Hamas, Islamic Jihad, in the West Bank 

as opposed to Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades and the others. Gaza ops will probably stay more or less 

as we see them today, unless there is a major event, which, as you know, can change everything. 

The Lebanese government probably isn’t going to take on Hezbollah any time soon. Hezbollah 

is continuing to prepare for the next round.

In 2000, what you see here is kind of a short timeline. You have ... limiting military operations leads to dramatic increase in the number of attacks. Obviously, that’s not surprising to 

anybody here. And then between 2002, after Operation Defensive Shield, you have real success 

on the military front, but it doesn’t really enable any political progress. If anything, it actually 

prevents it from occurring.

2005, unilateral actions don’t improve the prospects for peace. 2006, something that is 

interesting is that momentary intensification of the conflict over a short period of time can 

sometimes awaken people to jump start political progress. So 2007, we’ve got this international 

conference on the rise. It’s in the media, everybody in Israel, and Palestine, and in the Arab 

world, there’s a lot of talk about it, and what we’re seeing simultaneous to that is a dramatic 

increase in the frequency of attacks.

Some lessons learned here, this is just kind of a little circle here. When you talk about the 

peace process, basically you kind of have this tunnel here. You’ve got “All right, we’re going 

to be talking now.” You’ve got a peace process. What Israel tends to do is then, as part of confidence building measures, it pulls back its military slightly, which then enables the terrorists to 

actually create additional conflict.

Then you have a long period of time, which because of this conflict, it actually constricts 

the ability of both the Palestinians and the Israelis to make compromises, which then enable 

dramatic attacks, which then lead the IDF, when it gets to a point where it can’t move forward 

... when the Israeli public can’t stand the conflict anymore, IDF comes in, cleans house, reduces the level of terrorist activity, creates a center of calm, that then, potentially, enables us to 

get back to the peace.

So lessons learned from an Israeli perspective. Throughout negotiations with the Palestinians, it’s very important that the Israeli military is able to conduct its operations and maintain 

its ability to get at the terrorists. Withdrawing military without political agreement ended up 

really just empowering the terrorists.

Information operations are as important as ground operations, and that’s something that 

Israel needs to really move on. Terrorist infrastructures can be destroyed, but it does require the 

massive deployment of troops, and that need for the “Strategic Privates”, who think critically 
47

and understand how their actions impact the strategy is critical there. At every checkpoint, at 

every arrest that’s made, a mistake that’s made by a private, by a corporal, by whomever, can 

have much wider and cascading effects. Making sure that the soldiers are aware of it and are 

trained to deal with it is vital to Israeli interests. Must keep vigilant and be prepared for enemy 

successes. I believe there’s a greater understanding or belief now that conflict between Israel 

and multiple Arab nations is at the highest levels in probably the last 20 years.

Implications for the US military. Reduction of violence depends on the perception of the 

military, ever presence. That’s one of the things that the Israeli military does is that there is a 

strategy and a series of tactics that make it so that Palestinians are, whether they’re in their 

towns, whether they’re driving, there is a sense that they probably will encounter Israeli soldiers at any stage. That actually helps reduce levels of terror activity, because it makes them 

more concerned about exposure. Must establish and maintain security for the civilian population.

Holding a host responsible for non-state actors makes preventative action against the nation 

... you don’t need to win hearts and minds to dramatically reduce attacks. Obviously that’s, in 

the short run, reducing the military operations as a quid pro quo during political negotiations 

leads to more violence. The strategic, as I mentioned, don’t let the need to focus on today’s 

urban fight keep you from preparing for tomorrow’s war.

Just a side note that I only kind of thought about when I was putting this together is that 

by establishing the Palestinian Authority, Israel actually took a non-state actor, the PLO, and 

empowered them, and made them into ... or tried to make them into a state. And that kind of 

made me think, obviously, a little bit about Iraq. You’ve got a Palestinian population which is 

relatively homogenous, educated, secular, and economically stable. You have a strong primary 

self-identification as Palestinian, and that’s over ethnic, religious, and other kin groups, but it’s 

still been very difficult for the Palestinians to achieve critical nation building milestones. So it 

makes me think that that might be harder for Iraq.

Here we are, we empower the leading non-state actor to form a government, but it didn’t 

get rid of the non-state actor problem. Even out of the PLO grew the al-Aqsa Brigade, Tanzim, 

Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and all these other groups still remain, and became even more powerful 

over time. So that’s just something to think about.

What Israel should learn from the American experience in Iraq. Assume knowledge transfer, integrate US lessons learned into idea of planning. More fully integrate information operations into strategy and planning. That is, I think, a real weak spot for Israel. And to understand 

that the core conflicts of the Middle East, Sunni, Shia, secular, Islamic, Arabic, Persian, that 

those things are intensifying. The Israelis do tend to think much more locally. They think about 

the Palestinians as a group, and so I think we need, in Israel, to be thinking a little bit more 

about the complexity of the issues that we face.

Here’s just something else that I’ve been thinking about that America has done really well 

is creating collaboration with central government against militias as a force multiplier and information operation. Of course, this is a little bit ... the ability to get something like this going 

is probably not real world, but just something to think about. Israel needs, I think, to move be-
48

hind the inevitable confrontation and the adversarial process of the peace process and establish 

an Israeli-Palestinian alliance against radical groups based on shared interests.

In terms of the way that would unfold, Israeli soldiers training Palestinian military, conducting joint operations. Economic development, not so much done by the NGOs, and by 

European partners, but jointly administered by the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Then some 

of the end results would be an ending of public incitement against Israel by the Palestinian Authority, and obviously the information operation value of Israeli-Palestinians jointly conducting 

raids on Al-Jazeera is something that would be really interesting.

So that’s the end of my presentation. Thank you very much.
49

Panel 1—International Perspectives

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

Lieutenant Colonel Philippe François

Mr. Adam Harmon

Moderated by Dr. Ricardo Herrera

Dr. Herrera

Lieutenant Colonel (LCL) François, Mr. Harmon, thank you both for your fine presentations. 

Both of our panelists have examined the challenges facing western societies and their armies, 

in responding to insurgencies, these insurgencies reacting against occupying or, indeed, imperial powers. Insurgencies that, to resurrect a much older term, might be termed wars of national 

liberation. Both Lieutenant Colonel François and Mr. Harmon have noted the differences in 

adapting to these challenges, their affects, as well as what, based on their examinations of the 

past, face France, Israel, the United States, indeed, more broadly, other western nations.

They’ve also noted the long lasting effects, and have done some prognosticating for the future 

as to what these operations might have for national interests, but also on the nation’s psyche or 

the psyche of an Army. Rather than my going on, what I’d like to do then, is to open this up to 

questions from the audience, and responses from our panelists.

Audience Member

Colonel Story from the Center of Military History. The question I’d ... first off, I’d like to thank 

you both for excellent presentations, and want to open up an area of questioning on information 

operations. Although Lieutenant Colonel François did not address it specifically, I know it’s a 

critical political aspect of the war in Algeria. The question I have on information operation is 

how do you address the need for political agility in the campaign? There’s so many aspects that 

could be explored, but just one specific avenue, the difficulty of having multiple audiences. If 

information operations is an attempt to write the history of the conflict as it’s going on, so everyone buys into your perspective, how do you deal ... how do you put together an information 

campaign which encompasses both what you’re trying to tell your own troops, as well as your 

domestic audience, the international audience, the subject population, and the enemy that you 

are dealing with?

Mr. Harmon

[Inaudible] ... between the military intelligence operations, very highly integrated. And one of 

the gaps, I think, that Israel has, is that there is not that same level of coordination between the 

military intelligence side, the operation, the activity, and then the foreign ministry, the political 

officials, and the message that they’re getting out. An example in 2006, where there was that 

disconnect is that if you look at the strategy and the goals from the military point of view in the 

operations of 2006, they were actually completely disconnected from the pronouncements of 
50

the political leaders of Israel. The political leaders were talking about we’re going to eliminate 

Hezbollah. The military operations, that wasn’t even the goal. So one is to increase coordination between those stakeholders.

I think in terms of methods, I think that, at least certainly in the Israel case, we can learn from 

mass communications. On my day job, actually, I do a lot of work in marketing. So if you have 

a very strong core message, Israel wants peace, or whatever it is, and then the way that you 

craft those underlying messages, that communication platform underneath that, then that core 

message is the same for everybody. You can, very easily, craft messages underneath that that 

are then focused for your different audiences. But it requires a level of coordination, at least in 

Israel, that does not exist today.

LCL François

Just one story about the Algeria War. In fact, in those years, there was nothing such as information operations, of course, but we did that ... the big difficulty, and I didn’t speak about 

that because it was part of the first line of operation, which is trying to keep the political will 

and support. I spoke about the public opinion, domestic as well as international, and you are 

absolutely right, that is very difficult to strike different answers. But our opponents ... the opponents to the war did that very well. You have seen the general messages resembling to Hitler, 

in fact, things like that. They did that very well.

So when you don’t have a very clear project to give the population, that’s very difficult to build 

information campaign, except saying, “We will win the war.” And we lacked the support, 

the public vision ... the political vision behind the campaign of information. That’s why I’ve 

stressed on the political will, because from the political will, the rest will be very easy.

Audience Member

Richard Norwood, Marine Corps Command Staff College. You mentioned the Israeli Army 

having developed “Strategic Privates”. To what degree, coming out of the 2006 operations, is 

the Israeli Army rethinking its posture in terms of the number of reservists it calls up for these 

operations? Give them a rifle, some training, and then send them off? Is that really going to cut 

it any more? Do they have to really rethink their force posture?

Mr. Harmon

Actually, I don’t believe that’s the case. You have to keep in mind that the Israeli standing army 

is actually a small part of the Israeli military. You’re talking like 100,000, 125,000 guys, where 

the military, the reserve force, is another 500,000. So the Israel military actually is completely 

reliant on the reserve and really sees that as being no real difference, actually, in terms of the 

quality of the soldiers. That’s what it should be.

So regarding the reserve forces itself, I don’t expect there to be any change in Israeli policy 

except for, in terms of 2006, did we call up enough? They called up about 5,000 reservists, 

and didn’t even deploy half of that in field. In terms of the “Strategic Sergeants,” Strategic 

Privates,” that’s the Israeli way of training its soldiers, that’s kind of a core value, this idea of 
51

creating soldiers who are critical of plans, and provides suggestions up through the chain of 

command, and having openness through the chain of command to enable that to occur.

Audience Member

Jeff Clark, Army History Office. Back in the 1960s, I had several friends in the French Army 

who had fought in Indochina and Algiers, and when I went to Vietnam they all wrote me letters, 

and said, “Jeff, now you understand the difficulties of fighting an insurgency.” And I would describe our operations and everything. But you know, I didn’t understand, because it seemed to 

me that, unlike Israel, and unlike the French in Algeria, we weren’t fighting for a territory. We 

weren’t going to occupy ... we weren’t going to stay there for any length of time. No American 

wanted to settle in Iraq, or in Vietnam. So we ought to have had an advantage over you. We 

didn’t have that political problem. So from your standpoints, today at least, from the standpoint 

of the French, what are the Americans doing wrong in Iraq?

LCL François

Okay, I like the fighting so I will answer first. It’s a very tricky question. In fact, as I have just 

mentioned, that’s ... of course you don’t want to invade Iraq to remain there for generations. 

You don’t need to hold a territory. But the difficulties that—Israel, I think has the same problem—in Algeria we had one million French citizens living there, part of the Muslim population 

supporting us there. Many of them escaped and went to France, the others were slaughtered. So 

we had a very good advantage from the beginning.

The terrain knowledge, cultural awareness, that’s a huge advantage compared with the US, 

who are sent into Iraq; completely different civilization. Iraq is a very old nation compared to 

Algeria, which was not a nation at all. Many thousands of years a nation. There is a big difference between those years, in the 1960s, and nowadays as the religious impetus for action has 

really increased during those years in the 1960s. [inaudible] was the main ideology. It was not 

so much fueled by religion. Religion was just the criteria for identity. Nowadays it’s absolutely 

not the same. Religion is far more important to promote action.

So I think that the conditions the US troops were put into in Iraq are far more difficult than the 

conditions we had to fight in Algeria, and the ratio, when you see the ratio of troops, 400,000 

French troops against a population of ten million, with one million supporting against the dozens of millions of Iraqis with a limited US Armed Forces over there, that’s not the same ratio. 

Not the same length, completely different civilization. So you committed yourself into a very 

difficult war compared with the war we waged in Algeria, I think.

The second problem is that at the beginning, the big problem of the war was to win against 

the Iraqi Army. It was done very easily with a brilliant military campaign. Afterwards it was 

understood that the Iraqi nation would be very happy to have Saddam Hussein away, but it was 

not the case. There was no preparation for that, as I understood.

It’s very difficult to shift from the high technology Army, very efficient, high intensity action, 

towards going in when you have to discover or rediscover all the lessons of [inaudible], because 

we have drawn many lessons from Vietnam wars, too. But that’s very difficult to shift from day 
52

to day to another type of warfare, because you have to train the people, to train cultural awareness, to train to change the weapons, to change the way you are organizing, and so and so.

That’s impossible to do that in a matter of months, in a matter of years maybe it will succeed. I 

hope it will with General Petraeus and the whole revolution taking place now days, but it takes 

time. That would be my answer.

Audience Member

Michael Noone from Catholic University in Washington, DC. A question for both speakers. For 

Colonel François, I remember that Colonel Trinquier, in his book, talking about the interrogation of suspects applied, I thought, Cartesian logic. He said, “We’re treating these people the 

same way we were treated by the Gestapo during World War II.” They were interfering with 

the occupation forces in illegal ways, the resistance, and they were tortured when they were 

caught, to gain information. That, I think, was, at least at that point, Trinquier’s explanation 

for what happened. I wonder what lessons learned from that you’ve learned in Chad, and other 

interventions, since then. You say that this question is still open. I’d like for you to respond to 

that. And for my Israeli counterpart, of course you run through the same problem. Your Israeli 

Supreme Court tried to set rules for interrogation about a year ago. And what lessons has your 

Army learned from that experience?

LCL François

Okay, that’s a very important question. In fact, that was a big trauma for the French Army and 

for the French citizens, as a war, of course. Not all the military practiced torture, of course. I 

don’t have a final answer to that, but what I can say is that interrogation is a matter of specialists, first. Because you have to ... if you want to have a good interrogation, you have to ask the 

good questions. In a set of three men, if you ask a guy who just knows who is the chief of the 

section, he won’t know that. So that’s useless to use violence.

So you have to give the business to specialists who know the business, who will ask the good 

question, not the useless ones. That’s the first point. So that you will limit the level of violence 

committed against civilians and innocents. Second, you have to limit ... you have to use, maybe, police methods. The police does that very well. And trying to restrict as much as possible, 

of course, the use of violence and psychological oppression. The second way to reduce that.

And the third way, and I have no answer about that, when you have suspects, maybe covert 

action is the solution to get the answer. I won’t say that it’s impossible to use torture. It can, 

with techniques, have a very modern method of interrogation. I say we can reduce lots of the 

violence made during the interrogation because it is morally disastrous, and very [inaudible] 

when you use violence on many suspects.

But part of the interrogation might be made in Secret Services and many things like that. I think 

that’s the solution, and I won’t say nothing more, because there is always a dark side in that 

kind of war, and we have to accept that. If we don’t accept the dark side of that type of war, we 

will never win that type of war. That’s my answer.
53

Mr. Harmon

You know, to continue what you were saying, in Israel, there really is kind of an acceptance 

that torture, in a specific, certain set of circumstances, is not only necessary and expedient, but 

useful. And actually gets the results that we’re looking for, and it saves lives.

It’s really just whether the information operations that the government has done over time, or 

the fact that so much of the population themselves have served in the military, there is a widespread belief that the use of torture against what we call the ticking time bombs, the organizer 

who knows where the suicide bomber is. There’s a widespread understanding and acceptance 

of that.

So you’re right, there is, obviously, an ongoing discussion. The Supreme Court just had a ruling, and there is a continuing debate on when do you go from a general interrogation, question 

period by individuals, to using more extreme measures? So that, since Israel is a very open 

society, that is a question that is continually asked. But there isn’t a lot of pressure that’s being 

placed, or has really ever been placed on either the Shimbet or the military to hold back on 

those types of activities.

LCL François

Just a thing, at present, Israel is waging a war at present. France is not waging a big war with 

big stakes. So the moral problem of interrogation has not been encountered in the last several 

years. So nowadays that’s very easy for a military leader to say of torture, “We will never accept that.” Of course, nobody will accept torture. The problem is what you do to interrogate 

suspects and to get the information as soon as possible. Of course you have to refuse torture. 

Of course. Nobody will accept that, because we are a democracy.

But you have to strike balance between the need to get intelligence, and the need to respect 

democratic rules. That’s very difficult in some cases. In the battle of Algiers, it was very difficult, and it still will be maybe in other battles.

Audience Member

Hello. My question is for LCL François. I’m LTC Kevin Farrell, from West Point. My question 

concerns the French Army and the divisions within it that were a legacy of really the Vichy regime, and the hostility to De Gaulle. How much of a factor was that? You had the old Indochina 

hands, those that had served throughout Indochina during the Second World War, weren’t fans 

of De Gaulle, and the tension that that ... how much of that, if you could go into that a little bit, 

if you know what I’m talking about. How much did that affect the conduct of operations?

LCL François

In fact, the legacy of Indochina War for the Algeria War?
54

Audience Member

Not just the Indochina War, but the fact that during the Second World War, many colonials 

serving in Indochina, stayed true to their oath, continued to serve under Vichy, and then the 

difficulties after the Second World War.

LCL François

Yes, you stress a very good point. In fact, the explanation to the coups which took place in 

France whereas the French military has no tradition for coups, that’s very seldom in our history. 

The explanation is the following. In fact, we had first, a big humiliation. The French Army was 

the most powerful in the world in 1940. It crumbled in three weeks against the Nazis.

During the war, some French officers rallied to the Free French with De Gaulle and so and 

so. They waged, at the same time, covert warfare against the Nazis with the resistance, and an 

overt warfare with the allied forces. So there was a new generation of leaders who had already 

known to choose between the [inaudible] they made of France, and the political fidelity to 

the power. De Gaulle had chosen to betray ... not to betray, but to ... not to follow the Vichy 

government. So there was ... that’s very important to explain the following. In Indochina, the 

French officers, they were just conducting a professional war very far away, just following the 

Second World War. Their mission was to save French Indochina, and in fact, they failed. They 

failed because of themselves, and because of the political power. Because they lacked some 

support for the forces committed over there, there were some big pressure from the Prime Minister in France, and they failed due to themselves because the fact that they couldn’t cut off the 

support from China.

The fact that instead of trying to control the population, they regrouped. They tried to control 

the terrain, it was the main lesson from the Indochina War. When they were forced to leave 

because they had been defeated, and the political will was to get Indochina, the north, get them 

free, they went into Algeria. Then they didn’t want to get that again. They had been, for them, 

betrayed once. They had to betray the population which had given oath to the French Army, and 

they said that in Algeria it wouldn’t be the case.

So from the Second World War, there was a dissention made between the interests of France, 

as the officers could see that, and the orders given by the government. I think that explains the 

fact that, in some cases, the idea that I draw of my country is more important than the orders I 

receive from my government. This is, of course, very dangerous, in a democracy.

In the French officers culture, in fact, the idea of the lost soldier is very paramount. Or the 

model of the officer is the guy in Indochina, with his platoon behind him, waging a war in Indochina that’s been forgotten by everybody. That’s a very powerful image for us.

Audience Member

Richard Stewart, Center of Military History. A question for Mr. Harmon. I was a little puzzled, 

and perhaps you could explain it a little further, on your remark that a conflict between Israel 

and multiple Arab states was more likely because of the events of 2000, 2006, rather than less 
55

likely. You had indicated that at least with some of the Arab nations, there was understanding, if 

not actual support, of an Israeli military action against Hezbollah, and even that understanding 

seems to me it would make the conditions better to prevent an Arab coalition from ganging up 

on you again. Where would this possible multiple threat come from? I can only think of Syria 

as a continuing source of problems, but a bit more, if you would, sir.

Mr. Harmon

Sure. That’s where I also had that ... whether Israel’s deterrence has been improved or has been 

hurt by the operation. You know, it’s debatable. On the one hand, you could say that ... you 

could argue, well, Israel’s bombing of the infrastructure could have opened the eyes to even a 

country like Syria and say, “Wow, if you attack Israel, Israel really can do an immense amount 

of damage to your country.” That could serve as a level of deterrence, even though that many 

would suggest, and would be correct to say that Israel’s ability to actually, in its confrontation 

with Hezbollah, were far less successful than they wanted.

So in that level there is certainly a lowering of deterrence. That perception of Israel not succeeding against Hezbollah has, many believe, increased the likelihood ... you know, you have 

Syria, who has started to field larger forces over the last few months even, on the Golan Heights, 

there’s a lot more tension there. But it doesn’t just ... so you have Syria, you have Iran, which 

is ... even though the idea of them now sending brigades of troops over is not likely, but you do 

have increased possibility of conflict with Iran. Then Lebanon, even though you look at that, 

the focus is obviously on Hezbollah, from the Israeli perspective, it’s Lebanon.

So when they think of the idea that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the wars of ’48, ’67, I think most people 

think that those are a day of the past. There’s not an expectation that Egypt is now going to 

change its policy. But there is also a growing threat, many believe in Israel, from Lebanon, 

Syria, and Iran, that these allies pose a real strategic threat to Israel.

Audience Member

In terms of the area of modern Israel, where the Lebanese border is, or in Lebanese territory, 

where the Israeli border is, are you talking about Lebanese territory, or are you really talking 

about an ungoverned space?

Mr. Harmon

That’s actually one of the changes to Israeli policy has been this sense that we are going to hold, 

as a country now, Lebanon, responsible for the actions of Hezbollah. So even though the Lebanese government has chosen not to impose authority throughout its own country, the change in 

policy is the sense that we’re going to hold the government in the country of Lebanon accountable for the actions in this ungoverned space that Hezbollah has asserted itself.

Audience Member

Richard Stewart again, following up on that. This may work against a state such as Lebanon, 

which has limited authority, but it’s clearly a more hostile state. In terms of the wider intent of 
56

this conference, what do you do with non-state actors operating inside the territories of allies, 

and how do you deal with them? And I think specifically of Pakistan, which has large ungoverned spaces, but is a US ally. We can’t bomb their infrastructure to try to hold them responsible 

for these non-state actors within their territory.

Mr. Harmon

Right. And that’s an excellent point. As I’m sure you well know, there was discussion by some 

of the candidates for President about the possibility of American unilateral actions in those areas. There was a strong response in Pakistan from that, understandably. And that’s true. That’s 

where you ... obviously, the military needs to be able to have access to the points where the 

enemies are, and you have to create a coalition and have the opportunity for either American 

forces, or through those contacts with Pakistan to encourage them to either ... to make a choice. 

Either you take care of this emerging problem for you and us, or you empower us to do it ourselves. I’m not saying that’s an easy task. I’m not even saying it’s possible. But I’m saying that 

I believe that that’s probably the only option that’s available.

LCL François

Just a point, Trinquier, in his modern warfare book said that facing such an ally with some insurgents inside, that covert action is the best. If you try to bomb them it will be disastrous, and 

you will truly cut productivity. So maybe cooperation between the armies, a very covert one, or 

covert action to strike on the insurgents which are striking you from neighboring countries.

Mr. Harmon

And that’s where, actually, I know it’s maybe not as realistic as I would like it to be. In my 

last slide I kind of talked a little bit about moving past this ... what I see as becoming an adversarial process, this peace process between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and to try to 

find a way to create something that looks more like an alliance, so that you have Israelis and 

the Palestinians working together against these non-state actors within their midst. Obviously, 

I recognize that that’s a big order, but that’s to your point of trying to ... in order to really kind 

of transform the face and be successful, you’ve got to work in partnership, as part of a coalition, 

for a long term success.

Audience Member

My name’s Dave Duffy. I’m out of Army Special Operations Command. I’m a Special Forces 

soldier. To follow up a little bit what you’re talking about, there’s articulation, particularly 

within [inaudible] that’s getting ready to be signed that, depending on the willingness and the 

capability of your allied country or targeted area, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a unilateral 

action, or some sort of coalition action. We’re not mentioning the fact that there is surrogate 

warfare, there is irregular force operations that can be utilized, whether that’s in a clandestine 

or covert manner, that we’re doing today. So that is another option. And I was recently in Israel, which led to my initially raising my hand up. You talk about strategic partners, “Strategic 

Privates” and “Strategic Corporals,” our own general purpose forces are feeling some of those 

same pains as we’re attempting to make those forces more SOF-like as directed within the 
57

QDR, as we’re making that switch and we failed to plan for the transition in Iraq, which led to 

an earlier comment.

My question is, for Israel to do that, I was really surprised, in fact, at how short you serve and 

you’re on active duty. There was a lot of lament within the officer corps that you’re not a professional force. I don’t, by any stretch, talk about capability there. It’s the fact that you don’t 

have full time soldiers. And particularly there’s a dearth in the NCO corps because you’re not 

really paying the enlisted soldiers to stay. Now is there any kind of result from the 2006, and I 

realize there wasn’t a lot of call up, but to capture those lessons learned, and to try to ... kind of 

being surprised at what actually developed in Lebanon, and to maintain those lessons learned, 

to enhance the NCO corps, and try to increase incentives to more professionalize your force?

Mr. Harmon

Yeah. I think that it’s ... they’re almost two different questions in my mind. On the one hand, 

it’s the question of ... also the gentleman asked about force structure. I do find it unlikely that 

Israel, in the near term, is going to make a change in the way that it develops its military, which 

is, on the one hand, very small standing army that takes care of your day-to-day issues, and then 

cycle them through, everybody that goes to the reserve, and then the reserve is your main force. 

I don’t really see much of a change in that occurring, and that’s mostly a political issue. It’s 

also an economic issue. And it’s also kind of a national history, cultural, issue as well. That’s 

the vision of what the country is.

And so when I look at 2006, though, and the lessons learned, one of the things that I’m actually grateful for is that immediately after ... besides the political spectacle of the committees, 

you have ... there were over 40 working groups immediately after that war looking at different 

issues that occurred, all the way up from strategy to looking at what occurred at specific missions, and trying to create change based on that.

So there really is a movement, an understanding of the failures of both of those operations, and 

trying to create change. So the way that the Israeli military is doing that is two fold. On the one 

hand, in terms of the immediate concern, they are putting a lot more money now into providing 

training and materials for the reserve force. If any of you follow it, you’d see that there’s even 

more and more news reports within Israel of, gosh, this training has been longer and harder than 

any I’ve had in the last ten years. So there is a sense that we need to move past this focus on the 

urban warfare, continue to maintain those strengths, but really build up for this new hybrid war 

that Israel needs to face, on the one hand.

And then on the other hand, to start implementing those lessons learned for the standing army, 

so that you change, so that in a year’s time you have soldiers that were in the standing army 

will now be also part of the reserves and that build up. Because one of the real interesting things 

about the Israeli military is that the transition between decision of initiative, hey, this might 

work, to implementation is really fast.

An example of that would be in 2002, somebody ... there’s a couple of ways that came about, 

but there was a decision that was made, “Hey, you know what? It might be interesting, and 

a better idea, instead of walking down the street ... you know, if we’re going to take over an 
58

entire street, instead of walking down that street, what if we blow holes through these very 

congested areas and go wall to wall, as opposed to on the street? Leave us less exposed, surprise the enemy, all the good effects.” And from decision that, “Hey, that’s a good idea,” to 

implementation as a test case, and then rolling it out, I mean that’s in a matter of days. So my 

expectation is that the adaptation to the lessons that are learned are going to be very rapid in the 

standing Army, then are going to flow to the Reserves within the next year.

Dr. Herrera

Unfortunately, we have run out of time. I know there are more questions. Lieutenant Colonel 

François, Mr. Harmon, thank you very much for your fine presentations.
59

Panel 2—The Role of Culture

(Transcript of Presentation)

“Caliphate and Islamofascism:

Two Irrelevant Factors in the Long War”

Dr. Michael Scheuer

Jamestown Foundation

Dr. Curt King (Moderator)

Our next guest is Dr. Michael Scheuer. He served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning 

in 2004. He was Chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorism Center from 1996 to 1999, 

and if you’ve looked at his topic, he obviously brings a lot of expertise to this. He is currently 

the Senior Fellow with the Jamestown Foundation, a well known author probably to most of 

you. One of his most recent books, one published anonymous and now of course we know 

the name, but Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, and currently, Through Our Enemy’s 

Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America. His topic is “Caliphate and 

Islamofascism: Two Irrelevant Factors in the Long War.”

Dr. Michael Scheuer

Good afternoon, everyone. I do appreciate the opportunity to talk here today. I’ve been the 

last several years trying to figure out why we are engaged in wars, in this war, for going on 12 

years now against al-Qaeda and its allies, and still not quite figuring out what the enemy’s motivated by. We’ve had, you know, women in the workplace and R-rated movies and then we had 

“they hate freedoms” and “they hate elections” and “they hate the Iowa primary.” Those things 

are still out there. Now on top of them we have the resurgent caliphate and the threat of panzer 

divisions from the Islamofascist regime around the world. So I thought I’d talk about those two 

fantasies today and the danger of trying to build a military, or a strategic policy to face them.

As the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan remain problematic at best, the male and female 

politicians from both parties who brought America these disasters have sought to cover their 

failures by describing an ever more threatening Islamist enemy and identifying the goal of our 

Islamist foes as the establishment of a worldwide Islamist caliphate which would rule according to a doctrine described as Islamofascism. In essence, the proponents of these concepts are 

trying to breathe new life into the long dead world with which they are most familiar—the 

world of the Cold War; when traditional nation states faced off with rival ideologies against 

each other—democracy versus aggressive totalitarianism. For these individuals who are found 

quite equally distributed in both parties and among their media acolytes, the caliphate equates 

to the nuclear armed gangsters who once ruled from the Kremlin and Islamofascism is identified with the doctrine of Marxism, Leninism, and even Hitlerism. This elegant transferal of a 

past era’s enemies to the contemporary scene is a useful bit of slight of hand. It eliminates the 

need for any hard thinking about the changed nature of the world we confront, the structure of 

and weaponry for the armed forces we need to defend ourselves and achieve victory. And best 
60

of all for the advocates of such a transfer, it allows us to blame the war entirely on our Islamist 

enemies. This is a neat and tidy intellectual package, but one that is wrong on every count. It is 

also one that if used as the underlying presumption for US strategic policy, would eventually 

lead to America’s defeat.

Any US military strategy based on the supposed need to confront and defeat an aggressive 

worldwide Islamofascist caliphate would equip our armed forces to confront a foe that does 

not now exist and is unlikely ever to exist. Let us be clear, the ultimate theological goal of all 

Islamists—Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and their allies and supporters from Morocco to Milwaukee—is the recreation of the caliphate that was destroyed by Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk 

and the British in the 1920s. But the restoration of the caliphate also is the goal of all Muslim 

believers—liberal, moderate, conservative, extremist and fanatic. Why is this goal spread so 

widely across the spectrum of Islamic thought? Because quite simply it is divinely ordained. 

According to the Almighty and the teachings of his messenger, the division of the world into 

the house of war and the house of Islam will one day be reformatted into the holy Islamic 

world. The house of war will be annihilated and the house of Islam will encircle the goal as the 

end state of Islam’s earthly experience. This is simple stuff. Islam 101 really. But to accept the 

scriptural accuracy of the doctrine is not the same as saying that this is the main motivation of 

our Islamist enemies.

Do bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, and other Islamists talk, think and pray about restoring the 

caliphate? Yes, they do, but not because they expect it to return tomorrow, or the next year, or 

in the next century. But because they believe it is God’s will and therefore it must inevitably 

be realized on earth. Their rhetoric is peppered with references to the caliphate. Just as that of 

believing Christianity is filled with divine injunctions to love your neighbor, to create peace 

across the earth among all peoples, and to turn the other cheek. Divine orders are never to be 

ignored, but only those with no contact points with reality would expect the attainment of either 

the perfect Islamic or Christian end state in even the most remotely foreseeable future. Those 

who provoke fears about the eminent reestablishment of a caliphate that would result, for example, in my three granddaughters wearing burkas when they return to their Catholic grammar 

school next fall are either ignorant of the world and its history, or mere and deliberate liars.

One of the most enduring aspects of nineteenth century European imperialism and colonialism in the Muslim world is the continuing strength of nationalistic focus. And nowhere has 

this lingering Europeanness been more apparent than in Islamic resistance movements. Since 

the end of World War II, a nation state orientation has consistently been the order of the day 

for these movements. Algerians have fought the regime in Algiers, Egyptians the one in Cairo, 

and the Moros fought the government in Manila. Faced with an Islamist movement divided by 

the priorities of different components, recall that not long ago, Ayman al-Zawahiri avowed that 

the only true road to Jerusalem first led through Cairo. Men such as Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, 

his student Osama bin Laden, and others did not reach for the doctrine labeled “Restoration of 

the Caliphate” in their uphill effort to unite the myriad Islamist organizations and break them 

away from a nationalist orientation. They reached for the much more likely to work doctrine 

labeled “Hatred for US and Western Foreign Policy and its Impact.” Azzam, bin Laden and 

others were smart enough to know that an abstraction like the caliphate was definitely not going to unite the groups constituting the Islamist movement to anywhere near the extent that the 
61

tangible and highly visible impact of US foreign policy would. Indeed, after 20 years of effort 

to carry forward Sheikh Azzam’s banner, bin Laden has only been partially successful in making US foreign policy a universally uniting factor among Islamist organizations. It was not until 

the US invasion and occupation of Iraq that bin Laden’s argument became nearly universally 

plausible among Muslims and its appeal therefore almost irresistible.

Polls early in 2007, for example, show that 76% of Muslims worldwide now consider US 

foreign policy to be aimed at undermining or destroying Islam. This is a pool from which even 

a small fraction willing to take up arms would amount to a formidable fighting force. Further 

undercutting any basis for believing the fear mongers who trump it, the near term arrival and 

threat of the caliphate, is the recognition that the argument itself is grounded in an unrelentingly 

racist analysis of the Muslims and Islamic society. One that may be comforting to those who 

hold the viewpoint, but also one that contributes directly to an underestimation of the threat 

posed by our Islamist enemies. To believe that a caliphate is just around the corner, one must 

necessarily view the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims and 1.4 billion identically programmed human automatons, that all of these people are willing to abide not only by one set of regulations 

about how to perceive, think, and do all things in life from A to Z, but are willing to take these 

instructions and orders from one man, the caliph, who would likely be an Arab and therefore 

from an ethnic and linguistic minority in the Muslim world. This, I would contend, does not 

seem to be a reasonable expectation, nor one that should cause us much near term anxiety. 

The Islamic civilization of today is just as diverse and fragmented as any of the world’s other 

great civilizations, and perhaps even more so. Islam today is composed of scores of different 

ethnic groups, speaking dozens of languages in hundreds of dialects. In addition, it is divided 

into three major sectarian components—Sunni, Shia, and Sufi—and these components sects 

are each riven by internal theological differences. It is ironic, if I may make an aside, that we 

find among the governing elite in the United States those men and women who champion the 

utopian concepts of multiculturalism and diversity that are clearly destroying their society’s 

cohesion, that they have arisen with in the west, the caliphate scaremongers who believe that 

Muslims are similarly willing to abjectly surrender their individuality and engage in similar 

society-destroying campaigns to homogenize and erect their own societies. The world, I suppose, is full of mirror imaging.

Beyond the hopelessly fractured status of contemporary Islamic civilization, the argument 

of the caliphate mongers is further undermined by the historical fact that an imposing Islamic 

leader, Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini failed to unite the Islamic world by using another abstraction 

that had at least superficial contact with reality. In urging Muslims to unite in a jihad against 

the United States, because of the American society’s debauchery and degeneracy, the grouchy 

old Iranian cleric at least had as a sturdy and tangible ploy against which to play the reality of 

the unprocessed sewage that has passed for American popular culture over the past 30 years. 

But even with that reality, Khomeini failed utterly and completely to spur a worldwide Islamist 

jihad against the United States. Even Lebanese Hezbollah’s attacks on the US Marines and US 

and French diplomatic facilities in Beirut, while conducted under the umbrella of Khomeini’s 

rhetoric, were nationalist oriented actions aimed at getting Americans off of Lebanese territory. 

Muslims today, I would argue, are no more willing to rally around an abstraction and spend 

their lives in a war to recreate the caliphate than they were to take of the Ayatollah’s advice in 

the 1980s and kill themselves to eliminate the pestiferous flow of American popular culture.
62

Irrefutably, however, there are increasing numbers of Muslims who are willing to fight and 

kill themselves to resist the impact of US foreign policies, and it is precisely on this point that 

those who advocate the threat of the renewed caliphate do America and its defenders the greatest disservice. The genius of bin Laden and other Islamist leaders lies in their studied refusal to 

try to spur a jihad through the use of abstractions. They, though not we, have seen the failure of 

abstractions—socialism, pan-Arabism, Khomeiniism—when used as a tool to promote jihad. 

These abstractions have little or no power to motivate Muslims, let alone provide a glue of unity that can unite dozens of ethnic, linguistic and sectarian groups under a single battle flag. The 

Islamist motivation then has almost nothing to do with aspirations for the caliphate, but rather 

everything to do with the impact of US policy, which—bin Laden is increasingly successful in 

persuading Muslims—is the essential prop that supports the main enemies of Muslims; Israel 

and the governments of such Arab police states as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. The impact 

of US policy is immediate and tangible and thanks to the Internet and 24-hour satellite television news channels, always visible, often dramatized, and forever embellished. Thus, while so 

many in our governing elite cry doom about the forthcoming Muslim caliphate, the Islamist 

movement gathers strength, motivation and lethality based on nearly universal Muslim hatred 

for US foreign policy. An Islamist enemy which was itself motivated by the desire to immediately recreate the caliphate, and which was trying to motivate Muslims to spend their lives on 

that basis, would be a lethal nuisance to the United States and not the national security threat 

we face today.

The champions of the eminent caliphate threat usually parrot with what they refer to as the 

totalitarian philosophy of Islamofascism. The doctrine by which the soon-to-be caliphate will 

dictatorially govern the all encompassing Muslim world. The idea of Islamofascism is readily identifiable as an attempt by former Cold Warriors in both parties to shape the post Cold 

War world in a way that makes sense to themselves. These individuals still lead America and 

are seeking to convince Americans that we are engaged in a war of ideas identical to the intellectual struggle in which we engaged and defeated the Bolsheviks. There is however no war 

of ideas. There is only a war of harshly conflicting interests. But casting the struggle as a war 

of ideas serves the ranks of former Cold Warriors by severely limiting the chance of a wideranging debate about the direction and substance of US foreign policy, because as they argue, 

changing policy in the face of a threat from a totalitarian ideology would be nothing but the 

Munich-like appeasement of would-be Hitlerites all over again. Again, let us be very clear. The 

world is today rife with Islamofascists. But that breed of tyrants is almost entirely on our side 

and is not to be found in the ranks of our Islamist enemies.

The Europe-born police state powered philosophy of fascism was imported into the Arab 

world in the 1930s and remains the dominant form of government of both our enemies in the 

region such as Syria and our purported allies—Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. The kind of 

dictatorship that exists in the Middle East today, Bernard Lewis wrote in late 2003—before he 

was fully seduced, bought or misrepresented by the neoconservatives—has to no small extent 

been the result of modernization, more specifically of European influence. This included the 

only European political model that worked in the Middle East—that of the one party state, either in the Nazi or the communist version which do not differ so greatly from each other. And 

Lewis’ analysis seems to be borne out by reality. For as much as we dislike it, there is a more 

participatory political system in Iran’s Islamic republic today than in any other regime in the 

region including those we regard as close and essential allies. That al-Qaeda and our other Is-
63

lamist enemies are authoritarian and anti-secular cannot be doubted. That they would be harsh 

in power and perhaps brutal likewise is a given. But to portray them as nescient communist totalitarian, or Nazi fascists is a deliberate and misleading flight of fancy. Again, Bernard Lewis 

has written that the study of Islamic history and the vast and rich Islamic political literature 

encourages the belief that it may well be possible to develop democratic institutions, not necessarily in our western tradition of that much misused term, but in one deriving from their own 

history and culture in ensuring in their own way limited government, under law, consultation 

and openness.

Anyone who has read what Osama bin Laden has written about the nature of the governing 

entity that he believes should succeed the [inaudible] fascistic tyranny will hear strong echoes 

of Lewis’ argument. The teaming of the concepts of the caliphate and Islamofascism also serves 

to ensure that there is no debate over the relationship between the United States and Israel—a 

relationship that may grow stronger, weaker, or completely unravel in the years ahead, but 

one which cannot endure as it now stands. By defining bin Laden and his ilk as would-be Islamist Hitlers, the US citizen advocates of Israel who dominate the American governing elite 

ensure that those who question the nature, benefit and impact of the current US-Israeli tie are 

slandered as unpatriotic, American haters, anti-Semites or simply asylum bound lunatics. No 

clearer example of the utility of the concept of Islamofascism as a tool to deliberately foreclose 

debate can be found in the manner in which Israel’s advocates in America are attempting to defame Professor Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer as anti-Semites and to distort the content 

and limit the sales of first their essay about, and now their recent book length appraisal of the 

Israeli lobby—a book which documents the prolonged deranging and clearly negative impact 

that lobby has had on the formulation and conduct of US foreign policy.

In this sorry episode, we have seen a number of prominent Americans such as Elliot Cohen, 

David Gergen, Max Boot and tens of others arrogate to themselves the right to decide who is 

and who is not a good and patriotic American among their fellow citizens. And this based entirely on the attitude of those individuals toward Israel. In this ongoing scenario, it is not hard 

to see which side of the confrontation holds the most fascistic predilections.

In closing, I will reiterate my view that those who warn of the impending imposition of an 

Islamic caliphate or identify it as a primary motivating factor behind the Islamist movement 

are wrong. One can never, of course, see into the minds and hearts of others, but the evidence 

to the contrary is so ample and definitive that it seems likely that the purveyors of the caliphate 

and Islamofascist threat are either ill educated or intent on deliberately misleading their fellow 

citizens. As a basis for understanding our enemy’s motivation, the concepts are as unhelpful as 

ascribing to our foes a motivation based on hatred for freedom, democracy and gender equality. 

We are quite simply in a life and death struggle because of what we do, not because of what we 

think or how we live. Today, the US military is engaged in a war against an Islamist foe who is 

inspired by, and fighting against, what he perceives as a rock solid set of realities. Namely, the 

ongoing impact of US and western foreign policy in the Muslim world, policy which has been 

largely consistent over the past 30 years and more.

There is nothing abstract about the way the Islamists and their supporters perceive the 

impact of these policies. They are perceived as acts of war against Islam and its followers and 

their resistance and actions are inspired by that perception. America’s military must be trained 
64

and equipped to confront and defeat Islamist realists who are motivated by these policies. To 

allow the future design of the US military to be shaped by plans to fight a nonexistent and 

never likely to exist Islamist fascist caliphate would simply distracted from the real enemy 

and ultimately lead to defeat. This is not to denigrate or to condemn wholesale the US foreign 

policy or the Americans in both parties who are responsible for its formulation and application. 

Although I do with enthusiasm damn any individual or group of individuals who seek to limit 

the dimensions of the debate that is permissible as we seek to formulate a strategy to achieve 

decisive victory. It is certainly also to condemn those who would argue that we are engaged in 

a war of ideas that ultimately conduces to American democracy and freedom versus Muslim 

caliphatism and Islamofascism. This simple and easily marketable concept disguises the clash 

of life and death interests that are now ongoing between the United States and its Islamist foes. 

It also causes Americans to misunderstand the enemy’s motivation, to underestimate the threat 

those forces pose to their country’s future, and to ignore the growing enemy it will have to fight 

in the years ahead. Thank you.
65

Panel 2—The Role of Culture

(Submitted Paper)

The American Culture of War1

by

Dr. Adrian R. Lewis

University of North Texas

It was a time to give a soldier deep concern, for in that period following the end of 

World War II, there was a growing feeling that in the armies of the future the foot 

soldier would play only a very minor role. Two factors stimulated this thinking—the 

earnest desire of the nation to cut down on its military expenditures, and the erroneous 

belief that in the atomic missile, delivered by air, we had found the ultimate weapon. . 

. . My arguments regarding air power . . . were in no sense a protest against emphasis 

on the air arm. They were in protest against what I sincerely believed to be an overemphasis on one form of air power, the long-range bomber, to the neglect of other means 

by which the magnifi cent weapon, the combat airplane, can be employed.

To fi ght the war of the future we must possess the capability not only to transport the 

nuclear bomb for great distances, and drop it with fi ne accuracy on a target. We must 

also possess the capability to lift whole armies, armed with nuclear weapons, and put 

them down upon any spot on the earth’s surface where their tremendous, and selective, 

fi repower will be needed.2

—General Matthew B. Ridgway Chief of Staff, US Army, 1953–55

General Ridgway believed that the lesson of the Korean War was that the US Army had 

been unprepared to fight the type of war it faced, and as a consequence, the lives of American 

servicemen had been needlessly lost. (I would add that had the Army sustained the ability to 

generate significant combat power there may have been no war. By 1950, the US Army had 

lost much of its ability to deter war.) Ridgway wrote in his memoirs: “It was the bitter lesson, 

learned through our experience in Korea at such a cost in blood and national prestige, that 

steeled me in my resolution later, when as Chief of Staff, I protested with greatest vehemence 

against ‘economies’ which would have placed us in the same relative state of ineffectiveness.”3

In Ridgway’s view, the Army should maintain a large, well-trained, well-equipped, strategically deployable force to meet contingencies around the world. And they should not be a tripwire force for the initiation of nuclear war. 

Thesis

Today, the US Army is again too small. In the fourth year of the second Persian Gulf War, 

almost everyone recognizes this fact. But let me make an argument that the US Army has been 

too small since World War II, and that the reasons it was too small in the opening days of the 

Korean War are applicable today. Let me argue that the situation in Korea and in Iraq were a 

function of a new American culture of war that evolved during and immediately following 

World War II. It is a culture of war that—
66

1. Places abnormal faith in the capabilities of advanced technologies to solve every 

human problem, including the conduct of war.

2. Places trust in unproven, Gee-Whiz doctrines to achieve military and political 

objectives.

3. Diminishes the role of human beings in war and diminishes the role of the Army 

ground forces in war.

4. Eliminates the American people from the conduct of the Nation’s wars. America’s 

wars since the Vietnam War have not been national wars (In 1973, conscription ended, 

and the All-Volunteer Force came into being.) The American people have removed 

themselves from the conduct of the Nation’s wars.

5. Disengages Americans from the people they seek to lead, “leader of the freeworld,” and whose resources they seek to manage. Americans have demonstrated a 

great reluctance to learn foreign languages, to travel in foreign lands, and to become 

familiar with foreign cultures.

6. Seeks to maintain world dominance, seeks to maintain the role of superpower, and 

seeks to maintain the American empire. Americans have grown accustomed to being 

the dominant power on Earth.

In brief, Americans endeavor to minimize the human element in war and to emphasize the 

role of materiel and technology. They invest trillions of dollars in weapons technology and are 

the largest arms producers on Earth. Americans have formed a military cluster that no longer 

reflects the demographics of the Nation. They seek to employ surrogate forces and professional 

military firms to replace them. Their lives, in real dollars, greatly exceed the value of the lives 

of the people in the parts of the world where US forces are at war. Americans want and seek to 

control and manage world affairs and resources such as oil. However, they betray little interest 

in world cultures and foreign languages. They do not want to engage people of foreign lands. 

Political leaders have embraced this new culture of war because it frees them of direct responsibility and accountability to the American people. Conscription ended in 1973, giving political 

leaders greater freedom to go to war and to wage any conflict as they saw fit. How did we get 

here, and is this where we want to be? Is this way of war in the best interest of the Nation and 

the world?

During World War II and in the early years of the Cold War, the American culture of war 

underwent a fundamental transformation primarily as a function of—

• Revolutions in technology.

• The value Americans have traditionally placed on the lives of other Americans.

• The assumption by the United States of a new role in world affairs—that of superpower and leader of the free world.
67

• The advent of artificial, limited war, a function of the development of nuclear 

weapons. 

Let’s consider each of these areas. The first, as Ridgway recognized, is technology. Americans place enormous faith in the power of technology to solve all the ills of humanity, including 

war. This faith developed in the early 19th century and is too frequently irrational. Americans 

since World War II have believed that airpower was the dominant instrument for the conduct 

of war. And, in every war since, they have tried to prove it. However, they have never done so. 

Consequently, they have had to go back to plan B—the employment of the US Army, which 

frequently ranked last in priority for new technology, manpower procurement, training, and 

equipment.

The second reason is the sincere desire to conserve American lives. The United States since 

World War II has substituted its materiel and technological wealth for its manpower wealth. 

The “pursuit of happiness,” written into the Declaration of Independence, is an acknowledgment of the value Americans place on the lives of other Americans. American strategies and 

doctrines have been designed to conserve American lives. Simply put, Americans don’t want 

to fight wars with their ground forces. They would prefer to substitute America’s technological 

or materiel wealth or provide some other state with the materials they need to fight the war. 

This thinking was evident in Roosevelt’s Arsenal of Democracy program that made possible 

the “loan” of billions of dollars of Lend-Lease goods to Allies and in Rumsfeld’s employment 

of surrogate forces in Afghanistan.

The third reason is that Americans have never fully recognized the responsibilities they assumed after World War II when the United States assumed the duties as leader of the free world 

and superpower. In the wake of World War II, the United States became a European land power 

with the occupation of what became West Germany and an Asian Pacific land and sea power 

with the occupation of Japan and Korea. Arguably, the United States and its Allies needed to 

maintain an Army equivalent to that maintained by Germany and Japan before World War II 

to provide adequate security. Given these and the numerous other responsibilities the United 

States assumed following the collapse of the British and French Empires, the United States has 

never maintained sufficient ground forces to protect these and other possessions. The US Army, 

as Ridgeway noted, has in fact been a trip wire for war, incapable of actually defending Korea 

or, at times, West Germany, or other parts of the world. The Army has been forward deployed 

more as a warning force than an actual deterrent force.

The final factor was the development of artificial limited war. The revolution in technology, brought about by the invention of nuclear weapons, created artificial limited war. During 

the Middle Ages and the age of the absolute monarch, wars were limited because of the nature 

of war. Mankind was incapable of fighting a more total war because of very real limitations. 

With the invention of nuclear weapons and having recently witnessed the unparalleled carnage 

of World War II, mankind endeavored to place artificial limitations on war. Limitations on 

the weapons employed, the expansion of war to geographic regions beyond the initial fields 

of battle, the manpower committed, and other restraints were implemented to preclude total 

nuclear war, which ultimately could result in the extinction of humanity.

All of these factors came together and transformed the American culture of war. This new 
68

way of war has not served the people of the United States well. It has proven ineffective, has 

caused great harm, and has the potential to cause even greater harm at home and abroad. The 

American culture of war needs to change significantly.

Methodology

A few words about methodology are required: War is a cultural endeavor. The way a nation goes about fighting war is, to a large degree, a function of its culture. Other factors such as 

geography, history, military tradition, and heritage also influence the way a nation fights war. 

However, these factors also influence culture. Culture thus plays a central role in the way a 

given people fight war. Culture creates the parameters for decision making and tenets on which 

decisions are made.4

 If we employ a cultural approach, it is evident that there is considerable 

continuity in the military behavior of the United States. The situation in Iraq is not unique, 

but arguably the norm. This is not a new approach or thesis. The works of John Shy, Russell 

Weigley, Sir Basil H. Liddell Hart, Victor Davis Hanson, John Lynn, Colin Gray, and others 

advance this methodology. John Shy wrote:

By thus measuring long-run continuity and broad consensus, rather than changes or internal confl ict, we are regarding American society as in some sense a living organism 

whose behavior reveals coherence and consistency, and which can be said to learn from 

and remember its military past. . . . Learning theory invites us to challenge this common-sense approach by considering the possibility that the explanatory importance of 

events should be reckoned not by proximity, but by priority in historical time.5

Given this analysis, the most significant events in the life of the United States are the 

American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II. Arguably, these events, the most traumatic in the Nation’s history, formed the foundation of the American culture of war. However, 

more recent experiences in war cannot be totally neglected. The Vietnam War exerted an enormous influence on the American way of thinking about war.

Colin Gray, the British naval historian, also advanced a cultural methodology. He wrote:

Culture refers to the socially transmitted habits of mind, traditions, and preferred 

methods of operations that are more or less specifi c to a particular geographically 

based security community. Culture may be qualifi ed for more precise usage, as in 

strategic culture or political culture. . . . Strategic culture is the result of opportunities, 

of resources, of the skill with which those opportunities and resources have been managed, and of the lessons which a society decides its unfolding history should teach. 

To a considerable degree societies are prisoners of their past. Policymakers have been 

educated both formally and by life experiences in their particular society to expect 

certain relationships generally to hold true. . . .6

Of course, if we accept that culture does matter, that it does in fact influence human behavior in the real world, then the great problems are, one, to determine which cultural tenets exert 

the greatest influence at a given time. Two, to determine how culture was (is) manifested; that 

is, what behaviors it caused. And finally, how those behaviors influenced events; that is, how 

they made history. Over the past 60 years, I believe we Americans have learned little about 

the nature of war and that in fact we have unlearned much about humanity and war. The one 

exception is in the area of the employment of advanced technologies. We have learned much 
69

about developing new technologies and doctrines; however, I would argue that American military technologies have caused dangerous delusions that have damaged the Nation’s ability to 

effectively fight war and achieve military and political objectives.

The New Role of the United States in World Affairs

Following Roosevelt’s death, President Harry S. Truman accepted the new role for the 

United States in world affairs—the special place of the United States among nations, the dominance of American power, and the burden of leadership it created. In 1945, he told the American people:

Whether we like it or not, we must all recognize that the victory which we have won 

[World War II] has placed upon the American people the continuing burden of responsibility for world leadership. The future peace of the world will depend in large part 

upon whether or not the United States shows that it is really determined to continue in 

its role as a leader among nations. It will depend upon whether or not the United States 

is willing to maintain the physical strength necessary to act as a safeguard against 

any future aggressor. Together with the other United Nations, we must be willing to 

make the sacrifi ces necessary to protect the world from future aggressive warfare. In 

short, we must be prepared to maintain in constant and immediate readiness suffi cient 

military strength to convince any future potential aggressor that this nation, in its determination for a lasting peace, means business.

Truman, while accepting this new responsibility for the nation, was slow to fully understand the duties that went along with it. Historically, the United States had not maintained large 

standing forces immediately ready for war. This new level of commitment of national resources 

to the defense of foreign shores marked a major change in US foreign policy and national strategy. The rapid collapse of the British and French Empires, the advance of communism, and the 

Soviet acquisition of the atomic bomb placed expanding new demands on the United States. 

Not until North Korea attacked South Korea, however, did Truman comprehend and accept the 

new duties incumbent on the United States, and even after the start of hostilities, the American 

people were uncertain about their new duties in world affairs.

The fight that was the Cold War created the environment and the conditions for the transformation in American thinking about the use of military force and the conduct of war. The 

Cold War (1945–90) was a period when the two most powerful nation-states on the planet 

continuously prepared to go to war with one another and indirectly fought wars through surrogate, peripheral, nonaligned states. It was a period when they formed strategic mutual defense 

alliances, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, to strengthen their ability to defend themselves and 

destroy their opponents. It was a period of global turmoil, when the exertions of World War II 

caused the collapse of European imperialism, and nationalism spread to India, Pakistan, China, 

Indochina, African nations, the Middle East nations, and other parts of the world. It was a period of great suffering and carnage in developing states racked by wars as they tried to achieve 

statehood, establish legitimate political systems, reconcile borders that were drawn based on 

the concerns of European imperialist powers, redress racial and ethnic discrimination, and 

recover and reorganize after decades and centuries of European rule. It was a period during 

which the extinction of humanity became a real possibility because each superpower acquired 

the wherewithal to destroy the other, and ultimately civilization, several times over. It was a 
70

period when the superpowers employed armies of scientists and engineers in a race to develop 

the most destructive weapons and invincible delivery systems. It was a period when the two 

superpowers competed for allies to make their bloc stronger and fought political, diplomatic, 

information, and espionage wars to undermine and weaken their opponent’s bloc and alliances. 

It was a period when the world expended vast resources on armies, navies, and air forces, and 

militarism invaded the social and political fabric of nations. It was a period when the United 

States maintained armies, navies, and air forces forward deployed in foreign nations around 

the world, influencing their economies, internal politics, and culture. It was a period of distrust, 

uncertainty, and anxiety, punctuated by moments of high fear and tension, a period of ideological entrenchment when paranoia invaded governmental institutions and American society and 

the police state threatened democracy and individual freedoms. It was also a period of great 

prosperity in the United States during which Americanism spread around the globe and American culture adjusted to the norms of being in a perpetual state of preparing for or waging war. 

The Cold War was ultimately a fight over the political, economic, social, and cultural systems 

that would dominate Earth. During this long, costly, and difficult fight, all parties were transformed, politically, geographically, socially, culturally, economically, and militarily.

The Cold War caused the United States to diverge from its traditional way of war. John 

Shy’s assessment of the American culture of war was:

The American Revolutionary War thus became in the national memory and imagination paradigmatic of how America saved itself from being like, and part of, Europe and 

Europe’s problems. . . . Americans, never ready for war, often surprised by it, were 

repeatedly brought to their knees by the fi rst battles and campaigns. At best gallant, 

at worst disorganized and demoralized, they came close to complete defeat again and 

again. Never, however, did they give up. And beyond the humiliation of Brooklyn and 

the Brandywine lay Saratoga and Yorktown—or Quebec, New Orleans, Gettysburg, 

Missionary Ridge, Omaha Beach, Leyte Gulf, and Inchon. The Revolutionary War 

told the story so that all could remember and later repeat it.7

The protection provided by two great oceans and the British Fleet and the absence of 

significant powers in the Americas gave the Americans a century of free security. The United 

States did not maintain great armies and navies during the 19th century, except during the Civil 

War. They were not necessary. In addition, Americans were preoccupied with conquering the 

continent and incorporating the land mass between the Atlantic and Pacific. All this changed by 

the mid-20th century. In two great wars, Europe spent itself. The British and French Empires 

started to collapse. The United States, for the first time in its history, was required to maintain 

large standing forces ready for war. The United States became a European and Asian power. 

The problem is that Americans never fully recognized what it meant to be a European power 

and an Asian power and never fully accepted the fact that it had to be ready for war on day 

one of the war. The American traditional practices exerted enormous influence. Consider the 

following:

• In 1939, when World War II started in Europe, the US Army numbered less than 190,000 

men in the Active force.

• In 1945, when World War II came to an end, the US Army ground forces numbered more 

than 6 million men and 89 divisions.
71

• In 1950, when the Korean War started, the US Army numbered less than 600,000 men, 

formed into 10 divisions. And as General Ridgway noted: “We were, in short, in a state of 

shameful unreadiness when the Korean War broke out, and there was absolutely no excuse for 

it. The only reason a combat unit exists at all is to be ready to fight in case of sudden emergency, and no human being can predict when these emergencies will arise. The state of our Army 

in Japan at the outbreak of the Korean War was inexcusable.”8

• In 1952, during the height of the Korean War, the US Army numbered 1,596,419 soldiers, organized into 20 Active-Duty divisions.

• In 1961, on the eve of the Vietnam War, the US Army numbered 858,622 soldiers, 

roughly half its size 10 years earlier, organized into 14 Active-Duty divisions. 

• In 1968, the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the US Army numbered 1,570,343 

soldiers, organized into 19 Active-Duty divisions.9

• On the eve of the first Persian Gulf War, the George H. W. Bush Administration was in 

the process of drawing down American forces. The American people were about to receive a 

“peace dividend,” primarily at the expense of the Army. Demobilization stopped temporarily, 

however, to fight the Iraqi Army. After the war, the demobilization continued, and the Army, 

following the Bush plan, went from almost 800,000 soldiers to less than 500,000 and from 16 

divisions to 10 divisions.

• When George W. Bush came into office, the US Army still numbered less than 500,000 

men and women, organized into 10 divisions. But in 2001, the new Bush Administration, under the heading “transformation,” started developing plans to cut the Army by more than two 

divisions. The terrorist attack on 9/11 put a halt to these plans and initiated plans for war in 

Afghanistan. However, the Bush Administration envisioned a much wider war. It planned for 

a Global War on Terrorism and a war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. At the same time, it initiated no plans to expand the size of the Army or consider reinstitution of the draft. This brief 

look at history reveals that throughout the Cold War the US Army was repeatedly understrength 

and typically ill prepared for the war it was ordered to fight.

Revolutionary Technology

Given America’s new role in world affairs, a role that required significant military forces, 

Americans endeavored to substitute technology and the new doctrines of war for manpower. 

This was a logical and smart course of action. It leveraged American industrial, materiel, and 

technological strengths. However, the limitations of this approach were never recognized or 

established, causing delusions. What was not logical or smart was the conclusion that ground 

forces were obsolete and hence unnecessary. What was not logical or smart was to gut the 

Army, to partially disarm in the face of the growing Communist threat. What was not logical 

or smart was to get rid of the offensive capabilities of American ground forces, which provided 

a deterrent to war. The United States by its actions literally told the Soviet Union, the People’s 

Republic of China (PRC), and the North Koreans that it would not defend South Korea. By 

disarming so thoroughly, the United States invited war.
72

This revolution in technology, which caused many to believe that ground forces were obsolete, went beyond the invention of the atomic bomb. Jet aircraft technology and missile technology (demonstrated by the German V-2 rocket in World War II) revolutionized warfare in the 

minds of Americans. Yet throughout this period, warfare became more primitive. Consider the 

arguments General Henry H. Arnold advanced in October 1943:

War has become vertical. We are demonstrating daily that it is possible to descend 

from the skies into any part of the interior of an enemy nation and destroy its power to 

continue the confl ict. War industries, communications, power installations and supply 

lines are being blasted by attacks from the air. Fighting forces have been isolated, their 

defenses shattered and suffi cient pressure brought by air power alone to force their 

surrender. Constant pounding from the air is breaking the will of the Axis to carry 

on. . . . Strategic air power is a war-winning weapon in its own right, and is capable 

of striking decisive blows far behind the battle line, thereby destroying the enemy’s 

capacity to wage war.

Americans accepted this new thesis on war though it was never proven and was in fact 

disproved time and again. Eisenhower, in his book Crusade in Europe, wrote:

In an instant many of the old concepts of war were swept away. Henceforth, it would 

seem, the purpose of an aggressor nation would be to stock atom bombs in quantity 

and to employ them by surprise against the industrial fabric and population centers 

of its intended victim. Offensive methods would largely concern themselves with the 

certainty, the volume, and the accuracy of delivery, while the defense would strive to 

prevent such delivery and in turn launch its store of atom bombs against the attacker’s 

homeland. Even the bombed ruins of Germany suddenly seemed to provide but faint 

warning of what future war could mean to the people of the earth.10

In August 1945, the United States demonstrated to the world the most significant innovation 

in the conduct of war in history. Two small atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities 

of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing World War II to an abrupt end. The war ended not with 

the destruction of the Japanese main army on the field of battle, not with the clash of mighty 

armies, but with two small nuclear devices and two lone B-29 bombers. These technologies 

caused many military thinkers to believe that armies were obsolete, that their value in future 

wars would be to mop up after airpower destroyed the enemy, and that a revolution in warfare 

had taken place, forever transforming the conduct of war. General Maxwell D. Taylor recalled 

discussing this new technology with Generals Marshall and Patton near the end of World War 

II, when he and Patton were first informed of the existence of the atomic bomb. Taylor wrote: 

“General Patton and I looked at each other in silence, both meditating upon the awful significance of Marshall’s words. . . . What if we had had such things to clear our way across Europe? 

Think of the thousands of our brave soldiers whose lives might have been spared. Now, indeed, 

I thought, we have a weapon which can keep the peace and never again will a Hitler or a Mussolini dare to use war to impose his will upon the Free World.”11 Thus, before the atomic bomb 

was used against the Japanese, it had created hopes and dreams for saving lives, for winning 

wars without ground combat, and for deterring war. Eisenhower wrote: “All the developments 

in method, equipment, and destructive power that we were studying seemed minor innovations 

compared to the revolutionary impact of the atom bomb. . . . [E]ven without the actual experience of its employment, the reports that reached us after the first one was used at Hiroshima on 

August 6 left no doubt in our minds that a new era of warfare had begun.”12 In this new era, the 
73

role of armies was uncertain, and whatever part they played in future wars, their status would 

never again equal that achieved in World War II.

In 1921, the Italian military theorist, Giulio Douhet, in a book titled The Command of the 

Air, prophesized that airpower was going to be the decisive arm for the conduct of war and that 

armies and navies were becoming obsolete and would be relegated to the position of auxiliary

forces in war. He wrote, “The brutal but inescapable conclusion we must draw is this: in face of 

the technical development of aviation today, in case of war the strongest army we can deploy 

in the Alps and the strongest navy we can dispose on our seas will prove no effective defense 

against determined efforts of the enemy to bomb our cities.”13 In World War II, only the British 

and the American invested vast sums in an unproven method of war, strategic bombing.

14 There 

were many reasons for this. Both the United States and Britain were in the “power projection” 

business of war. Both nations fought wars in other people’s homelands. This required the projection of power. The airplane was a versatile instrument for projecting power deep into enemy 

countries. The Americans and British also preferred technological and materiel solutions to 

problems. They believed that technology saved lives, reduced casualties, and hastened the end 

of war. They believed that with more capable, sophisticated technology fewer soldiers on the 

ground were necessary. They tended to view technology as a panacea for the ills of mankind.15

In addition, the airplane was seen as taking the place of naval vessels. The Navy was the first 

line of defense before the invention of the airplane. Air forces took on the job of first line of defense. Naval forces were vulnerable to air forces; however, navies saved themselves by acquiring their own air forces. Thus, the airplane, strategic bombing doctrine, and nuclear weapons 

seemed to many to be the answer to all future wars.

In June 1950, when North Korea attacked South Korea, General Douglas MacArthur was 

told to employ air and naval forces to stop the advance of the North Korean Army. Those means 

proved incapable of stemming the North Korean tide. As a consequence, MacArthur requested 

the assistance of the US Eighth Army stationed in Japan. Had the Eighth Army not been located 

nearby, South Korea would probably not exist today. Airpower was supposed to win the next 

war. It didn’t, and the cost in the lives of American soldiers was high. To be sure, airpower 

working with ground forces generated greater combat power than was possible by ground 

forces alone and diminished United Nations casualties.

In Vietnam, the Army fought the entire war on the strategic defense. It could not invade 

North Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia. As Clausewitz noted, decisive result required strategically 

offensive operations.16 All ground forces could do was not lose the war. And for 10 years, they 

did this. It is not well known that the Army and Marine Corps were not supposed to win the 

war. Airpower was supposed to win the war. Airpower was the only strategic offensive arm. It 

was employed under a new doctrine, Graduated Response. This was a civilian doctrine created 

at American universities. This was not Air Force doctrine. In fact, it violated Air Force doctrine. 

And it did not work. It did not take into account the human factor. Defeat in Vietnam, however, 

did not change the minds of Americans in regard to the effectiveness of airpower. To explain 

the outcome of the first Persian Gulf War, Richard Hallion wrote:

The Persian Gulf War will be studied by generations of military students, for it confi rmed a major transformation in the nature of warfare: the dominance of airpower. As 

Air Vice Marshall R.A. “Tony” Mason, RAF (ret.), wrote, “The Gulf war marked the 
74

apotheosis of twentieth-century airpower.” Simply (if boldly) stated, air power won 

the Gulf war. It was not a victory of any one service, but rather the victory of coalition 

air power projection by armies, navies, and air forces. At one end were sophisticated 

stealth fi ghters striking out of the dark deep in Iraqi territory. At the other were the 

less glamorous but no less important troop and supply helicopters wending their way 

across the battlefi eld. In between was every conceivable form of air power application, short of nuclear war, including aircraft carriers, strategic bombers, tactical and 

strategic airlift, and cruise missiles.17

In Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, the decisive nature of airpower was again advanced. 

This time, the doctrine was Shock and Awe. Like Graduated Response, it did not work. The 

war evolved into an insurgency war, and the ground forces were deployed to take up the fight, 

again they were plan B. While billions of dollars of the most advanced aircraft ever produced 

sat silently on runways, the United States was incapable of providing its soldiers with the body 

armor and communications equipment necessary to fight an insurgency war.

War is ultimately a human endeavor, and man is the decisive instrument on the battlefield. 

No matter how smart the aircraft, missiles, or bombs, they cannot distinguish between a noncombatant and an enemy soldier. They cannot establish a relationship with the people. They 

can only destroy and kill. And war is much more than simply killing and destroying. Ultimately, war is about the will of the people. And nothing is better at influencing people than other 

people; that is, soldiers on the ground. This is a lesson the United States refuses to learn. Technology, to be sure, influences the conduct of war, but it does not determine the outcome of war. 

Only human beings can do this. There is, however, one exception, nuclear weapons. Nuclear 

war, however, destroys the nature of war and the Clausewitz tenet that “war is a continuation 

of political discourse by other means.” Extermination warfare is not a political objective. In 

nuclear war between significant powers, there are no winners. There are no political objectives 

worth such an exchange.

Technology has had another significant influence on the American conduct of war. It has 

diminished the ability of the Armed Forces of the United States to fight on the same battlefield 

together with synergy. Technology greatly influences service culture. The strategic bomber 

dominated the cultural thinking of the Air Force throughout the decades of the 1950s and 

1960s. The US Air Force trained and equipped its forces to fight thermonuclear war against 

the Soviet Union; every other mission was secondary. The Air Force, since World War II, has 

resisted providing the Army with close air support, and in Operation DESERT STORM, the 

Army and Air Force again disagreed over the employment of airpower.

The aircraft carrier has dominated the cultural thinking of the Navy since World War II. 

The weapon system has changed little since the 1950s. The aircraft carrier has successfully contained naval thinking for generations. While the US Army is supposed to have forces 

trained and equipped to fight in any region on Earth, the preferred Army battlefield was the armor/mechanized warfare battlefields of Europe where the Army could employ its most sophisticated technologies. The US Army trained and equipped forces primarily to fight in Europe 

against the Soviet Union. Other regions of the world were always secondary. Due to these very 

different orientations, which were a function of technology, the Armed Forces of the United 

States have been oriented toward specific battlefields, to the neglect of others, and have had 

great difficulty fighting together on the same battlefield with synergy.
75

Technology has continuously misled and deluded the American people. Iraq is the latest 

delusion. The Armed Forces of the United States were also ill prepared for the battlefield in 

Korea or Vietnam. Technology causes each service to focus on a specific battlefield no matter 

how little the chances of such a battle being fought.

Limited War Doctrine

Robert Oppenheimer, the man primarily responsible for the development of the atomic 

bomb noted in 1953: “We may anticipate a state of affairs in which the two Great Powers will 

each be in a position to put an end to the civilization and life of the other, though not without 

risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the 

other, but only at the risk of his own life.”18

Modern limited war was an artificial creation caused by the development of nuclear weapons. By limiting the engagements, the two superpower “scorpions” endeavored to preclude the 

decisive, deadly blow. These limitations, however, were self-imposed. Limited wars of the past, 

those prior to the advent of the modern nation-state, were limited because they lacked social 

and political organization; cultural cohesion; nationalistic ideology; military organization and 

theory; and industrial, logistical, and technological capabilities to fight more total wars. Real, 

palpable resource restraints limited the capacity of states to project power and conduct war. 

Modern limited war required a nation-state to place artificial restraints on the conduct of war to 

preclude it from escalating into more total war, nuclear war. Artificial limited war required nations to place limitations on the objectives sought; weapons and manpower employed; the time, 

terrain, and geographic area of hostilities; and the emotions, passions, energy, attention, and 

intellect committed by a nation. However, those restraints could be removed at any time. They 

were fictional barriers that Western nation-states endeavored to observe. Clausewitz noted: 

“The bounds of military operations have been extended so far that a return to the old narrow 

limitations can only occur briefly, sporadically, and under special conditions. The true nature 

of war will break through again and again with overwhelming force, and must, therefore, be the 

basis of any permanent military arrangement.”19

Nuclear weapons fostered the “special conditions” that created artificial limited war. And 

the ever-present danger in limited war was that the “true nature” of war would reemerge with 

all the death and destruction made possible by nuclear weapons. This danger still exists. Nuclear weapons, primarily under the control of the dominant Western powers, eliminated total wars 

and created limited war. (Pakistan, India, China, Israel, and North Korea now possess nuclear 

weapons; however, throughout most of the Cold War, Western powers controlled the world’s 

nuclear arsenals.) However, given human nature and the inevitable distribution of technology, 

it is by no means certain that this pattern of behavior will continue, particularly as these weapons continue to move beyond the control of Western nation-states that seek to maintain the 

status quo, to non-Western, developing nation-states that seek to redress the balance of world 

power.

Clausewitz further explained the natural order of men in war. He wrote: “The maximum 

use of force is in no way incompatible with the simultaneous use of the intellect. If one side 

uses forces without compunction, undeterred by the bloodshed it involves, while the other side 

restrains, the first will gain the upper hand. That side will force the other to follow suit, each 
76

will drive its opponent toward extremes, and the only limiting factor are the counterpoises [elements that man does not control] inherent in war.”20 This, in fact, is more than the use of the 

“intellect” and “compunction.” This was basic human behavior for one simple reason: there is 

nothing limited about dying. War by its very nature was considered unlimited. Total war and 

war were the same term to most Americans and in the minds of most people. Limited war for 

most of humanity was an oxymoron—a combination of contradictory and incongruous ideas. 

Limited war is limited at the strategic and operational levels of war. At the tactical level of war 

where the battles are fought and the wounding, suffering, and dying takes place, there is no 

such thing as limited war. Weapons produce the same effect in limited war as they do in total 

war. They kill. Limited war was an artificial, intellectual creation of the superpowers. There 

was nothing limited about the Korean War for Koreans. There was nothing limited about the 

Vietnam War for the Vietnamese. And there was nothing limited about both wars for dead 

Americans and their families.

The initial belief that airpower and nuclear weapons had produced a completely new way 

of war that greatly reduced the role of ground forces was wrong. In 1952, the United States 

tested the hydrogen bomb. It was immediately evident that this weapon was almost useless as 

a means for achieving political objectives. It was many times more powerful than the bombs 

dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. It had absolutely no tactical or operational value, and its strategic value was questionable because, once employed, there was nothing left over which to be victorious. The only value of this weapon was in deterring nuclear war 

and total conventional war between major powers.

Osgood, in his 1957 study Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy, defined and 

developed a theory of limited war that greatly influenced the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations:

A limited war is one in which the belligerents restrict the purpose for which they 

fi ght to concrete, well-defi ned objectives that do not demand the utmost military effort 

of which the belligerents are capable and that can be accommodated in a negotiated 

settlement. Generally speaking, a limited war actively involves only two (or very few) 

major belligerents in the fi ghting. The battle is confi ned to a local geographical area 

and directed against selected targets—primarily those of direct military importance. It 

demands of the belligerents only a fractional commitment of their human and physical resources. It permits their economic, social, and political patterns of existence to 

continue without serious disruption. . . . Furthermore, a war may be limited from the 

perspective of one belligerent, yet virtually unlimited in the eyes of another.21

Osgood believed that this was the most important issue of the day, involving not only the 

security of the United States but also the survival of Western civilization. He believed that the 

United States was not using its power properly and, as a result, had suffered a number of setbacks from the Communists, including the loss of a unified Korea. He believed that the reason 

the United States had not used its military power more effectively was because of a flawed 

concept of war: “In practice, the limitation of war is morally and emotionally repugnant to 

the American people.” Osgood sought to help the United States move beyond its “traditional 

approach to war” by advancing a theory of limited war. He delineated the traditional American approach to war, outlined the problems of that approach in a world of nuclear weapons, 

and formulated principles for the conduct of limited war, many of which corresponded with 
77

Kissinger’s thinking and were later adopted by the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. 

Osgood wrote:

The administration, like Americans in general, sensed the unprecedented nature of 

the nation’s course in world politics, and it was disturbed by its inability to reconcile 

this course with America’s traditional image of itself as a bold and idealistic nation 

untrammeled by the moral ambiguities, the restraints and frustrations, of controlling, 

balancing, and moderating national power. Its response to this contradiction between 

reality and predisposition was to try to maintain a rhetorical bridge between them by 

invoking the inspirational phrases of “collective security” while depreciating the strategy that actually created an unbridgeable gulf [containment strategy]. This placed it at 

the double disadvantage of raising expectations that did not correspond with the facts 

and then defending the facts by throwing cold water on the expectations. The effect 

was not to build a bridge between reality and predisposition but rather to create the 

illusion of a bridge, which only compounded public frustration and bewilderment.22

Nation-states live with many illusions that influence their actions. During the Cold War, the 

United States lived with many illusions of strategic importance that damaged the ability of the 

United States to achieve its political objectives through the use of military force. One was that 

technology had radically changed the nature of war. Osgood identified another illusion: while 

Americans accepted the policy of containment, they did not accept the limited war strategy, 

which was inextricably part of it. The illusion of unlimited war, of fighting war the traditional 

American way remained in place.

Containment was a defensive policy. It required the United States to prepare and to fight 

small and possibly large conventional wars using multiple means in various regions of the 

world that were not traditionally considered important to the security of the United States to 

counter Communist expansion. To contain communism, the United States had to forward deploy forces on the continent with the two most significant enemy nation-states, the USSR and 

the PRC. Americans accepted the policy but not the national strategy and doctrine it required. 

And there were consequences. Osgood noted: “The United States would have been in a far better position to achieve its objectives in Korea if it had had a military establishment capable of 

handling an expanded war without rendering itself defenseless in every other part of the world. 

With another four divisions to expend, the UN forces might even have succeeded in unifying 

Korea . . . for the Chinese were committed to their full capacity. . . . Certainly the lesson here 

is that the greater our capacity for local defense, the more capable we shall be of resisting 

aggression at a cost commensurate with limited political objectives.”23 Osgood accepted the 

arguments made by Bradley and Collins in the years before the Korean War. Kissinger also 

advanced this thesis, noting that the United States could not realistically contemplate actions in 

peripheral regions without more significant conventional forces.24

Osgood wrongly predicted the outcome of the transition required of the American people. 

He wrote: “[T]hat insofar as the United States had failed to anticipate and counter the Communist military and political threat as effectively as objective circumstances might have permitted, it has failed, fundamentally, because of a deficiency in American attitudes and conceptions 

rather than because of a lack of native intelligence, technical competence, or material power. 

But although this deficiency is deep-rooted [in American culture] and, one might say, almost 

inevitable, considering the nature of American predispositions and experience in international 
78

politics, it is not irremediable and it need not be fatal.” But, it was fatal. It was fatal to the 

people of North Korea, South Vietnam, and the entire Indochina Peninsula, and it was to the 

Nation’s primary instrument for fighting conventional, limited war—the citizen-soldier Army.

Culturally, Americans could not adjust to limited, defensive wars of attrition, but they 

could change the nature of the Army they fielded and the way the United States fought limited 

war. The citizen-soldier Army was incapable of supporting limited war as conceived by Osgood and Kissinger and later practiced by Johnson and McNamara. And had the Korean War 

been a 10-year war, the citizen-soldier Army would have died in the late 1950s. The American 

citizen-soldier Army could fight limited offensive war, war in which the end of hostilities was 

based on the positive actions of the Nation, and thus, termination could be predicted. But permanent war would never be acceptable to the American people.

While Osgood identified the major problem of limited war for the American people, he 

and Kissinger developed a theory of limited war that conflicted with basic American cultural 

tenets that violated basic principles of war that went against human nature and that was ultimately unworkable. In the 1950s, there was a national propensity to discard the old, to think 

anew. There was a belief that as a result of advances in technology everything had changed so 

radically that nothing from the past mattered. There was also a belief that American power so 

exceeded that of other nation’s that the rules that governed past wars no longer mattered to the 

United States. These beliefs and attitudes influenced the development of limited war theories. 

And while Osgood ably delineated the traditional American way of war, which was a function 

of cultural inheritance, he seemed to forget that Americans could not fight a war that did not 

conform, within broad parameters, to American thinking about the conduct of war. In other 

words, he asked the American people to become something other than who they were.

The Army’s Arguments Against the New American Culture of War

It is useful to understand what unpreparedness actually meant. General Parks, writing in 

1953, endeavored to describe the consequences of complacency:

In spite of these repeated examples of the hazards of unpreparedness [World Wars I 

and II], our people have yet to appreciate the near tragedy that developed at the outset 

of the fi ghting in Korea. . . . What were some of the specifi c results of this latest lapse 

in preparedness? Early in 1952, we ordered the withdrawal from Korea of the 24th 

Infantry Division, the fi rst American outfi t to be sent against the Communists. Those 

most familiar with the Division estimated that only two men remained of those who 

originally were rushed to the aid of the South Koreans. The rest were dead, wounded, 

prisoners or had been rotated back to this country. These men, together with units of 

the 2nd and 25th Infantry and the 1st Cavalry Divisions, later reinforced by the Marines and 7th Infantry Division, represented the total armed might of the United States 

at the outset of the Korean action. Many who never lived to tell the tale had to fi ght the 

full range of ground warfare from offensive to delaying action, unit by unit, man by 

man. . . . [T]hat we were able to snatch victory from defeat . . . does not relieve us from 

the blame for having placed our own fl esh and blood in such a predicament.

Army leaders believed the Korean War proved the fallacy of the argument that nuclear 

weapons and airpower alone could keep the peace and advance American interests around the 

world. They retained their belief that man was the ultimate weapon on the battlefield and ad-
79

vanced the concept of limited war—a concept that was different from that of Osgood in significant ways. Still, the Army never fully accepted the theory of strategic airpower. Starting in the 

late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, Army Chiefs of Staff and ground combat commanders argued against the new vision of war from the air with nuclear weapons. In defense of the Army, 

leaders such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, J. Lawton Collins, Mark W. Clark, 

Matthew B. Ridgway, Maxwell D. Taylor, James M. Gavin, Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Manton S. 

Eddy, Bruce C. Clarke, and others argued for the retention of significant ground combat forces 

to meet the growing Communist threat. Ironically, in 1948, Eisenhower, in his final report as 

Army Chief of Staff, was one of the first to raise the alarm:25

The Army phases of a balanced air-sea-ground organization require special stress at 

a time when many voice the opinion that land forces have been made obsolete by the 

advance of aviation, the development of rockets, and the atomic bomb. Today the 

only element of the military establishment that can hold a defensive position, seize for 

exploitation a major offensive base, exercise direct complete control over an enemy 

population—three fundamental purposes of armed effort—is, as always, the foot-soldier. The introduction of the plane and the atomic bomb has no more eliminated the 

need for him than did the fi rst use of cavalry or the discovery of gunpowder.26

Armies exist for two basic purposes: first, to generate the combat power necessary to destroy enemy forces and thereby win wars and, second, to deter war through their demonstrative ability to generate combat power. Eisenhower recognized that the Army was primarily 

performing occupation duty and hence was not ready to fight. He further noted that the Army’s 

lack of preparation for war invited war:

The budget of the Army and its numerical strength are devoted largely to the consequences of victory. Occupation is both worthy and necessary, but it must be seen 

as preventive rather than as positive security. Moreover, its physical magnitude and 

manifold problems demand such concentrated effort that relatively few men and little 

time are left for the Army’s primary job. The purely security mission—organizing, 

training and sharpening for national defense—has necessarily taken second place. By 

no stretch of the facts can the United States Army, as it is now manned, deployed, and 

engaged, be considered an offensive force. It is not ready to respond to an emergency 

call because its global distribution not only leaves it weak in every sector but prevents 

the concentration of anything beyond the merest handful for possible tactical use. This 

virtually complete dispersion of our ground strength cannot be permitted to continue 

over any considerable period, because there are elements in both the world situation 

and our own strategic position that demand the constant availability of respectable 

land forces. . . . 27

Eisenhower then assessed the readiness of Army equipment: “Even our existing Regular 

Army is under-equipped with such modern weapons. The occupation mission, consuming more 

than two billion dollars of the Army’s annual budget, plus other budgetary limitations, has left 

almost no money for current procurement. Unless this defect is remedied we will shortly have 

to acknowledge that in weapons and equipment our ground troops may prove inferior to a modern offensive force.”28 The Army was ill equipped and trained to perform either of its offensive, 

campaign-winning doctrines—infantry doctrine or armor-warfare doctrine in a major war. A 

few months after the initiation of hostilities in Korea, Bradley wrote:

It is now apparent that the aggression in Korea was well planned and well prepared 
80

and the militant international Communism inspired the northern invaders. It is also apparent that Communism is willing to use arms to gain its ends. This is a fundamental 

change and it has forced a change in our estimate of the military needs of the United 

States. [W]e have fi nally drawn the line. . . . We may in this way succeed in forcing the 

respect which we now know conciliation, appeasement and weakness can never bring. 

The cost will be heavy—but not as heavy as the war which we are now convinced 

would follow our failure to arm. [I]t is now evident that we must have an even greater 

fl exibility of military power in the United States itself—not only for our own protection, but also to give us a ready, highly mobile standby force which we can bring to 

bear at any threatened point in the minimum time. . . . 29

These were strong words, uncharacteristic of Bradley. The term “appeasement” was loaded 

with memories of the failures of British and French foreign and military policies in the 1930s 

and knowledge of the sacrifices of World War II. Bradley, however, had good reason to stress 

this point. Truman and his advisers ignored the warnings and, as a consequence, share as much 

of the blame for the causes of the Korean War as the British for the causes of World War II, 

which, many people believe, was the result of their policy of appeasement. Bradley had argued 

for a rapid deployment force before the war in Korea, and he knew that sacrifices were again 

being made by servicemen in Korea—sacrifices that might have been avoided had the Army 

retained the respect it had at the close of World War II. Now, he hoped that events in Korea 

would convince political leaders to reverse the policies of the last 5 years that had so devastated 

the Army, the national will, and the Nation’s ability to protect its interests around the world. 

Bradley could have also noted that it was geography that saved South Korea. The proximity 

of the four divisions in Japan to the battlefield made possible the continued existence of South 

Korea. The Army did not have significant rapid deployment forces, and airpower could not 

stop the advancing North Korean Army, nor could the Navy and Marine Corps. Had US forces 

deployed from the west coast, they would have arrived too late to save South Korea.

Speaking during the war, the Army Chief of Staff, General Collins, endeavored to explain 

to the American people the many duties their Army was carrying out in all parts of the globe:

This Army . . . is deployed over the face of the world—with sizable forces located 

in forty-nine countries on six continents. In addition to the men of our great Eighth 

Army fi ghting in the mud and mountains of Korea, soldiers are keeping watch along 

the iron curtain in Berlin and Vienna, are participating in atomic tests in the Nevada 

desert, are standing guard along our northern approaches in Iceland, Greenland and 

Alaska, are assisting in the defense of Japan, are protecting our essential outposts in 

Panama and the Caribbean and on islands of the Pacifi c, and are providing advice and 

military assistance to our friends along the periphery of the Soviet empire in Europe, 

the Middle East and Asia. Within the continental United States, Army antiaircraft units 

are deployed to defend our cities and key industrial facilities and other Army forces are 

stationed in all of the forty-eight states.30

Americans have never learned the lessons of the Korean War, and this failure has been 

evident in every war since.

Recommendations

Recommendations without power and position may be little more than useless, and some 
81

will consider them arrogant. Nevertheless, every American has the right, indeed the duty, to 

voice his or her concerns. Thus, I offer the following recommendations:

1. Reinstate the draft. Make the war a national war. Get the American people back 

involved in the Nation’s war, and provide the Army with a source of manpower that 

is not based on how much money the Nation can afford to pay, or how much college 

tuition, or how big of a reenlistment bonus the Congress will provide. The US Army 

is too small. It absolutely has to be expanded. We are using up our soldiers. We are 

overcommitting them. The American sense of fairness and equality of sacrifice is being undermined. Who we are as Americans, what we stand for as a people is being 

diminished daily by the present situation and current system. One percent of the Nation 

should not have to bear the entire burden for war. This is wrong, and we all know it.

2. Develop a comprehensive strategy for the conduct of the current war, meaning 

a regional strategy for the Middle East. To be sure, each country has to be dealt with 

differently, taking into account the different political and economic situations and systems of each country. However, the United States should have an integrated regional 

strategy that includes Israel as an equal state not an exceptional state.

3. Develop and implement a “Marshall Plan” for the Middle East and Africa. This 

is absolutely necessary to destroy the environments in which terrorism grows. This 

should be a major part of American strategy for the region. With the money the Bush 

Administration has paid Halliburton and other private military firms (PMFs), it could 

have financed two Middle East Marshall Plans in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

4. Stop the privatization of war. The Bush Administration has greatly advanced a 

practice, initiated when Vice President Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense, whereas the conduct of war is now a function of greed. Companies with the wherewithal to 

lobby Congress, such as Halliburton, Cheney’s former company, have a vested interest 

in the outbreak and continuation of war. War equals profit. This is dangerous. In addition, the Army’s ability to redeploy, sustain itself, control its operations, and control its 

quality of life has diminished. And what happens if the private firms desert us? Many 

PMFs are multinational companies that employ thousands of subcontractors from all 

parts of the world. The next logical step following privatization is unionization. It is 

not difficult to envision all the Iraqi subcontractors uniting with all the Egyptian, Filipino, and other foreign subcontractors to form unions with the wherewithal to strike for 

higher wages or other demands. PMFs have ambiguous status and uncertain loyalties. 

They could be working for al-Qaeda and the US Army at the same time. Many of these 

firms are located outside the United States and, therefore, are not subject to its laws. 

PMFs promote corruption in the governments of developing countries, endeavoring to 

effectively and efficiently manage their foreign aid and national resources. And this list 

of negatives is incomplete.31

5. Bring American intellectual power into the war. Bring American universities into 

the war. The most knowledgeable people on the Middle East are not in the Pentagon or 

the CIA or the State Department. The best language specialists do not work for the Federal Government. The best people are at Berkeley, Stanford, the University of Chicago, 
82

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and so on. Historians, anthropologists, political scientists, 

foreign language professors, and other highly educated specialists could contribute 

greatly to the US war effort, better yet to enlighten US foreign policy. In addition, they 

would provide a different point of view. The group thinking and ideological perspective that permeates the Pentagon, White House, and Department of State would be 

diminished with outside input.

6. Increase greatly information operations and direct them at the younger generations. Eisenhower believed that the way the United States was going to win the Cold 

War was not with tanks and airplanes but with the American standard of living, with 

the demonstrative superiority of the American political and economic system to produce wealth and prosperity, to produce schools and hospitals, homes and cars, plenty in 

food and clothing, and everything a human being could want. This is what the United 

States ultimately has to offer to the developing world, to the Middle East, and to other 

countries fighting terrorist organizations, poverty, and war.

7. Form real coalitions. Form coalitions where other nation-states make real sacrifices and the United States is not bribing or paying them to be a part of the coalition. 

The arrogance, unilateralism, and ignorance of the Bush Administration have robbed 

the United States of the support that was possible in the Global War on Terrorism and 

in the Middle East wars. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were disdainful of the contributions of other countries. They insulted potential allies and alienated traditional allies. 

As a consequence, the United States has paid and paid and paid for this war. It didn’t 

have to be this way. George Bush senior in Operation DESERT STORM formed a real 

coalition.

8. Work with and through the United Nations. The United Nations provides legitimacy. It can provide the United States with a cover for difficult decisions and actions. 

It can provide the framework that brings other nations onboard and into coalitions with 

the United States. The United States with all its great power can bargain with the UN 

in such a way as to produce win-win situations.

9. Base American foreign policy on the principles, values, and ethics of the Declaration of Independence. In other words, treat other people around the word the way we 

believe we ought to be treated. The United States to its great shame has tolerated genocide in Africa, ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe, and starvation in various parts of the 

world. At the same time, it has wasted billions of dollars on researching and employing 

missile defense systems that do not work, developing and researching laser intercept 

systems that do not work, purchasing three new jet fighters (one for each service), 

replacing the world’s best air-superiority fighter with another one only slightly better, 

and other enormously wasteful practices that benefit very narrow interests. In regard 

to weapons technology, the United States is no longer competing with the USSR; it is 

competing with itself.

10. Talk to the American people. Admit that mistakes have been made. Call for a new 

commitment. Ask for their support for a new strategy. Explain to the American people 

the consequences of failure. Put in place new leadership. Purge the administration of 
83

the neocons. Explain that a draft is necessary. Get rid of no-bid contracts. Get rid of 

the cozy relationship between the Pentagon, White House, and Halliburton and other 

PMFs. Stop the appearance of corruption. The American people will support a national 

war for objectives that are clearly in the best interest of the United States. Defeat in 

Iraq and Afghanistan and in other parts of the Middle East will be a disaster for the 

United States and other Western nations. 

The war in Iraq in the summer of 2007 can still be won; that is, Iraq can still be stabilized 

maintaining its current geographical and political boundaries. The Bush Administration, however, cannot turn it around. Only new leadership that is politically courageous and adroit, with 

greater generosity toward other cultures and a less-aggressive, less-militaristic vision of the 

world than the Bush Administration can succeed. However, the United States needs more than 

new leadership. The American people also need a bigger vision of war and a better vision of 

the world. The United States cannot win a war without the US Army. And, the US Army cannot win a major war against a Nation or people without the real and enduring support of the 

American people. The lessons the Vietnam War have been ignored at a high cost.

Notes

1. The essay is based on my book, The American Culture of War: The History of US Military 

Force From World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom (New York: Routledge Press, 2007).

2. Matthew B. Ridgway, Soldier: The Memoirs of Matthew B. Ridgway (New York: Harper, 1956), 

312.

3. Ibid., 191.

4. See chapter 1 of The American Culture of War for a more detailed discussion of “culture.”

5. John Shy, “The American Military Experience,” A People Numerous and Armed, Rev. ed. (Ann 

Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 272.

6. Colin Gray, War, Peace, and Victory (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 45, 46.

7. Shy, 279, 280.

8. Ridgway, 191.

9. The US Army Center of Military History provided the figures on Army manpower strength and 

numbers of divisions. 

10. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York: Doubleday, 1948), 456.

11. Maxwell D. Taylor, The Uncertain Trumpet (New York: Harper & Bros, 1960), 3, 4.

12. Eisenhower, 455, 456 (italics added).

13. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, in Roots of Strategy, bk. 4, ed. David Jablonsky (Mechanicsburg: PA: Stackpole Books, 1999), 284.

14. Eric Katz, “On the Neutrality of Technology,” Death by Design: Science, Technology, and Engineering in Nazi Germany (New York: Longman, 2006), 291. Technology is not value free. Katz wrote: 

“The popular view that science is value-free has also come under attack in this time period. Indeed, one 

way to characterize the postmodern age in which we live is by acknowledging as a basic idea that all 

human creations—both ideas and physical artifacts—are the products of a particular culture and history 

and that they are endowed by the creative process with the specific values and purposes of the culture 
84

of subculture (race, class, gender) that created them. No human creation is morally neutral or value-free 

because all are the product of a particular culture and worldview.”

15. Technology, like ideology, is, in large part, an attribute of culture. Science is not simply a logical deductive reasoning process in a particular discipline. What is studied, how it is studied, and the 

conclusions that are drawn are greatly influenced by culture. Science, engineering, and research are not 

value free, are not neutral. What is asked from science, the problems to which scientific solutions are 

sought, and the ways in which science is applied to achieve particular ends are a function of culture. If 

given the same scientific resources and the same problem, the way different cultures employed those 

resources to develop solutions would vary greatly. War is a problem to which technological solutions 

are sought. However, the ways in which states go about employing their resources to this problem are a 

function of their culture and history, as well as the limitations of their scientific attainment and resources. 

Give an American a billion dollars and a military problem and he will, without question or doubt, build 

an airplane that permits the destruction of the enemy from the greatest possible range.

16. See Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, 

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).

17. Richard P. Hallion, Storm Over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 1.

18. Robert Oppenheimer, “Atomic Weapons and American Policy,” Foreign Affairs, 21, no. 4 (July 

1953): 529 (italics added). Quoted in Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New 

York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), 94.

19. Clausewitz, 313 (italics added).

20. Ibid., 75.

21. Robert E. Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago: University of 

Chicago Press, 1957), 1, 2.

22. Ibid., 191.

23. Ibid., 183

24. Henry A. Kissinger, “Military Policy and Defense of the ‘Grey Areas,’” Foreign Affairs, 33 

(April 1955), 421, 427.

25. Between 1 January and 30 June 1950, the authorized strength of the Regular Army was cut from 

677,000 to 630,000 to meet budgetary limits. In January 1950, the actual strength was 638,824. By June, 

the month the Korean War started, it had dropped to 591,487 or 38,513 below the authorization. 

26. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Long Pull for Peace” AID, April 1948, 33–41. From the “Final 

Report of the Chief of Staff General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower.”

27. Eisenhower, “The Long Pull for Peace,” 33–41.

28. Ibid.

29. General Omar Bradley, US Army, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, “The Path Ahead,” AID, 

October 1950, 24–26.

30. J. Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff, US Army, “Men, Materiel and Money,” AID, July 1953, 

8–16.

31. See P. W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry (Ithaca, NY: 

Cornell University Press, 2003); Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman, Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War (New York: Palgrave, 2007); Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: 

Winning the War, Losing the Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).
85

Panel 2—The Role of Culture

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

Dr. Michael Scheuer

Dr. Adrian Lewis

Moderated by Dr. Curt King

Dr. Curt King

As moderator, I will make a few remarks, but following the lead of Dr. Herrera earlier, keep 

myself very brief because your questions are the more important item here. It’s interesting 

we’ve had two panelists with a connection to culture. The panel theme as you know, taking 

it from very different angles. The culture within the American military and kind of a smaller 

internal culture of the way our military is shaped, our view of fighting war. And then the larger 

culture in the Islamic world and also the more importantly, I guess—well not more importantly, 

but more to the point of the presentation—the view of that culture through American eyes. I 

guess the only thing I would add is—the people that work with me know I’m a little bit sometimes uptight on precision of words. And believe me, this is nothing—these gentlemen were 

very precise and I think very clear in their understanding of words. And I just throw it out to 

you folks, not as a question—a think piece maybe—when we use words like culture, what do 

we mean by that? Other words—of course, “Islamofascism”—fascism itself is a word that’s 

been misused and misunderstood. And so words do have meanings. It’s kind of trite to say that, 

but I’m always reminded of a book I read years ago when starting to study about revolutions by 

Crane Brinton and The Anatomy of Revolution. But he talked about how the word “revolution” 

conjured up an image in its day, the French Revolution and guillotines and the American Revolution, violent political overthrow. And nowadays we talk about a revolution in warfare, we talk 

about a revolution in women’s garments. So words can be used very loosely sometimes. But I 

think our gentlemen used them well and as we look at culture, and as they approach it from both 

angles, I will cut myself off here and throw it open to you folks for questions.

Audience Member

I think we’re certainly engaged in a national debate. There is one in Washington on what are the 

limits of the American interests in Iraq today and I see officers, and soldiers debating who and 

when will they arrest or not detain someone, when will they not apply ROE, what conditions 

are, and how do they manage the war, the tactical fight. It seems to me that we are very much 

engaged. And on the caliphate and Islamofascism, Dr. David Kay in his study of The Search for 

Weapons of Mass Destruction, appeared before congress and asked the question, “Why did we 

...” and he wasn’t referring to politicians, “Why did we as a bureaucracy and an intelligence 

apparatus fail to determine that Iraq did not have active ongoing or robust programs, such that 

they were apparently not an imminent threat?” And the question I will put to you would be, not 

the politicians use of rhetoric, but how does this apply to each and every one of us here because 

we are bureaucrats for the lower level commanders or the instructors of military officers who 
86

have to work within this political environment, and run organizations designed to counter these 

threats and feed information to our hires that help them understand the world they encounter?

Dr. Adrian Lewis

I don’t think the American people have embraced the [inaudible] wars. As a matter of fact, I 

was thinking about the Vietnam War and you were talking about the will of the people. The 

further you go away from what Americans think war ought to look like, the better your chances 

of losing the will of the people. Americans have a vision in their head about what war ought 

to look like, and I think after 9/11 if you had implemented that, if you had told the American 

people, “Gee, we’re going to fight a war in the Middle East. We’re going to fight it. It’s going 

to be a large war. It’s going to go on for a long time. There are going to be multiple [inaudible], 

multiple facets of it, we’re going to have to mobilize the nation for it. It’s going to involve all 

of us.” You probably could have got them on board at that time. But I do not believe the American people are involved in this war at this time. I don’t believe that. I think one percent of the 

population—well not think, I know it’s just one percent of the population—is fighting this war. 

And as I said, I don’t think putting a little yellow sticker on your car, “We support the troops,” is 

adequate. Either we’re a nation or we’re not. What does nationalism mean in the United States? 

What does it mean when we send soldiers for their third tour over there? What does that mean 

to their families, to that wife or to those kids? You know, it’s—to me, it’s just unconscionable 

the way that we’re doing this. I do not believe that we have embraced a limited war particularly 

the way we are fighting it and what this involves again is the will of the people.

Audience Member

How do you—I think the question was how do you accommodate . . . [man not speaking in 

microphone—inaudible] . . . run the system, run the organization and feed information to the 

hires or [inaudible] that shape or influence how they see the war and then try to shape it?

Dr. Michael Scheuer

On this particular issue, you have to sacrifice your career to do it, sir, if you’re going to tell the 

truth. Because there’s no policy maker that wants to hear the truth of the matter. They don’t 

want to hear anything bad about Israel, about our relationship with them. They certainly don’t 

want to hear anything about Saudi Arabia, which is probably the most dangerous country on 

earth to us today. The job for the manager, at least my job, was to have a bunch of smart young 

people who knew the right answers and explain to them why their views were constantly either 

denigrated or ignored. I don’t know what the answer is I’m afraid. The people who govern 

us—one of the reasons I would oppose at least a draft is because I wouldn’t trust this generation of our governing elite with the lives of more soldiers. We would be fighting for Christ’s 

sake in any number of places against an enemy that doesn’t exist. But as for a manager it’s an 

extraordinarily difficult job when we’re dealing with subordinates who are extremely bright 

and don’t have a lot of tolerance for baloney and are not able to push that information up the 

chain with any chance of success.
87

Audience Member

Ralph Peters. Both presentations were extremely stimulating and I thank you. Mike, let me say 

up front, I agree with you that Saudi Arabia is America’s number one enemy, period, hands 

down. No question about it. However . . . oh, and also I have to say that although many of us 

may not agree with some of the things you raised today, nonetheless, everything you raised 

bears serious thought on either the self analysis that confronts what we don’t want to hear. 

However, on the issue of Israel, your position and that of some others, reminds me a bit of 

the 1930s movement, “Why die for Danzig?” You could also argue that wouldn’t it have been 

much wiser for us in the 1930 to jettison that troublesome relationship with little Britain and 

ally with the Nazis? And I’m not equating Nazis to Islamofascism. But in terms of power politics. Anyone who has been in the Middle East, and I know you have, can’t fail to recognize 

that for all the crummy stuff the Israelis do, they are part of our civilization, it’s a rule of law 

democracy. So here’s my question after that long preamble. Do you really believe that if we cut 

our ties with Israel tomorrow that those Arab states which you correctly described as fascist and 

the populations of them would suddenly look with friendly eyes upon America?

Dr. Michael Scheuer

I think there is, sir, and you know from what I’ve written there’s no one I have more respect for 

than you. You are much more of an interventionist than I am. I believe that eventually America 

will realize that it has overcommitted itself and bitten off more than it can chew in the Islamic 

world and we will begin to construct a policy of deflecting the violence back to where it belongs—in the Islamic world with Muslim killing Muslim. I have never said that we should cut 

our relationship with the Israelis. In fact, my anger over the relationship with the Israelis has 

come more since I resigned and found the restriction on free speech in my own country when 

people have a differing view. I think that is the insidious part of the relationship and I frankly 

believe that the United States can work out a relationship with the leaders of Israel which will 

satisfy both of our needs—both theirs and ours. We cannot abide by the maximalist position of 

America’s “Israeli Firsters.” They will both drive us into a war that’s extraordinarily costly and 

in their zeal to have a maximalist position on Israel, they will destroy the Israeli state. That’s 

where I am on that, sir.

Audience Member

Sir, Colonel Bill Darley. I have a question for Dr. Scheuer. Actually two questions if I might. 

Recently, there was a book published by Dr. Vali Nasr called The Shia Revival, and he spent a 

great deal of time in there discussing Iran and the fact that the population of Iran, a large part 

of them are the least anti-American in the area, and that it’s a state that is sort of divided, basically dominated by a clique of people that oppress the rest. I was interested in your analysis of 

that first. Second of all, what should we do about Iran? Is that an accurate assessment and if 

you had the power to do it, how should we approach Iran? Also, one other question on an aside. 

Aware that you were there during events, I’d be very interested if you would choose to respond 

with regard to what you thought of the recent ABC special on the events leading up to 9/11; 
88

even though it was a fictionalized account, how accurate was it in terms of the way the Clinton 

administration, Berger, and others handled it?

Dr. Michael Scheuer

Sir, I’ll take them in order. I’ve read Mr. Nasr’s book. I thought all but the last chapter was 

very good. I had always been one who probably was too flip in saying the differences between 

Sunnis and Shias are great. I think Mr. Nasr’s book paints an extraordinarily good picture on 

how deep, and historical, and fractious those differences are. I thought the last chapter which 

conduced to, “Oh, we’ll find a way to get along with each other, this Islamist revival or Shia 

revival,” is kind of a bit of nonsense. I think there’s a blood feud that’s going to be played out 

without any real chance of a “Kum ba yah-ing” of the sects coming together.

Regarding Iran; Iran sits in there where it sits. It’s surrounded by a Sunni world that detests it, 

probably hate them more than they hate us. It’s running out of energy resources over the last 

15 or 20 years, and it’s surrounded by American military bases. I personally don’t think that it 

merits a war with the Iranians. I think we can choke them off just fine economically and with 

the fact that we surround them. And the one thing I would mention is this administration has 

not made enough of a statement about the capabilities of Iran and Hezbollah inside the United 

States. Because of the derelict immigration policies and border controls we have, Hezbollah 

and the Iranians are well established in the United States and Mexico and Canada. I don’t think 

they would ever attack us first, but if we ever attacked them, we would have, I believe, truly the 

devil to pay inside the United States.

In regard to the movie, I frankly didn’t see it. I was told about it, but what I can tell you is that 

do you remember Mr. Clinton was on Chris Wallace’s program on Fox and said he had done 

everything possible to kill Osama bin Laden. I can tell you for a fact since I was the chief, we 

never had authority to kill Osama bin Laden under Mr. Clinton. And Mr. Clinton turned down 

two chances to capture Osama bin Laden using the assets of the Central Intelligence Agency, 

and he turned down eight chances to kill him using the power of the US military with specific 

real time information about where he was living. In the third week of May, 1999, we knew in 

which building in Kandahar City bin Laden was living for five consecutive nights. So the week 

following, Chris Wallace had me on and said, you know, “What do you think about what the 

President said?” And I said, “Well, ultimately, a half ass bureaucrat like me is never going to 

pull a trigger, but the President of the United States is lying. Berger, Clark, and Clinton are 

responsible for where we are today.”

Audience Member

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Farrell from West Point. My question is for Dr. Scheuer. Do you 

think it’s possible, sir, that an Islamic state can ever have a government that is a representative 

democracy in the western sense at least within the foreseeable future, say, 10, 20, 30 years?

Dr. Michael Scheuer

In the western sense, sir, I sincerely doubt . . . I don’t know how it could happen without a 

separation between church and state and that of course is viewed as turning your back on God. 
89

But I’m not sure why that matters to America. Clearly, if you read what the founders said, we’re 

not supposed to be in the business of spreading democracy.

Audience Member

Yeah, Professor Lewis, I would suggest that there’s something else afoot here in terms of culture and that is network centric warfare did not spring full blown out of Don Rumsfeld’s head 

overnight. It was the first I remember Arthur Cebrowski when he was an Admiral selling this 

and talking about it at Maxwell Air Force Base. I remember my hair hurting at the end of the 

experience, which was very painful considering how little I have. But to what degree does this 

represent the culture of the services themselves in formulating doctrine and methodologies on 

how to fight?

Dr. Adrian Lewis

My point was not specifically network centric warfare. But my point I was trying to make is 

that since World War II, we have consistently come up with some new piece of technology and 

then some new doctrine and it’s going to be the panacea, and it’s going to win the next war for 

us. It’s going to make war easier. And believe me, I mean, technology is extremely important 

in war, so I don’t want you to think I’m a cave guy. But still, the emphasis that we placed on it 

I think is just out of balance. Just completely out of balance and it creates expectations. So as 

I was saying earlier, I just think we went into this war at least in part with expectations that it 

would be easy because of technology. And as I go back to World War II and I look at the various phases of development of air power and technology, etcetera, this is not . . . again, we go 

through this process almost every 10 years where we come up with some new gee whiz doctrine and it’s going to win the next war for us. And it just hasn’t panned out that way.

Audience Member

But all I’m suggesting is that this is as much reflective of the culture of the services themselves.

Dr. Adrian Lewis

No, no. Well, . . . 

Audience Member

You know, be it Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines. Each service has its own culture as you well 

know.

Dr. Adrian Lewis

That’s true. There is an argument though in the United States and there is a debate on this thing 

and technology tends to win. In other words, if you take a look at where I was saying you spend 

your dollars at, you’re going to spend a billion dollars on one airplane and then you’re going 

to try and cry about one infantry division—you know, I mean, that’s voting in my view. You 
90

know, that’s voting. That’s saying where the country is in terms of where we’re going to spend 

money. We buy a lot of stuff that just doesn’t even work. But we’re going to cry about having ten infantry divisions. I mean, that just seems out of balance to me, particularly given our 

responsibilities around the world. I mean, if you take a look, the Army is in about 60 different 

countries right now. Yeah, that’s spread pretty thin. So it’s a lack of balance in terms of technology versus what the Army is supposed to be doing. And let me not just say the Army—the 

Marine Corps also. The ground force guys are the ones that seem to be taking the short end of 

the stick just about in every case.

Audience Member

Dr. Lewis, we have the same problem in France, of course. The balance between the Army and 

the services based on technology and the need to have the manpower to control the population, 

the terrain and so on. But you have started from the US Army experience since the Second 

World War. In fact, each time the US Army has well adapted to the administration in the Second World War, the Korean War, they were very staunch victory during that war. In the Cold 

War, at present in Iraq. You should consider with the time of history, there was four years very 

difficult, but maybe at that time there is some significant change because the US Army and the 

USMC has adapted in that war. In four to five years, that’s nothing compared with the scale of 

history. So maybe what I want to say is that its necessary for the Army to adapt every 10 years 

and to change the way we organize, we train, we think. And the US Army has done that very 

satisfactorily and we are trying also to do that, to find the right balance between technology 

and manpower because if you jettison technology, you will be faced with adversaries who will 

resort to technology to beat you. And if there is asymmetric warfare, that’s because the foes 

against the US or other powers can’t resort to symmetric warfare. That’s why they resort to irregular warfare. So this balance may be, it’s completely part of the military history and military 

adaptation.

Dr. Adrian Lewis

You know, as a peculiar phenomena that [inaudible] take place. You take a look at the World 

War II and then you go to the Korean War and even though the technology had advanced, the 

Korean War was more primitive than World War II. Then we go to the Vietnam War and technology has advanced again and we’ve got all this great stuff, and then the Vietnam War is more 

primitive than the Korean War. I mean, technology is going this way, but the nature of warfare 

is not all that advanced. Right now, we’ve got infantry guys on the ground, moving from house 

to house, trying to pacify an area. I mean, does that sound balanced? I do not argue against 

technology. Let me just say that. It may sound that way, but my point is that the US Army has 

consistently been too small, and that as a consequence of that we pay a cost. Not only do we get 

lots of soldiers killed in the initial battles unnecessarily on that, but we also threaten national 

security because we don’t have enough folks to do what has to be done. General Shinseki is a 

good point in this particular case, who told them ahead of time that you need several hundred 

thousand troops to do this. He was ignored. Not only was he ignored, he was treated like crap 

by the Secretary of Defense. Again, just out balance.
91

Dr. Michael Scheuer

No, it’s not my question. But I just—we seem to have divorced ourselves in the discussion of 

military force from the idea of winning. You know, we don’t go to war to win. We go to war 

to manage a situation. Clearly, you cannot reconstruct the government or build a nation if you 

have not annihilated the enemy. The glib analogies to Germany and Japan kind of ignore the 

fact that we annihilated them before we rebuilt them. It’s absolutely unconscionable, I think 

unconscionable, to send our military overseas if you don’t intend to win and we’ve had plenty 

of experience about how to win, which involves a lot of dead other guys and their supporters 

until they say they’ve had enough. And I think the balance of technology and manpower would 

work itself out if we had a goal, and the goal was unconditional victory. But we don’t. At least 

in America, you know, my little girl’s soccer team, if one team gets too far ahead, they take 

players off the field. At mass on Sunday, we don’t pray for victory for American forces, they 

pray for safety for American forces. There’s nothing wrong with winning. I think the point I 

would make is the American people will support almost any amount of bloody mindedness and 

destruction if you just get the damn thing over with in a reasonable amount of time.

Dr. Adrian Lewis

Yeah, I agree.

Dr. Curt King

Thank you very much. We’re on our time limit here. 
93

Panel 3—Shaping the Battlefield

(Submitted Paper)

The Policing Paradox: The Dilemma of Colonial

Policing and Military Security in an Age of Terrorism

by

Dr. Derek Catsam

University of Texas of the Permian Basin

Introduction: A Personal Connection to a Disturbing Prospect

In 2000, I led a group of high school students to Northern Ireland where we engaged in an 

education program and peace-related community service work in Belfast.1

 We spent an evening 

with members of what was then known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), Northern 

Ireland’s police force. While we received our share of party-line spin and self-justification, we 

also saw earnest men and women committed to their work. Out of a desire to learn more, I accepted a ride back to our hostel on the fringe of a nationalist neighborhood in downtown Belfast 

from one of the officers who drove us around Belfast for a good hunk of the night, a nice fellow 

I’ll call “Mike.”2

 Mike seemed both deeply committed to his work, was likely as honest with us 

as his position allowed, and wanted to help me and one of my local contacts who accompanied 

us understand what policing in Belfast entailed.

Policing in Northern Ireland is a fraught endeavor in the best of circumstances. And Northern Ireland has rarely experienced the best of circumstances since the descent into madness 

of the troubles that began in the mid-1960s. Mike explained to me the lengths that he (a Protestant, like the vast majority of the RUC) went to in order to hide his identity even from his 

neighbors. He kept his uniform in his locker at work at all times, driving a circuitous route in 

civilian clothes in his little hatchback. Mike had always had a keen interest in geography, so he 

told even his closest friends—including many family members and in-laws—that he is a geography teacher at a local school. Despite his interest in the subject, his public identity required 

him to stay on top of the subject by reading and also to lay low during school hours if his shift 

changed.

Mike was a nice guy. He went out of his way to spend a few extra hours after his tour and 

after he had met with our students to help me to understand the police perspective on Belfast’s 

myriad conflicts. He is a family man, an affable fellow, truly committed both to his work and 

to the prospects of peace. He knew he was a potential target for violence from politically motivated attackers, and he adjusted his life in almost unimaginable ways to be able to carry out his 

work and maintain some semblance of a normal life. Whatever my own politics, whatever my 

own sympathies, I can say without hesitation that I liked Mike.

Mike also may well have been a legitimate target of politically motivated violence. He 

worked for a policing organization in a long-contested part of the world. Republicans and 
94

Catholics—not always one and the same—saw Northern Ireland as a colony within the United 

Kingdom if they recognized the authority of the UK at all. Power was derived from London. 

British military officials helped maintain order. And they did so alongside the RUC, an organization whose very name roiled the political waters for those hundreds of thousands of Irish 

Catholics who may not have supported the Irish Republican Army (IRA) but who certainly 

saw the police as carrying out the will of the state and perpetuating gross civil rights violations 

against the Catholic community and not merely protecting and defending a civilian populace.

This is not to assert that an attack on Mike or any of the other thousands of men and women 

in the RUC would definitely have been justifiable on the merits. It is, however, hard to make 

a case that Mike and the RUC represented a civilian population against which any politically 

motivated attack was by definition illegitimate. This distinction does not represent a splitting 

of hairs. It is, rather, at the heart of any legitimate attempt to combat terrorism and the people 

who carry out terrorist acts. As respected international terrorism expert Boaz Ganor has argued, 

developing a coherent definition is essential in developing a “coordinated fight against international terrorism.”3

Ganor further distinguishes between terrorism and guerrilla warfare, a particularly important differentiation given the many examples of corrupt, illegitimate, and morally bankrupt nation-states that have warranted challenging. For while it is easy to condemn most forms of political violence in liberal democracies, it is a rather different matter to determine the legitimacy 

of violence in polecats among nations, as we shall see with the example of South Africa that 

will make up the bulk of this paper. In attempting to separate civilians from noncivilian targets, 

Ganor argues that guerrilla warfare is defined as “the deliberate use of violence against military 

and security personnel in order to attain political, ideological, and religious goals. Terrorism, 

on the other hand, would be defined as ‘the deliberate use of violence against civilians in order 

to attain political, ideological, and religious aims.’” To counter an “ends justify the means” sort 

of argument that allows for creeping moral relativism, Ganor argues:

What is important in these defi nitions is the differentiation between goals and the 

means used to achieve these goals. The aims of terrorism and guerrilla warfare may 

well be identical; but they are distinguished from each other by the means used—or 

more precisely by the targets of their operations. The guerilla fi ghter’s targets are military ones, while the terrorist deliberately targets civilians.4

Mike’s situation embodies what I shall call the Policing Paradox, which is that any new 

state, or newly reformed state, needs a stable police force for legitimacy, yet police forces that 

operate on a national level in contested lands almost always invite instability and accusations 

of illegitimacy inasmuch as they are seen as doing the political bidding of the state. Too often 

within contested regimes, the state uses colonial policing methods to control the populace, to 

enforce the political leaders’ will, and to defend the state, which is far beyond what ought to be 

the mandate of police organizations.5

The most effective police forces have clear roles and lines of demarcation separating the 

job of the police from the role of the military. Furthermore, policing ought to be decentralized, 

allowing local (and, in some cases, regional) control to prevail. Finally, and perhaps most 

significantly, police ought to play an apolitical role in relation to the state, especially in terms 

of state and national policy objectives. In regions of conflict, it is especially important for the 
95

police to be honest brokers whose job is to maintain peace and security and to uphold the laws 

for all, not for those favored by state policies. When the role of the police is blurred, the police 

can become a legitimate target of political response, and in contested states where violence 

is the coin of the realm, that response might include violence, and those attacks may not be 

unjustified.

South Africa: Policing as a Tool of the State

A clear example of the problematic, indeed unworkable, usage of colonial policing can 

be found in apartheid South Africa, where the state intentionally blurred the lines between the 

police and the military, where the structure and organization of the South African Police (SAP) 

were highly centralized and directed from Pretoria, albeit with plenty of obfuscation so as to 

give the state plausible denial for the purpose of disavowing the nefariousness of its charges—

of which there were plenty—and the police were anything but apolitical, as their chief role was 

to maintain apartheid by whatever means they deemed necessary.6

Particularly in the years following the Soweto Uprising in 1976, the SAP increasingly took 

the lead in helping the state to crush rebellion and undermine the antiapartheid movement. 

The SAP undertook innumerable covert operations at the behest of the state’s Total Strategy 

in the 1980s, which President P.W. Botha had announced in the name of confronting the Total 

Onslaught posed by the allegedly Communist African National Congress (ANC) and its allies. 

While the government referred to the antiapartheid opposition as “terrorists,” it was in fact the 

state that was responsible for terrorism against the black masses it crushed under the heels of 

the apartheid security state.

On 8 March 1996, South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper published one of award 

winning political cartoonist Zapiro’s incisive pieces. It depicted two of the most notorious 

members of the apartheid security apparatus crossing paths between trials. One of the figures 

was Eugene de Kock, known among his colleagues as Prime Evil for his ruthless efficiency 

as a member of the elite Vlakplaas police unit, who was standing trial for dozens of offenses, 

including murder. The other figure was Magnus Malan, the Minister of Defence during the 

darkest years of PW Botha’s dark regime, who was on his way to his own trial for apartheidera crimes. Coming from the door of the De Kock Trial were dozens of skeletons, indicative of 

de Kock’s crimes, but also his revelations, the skeletons he released from his closet. The distinctly simian-featured Malan, meanwhile, prepared to enter his courtroom, which tellingly had 

spilled none of its secrets. Zapiro’s spot-on rendition of the square-jawed, apodictic Afrikaner 

police officer de Kock shows him being led away in his handcuffs, peering back at Malan, who 

is stunned to hear de Kock pointedly ask: “My defence is: ‘Just following orders’ . . . What’s 

Yours General?”

While the “just following orders” defense was discredited at least as long ago as the Nuremburg trials, de Kock’s question stood not as self-defense, but rather as an accusation. And by 

aiming the accusation squarely at Malan, de Kock indicted the whole system that Malan had 

headed for so long. De Kock’s hands were dirty. He never denied as much and would prove 

to be one of the most profoundly important witnesses before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) as a result of his direct knowledge of the nature of the security 

state. Malan, however, was equally implicated in the crimes of apartheid. As someone who had 
96

worked with the country’s leading police officials he bore the responsibility of hundreds, likely 

thousands, of police crimes, crimes all carried out with the explicit or implicit understanding 

that the commission of certain acts served to protect the state from the challenge to its racist 

regime. The security forces acted to carry out the political will of the state. And the volume of 

their crimes to those ends are numbing and devastating and almost remained hidden, which had 

been one of the chief goals of those in charge all along.

One of the first fissures in the apartheid security force dam came in 1989 when Dirk Johannes Coetzee, a policeman who had climbed through the ranks to become a senior officer at 

Vlakplaas, the infamous counterinsurgency unit located on a farm outside of Pretoria, chose to 

bear his soul or at least to save himself from prison. As a decorated member of the police who 

had worked for the state in various capacities, Coetzee was responsible for planning, organizing, and carrying out abductions, beatings, and murders. The most famous of the killings was 

that of Griffiths Mxenge, a prominent ANC lawyer in Durban. By 1986, however, after a series 

of personal difficulties and professional problems, including reprimands that stemmed largely 

from his loose cannon reputation, Coetzee decided that it was time to quit, and after overstating 

the severity of his diabetes, he took medical retirement.8

For some time after leaving the security forces, Coetzee engaged in off-the-record talks 

with Jacques Pauw, a writer for a new Afrikaans independent weekly newspaper, Vrye Weekblad. Pauw had hoped to get Coetzee to talk on the record, but the former Vlakplaas leader was 

wary, and understandably so, given the nature of his past crimes and the ruthless ways in which 

the security forces were known to deal with traitors. Nonetheless, as 1989 progressed, it became clear to Coetzee that some of his past transgressions, most notably the murder of Mxenge, 

were catching up with him. Coetzee allowed Pauw to make arrangements for them to discuss 

what Coetzee knew in exchange for safe haven. In what must have seemed the ultimate irony 

to many of the individuals involved, that haven proved to be the ANC headquarters in London. 

The result of the collaboration resulted in Pauw’s In the Heart of the Whore, a book that helped 

to shatter the wall of secrecy that the apartheid regime had painstakingly built up around itself.9

Although Coetzee’s driving motivation had been self-preservation, he nonetheless proved to be 

of vital importance for the antiapartheid struggle, for with his confessions and his willingness 

to expose the inner workings of the security state, the prospects of the end of apartheid and 

white rule seemed more realistic than ever.

In 1991, Coetzee wrote a letter to President F.W. de Klerk asking for “the chance to return 

and expose the truth.” He wanted to “make full statements of who in the hit squads did what 

to whom,” and he believed that his testimony could go a long way in solving some important 

murders—not only those of Mxenge and his wife but also those of Dr. David Webster, Japie 

Maponya, and others. He maintained that he “would be able to do this because I know the procedures used since I was in the force have not changed.” He argued that de Klerk had shown 

himself “to be honest. You have done so much since September 1989 to promote peace and 

stability for everyone in a new South Africa, and I have got no doubt . . . that you would like 

to cut to the bone the mess that is left in the wake of police hit squad activities.” Coetzee had 

“listened to the other side of the story many times, and have trusted and relied on senior police 

officers, to no avail.” He warned de Klerk against allowing “the old lies” to continue, and he 

couched his argument in terms that would become standard for former security force members 

in the postapartheid era: “We must admit what was going on during days when all was consid-
97

ered fair in what was a war situation, because that was precisely what it was.” He wanted to be 

“as a police pensioner with the rank of captain . . . for a period with a specific instruction to help 

you get to the truth.” He acknowledged that he had “just as clean or dirty a record as all of those 

who” were “involved and who (were) still in the police.” He concluded by assuring de Klerk 

that his letter was “not inspired by the African National Congress, or written with their permission.” He only saw ANC members once a month to collect his monthly allowance, though he 

did admit, “They do look after me well.” He signed off on his sworn statement by saying that 

he was “acting on my own, as a patriot, in the longer-term interests of my people.”10

De Klerk never took Coetzee up on his offer, but Coetzee still had served a crucial function. In 1994, the first freely elected multiracial Parliament in South Africa created the TRC. 

Its creation allowed for other security force members to come forward and reveal the atrocities 

of the old regime. Most did so to gain amnesty for crimes that had already been discovered, or 

to prevent their roles from being uncovered, or for numerous other reasons, ranging from the 

self-serving to the truly repentant.11 But the testimony of Coetzee had been vital in unlocking 

doors that, for most of the 1980s, looked likely to remain forever sealed.

With each round of testimony, the depth of the apartheid atrocities piled up. Many of the security force officers pointed toward their bosses, indicating that the ethos of using violence, including death squads, against activists extended to the highest echelons of the bureaucracy and 

government of the country. One former police lieutenant, Charles Zeelie, said simply about his 

superior officers: “My seniors up to commissioner knew about these methods, and condoned 

them.” The methods about which he spoke were the application of electrical prods on various 

body parts to coerce information from suspects.12 Many of Zeelie’s superiors denied his testimony, but by that point, such revelations had become commonplace. Only the most deluded 

and anachronistic among the security force elite could deny their roles in the atrocities.

After 1994, more and more big names came forward. Eugene de Kock, Prime Evil, testified 

in charismatic, mesmerizing, and gory detail about numerous murders and escapades ranging 

from Ovamboland in northern Namibia to Botswana to Zimbabwe and back at home in South 

Africa. He maintained that his orders came from the highest levels of government and was willing to tell all to the TRC to mitigate his multiple life sentences that put him in prison for more 

than 200 years for his roles in murders and conspiracy.13

For more than a decade, de Kock’s name was one of the most feared among members of 

the resistance struggle. His ruthlessness earned him other colorful nicknames in addition to 

Prime Evil. His enemies in the Freedom Struggle sometimes called him the Scourge of God. 

Some of his colleagues called him fok fok de Kock, which means precisely what it sounds like 

it might mean.14 In September 1996, de Kock was convicted in the Pretoria Supreme Court 

of 6 murders, 2 conspiracies to commit murder, and more than 80 counts of gunrunning and 

fraud.15 Those convictions alone made de Kock an unprecedented figure in the annals of South 

African political crime, even by the warped standards that prevailed under the apartheid regime 

in the 1980s. However, in the years after his conviction, de Kock revealed volumes about his 

involvement during the 1980s and early 1990s. He applied for amnesty for many other cases in 

which he was involved. It is now clear that Prime Evil was involved in the detainment, torture, 

murder, and attempted murder of activists and askaris numbering into the hundreds.16
98

In an attempt to mitigate his sentence, de Kock offered broad disclosure of Vlakplaas 

activities, and he served as a vital lever in opening up the closed society that was the security 

force regime. Once the TRC began its work, de Kock filed numerous amnesty applications 

declaring his involvement in Third Force activities, including some of the most famous cases 

of the apartheid era.17 In his testimony, de Kock proved willing to expose the involvement of 

government, police, and military officials, and he claimed that these groups were intimately 

involved not only in planning and executing covert operations but also in covering up their 

involvement. de Kock’s and Coetzee’s disclosures proved vital in breaking down the walls 

of silence that long pervaded the officialdom and the rank and file that carried out the state’s 

armed reign of terror.18

Other police officials continued to follow the lead of Coetzee and de Kock. Retired Security Police General Nic Van Rensburg asserted that senior government cabinet ministers, including Magnus Malan and Minister of Law and Order Adriaan Vlok, were aware of “dirty tricks” 

campaigns.19 Former Port Elizabeth Security Branch Chief Gerrit Erasmus testified before the 

TRC: “The politicians had to know. They were aware of what was going on. I believe that the 

President [P.W. Botha] was also aware [of the policy of getting rid of trouble-makers.]”20 In the 

minds of security force members, the responsibility for their actions was not theirs alone, and 

they were certain that many of their directives came from the highest levels of government.

Adriaan Vlok confirmed many of these assertions when he finally testified before the TRC 

in 1998. Vlok maintained, “The buck stops here with me, I have to take political and moral 

responsibility for actions, regular and irregular.”21 Nonetheless, Vlok asserted that Botha’s successor, F.W. de Klerk knew of such allegations as far back as 1994, because Vlok had told the 

former president about his intentions to go before the TRC.

In October 1997, the TRC held a lengthy Security Hearing in Johannesburg. At those hearings, a number of revelations emerged about the nature of the organization, structure, and 

methods of the security forces. One central question was the meanings of certain phrases and 

words that were commonly used among the security forces. Among the commonly used terminology were phrases such as “remove from society,” “permanently remove from society,” 

“track down and destroy,” “break their grip,” and frequently reappearing words such as “eliminate,” “neutralize,” “obliterate or wipe out,” “destroy,” “fight against, curb, control,” “arrest, 

stem.”22 Security force members from the highest levels on down used such phrases. When the 

words were used, death and violence almost universally followed. And yet almost to a man, the 

leadership argued that every phrase had a multiplicity of meanings and interpretations, and that 

none could be taken at face value.23

Adriaan Vlok adhered to the untenable argument that even the most seemingly clear phrases, words, and sentences were fraught with ambiguity:

There was nothing unnatural or unusual in the use of these expressions. . . . [W]ith the 

benefi t of hindsight, it is an indisputable fact that there wasn’t necessary consideration 

of the perspectives in interpretations of other people who did not attend these meetings. With my knowledge and my insights . . . I say that no decisions were taken . . . 

to act illegally but at the same time, I know, or I know now that it would have been 

unavoidable that people . . . could very easily come to other conclusions and apparently they have indeed done so . . . .24
99

While Vlok was willing to take full responsibility for the actions of those beneath him in 

the chain of command, he was equally sure that what it came down to was that his directives 

were misunderstood or misapplied, that “divisional commanders and their troops on the ground 

who were . . . responsible for controlling uncontrollable situations and to normalize abnormal 

situations and on whom there” was extreme pressure from outside forces, ranging from politicians and commanding officers to the general populace, “These people would not easily have 

linked an innocent interpretation to these expressions.”25

The Mail & Guardian was skeptical of Vlok’s contrition: “He accepts ‘political and moral 

responsibility’ for the misdeeds of the police, but not ‘direct’ responsibility: Christ-like, he 

offers to take the sins of the world (or at least those of his men) upon his shoulders, but let no 

one dare suggest he was a sinner!”26 In essence, Vlok wanted to put forth the appearance of 

performing his duty to the TRC, to the nation, and to his position without putting himself in the 

direct line of fire for the misdeeds of his past.27

Conclusion: Avoiding the Policing Paradox

When a state emerges from a prolonged period of tyranny or colonialism, the legacy of politicized policing usually lingers. Furthermore, almost all of these states are going to be fraught 

with ethnic or religious or racial divisions—Iraq being but the most recent and clearly most 

salient example. But almost no new state is going to emerge except from the ashes either of an 

old one or from the wreckage of colonialism. Either way, inevitably, the police are going to be 

asked to enter divisive situations. To give them the dual burden of policing and of being an arm 

of state policy is to ensure that policing falls by the wayside whenever political objectives clash 

with public safety. To make them pawns or to force them onto one side or another of political, 

ethnic, racial, or religious clashes is to ask them to abdicate their chief duty—public safety—

for something ephemeral and ultimately unjustifiable. Societies deeply and violently divided 

do not need the burdens of the policing paradox to perpetuate the division and the violence.

Police have a hard enough job to do without turning them into legitimate targets if they 

function as a security arm not of the communities they serve but of the larger and, by definition, political structure of the state. When police operate as part of a centralized national body, 

when their role and that of the military and other security forces are indistinguishable, when 

police are asked to serve as arbiters of force in fundamentally political situations, their position becomes not only untenable, they become operatives of a state, they become paramilitary 

operatives and invite not merely political scrutiny but, ultimately, violent response.

Being a member of a police force is difficult and dangerous enough without imposing the 

burdens of colonial policing on them. For Mike and the millions like him across the globe, the 

development of better policing policies is not a matter of bureaucracy. It may well be a matter 

of life and death.

Notes

1. See Derek Catsam, “An Experiment in Peace,” PHS News (the newsletter of the Peace History 

Society) 36, no. 4 (Winter 2001).
100

2. Given the lengths to which Mike went to keep his identity secret from even some of the people 

closest to him, it strikes me as prudent and responsible not to share his identity here.

3. Boaz Ganor, “Terrorism: No Prohibition Without Definition,” International Institute for Counter-Terrorism Paper, 7 October 2001.

4. Ibid.

5. The idea of “colonial policing” is not my own. I draw it primarily from the work of the historian John Brewer who has discussed the role of the colonial police forces in South Africa and how they 

never managed, during the apartheid era, to shed those colonial vestiges even if they were so inclined, 

which, almost inarguably, they were not. See Brewer, Black and Blue: Policing in South Africa (Oxford: 

Clarendon Press, 1994). But see also Major-General Sir Charles W. Gwynn, Imperial Policing (London: 

MacMillan and Co., 1934), which is also excerpted in a Combat Studies Institute Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper (#2).

6. The secondary literature on policing (and the relationship between policing, security, and the 

military) in South Africa is extensive. A partial list includes, in addition to Brewer’s works, the following: Chris Alden, Apartheid’s Last Stand: The Rise and Fall of the South African Security State

(London: MacMillan, 1996); Mike Brogden and Clifford Shearing, Policing for a New South Africa

(London: Routledge, 1993); Gavin Cawthra, Policing South Africa: The SAP and the Transition From 

Apartheid (London: Zed Books, 1993) and Brutal Force: The Apartheid War Machine (London: International Defence & Aid Fund For Southern Africa, 1986); Donatella Della Porta, “The Policing of Protest: 

Repression, Bargaining, and the Fate of Social Movements,” African Studies, 56, no. 1 (1997): 97–128; 

Stephen Ellis, “The Historical Significance of South Africa’s Third Force,” Journal of Southern African 

Studies, 24, no. 2 (June 1998): 261–300; Mona Elizabeth Jackson, “The South African Police and the 

Final Decade of White Minority Rule in South Africa, 1984–1994” (master’s thesis, Ohio University, 

1997); Richard Leonard, South Africa at War: White Power and the Crisis in Southern Africa (Westport, 

CT: Lawrence Hill, 1983); M.L. Mathews, Philip B. Heymann, and A.S. Mathews, eds., Policing the 

Conflict in South Africa (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993); Jacques Pauw, Into the Heart 

of Darkness: Confessions of Apartheid’s Assassins (Johannesburg, South Africa: Jonathan Ball, 1997) 

and In the Heart of the Whore: The Story of Apartheid’s Death Squads (Halfway House: Southern Book 

Publishers, 1991); James M. Roherty, State Security in South Africa: Civil-Military relations Under PW 

Botha (Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe, 1992).

7. Mail & Guardian (M&G), 8 March 1996.

8. On Coetzee, see Tina Rosenberg “Recovering From Apartheid,” The New Yorker, 16 November 1996 and Pauw, In The Heart of the Whore. See also Derek Catsam, “‘Permanently Removed From 

Society’: The Cradock Four, the TRC, Moral Judgments, Historical Truth and the Dilemmas of Contemporary History,” Contemporary History Review/Revista de Historia Actual, 7 May 2005.

9. Pauw, In The Heart of the Whore and Into the Heart of Darkness.

10. Dirk Coetzee to F.W. de Klerk, letter dated 21 February 1991, Oliver Tambo Papers, ANC 

Archives, University of Fort Hare.

11. See Derek Catsam, “Text, Lies, and Videotape: Truth, Reconciliation, and the Transition to 

Democracy in the New South Africa,” Proteus: A Journal of Ideas, 21, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 13–22.

12. South African Press Association (SAPA) News Release, 25 February 1998. 

13. For more on de Kock and his revelations to the TRC, see Catsam, “Text, Lies, and Videotape,” 

13–22.

14. “F—k F—k de Kock.”

15. “De Kock’s Time To Talk Has Come,” M&G, 13 September 1996, and “Yes, I Did It, Says 

Eugene de Kock,” M&G, 2 August 1996. See also Eddie Koch “Day of the Assassin Promises To Thrill,” 

M&G, 30 August 1996, and “Quest Starts To Untangle de Kock,” M&G, 27 September 1996; Stefaans 
101

Brummer, “Why Generals Are Silent While de Kock Sings,” M&G, 27 September 1996. The best example of de Kock’s own views comes from his autobiography/memoir, A Long Night’s Damage: Working for the Apartheid State (Saxonwold, South Africa: Contra Press, 1998). Jeremy Gordin, the writer to 

whom de Kock tells his story and who effectively wrote the book, also provides a good deal of information in his revealing introduction.

16. An askari was a member of the police force involved in the resistance struggle, usually as 

a member of the ANC but who turned informant. While these individuals were often vital in covert 

operations and “dirty tricks” campaigns, their status was always tenuous within the SAP and its hidden 

branches. They often were assigned to the most distasteful and dangerous tasks, and of course, they were 

in every way treated as inferiors within the security forces. Furthermore, within their own black communities, these individuals became pariahs, and their lives were often at risk.

17. Third Force activities were security force operations that occurred covertly and under a highly 

secret cooperative alliance of leaders among the “securocrats.” It is a popularly used umbrella term to 

refer to many extralegal and illegal covert operations in the years of the States of Emergency.

18. Coetzee was the first high-level commander with intimate knowledge of apartheid atrocities 

to defect from the security forces and reveal some of the horrors of the regime. He gave a series of 

interviews to journalist Jacques Pauw of the antiapartheid Afrikaans newspaper Vrye Weekblad. Those 

interviews appeared in that newspaper and then were at the center of Pauw’s In the Heart of the Whore. 

See also Eddie Koch, “We Could Decide at Events Like These Who Would Live and Who Would Die,” 

M&G, 18 October 1996; Angella Johnson, “There’s Life After the Death Squads for Pauw,” M&G, 25 

October 1996. As to whether de Klerk knew about the Third Force activities, see Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, “Truth Without Reconciliation, Reconciliation Without Truth,” in Wilmot James and Linda Van De 

Vijver, After the TRC: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa (Athens: Ohio University 

Press, 2001), 64–65; de Kock, A Long Night’s Damage: Working for the Apartheid State, 277–283; 

David Goodman, Fault Lines: Journeys Into the New South Africa (Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1999), 123–124.

19. East London Daily Dispatch, 30 September, 1997.

20. Quoted in Eastern Province Herald, 24 September, 1997.

21. Quoted in the M&G, 21 July, 1998.

22. TRC Security Hearing Transcript, Part 1, 14 October, 1997, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Johannesburg, South Africa.

23. Ibid., passim.

24. TRC Security Hearing Transcript, Part 2. For a very truncated version of Vlok’s testimony, see 

“Apartheid Crimes: One Giant Misunderstanding,” Harper’s Magazine, March 1998.

25. Ibid.

26. “The Gospel According to Vlok,” M&G, 24 July 1998.

27. Perhaps Vlok’s past has caught up with him. In July, South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced that it would move ahead with the prosecution of Vlok and four other police 

officials for their alleged involvement in the murder of Frank Chikane in 1989. Chikane is currently 

Director General of the Presidency and, in 1989, was Secretary General of the South African Council of 

Churches. In a scene out of a bad Cold War spy novel, the plot involved lining Chikane’s underwear with 

poison that attacked his central nervous system but did not kill him as his plotters had hoped.
103

Panel 3—Shaping the Battlefield

(Submitted Paper)

Shaping the Conditions for a Post Conflict Environment

by

Major(P) Douglas J. Davids

US Army Combined Arms Center—Special Operations Forces Cell

It was April 9, 2003—the famous moment of Saddam Hussein’s statue being torn down by 

the Iraqi people with the aid of US military personnel shook the world. US forces took the historical capital of Baghdad with remarkable speed and skill, and Saddam’s own forces appeared 

to melt like butter before the greatest military in history. The people of Iraq celebrated, and 

soon thereafter President Bush declared major combat operations over. With fewer than 150 

American deaths and 542 wounded, such a stunning military campaign was unprecedented.

Yet, just over four years later we find ourselves in a vicious insurgency; Sunnis and Shias 

are caught up in sectarian violence, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians are displaced from the 

fighting, and civilian casualties keep mounting up. Meanwhile, there have been 20,000 US 

casualties (at the time of this writing) since the taking of Baghdad.

So, what went awry? Or, more importantly, want can we learn from this experience that 

can be applied in future operations of this sort. Do we need to examine Iraq for lessons learned 

and write a new manual, or were the lessons already well-written in our own doctrine and in 

history? Could we have taken the past and applied it to Iraq in April 2003?

This paper examines historical evidence—to include our older and sometimes out-of-date 

manuals and terminology—and how its application to the invasion of Iraq might have provided 

a more stable environment in Iraq after April 2003 and possibly prevented much of the hostile 

situation we see today. The intent of this research is to provide an understanding of trends and 

similarities of how various tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in the past could apply 

to similar operations in the future. We will analyze this by considering various aspects of the 

Center of Gravity (COG), and how we should approach such challenges. We’ll take a look at 

causes of instability, and finally, we will examine historical examples of how military operations can shape the post-conflict environment to prevent instability in the immediate aftermath 

of a major conflict.

This is not to say that everything discussed here will apply exactly to the next major conflict in which the US military must occupy a foreign country. One must understand that such an 

endeavor is not algebra. There are equations and factors which will be thrown into the problem 

which we, the US military, can not always influence. There might be enemy forces, for example, which will have a say in the matter, as well as different cultures of different populations.

Nor do I intend to mean that everything the US military did was wrong in Iraq. It is becoming clearer through time that many of our generals understood the environment in Iraq all too 

well, but certain decisions which they could not affect made the situation more difficult.
104

My hope, rather, is to inspire a discussion within the military community on ideas and 

TTPs which can be analyzed before we become involved in any future, similar wars.

The Center Of Gravity

Colonel (Retired) Harry Summers commented of our role in Vietnam that “our strategy 

failed the ultimate test, for, as Clausewitz said, the ends of strategy, in the final analysis, ‘are 

those objectives that will finally lead to peace.’” He went on to add that “seeing war in the 18th 

century terms not only had influence on the battlefield, it also influenced the actions of the 

government and the perceptions of the American people.”1

One perception of strategic warfare which began well before the 18th century, but appears 

to be ingrained in western military thought, is the idea that the capital is always the ‘Center of 

Gravity.’2

 Granted, for several thousand years it often was the center of gravity in many situations. There was a time when nations were controlled by kings, emperors, and other types of 

dictators, and these leaders ruled from capitals. Wars were often private affairs among these 

monarchs, and the ability to take the capital and replace that monarchy gave the power to the 

new ruler. As long as the new ruler showed favor to the people, it was generally welcomed; for 

among the masses ‘nationalism’ was scare, but ‘subsistence’ was life—freedom of the press, 

freedom of religion, free enterprise and secret ballots in a democracy were comparatively insignificant to food, land, tools, fertilizers, and something better than rags for their children.

In the late 300s (AD), the Roman emperor Valens permitted the Goths to live under Roman rule for protection from the Huns. The Goths were promised much, but received little. The 

Romans demanded slaves and gold from the refugees and at one point even charged the Goths 

for dog meat (often paid for with slaves, women, or children). The Goths took up arms against 

their host, and at the Battle of Adrianople Emperor Valens was defeated and killed. Fighting 

and tension continued for several decades, and in 410 AD one of the tribes of the Goths, the 

Visigoths, would sack Rome itself—the seat of power. Thus, the Roman Empire, as we knew 

it, came to and end.

But as times changed and nationalism increased, capitals lost their value as the seats of 

power. America would prove this in its first two major wars. During the American Revolution 

the American congress would evacuate Philadelphia (and the British would eventually occupy 

the capital), but soon thereafter General Washington would attack Trenton and Princeton, and 

the war would continue. In the War of 1812, not only would the British take Washington, D.C., 

but would burn down the White House, all to no avail.

But capitals still retained much of their value for another reason—resources. Not only did 

whomever controled the capital controled the resources of the people, but these resources were 

vitally needed to feed an invading/occupying army. An invading army might—if routes were 

well planned—live well enough off the land as long as they kept moving, but to remain in a 

rural area for more than a week could leave an army starving. Armies the size of Napoleon’s 

Grand Armée required corps commanders to take routes with considerable distance between 

them so as to not encroach on another’s food supply (which they often did, anyway). For example, when Soult’s corps (one of five within the Grand Armée) moved from the Rhine to the 

Danube in 1805, it required the small city of Heilbronn (about 15,000-16,000 inhabitants) to 
105

provide no less than 85,000 bread rations, 24,000 pounds of salt, 3,600 bushels of hay, 6,000 

sacks of oats, 5,000 pints of wine, 800 bushels of straw and 100 four-horse wagons.3

 Such a 

large force was not going to be able to remain in one area and live off the land for long.

In order to help ensure a victory over a nation, taking the capital—and all its resources—

was vital in order to feed the occupation army. In September of 1812, when Napoleon took 

Moscow, he found the Russians soon put the torch to their own capital. Napoleon was forced 

to bivouac his troops in the suburbs. With his army short on supplies and shelter, and a harsh 

winter approaching, combined with harassment attacks against the minimal logistics Napoleon 

did have available, the French Emperor soon found he had little choice but to evacuate the Russian capital and retreat back to France.

Thus, as time changed and nationalism increased, the Russians showed that a capital had 

significantly greater value for its resources than for its ‘moral’ value or as any actual “seat of 

power”, and they proved this when they lit the torches. Taking capitals was still valuable to 

defeating a nation, but for resources, not symbolism.

General Ulysses S. Grant, in the world’s first major modern war, showed that the necessity 

of capturing capitals began to lose its value altogether with the development of the railroad and 

steamships. Suddenly, an army could be logistically sustained from farms and factories hundreds of miles away, and Grant knew this. When General Robert E. Lee evacuated his staunch 

defenses at Petersburg, Union General George Meade—in true western mindset—wanted to 

occupy the Southern capital and sent orders to General Philip Sheridan to reverse a move by 

the latter which could cut Lee’s retreat in order to secure the capital. Grant rode 30 miles that 

night to find Meade to tell him that “Richmond [is] only a collection of houses” but Lee and 

his army were “an active force injuring the country.” Grant reversed Meade’s order and quickly 

wrote orders that resulted in arguably the best maneuvering of the war for either side, and soon 

surrounded Lee’s army. It was the right decision. The South had no intent on ending the war as 

they evacuated Richmond anymore than Lincoln would have given up the war had Washington, 

D.C. been occupied by Confederates. The South lost when their prized army, Lee’s army, was 

surrounded and surrendered.4

 As for Grant’s concern for Richmond, he sent troops to occupy 

the capital to prevent civil unrest, but Grant himself would not waste time going there—after 

all, it was “only a collection of houses.”5

This is not to say that capitals do not have their value; they certainly have a psychological 

value in their capture, especially to peoples’ perceptions—those both inside and outside the 

county involved—that the invaded government was too powerless to defend its most prized 

geographical possession. And the capture of a capital can certainly disrupt communications between the leadership and the people (depending on the technical advancements of that nation). 

But in many cases capitals are not necessarily the “center of gravity” where the modern armies 

should expend all their troops and resources. As Grant pointed out to Meade, forces which 

are capable of “injuring the country” have significantly greater value than a capital in modern 

times. How we control these ‘injuring forces’ is the key to success.

But what forces are there in the modern world that are so important, so dangerous, so 

much more important than taking the capital, so capable of “injuring a country?” The answer 

is simple: People.
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While nuclear weapons can have a significant impact on the outcome of a war, its people— not technology or ‘collections of buildings,’—that start and end wars. Mao understood 

this in China; so did Che in Latin America. In Germany, it was the people—lead by a fanatic 

disguised as a leader—who made the panzer divisions and Luftwaffe “blitz” through Europe 

and who committed those heinous crimes against humanity, not the tanks and airplanes (not to 

marginalize the significance of Germany’s industrial power during the war).

On the other side of World War II, one could have asked any US sailor who saw a kamikaze 

attack against an American ship, or a Marine who assaulted the beaches in the Pacific islands, 

if it wasn’t the mindset of the Japanese soldier that made the war so brutal. It would take two 

atomic bombs to change the minds of the Japanese people and leadership that the war was no 

longer worth fighting; we never did need to take Tokyo.

Author Dennis Barlow, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted over a decade ago: 

“In sharp distinction from previous US wars, civilians are not obstacles to mission success, but 

measures of it!”6

 This is not to say that there might not be other centers of gravity in war such 

as the enemy’s industry (which gives the people the power to wage a major war), or other decisive points such as geographical terrain from which an enemy weakness can be exploited, but 

any form of warfare that does not weigh heavily the minds of the people involved is a heavily 

flawed strategy.

Authors John Fishel and Edmund Cowan aptly write: “The application of combat power 

without regard to civilian sensibilities will alienate the populace, which alone has the power to 

provide the government in the war for political legitimacy.”7

 It might have been surprising to 

many during the late 1930s that a modernized, 20th century European country like Germany 

could have allowed Hitler to use warfare so freely as a diplomatic tool. World War I was such 

a brutal and bloody war, nothing like it had excited before, and usually it takes “generational 

forgetfulness” before such a war can be conducted again, let alone a war carried out with such 

atrocious behavior, complete with genocide and a holocaust. Yet, when we consider the exceedingly harsh surrender terms the Germans received in World War I, and the more-than-a-decade 

of humiliating difficultly they had to endure because—as they saw it—of a lack of German 

leadership who accepted such strenuous terms, it becomes clearer why the Germans were ready 

to follow a leader who appeared, yes, fanatical, but fanatical about regaining German honor 

and pride. It was “generational-remembering” that lead to World War II.

While in Iraq there was most certainly no intent to be harsh or to humiliate the Iraqi people. 

In fact, quite the opposite was true; there appeared to be a gleeful feeling of “liberation” among 

most Americans for the Iraqi people. The Iraqi environment in April 2003 undoubtedly fell well 

within the category of “the application of combat power without regard to civilian sensibilities.” Liberation of the people was only one step. With the iron-fisted government of Saddam 

Hussein gone, the people of the region became the key actors, and there were certain considerations which were important besides just liberation.

First and foremost, the complex environment of the Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish fault lines 

were sure to be potentially volatile. To add to the complexity, many Arab-Muslims within the 

region were outraged by the invasion (some of whom later join in the insurgency), and caught 

more than a little attention of several leaders bordering Iraq. And, finally, many people who had 
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made up the Iraqi Army were perhaps the most important actors after Saddam was gone. While 

the Iraqi Army had little chance to successfully fight the US Army in a conventional manner, 

as they did in Desert Storm when their force was reduced to rubble, it’s hard to imagine that so 

many unemployed soldiers would idly sit by for long, and the idea of an insurgency against US 

forces should not have been remote.

The Iraqi leadership saw Somalia, and many were old enough to have witnesses Vietnam. 

Guerrilla warfare—sometimes called “warfare for the weak”—was the only sure way to fight 

the American military. In guerilla warfare, people make the difference in victory or defeat. Che 

Guevara is correct when he said “One cannot conceive of guerrilla war when it is separated 

from the people.” So, we might ask ourselves, what can be done to control people in today’s 

environment; to “regard to civilian sensibilities”?

Interestingly, Populace and Resource Control is a core task for our Civil Affairs units. 

We certainly know how to control resources—lock them up, put them in a warehouse, place 

security guards and checkpoints around them, and required special identification in order to 

obtain them. But can we best control populations the same way, i.e. with checkpoints, curfews, 

identification cards, and Bradley’s roaming the streets? Will this ever work, or is there a better 

way; can we do better to control people’s actions through our own actions and perception management? Can we better control people if we have secured the confidence, trust, and sympathy 

of their minds? And if this is the case, when and how should we start working this endeavor? 

To examine this, let’s first take a look at some of the root causes of instability.

According to Department of the Army Field Manual (FM) 3-07, Stability Operations and 

Support Operations (SASO)8

 there are several factors which can lead to the “ungovernability,” 

and three of these in particular can relate to the immediate aftermath of a high or mid intensity 

conflict.9

 One of them is the collapse of the command economy of a region. Obviously, the 

destruction to both infrastructure and a stable political environment is going to lead to a breakdown of the economy, which in turn can lead to unemployment and chaos if left unattended.

A second factor leading to ungovernability is that immature government infrastructures in 

developing democracies can cause expectations to be unmet, often leading to conflict” But for 

our purposes, replace “immature government infrastructure and developing democracies” and 

replace it with “the greatest military in the history from the greatest country in the history,” and 

ask yourself if foreign nations don’t have immediate expectations when the Americans arrive. 

How many were asked the question in the early months in Baghdad about why the Americans 

can send a man to the moon, but they can’t get the electricity going in the city? There are great 

expectations, whether real or imagined, when Americans enter a country, and we must realize 

this.

Third, FM 3-07 describes that unsuccessful demobilization and reintegration schemes, 

couple with the widespread availability of weapons, have contributed to increased crime in 

postconflict situations. The “unsuccessful demobilization and reintegration schemes” will be 

discussed in detail later. But the “widespread availability of weapons” throughout the world is 

very real.

Take in mind the above two causes of instability—collapse of an economy, and unmet 
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expectations—and combine it with the large-scale availability of weaponry worldwide, and the 

combination of these three can make for an explosive environment.

So, how do we conduct Stability and Support Operations—the doctrine we’ve had for years 

for this type of effort—in order to obtain control under circumstances of a post-war environment? Stability operations, as defined by Department of the Army Field Manual 3-0, “promote 

and protect US national interests by influencing the threat, political, and information dimensions of the operational environment...”10 In a high or mid intensity conflict we can initially 

accomplish this by defeating the enemy military force, but it probably won’t last long based on 

the conditions of “ungovernability” discussed above. Once the enemy has been defeated in an 

area, FM 3-07 stresses that “the primary role of support operations is to meet the immediate 

needs of designated groups, for a limited time, until civil authorities can accomplish these tasks 

without military assistance.”11 (Italics added).

In December of 2003, the Bipartisan Committee on Post-Conflict Reconstruction Center 

for Strategic and International Studies seemed to agree with the “immediate needs of designated groups...” following the actions of a conflict:

“Until recently, socioeconomic tasks were considered part of long-term development 

assistance programs that could only begin once peace was at hand. We now know that 

development can and should take place even when parts of a nation are at war....at the 

end of confl ict, a small window of opportunity exists to restore economic hope and 

social well-being.”12

It’s the latter part of the comment, where “a small window of opportunity exists to restore 

economic hope and social well-being”—that same time frame of the “immediate needs of designated groups”—where we, as the US military, should focus and surge our effort to quickly 

gain control of the civilian terrain; because it’s in this “small window,” where the conditions 

for stability or instability will be decided.

Before we go on, we should ask ourselves if the US military should do this at all. After 

all, isn’t it organizations like Department of State and USAID who “restore economic hope 

and social well-being” to foreign nations? The military, while good at defeating an enemy 

and conquering territory, can not claim governance and economics as its strong point. Such 

departments as State, Treasury, Justice, and Agriculture (just to name a few) have significantly 

greater skills in such an arena. But it’s the US military who has the assets, resources, and security capability to make those immediate impact operations when the initial impressions—those 

immediate expectations—are so vitally important. While there has been plenty of debate in the 

past about whether the Department of Defense, Department of State, or some other organization should lead such post war conflicts—a debate which is outside the scope of this paper—it 

is very certain that an invading military force can play a crucial role in the immediate aftermath 

of a conflict, i.e. shaping the conditions for post-conflict environment in an occupation. And it 

is imperative that we are prepared to conduct those tasks before the fighting even begins.

Much current doctrine is being written within the context of this discussion, but perhaps we 

should also take these lessons and examine them with a historical perspective. If we take our 

doctrinal writings (past and current) of Stability and Support Operations (SASO), Stability and 
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Reconstruction Operations, insurgency, counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, etc, perhaps we can 

apply historical examples which have been applied in the similar circumstances.

By our own doctrine Shaping Operations are those operations which “aim to keep newly 

gained stability from being undone.”13 Its during shaping operations when the Physical lines 

of operation (LOOs), i.e. those LOOs which lead to “control of a geographical area or enemy 

force,”14 become Logical LOOs, that is, “the operational design when positional reference to 

an adversary has little relevance. . . [where they] normally focus on support to civil authorities, 

support of law enforcement, critical asset protection, and restoration of essential services.”15

It’s this gray area where these LOOs change that one can begin population control by shaping 

the environment to manage perceptions and meet the expectations of the people as an occupation army enters a foreign land.

To assist in planning for these changes in LOOs, FM 3-07, Stability and Support Operations, provides Decisive Operations which can help shape the civilian environment while the 

Logical LOOs are being implemented. These operations primarily focus on administration and 

infrastructure, i.e. re-establishing or securing...

• Vital human services (hospitals, water supplies, waste and hazardous materials, 

emergency services)

• Civil administration (legislative, judicial, administrative functions)

• Communications and information (television, radio, telephone, internet, newspaper, 

magazine)

• Transportation and distribution (highways, railways, ports, waterways, pipelines, 

airports, mass transit and trucking

• Energy (production, storage, distribution of electric power, oil, natural gas

• Commerce (key industries, other businesses, banking, and finance12

If we examine these recommended decisive operations in combination with historical evidence, we can begin to establish a guide for shaping conditions for a post-conflict environment. 

Fortunately for us, our predecessors in World War II already did extensive studies on the postconflict management. One such study which provides great value is the Civil Affairs Studies, 

Illustrative Cases from Military Occupations, Training Packet 8 (10 June, 1944). This document examined occupations throughout the 1800s and 1900s up to the date of its publication. 

Ironically, while the document states that “past and present military occupations indicate that 

there is no set pattern for planning and establishment of Political Government and Administration in areas now occupied or to be occupied,” many of these historical documents seem to do 

just that—set patterns, and in doing so provides a template for planning for and conducting 

occupation operations. From historical examples of previous research, combined with our own 

doctrine and experiences, we can develop considerations for occupation operations. The combination of this research, along with other recommendations by this author, is as follows:
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• Adequate pre-invasion or pre-occupation intelligence respecting the needs of 

territories has proved its worth. Perhaps the greatest surprise in Iraq was just how 

much the economic sanctions and Saddam’s neglect had set Baghdad and most of Iraq 

back in the Stone Age. Few had predicted just how bad the infrastructure situation had 

become. Pre-war intelligence on the civil situation, however, may have been able to 

help had we tasked out intelligence agencies to look at it. Information and intelligence 

on electricity, fuel, the oil economy, hospitals, etc, might have given us the ability to 

examine the details of the infrastructure and, therefore, been better able to bring immediate results in certain areas—meeting at least part of the “expectations” criteria the 

people were likely to have.

The occupation of Tripoli by the British military in 1943 is one such example of where 

pre-occupation intelligence played major role. It became known to the British prior to 

occupation that the people in Tripoli were in dire need of food. As a result, the British 

prepared for and distributed vital food needs on the very first day of the occupation. 

Additionally, they requested the American Red Cross to provide food, and had Red 

Cross convoys enroute towards Tripoli even before the occupation began.17 The immediate arrival of this food not only brought immediate stability to the area, but no 

doubt helped met those expectations which the people of Tripoli most likely had with 

the arrival of the powerful British Empire.

We might also ask ourselves what other information would be valuable prior to occupations forces taking hold of an area besides just pre-war intelligence. Immediate 

tactical information might be beneficial for occupation units designated to establish 

governance in a certain area. For example, an immediate Battle Damage Assessment 

of a bridge which is crucial to a city’s economy and which is destroyed in the process 

of the fighting could be helpful. A designated unit could then begin looking for an immediate alternative (even prior to arrival), such as a pontoon bridge, as a temporary 

replacement until the main bridge can be repaired. Post conflict assessments are fine, 

but information which can be obtained prior to occupation duties can be immensely 

valuable and help meet those expectations that people are naturally going to have with 

the arrival of a more powerful nation as its occupiers.

• Divide gained territory into manageable districts. Maintaining pre-existing political divisions proved advisable during occupations, as opposed to using “tactical 

formations,” i.e. the conventional military “areas of operation,” in which military governed boundaries are based on terrain and the size of the unit, rather than on the political and social lines. These civil boundaries were developed for probably a good reason, 

so it makes sense to conduct military governance based on those same boundaries.18

The US military learned this lesson the hard way during its occupation of Germany in 

1919, and found governance difficult to manage. Where as the British and French, who 

understood the complexities of the German local government, chose to establish unit 

boundaries to parallel the existing civil system.19

Granted, sometimes regions are developed for reasons of control by a ruler, who intentionally divided ethnic/social sectors for purposes of control. In such cases an occupy-
111

ing army may want to reconsider those boundaries, but, once again, based on the civil 

situation, not terrain or geographical limitations of military units.

Developing such boundaries prior to the arrival of occupation forces also allows units 

designated to govern these particular areas the opportunity to study their specific sectors—the people, the leaders, the problems, the resources, transportation and communication needs, and every other issue which will matter to them.

• Immediate governance at local levels (rebuild from bottom up). It appears generally accepted that governments are not built from the top down, at least not initially, 

but bottom up. Certainly in the American experience, we did not try to build America 

from the top down; our ancestors did not wait around patiently for a federal government to be formed before local governments were established. To the contrary, as the 

colonies developed and the United States expanded west, local towns and small cities 

established their own self governance.

Before a federal government was formed, the average townsperson had local leadership and law enforcement; they had someone they could see and talk to, someone to 

handle the day-to-day problems which affected their community such as the needs for 

a local school, claiming land, local legal problems and security, and local food and 

water requirements. In return, the local government developed close relations with the 

people, and could quickly see potential problems or instability arising. Where local 

governance could not be established, crime was rampant, and vigilantism became the 

rule of law.

In World War II, Civil Affairs units appeared to have followed closely behind combat 

units in order to bring immediate, local civil governance to an area as soon as it was 

free from combat operations.20 With basic needs met, history seems to show that people 

are much more inclined to patiently wait for a federal government to development.

• Provide populace with immediate policy of controlled area (legal agreements): 

Expectations of public and occupiers. Dr. William Gregor, Professor of Social Sciences at the School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), writes that “The Hague 

Convention Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land specifies that a territory is considered occupied when placed under the authority of a hostile army and 

the authority of the displaced legitimate power passes to the occupant. Consequently, 

military forces engaged in active combat operations have an exclusive legal obligation 

to establish civil order and to provide for the transition of a new civil authority.”21

That legal agreements are required will be more than urged by any military lawyer. 

However, what both sides—citizens and common soldiers—need to fully understand 

is the arrangements that are taking place, that is, what the occupier expects of the 

people, and what the people can expect of the occupier.22 For example, if it is publicly 

pronounced by the occupiers that they expect no looting and that looters are to be jailed 

until a $100 bail is paid, then there is no surprise or claim of unfair treatment when a 

looter is caught in the act and sits in jail until someone pays the bail. The people un-
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derstood the rules before the looter was caught, and the occupier understood his or her 

role if someone is found looting. Occupiers can also provide positive expectations as 

to when and how displaced civilians can be fed, or mitigate other expectations such as 

how long it will take to provide electricity and why there might be a delay.

• Maintain civil obedience and safeguard national arts and treasures. Providing 

the people with a safe secure environment provides a perception that the occupier is 

in control, and is concerned for the safety and welfare of the people it now controls. 

When chaos ensues after occupation, where looting, rape, murder, and other crimes are 

allowed to occur, the people will quickly lose a sense of acceptance for the occupiers, 

and crime will skyrocket while ‘the getting is good.’ The Civil Affairs Public Safety 

Manual of Procedures in Liberated Territories, written by the SHEAF headquarters 

during WWII, states that a military commander must “ensure the maintenance of law 

and order, the prevention and detection of crime and politically subversive activities, 

and the preservation of life and property in all areas where failure might jeopardize the 

success of the mission.”23 To expect the people to police themselves is in no way practical. Police themselves with what? Chances are that when/if the defeated government 

has departed or gone underground, the police forces who worked for them will also be 

in hiding, waiting to see what type of occupiers have taken their country.

But once an occupier has been able to open communication with the occupied nation’s 

law enforcement, the employment of pre-existing police force is considered “a standard 

procedure in military government,” and usually proves to be an excellent economy of 

force.24 Of course, there is always great evaluation and patience before allowing them 

to carry arms.

Where the native police were not available, the best solution seemed to be to use police from the local region who were familiar with the customs and language. In Iraq, 

1914, the British found that the Turkish government that previously controlled Iraq 

used Turkish police. So, the British brought in Muslim troops from India to serve as 

police.25

During the US occupation of Cuba after the Spanish American War in 1898, General 

Wood, the US Governor General, quickly found antagonism between the police and 

public. As it turned out, it was the perception that came from the old uniform the police 

were wearing which caused the problems. So, Wood immediately put them into a new 

uniform and the problem quickly ended.26 Depending on the level of popularity of the 

governmental system which is expected to be over thrown, the stock piling of a different uniform for police forces before the invasion even begins may be a consideration. 

Finally, the securing of national arts and treasures has much greater value than just protecting property. A nation’s arts and treasures are symbols of a people’s history, their 

culture, their pride. To allow such things to be unprotected can give a most unfavorable 

impression. It’s almost like a direct slap in the face to the people who just lost their 

government and is suddenly under to rule of a foreign army; it can leave the perception 

that who they are really doesn’t matter to the occupier.
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• Immediate restoration of public utilities and prompt security government 

buildings so they can be quickly put back to use. The immediate restoration of 

public utilities has its obvious overtone of meeting expectations of the population, or 

at least not leaving the population irritated with a perception of lack of concern. However, of greater concern for restoring public utilities is to get the area back to normalcy, 

especially where health and welfare are concerned, such as sanitation and medical/hospital needs, water, gas, electricity, and food.

Of course, one factor that must be heavily weighed is ‘Equitable Distribution’ of resources versus ‘Strategic Distribution’ based upon people’s perceptions and expectations. 

• Pre-planned transportation system. Transportation can become a significant ordeal immediately following a conflict. A major landmark in returning to normalcy after 

a conflict is when the people begin to return to their jobs. When the daily routine of 

work re-enters people’s lives, there comes with it a sense that maybe everything will 

be alright; that the war has not devastated their livelihoods. Returning to those jobs 

however, requires transportation to their place of employment.

So, we need to understand even before the occupation begins what means of transportation the people used. If by personal auto, is there fuel available? If by bus, do 

the buses have both fuel and drivers? If by rail, do the rails still work, and is there the 

technical expertise to run and maintain the rail lines? Do requirements such as effective 

roads and bridges still exist? An effective transportation system can affect the everyday 

people returning to their everyday lives, and this is an important planning factor an occupier must understand and have solutions developed well before the fight begins and 

assessed as the fight continues.

One important point we should not underestimate as we look at these recommendations is the importance of maintaining an offensive spirit even in the post conflict effort. Some might look at these recommendations as problems that need to be mitigated 

as soon as they bear their ugly heads. In a sense this is true, but if we develop this 

mindset, we begin to take a defensive-style, reactionary mode of operation; and this is 

easy to fall into in the “Fog of Relief” (as USAID call it). But such a style of operating 

can take away from a proactive Information Operations (IO) campaign. If an adversary 

exists, they can take advantage of this reactionary effort and get the IO momentum on 

their side, forcing the occupiers into an even more reactionary mode. An occupying 

force must take advantage of their non-kinetic successes with a proactive IO effort by 

influencing the minds of the people before the adversary can, and effect the decision 

making processes of the enemy themselves. But this topic is for another paper.

Government And Administration

While the civil population is an obvious concern to any post-conflict operation, we must 

never forget that the people who make up the government and military of an occupied nation 

are just as significant, and often united in many ways. This is particularly true for the populace 

and the civil government which has been overtaken by an occupying army for reasons discussed below.
114

No other subject seems to give a military organization greater angst than running civil 

governments. It’s simply not what the military does; it’s not why most soldiers, airmen, seaman 

or marines get into the military, and it’s not what they spend years, even decades, honing their 

skills (the exception, of course, being the small group of civil affairs personnel). Therefore, if at 

all possible, perhaps we shouldn’t try to do it, and history would agree: “There is a great degree 

of unanimity among occupants of many nationalities in the use of pre-existing governmental 

personnel when they have been available.”27

The value in using the pre-existing civil service employees cannot be underestimated. Just 

because a military occupies a country—and, yes, this does put the onus on that occupying army 

to establish civil order—doesn’t mean the US military has to be the executors of everyday civil 

governance.

History is replete with examples of occupations which learned quickly, or the hard way, 

that occupation forces shouldn’t try to govern a foreign land on their own. The civil leaders 

who have been working the civil governance and structure in the occupied territory are going 

to far better understand the intricate ways in which the region works, why that civil system was 

developed, and how to keep it functioning.28 Therefore, even where an extremists party existed 

as the government, much of the same people were kept in place. How was this done? In places 

like World War II Nazi Germany, the allies simply separated the bona fide Nazi party members 

from the nominal party members.29 It was usually found that the nominal party members were 

members of the party only because they had to be, and in many cases were in their jobs before 

the fanatical party even came to power. The nominal members also typically made up a very 

large majority of the government, especially in service positions (such as post offices, power 

plants, etc) and the lower echelons of government.30

Not surprisingly, Civil Affairs and Counter-Intelligence personnel were required to keep 

a close eye on these native civil workers.31 However, SHEAF headquarters in World War II 

stressed caution in their use, stating “any implication of control by C.A. Officers over indigenous authorities will be resented and is unauthorized as long as the Military Commander 

continues to rely on them for control of the civilian population. C.A. Officers, therefore, must 

be punctilious in their relationships with the indigenous authorities and must take every step to 

avoid even the appearance of exercising any such supervision.”32

But whatever civil governmental arrangement was used, it’s been recommended throughout history that the pre-existing system remained in place, at least at first. Several examples 

follow.

• In North Africa in 1942, General Eisenhower and Mr Robert Murphy of the Department of State informed the French sovereignty that there would be no US interference in their governmental affairs.33

• In Italy, 1943, very few Allied personnel did any governing at all. In Palermo, it 

was estimated that 98% of local administrators and services remained in the hands of 

fascists. At Asmara, Eritrea, a letter from the American consulate stated of the British effort that: “The existing Italian organizations in control of railways, post offices, 

public works, medical services, etc, have been left intact as far as possible, and the 
115

military government officers have been placed at the head of these various services to 

control them and to carry out general policy as dictated by the general Administration 

from the C-in-C in Cairo. Thus all lower branches of these services are still filled with 

experienced Italian personnel. To me, it is a subject of astonishment to find how few 

British are necessary to do this work.”34

• When Germany occupied parts of France after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, 

the Germans tried to administer the regions themselves. Not only did they quickly 

change their minds about trying to run French soil, but the Germans even released 

certain key French personnel who were in German prisons and put them back in their 

jobs. Soon, all previous French service employees of both upper and lower grades were 

administering their regions again.35

• General Wood, during the occupation of Cuba, 1898, performed superbly during his tenure on that little island. With the Spanish government gone, General Wood 

quickly turned to Cuban organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and Bar 

Association and appointed select Cuban people as advisors. Those who demonstrated 

capability were given greater responsibility.36

• It was also found that hasty attempts to “revolutionize” native systems always 

brought “unfortunate results.” In Ponape,37 1907, the Germans Imperial Governor tried 

to modernize the government, and summoned all the native chiefs, and informed them 

that their feudal system for obtaining taxes was abolished, but provided not alternative. 

In short order, the chiefs spread false rumors among the people and revolts started.38

In the US overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, these lessons seemed to have been followed. Everyone understood that there were Taliban who were not true Taliban, but were only 

joined because there was no other choice in such a regime. To little surprise, governance in 

Afghanistan is going quite fair.

But in Iraq, Administrator Paul Bremer took the opposite extreme with the total “deba’athification’ of Iraq. It was unfortunate, as hoards of Ba’athist were only in the party because they had no choice. Many were in their jobs prior to the Ba’athist coming to power, and 

had to become Ba’athists to maintain their jobs; such people included teachers, government 

engineers, administrators, etc.

Lieutenant General (retired) Jay Garner, Bremer’s predecessor, looked at ridding Iraq of 

Ba’athists in a pragmatic way, choosing to lop off the top Ba’athist—those within Saddam’s 

inner circle—but keep the majority of the second, third and lower tier governmental officials 

to immediately move the country forward. There was overwhelming talent in Iraq, people who 

had no love towards or patriotic feelings for Saddam, and no doubt some were happy to see 

him gone.

But since all Iraqi government officials were required to be Ba’athist, Bremer decided they 

could no longer be allowed to use their skills to help Iraq quickly move forward in the postSaddam era. How badly did this affect Iraq after the war? An informal interview conducted by 

several US military officers with 11 Iraqi Army officers seemed to show agreement.39 In the 
116

discussion in September 2005, the Iraqi officers strongly expressed that “Ambassador Bremer 

disbanding the Iraqi Army and government was a bad thing,” and thought that the previous 

government employees should be returned their jobs, adding that “Destruction in 1991 was 

much larger, but Saddam was able to rebuild because the people who ran the infrastructure 

were still in place.”40

Furthermore, without any hope for employment in those skills which they best knew, many 

likely found themselves joining underground organizations either out of bitterness, or for the 

sake of employment, also reiterated by the Iraqi offices, stating “Now the salaries (monthly 

allotments) paid to these former Army and employees is not enough, they can receive more 

money from the insurgency,” and “They have to feed their families.”41

Bremer’s decision of “de-ba’athification”, combined with the disbanding of the Iraqi Army 

during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, were perhaps the most monumentally dreadful decisions 

in American military history. While a considerable portion of America’s military and budget 

are locked in the bitter insurgency in Iraq—where thousands of American soldiers and innocent 

Iraqi civilians have died—a terrorist mastermind (Osama Bin Laden) remains at large, both 

North Korea and Iran build their nuclear prowess, Russia tries to recapture a “cold war” military posture, and China makes considerable economic strides throughout the world, including 

in Latin America—our own back yard—where socialist organizations are gaining considerable 

grounds in governance.

Demobilization And Reintegration Of The Defeated Army

We now return to the issue of “demobilization and reintegration schemes.” By this I mean 

the proper demobilization of an enemy military, and their reintegration back into civil society. 

The demobilization of a foreign army—i.e. an army of primarily men, whose means of 

employment was to be trained to use weapons and explosives in a skilled manner to kill—is 

perhaps the greatest and most critical task in a post-conflict environment. Taking away the jobs 

and weapons in which so many men have depended for so long, and giving them an equivalent 

civilian occupation in a peacetime (something even highly educated US military personnel find 

challenging), is a delicate and absolutely vital challenge which has little room for error. To simply disband them is extremely dangerous. Jean Paul Sartre commented: “Violence suites those 

who have nothing to lose.” As a former member of the French Resistance during World War II, 

he would know. Putting people well-trained to kill on the streets with no jobs or compensation 

certainly risks giving them “nothing to lose,” and the potential for waves of violent crime and 

an insurgency becomes very real. Even the Iraqi manual on Guerrilla Warfare (1995) prescribes 

as the first means of recruiting for an insurgent force is from a defeated army.

When Bremer demobilized the Iraqi Army in 2003 with a simple ‘hand wave’ gesture, the 

damage was irreparable. Bremer seemed to not have an understanding that an army is made of 

people, not machines that you simply turn off with a switch. Whether Bremer’s ignorance came 

from too much arrogance and theorizing at Yale, or a self-aggrandizing title as the Administrator, he seemed to have no understanding of Carl Von Clausewitz words: “War, however, 

is not the action of a living force upon a lifeless mass, but always the collision of two living 

forces . . . he [the enemy] dictates to me as much as I dictate to him.” The common soldier, 
117

while perhaps of lesser education, titles, and paychecks than that of an OCPA administrator, is 

still a “living force” with powerful emotions.

Bremer’s excuse for the ‘hand-wave’ demobilization of the army was his view that the Iraqi 

Army had really “self-demobilized.”42 Yet, shortly after Bremer disbanded the army, thousands 

of soldiers protested in the streets. The Iraqi Army was clearly not “demobilized.” Someone 

was controlling this “living force;” it was a matter of who would gain final control of them.

Oddly, Bremer seemed to view that he could use members from Iraqi militias into the New 

Iraqi Army.43 This thought seems frightful in and of itself. Militias have loyalty to no one except their leaders, and militia leaders typically have no loyalty to anyone except themselves. 

To use militias as a subordinate part of an operation within the oversight of competent military 

leaders is plausible, and has been done before. But to have use militias as part of the main 

army when a power vacuum existed as it did in Iraqi in 2003 could have resulted in a horrible 

backlash. Today, some militias are as much a problem to stability as are the insurgents, and are 

committing some of the most heinous crimes. Coincidentally, at the same time Bremer was 

demobilizing the Iraqi Army, militia leaders (like Muqtada al-Sadr) were actively recruiting to 

make themselves stronger and to take advantage of the power vacuum.

To add to the frustration of the issue, many soldiers and officers within the Iraqi Army 

were very nationalistic, and wanted to see Iraq unified and peaceful. It should be remembered 

that Saddam kept most of the army far from Baghdad partially for fear one of them would try 

to end his tyrannical rule; thus, many parts of the Iraq army seemed to have the same goal the 

coalition had. But with “nothing to lose,” it can only be speculated how many of these now unemployed soldiers joined the insurgency or the militias. Even though attempts were later made 

to remedy the situation with payments, Bremer’s initial actions likely lead many to lose trust 

and confidence in the ‘Christian occupiers,’ and turn towards other organizations; an occupiers 

first impression is vital. As author Michael Gordon and Lieutenant General Bernard Trainor 

noted: “[It] gave the United States the worst of both options: it was paying money to a bitter, 

demobilized army but was getting nothing in return, and had created a situation in which the 

soldiers were unsupervised, had no stake in the new order, and were free to create mischief, or 

worse.”44

Also, even though much of the Iraqi Army did appear to dissolve during the initial invasion 

as Bremer states, it is very likely that many Iraqi soldiers would have followed instructions by 

the US if immediately told to gather at certain locations, with perhaps an incentive that they’d 

be fed and receive a 10% pay increase, and provided job opportunities. The demonstrations 

mentioned above show that the army truly had not “dissolved,” but was in hiding. And while 

some would have waited and watched, those who did return could verify the truth of the order. 

As a result, the average soldier would have been under US control, and the officers could have 

been examined and filtered for extreme Ba’athist connections, corruption, and war crimes, 

while nationalists could have been retained and used to help secure the country. Ironically, both 

Jay Garner and Lieutenant General McKiernan (commander of the land forces during the invasion of Iraq) were working plans to do just that: revive the scattered Iraq troopers and units, 

weed out the extremist leadership, recruit a new general staff, and use them to supplement the 

overstretched coalition forces.45
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When the same Iraqi officers mentioned in the September 2005 interview above were 

asked if Bremer had not disbanded the military, would there still be an insurgency and secular 

violence, they replied “No problem, Iraq would have a different image.” They added “If a 

former officer wants to join the new Iraqi Army, they [the US] examine his record and if he is 

a former Ba’ath Party member he is not allowed to join new Iraqi Army...let the Ba’ath Party 

members return.”46

Bremer also tries to defend himself by stating that his demobilization was heavily supported by the Shia and Kurdish leaders. But this is obvious; the idea of the Shia wanting to 

dominate Iraq with their majority of population was clearly a dangerous and realistic course 

of action they might take. Meanwhile, the Kurds clearly want to gain independence from Iraq. 

Even Bremer points out that “Since liberation, the Kurds had taken matters into their own 

hands. Kurdish Peshmerga militia had been forcing Arabs off farmland, out of houses and bazaar stalls. The Kurds were packing the police force and setting up a shadow government. Most 

ominously, they had kidnapped Arabs known to be cooperating with the Coalition.”47 An army 

could have hindered both of their goals.

The possibility of an insurgency after the initial invasion of Iraq should not have been a 

surprise (as Somalia and Vietnam are within generational memory of those still living), and 

therefore, the handling of the army was key to the success of the war. But Iraq was not the only 

country which had the potential to explode into an insurgency immediately following a conventional conflict. In April, 1865, during the American Civil War, the United States had just as 

much, if not more, potential to shatter into an insurgency as it did to unite in peace. And there 

is much to learn from this experience.

As Lee’s army was losing its grip on Petersburg as it opposed Grant, and Confederate 

General Joseph E. Johnston was falling back before General William T. Sherman, Confederate 

President Jefferson Davis was publicly pushing for a national effort of guerrilla war. He would 

commonly speak of Spain’s guerrilla war which had been so successful against Napoleon 

Bonaparte.48 Guerrilla warfare had been extremely successful for millenniums. The American 

Revolution, for example, was ripe with guerrilla warfare on the American side, and General 

Lee knew this. His own father, “Light Horse” Henry Lee, had been a successful guerilla leader 

in the American War for Independence, and Robert Lee’s boss, Jefferson Davis, was trying to 

push him into the same.

The Confederacy was already loaded with small bands of guerrillas. Groups led by the 

likes of John Mosby, John Morgan, and Nathan Bedford Forrest made up only a fraction of 

these bands, and they had been very successful. Several Union generals were even captured in 

raids by confederate guerrillas.

Grant knew the dangers of guerrilla warfare. As a commander in the Western theater, he 

spent much of his time and energy preoccupied with guerrillas, and quickly discovered the 

complexities of fighting in such an environment.49 General John Sanborn, who also served in 

the Western theater, would eventually admit: “No policy worked; every effort poured fuel on 

the fire.”50 The state of Missouri, in particular, was a major sight of confederate guerrilla warfare. In fact, Missouri would become known as “the war of 10,000 little incidents.”51
119

In 1863, the heavy pressure from the confederate guerrillas on Grant’s rear became part of 

the reason he played such high stakes in cutting his supply line and moving to the south side 

of Vicksburg in order to take the city; the guerrillas were wreaking havoc on Grant’s supply 

lines and telegraph wires on the north side of Vicksburg. In 1864, as Sherman moved towards 

Atlanta, confederate guerrillas forced Sherman’s railroad logistical tail to operate only during 

the day, and with heavy security.

These guerrillas definitely made an impact on Grant. The unflappable General Grant, who 

was known for his remarkably calm demeanor under the most stressful of situations, would 

later admit that during his campaigns in Virginia the idea of waking up one morning to find 

Lee’s army gone, vanished into the hills of the western part of the state to fight a guerilla war, 

would give him great anxiety during the night. Lee himself admitted that he could fight a guerrilla war in the Blue Ridge Mountains for 20 years, if needed. Grant far preferred to see Lee 

remain behind those staunch defensives.

Author Jay Winik, in April 1865, points out several very significant facts relating to the 

dangers of guerrilla warfare during the American Civil War. For one, nearing the end of the 

war, the South may have had as many as 175,000 men capable of being under arms.52 Meanwhile, in the North, “an astounding 200,000 men had already deserted the Union army.”53 The 

North was war weary with over half-a-million casualties on the Union side alone, and one can 

only imagine how long Union soldiers with limited enlistment contracts would have handled a 

war going into a seemingly endless guerrilla fight—the fight Jefferson Davis was pursuing.

Winik further points out that “the Union had actually conquered only a relatively small 

part of the physical South—to be sure, crucial areas for a conventional conflict, like Nashville, 

New Orleans, Memphis, and of course, the crown jewel of Richmond—but all would be meaningless in a bitter, protracted guerrilla war.”54 As Grant acknowledged, “To overcome a truly 

popular, national resistance in a vast territory without the employment of a truly overwhelming 

force is probably impossible.”55

Grant never underestimated what Lee’s army could do in a guerrilla fight. Lee’s top generals and close confidents also knew, and on that fateful day, 9 April 1865, when Lee could 

either continue the fight or discuss surrender with Grant as the Union army had Lee nearly 

surrounded, several of Lee’s generals encouraged Lee to escape to the West where there was a 

small gap in Grant’s lines, and no roads existed with which Grant could have followed Lee’s 

army had it dissolved into groups of guerrilla fighters and escaped into the mountains. Lee 

decided to talk to Grant first. As Grant rode towards Appomattox, the Union General in Chief 

realized the complexity of the situation.

In past times, such a bloody rebellion would have ended in more bloodshed—the blood of 

the rebels leaders being executed, and mass punishment for the rebels soldiers. There was grave 

concern on the confederate side of the lines. Lee looked his best when he went to discuss the 

surrender, assuming he’d soon be Grant’s prisoner. Many rebels had already fled in the previous days, not wanting to wait and see what awaited them (thousands in Lee’s army deserted the 

week before the surrender).
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But as Lee read Grant’s surrender terms, Lee’s face, previously stoic and without expression, began to light up. All Lee’s army had to do was be paroled and vow never to take up arms 

against the United States again, turn in their weapons, and they could go home. There would be 

no executions, no prison time, no punishments, and no humiliation. Lee himself would not be 

taken in custody; he, too, could go home.56

Grant’s trademark words, “Unconditional Surrender,” were never mentioned, although 

that’s what it was for all practical purposes. Officers could keep their swords—the symbol of 

their honor and dignity. After Grant complied with Lee’s request to let his soldiers keep their 

horses, and Lee finally said the words, “This will have the best possible effect upon my men,” 

Grant knew he had won—he had won not just a war, but an everlasting peace. There would be 

no guerrilla war.

The handling of Lee himself was also significant. Grant knew Lee could use his powerful influence in preventing the Southerners from fleeing into the mountains and fighting as 

guerrillas. Lee did not disappoint Grant, showing once again why handling the leadership of 

a defeated nation is so important. Not that those who commit crimes against humanity should 

not be held accountable. Southern Captain Henry Wirz, who directed the dreadful confederate 

prison camp Andersonville, would be tried and executed for his role in the neglect and starvation of 10,000 Union soldiers.

But not everyone in the defeated government should be banished from ever serving again 

like some sort of “de-Ba’athification” program. Maurice de Saxe wrote: “Hope encourages 

men to endure and attempt everything; in depriving them of it, or in making it too distant, 

you deprive them of their very soul.” Hope was given even to the rebellious leadership of the 

American Civil War, and several of these former Confederate leaders would serve honorably 

in the US Congress after the war.

Grant immediately sent rations to Lee’s army, and would not allow cannons to be fired in 

celebration of the Union victory. Grant gave the Southern soldiers—who despite losing the 

war—what they could most have asked for; he gave them their pride, their honor, their dignity, 

and their freedom to go home to start life over. Grant gave them “something to lose.”

Many in the North wanted the South to pay heavily for bringing on the war, and there was 

great antagonism towards the South; the North wanted revenge. But Grant understood how 

much the handling of the surrender would affect those soldiers in the South still bearing arms, 

and the country as a whole for years to come, and he was right. COL Charles Marshall, the 

only Confederate officer to accompany General Lee to the surrender at Appomattox, would 

later writer:

On that eventful morning of April 9th, 1865, General Grant was called upon to decide 

the most momentous question that any American soldier or statesman has ever been 

required to decide.

There was never a nobler knight than Grant of Appomattox Court House—no knight 

more magnanimous or more generous. No statesman ever decided a vital question 

more wisely, more in the interest of his country and all mankind than General Grant 

decided the great question presented when he and General Lee met that morning of 
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April 9, 1865, to consider the terms of surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia....

the words of his magnanimous proposal to his enemy were carried by the Confederate 

soldiers to the farthest borders of the South.

It is estimated that 150,000 Confederate soldiers were still at large the day Lee surrendered 

his army, but by summer all would lay down their arms.57

This is the model for handling a defeated enemy; a notable General, “Blood and Guts” 

George S. Patton, fully agreed.58 When you hear the words “This will have the best possible 

effect upon my men,” you have taken the greatest step towards winning the peace. Grant never 

pushed for “de-Confederization” as Bremer would have, he pushed for “re-Americanization,” 

and it worked.

Julius Caesar’s handling of Gaul was very similar to Grant’s of the Confederacy. Gaul revolted against Roman rule around 52 BC. Caesar, initially caught off guard by the revolt, won 

a remarkable victory against the Gauls, but knew that it would take an even more remarkable 

peace effort. Therefore, while Gaul’s leader would be executed, Caesar chose to treat the army 

with dignity—rather than sell them into slavery like other prisoners. He did not direct reprisals 

against the people. As one of Caesar’s staff officers would later write; “Caesar had one main 

aim, keeping the tribes friendly, and giving them neither the opportunity nor cause for war . . . 

And so, by dealing with the tribes honorably, by granting rich bounties to the chieftains, and by 

not imposing burdens, he made their state of subjection tolerable, and easily kept the peace in 

a Gaul weary from so many military defeats.”59

Caesar, like Grant, also chose the best course of action. As British historian Adrian Goldsworthy would note of Caesar’s decision: “Rarely does any imperial power have enough troops 

to hold down large, well-populated countries by force alone.”60 When a civil war broke out in 

Rome in 49 BC, Caesar was required to take most of his army from Gaul. Yet, Gaul would still 

remain a part of the Roman Empire for over five more centuries.61

To say that to have handled the Iraqi Army exactly as Caesar and Grant handled their opponents would have brought peace is not my effort, nor would it be correct. Every army of 

every era is different. What is needed is to understand, however, is what the trained soldiers of 

the opponent’s army—and their people who are capable of producing war—value and if within 

reason, provide it to them in the most feasible manner. In Cuba, General Wood faced a similar 

problem, and he handled it as such:

After the defeat of the Spaniards in Cuba [1898] General Wood was faced with the 

necessity of disbanding the Cuban Army, which was turning to brigandage. In addition to the fact that they were a group of non-producers in a land whose welfare 

depended on production, these armed men constituted a direct threat to the security of 

our military government. General Wood met this problem by an attractive demobilization offer. Each soldier was given a bonus of $75 when he turned in his gun and was 

demobilized.62

In another situation, after the 1999 war in Kosovo, the United Nations developed a special agreement which transformed the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) into Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC). The Kosovo Liberation Army was an ethnic Albanian guerrilla organization 

which fought for the secession of Kosovo from Serbia in the late 1990s. Serbian authorities 
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considered the KLA a “terrorist organization”, as did some Western governments during 1990s, 

as the KLA was responsible for killing Serb civilians and even Albanians who were perceived 

as being allied with the Serbian Government.

While there were various official reasons for the transformation of the KLA to the KPC, 

the speculated ‘unofficial’ reason for the special agreement was to provide these former KLA 

members jobs, thus, hindering future violence by unemployed former KLA members who having nothing to do. Currently, the KPC has duties (amongst other things) such as providing 

search and rescue teams, engineers to help build Kosovo’s infrastructure, and guard and rapid 

reaction forces.

Whether it was dignity and freedom as in the American Civil War and the Gaul’s rebellion, 

$75 as in Cuba, jobs as in Kosovo, or whatever the leadership decides will put the disbanded 

army to ease, the one thing that does not work is a general demobilization with no assistance 

or incentive.

It is not currently known how many Iraqi Army units were still physically intact at the 

time Bremer disbanded them, although it is believed that several were. Regardless, the general 

disbanding of them was extremely harmful to Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. Magnanimous 

handling of the soldiers and still activated units (no matter how small), could have made a 

significant difference in who controlled the army after the initial invasion—just as Grant’s 

handling of Lee’s army had such a major impact throughout the South. Perhaps in Iraq the real 

center of gravity during the war was not Baghdad or Saddam Hussein, but the Iraqi Army, just 

as the Southern armies were Grant’s center of gravity. With control of the Iraqi Army, Saddam 

was nothing, and Baghdad was an easy capture.

But perhaps what Bremer most misunderstood about the general “demobilizing” of the 

Iraqi Army was not in the demobilization itself, but in the reintegration of those soldiers—that 

“living force”—back into society. It is reintegration that, perhaps, is the greatest measure of 

them all when handling trained soldiers; successfully taking them out of one way of life and 

into another can bring a final, peaceful end to the greatest of conflicts.

 In Afghanistan, there was an active Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration 

(DDR) program of former Afghan combatants that was implemented with positive results. 

Why this same program was not used by Bremer in Iraq is a mystery, but it wasn’t used, and it is 

easy to estimate that a significant portion of those former Iraqi soldiers were lost to the growing 

insurgency or the militias. They were given “nothing to lose.”

The Scales Of Perception

In the long run, the way an invading military treats the people of a nation, whether it is 

the common folk, the leadership, or the defeated military, it will leave an impression on them; 

and this impression will either win or lose the populace. If the victor/occupier leaves a good 

perception, such as “Liberators,” “better off with us than without us,” having their “trust and 

confidence” or winning their “hearts and minds,” it is likely that the occupier will be able to 

work with the people for the betterment of the country. However, if the victors/occupier’s actions put them on the opposite side of the scale, leaving a perception of “unwanted occupiers,” 
123

“better off without them,” lack of “trust and confidence” and losing the “hearts and minds,” the 

people become vulnerable to be influenced and exploited by insurgents, power-hungry leaders, 

or other enemies, and it permits an environment of antagonism, or worse. If the latter results, 

then a whole new set of problems will evolve, and possibly a whole new war.

Notes

1. Summers, Harry G. Colonel (Ret). On Strategy, Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1982, pp. 4-5.

2. Centers of Gravity are those “characteristics, capabilities, or localities from which a military 

force derives its freedom of action, physical strength, or will to fight. Destruction or neutralization of the 

enemy center of gravity is the most direct path to victory.” (Department of the Army Field Manual 3-0, 

Operations, June 2001.)

3. Van Creveld, Martin. Supplying War, NY,: Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 54.

4. General Joseph E Johnston’s army was still active, and a large number of Confederate troops 

remained throughout the South, but, as we will see later, Grant’s surrender terms played a major roll in 

ending the war.

5. The Tredegar Iron Works, which was a large source of the South’s industry for war materials, 

was in Richmond, but even these iron works did not make the Southern capital a “center of gravity” by 

this point in the war.

6. Barlow, Dennis C. A Planner’s Guide for the Employment of Civil Affairs in Latin America; 

John W. De Pauw and George A. Luz, eds. Winning the Peace, NY: Praeger Publishers, 1992, p. 124. 

Barlow credits Rudolph C. Barnes, Jr, “Civil Affairs, A LIC Priority,” Military Review, September 1988, 

p. 39.

7. John T. Fishel and Edmund S. Cowan, Civil-military Operations and the War for Political Legitimacy in Latin America; John W. De Pauw and George A. Luz, eds. Winning the Peace, NY: Praeger 
124

Publishers, 1992, p. 49. (John Fishel and Edmund Cowen both served in the US military and had extensive experience in US Southern Command).

8. While the new term for such operations is Stability and Reconstruction Operations (SRO) as per 

FMI 5-0.1, there is no SRO manual, and no a manual which replaces FM 3-07 at the time of this writing. 

Therefore, the author uses this manual and its terms.

9. Department of the Army, HQ, Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations and Support Operations. Washington, DC, Feb 2003, p. 1-10.

10. Department of the Army, HQ, Field Manual 3-0, Operations. Washington, DC, Jun 2001, p. 

9-1.

11. Field Manual 3-07, p. 1-2.

12. Play To Win, The final report of the Bipartisan Commission on Post Conflict Reconstruction, 

Center for Strategic and International Studies and The Association of the United States Army. Washington, DC, 2003 p. 16.

13. Field Manual 3-07, p. 1-14.

14. Department of the Army, HQ, Field Manual Interim 5-0.1, The Operations Process. Washington, DC, Mar 2006, p. A-6.

15. Ibid., p. A-7.

16. Some could say these operations look very similar to our SWEATMUSTC—sewage, water, 

electricity, academics, trash, medical unemployment, security, transportation and communications.

17. Military Government Department, Illustrative Cases from Military Occupations, Training 

Packet 8, The Provost Marshall General’s School, Civil Affairs Studies. Washington, DC, 10 June, 1944, 

p. 30.

18. War Department, Field Manual 27-5, Basic Field Manual: Military Government. Washington, 

DC, Dec 1942, p. 10-11.

19. Civil Affairs Study, pp. 3-4.

20. Field Manual 27-5, p. 19.

21. Gregor, William J, Ph.D. “The Politics of Joint Campaign Planning”. Paper presented at the 

2005 International Biennial Conference of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, 

Chicago, IL, 21-23 October 2005. Gregor credits Articles 42 and 43, Hague Convention IV Convention 

Respecting the Laws of Customs of War and Land (18 October 1907).

22. Field Manual 27-5, p. 22.

23. Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, Civil Affairs Public Safety Manual of Procedures in Liberated Territories. Germany, Jun 1944, p. 8.

24. Civil Affairs Studies, p. 13.

25. Ibid., p. 15. 

26. Ibid., p. 15.

27. Ibid., p. 4.

28. Field Manual 27-5, p. 5-6.

29. Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, Public Safety Manual of Procedures, Germany. Germany, Sep 1944, p. 41.

30. Civil Affairs Studies, (General Text), and Field Manual 27-5, p. 5.

31. Public Safety Manual of Procedures, p. 41.

32. Civil Affairs Public Safety Manual of Procedures in Liberated Territories, p. 8-9.

33. Civil Affairs Studies, p. 2.

34. Ibid., p. 5.

35. Ibid., p. 4.

36. Ibid., p. 7.
125

37. A small island in the Pacific which the Germans occupied in the late 19th century.

38. Ibid., p. 5.

39. The officers were an even mix of Sunni and Shia, with ranks of 1 Major General (retired), 3 

Colonels, 4 Lieutenant Colonels, 2 Majors, and 1 Captain.

40. Notes From Informal Discussions With Iraqi Officers, Conversation between Lt Col Hawkins 

(Marine Corps Center of Lessons Learned), and Major Kepner (Center for Army Lessons Learned), with 

Iraqi Officers, Baghdad, Iraq, 21 and 26-27 Sep 2005.

41. Ibid.

42. Bremer, L. Paul, III. My Year in Iraq, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2006, p. 27.

43. Ibid., p. 58.

44. Gordon, Michael, and Trainor, Bernard, Lieutenant General (US Marine Corps). Cobra II, NY: 

Pantheon Books, 2006, p. 484.

45. Ibid., p. 480.

46. Notes From Informal Discussions With Iraqi Officers.

47. Bremer, p. 268.

48. Winik, John. April 1865, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2001, p. 150.

49. One tactic Grant quickly applied was respectable and good treatment towards the civilian populace.

50. Ibid., p. 154.

51. Ibid., p. 158.

52. Ibid., p. 152.

53. Ibid., p. 153.

54. Ibid., p. 151.

55. Ibid., p. 154.

56. President Andrew Johnson later attempted to have Lee tried for treason, but Grant interfered 

and even threatened to resign his commission if the trial was conducted. Johnson quickly backed down.

57. Marvel, William. Lee’s Last Retreat, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 

2002, p. 183. Marvel credits: George W. Munford to Mrs. E.T. Munford, April 21, April 28, May 9, 1865, 

Box 5, Munford-Ellis Papers, DU; OR 48(@):190, 191, 234, 1275-81, 1284, 1324, 49(2):1263-64, 1289, 

and Series 2, 8:828-29; Thomas Grisham to “My kind friend,” May 18, 1865, Confederate File 2, Leigh 

Collection, USAMHI.

58. Nye, Roger H. The Patton Mind, Garden City Park, NY: Avery Publishing Group, Inc., 1993, p. 

152.

59. Goldsworthy, Adrian. “Caesar’s Triumph in Gaul,” Military History Quarterly, Vol 19, No 4, 

Summer 2007, p. 26.

60. Ibid., p. 26.

61. Ibid., p. 26.

62. Civil Affairs Studies, p. 17.
127

Panel 3—Shaping the Battlefield

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

Dr. Derek Catsam

MAJ(P) Doug Davids

Moderated by LTC George Sarabia

LTC George Sarabia

We’ve heard a very stimulating discussion on shaping the battlefield. In the first discussion, 

what we need to do, both during the pre-war phase, as well as Phase IV, post conflict, in order to 

set the conditions to success. What are the keys to that success? Is it the capital, the conclusion 

that we heard today, the people, and winning their support and loyalty?

I heard shades of General Petraeus, who talked about armies of occupation having a half life, 

that window of opportunity, and how important that is. That transitions us into the second 

discussion that we heard, which is the police and the difficult role that they play in the postconflict environment. Both of these topics, of course, are very timely.

My first question is for Dr. Catsam, and I think you really hit the nail on the head with what 

you’re identifying as this paradox. That is the police must be seen as legitimate. They must be 

seen as apolitical. They must be seen as they are there to help all of the members of the population to bring about a safe and secure environment. We’re seeing how difficult this is in Iraq. We 

see that the national police have been infiltrated.

So I agree with your conclusion. I agree with your findings, but is it not very difficult for police 

in a civil war . . . in a guerilla war, to be focused solely on security and yet somehow maintain 

the perception that they are to support all the people? By definition, if they break up a cell of 

Muqtada al-Sadr, for example, or if they break up a Sunni insurgent cell, or al-Qaeda, they 

are, at least to those people, taking sides. How would you address that piece to, I think, a very 

important paper that you presented?

Dr. Derek Catsam

Yeah, obviously, you know, none of this is easy, as I think we’ve found over the last few years. 

Certainly the perception can be that they are engaged in political activity. The part of it is if you 

decentralize the police to such an extent that they can’t clearly be accused of doing things. Any 

time you break up crime, of course you’re going to ruffle feathers, but I think that one of the 

key elements is to keep in mind the differentiation between the police and the military, and that 

they serve different functions in a civil society.

The question that you’re asking, of course, is what do you do in that transition period, before 

you qualify as a civil society? That, naturally, is going to be the hardest part. That’s going to 

be the part where it’s most impossible to separate it. But the larger vision has to be, Iraq or 
128

anywhere else, I mean, throughout Africa, anywhere, is to, from the outset, have a police force 

that doesn’t represent one population, doesn’t represent one ethnic population, one racial population. While there are boots on the ground, that it’s their responsibility to deal with the most 

contentious of the issue, because that’s fundamentally their job. Of course, you find . . . there’s 

no easy answer. If there were easy answers for any of this, we probably wouldn’t all be here 

right now.

LTC George Sarabia

Thank you very much. And my second, and final, question is for Major Doug Davids. Again, 

I agree that you’ve touched on a lot of key points. Pre-war planning, and what is the center of 

gravity? Is it just getting to Baghdad? No, it’s not. Then what do you do once you get there? 

How do you win the support of the people? You talk about sewer, and water, and electricity, 

etcetera. You also talked about, more so in your paper, the two decisions of Ambassador Paul 

Bremer. One decision, de-Ba’athification. Another decision, which was disbanding the Iraqi 

military. This is something that has received much discussion.

The book, Cobra II, by General Bernard Trainor and Michael Gordon, talks about this as the 

twin mistakes. One of them creates the leaders for insurgency, the de-Ba’athification. The other 

creates the foot soldiers for the insurgency, the army that is now unemployed. I take a slightly 

different stance. I’m not sure if I have the right answer, but let’s just pose a counter-factual, and 

then I’d like to see how you address it.

Let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, that there was not a de-Ba’athification, or very minimalist. Just taking out the very top leaders, number one. And number two, let’s suppose that the 

Iraqi Army had not been disbanded. We heard this morning General McCaffrey talking about 

these thousands of Sunni generals that we would have on our hands, but let’s leave that aside. 

And then let’s assume, just again for the sake of argument, that there was a Shia revolt, and that 

the attitudes of the people, or the population, is meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The 

Americans promised liberation, now we’re seeing very minimal change.

And then the book, Cobra II, would be talking about how idiotic it was that we failed to disband the Iraqi Army, and that we did not execute a vigorous de-Ba’athification. In other words, 

as we’ve been saying all along, this is really tough business. So how would you address that 

counter-factual question, if Bremer had undone those two key decisions?

MAJ(P) Doug Davids

Those are good questions. I think on the first one, the handling of the civil government, and 

that’s a good issue. I know Ambassador Bremer also talked about that in his book, and he had 

some pretty good points. I think, and it’s just my personal opinion, one of the things I couldn’t 

talk about was getting some of those packets that were done by the World War II . . . the press in 

World War II was really outstanding. One of the things they talked about that was very important, was the information operations to the people. That is, “Here’s what we expect from you. 

One of them being, by the way, don’t loot. Here’s the punishment if you do loot. The other one 

being this is what you can expect from us.” And some of the points being, “This is what we’re 
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going to do. This is why we’re going to do it. This is how it’s going to go about.”

I think the information point of that, if it would have worked, could have been, “We’re going 

to do this. We’re going to maintain these certain people, so that your lives can continue as normal, because they understand how this works. Doesn’t mean they’re staying, doesn’t mean that 

we’re going to rely on them, doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get the chance to become a 

very important part of building this country.” But at least that information part of helping them 

understand this is why we’re doing what we’re doing for the temporary reasons.

The Army not disbanding, that’s a . . . you know, I think the point being was it was the way it 

was handled with the disbanding. I don’t know that . . . really I don’t know if he meant disband 

as much as it just should have been kept under control, by some way, some method.

In Afghanistan we’ve had the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration program 

(DDR) as a method by which you keep control of them. Let’s get them out, let’s get them jobs, 

let’s keep the situation under control. I think Kosovo, correct me if I’m wrong, it was the KLA, 

Kosovo Liberation Army, if I have it correct, that was kind of considered a terrorist army by 

some. At least the Serbs, anyway. It was transitioned into the KPC, Kosovo Protection Corps. I 

hope I didn’t get that backwards, for anybody’s that been to Kosovo. I got that right? Okay.

Again, it wasn’t so much that they were disbanded as much as they were just transitioned into 

now you’re going to do more reconstruction than search and rescue, those kinds of things. So 

I think the general disbanding of it was kind of you’ve got nothing to lose, you’re going to go. 

Where as opposed to at least having kept control. They didn’t need to stay an army, or maybe 

some of them could, but more or less just keep it under control, and let’s give these people 

something to lose. Let’s give them something that was worth going home and just staying at 

home for.

LTC George Sarabia

Thank you very much. Let’s open it, now, to questions and answers. We have a very distinguished audience. Let’s start with right over here please, sir.

Audience Member

Steve McGeorge, Headquarters TRADOC. My question is primarily for Major Davids. Given 

your Special Forces background, do you see that Special Forces (SF) soldiers and leaders, perhaps, have a different idea of how to shape the battlefield, what should happen when the shooting stops, and how do you shape it, versus the more mainstream soldiers in the Army?

MAJ(P) Doug Davids

I’ve got some of my SF peers up here, loaded question maybe. No, it’s . . . I don’t know that . 

. . they might answer different. I don’t know that they initially see it different. I think just like 

SF anywhere else, you really have individuals who are going to see it the way that they see it. 

It depends who’s in charge, who’s running the show. From my point of view, this isn’t just to 
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boost the branch, I think SF particularly handled things especially well in Afghanistan. That 

was a good success story that went well. Of course, there were a lot of other people involved, 

they can’t take full credit.

Iraq, of course, they didn’t have all the ability to make all the decisions. I know some of the 

planners who were there who made some recommendations. Can’t say I would have stopped 

with all those recommendations that were made. I don’t know if I’m really answering the question or not, or if I’m dancing around the bush, or exactly what I’m doing.

I can’t say there as much of a difference. Again, I think it’s more people see it differently. I will 

say, as far as disbanding the army, that’s something, at least when I went through the Special 

Forces course, that’s something I think every NCO understands. Man, this is extremely complex. You don’t just up and disband an army. In that sense, I think they really would have understood. Special Forces, we work a lot with foreign armies. We realize that that little Private over 

there, he’s not just some guy who’s running around with a rifle from a foreign country. That’s a 

lot more than that. So we’ve had that advantage that we have done that quite a bit.

I can’t say for sure, but I think particularly handling of various armies, we work a lot with foreign nationals. There might have been an attempt at a little more international flavor, probably 

less of a . . . hate to say it this way, but “We’re here, we’re going to run it our way” attitude. 

Because SF is so small, we’ve never really been able to do it that way before. We kind of had 

to bring in a unified effort. So I think you might have seen a more unified effort.

Audience Member

Dave Duffy. I’m out of Army Special Ops Command, Fort Bragg. Certainly not a military historian. I’ll tell you the answer is yes to that. SF does have a different way of looking at it, and 

I think that was identified in the QDR, where the directive was to make general purpose forces 

more SOF-like, and that’s not buy better equipment, where it’s platform-based, as the doctor 

was talking with technology. That’s more of a cultural attenuation and understand that . . . and 

to get back, it’s not your regular warfare, it’s actually the way we’ve always fought war. We’ve 

just been colored by World War I and World War II, and now we’re trying to get back to why 

we created the Navy, which is your regular warfare. And other options.

I had two comments on your presentations. I appreciate the fact you gave both of them. First 

off, I will tell you that in an unconventional warfare doctrine, we’ve since changed Phase VII 

from demobilization to transition, because demobilization, the word itself implied that you 

demobilized them and that was the end. It allowed SF to kind of leave at that point. With transition, transition has to be planned before you even go in.

We missed a tremendous opportunity in Iraq, where we had a no contact clause with the resistance forces in the South, and then we abandoned the Kurds, and we were lucky that they 

brought us in. We did an SF-led economy of force operation in Northern Iraq, with great success. But with transition, when the revolutionary inverse occurs, when that resistance that exists in the government, now becomes the power, whether that’s a legitimate government or not, 

when it becomes the power, what was the government, or what was the occupying power . . . 
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excuse me, the governing body, the power, now becomes the resistance. It’s a flip. So you have 

to figure out how to minimize what was the power into becoming the new resistance.

There’s always going to be resistance. When Democrats and Republicans switch, the minor 

party becomes the resisting party. But you’ve got to figure out how to co-op what was the acting power, and bring them into this new body, this new government. That’s when you integrate 

and operate with the resistance forces, prior to even introducing combat troops, if it comes to 

that. You minimize that resistance from turning into an insurgency.

And when we did de-Ba’athification, when we dismissed the Iraqi Army, we failed in that regard. Now we’re trying to deal with that. It’s taken us six years to kind of get back to a let’s win 

the population mentality, where we might have been able to do that to begin with.

And the second piece, sir, when it comes to terrorism and guerilla warfare, at least in our 

military doctrine, there’s no real difference between the two. Terrorism used to be in our own 

doctrine, up until ’73, when we used to create cells of terror when we were setting up resistance 

elements. Even if we’re targeting, when we’re doing targets of confidence with guerilla forces 

that we’re advising, when it comes to sabotage and subversion, we’re still targeting the population. They’re still going to suffer in some regard. It may not be in mass murder, as we equate 

terrorism today. But it’s still a burden placed on the civilian population, which then causes them 

to lose confidence in the existing government, which then allows the resistance to grow, the 

underground to grow, and take effect. But having said that, I really . . . being an Africa guy, I 

certainly appreciate the presentation you gave on South Africa.

Dr. Derek Catsam

Very quickly, maybe tactically we ought to be thinking in terms of dividing the two. But I understand that on the ground, that’s sometimes just simply not practical. Obviously, you know, I 

mean this isn’t a sewing bee, right? Of course, sometimes there are decisions that you made on 

the ground that you don’t make these fine distinctions. But it’s useful as an overview to make 

to these differences in terms of our . . . terrorism is always wrong. Guerilla warfare isn’t always 

wrong. I think that’s important. But I agree. Look, the kind of things that you all are doing when 

it actually . . . when the bullets are flying, is rather different.

Audience Member

Yes, sir, and I will just have to agree to disagree slightly, because terrorism is an effective tool. 

I’m not talking mass murder of innocents, by any stretch. But anytime where you erode public 

support, and the ability for the government to provide for their security, that’s effective when 

we’re trying to destabilize a government, either to regime change or regime modification. So 

our actions, we don’t call them terror, but the end results end up being the same.

Dr. Derek Catsam

I agree. I understand.
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Audience Member

Dr. Rich Keiper, for Major Davids. Your presentation on shaping is, in my opinion, indicative 

of a much larger problem. The first slide you put up there had some historical perspective. In 

the 1944 manuals, both of them had the term “civil affairs” in the title somewhere. What was 

not in the titles was the term “military government”. Yet in October, 1950, when I think it was 

the 8th CAV moved into Pyong-yang, it was an armored colonel who then had to impose security on the city because the government had fled, until military government specialists, which 

we did have in the Army force structure at that time, could move in and take over those civil 

governance kind of functions.

Then you mentioned . . . well, let’s fast forward to 2003. 2003, we have no military government doctrine, and no military government specialists, but what we do have is this headless 

blob called the inter-agency. You listed up there, under “Civil Governance”, about six areas that 

were decisive operations, and yet, to paraphrase Dr. Catsam, there are no clear roles, and no 

clear lines of demarcation between this inter-agency blob and the military. So my question is do 

you see a doctrinal role for the military in civil government? Or should that be an inter-agency 

function? If there is a doctrinal role for the military in civil government, what is it? How do we 

get there from here?

MAJ(P) Doug Davids

Civil Affairs does have the task of civil administration, and that’s where you have those Reservists who have all the specialty skills where they do more administration on the civilian side. 

Should they have a larger role? My opinion, only in that short window of opportunity to fill that 

vacuum. I wouldn’t want . . . to me, the military is just not somebody who does a lot of civil 

governance. I mean, when I went to basic training, I spent three weeks learning how to shoot 

somebody center mass. I didn’t learn how to do economics or things like that.

I just don’t . . . I think it was during that BCTP rotation, actually, where there was a civil material operations working group, and they were talking economics. They were talking about 

banking. Finally a Department of State guy just had to stop and say, “Please stop. How many 

of you have backgrounds in banking?” He said, “We have Department of Treasury here. Why 

don’t we use Department of Treasury for that purpose?”

So my opinion, it should be inter-agency, and I can lead on that discussion if you want to. It 

should be much more led by a USAID, Department of State, those sides. We have civil administration for civil affairs, but again, my recommendation would be that is that interim, small 

window of opportunity, shaped environment, until the other entities can get in. That would be 

my recommendation.

Audience Member

I’d just like to follow up on that. In 1940, the US Army published a manual, FM 27-5, on 

military government. In 1942, it created a school in Virginia, at the University of Virginia, 

the School of Military Government, to train the officers and develop the doctrine to do the 

occupations of Japan and Germany. It raised the force structure, it was 10,000 people in Eu-
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rope. I don’t know what it was . . . it was at least 3,000 in Japan, to do the post-war military 

governance. And it was successful. Why have we abandoned that? Why did we close down the 

School of Military Government in ’58, and abandon that whole notion to the inter-agency? It 

has cost us tremendously in Iraq. And that’s for you, right.

MAJ(P) Doug Davids

I can’t say why we shut it down. I wasn’t there. It would be positive, of course, I think it was 

mentioned earlier, during World War II, we had 8.8 million soldiers, six million of them not 

in the Army Air Corps, but specifically the Army. Today we have a much smaller force. Does 

that mean we couldn’t do it? No, we could. I think the Civil Affairs community is growing, it’s 

getting better. Well one, it’s just becoming larger. It is getting better, trying to develop more 

doctrine, things like that

I’ll be the first to admit that in World War II, we were echelons ahead. Why we forgot those 

lessons in World War II on military government, civil occupation, things like that, I don’t know. 

I’m still trying to go through those documents. That’s why I say it’s a work in progress. We 

were echelons ahead in what we did. Why we just up and forgot it, I don’t understand why we 

did. That’s the best way I can tell you that.

Audience Member

This is Janice Jays from Dakota State. My comments are for Major Davids. I wanted to point 

out that we did have a guerilla war after the Civil War. It wasn’t directed at Union forces, but 

there were irregular militias; there was extra legal violence. It was a guerilla war. Perhaps because we didn’t use Union forces to combat it, that’s why it dragged on for so many decades 

after the Civil War. But on . . . related to Iraq, I was upset to see that you mentioned that humiliation was certainly a factor in looking at post-World War I Germany, but when you look at Iraq, 

you didn’t include that in your list of issues. Vital human services, civil administration, there 

really was nothing about culture. I think that that’s just a suggestion, that you go back and you 

rethink how you could put that in the vocabulary that would be more appropriate. What I’m 

thinking of are examples like the looting of the Iraqi museum, photos in newspapers throughout the Arab world of American soldiers, with their boots on, in mosques, broken palaces, the 

humiliation of Iraqi citizens, which was often unintentional, but it had powerful effects on the 

entire Arab world, not just on Iraq. So I think that certainly that is an issue that shaped the postconflict environment.

MAJ(P) Doug Davids

Yes, thank you. The fighting after the war, there certainly was. There was a lot of terrorism, 

led by white supremacist, the KKK, yeah, it did exist. In fact, there are a couple good books. 

I’m reading one now, I just wish I could remember the author. You know, on some of the fighting that did occur. I would not have called it a full scale civil war, could have been. It wasn’t 

150,000 soldiers under arms, fighting. It wasn’t a mass of insurgency, but there was some violence. I would disagree with you to say it was a war. I would not have called it a war. I would 

say there were disruptions.
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If you get a chance to read the paper I wrote—it was much too long to discuss in the 20 minutes I had here—I really do go into that quite a bit. One of them being the looting. One of the 

comments I heard, I can’t say it was official policy, was the Iraqis are going to take care of the 

Iraqis after this. I’m like, “Well, with what? With what police? What military? How were they 

supposed to take care of the situation themselves?” There were a lot of things there, which 

again, I do discuss in the paper, that I think, yeah, it wasn’t well handled. That was definitely 

one of them. Looting, I even talk specifically about museums. Looting a museum. That’s a 

nation’s history, that’s their pride, that’s their culture. You let that go, and it is kind of a slap in 

the face.

What I was referring to is that there was no intent to be harsh in the treatment of the people. 

There were mistakes, yes, as opposed to World War I, which I think was just crack the whip on 

these people because we’re just going to make them pay for their sins. That was nothing close 

to the intent we were trying to do there. We didn’t want to do that. The hope was to liberate the 

country and work this thing together. It was mistakes that led to that. That’s one of the things I 

talk about. Again, if you look at the paper, I have a very long section about those details. So I 

think there was the difference. It was certainly not intentional.

Audience Member

Dr. Stewart, Center of Military History. Reference to the School of Military Government, real 

briefly. I won’t get into a big history lesson on this one, but even when it was created, there 

was tremendous opposition in the press to this school for Gauleiters that was being created, 

that we were going to empower the military to take command of districts and run them as civil 

governors, and that this was inherently undemocratic, un-American even.

So there was great resistance, even at the time, even though we knew we needed it to be done. 

So as soon as the war was over as possible, the school was sort of down graded, then merged 

into Civil Affairs, then sent to Fort Gordon, then finally merged into the Special Warfare Center 

and School at Fort Bragg as sort of part of the Special Warfare component. So it wasn’t really 

abolished, it was just sort of mutated and morphed into something more democratic.

I went through the Civil Affairs school, and at the time that I was going through, there was one 

hour devoted to civil administration. So it definitely was a mission that was not seen as being 

important, or even one that we would ever do again. We could not imagine, at the time at least, 

in the 1980s, leading an army of occupation into any location.

But reference your window of opportunity comment. It seems like that the tasks you list there 

are all extremely important, but they all revolve around a couple of things that you hinted at. 

First, that we need the doctrine to do it, a robust doctrine, actually train the doctrine. We need 

senior policy makers who understand the necessity of doing these types of occupation tasks. 

And my conversations with the planners for OIF was that they were discouraged from even 

thinking about Phase IV, and even using the word “occupation”, because of course, we weren’t 

going to do that. If you would say you’re not going to do that, then it’s hard to plan for it if 

things go badly.

Thirdly, you need the numbers. You need a lot of people on the ground to begin to enforce 
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those law and order aspects, the capturing of weapons, the security check posts at every corner, 

in order to implement this doctrine. And then, again, thanks to the comments by some senior 

Defense officials, said it was inconceivable that we would need the numbers for an occupation greater than we would need to invade and conquer a country. So you have that conceptual 

problem at the highest levels of government.

And then fourthly, of course, the Army itself, even knowing it was sort of going to have this 

problem, a number of the senior planners in the Army, senior leaders, said, “We didn’t go in 

there to stop looting. That wasn’t our job. We didn’t have the forces. We couldn’t have done it. 

We didn’t want to do it. Somebody else’s problem.” Well, somebody else’s problem may be 

the interagency, but the interagency can’t do it either. During that window of opportunity, it’s 

the Army or nobody. So what would be your reaction to that?

MAJ(P) Doug Davids

I’m in full agreement, and that’s kind of the point I made. We have that window of opportunity. 

You talk about numbers, I fully agree, and that’s really why I quoted Grant about the numbers 

to try and do this occupation. Especially if there’s going to be any kind of violence at all. It 

takes huge numbers. You know, it’s unfortunate that that was conveniently forgotten, pushed 

off the table. I’m in full agreement with you on pretty much all the points you made. I don’t 

really add to it. I agree with what you said. 

Again, I mentioned the paper, and I don’t know that it’s so much doctrine, but I do try and lead 

a lot more heavily into let’s talk about the details of this immediate window. How are we going 

to handle electricity, sewage, security, information operations? One of the things I talked about 

was intelligence. I think it was mentioned earlier about how there was just no real planning up 

ahead, which I thought was really unfortunate, that our intelligence didn’t know better what 

was really going on in the country.

I think the best example was when the British were about to go into Tripoli in World War II. 

One of the things they did was they asked their Intelligence Services, not just what’s the enemy 

doing, but by the way, what’s going on with the civil population? What are the issues? First 

thing they found was starvation. These people were getting hungry. They were running out of 

food. So when the British went into Tripoli, they had already pre-staged the Red Cross with 

these massive ships of food. So as soon as they got in, a day later, here comes these massive 

ships of food. Well, not only did it immediately stabilize the people, but how about the expectations that probably came from the British Empire at the time, immediately mitigated any bad 

effects that might have come out of that.

So again, in the paper I do try to get a little more into it. But no, there was a lot to offer that 

could be written about, and there’s a lot more, I think, that could and should be done. If nothing 

else, for that window of opportunity, when we can at least shape it to get better. Hopefully not 

leave it to where it’s just going to get worse.

Audience Member

Mr. Ralph Peters. This is a comment. You’re welcome to comment on the comment, and it 
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builds on all the other comments. If we don’t come out of this with an FM occupation doctrine, 

we will have failed our responsibility to the Army and the country. The basic reason is straight 

forward, it’s been touched upon. Why weren’t we prepared? Why did we forget our doctrine? 

Because we didn’t want to do it. The Army didn’t want to do it. And that’s always true of any 

human organization or bureaucracy, but I think especially since Vietnam.

The Army fell into this trap, never quite articulated, of thinking that if we don’t prepare for 

a mission, we won’t have to do it. And you saw it in the Reimer era of the 1990s. “We won’t 

fight, and you can’t make us.” And the Army’s responsibility is to be prepared for all of the 

eventualities that may face it. And we’ve taken the easy way out. It’s almost cowardly by coming to this . . . well, it’s the interagency responsibility. The interagency doesn’t show up until 

things are going well. There are plenty of Staties in the green zone right now. In fact, they’re 

pushing in line ahead of the troops to get the sandwiches at the lunch bar.

But seriously, we need occupation doctrine, and we’ll probably need two versions. One, the politically correct version. If the interagency shows up, the Aggies will do this, and Treasury will 

do that. But you’d better have one that says the Army is there alone, maybe with some Marines, 

and we’re going to have to do it. And it’s tough, and it’s not politically correct.

But imagine, imagine, if in early 2003 when General Eric Shinseki last went to the Hill, if he 

had had an FM to lay down and say, “Ladies and gentlemen of the United States Congress, 

this is the US military’s best estimate of what it will take if we go to Baghdad.” That doctrine 

would have been our contract with the American people. Which is really what doctrine at that 

level is. I’m an Army guy. I love the Army. But we failed in the mission.

Dr. Derek Catsam

Can I address that quickly? From maybe a different vantage point. Maybe it’s because I’m fundamentally a political historian, and I’m just sort of dipping my toes in here, but I would argue 

that it’s emblematic of a larger political failing. Think back to the 2000 election, if you dare, 

and remember the debate structure. There were three debates, only one of which was based on 

foreign policy, and it was an example of two people trying to, as disagreeably as possible, agree 

on a central stance of nothingness on American foreign policy.

So when political leaders fail in designing ideas for foreign policy, I think everything else sort 

of falls into line. I mean, if you have unserious people doing things, and this isn’t to castigate 

this Administration, because they were both unserious when it came to foreign policy, this is 

what you get, I think. I think it’s a political failing as much as it is a failing of anything else. I 

think it goes from the top, and that trickles down.

Audience Member

Just a brief follow up. The flag behind you says 1775. Administrations come and go. The Army 

is always here to defend the country.

Dr. Derek Catsam

I actually don’t really know what that means. I mean, I agree. Of course the Army’s going to 
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be here.

Audience Member

It means we have to be prepared.

Dr. Derek Catsam

But we still take our cues in our republican democracy from our political leaders, and the other 

thing is, this is the problem with deciding these policies during war time, rather than doing it 

before it’s war time. And this is the problem with trying to develop a usable past during a contentious present.

Audience Member

Lieutenant Colonel Story, CMH. I’m going to try to say a whole lot in a very few words. The 

window of opportunity that I fully agree on, specifically with regard to Iraq, comprehending 

the situation that retired General Jay Garner was trying to . . . he was trying to manage a revolution while reestablishing the old order, a virtual impossibility. I think the only way we could 

imagine what that situation was like, if we were to even try, would be if we could, overnight, 

make one small alteration in the United States Constitution, which would consist of abolishing 

the Second Amendment.

If we could imagine the effects on the country, and what would break out as a result of that, only 

then could we imagine what it’s like to try to maintain order, but have a complete revolution in 

society. That’s what that window of opportunity was in May of 2003. With regard to trying to 

have the police be apolitical, if suddenly we abolished the Second Amendment, and police had 

to enforce that, they would no longer be apolitical. But that’s the situation the police face.

Dr. Derek Catsam

That’s a provocative idea. I’d have to think it through more. I probably . . . probably not the 

best idea for the professor to start talking about the Second Amendment and abolishing it. I 

fundamentally believe that, you know, one of the left’s failings has consistently been sort of 

selectively recognizing the Bill of Rights. But we have the Second Amendment, and it’s likely 

not going anywhere. So in a sense, I think it’s an interesting question. I’m not so certain . . . it’s 

a very interesting question, but it’s more of a question that you have over beers, and not one 

over policy.

Audience Member

Colonel Bob Naething from 16th CAV Regiment, Fort Knox. A question for Dr. Catsam. It’s 

sort of a twist on your paradox, but I can remember sitting in Baghdad with General Corelli, 

night after night, and he’d finish his nightly VTC with CI and MNFI, where they were talking 

about training up the Iraqi military to maintain order within Iraq. He always questioned, sort 

of just that philosophical point he’d bring up, are we really doing the right thing by training 

the military, in any situation, to control the local population. When we go into a place and say, 

“Look, we’re replacing the bad guy, Saddam, and we want to show you the great American 
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democracy type of governance where we would never accept a military controlling the population.” And he said, “The way we’re now going to go about it is by creating an Iraqi military to 

control the population.”

He didn’t have an answer for it, because there really wasn’t an answer, but it was . . . so it’s 

a little twist on yours, but you can sort of get, in a sense, that he didn’t really . . . he was very 

uneasy about training Iraqi military to control its own population, and then have us leave, and 

then expect it to be anything except what it was before we got there, under Saddam.

Dr. Derek Catsam

Right, that’s obviously the flip side. That’s like the military paradox is you don’t want a military fundamentally involved in domestic, political situations either, but that’s what you have 

once you’ve had a conflict. That’s . . . none of these . . . we’re not dealing with balloons and 

bunnies. This isn’t a fun situation. This isn’t enjoyable, this isn’t ideal, this isn’t the way anyone would have diagrammed it, but you have what you have, so that in the long run, what you 

would like is police doing police duties, military doing military duties, and a stable Iraq with a 

civil society. I hope so.

Audience Member

By the way, I don’t think I introduced myself last time. I’m Steve Melton. I’m on the C-TAC 

faculty up here. You know, the military governance was not the US Army’s first choice. We’ve 

never wanted to do this. We have tried everything we can to pawn it off on somebody else. 

During World War II, it was not Roosevelt’s first choice to give military governance in the occupation to the Army. He wanted the State Department to do it, but the State Department finally 

just didn’t show up, didn’t have the assets. Same thing we’re running into right now. The interagency didn’t exist. You know, this is a historical forum, and if we think that there are lessons 

to learn from history, why don’t we read our own history? Why don’t we go back and look at 

how this happened before, where the successes and the failures were, and then learn from it?

The 1940 manual on military government, there’s one copy up in the stacks in the library, was 

the distilled knowledge of many Army occupations that had been done during the progressive 

era, and this is how it has to work. I agree with Mr. Peters in your comment. If the Army is not 

the keeper of the professional knowledge, and can speak truth of power, and say, “We have 

done this before. We have a historical record. We know how this works, and this is the way it 

works,” then what good are we? Are we just making it up? Is it a post-modernist, we’ll invent 

it as we go along? Or are there things to be learned from history which we can tell to people in 

power, and say, “These are the considerations, and this is what has to happen.” And that’s just 

a comment.

But I want to know, is there any move in the Civil Affairs community, which is now part of 

USASOC, to recreate a military governance capability in the US Army, based on the lessons 

learned from Iraq?

Dr. Derek Catsam

There are moves . . . I’ve seen a lot of moves done individually. Colonel Duffy at USASOC, 
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have you seen ...? Yeah, I haven’t seen . . . individually, I have seen a lot of individual efforts, 

like mine and some other people doing hard work, but not as a collective effort, no.

Audience Member

USASOC still has proponency of CA, of course. There’s this huge wrestling match about 

FORCECOM taking it, the Reserve forces. It’s not my bailiwick. I don’t deal with CA, I deal 

with Special Programs in Unconventional Warfare. Having said that, there’s nothing as far as 

developing doctrine for civil governance, or increasing the schooling on that piece.

When it comes to the occupation doctrine, it’s really captured in the COIN manual, which, as 

an occupying power, you have to do that. Now does that gather the whole aspect of national 

power that the military is going to be handled with? Not completely, certainly.

LTC George Sarabia

But the quick answer is no, sir?

Audience Member

In my opinion. General Wagner might have a different opinion on that, but again, I haven’t 

seen anything. Since Steve McGeorge is here from TRADOC, Steve, isn’t TRADOC involved 

in some kind of joint effort to sort out this whole Army interagency . . . what’s the right word? 

Mess.

Audience Member

[Steve McGeorge] Mess comes to mind. If there is, I don’t know where it would be. Certainly 

not in the history office. Because the history office guys, and I’m going to jump into the fray 

here a little bit. The history office guys would say, “Read Bryan Linn’s book.” We had American Army officers running large, substantial portions of the Philippines very successfully for 

a number of years. We had Army officers running areas in the American Territories, frontiers, 

and the far West during the Indian Wars successfully. Did they want the job? No. Did they do 

the job? Yes. Could we do it better if we thought about it and developed some doctrine? Absolutely agree. But to get back, Rich, to your question, there may be somebody working on it, but 

if there is, it’s nobody I know.

LTC George Sarabia

Colonel Reese would like to add to that discussion.

COL Timothy Reese

There is a term of reference now that a lot of people are using called JIIM, Joint, Interagency, 

Intergovernmental, and Multinational, that supposedly deals with some of this business, but it 

really . . . it’s just a thought process. I think I saw a paper on it circulating around CAC somewhere that we were tasked to look at it. It doesn’t really get to the question that Ralph brought 

up about occupation responsibilities and duties, so it’s . . . I think I agree with Colonel Duffy. 
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The answer is no. The Army is not seriously looking at it.

LTC George Sarabia

And I think we’ll hear more about this on Thursday from Thomas P. M. Barnett, who wrote a 

book about this issue. We are out of time. I would like to close with some closing thoughts. As 

Dr. [William G.] Robertson will tell you, I’m a pretty upbeat kind of guy. But I like to end on 

a sobering note.

We’ve done this before. We’ve had soldiers trying to mediate conflicts between people right 

here on our own soil after a guerilla war (Freedmen’s Bureau March 1865-December 1868). 

So we have done this before. Now, how well it works is a different issue. So I agree with a lot 

of the echoes that I’ve heard from the group, which is this idea of lessons learned. As Dr. Robertson likes to say, it’s not lessons learned, because if you have to keep doing it, you haven’t 

learned a lesson. Insights gained, perhaps, to light a dim path ahead. History never repeats 

itself, so we will never go into another invasion facing exactly the same problems that we have 

this time. We have to draw very carefully what we take out of this. 

Finally, I thought Doug did a very nice job talking about reconciliation, but what do you want 

that peace to look like? How do you think that through while the conflict is still going on? 

Lincoln talked about setting up reconstruction while the war is still going on. A war that started 

off to do one thing, restore the Union, somehow became a war about two things. A new birth 

of freedom, to quote Lincoln. 

By the end of the Reconstruction Era, that second goal had been sidelined, and it would take 

about another 100 years before the second reconstruction would bring about what we talk 

about in civil rights in our own country. So my point is, this is difficult. This is going to take a 

long time. This should not surprise anyone that it’s going to take a long time. If we don’t think 

through what we want it to look like during the pre-war phase, we’re not going to get it right 

afterward. 

So that’s why I think this symposium is so important. I thank you for your contributions, 

because all this will be transcribed so we can try to gain some wisdom for the future. Thank 

you.
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Day 2—Featured Speaker

(Transcript of Presentation)

Strategic Communications—The Information Battlefield

Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV

Commanding General, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center

All right. Thanks. Well, thanks. I appreciate this opportunity to be here today. I was a little 

concerned that this might go like the Petraeus hearings, and as soon as I got up here the communications would go off. So I got everybody else to talk first before I had a chance to walk 

up here.

But let me just say, first of all, for those that were here yesterday, anything I say or present 

here is completely on the record. I’m not real comfortable talking off the record publicly. So 

anything I say or do, you can feel free ... it’s all on the record. It’s all attributable. That’s the 

best way to get into trouble. As long as you make it attributable. So I’ll just make everything 

attributable here today, both in the presentation, and in the Q&A. So just to set that for the 

record first.

But first of all, just let me tell you, thanks for everybody being here today. It’s great to have 

you. This is an important forum that we have going on here at the Combined Arms Center, and 

I very much appreciate and welcome each of you to both the Lewis and Clark Center, and to 

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas here.

The report I was originally going to give today was going to be “A Report From Iraq”—that 

was the title about a month and a half ago. Then as we started edging forward, and we found 

out that some four star General in Washington decided he wanted to talk about Iraq himself for 

a couple of days, and steal all the headlines, I thought, “Well, he could probably trump me very 

easily, so that’s probably not a real applicable topic.”

So what I did then is ask, “Well, let’s figure out what is the thing that really does kind of 

keep me awake each day? What does concern me, based on my experiences this last year, having been in Iraq? What scarred experiences do I take away from that, that in my now 32 years 

of military service, 31 years, going into my 32nd year, that I’ve never experienced before?” 

And that’s talking about strategic communications.

And so as we get going today, this is really a very applicable title, “The Information Battlefield”. And it’s one that the military is not real comfortable talking about. It’s one that, throughout our entire military careers, we’re brought up to sort of shy away from. We teach our military 

officers to always be very straightforward and truthful in dealing with the press, but don’t deal 

with them. So that’s kind of how we leave it. So if you have to, always make sure you’re truthful, but just avoid it at all costs, because it’s never a real win-win situation out there.
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Anyway, what I’d like to do is talk about that for a few minutes. And I’d like to pose a 

question to you. Within the Army, we have things called ... we used to call them Battlefield 

Operating Systems. We’ve recently changed the term. We now call them War Fighting Functions. And what I’d like to ask you is to think about today as we go through this presentation, 

do we need to look at strategic communications, or information engagement, as a war fighting 

function for the United States Army? And some of you are probably going, “I don’t even know 

what one of the war fighting functions are.”

Well, they are things like fire, maneuver, intelligence. It’s those aspects ... and I’ll talk a 

little about the definition in a second, that allow you to conduct military operations. And what 

is applicable, perhaps 20 years ago, I’m not sure we’ve fully embraced as to what we’re seeing 

today. And again, we’ll discuss that a little. But if you would, that’s the question I’d like to pose 

to you. Should strategic communications, or information engagement, become a war fighting 

function that the United States Army recognizes and embraces in their doctrinal manuals?

But before I get going, the whole aspect of communications is very important, and when 

people talk it’s amazing how often you will say one thing, and somebody will hear an entirely 

different story from you. Now, not that I ever experienced that in Iraq when I talked to reporters 

or the media, and I’d say one thing, and mean something, and then they’d report it like 180 out. 

But there is a challenge sometimes with the communications. And I’ve got a short clip here I 

just thought I’d show you to sort of make that point about how important communicating is. 

And if you could, just run that clip for me.

[Video being played.]

So what are you thinking about today? Anyway, it’s a great little clip to make that point 

across. But what I’d like to do is give you a short overview today from my experiences in Iraq 

dealing with this perspective of communications ... strategic communications, information 

engagement. I’m going to briefly define some non-State actors, their involvement in this whole 

process. And then also talk a little about what exactly do we mean when we say strategic communications?

What we’re normally talking about are the three disciplines of information operations, 

military support to public diplomacy, and then public affairs. And those are the three aspects 

of that that are very important to understand. So it’s information operations, public diplomacy 

or military support to that, and then, of course, public affairs. And knowing how some of your 

historians here very much appreciate examples, I’ll try to draw some of those from this past 

year and share those with you. We can talk of them at length during the question and answer. 

For anything you probably want to know about, I probably was there, and did it in some shape 

or form. Probably didn’t do it as well as I wanted to, but learned from it, and grew, and tried to 

improve on it the next time I had to do it.

As we get going, I can tell you that when I first got the call that – my General Officer 

branch called and said, “Hey Bill, you’re going to be going to Iraq, and you’re going to serve 

on the staff over there.” I must tell you, I was actually pretty excited about it. The opportunity 

to go over and serve as the Deputy Commander of the ground forces was exactly what I wanted 

to do. I was coming out of Division Command where the Army had blessed me with that op-
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portunity to do that for two years, but now I was going to get to go over and be the Deputy 

Commander. And so I said, “Well, when do I need to tie into the Corps and start working as 

the Deputy Commander and all that?” And they said, “Well, Bill, you’re not going to do that. 

You’re going to go to the Multi-National Force Headquarters.” I said, “Oh, so you want me to 

be the J-3 up there. The operations guy.” “Well no, not exactly. You’re going to be the Strategic 

Effects guy.”

I said, “Well, that’s kind of what artillery guys do. You know, and I’m kind of a background 

of an infantry guy, so I don’t really do that.” And they said, “Well no, that’s what you’re going to do.” I said, “Oh, okay.” I said, “Well, that’s fine.” I said, “Like what do I do?” “Well, 

you do things like governance, and nation building, and a few other things. And you’ll be the 

spokesman.” And there was a long, long pause on my part. And I said, “No, I really don’t do 

that. That’s not me. You’ve obviously got the wrong Caldwell. I mean I know our names are 

velcroed on and we can change them quickly, but we need to change because you’re got the 

wrong guy.”

I can go on to tell you historical stories from when I arrived, and General Casey did the 

same thing to me in-country, because I’d found a suitable replacement, in my eyes, to take on 

that task of being the spokesman role. And literally 48 hours after my first news conference, 

was explaining to General Casey, “We are ready to go. Things are set.” He was feeling pretty 

good, and goes, “Well, good. I’m glad to hear that, Bill.” He goes, “Are you nervous?” I said, 

“Oh no, sir. I’m not nervous at all.” He goes, “Not at all, huh?” I said, “No sir.” I said, “Colonel X is going to do a tremendous job.” And he’s ... again, one of these pregnant pauses, and he 

looked at me and he goes, “No, no, no, no, no. You don’t get it Caldwell. You’re the spokesman, 

you’re going to talk, and you’ll be out there doing all the news engagements.”

And so, from there, my life changed for the next 13 months as I gained a whole new perspective about this thing called information engagement, or strategic communications. You 

know, as we listened to General McCaffrey yesterday, I thought he gave some very insightful 

thoughts about this global war on terrorism, and where we’re going. And, you know, if you 

listen to what he said, it should raise some concerns, and it should also make you reflect a little 

about whether we got it right today, and how we may need to make some adjustments in the 

future, recognizing what the uncertainty is out there, and where we may be going.

I’ll share with you, while I was in Iraq ... I come from a unique perspective that, unlike the 

commanders on the ground who had their area they were commanding and responsible for, I, 

as a staff officer, had the ability, literally, every week to pick up and travel some place in Iraq. 

In order to be able to talk about what the troops are doing on the ground, I realized that the only 

way I could do that is to get out and about throughout the whole country. So each week I would 

take a day or two and I would travel in Iraq. And as I arrived in areas, again, I had the unique 

perspective that I was responsible for nothing except for myself.

So I could come in, and literally observe, ask, and mingle with the soldiers, the troops, and 

then go back to Baghdad when the visit was done. From that, doing that for literally 13 months, 

traveling around Iraq, I really did gain a unique perspective. A couple of things that I can tell 

you that I saw consistently throughout that 13 months I was there, one is that the troop morale 

is extremely high. No matter what anybody says, the troops are very focused. They believe in 
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what they’re doing. They believe they’re making a difference, and they actually are committed 

to this mission. That’s the troops on the ground down at the low level. And again, having spent 

literally most of my career, until post-brigade command, that’s post-Colonel command, I never, 

except for about a year and a half serving in the White House, had ever served outside of a troop 

unit my entire military career.

So going out and spending that time with the soldiers, I was able to get down and talk to a 

lot of them, and get a good feel for what was going on the ground, get a sense from the commanders, the non-commissioned officers, and the young troopers, as to what they really felt. 

And they felt extremely non-threatening with me being around. I was another military person.

In fact, I was a military person that was some staff officer, so they just would spill their guts 

and talk to me about anything. So I really did leave with a good perspective. But I also learned 

that troop morale is affected by communications. The question was asked many times to me, 

does what you’re hearing in Washington have an impact on the troop morale?

And I guess the best way to take it and reflect on that one would be to say that the troops 

are committed to their mission. They’re dedicated, and they will continue doing what they’re 

supposed to do. But yes, when they are doing something that they see as making a difference, 

they want people to know. Just like anybody would want somebody else to know when you’re 

doing something good, something positive, that you’re making a difference. You want people 

to know. You’re doing it because you’re trying to change a lifestyle, and that’s what they were 

doing.

I can tell you that they would ask me very frequently, knowing that I was the spokesperson 

for them, why does our story not get out better? Why do people not talk more about the accomplishments that we are making here in this area? It would always cause me to come back and 

tremendously reflect on how we, as an institution, handle communications, and what we do to 

support it. Again, I go back to that point, we as an institution don’t bring our young leaders up 

to embrace and communicate with the media in open forum on a regular basis. I have left very 

scarred by that experience, thinking we absolutely must.

But yet when you go through and you read things that are going on, I read ... like the Secretary of the Army has put out in his definition of strategic communications the following, that 

it’s “focused United States Army efforts to understand, engage, enhance credibility with key 

audiences to promote awareness, understanding, commitment, and ultimately positive action in 

support of the United States Army.” Now that’s a pretty good definition, and when I read that, 

we’ve got the right rhetoric, to me, in understanding what we want to do in the communications 

realm. And it’s a priority, not only for our Army, but also for the Department of Defense.

If you look at the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) from last year, 2006, the QDR, it 

had a quote in there, and this one I thought was very interesting, that “victory in the long war 

...” and most people pretty much recognize and accept the fact that we’re in somewhat of a 

long war, or a protracted conflict, as our Chief now says is the term, “... will ultimately depend 

on strategic communications by the United States and its international partners.” I mean a 

clear recognition, when you read this quote, that communications does have an impact on the 

battlefield, and that it is a combat multiplier, as we use in military terminology.
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Or, as I would now ask the question again, does this mean then that strategic communications or information engagement, some term such as that, should in fact become a war fighting 

function for the United States Army? Just like maneuver, intelligence, and fires, and others 

are. The key thing about this, too, is ... it goes on to say that effective ... the QDR does ... 

“Effective communication must build and maintain credibility and trust, with friends and foes 

alike, through the emphasis on consistency, transparency, both in words and in deeds.” So a 

recognition that rhetoric itself is not enough. It takes the actual actions, also, to be accompanied 

with that. And that such credibility is essential to building trusted networks to counter ideological support for terrorism. So there are people thinking about it, talking about it, putting it and 

codifying it in writing. It’s on our QDR. Our Secretary of the Army has embraced it.

And then you’ve got to go on and ask, are we then, in fact, now executing that in our deeds? 

I just wanted to emphasize the last point there about this countering ideological support for terrorism. Our non-State actors depend on local populace support. They depend on the sanctuary 

and the external resources provided by countries, the populations within, or even the virtual 

safe havens, such as the internet, global financial systems, and the international media. Essentially, the survival of these non-State actors depends on having a fertile ground of accepting 

populations to sow their seeds of discontent and lies.

Influencing public opinion, therefore, becomes paramount to denying their popular acceptance and use for any sanctuary in the world. Eroding their support, then, should become 

a desired effect of any strategic communications plan. As a result of the QDR findings, we 

also saw that the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Gordon England, went on to actually publish a 

strategic communication execution road map that was used to help define for them objectives, 

timelines, and oversight processes to enable the Department of Defense to fulfill the QDR 

statement that was made.

We also see that General Casey, when he became the Chief of Staff of the United States 

Army here about six months ago, came in and established seven imperatives, or seven focus 

areas that he wanted to take on. As he worked through these seven imperatives, he had initially, 

basically, one through six, but as he was discussing and working through each of those, it became apparent that each one had a significant communications piece to it, to where he established a seventh imperative that he wants to take on as the Chief, which is establishing strategic 

communications for the United States Army.

So again, I’ll go back and ask the question, should strategic communications be a war fighting function? The specific definition of a war fighting function, as outlined in our field manuals, our doctrinal manuals, and specifically the one in the operations process, and I’ll quote it 

here, the definition is “It’s a group of tasks and systems which could be people, organizations, 

information, and processes united by common purpose that commanders use to accomplish 

missions and training objectives. Commanders visualize, describe, and direct and lead operations in terms of these war fighting functions.” So if we truly believe that strategic communications is imperative in the war fighting arena, then perhaps it really should be included in 

something that we embrace in our Army doctrinal manuals.

Essentially the question is whether units are planning and executing operations with strategic communications in mind. Personally, I believe they absolutely must. Do they? I will tell 
146

you, I did not observe it and see it during my time in Iraq. It was normally an afterthought as 

operations were being put together. And I can describe plenty of examples during the Q&A, 

if you’d like to talk about some. Again, the QDR point about victory depending on strategic 

communications is what we should all be tracking on, and yet I’ve heard very little on that in 

public discussion or discourse, and therefore looked at this opportunity to talk with this group 

as an opportunity to help raise this subject back up, and get it back on the discussion plate one 

more time.

Regardless of any doctrinal decision made, I can tell you that strategic communications, 

for me, will become one of the top three priorities that I’ve envisioned that, during my tenure 

here as the Commander of the Combined Arms Center, is something we will work with through 

both the student body in our instructional courses, and at all the 17 schools and centers that 

Combined Arms Center have oversight for in the United States Army.

The United States Government is not the only entity that recognizes the worth of strategic 

communications, but unlike us, non-State actors have been operational at it for some time, and 

have been extremely successful. Although non-state actors can range from non-governmental 

organizations, NGOs, multi-national corporations and international media, I specifically want 

to address non-State actors. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute gives the 

following definition about what a non-state actor, armed non-state actor, is. They include, but 

are not necessarily limited to “rebel opposition groups, local militia, warlords, as well as vigilante and civil defense groups, when such are clearly operating without state control.” So if 

we kind of use that as the definition to help box non-State actors, and armed non-State actors, 

it would give you a little better understanding about what they’re doing.

The most commonly known and lethal armed group that we all talk about, that we constantly hear about, is al-Qaeda. I mean, there’s obviously others, too, that are out there, but that’s the 

one that you’ll hear day-to-day, you’ve heard for the last two days in testimony in Washington, 

you’ll hear again today as they continue talking about it. We have found that al-Qaeda and other 

non-State actors are particularly adept at using their strategic communications to influence the 

local population, the Arab community, and the world in general.

This victimization slide here (Slide 7) is exactly what we see them really working towards. 

If, in fact, we don’t get out and engage with, and talk to, the population in the Middle East, 

then somebody else will. We have two options. We can explain our purpose and mission behind what we’re trying to achieve and accomplish as a US Government, or somebody else will 

define it for us. And these are what you commonly hear being defined for us by these non-state 

actors, specifically al-Qaeda and some others, that are currently operating, both within Iraq and 

Afghanistan, where our troops are deployed to.

The Center for International Issues Research, a bipartisan, non-profit organization in DC, 

conducted a thorough analysis of non-State actors information and influence operations. According to them, the main theme for non-State actors in Iraq is victimization. And again, expressed in those three terms. They’ve got a video they put out. And again, we in the military are 

challenged in the sense that we have so many constraints we put on ourselves, and we worked 

through a lot of these while I was in Iraq in the last six months.
147

We won’t allow our people to go onto the internet, to look at certain sites. We won’t allow 

our people to go on the internet to look at YouTube, and some other restrictions that we clearly 

need to take on, and we did in Iraq, and we were able to change it. So those who need the access were able to gain it and have it, so we could understand what was being said in the other 

medium. 

There’s a tape here I’d like to show you. The video is entitled “The Reemergence of the 

Crusader”, the crusader being, obviously, the United States, which was posted on the internet 

about three years ago and eventually gained international attention. You can go on Google and 

find it yourselves at any point in time. It’s still there. The picture you’re going to see is a little 

grainy, it shows a little lower quality filming editing, but it does get the point across. We’ve 

shortened it. The original tape is about 17 minutes long, and I’m going to show you here about 

a three minute clip to help try to make a point. 

After the video plays, you’re going to hear an analysis of the same clip, and it’s from a 

cultural expert from that institute that we had brought in and asked us to help analyze and understand what this clip means, and how we should be interpreting what it’s trying to transmit 

to the Arab world and to others. And so you’ll hear him right there at the very end. You won’t 

see him, but you’ll hear him, and he’ll talk a little about what the impact, or what the analysis 

of this tape means. So if you could go on and roll that.

[Video being played]

In the first part, they have the clergy contradicting President Bush. For our audience, we 

know the value for the American audience, that the value of the word of the President more 

powerful than the clergy. But for the Muslim audience, the clergy usually say only the truth. 

They don’t lie. The politician lies. So for the Muslim audience work as the following. The real 

[inaudible] of the US policy in the Muslim world is being said by the clergy, and the United 

States President is just lying to us. And creating that juxtaposition makes very clear that our 

mission in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, is a war against Islam. 

The second part, interesting, they carry the images of soldiers worshiping [inaudible] Iraq, 

with their images of mosques being destroyed. That’s what makes our mission very clearly we 

are supporting the Christianity in Iraq, and we are destroying Islam in Iraq. These images of 

mosques being destroyed is being used by them so effectively in so many products to express 

that particular theme, that we are in a war against Islam, and we are carrying a crusade against 

Islam.

And the effects, as they again ... this institute ... again, the Center for International Issues 

Research is ... these are the kind of effects, and not that I’m interested in going through and 

discussing each of the effects, and talking about them, because that’s not the point of the discussion here, but rather to show you that they say these are the effects that they’re going after when 

they go after that targeted audience.

What are they trying to achieve? And you can kind of get the visualization there (Slide 8), 

but you know, provoke global Muslim anger, undercut US world authority in the eyes, of for-
148

eign audiences, etcetera. But that’s their purpose and their intent behind putting this video on 

the internet. Again, a very powerful medium that’s out there available to anybody, at any time, 

to pull up and use in any form that they like. Again, their disinformation, and their manipulation 

of the facts and the truth, are clearly seen there.

Again, what counter have we done to that is a question to ask. I would just tell you that, 

in our strategic communications plan, that’s normally what the challenge is that I’ve seen over 

these last 13 months. We are, in fact, reactive and not proactive in how we approach strategic 

communications. Even today, I would tell you it’s very difficult to find any plan that clearly 

lays out and explains to the Arab world and to the Iraqi people why we are there, and what we 

hope to accomplish. Again, that would be a proactive plan that you would hope that would be 

readily available, clearly articulated, and everybody would have an understanding of if, in fact, 

we are being proactive in our communications efforts with that respect.

This one here (Slide 9), just to talk you through it, again, in the center there, the campaign 

plan, and then you have your three aspects of, really, strategic communications. And again, 

we’ve talked to them before. The public diplomacy piece, the public affairs piece, and the 

information operations piece. And each of those together are extremely important. They don’t 

operate independently.

I can tell you, when I first got to Iraq, we had had some challenges before I arrived there 

in terms of information operations and public affairs somehow blending together. Won’t even 

attempt to go into the whole background there, because I was not present at the time. But I will 

tell you, by the time I left, we had, in fact, reembraced information operations at the Multi-National Force level. We had understood the importance of, and the necessity for them to work in 

close cooperation and awareness of what each was doing if, in fact, we were going to achieve 

what we wanted to in the strategic communications realm.

What I’ll do, I’ll talk through just a little about these, but I’ll tell you, as the spokesman 

for the Multi-National Force, I probably spent ... if somebody were to ask me when I focused 

in the strategic communications realm, and not doing one of the other areas, I probably spent 

80% of my time just doing strategic communications stuff, working as a spokesman. I probably 

spent 75% of my time right there in the Public Affairs arena. I probably spent 15% of my time 

in public diplomacy, and about 10% of my time in information operations, if it kind of shows 

you where the focus was there in the last six or seven months that I was there. What I want to 

talk about first, though, is information operations. It’s really the newest doctrine that we have 

out there. It’s something we’re coming to grips with.

The Combined Arms Center here was recently established by the United States Army as the 

place where they wanted us to take on proponentcy for information operations for our Army, 

and our new field manual that’s going to be released here in about two months, FM 3-0, Operations, it defines information operations as the integrated employment of the core capabilities of electronic warfare, computer network operations (Slide 10). That’s attack and defense. 

Psychological operations, military deception, and operation security in concert with specified 

supporting and related capabilities to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial human 

and automated decision making while protecting our own. Pretty broad spectrum there when 

you stop to think about those areas under which we’re putting information operations.
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The bottom line is information operations may very well be the decisive line of operations 

during counterinsurgency and other stability operation, for it attends to the challenge of gaining 

the respect, the compliance, and the support of the people among who we are either warring, 

or trying to pacify through military operations. We are in a war of exhaustion with the enemy. 

Whomever has the will to endure will be victorious. Information operations contributes to defeating the will of the combatant.

Therefore, the importance of it, to me, cannot be misunderstood. It’s a major line of operation in influencing the perceptions, the attitudes, and the beliefs, and more importantly, the 

behaviors of different audiences in and beyond the area of operations where military operations are being conducted. And you can just look at this slide here (Slide 11) for a real simple 

IO purpose, if you look down here on the bottom right side of that slide, that is not something 

we’d want our people doing. And yet, some commander at a low level felt that that was okay 

to do, and write, and put on one of our pieces of military equipment, as they’re out conducting 

operations and patrolling in the area.

Yet up here on the top left, there’s a leaflet distribution being done by our PsyOp folks, and 

putting out some sort of message to the people there. We’ve got to remember that actions do 

speak louder than words. They are the strongest form of communication, and absolutely must 

be congruent to the messages sent by information operation and by other means. To achieve 

this synchronization of message and action, we have integrated information operation officers 

into the brigade level, and in times, all the way down to what we call our battalion task force 

level operations.

IO officers and leaders on all levels need to prevent exactly what we see there on the bottom right, but also maintain and be aware of what we’re doing in the IO realm, because it is 

so encompassing of so many areas. Although military deception is part of IO, we do recognize 

that no one wants to be propagandized or influenced. Hence, telling it straight applies to IO as 

well as to Public Affairs, and it is, without question, for the United States military, the surest 

way that we’re going to be able to achieve success in our endeavors, is when we always tell it 

straight, and we do not propagandize, and we do not attempt to influence.

The last point I want to discuss on information ops is that its messages cannot be contained 

within an imaginary boundary. When you communicate to local villages, when you communicate to a local governance element, you’ve got to make the assumption that it’s going to spread 

and be seen by a worldwide audience. It’s no longer localized. The use of the internet or any 

other kind of medium such as that, or just the method and means by which information now 

flows throughout the world means that whatever you say or do will, in fact, and can be reported 

on an international perspective. And simple things like pictures of soldiers worshiping can be 

used against us, as we saw there in “The Emergence of the Crusader”.

As we think about how IO can be used, we kept trying to figure out how are we going to get 

a message across about what we are doing, and why we’re doing certain things. We had gotten 

a report while I was over there that ... you know, in Ramadi there was an al-Qaeda group that 

was, in fact, going to mortar an emir? Who was going to be meeting with the local populace to 

discuss a key critical issue. Obviously, we had ... we were working the outer cordon in protection security for that event that was going to occur in that town in Ramadi.
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During that time, we had picked up and got a report that, in fact, there was a mortar system being moved near there that was being hidden, and was going to be used against the local 

populace when they tried to form, and meet, and talk about what they were going to do to take 

back better control of their town. We had fortunately picked it up. We were able to call an A-10 

strike in on that specific location, and what we did is we arranged to immediately have those 

gun tapes released to us, declassified, and then provide it to a media source so that they could 

go ahead and air that, because it was, in fact, a factual, real event that had just occurred on the 

ground.

I can tell you, when I first got to Iraq, that would take us days to do that. By the time I left 

Iraq, we could literally turn it within 20, 30 minutes, within an hour at the most, from the time 

a military operation, if we were planning it, and thinking about it. We could get that gun tape, 

get it back, get it declassified, and have it made available to make a point.

So here’s an example of one that did get aired publicly, that we were able to plan for and 

execute. What you’re going to see is an A-10 coming in. Hidden there in the tree line is, in fact, 

a truck, mortar system on it. It may be hard to see with the lights up like this, but it’s coming 

in, hit it, and then what you’re going to see is another picture here, if you’re watching the time, 

about 30, 45 seconds later where you see secondary explosions, right there, clearly showing 

that they had hit a very lethal target with the A-10.

What we were able to do was to put this in context for the media so they understood the significance. It wasn’t just information anymore. We are now able to take it and make it a relevant 

piece of information for them. That was aired on national news, and then, of course, we immediately turned around and by, again, after having been there several months, had made enough 

inroads with Arabic media stations that we were able to transmit that to them too, to make it 

available to them and explain the significance of what had just occurred, and how again, we’re 

continuing to protect and embrace the people as they attempt to take greater control of their 

lives by taking out the insurgent elements such as you see right there.

The next thing is to talk a little about Public Affairs, as you see over there on the bottom right. Again, a key component ... and again, as I said, when I was dealing with strategic 

comms, I probably spent 75% of my time there. It’s an area where we, as a military, do need 

to get better with. I can talk rhyme and verse and different stories. There’s plenty of them. But 

through my one year there, I kind of walked away with trying to figure out how do I simplify 

and be able to discuss what you do when you engage the media?

You might think well, obviously, Bill Caldwell, if you were going over there they put you 

through a one week plan of how to talk to the media. They probably put you in front of the camera five or six times. You probably had all these people sit down and engage with you. I would 

tell you absolutely nothing happened. Bill Caldwell got sent to Iraq, and that’s about how much 

engagement and training I had before I arrived on scene to take over and do what I had to do 

over there. There was absolutely no training. There was no information flow. It was me calling 

one group I happened to be aware of, the Ketchum group, and a person I had met one time before, and he came in and spent four hours with me about how to do map messaging, and trying 

to help me think through how do you deliver a message. That was the extent of my training.
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Well, I walked out of it and said, “Okay, what do you need to remember? What do you 

need to know when you’re dealing with the press?” And I broke it down to the Four B’s (Slide 

13). That’s what I found was the most effective way when you have to engage with, and want 

to communicate a message. Being Honest. And I know you’ll sit there and go, “Well yeah, of 

course you want to be honest.” No, I’ll tell you, there is no spin associated with being honest. 

It is being straight forward with the facts, and telling it like it is without any type of trying to 

move it left or right.

I was extremely nervous as my first press conference was prepared to roll out. I kept talking 

to my Public Affairs Officer saying, “I know, but how do I want to really present that though? 

I mean, this is not good news.” And she kept looking at me and she said, “Sir, just tell it like it 

is. That’s all you can do. That’s your responsibility. Just tell it like it is. Don’t try to make it any 

way that it is not. Just be 100% straight forward and honest.” And I found that to be the most 

effective means of communicating with the press. And again, sounds easy. It’s something you 

have to really impress upon people to always do.

The second one is to Be Open. We have to be willing to engage and take on the tough questions. When it really gets hard, when it’s really tough, that’s when people want to back away. 

That’s exactly when you don’t want to. You want to get engaged, and you want to make sure 

that you put it in as much proper context as you properly can. We have to be willing to accept 

the press. We’ve done a great job. I mean, from when I first came in the Army, the embeds and 

everything else we did in this war were tremendous. But we can even do better than we’re doing today. And so we need to be much more open.

And then Be Relevant. To tell them that this happened on this day is not enough. You have 

to say, “This happened on this day, and this is the significance, or the importance, of why that 

occurred.” And then the last one is Be Ready. We finally, before I left, developed what we 

called a Media Response Team, an MRT. And again, no doctrinal manuals out there to help me 

with this. There’s nobody telling me what to do. We’re going trial and error, and fortunately I 

had a great Public Affairs Officer who spent the last eight months with me. But we developed 

Media Response Teams, teams that did nothing but when we saw something—again, this is 

being reactive, not proactive—would immediately engage and start working through the responses to these different activities. Whether it had been ... we went out and hit a target early 

in the morning with some kind of surgical group. They report back. It was critical that they 

reported back to us.

We developed great relationships with a lot of the key operators in the country to where, if 

they hit a target, and there were civilian casualties, I would be informed within an hour of that 

occurring. Normally before they even pulled off the target. And if that was the case, then I knew 

right away our Media Response Team needed to roll into action.

What we found, and one of the most clear examples of this, they went in one time and hit 

a target—this is what forced us to really come up with this—they reported that they had five 

civilian casualties on the target. Then we normally send in a team that would go in there after 

and deal with that with the local populace, and accept responsibility for our actions. Well, 

what occurred was as we continued dialoging with the team on the ground, they said, “No, 
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take it back. These aren’t five civilians casualties. In fact, they’re five insurgents. They have 

the weapons here and everything else. You just need to report as five insurgents killed.” And 

I said, “Okay, great. We got it.” Well, they were just enough civilian looking that by the time 

the local population got into the building, after we had moved off the objective, there were no 

weapons in the building. There were five civilians in the building, and the story had been spun 

by somebody locally that we, in fact, had killed five civilians during a strike on this site. And 

now we are truly in a reactive mode.

And again, we started learning that they can take and manipulate, distort, and use any misinformation they want. We have to be extremely truthful and forthright all the time in what we 

report. And so this kind of Media Response Team became critical so that we could immediately 

take that information, make sure we had the factual information as it did occur, why we struck 

that target, why it was relevant, and then we briefed senior leaders in the Iraqi government with 

translation teams that stood by on a 24 by 7 basis to translate all the stuff, both in word and in 

print, that we immediately disseminate, both to Arabic media, to the senior Iraqi leaders, and 

then obviously, internally within our folks.

You know, I can show you ... there’s a tape. If you can roll the tape for a second ... if you 

can go back and pull me up the tape on press conferences. This will show you when we talk 

about having to do press conferences, and as we called them, news conferences, over there, 

things that I had to learn by trial and error. This was done for me by my crew as I left that used 

to help me prepare for these press ... news conferences.

[Video being played.]

Anyway, that was a ... my team, as I left, grabbed a couple, obviously, excerpts, and they 

themselves are the reporters, as you can see, helped me understand how well I did with my 

news conferences over there. Keep it all in perspective.

The last thing I’d tell you that we spent a lot of time working on was sharing the story. 

People were always asking me, “What can we do to help the American service member that’s 

serving over there in Iraq?” And from our perspective, what you could do is share the story. 

Tell the story of what the men and women in uniform, and those who are over here as civilian 

members of our government, what they’re doing on a day-to-day basis to attempt to try to make 

a difference here in Iraq. Share their story.

We were able to conduct ... now I guess we’re up to about five of them. We started them 

when I was there. I think they’re about to do the fifth one with the state of Georgia. But 

very successful video teleconferences where we took everything from deployed national guard 

troops, to active duty forces, to media, brought in university and high school students, faculties, 

families, community members, and would set up these video teleconferences where we would, 

in fact, have about 40 to 50 members in uniform, and civilians, that were from that area, that 

state, along with the community back there in that state, and let them have an exchange and dialog from anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours. And we found that to be extremely 

useful and beneficial in terms of helping to share the story, and allowing them to ask first hand 

what was going on over there in Iraq. For us, it proved to be just a tremendous benefit in being 
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able to hear first hand from those on the ground exactly what they’re doing, and how they feel 

about what’s going on.

We also had some challenges too. Well, this is ... again, this is part of how we visualize 

what the share the story concept, but we realized that from the situation on the ground, going 

through the media, sometimes with different filters ... again, normally the comment was given, 

editors make decisions what is or isn’t published. Editors make a decision what the headlines 

are going to be. And I understand all that. So sometimes there’s a little bit of a gap between 

what the troops on the ground are doing and what the American public, perhaps, is able to 

understand, to draw their own conclusions about what’s really occurring. So we attempted to 

figure out some way to be able to bypass that and reach out and directly touch the American 

public. And this forum that we set up, and now they’re about to execute the fifth one, is one 

way to do it.

Our vision was to be able to do all 50 states on some kind of regular, recurring basis. Again, 

bringing in students, university people, faculty members, local community leadership, along 

with the families, and letting them dialog and talk with American men and women from that 

area that are serving over there in Iraq.

But we also found problems where sometimes people, in their zeal to help and assist ... you 

probably remember the story of the American commander over there that wrote a letter, gave it 

to each of his troops, and said, “Address this to your hometown newspaper, and send it back to 

tell them what we’re doing over here.” And then two newspapers put it together and realized it 

was the same exact letter, and then it became very much blown out of proportion and we were 

accused of, in fact, trying to influence the media and everything else.

Having engaged with and dialoged with that organization, the commander was just trying 

to help them tell the story by giving them something they could use, but again, let the troops 

tell it in their own words is always the best method and means to do something.

And the last thing is this whole support ... public diplomacy and what it exactly means. 

Again, what I would tell you is the military is not the lead. We are a supporting agency to make 

the public diplomacy piece happen. And that’s key to understand. So the challenge, again, we 

have up here is ... we saw it time and time again with the State Department. They’re not resourced, and they’re not manned at the level that we are, so they just don’t have the capacity 

and the capability.

Now there were plenty of challenges, too, in terms of rules, regulations, and abilities to do 

and say things, but they’re also clearly not manned and resourced like we are. So that always 

became a challenge, and we put a lot of resources behind the scenes to, in fact, support and 

help, and shore up our State Department allies here as we worked over there.

Another thing, too, and again, you’ve seen the quote before, the Zawahiri quote (Slide 19). 

And I throw it out because it really does tell you the understanding that the adversary has in 

terms of how powerful this medium is, this information medium, this strategic communications 

medium, is in the conflict, this protracted conflict, this long war that we’re currently engaged 
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in today. “But the battle is taking place in the media. Over half.” The fact that there’s that acknowledgement and recognition that over half is taking place in the media does, in fact, say that 

the adversary does get it. They’ve got it. They’re working it, and they’re putting the resources, 

the time, and the effort behind it to, in fact, work that area.

You know, I remember, even our own former Secretary of Defense at one point, talking 

about how well we do in our communications arena, and saying publicly that we probably get 

a D or a D- in terms of how well we engage with and communicate with the media. So a real 

lesson learned for us as we move forward here, but one that we need to remember and take 

in mind as we talk about how do we better use strategic communications on the battlefield of 

tomorrow? Really even today.

So anyway, with that, I’ll take whatever questions you all have.
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LTG William B. Caldwell IV Slide Addendum:

Report from Iraq

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Day 2—Featured Speaker

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV

Commanding General, US Army Combined Arms Center

Audience Member

Jeff Clark, Army History. I was struck, at the start of your talk, when you mentioned that Army 

officers are, understandably perhaps, uncomfortable dealing with the media and the information operations. I recalled about 17 years ago, when I was down at Quantico, listening to General Boomer who said, “Well, you guys asked about the media, and the relationships between 

the Marines and the media.” He said, “You don’t understand.” He said, “It’s a law, you know. 

You’re always going to get 20% of the stories are always going to be bad. And there’s nothing you can do about it. And you just suck it up, and it’s the price of doing business with the 

American press. Don’t worry about it. Don’t lose any sleep over it.”

But when you have somebody up there, up top, telling you about what they said about Walter Reed, or what they said about Abu Ghraib, or say the morale in their own company unit, 

because it could affect their career obviously. And it’s almost a cultural thing. I guess I could 

see that it would inhibit someone in taking anything but a reactive stance to the whole area of 

media relations and strat comm. I just wondered, is that kind of accurate? Or is there anything 

we historians, Army historians, can do about that?

LTG Caldwell

The thing I keep saying is, you have two options when you are asked a question by the media. 

You can either answer it truthfully, you can be honest. You can be open about it, or you can say 

nothing. You are not required to say something. Just because the media asks you a question 

. . . you know that last little funny clip was me moving off to the side, was actually really letting my partner, my Iraqi partner who was doing a joint press conference, or combined press 

conference with me, get up and talk because the question was more appropriate to him. But you 

do not have to answer a question.

And my biggest thing I keep stressing to people that I walked away from this experience was 

I felt like I had to answer the question. When asked, I felt like I had a responsibility to answer 

their question they asked me. I don’t. If I am uncomfortable, if I don’t feel I have the knowledge and the expertise, if I feel it’s not something I want to discuss, then I don’t have to answer 

the question. And there’s plenty of times in news conferences where, I was asked the question 

once, I was asked the question again, and then what normally happened, the first time . . . the 

third time I was asked, I folded and I answered it. And I just got hammered in the press over 

it. And so what I learned was they’re going to ask you three times. Just hang in there, don’t 

give in. And after the third time, you’re safe, because then they’ll give up and they’ll go on to 

something else. But I mean that generally was the rule that I found.
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If you are not comfortable answering the question, just don’t answer it. Because what you don’t 

want to ever do is compromise your integrity, compromise your credibility with them. And so 

if you’re not answering, they got it. That in itself was the message. But you’re not compromising then. And you’re not trying to spin it, or put it in a different context that’s not actually real 

factual. We don’t do a great job of teaching our folks that. When I took over two months ago, 

and I asked what media training do we do here in the school, since I’m the Commandant of 

the Command General Staff College. I was told, “Well, we bring in these role players from the 

local colleges and universities, and during the exercises they do interviews.” I said, “Oh, that 

doesn’t count.” It’s not until your name’s in the paper, and you screw up, and you get a letter 

from the Secretary of Defense does it count.

So I said . . . unfortunately, the same thing General Boomer said, I’ve always said 70% of the 

time you’re going to be okay and pleased with what you say. 30%, for whatever reason, is not 

going to be what you want. And that’s just a fact of life, and you’ve got to live with it. But that 

70% is important to get that message out and to communicate. So get out there, communicate. 

When you’re asked a question you don’t feel comfortable answering, then don’t answer it.

We stopped all the classes across all of our schools and centers in the United States Army, and 

we watched that hearing (Petraeus Hearing). That’s how important we viewed it as. During 

that we invited press to come in and sit with a couple of the student classes, and there was one 

article that came out, and we had a student that decided to talk about politics. Well, that’s not his 

lane, and that’s probably not something he needs to be on the record talking about, the politics 

of our government, because that’s not what the military does. Stay your lane, talk in the area 

you have the expertise in, share the story that you are knowledgeable of and can talk about with 

factual data, and then you’re okay.

But that was a great example, and that young Major learned a great lesson because, as I understand talking with the seminar leader in that one group, there was a great discussion that went 

on for a long time, with tremendous amounts of very positive kind of statements, very insightful statements, but this one little statement this one Major made in an hour and a half dialog 

that went on was about, you know, everybody flapping their gums in Washington, not staying 

focused on the subject or something, and that’s what got captured and printed in the press. So 

he learned a lesson from that, which is okay.

And that’s what I want to have done this year, and that’s why we’re going to bring real live 

press people around a lot more than we’ve ever had before, and allow them to interface and 

talk with our students, without us prepping them, preparing them, but rather just teach them 

rules and guidelines how to interact, but not what to say. Just to think about how you do want 

to interact with them. Yes, sir.

Audience Member

Thank you very much. I’m William Olson from the Near East and South Asia Center at the National Defense University. Some years ago when I was in the Pentagon, we were dealing with 

supporting Colombia in various activities in counter-narcotics, and we had rules of engagement 

about providing training to the Colombian military, but none of our forces were to go out on 

patrols or missions with the Colombian military. So I assured my boss, the Assistant Secretary, 
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that the rules of engagement were clear, and explained, and understood. He explained this to 

the Secretary of Defense, who explained this to Congress.

The next day I came into my office, and on my desk was The Army Times, and on the cover of 

The Army Times was a story quoting Sergeant Snuffy, who was talking about how he had been 

out on operations with the Colombian military. So you might imagine what the next phone call 

I got was, which was the call from Congress to the Secretary, “Why did you lie to Congress?” 

and effluent flows downhill. The problem there was, and I think I heard it mentioned along the 

way here, was the “Strategic Private.”

One of the most important targets for information is the people that we actually send out to 

do things, and that they, in fact, are representing, and that the slightest action is likely to get 

attention.

The other thing I would make as an observation in terms of this is that how we say things or 

do things is as important as what we say. And I will give a couple of examples. We’re wedded 

now to the use of the term “strategic communications”, for example, and we’re increasingly being wedded to the term “long war”. The problem is that for many audiences around the world, 

“strategy” itself is a dirty word. And “strategic communications” in many minds that we’re 

trying to influence hear the word differently than we intend. They hear “propaganda”.

And the other is that the “long war” is also used by the Israelis to describe their engagement. 

So when Islamic ears hear the term “long war”, it confirms in Islamic minds something that is 

not necessarily what we intend. What they hear when we use “long war”, is a war on Islam. So 

increasingly what we’re finding is that the means that we’re using, and the words that we’re 

using to describe what our intent is, is having the exact opposite effect of what, in fact, we intended to do. And we’re not paying sufficient attention to that end of it. We assume that people 

hear the way we do, and they don’t. So I would just make that observation.

LTG Caldwell

No, it’s an accurate observation. We had a cultural advisor over there that we used specifically 

for that so that if we were preparing for any news conferences, especially . . . which I did every 

week with the Arabic press, that we, in fact, would look at what we were going out to say and 

do, and seeing if he had any thoughts or ideas that something, perhaps a term or a message 

would not resonate well, or wouldn’t be conveyed in the same way as the translation was done. 

And you’re right, that’s paramount.

And the Australians for some time now have been talking about the “Strategic Private.” They 

don’t say “Strategic Corporal”, because they realize it’s gone all the way down. I will tell you 

that it’s just as applicable across State Department too as we talk public diplomacy. Traditionally, our American ambassador in countries has been the only one that speaks to the local media, the press, and everything else, because he or she is representing our government over there. 

And what we found in Iraq was it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t work in Afghanistan. You need 

more people who are representing our public policy, our diplomacy, to get out and engage with 

and talk about what’s going on.
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I can tell you from weekly video teleconferences I did with the State Department, the White 

House, and the Department of Defense, that was a point that we constantly hammered home 

that we needed was greater restrictions lifted off the Department of State so that we could have 

an active dialog, so that every time I went out to do a news conference, on my right was a State 

Department person, and on his or her right was a government of Iraq official. It shouldn’t have 

just been the military out there on a recurring basis engaging with and dialoging with the media 

and the press at the Multi-National Force level, that we needed to show that we are in support 

of the US Government represented by the Department of State through the American Ambassador. It was a challenge.

I mean we were able to break down a couple of walls, but we all, as the US Government, have 

a ways to go in understanding the importance of this “information engagement” as we kind of 

like to call it, with the press, with the media, with the public, both domestic and foreign, by 

getting more of them out there and talking about, and articulating, exactly what we’re trying to 

do and what the intent behind where we’re going. But you’re right.

And that’s part of the reason why starting in the school this year, and in all our Captain’s career 

courses out there, we’re looking at bringing in some real media to start interfacing and dialoging with the students by putting them on radio stations, having them do live radio interviews. 

By having them actually giving access to the press to come in and talk to students so that they 

learn to interface and dialog with them on a routine basis, because guess what, that’s exactly 

how it happens out there in the field. This young Private will turn around, and there will be a 

press person right there, and how we have talked to him or her about their lanes, about what 

they should be comfortable talking about, and understanding if they don’t know, don’t guess. 

If you’re not knowledgeable, don’t discuss it. But if you are informed, and have experience, 

and are . . . not an expert, but are knowledgeable in that area, feel free to dialog. If it’s personal 

opinion, make sure you express it. If it’s US Government opinion, you can express it that way 

too.

We’ve got to teach everybody from a very young age these things. And what we, again, in our 

military, from my past experiences, my first introduction to the media was as a Battalion Commander, as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army, when I really ever had to deal with 

any kind of media situation. And then I had little sporadic ones from there, but I really, until this 

last year in Iraq, didn’t have to do it on any kind of regular basis. Again, it was always kind of 

looked on somewhat negatively if you did, too. Why are you dealing with the press? What are 

you doing there? So my position has always been any time I can put another person out there 

instead of me to tell the message, so much the better.

It’s just like I tell the Pre-Command Course students. We have a school here where we bring all 

our future Battalion Brigade Commanders through every month, a group of them that are going 

to go take command of our troops and our Army, and one of the things that I tell them is that, 

“Hey, when you get out there and you take command of that organization, you need to engage 

with the press and have them come in and talk to your troops. Not talk to you, not about you, 

about your unit. About your organization. About what you represent, what your troops represent. It’s about what they’re trying to achieve. Get them in there and talk to your troopers, and 

let them tell the story. That’s your responsibility to embrace that, to support it, to make your 

troopers available, and to have that occur.”
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Again, we don’t look at this as a war fighting function, so it’s not something we actively teach, 

embrace, and accept still in our culture. We understand it, we’re aware of it, but I’m not sure 

we’ve truly embraced it yet as being a critical function, especially when you get into the internet capability. You know, that whole medium out there whether it’s YouTube; internet e-mail; 

bloggers—it’s a huge medium out there that we have not fully grabbed hold of and taken part 

in. I have shared with some folks back in Washington that we may even want to very actively 

put bloggers on blogger spheres with complete 100% attribution as to who they are to help 

clarify and explain certain things when they’re being asked on the bloggers sphere, different 

blogs. And there’s hundreds of different blogs, but you can sort of sort out some of the more 

significant ones and actively put somebody on there so that people understand.

So when they’re asking the questions, about the third time it’s asked, or it’s being discussed, 

let a knowledgeable person come on, identify him or herself as whatever they represent. Don’t 

ever, ever do it any other way. And then explain the information so they’ve got at least the factual data so they can make a more informed decision as the dialog continues. But that’s a huge 

medium, too, that I’m not sure we’ve fully embraced and accepted yet. Yes, sir.

Audience Member

Steve McGeorge, TRADOC History Office. Sir, given that developing this culture of engagement with the media, strategic communications, touches on all six of the other Chief of Staff 

focus areas, my question is how well are you being resourced here to try and figure this out?

LTG Caldwell

Well, I’ve been taking the initiative. I’ve brought in, at this point, three people to help me start 

working through it, and as we get a base together, we’ll continue to expand as we see. I’ve gone 

in, I’ve asked simple questions like, “Where are all my Public Affairs Officers.” And I mean 

I’d be the first to tell you I found two of them malassigned here. They weren’t even working 

anywhere near Public Affairs. If we’re really serious about this business, and we have school 

trained somebody to be a Public Affairs officer, he or she needs to be in a Public Affairs billet. 

And the billets are there, they just weren’t filled.

So we’re making some internal redesigns, reorganization. I’ve got my first three people on the 

ground that we have brought in new, and we’re starting to take this on here from that perspective. I’ve encouraged each of the schools and centers to do the same at their location. I know 

down in Fort Gordon, they have just stood up a group of three people to do the same thing down 

there, to help them get a better handle on it. So I’m hoping we see that spread across the other 

schools and centers too. But there is a reluctance to still do it.

I can tell you, I’ve been going out and visiting my schools and centers, and it’s very interesting. Each time I go I say, “Look, I’m willing to engage with the press if they want to dialog, or 

talk, or ask me.” And when that has occurred, first it was hard to break through so that they put 

time on my schedule. Then when they offered it, the press did take advantage of it. In my first 

two times that I was dealing with the press, the local Public Affairs Officer stepped in and said, 

“I’m sorry. You can’t ask General Caldwell any questions about Iraq. He’s not there anymore. 

He’s not the expert. He’s not the spokesman, so you need to stay focused on just what we’re 
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doing here at this base.” I had to say, “No, look, you don’t put those kind of constraints on 

people. If they want to ask the question, let them ask it. If I feel comfortable and knowledgeable, I’ll answer it, and if I don’t, I’ll tell them I can’t answer it. But let them ask the questions 

they would like.”

Hopefully I’m smart enough to know a question asked is an opportunity for me to message 

whatever I want to message. I can take their question, I can answer it, I can add my message, 

and then get my point across, whatever my point is that I’d like to also make. So it’s not like, 

again, do you just answer their question, or do you see their question as an opportunity to tell 

your message and help shape what you’re trying to also get across.

Audience Member

Adam Harmon, author and military consultant. I’m curious if you could give a little bit more 

color on lessons learned with other audiences. You know, maybe share the stories that you 

maybe tried before in the Arab world, or Europe, give a little bit more detail on that. That would 

be interesting.

LTG Caldwell

When I took over this job, we used to do a once a week news conference with the Iraqi press. 

After about three or four months, when my new Public Affairs, Sean Stroud, came on board, 

we realized, that’s not being very effective. All we’re doing is talking to local Iraqi people and 

press. So we started doing the Arabic press on a weekly basis.

And then it was about the January time frame, or really February time frame, that I went to my 

boss and I said, “Hey, there’s this huge thing called Dubai, and if I just jump on a little C-12 in a 

matter of two and a half hours I can be down in Dubai, and I’d probably have every Middle East 

network represented down there—print; media; television—in that area. If I just skip across the 

water, I can get to Al-Jazeera. If you’ll allow me, once a month I’d like to start doing a swing 

like that. I can do it in about 48 hours, literally, from the time I lift off to when I’m back if I just 

go hard at it.” And he gave me the thumbs up, said, “Engage.”

We would do about anywhere from 18 to 27 different print, radio, TV interviews in about a 48 

hour period. I remember the first time walking into Al-Jazeera International Arabic. You know, 

some of the comments were very humorous, that a couple of people in there made, because 

I’m in uniform. I mean that’s what I represent when I go out and speak on behalf of the Armed 

Forces over there. And they told me I was the first General Officer they can remember having 

been in there forever. They just don’t remember an American Flag Officer walking into the 

studios of Al-Jazeera Arabic, and being willing to go on a live interview. I did them all while I 

was there, and I did it every month. Then I’d do Al-Jazeera English too.

But we had totally surrendered that medium. We were not even engaging actively. There was 

no concerted plan that I could find anywhere that said, “Here’s how we’re engaging and getting 

out and sharing the story about what we’re doing.” I found it to be a very enriching experience 

in the sense that they were very interested and eager to hear what we had to say about why 

were in Iraq, what we were doing in Iraq, what our mission was in Iraq, what we were hoping 
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to accomplish. And invariably, they’d always ask me about four or five different incidents they 

had heard about. So I was able to help clarify and put in perspective whatever these different 

situations were.

From those, we then started building a rolodex with these folks so that, after that 48 hour visit, 

when we would head back into Iraq, we established communications so that if something did 

happen, they could, in fact, reach us and ask us about it. Countless times my PAO would walk 

in my office and say, “Sir, I’ve got X newspaper down in Dubai that just called. They’ve heard 

about this. They need some quotes. Would you be willing to get on the phone and talk to them? 

And I’ve got the translator right here.” And I go, “Yeah, sure.” Because if I’m not readily 

available, if I’m not ready, if I’m not being open, then the story will get shaped how anybody 

else wants to have it shaped. I mean I have to make myself available to do those kind of things. 

Before I left, I was empowering many people underneath me to do the same thing, so that we 

had a slew of about five of us.

Again, it becomes challenging, because everybody has to be fully informed to be able to do 

that kind of thing. But we were embraced, and had about five of us that were actively out, engaging with these international, especially Arabic, press whenever they would call. And then 

once a month I kept doing that until the time I left. I would go down and spend the 48 hours, a 

period of two full days. Go in the night before, go hard all day long, do things even that night. 

Normally I’d meet with different groups of people and things, get up early the next morning, 

hard all day long, and then about 1500 head back into Iraq. But just powerful 48 hours of my 

time that was so well committed.

Again, there wasn’t anybody telling us to do that. There was no overall plan that was in place. 

Fortunately, my Public Affairs Officer had this vision one time because we had a civilian 

contractor who was media knowledgeable and said, “Hey, there’s this thing down in Doha.” 

Caldwell knew nothing about it. I mean I’d been in country seven months. I had no reason to 

have ever understood that was kind of a media hub there for the Arabic world. But my gosh, 

just a great experience every time.

And they were always very respectful, too. You know, very few Arabic press actually attack 

you. They’ll ask you tough questions, but they never attacked me that I can even recall. Even 

when I went into Al-Jazeera Arabic. I mean they would ask tough questions. They were trying 

to put me on the spot, but it was always a very positive encounter by the time I walked out. I 

felt like I was able to help put things in better perspective than before when I walked in. If that 

answers that question.

Audience Member

Major Burress, 61st Airlift Squadron. Really it appears that we’re dealing with an effects based 

employment of a weapon system here; we’ve got a message, we’ve got a delivery system, and 

a target audience in theory. But in application, it doesn’t appear that we have the language expertise and the cultural understanding to really execute any piece of this. It doesn’t seem like 

we’ve got a good message for our target audience, and I think that we fail when we put, say, a 

female, blonde haired, blue eyed Air Force PA in front of the Arab media to send messages out 

to them when they don’t have the same cultural ideas on equality.
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How can we deal with these problems? I mean can we talk to media firms that have worked 

in the Middle East? Can we talk to Arab and Muslim Americans? How do we employ this 

weapon system so we hit our target? Because it appears to me like a lot of times we’re selling 

the product to Americans, but not to our target, the people in the Middle East that we want to 

win the hearts and minds of. Thank you.

LTG Caldwell

I can tell you, I worked tirelessly to get an Arabic proficient officer assigned to me that I 

could use to take with me wherever I went that could engage with the Arabic press so that I 

didn’t have to use a translator. I was never able to get our system to send me one. Although 

I had plenty of people I could hire on, who were civilians, and worked very well. I wanted a 

uniformed person for that very reason; so that they understood that we, in uniform, understand 

the importance of their culture, their language, and would have been able to have that dialog. 

Wasn’t able to make it happen in the time I was there.

For whatever reason, big system couldn’t provide me that kind of capability, which was a 

shame, because, just like you’re saying, I think that would have been very important. I think 

the fact that somebody in the military recognized to put a Flag Officer as the spokesperson, I 

thought was a good decision they made. I had no intentions of doing it when I got there, but I 

realized after time there is some power behind taking somebody who has been a Combat Arms 

Officer, has been on one or two deployments, been in the area, perhaps, before, and having 

them speak on behalf of the military members.

So that was, I thought, a very powerful tool that we should continue to use and embrace. I always say Public Affairs Officers are not the people that should be out speaking on TV, radio, or 

anything else. They’re good for quick clarification, perhaps, if a phone call comes in, but it’s us 

in uniform, it’s the leaders, it’s the non-commissioned officers, it’s the soldiers who are always 

going to be our best spokespersons. It’s not the Public Affairs person. So if somebody’s trying 

to explain what happened, I’d rather see an operator in a uniform giving the explanation as to 

what occurred versus a Public Affairs Officer.

I think the Public Affairs Officer is great for quick clarification, like I said, but their job is to 

train and prepare those who need to engage with the press, that have the operational expertise 

to do the mission, and again, that’s kind of how my Public Affairs Officer and I worked over 

there. You know, he was free to talk, and I told him whenever he wanted to, especially if the 

call came in at midnight, he could take it and go with it, and just let me sleep. But otherwise, 

he was always behind the scenes continuously, and I didn’t move without him. He helped me 

understand and gather information, and he was a great collector of information.

But there’s huge synergy too. I mean I can tell you, the challenges we faced were enormous 

when I got there. The intel community would not declassify stuff for me with any speed whatsoever. It was absolutely atrocious. Everything we do is classified in Iraq. Every morning brief 

you throw up, you immediately just throw a “Secret” on it, because that’s what we do, because 

it’s just easier than taking the time to really go through and do the analysis. Is it secret? Confidential? Unclassified? We just throw “Secret” on everything.
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So I’m sitting there, and I hear an update, or I’m listening to a report being given, or something 

else, and it’s clearly all Secret, but I hear something that, to me, is important and needs to get 

out into the media right away. I eventually had assigned to me . . . I was able to get Military Intelligence Officers assigned to my staff who worked in Public Affairs, who were what I called 

foreign disclosure officers. Their full job in life was I just handed them something and said, “I 

need it in 30 minutes declassified and back to me.” And they could do that by the time I left. 

We could turn that rapidly. But we had worked the system. Everybody understood it. They 

knew if it was coming from one of these three intel officers, they’re getting it directly from me, 

and it was important to turn it with the utmost speed so that we could do it.

Videos of aircraft attacks, or gun tapes off helicopters, or anything else. Varying degrees of 

success there. We got very good at the end of doing it with aircraft. Still challenged with 

UAVs. I mean I can go on and on, but I was amazed . . . a helicopter gets shot down, and we 

had this thing that would pop up on your screen whenever any significant incident occurred. 

I was one of the recipients of it, so it pops up, “Helicopter is down.” Well, I knew right then 

that helicopter is down, I need to get out and be proactive with the press and tell them we have 

a helicopter down. When I first got there, what we would do is, “I’m sorry. Can’t give you the 

details. Can’t confirm or deny.” Because we wanted to be very exact in what we told the press. 

Wrong answer.

Look, just acknowledge we’ve got a helicopter down and we don’t know what happened. 

That’s okay to say that. They know it, the bad guys know it, it’s on the internet, and if you just 

acknowledge it, and then you continue to feed them more information as you get it, and it becomes more clear as to what really happened. But what I finally would do at the end, and again, 

what was interesting, if you try to get anything approved, you’re wasting your time. You’ve 

got to go right to your boss and say, “Boss, I just need absolute authority to do whatever I want 

to do, and you just got to trust my judgment, because I can’t work through the system.” The 

system will just wear you out out there.

If you’re trying to get things approved to say publicly, you just can’t do it. I mean I quit sending my prepared news conference statements . . . I wouldn’t send them to anybody anymore 

for clearance. I mean I just quit sending anything to anybody. And the once or twice, I can tell 

you absolute horror stories. The perfect example was last January when we were going to talk 

about these explosively formed projectiles coming out of Iran, and what Iran was doing, and 

somebody sent my briefing back to the Pentagon. Oh my God, I just got buried in bureaucracy 

at that point. Whereas before I would show it to my boss, my four star boss, if I felt there was 

any need to. Otherwise, I just would brief whatever I wanted to be briefed.

I’d get my FDOs, my Foreign Disclosure Officers, to declassify whatever I needed declassified 

that I felt was appropriate to brief. But it was just so much instinctive judgment on what we 

were putting out. Because you can’t get any two organizations to agree. If you go into the intel 

community, there’s so many different communities out there, each one will have a different 

stake. And it’s not that that’s bad, it’s just you’ve got to weigh the two. You’ve got to weigh 

the intelligence value against the public domain and access, and is the public going to find out 

anyway? And if they are, because it’s going to be disclosed through some means or methods 

of something, should you then be proactive and get out there ahead of it so that you can inform 
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accurately what it is, and don’t allow misinformation, or distortion, or lies to occur. So there’s 

a weighing out there, and it’s a challenge all the time.

But fortunately, like I said, I developed such great relationships with the J-2 and my three little 

intel officers, that we were able to quickly sort those kind of things. I would trust his judgment 

implicitly in terms of certain things we declassified. But that one time that briefing made it 

back to Washington, I spent weeks responding to millions of inquiries, and people wanted to 

change this word, and that word, and the problem that they don’t get is you can do that on a 

slide that’s getting briefed, but when Q&A starts like this, I am on my own. There isn’t anybody 

clearing anything, and I’m having to figure out what I’m going to say.

So just help prepare me in general, give me the background knowledgeable and expertise, and 

information I need, because I’m going to have to represent our military when I get out there and 

talk in front of whoever it is. And nobody’s going to be there to clear things. Nobody’s going to 

be there to tell me you can or can’t say this. So give me as much classified information as you 

can, let me pore through it all, let me become an absolute resident expert in the classified arena, 

and then we’ll figure out what we think we want to go ahead and declassify and say publicly. 

But that classified information was so critical.

If I had not been authorized access to everything in theater, with Special Operations and everything else, I would have had a hard time being the spokesman. If people had tried to constrain 

me. And I can tell you, when I went through that on many different iterations when units would 

change and everything else, “Here’s what you can say, Caldwell.” Okay, got it. Now give me 

the rest of the classified stuff. “We can’t give you that. That’s very sensitive.” I said, “I know, 

but if I don’t have it, I don’t have the contextual background and framework to put this in the 

proper perspective. When the first question’s asked about it, I don’t want to say anything that’s 

not 100% accurate.” I mean that was another big reason.

I pushed hard, too, to always have absolute, unequivocal access to all the classified information 

that existed over there, from very specialized, close compartmentalized things, to the normal 

day-to-day secret stuff.

Audience Member

A few years ago, I was in Beijing, and one evening had an informal conversation with about 

a dozen or so university students. They all had several things in common. One, they all had a 

very distorted view of the United States historical role in Asia. Second, they all thought that 

anything that the United States said about that role was a lie. And third, they all wanted to come 

to the United States, because they saw it as their economic future.

In Iraq, not only do you have to overcome history, but you have an ideology that you have to 

overcome. So my question is how successful do you think we’ve been in crafting a strategic 

communications theme, or themes, that will resonate down to the village level, and will trump 

the influence of history, the clerics, and this third bullet you put up about this being a crusade 

against Islam. Those Chinese students did not dismiss the history, but their desire for an economic future trumped the history.
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LTG Caldwell

I would tell you, it was a continual challenge to figure out how to send the accurate message, 

because it’s much larger than a military answer. Again, it’s devolving back to the military. What 

are you—the military—doing to craft these key messages? These are US Government messages that need to be crafted. There needs to be a US Government communications plan, and then 

we are a supporting element of that. So sure, we did develop some of our own internal ones.

But again, the challenge that we still have, as a US Government, is doing that in a coherent 

manner to where everybody is working off some standard themes and messages that we, the 

United States Government, has as policy. But again, that shouldn’t be us in uniform, per se, 

talking about that. That should be the people in coat and tie, and civilian clothes, who are the 

policy makers, because we’re the implementers of what the policy is. And that was our challenge over there.

We could not get enough people ...I mean towards the end I was getting more successful, you 

know, getting two or three of the other members of the Department of State team there to get 

out and talk more about policy, but it was a continual challenge. That’s truly not our role. It’s 

not one that we should be doing. We need to understand them, put things in the proper context 

was we talk about what the military is doing.

I thought we had fairly good themes and messages for what the military’s intent was, to support 

what the US Government policy was, but that was always a challenge. You’re right, when you 

look at the three things they have about the crusaders, I mean, there was no question if you went 

on to the Islamic websites, probably not all the time, but there was enough times where I had 

done some kind of news conference with the Arabic press that you could go to one of these Islamic websites, and you would find William the Crusader is normally how they referred to me. 

William the Crusader yesterday lied about this and that and this. But that was always attached 

to my name. It wasn’t General Caldwell said . . . it was always they used my first name, and 

they used Crusader always with it. So it was clear that they had a thing that they were continually trying to resonate with and run with.

But to me, that was the gauge as to who was being effective from the US Government in reaching out that they would want to then counter that person. Unfortunately, it’s not like you saw 

lots of US Government names there being challenged and attacked on the Islamic websites.

My assessment was if they’re attacking me on the Islamic websites, then we’re having some 

impact. We’re having some effect out there that’s starting to resonate, and they feel that they’ve 

got to come back and counter attack us on their sites, by name. But unfortunately, you weren’t 

seeing a lot of those names. You know, they refer periodically to the President, our Secretary 

of State sometimes, you know, but I would have liked to have seen them attacking a bunch of 

us over there because we’re all out communicating and discussing about what we’re trying to 

achieve, and what’s going on in country.
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Panel 4—On the Ground in Iraq

(Submitted Paper)

The Challenge of Providing Security

in the ‘Post-Combat Phase’ Urban Environment

by

Lieutenant Colonel Kevin W. Farrell, Ph.D.

United States Military Academy

The nature of the insurgency in Iraq and how best to defeat it have generated a great deal 

of interest and speculation over the past 4 years as the United States, the fledgling government 

of Iraq, and their allies have struggled with the challenges posed by irregular warfare. As the 

months have turned into years without a clear resolution, commentators, pundits, scholars, and 

military professionals have described the armed resistance and violence there variously as a 

last-ditch resistance by elements of the former regime, an insurgency with varying objectives 

or even an outright civil war. When put in the proper context, each of these observations is 

potentially quite accurate, but addressing one cause of the violence in Iraq in isolation will not 

solve the overriding problem there of instability and violence. It is not simply a question of 

placating Sunni tribes, disarming Shiite militias, crushing al-Qaeda in Iraq, or even stopping 

the incursion of foreign operatives from Iran and other neighboring countries. Obviously, it 

includes all of these things, as well as many others not strictly related to defeating insurgents, 

such as stemming the staggering problem of organized crime—in particular kidnapping—and 

the improvement of the Iraqi infrastructure.

The central and obvious problem that the Iraqi Government and its American sponsor face 

is the Iraqi Government’s inability to provide consistent and reliable security for the vast majority of its citizens. Without security for the average citizen in Iraq in general and Baghdad in 

particular, no other factor—or metric, to use a favored term within military and government—

counts for much. Until the vast majority of Iraqis are protected by the Iraqi Government and 

security forces firmly under its control and direction, and until the Iraqi people have confidence 

that a solid security situation will continue, it will remain academic as to whether the violence 

in Iraq is a civil war, an insurgency, or some other form of conflict because the violence itself 

will most certainly continue in all of its various guises. Although violence might decrease in 

certain locations as the forces committed there are increased—as some would argue has been 

the case in Baghdad as a result of the increased number of US forces there—violence in other 

areas will almost certainly increase as has been the case throughout Iraq as a whole with the 

concentration of effort in Baghdad over the past year.

Today, I would like to offer some thoughts on the challenge of providing this security 

during the so-called post-combat phase of operations. Clearly, this week is a momentous one 

as General Petraeus’s report on the state of progress in Iraq is the central topic of discussion 

in Washington. Although I will not address the specifics of that report and I do not intend to 

discuss directly the most recent events in Iraq, clearly these developments inform and influence what I have to say. The main focus of my comments will be the cause and source of the 
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violence in Iraq, the consequences of that violence, and perhaps some ways to counter it. This 

is not to assert that I am equating violence with an insurgency or a civil war but, rather, that 

the absence of effective central authority and control in Iraq has led to conditions favorable for 

an insurgency and civil war. The great challenge for the United States lies in the fact that the 

more capable and “western” the Iraqi Government might become, the more likely it is to be 

targeted by insurgents. Clearly, the capability of the Iraqi Government remains quite limited 

now and for the foreseeable future. It is this lack of an effective Iraqi Government—an absence 

of central and legitimate power in Baghdad—that has enabled insecurity and instability to reign 

throughout substantial portions of Iraq over the past 4 years.

Although my comments are intended to provide insight on the overall situation in Iraq, 

I must point out that my views have been strongly influenced by my service commanding a 

combined arms battalion of some 900 men in East Baghdad, Iraq, for about 1 year—January 

2005 to January 2006. My combat experience in Iraq—further informed, of course, by prior 

contemporary and subsequent study on the topic—by no means makes me an expert on this 

topic. I also realize that my on-the-ground familiarity with East Baghdad and the situation there 

is now more than 18 months old. As any veteran of Iraq can tell you, the situation there can 

change a great deal in a manner of months if not weeks or even days. Therefore, I recognize I 

do not have extremely recent experience, although I remain in almost daily contact with trusted 

comrades that are in combat formations in Iraq right now.

For the benefit of the audience, let me also advise you that perhaps my comments should 

be heard with some skepticism because part of my educational background might diminish my 

insight. For contrary to an article recently posted by one of our own distinguished speakers, 

Mr. Ralph Peters, titled, “Learning to Lose,” I believe my possession of the Ph.D. from Columbia University proved to be a tremendous asset as a battalion commander leading my men 

in combat and attempting to find creative solutions to ingenious enemy actions.1

 Perhaps it is 

some small saving grace that my degree is in history and not the social sciences, but regardless, 

I remain fairly confident that Mr. Peters has it wrong when he says of individuals like me that 

my “critical-thinking faculties are destroyed and [my] common sense is retarded.”2

 Even if the 

charge is indeed true in my case—and I will leave it to others to make that assessment—let 

me reassure Mr. Peters that my degree did not diminish my enthusiasm for killing the enemy 

or leading my men to do the same, and more important, two truly outstanding battlefield commanders and close personal friends, Colonel H.R. McMaster and Lieutenant Colonel Gian 

Gentile, both of whom possess the doctorate, are better commanders for it and are exactly the 

types of aggressive, resourceful combat leaders our Army needs. But I digress from the task at 

hand.

For a bit of background, it is worth taking a minute to explain the situation, mission, and 

composition of the unit I commanded in Iraq before I move onto the larger issue of how to 

tackle this problem of security during the post-combat phase of operations. I was fortunate indeed to lead a combined arms tank battalion composed of two mechanized infantry companies, 

two tank companies, and a combat engineer company along with a headquarters and a support 

company, which at full strength would have included more than 900 soldiers and hundreds of 

vehicles. My higher headquarters assigned my fellow battalion commanders and me the gen-
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eral mission to secure the territory we occupied; promote stability and security for the Iraqi 

residents; and identify, destroy, or capture insurgent forces. In turn, I assigned my subordinate 

commanders five main tasks throughout our time in Baghdad:

• Isolate and neutralize anti-Iraqi/Coalition forces. 

• Develop the capabilities of Iraqi security forces. 

• Secure key terrain and routes. 

• Support governmental development. 

• Promote economic development. 

Although the exact boundaries of the area for which I had responsibility shifted four times 

in the course of the year we were in Baghdad, for most of the time, it was about 100 square 

kilometers or just a bit bigger in size than the area of the island of Manhattan, although for 

several months, it was almost double that size again. As for its population, accurate post-invasion figures are nonexistent, but our best estimates ranged from 1.2 million to 1.4 million 

people, a number slightly less than the population of Manhattan. Geographically, the area was 

referred to by a dizzying variety of names—Baghdad Jadeeda (New Baghdad), Tisa Nissan 

9W, or simply East Baghdad. In general terms, it comprises about half of the city of Baghdad 

on the eastern side of the Tigris River. It surrounded but excluded the area known as Sadr City 

and is about 5 miles to the east—but worlds away—from the Green Zone. For the second half 

of our year in Iraq, we also had responsibility for supporting an Iraqi partner battalion that had 

the responsibility to secure the troubled district of Adhamiya, which is northwest of Sadr City. 

However, most of my comments and observations are drawn from the area for which I had 

primary responsibility.

Demographically, our best estimates and those of our allies were that approximately 70 

percent of the residents were Shia, 25 percent were Sunni, and the remainder were Christian. 

There was also a small group—perhaps 10,000—of Palestinian origin who are not citizens of 

Iraq and, therefore, are unable to travel because they cannot obtain passports. Most, but not 

all, neighborhoods were divided by ethnicity. For almost all of the Shia, living conditions were 

dreadful with large families crammed into small clusters of adobe-type dwellings. Open sewage straddled most streets, and it is not uncommon to observe lakes the size of several dozen 

football fields form from the failure of the city’s sewage treatment plants on the east side of the 

city. The condition worsened during the rainy months of February and March, but it was quite 

dreadful at all times of the year.

Generally, the Sunni neighborhoods in the southern and western parts of my sector were 

much better, with clean and paved streets, regular trash pickups thanks to the paying of bribes 

to the city’s trash collection agency and even public street lighting. Many retired senior military 

officers and government officials lived in these neighborhoods, although I imagine that, by 

now, most have most likely since moved away. The Christian neighborhoods were similar in 

appearance and never were the site of violence.
182

The reason I have presented so much background information is to facilitate a better understanding of the complexities of the urban landscape in Baghdad. The many layers of Iraqi 

identity that they themselves have made it extremely difficult to generalize and, therefore, complicate efforts to forge the way ahead. The sectarian violence in Iraq captures many headlines, 

and there is no doubt as to the escalating religious tensions within Iraq. But despite my years of 

study of the Islamic faith and history of the region, I was astonished at the number of “mixed 

marriages”—marriages between Sunni and Shia Muslims—that are commonplace throughout 

Baghdad and even more so at how the Iraqis themselves do not view them as strange. It is also 

important to note that marriages between Sunni and Shia occur at every level of economic and 

educational background.

Economic progress or lack thereof is another factor that is frequently seen as an important 

indicator of progress, which it certainly is, but many readers would be surprised to learn that 

all Iraqis receive free food from the government. This practice was begun by Saddam to shore 

up support during the Iran-Iraq War and has continued unabated, and it means that the lack of 

a job, though dreadful, will not doom an individual or one’s family to starvation. Likewise, the 

Iraqi Government subsidized gasoline heavily, enabling the average Iraqi to purchase gasoline 

from official stations for pennies a gallon. As is the case in virtually any capital city, housing is 

scarce, but squatting and illicit selling of government land by agents of Muqtada al Sadr have 

alleviated the problem while also gaining support for the Mahdi Militia, because Iraqi custom 

holds that if someone provides a home for you, your family and your descendants are indebted 

to the provider forever.

Another issue often cited concerns the “artificial” creation of Iraq, the fact that Iraq is a 

creation of the British following World War I. Regardless of the importance and significance 

of the method of creation of Iraq to the average resident of Baghdad, one thing is certain, all 

Iraqis I met and saw took great pride in their national flag and the nation of Iraq. Whether they 

identify themselves as Sunni, Shia, or Christian, as a member of a particular tribe, urban or 

rural, one common identity is that of being an Iraqi, even though that, in turn, might mean very 

different things to different people.

A widespread desire among most Iraqis, except perhaps the most extreme members of the 

militia and radical religious clerics, was the wish to live in peace and get on with their lives. 

Unfortunately, they also knew that the Iraqi police, the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi security forces, 

and the armed forces of the Coalition could not provide a consistent level of security. Against 

the daily backdrop of suicide/homicide bombings, roadside bomb attacks against Coalition 

forces, and most of all, but least reported, the epidemic of kidnapping, the average Iraqi is eager 

to agree to virtually anything to protect his family and property. In most cases, only the militias offered to fulfill this promise, and many residents of Baghdad were eager to accept even 

though the cost was potentially very high indeed—extortion money, oppression of women, and 

even forced service. Although most Iraqis—most Shia, many Sunni, and all Christians—were 

positively disposed toward American and Iraqi forces, they also realized that American forces 

could not possibly cover their neighborhoods to the degree required due to sheer numbers. 

The same held true for reliable Iraqi forces that represented a small percentage of the overall 

Iraqi Army, police, and other security forces. Corrupt security forces were more numerous and 

varied but still offered little promise of security. Only the militia forces in the various neigh-
183

borhoods had the visible and permanent presence and, therefore, the promise of protection 

despite the high cost.

As far as the source of the violence against the coalition forces, it came from a number of 

sources, all of which are often labeled insurgents. For the purposes of this paper and based on 

my experience in Iraq, I will instead describe them as the enemy and address the four subdivisions within this very general term:

• The first category within it would be terrorists who might, in fact, be holdovers 

from the former regime of Saddam Hussein, an offshoot of one of the former regime 

elements, or even an international terrorist organization with agents operating in Iraq.

• The second category, labeled militia forces, consists of armed groups represented 

by a political party usually with political representation in the Iraqi Government. Some 

examples of this category would be the Mahdi Militia, the Badr Corps or SCIRI (the 

Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq).

• A third and crucial category consists of the criminal elements that are currently 

flourishing in Iraq, especially since Saddam released all of the prison inmates in the 

spring of 2003. As one would expect, this category includes organized crime, most 

notably kidnapping rings, but also theft, extortion, and arms- and even drug-smuggling 

rings.

• A final category is that of foreign operatives who are individuals not of Iraqi origin 

operating within Iraq on behalf of another nation attempting to influence the political 

course of Iraq through a variety of means.

Without going into further specifics about the nature of our enemies, it is clear that they 

have varied backgrounds and motives. Somewhat surprisingly, they are often hostile to each 

other and, in our absence, might be quite willing to destroy one another. The ebb and flow of 

sectarian violence in Iraq, sometimes labeled civil war, is one obvious manifestation of this. 

More important, these disparate categories will cooperate with each other in pursuit of the 

larger goal of preventing a western-style representative democracy establishing control in Iraq. 

Short-term cooperation should not be confused with shared goals, identity, or unity of purpose. 

An inadequate but useful historical analogy would be the shared goal of the destruction of 

the Weimar government by the National Socialists and Communists in Germany in the early 

1930s. Both groups despised the Weimar Republic and were committed fully to its destruction, 

but they remained mortal enemies nonetheless.

A further clarifying point for the enemy in Iraq is that individuals might belong to several 

of the groups simultaneously as the situation suits them. An opportunist criminal might sign 

up as a member of a militia, or a foreign agent might hire a criminal to commit a certain act in 

exchange for payment. What they all share in common is that they find a strong Iraqi Government that would operate in a manner acceptable to the United States extremely threatening 

and contrary to their individual interests. Thus, with varying degrees of intensity, they will 

always be hostile to forces of the United States. More challenging from a counterinsurgency 
184

perspective, they will also find an improved Iraqi Government and its forces operating in the 

style of a western-style representative democracy deeply threatening as well. Therefore, the 

more capable and western in conduct and outlook Iraqi security forces—representatives of that 

aforementioned western-style representative democracy—become, the more likely they are to 

be targeted by these groups we labeled as the enemy. Iraqi forces that are inept, corrupt, or follow the warlord model are far less threatening.

Despite the new direction that the so-called “surge” has brought to our ongoing campaign 

in Iraq, let me point out that, at the tactical level, the general mission of destroying the enemy, 

providing security, and assisting our Iraqi allies has remained largely the same. Perhaps we 

now have more resources in select locations, and perhaps the hope is that the Iraqi national 

leadership will take a more active role in effective governance—something it appeared unwilling to do throughout 2005 and apparently little has changed since then, as the August vacation 

for the Iraqi parliament so clearly demonstrated—but the view from the soldier level looks 

remarkably the same.

A recent OP-ED in the New York Times by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, “A 

War We Just Might Win,” has created quite a stir.3 After 8 days in Iraq, the authors report that 

the surge appears to be working: “We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military 

terms.”4

 Yet, even with this optimism and advocacy for the current plan, they recognize that 

there are “huge hurdles” on the political front.

An opposing point of view came out in the same pages of The Times a few weeks later in 

an extremely well-written piece on 19 August by seven soldiers serving in the 82d Airborne 

Division titled “The War As We Saw It.”5

 In the words of these erudite infantrymen:

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefi elds in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a fl awed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the 

“battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with 

actors who do not fi t neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, al-Qaeda terrorists, Shiite 

militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the 

questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which 

have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.6

Despite the differences in opinion as to how things are going right now, the central issue 

remains the same. The first imperative—and the ongoing “surge” is clearly a belated reflection of this fact—is to establish security and order throughout Iraq, most importantly in Iraq’s 

capital city. Only with security can the population be weaned from supporting the militias and 

removed from the political violence plaguing Iraq. However, this is extremely hard to achieve 

for a number of reasons:

• First, the sheer size of the population of Baghdad and the prevalence of violence 

will make this very difficult to achieve. Even if all Iraqi forces working in conjunction 

with the Armed Forces of the United States are capable formations—which is most 

certainly not the case—it will be difficult to attain the force ratios and constant presence to end the violence and crime plaguing Baghdad.
185

• Second, even if short-term security is achieved, it will not necessarily serve as 

proof for the Iraqi residents of Baghdad that long-term security will be achieved, and 

therefore, their allegiance to militias will not disappear because they will remain fearful of a return to the old violence once the Americans depart. Without the elimination 

of the militias as armed private armies and the return of order to the streets through a 

drastic reduction of crime, the residents of Baghdad will have little reason to believe 

in long-term peace because major aspects of the ongoing instability will remain. The 

deplorable condition of the Iraqi police overall is not promising. Despite years of effort 

and various initiatives, it is clear that the Iraqi police forces, at least in Baghdad, are 

nowhere near a level of proficiency to provide even rudimentary order. 

• Third, if American forces continue to take the lead on establishing security, the 

Iraqis will not have the requisite faith in their own forces. Since they certainly regard 

the American presence as a short-term phenomenon, they will see the security provided in the same way and make arrangements for the long-term since they will have 

to spend the rest of their lives there.

That being said, security is obviously the first requirement to end the violence in Iraq. Unfortunately, once relative peace is restored, that will not by itself lead to a long-term solution, 

as the creation of a legitimate and representative democracy there is an even more challenging 

task. Although there are many lessons already clear from our experience in Iraq with many 

more to be drawn in the years to come, perhaps the most salient one is that creating a representative democracy in a nation that has never experienced it while also ushering in a period of 

great instability is highly problematic. Without security, nothing else matters. Economic progress, national elections, new electric power stations, and even political and religious freedom 

will mean very little indeed to the average citizen if families cannot be protected from random 

acts of violence or kidnappings. Thomas Hobbes had it right when he wrote Leviathan some 

356 years ago that “the finall [sic] Cause, End, or Designe [sic] of men . . . is the foresight of 

their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of Warre [sic]. . . .”7

 People will do just about anything 

to safeguard themselves and their families, and without that safeguard, not much else matters. 

It is hard enough to maintain order as the removal of Saddam Hussein amply demonstrated. 

Building a functioning representative democracy from the ground up is a far more difficult 

task. It is hard enough in a stable environment, but it is clearly impossible prior to the establishment of order.

Then, where does this leave us? Clearly, stability is a prerequisite for political progress, 

for without it, there can be no effective government. This truism is recognized at the tactical 

and national/strategic level. Whatever the long-term assessment on the ongoing surge, almost 

everyone would agree that additional forces will result in an improved security situation—this 

was the motivation behind the surge, and it has been an essential component of our policy in 

Iraq since 2003. Yet it appears extremely unlikely that the United States will be able to provide 

the sustained troop levels it is now providing, and even if were able to do so for an indefinite 

period, legitimate questions remain as to whether even the current levels of forces and the 

reduced levels of violence—though still quite high even in Baghdad—are sufficiently low to 

yield political progress.
186

Ultimately, to bring about a representative democracy along the lines of a western democracy is beyond our grasp, at least within the next few years. It is, therefore, worth examining 

lesser objectives as the current situation could conceivably drag on for many years to come. 

Perhaps it will, but the reality on the ground will change little. Perhaps the way forward lies 

in recognizing existing sources of power in Iraq that might offer the promise of stability and 

security.

One approach with strong historical precedent is to arm local bases of power and co-opt 

them. David Kilcullen, a prominent spokesman and theorist on current policy in Iraq, has 

highlighted significant progress made with arming certain Sunni tribes in Iraq.8

 In his words, 

“Building local allies and forging partnerships and trusted networks with at-risk communities 

seems to be one of the keys to success.”9

 Such an approach also has the significant benefit 

of controlling large populations and territory with a minimal amount of forces committed. In 

a very different context, a modification of this approach enabled Great Britain to create and 

oversee the greatest empire the world has ever seen. Although arming select tribes will indeed 

help embattled Sunni areas survive, it also would appear to work counter to our larger policy 

of having an Iraqi Government that is truly representative and functioning along western lines. 

Simply put, is not arming ethnic enclaves a path to partition? Perhaps, but this runs counter to 

our current stated objectives.

Another line of thought, often derisively labeled “cut and run,” argues that we have given 

the Iraqi people many opportunities to govern themselves in a democratic fashion, but they 

have proved unable and/or unwilling to make a go of it. At this point, so the line of reasoning 

goes, it would simply be best to pull out and let competing factions in Iraq sort it out. If a fullblown civil war results, so be it, as it is already the case in Iraq and the increased humanitarian 

disaster that might ensue would not be significantly worse than what is already taking place. 

Proponents of this line of thinking also counter the charge of increased Iranian influence by 

stating it is already the case.

Is there perhaps another way to provide stability and security for the Iraqi people? In my 

opinion, I do not see many good options. It is extremely doubtful that the United States is willing to increase further its commitment of forces to the region. However, it is worth remembering the monumental effort in terms of manpower, resources, and destruction required to remake 

Germany and Japan during and after World War II. Although Iraq today is less populous than 

those two countries were six decades ago, we have in no way come close to unleashing the 

amount of physical destruction and scale of occupation on Iraq than we did on the former Axis 

Powers. Our will to send an occupation force of several hundred thousand troops to Iraq simply 

does not exist.

Could we establish a proxy government as we have in the past? Although far less costly, 

this approach would be difficult to reconcile with our stated objectives for fighting the war. 

Perhaps withdrawing to regional “superbases” out of Baghdad completely, perhaps even out 

of Iraq altogether might be an option. Such issues are beyond the scope of my comments here 

today.

For the purposes of this presentation, I would instead like to leave you with some points I 

learned from my experience as a battalion commander at the tactical level. Security is the over-
187

riding issue to the average resident in Baghdad. Whatever else we might try to accomplish in 

Iraq, without that essential building block, nothing else really matters. Attaining that security 

is not done easily or cheaply—it takes the physical, daily presence of capable, legitimate, and 

noncorrupt forces in the best of cases, but at a minimum, it requires physical, daily presence by 

an effective security force. In a power vacuum, some group will form to fill the void—where I 

was in 2005, it generally was the Mahdi Militia, but there were other groups as well.

A force of 1,000 soldiers in a population of more than a million ethnically divided Iraqis 

cannot bring stability on its own, nor can it effectively assist in the development of indigenous 

security forces if it is also charged with providing security for the population. Recent increases 

in the US troop density in Baghdad confirm these observations. The question is, then, whether a 

force of 2,000 or even 5,000 in my former area of responsibility would have made a substantial 

difference? My reflective answer then and now would be probably not. This is the issue of the 

week as we have all seen reported in the media. Regardless of the path we follow, the question 

remains as to whether the increased levels will bring about the necessary level of security to 

allow political progress. Beyond that lies the even more vexing question of whether an Iraqi 

Government will ever rise to make use of the improved security in a manner we should like.

Notes

1. Ralph Peters, “Learning to Lose,” American Interest, 2, no. 6 (July–August 2007).

2. Ibid.

3. Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack, “A War We Just Might Win,” New York Times, 30 July 

2007.

4. Ibid.

5. Buddhika Jayamaha et al., “The War As We Saw It,” New York Times, 19 August 2007.

6. Ibid.

7. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London: Penguin Classics, 1985), 223.

8. David Kilcullen, Small Wars Journal, 29 August 2007, at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/08/ 

anatomy-of-a-tribal-revolt/.

9. Ibid.
189

Panel 4—On the Ground in Iraq

(Submitted Paper)

The Baghdad Security Plan and Nonstate

Actors: A Framework for Evaluation

by

Ms. Linda Robinson

U.S. News and World Report

This paper presents an overview of the Baghdad Security Plan, which was launched in early 2007, and outlines some pertinent issues for assessing its results. The Baghdad Security Plan 

was written as the US Government completed a 3-month review of its strategy amid growing 

concern over the direction of the war. By mid-December 2006, the US command in Iraq knew 

that it would be provided with more forces and asked to renew its effort to secure Baghdad. 

The US Administration had already weighed and rejected a proposal by the Iraqi Government 

whereby Iraqi forces would attempt to secure the capital alone and the American-led Coalition forces would provide support and a presence on the perimeter. The failure of Operation 

TOGETHER FORWARD in the summer of 2006 to reduce the violence in Baghdad persuaded 

President Bush that a joint effort was required.

Multi-National Division-Baghdad (MND-B) was tasked with writing the plan in December 

with Iraqi input. The plan aimed to provide security for the Iraqi population, to defeat the armed 

antagonists, and to promote the government’s legitimacy by supporting governance, economic, 

and communications efforts. The plan’s objectives were informed by the government policy 

review, the military’s own evolving approach to warfighting, and the ideas of division chief 

of plans, which General David Petraeus discussed with him on the latter’s confirmation as the 

incoming US military commander in Iraq.

Greater security, especially in Baghdad, was seen as the prerequisite for political reconciliation among Iraqis. In the New Way Forward strategy documents released by the Administration on 10 January, population security was declared the “primary mission.”1

 The premise that 

securing the population would lead to greater political will among the Iraqis to resolve their 

political differences was not argued in the strategy documents, but it was the key assumption 

on which the new effort was based.2

Proponents of the “security first” argument won the day in the policy review. They argued 

that the previous policy had focused on meeting a series of political goals (elections, constitution, referendum, elections) and on creating an Iraqi security force and transferring responsibility to it. This “checklist” approach had not produced reconciliation or stability, they argued, so 

it was, therefore, necessary to focus on achieving security first to enable political compromise. 

(It is important to note, however, that the focus had been largely on implementing political 

processes not on achieving substantive political agreements on the issues that divided Iraqis. 

It could be argued that causality ran the other way and that security could only be achieved if 

those issues, which mostly revolved around shares of power, were addressed, thus altering the 
190

motivations for carrying arms. As long as the issues resonated and the motivations went unaddressed, a steady pool of fighters would be generated.)

The primacy given to population security in the developing strategy represented a clear 

move from an enemy-centric warfighting approach to a population-centric warfighting approach.3

 This was a fundamental conceptual shift from attriting the enemy to changing the 

conditions that allow an enemy force to survive, operate, and regenerate and to competing for 

the population’s allegiance. As an institution, the military had embraced the concept of fullspectrum operations, but it was still wrestling with fundamental questions about how to apply, 

integrate, and evaluate the tools of military power, nation building, and statecraft. It did not 

have a method for determining which lines of operations were the critical ones or proven concepts of how change occurs in a given environment. In the face of such unanswered questions, 

there was an ever-present risk of defaulting in practice to enemy-centric operations.4

The incoming Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) commander and the US Ambassador 

recognized that the desired end state required reconciliation or at least accommodation among 

Iraq’s main political groups. In his confirmation testimony, then Lieutenant General David Petraeus said that there was no military solution but only a political solution in Iraq.5

 There was 

not yet any strategy for producing that political solution, but over the coming months, a grass 

roots initiative to co-opt individual fighters was expanded, and a joint campaign plan was written by the new MNF-I command and the country team that made the political line of operations 

the main effort.6

 These efforts to induce political accommodation from the bottom up and the 

top down aimed to complement the Baghdad Security Plan’s focus on population security and 

local governance.

The Baghdad Security Plan represented a conceptual advance over previous efforts to secure the city. It drew heavily on ideas that the chief of plans for the MND-B, Lieutenant Colonel Doug Ollivant, had formulated after his first tour in Iraq in an article published in Military 

Review.

7

 The article’s thesis was that “the combined arms maneuver battalion, partnering with 

indigenous security forces and living among the population it secures, should be the basic 

tactical unit of counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare.”8

 He and his coauthor drew on the work of 

French counterinsurgency theoretician David Galula to propose that a grid of static, embedded 

units be located among the population and be given responsibility for carrying out full-spectrum operations. Battalions would coordinate the operations, but the commanders would push 

initiative down to company where many officers and noncommissioned officers had gained the 

appreciation of the local situation and culture on previous tours. They wrote, “While we cannot transform our hierarchical Army into a fully networked organization overnight, powering 

down to the lowest practical level will enable the most adaptive commanders to implement a 

Galula-like solution.”9

The Baghdad Security Plan, which was dubbed Operation FARDH AL-QANOON (ENFORCING THE LAW), created the grid of embedded units envisioned in Ollivant’s article. 

Baghdad was divided into 10 security districts, and a US battalion and an Iraqi brigade were 

assigned to each district. The Iraqi brigade was based at a district joint security station where it 

would coordinate all Iraqi security forces. The US battalions were located in combat outposts, 

many of them near or adjacent to the Iraqi partner brigade. The US battalions also pushed out 

smaller elements of 10 to 50 soldiers to other joint security stations throughout the district for 
191

periods of 24 hours to several days, depending on the threat level. The locations of the outposts 

and stations had been selected in January during an initial reconnaissance phase and were fortified for additional protection.

The second phase of the operation was to clear, control, and retain Baghdad neighborhood 

by neighborhood. Operations to clear areas of armed antagonists were carried out by divisioncontrolled forces, primarily Stryker brigade elements partnered with Iraqi security forces. As 

areas were cleared, the land-owning units would move in to control the area, secure the population, and support governance and economic activity. Once Iraqis were capable of retaining the 

gains, the US forces would progressively back out in phase three, leaving enhanced embedded 

adviser teams, and moving to tactical, then operational, and then strategic overwatch positions.10

The control activity would be central to the success of the plan. MND-B Commander Major General Joseph Fil said, “We are very good at clearing areas, but that does not count for 

anything unless you hold it afterward.”11 The emphasis on this activity by forces that stayed in 

the area around the clock represented the key difference between this and earlier efforts and 

between enemy-oriented COIN tactics and population-centered COIN. By denying the enemy 

access to the population and providing the population with security and basic services, the joint 

effort aimed at getting the population to shift its allegiance to the host-nation government and 

identify and expel or neutralize the armed adversary. Armed insurgents would continue to be 

targeted, but the decisive effort would be to change the environment around the adversary, the 

conditions that enabled the armed networks to continually regenerate. That meant working 

with the Iraqi security forces as combat advisers, getting neighborhood and district councils 

to respond to local needs, working directly with the population, and reaching out to agents of 

influence and armed actors themselves.

While the disposition and employment of the forces were the plan’s key innovation, additional resources were required to make it work. The previous efforts to secure Baghdad had 

failed because there were too few forces and because US troops returned to their bases each 

night. Initially the MND-B planners were told they would have two additional US brigades, but 

in the 10 January 2007 announcement of the policy by the President, five additional brigades 

were pledged to securing Baghdad.12 Furthermore, 10 more provincial reconstruction teams 

were to be collocated with the brigades in Baghdad to support the economic development and 

governance lines of operation. For its part, the Iraqi Government pledged and provided nine 

additional battalions.13

The additional forces provided, nonetheless, fell well short of the ratios recommended 

by standard counterinsurgency doctrine, including the newly released US Army Field Manual 

3-24, Counterinsurgency. A minimum of 20 counterinsurgents per 1,000 inhabitants was the 

preferred rule of thumb.14 The proposed forces would total roughly 91,500 rather than the 

120,000 required for a population of 6 million.15 When asked about the discrepancy in his confirmation hearings, then Lieutenant General David Petraeus answered that contract personnel 

and ministerial security forces would provide additional manpower to reach the approximate 

levels needed. Some areas were considered to require fewer forces. Overall, the limitation on 

forces was dealt with by naming Baghdad the main effort and by tacitly agreeing to accept risk 

elsewhere. The commanders were in effect adopting the “oil spot” approach first advocated by 
192

Andrew Krepinevich, whereby areas are sequentially secured.16

New structures were set up to command and control the Iraqi security forces and liaison 

with the US Coalition command. The Baghdad Operational Command (BOC) was formed with 

Lieutenant General Abboud Qanbar as its head. Underneath that command was the Rusafa 

Area Command (RAC) to oversee operations in the five security districts east of the Tigris 

River and the Karkh Area Command (KAC) for west Baghdad’s five districts. The former was 

headed by the Iraqi Army’s 9th Division commander with an Iraqi National Police deputy. The 

positions were reversed for the KAC: a National Police commander led with the Iraqi Army’s 

6th Division commander as his deputy. The US and Iraqi forces each retained command and 

control of their own units, but the planning and coordinating of operations were done jointly. 

While MNC-I and MND-B commanders routinely met with the BOC commander, the intensive 

coordination was carried out by MND-B’s Assistant Division Commander (ADC) (Maneuver) 

Brigadier General John Campbell, who attended the weekly BOC, RAC, and KAC meetings, 

and by brigade commanders. In addition, US military advisers were assigned to the three Iraqi 

commands.

These staff meetings were important learning experiences for the relatively new Iraqi senior officer corps. In one KAC meeting in April 2006 to plan the Rashid district clearing operations, a half-dozen US colonels were in the room. They included the embedded advisers, the 

Stryker brigade commander who would lead the clearing operation, and the brigade commander who would support it and then carry out the control phase that would follow on immediately. 

Conscious of their role as mentors, the US colonels refrained from dictating the course of the 

meeting. When the Iraqi commander indicated that his briefers had not completed their plan, 

the Americans suggested that they take a chai break to allow them to finish and present their 

ideas first. The eventual result was an Iraqi-made plan.

The clearing operations were largely successful. In the first months of FARDH AL-QANOON, clearing operations proceeded in some areas, such as part of Kadhamiya and Doura 

(East Rashid), without sufficient troops being available to flow in behind for the control phase. 

That would necessitate a later return to reclear those areas. But by the time the month-long 

operation to clear Mansour district (Operation ARROWHEAD STRIKE 9) ended in late April, 

control forces were in place and completing the bunkered posts they would live in. Adhamiya 

district was cleared in February, and elements of the 82d Airborne’s 2d Brigade moved in. Parts 

of both of those districts (Adhamiya proper and Ameriya) would remain troubled and would 

require far more attention. In both cases, Shia militias had encroached to the very doorstep 

of some of the oldest Sunni neighborhoods. Many other neighborhoods, especially in eastern 

Baghdad had become largely Shia over the past year. On the west side, the Jaish al-Mahdi 

(JAM), the Shia militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, was pressing southward from Ghazaliya into 

Mansour, challenging a largely Sunni area. Some predominantly Shia areas, such as Karrada 

and New Baghdad, were quiet and deemed not to require clearing operations.

The lion’s share of the clearing operations was carried out by 3d Brigade, 2d Infantry 

Stryker Brigade Combat Team, commanded by Colonel Steven Townsend. It moved in a combat patrol from Mosul to Baghdad in January and proceeded to conduct 10 clearing operations 

all over Baghdad. One of its three battalions was sent to Diyala Province to deal with rising violence there. The fast-moving Strykers with their C4ISR (command, control, communications, 
193

computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) capability and their ability to deliver 

a dozen air-conditioned Soldiers apiece were ideally suited for clearing operations. At the end 

of Operation ARROWHEAD STRIKE 9, Townsend’s soldiers revisited locations in Ameriya 

to follow up on intelligence reports of insurgent activity. The information proved sketchy, but 

the suspects were registered in a database being built using hand-held HIDE devices that scan 

retinas, take photos, and log fingerprints. Although there were not enough devices for all the 

units in Baghdad, it was a much-needed step toward constructing a population registry that 

would aid in identifying possible insurgents. For years, soldiers had been struggling to keep 

track of suspects and even locations in a city where many houses do not have addresses.

In Mansour, Lieutenant Colonel Van Smiley’s 1st Battalion, 23d Infantry Regiment, carried out its last clearing operation in concert with troops of Colonel Ghassan’s 5th Brigade, 6th 

Division. The two units linked up under the giant swords of Saddam’s one-time parade ground 

in downtown Baghdad. Only part of the Iraqi force arrived, Smiley’s company commander 

discovered, because the embedded US advisers for that unit had scheduled training for all the 

Iraqi noncommissioned officers on the same day. The troops proceeded to clear a half-dozen 

sites where neighborhood tips suggested insurgent activity may be taking place. Outside one 

abandoned home, two schoolteachers said they hoped the soldiers would stay in the area so 

the schoolchildren could finish the school year. Mansour, once an upscale retail and residential 

area, had been so violent over the past year that many parents had frequently kept their children at home. Next door to the police station, the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters was a virtual 

armed camp with its own guards and a contingent from President Jalal Talabany’s own security 

force. The Sunni party, which participated in the government, had come under attack from 

both extremes, al-Qaeda in Iraq and JAM militia, and sought help from the Americans. The US 

troops reassured the party that it did not intend hostile action against the compound. They kept 

an eye on the compound, registered its weapons, and took its illegal heavy weapons.

As neighborhoods were cleared one by one, US forces moved into combat outposts (COPs) 

and joint security stations (JSSs) to begin control operations. By mid-summer, there were 36 

COPs and 32 JSSs, with plans for 10 to 12 more. Force protection and intelligence work were 

the first orders of business. In the Mansour district of Yarmouk, American soldiers prodded 

their Iraqi counterparts to help carry sandbags to the rooftop of a mansion that housed a newly 

installed joint security station. A group of Sunni men watching the progress expressed suspicion about the site’s purpose and complained that the soldiers were spying on women in their 

courtyards.

On the other side of the river, Lieutenant Colonel Al Shoffner, Commander of 2/319 Field 

Artillery Battalion of the 82d Airborne, was partnered with Iraq’s 2d Brigade, 6th Division, 

and based at COP War Eagle. Part of the first wave of additional US forces to arrive in February, they began operations in northeast Baghdad in the neighborhoods of Rabi, Tunis, and 

Basateen. Shoffner described the disposition of forces: 500 US forces were located at COP War 

Eagle, which was a school gym. Next door, a 22-man advisory team was embedded with an 

Iraqi battalion. Alpha Battery carried out control operations in the quieter Basateen and Tunis 

neighborhoods while Bravo Battery conducted operations in Rabi to the south. The latter also 

rotated 30 to 60 troops through a joint security station in its sector, JSS Sulaikh, where 3 Iraqi 

Army companies and 50 Iraqi policemen were based.
194

Like most of the station, JSS Sulaikh was housed in a local police station. Iraqi Army troops, 

or at least a liaison officer, were collocated there in the first tentative attempts at coordination 

with the little-trusted Iraqi police. The Americans fortified the blue and white painted cinderblock police stations with concrete barriers, sandbags, concertina wire, sensors, and 24-hour 

US guards manning heavy machine guns on the rooftops. But their real security, as Captain Andrew Artis at JSS Sulaikh explained, came from frequent patrolling in the neighborhood. These 

patrols, ideally on foot, in turn, led to more Iraqis coming to the police station with tips. Only 

one platoon could live in the cramped JSS at a time; bunks were crammed into one room that 

doubled as a kitchen, and another room served as the operations center. On the rear patio, the 

unit had set up a makeshift gym, covered with sniper netting, to pass the spare hours. Despite 

numerous attempts, the unit had not yet found a solution to the backed-up sewage system.

Upon moving into the neighborhoods, the US forces gained a much more detailed understanding of Baghdad’s complicated and shifting ethnic mosaic. Some neighborhoods were 

predominantly one ethnic or religious group, but a surprising amount of intermixture and intermarriage was still to be found even after the brutal sectarian bloodletting of the past 2 years. 

The most reliable generalization was at the level of muhalla, the smallest neighborhood unit, of 

which there were 474 in Baghdad. The soldiers at JSS Sulaikh quickly discovered, for example, 

that a triangle-shaped neighborhood of wary Sunnis lay to the west, and to the southeast lived 

a large number of Shia families who had fled the harsh Islamic practices JAM imposed as it 

extended its reach north and west from Sadr City to the Shaab and Ur neighborhoods.

In some areas, security and local reconciliation efforts paid off relatively quickly. Lieutenant Josh Rowan and his platoon from Alpha Battery had determined that most trouble came 

from the fish market area. Their foot patrols yielded free bread from a friendly vendor who also 

led them to a sniper. The battery established cordial relations with the Sunni Endowment Council, as well as with the local Sadr representatives, and met regularly with the neighborhood 

advisory council to determine priorities beyond the school and health clinic support they were 

already providing. “The only job of the platoon leaders is to network,” Shoffner said. He practiced the technique of pushing authority downward that the operation’s planners had intended. 

Both Artis and Rowan were enthusiastic COIN practitioners. Artis had applied to the Special 

Forces so he could make a career of such work, and Rowan, who held a master’s in defense 

studies, had read COIN treatises by Galula and David Kilcullen before deploying.

In Adhamiya, 1/26 Infantry, 1st Infantry Division, had one of the most difficult areas in 

Baghdad. The proud old Sunni neighborhood was home to the principal Sunni Abu Hanifa 

Mosque, which had been raided for weapons more than once. The hostility of the population 

was further deepened by the Baghdad city government’s denial of services to the area. Bootleg 

power lines were draped from every corner, and trash lay in piles in the streets. Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Eric Schacht said that government food ration deliveries rarely 

made it to the neighborhood. Meanwhile, a few blocks south, a Shia neighborhood was lively 

with outdoor cafes, painted curbs, and flowers planted in the median. To the east lay Qahira, an 

upper middle class neighborhood dotted with vacant homes. JAM militants had chased Sunni 

families out with death threats and used the homes as safe houses. On the highway that divided 

the two neighborhoods, JAM attacked 1 to 26 humvees (high-mobility multipurpose wheeled 

vehicles (HMMWVs)) with explosively formed projectiles and lobbed mortars into Adhamiya. 

JSS Adhamiya was repeatedly attacked when it was set up in the heart of the old quarter in a 
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police station a few blocks from the mosque, but the superior firepower and countermeasures 

kept the attackers at bay. The territory straddled one of the city’s most acute fault lines, and the 

unit suffered correspondingly heavy losses. Nonetheless, the commander persisted in making 

overtures, meeting with the mosque’s senior imam as well as the neighborhood council. His 

assessment was that Iraqi Government actions would have to be modified to overcome the 

residents’ fear, intimidation, and hostility.

In the most conflicted parts of the city, other measures aimed at population security and 

population control were also adopted. The Army erected 10-foot Jersey barriers around eight 

neighborhoods and seven markets with the twin goals of protecting the population and isolating the insurgents. The wall along the highway dividing Adhamiya proper and Qahira received 

international attention; broadcasts compared it to the Israeli Wall and the Berlin Wall. During 

a visit to Cairo, Prime Minister Maliki criticized the wall construction and vowed to halt it. 

The BOC had approved the concept, however, as well as the Adhamiya neighborhood advisory 

council, and the project resumed after a brief halt. In one market, after an Iraqi official ordered 

the barricades to be dragged away, a devastating car bomb hit days later. The initiative was 

originally called Gated Communities and Gated Markets but then changed to Safe Communities and Safe Markets in a bid to make it more palatable. As there were fewer exit routes and 

they were often jammed with lines of cars or people, the measures did cause complaints from 

residents who resented the inconvenience.

As FARD AL-QANOON was unfolding, efforts were made to rally armed groups and 

traditional clans against al-Qaeda in Iraq and generally to split the reconcilable elements away 

from those deemed irreconcilable. This approach had achieved results in Anbar, Diyala, Salahuddin, and elsewhere as part of the MNF-I strategic engagement initiative led by Deputy 

Commander Lieutenant General (United Kingdom) Graeme Lamb (which grew out of earlier 

tribal engagement efforts). It was a pragmatic “enemy of my enemy” scheme to collaborate 

with any insurgents willing to cease fire against coalition and Iraqi troops and turn their guns 

against al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Even members of AQI were turned as the effort progressed.

Engagement cells were set up in battalions across Baghdad to reach out to and meet with 

tribal leaders and insurgents. Sunnis in Abu Ghraib, Ameriya, and Ghazaliya began coming 

forward. In Ameriya, members of the Islamic army insurgent group turned against al-Qaeda in 

Iraq cells to expel them from the area. The US troops based there provided transportation and 

received intelligence from them and established an arm’s length collaboration. That collaboration resulted in the detention of 13 al-Qaeda operatives and the discovery of numerous bombs 

and weapons caches in Ameriya by mid-July, according to Multi-National Corps Commander 

Lieutenant General Ray Odierno. He also cited other cities where neighborhood watch groups 

were attacking al-Qaeda in Iraq, finding weapons, and lowering the level of violence.17

In Abu Ghraib, in 6 days in June, more than 1,700 Iraqis registered for the program. They 

were vetted, given physicals, registered with HIDE devices, and given some basic training. 

They were required to swear allegiance to the Iraqi Government. They were used to man neighborhood watch groups, many of which had been in existence for years, or to guard critical local 

infrastructure such as gas stations, water pipes, and mosques. Promising candidates were contracted to go the police academy. Brigadier General Campbell worked hard to get the Ministry 

of Interior to accept the police candidates from Abu Ghraib, Ghazaliya, and other areas where 
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police presence was extremely scarce. The official regulations specified 1 policeman per 133 

residents, but the Maliki government was reluctant to bring Sunnis into the predominantly 

Shia force.18

Lieutenant General Lamb believed that it represented a significant turning of the tide of 

Sunni public opinion against the violence and goals of groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq.19 The initiative was not without its pitfalls, however. For one thing, the Iraqi Government viewed it with 

alarm. Although Campbell worked with General Abboud and an Iraqi Government committee 

to ensure that the initiatives undertaken were approved by the Iraqi Government, it continued 

to be a source of friction. There was a real danger that, if these groups were not tied into the 

government structure with proper command and control, the initiative could have the effect 

of empowering rogue groups that would later face off with the Shia-led government. Yet the 

Iraqi Government resisted efforts to tie these former Sunni fighters into formalized structures. 

Enlisting residents to police their own neighborhoods could be an important bottom-up component of an eventual peaceful resolution of the conflict. Their recruitment into the local police 

force would also redress the imbalance of sectarian representation within that institution.

As of 19 July, Odierno said that more than half of Baghdad was in the “control” phase, 

meaning clearing operations had been conducted and were judged successful in routing insurgents and establishing US and Iraqi forces control of the area. Such assessments were made 

with a great deal of caution and rigor by the battalion and brigade commanders on the ground, 

but this designation did not mean that an area was somehow magically or permanently immune 

from car bombs or other attacks. What it did mean was that, in the ground commanders’ view, 

the insurgent threat had been sufficiently degraded and a sufficiently robust US and Iraqi forces 

put in place to hold the terrain and allow more activity to support governance, reconstruction, 

and reconciliation.

Although it was premature to make a comprehensive evaluation of the Baghdad Security 

Plan in late summer 2006, the US Congress required an assessment of results by 15 September. 

My reporting to date led me to formulate the following observations about the Baghdad Security Plan and its prospects for success.

• Was greater population security achieved? Staff officers debated how best to answer this question. Assessments would inevitably rely in part on quantifiable measurements of effectiveness, particularly trends in violence, but such metrics are fraught 

with ambiguity. One intelligence officer suggested that a better indicator would be the 

number of shops open for regular hours. Sir Robert Thompson believed that the two 

most important statistics in counterinsurgency were tips offered freely by the population and guerrilla recruitment rates. Numbers of weapons seized and fighters killed or 

captured are probably the least revealing yet most often provided statistics. The most 

promising sign of progress by late summer was a notable decline in deaths attributed 

to Shia militias.20 Civilian deaths due to violence and car bombs, largely attributed to 

Sunni insurgents, also declined. Such trends would be most meaningful if sustained 

over time. A senior Pentagon official warned of “the danger of illusory progress. It is 

easy to fool yourself in terms of effect,” he said.21 The armed antagonists could go to 

ground (which the Sadr militia largely did), they could go elsewhere (which AQI did, 

to Diyala and other provinces), or they could target forces deliberately and drive up 
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casualties beyond a level public opinion is prepared to accept (a scenario anticipated 

by some officials as September approached). Despite these caveats, the declining violence was a reasonable indicator of increased security.

• Was the plan implemented as designed with adequate resources? The plan did not 

specify a timeline, but one-third to one-half of the city was still not under “control” 

as defined by the plan. The principal issue was whether sufficient resources had been 

devoted to carry out the plan. Parts of the five additional US Army brigades, along with 

Stryker clearing units and a host of combat enablers, were diverted to areas outside 

Baghdad to deal with insurgent activity. Eight battalions were assigned to Diyala and 

26 battalions to a newly created division just south of Baghdad.22 Eleven battalions of 

the additional forces were sent to Baghdad proper, for a total of 28 battalions assigned 

to MND-B. The Iraqis devoted 38 battalions to the Baghdad Security Plan, but those 

other than the 6th and 9th Division were supplied on a rotational basis. The new PRTs 

(Provincial Reconstruction Teams) were manned by temporary DOD personnel, and 

the Embassy said that the permanent contract personnel would be in place by the end of 

2007. As for funding, the United States provided $2.3 billion for economic and political development in its supplemental legislation. The Iraqi Government’s ability to disburse its budget, while improved over the previous year, was still woefully inadequate; 

it had only spent about a quarter of its capital funds by mid-year.

• Did greater population security increase the Iraqi Government’s legitimacy and 

promote reconciliation? To the degree that US forces were seen as providing the security blanket, the Iraqi Government did not reap the credit. If and as Iraqi forces assumed more control, that perception could change. In Sunni neighborhoods, the lack 

of Iraqi Government services tended to counteract the beneficial impression created by 

the security operation. Absent convincing steps on the part of the national government 

toward the minority Sunnis, continued hostility or fear would be their most logical 

reaction. There was little sign thus far that the Baghdad Security Plan and the grass 

roots reconciliation initiative had changed the political dynamics at the national level. 

So while population security might be a necessary condition for enabling political 

progress, it was not a sufficient condition.

The critique of insufficiency did not mean that the Baghdad Security Plan should necessarily be abandoned. But remedying the insufficiency required measures to tackle the legitimacy 

issue head on. The Maliki government was not seen as legitimate by the Sunni minority, and 

the Maliki government for its part viewed Sunnis as largely unwilling to accept majority rule. 

Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to assess whether the preferable model was a 

government that avoided any sectarian distinctions or one that accorded proportional shares of 

power and resources, representative government is highly relevant to the grass roots efforts of 

the battalions seeking to support local governance. The local advisory councils are unelected 

bodies, and the Baghdad city council was formed through an election boycotted by most Sunnis. More representative local government would be a logical next step to tie the Baghdad 

Security Plan’s bottom-up approach into a broader reconciliation effort. More equitable distribution of government funding and services would presumably be one by-product.

A great deal depended on the intentions of the Iraqi Government and on the ability of the 
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United States or other parties to influence them. The congressionally mandated report delivered 

by the Bush Administration on 12 July cited numerous examples of deliberate sectarian behavior on the part of the government, both in the selection of enemy targets and of army leaders, 

and many others were reported by the US military.23 The government had also been unable 

to make progress on any of the political benchmarks since the Baghdad Security Plan began. 

While standard counterinsurgency practice is to support a host-nation government against an 

insurgency, that does not imply blind support. The United States has routinely pressured allies 

to change course or moderate actions deemed abusive, with varying degrees of success. The 

COIN manual’s coauthor, historian Conrad Crane, noted that the United States has often found 

it difficult to get other governments to do what it wants it to do.24 Nonetheless, some observers 

believed that more effective use could be made of the leverage that the United States possessed 

by placing explicit conditions on its aid and military support.

In summary, the initial indications were that the Baghdad Security Plan could achieve 

population security. Given adequate resources, US forces could throw a security blanket over 

the city and mentor Iraqi forces to do more over time. It would probably be able to achieve a 

measure of reconciliation locally by co-opting fighters and encouraging dialogue. But these 

would remain temporary, ad hoc gains unless they were tied into an active process of national 

political reform that would institutionalize them. If the successes of the Baghdad Security Plan 

were not scaled up in this fashion, the United States would continue to fight the war tactically.

Notes

1. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/iraq/2007/iraq-strategy011007.pdf. In various formulations, security was seen as enabling political progress by providing “breathing room” or “breathing 

space” for Iraqis to come together.

2. The new counterinsurgency manual released in December 2006 lists population security as one 

possible indicator of a government’s legitimacy (page 1-21) and posits a causal connection: “establishing 

security can win the people’s confidence and enable a government to develop legitimacy in other areas.” 

Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency (Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 15 

December 2006). 

3. See the work of Dr. David Kilcullen, until recently senior counterinsurgency adviser to MNF-I, 

and for application to Iraq at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/06/understanding-current-operatio/.

4. Thus, there was a danger that the security first approach would devolve into one more operation 

to hunt down Sunni insurgents, buttressed by the argument that if only enough insurgents were killed 

the Sunnis would eventually accept that they would not return to a position of dominance in the government.

5. Testimony to Senate Armed Services Committee, 23 January 2007.

6. In a 30 July 2007 interview with ABC Good Morning America, General Petraeus said, “In fact, 

in our new campaign plan, we actually have the political line of operations as the main effort, if you will, 

because that is the ultimate way ahead for Iraq, as it is for any situation like this.”

7. Lieutenant Colonel Douglas A. Ollivant and First Lieutenant Eric D. Chewning, “Producing 

Victory: Rethinking Conventional Forces in COIN Operations,” Military Review (July–August 2006): 
199

50–59. Ollivant holds a Ph.D. in political science from Indiana University.

8. Ibid., 50.

9. Ibid., 59.

10. Author interviews and e-mail communications with Lieutenant Colonel Ollivant.

11. Interview with author, MND-B Headquarters, April 2007.

12. See briefing slides at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/iraq/2007/iraq-strategy011007.pdf.

13. Entire Iraqi units failed to show up for the summer 2006 operation. The first units to appear for 

the 2007 operation were understrength by 40 to 50 percent, but 60 to 70 percent of the subsequent units’ 

troops reported present for duty. Given the IA’s (Iraqi Army’s) leave policy that permits 25 percent of 

the force to be on leave at any time, 70 percent is considered to be the best that could be expected until 

the planned overstrength manning is achieved. Wounded soldiers are maintained on the rolls since there 

is no disability system. Interview, Brigadier General John Campbell, Assistant Division Commander 

(Maneuver), 1st Cavalry Division (Multi-National Division-Baghdad), 28 June 2007. 

14. FM 3-24, 1-67.

15. For a discussion of these issues, see author’s article in U.S. News & World Report, 22 January 

2007, 34–36.

16. See Andrew Krepinevich, “How to Win in Iraq,” Foreign Affairs (September–October 2005).

17. Press Conference, Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, 19 July 2007.

18. Interview with author, 28 June 2007.

19. Interview 17 April 2007.

20. See Brookings Institution Iraq Index at http://www3.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf, 

10, 12, 14.

21. Senior Pentagon official in interview with author, 11 April 2007.

22. E-mail communication with Multi-National Corps-Iraq, 2 August 2007.

23. See “Initial Benchmark Assessment Report,” at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070712.html, 17, 24.

24. Interview with author, Carlisle, PA., 19 July 2007.
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Panel 4—On the Ground in Iraq

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

LTC Kevin Farrell, Ph.D.

Ms. Linda Robinson

Moderated by Dr. Donald Wright

Dr. Wright

All right, well I’ll dispense with my comments in the interest of turning over time to the audience, except to say that both papers were excellent reminders of the importance of host nation 

legitimacy, which is a central tenant in just about all the counter-insurgency doctrine that I’ve 

ever read, but sometimes that gets lost in the debate about Iraq. What are the Iraqis doing, rather 

than posing the question, what are the American forces doing, or the coalition overall? Are 

there questions for our presenters?

Audience Member

If US security forces were withdrawn 100% tomorrow, concerning Baghdad, who, and how 

many people would be killed? Who would kill them? How long would it take to reach a form 

of stabilization in the area? Who would take over control of Baghdad?

LTC Farrell

Do you have an opinion on that?

Ms. Robinson

I do have an opinion, and I was asking the question, and I think it’s very much one on people’s 

minds, because there are a lot of people who feel that there isn’t a good prospect for forcing 

the government into political reconciliation, so we need to be looking at what other drastic 

alternatives are there? Everyone from the Ambassador on down to the battalion commander in 

some of the tough neighborhoods basically said it will be genocide. There’s still far more mixed 

neighborhoods than people realize.

I found that even in the so-called Sunni neighborhoods, what you’re also gaining by having 

people pushed out into the JSS’s and the cops is much more census. I mean they’re literally going through and doing biometric scans of people. We now for the first time, I think, are really 

finding out just how mixed these neighborhoods are. So there’s a lot more killing and displacing to happen. I would warn that it’s in the hundreds of thousands. I think that it would be sanguine to suggest there would be any less. And these aren’t people who just want to pick up and 

move to Anbar. They’re city people, they’re cosmopolitan people. I mean Amaria is an upper 

class neighborhood. These were former regime figures, Army, Baath Party, Intelligentsia. So 

they’re just not going to move to the desert.
202

Who would do the killing would be certainly the JAM militia. Baghdad Security Plan has arrested the movement of the cleansing south into Mansour and Amaria from the Gazalia and 

Shula areas. Gazalia has now also maintained its identity as a more Sunni area, so there are 

more Sunni pockets left than people think. JAM would do it, and certain Iraqi battalions, and 

I know of three in particular that were receiving direct orders of a sectarian nature. Now, the 

MiTTs and the people working most closely with these battalions are reporting up all of this 

information, so there’s greater, I think, fidelity in determining which commanders are pursuing 

a sectarian agenda.

LTC Farrell

The only thing I would add, in seriousness, to that very solid answer would be I saw the pattern 

while I was there, and then keeping in touch with comrades that relieved me, and in turn have 

relieved them, the ethnic clearing, or cleansing, of neighborhoods is continuing. This, in turn, 

leads, in some cases, to a decline in violence reported in crimes, because as the mixed nature 

of a neighborhood changes, and it becomes ethnically homogenous, they also fortify. That’s a 

trend that’s taking place.

It would be difficult for me to predict how that would play out if there were an immediate 

withdrawal, but I think in some areas, just looking at it from afar, you do see the shoring up, 

and the ethnic diversity that existed in neighborhoods before. It appears to be a declining thing 

now, and neighborhoods are forming more and more along ethnic lines, and trying to prepare 

themselves, perhaps, for a struggle that might come later.

Audience Member

I noticed, Colonel, both in your presentation and in yours, ma’am, that Sadr City has got this 85 

foot high Chinese wall around it. Can you explain what’s going on with that?

LTC Farrell

Yes, I’ll start, and then maybe you can update where it is now. Again, my experience in 2005 

was pretty much it appeared to be almost hands off. It was overwhelmingly Shia. I wouldn’t 

use the term sanctuary, but some might derisively term it that way. The police was heavily, 

heavily, if not outright run, heavily influenced by the Mahdi militia, and there were programs 

at this time to diversify, and to work jointly between the Army, the public security battalions, 

and the Iraqi police

Many initiatives were enacted throughout 2005, across Baghdad, to get cooperation and ethnic 

diversity. It proved impossible in Sadr City, and I would be surprised today if the situation were 

any different. That is that it is an enclave. That it is run by agents of Muqtada al-Sadr.

Ms. Robinson

The decision has been made to try to work it politically, but there’s also been an ongoing effort to pick off the JAM leaders. The ISOF, the Iraqi Special Operations Forces, with US SOF 

are in there many nights. If they’re not down doing similar raids in the southern Iraq, they’re 
203

working on Sadr City. I had an interview with the battalion commander who’s in charge of that 

[inaudible], in charge of that effort in working with the ISOF, and they feel they have picked 

off quite a lot of the special group’s leadership.

At this point in the war, I’m, myself, extremely skeptical of the idea that you can kill and capture all the bad guys, so I tend to look more at the political movements going on. There have 

been some key releases of JAM people in an attempt to moderate the entire Sadr and JAM 

movement. They’re pumping a lot of money into Sadr City, and I think that the view is really 

you have to look at Sadr as a piece of the overall political negotiation that has to occur.

A wedge is being driven between Sadr and Maliki, and a more alliance being built up with 

SCIRI and the moderate wing of SCIRI, in an effort to reduce his dependence on Sadr, who has, 

of course, been around for much of this time period. And his recent cease fire, I think, by some 

people’s account, was because they’ve been hurt enough that he’s now dealing somewhat from 

a position of weakness, and he’s seen Maliki form other alliances.

We still have to see how this plays out, because he certainly has a large base, a political base, 

that people like General Dempsey would always tell me, it’s a political fact now. You’re going 

to have to deal with the Sadr movement as a political entity. But I think some people over play 

its political importance, because it really is kind of the Shia underclass, if you will, that’s most 

represented by that, and if you get Dawa and SCIRI, and perhaps some of the secular parties 

coming back and playing a bigger role, you then diminish, somewhat, his clout.

Audience Member

Lieutenant Colonel François, French Center for Doctrine Employment Forces. A question for 

both of you. You have shown us there is a process of improvement of the Iraqi Army taking 

place. So that’s a very good point. I understand, also, that time is paramount in that process, 

because you have the next US election in one year, November, ’08. So I have a series of questions which are [inaudible]. First, do you think that the Iraqi Army could become the sort of 

army, like in Lebanon, for example, where the army is the only institution to have some national dimension?

Do you think that following the Army, building up the police could follow? Do you think that 

... do you have any timing, even if I know it is very difficult, about this ... some sort of a timing 

of the [inaudible]. That is, at which time, according to your analysis, those institutions could 

be able to take into their hands the destiny of the protection of their own people? If not, what 

amount of US troops, as a QRF, could remain in Iraq so that to guarantee that there is no some 

things like around that type scenario, for example?

I understand the decision should be taken after the next election of the US President, because 

nobody will say that at once, but maybe in one year it could change if there is big success, as 

General Petraeus has showed, a spirit of success taking place. And last question, which is a 

[inaudible]. Do you think some sort of regional solution could be achieved if the US wanted to 

go back from Iraq completely with no QRF left? Some sort of a guess, a regional force with all 

the neighbors, when we know that everybody around Iraq has a big interest to see the situation 

deteriorate, but nobody wants Iraq to blow up completely. So is there any regional solution with 
204

coalition of the willing? I don’t know. As a guarantor to avoid the disintegration of the Iraqi 

state? Thank you very much.

LTC Farrell

Okay, I’ll start. I have all five excellent questions. I’ll try to address them briefly. And again, 

these are just my opinions. I’m not an expert on anything. First of all, the question about the 

Iraqi Army, whether it can serve ably as a national institution, and maybe a beacon of hope. My 

immediate answer is yes. The best unit with which I cooperated in Iraq was an outfit called the 

Iraqi Intervention Force. Its current fate, I know it was moved out west. It was broken up, and 

hopefully it survives. Its officer corps was professional. It had non-commissioned officers, as 

we would understand them, in the US Army. I would have rated its ability as that being equal 

to an average US Army unit. So very positive.

The battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ali, became a close, personal friend. He saw 

himself as a patriot. Did not have a political identity, and the ethnic composition of this battalion was impressive. The photo I showed at the end of my presentation was one of its members. 

But they’re very much an anomaly, at least in 2005. Again, I stopped working with them about 

halfway through my deployment. They were moved out west, and they were broken down into 

platoon sized units manning checkpoints. So a big loss there.

But training a force nationally focused is the way to go. The problem is, and I saw this both in 

Adamia with an excellent Iraqi Army battalion that I worked there, that at the battalion/brigade 

level, the units can function very well. But at levels above them, they become victims of being American or a professional objective in orientation. And the practice of bribes, of currying 

favor with higher members of the government, if they don’t operate in that matter, they’re at a 

disadvantage. And so the real problem, from my lowly perspective, is that the Iraqi Ministries, 

the government itself, must want its formations to operate in this manner.

From my lowly perspective in 2005, they did not. In fact, they wanted a system of patronage 

and favor to shore up their own personal base of power. And this operated on ethnic lines, tribal 

lines, a variety of ways, but it ran counter to the very good point that you raise. So my short 

answer, yes. Ideally that would be so. But it really has to come from the top down at this point. 

We can do it bottom up, but if the Iraqi government doesn’t want it, which it did not seem to 

want, at least in 2005, and as I said, the August vacation of 2007 isn’t extremely encouraging, 

but I really can’t speak with authority on that.

Your question about the police, could they follow suit. I would hope so. I believe in the Arab 

world, the police are generally held in very low regard. Certainly that was the case in Iraq. The 

police supplemented their very low salaries through the demanding of the payment of bribes. 

This is an age-old custom, and turning them into a Western style police force is going to take 

some time. So I think the hope lies greater with the army. But again, personal opinion. I don’t 

know.

Timing, how long would this take? I would expect it would take quite a while. I mean there are 

other partners in the region that we’re working with, and we’ve been advising allied nations 

for decades. You could ask the question whether they’re close to Western standards. So I would 
205

take the long view.

The amount, the size of the QRF that would remain in the region. Again, this is not within my 

lane, or level ... at the personal level, I’d say a brigade size, heavy brigade, as we saw during 

the original campaign in OIF can wreak a lot of havoc, and cause destruction. And there’s not 

much that can stand up to a brigade combat team. Just a shot in the dark.

As far as the willingness interest of regional neighbors to step in, step up, and prevent a meltdown, I think that varies. It might be in the interest of one power to slice off a piece of Iraq, 

especially if it’s ethnically in line with their population. You can see several nations ... and 

that’s well beyond the scope of my expertise, and so I’ll leave it at that.

Ms. Robinson

I’d like to address these really excellent questions. I think we probably don’t know the answers 

to any of them yet, but Iraqi Army, definitely it’s the only national institution and it’s going to 

be a pillar of whatever goes ahead. And the IIF is now the first division of the Iraqi Army, and 

it’s absolutely the best one there.

It was mentioned, glancingly, in the testimony, and we talk about IO efforts. It boggles my 

mind that there hasn’t been a major announcement by at least the government of Iraq, on a 

major initiative that they have taken, which is to bring back 5,000 former Army officers. They 

sent out a big survey, and got responses from 46,800 former army officers wanting to come 

back in. They’ve accepted 5,000. 7,000 are going to be given civil service jobs, and the rest are 

going to be given full pensions. So very belatedly, a reversal of the CPA decree, and doing what 

needs to be done. I’m puzzled why this hasn’t received far more attention, because it’s the first 

sign that the government of Iraq is willing to rebalance the Iraqi Army and accomplish a key 

national reconciliation objective along with that.

That said, though, and because it hasn’t been announced, I still have ongoing questions about 

government of Iraq will, and I think that’s really what is going to determine whether this thing 

can go forward in a positive way or not.

The Iraqi police, of course, is attempting to be formed now as a Sunni balanced force. The national police, of course you have the Jones report saying get rid of it. I heard another position 

there, which is let’s collapse it into maybe half the units, send them out to the provinces, do 

something different with them. There are certainly elements there that need to just be disbanded 

entirely. The former so-called Wolf Brigade being one of them. The other problem there is Ministry of Interior. Need to purge some of those officials.

So the problem is, in the months ahead, to really use the sticks, and force some of the key 

changes there that need to happen. Our August 26th agreement put out the Iraqi leadership’s 

support for negotiating a long-term security agreement, so I think that’s going to be the road 

map ahead for how many forces remain, and what their functions are. They’ve agreed to support renewal of the UN Security Council mandate when it expires in December, into next year, 

so that will probably continue.
206

However, the foreign minister told me they’re going to be looking for increased control over 

troops and territories, so I think you have diminishing US control over the situation going 

ahead. And of course, people are war gaming what kind of QRF you need, what level of MiTTs 

you need if you’re going to continue the advisory. What does the counter terrorism function 

require? I think that the lowball estimates are 60,000, but I think you need a fair number to accomplish those objectives. As General Petraeus, and anybody involved in the CT mission will 

tell you, you’ve got to have the [inaudible].

You need people on the ground to perform even the minimal functions, and I think ... it drives 

me crazy, and I’m not even a military professional, but I know enough to know to accomplish 

the missions that are being laid out, as the minimal long-term missions, you need a lot of bodies.

And then, finally, I think that the hoped for transition would be to a UN kind of peace keeping 

force, once it is under enough control, so that you can internationalize it. The regional neighbors, I mean, the Saudis hate the Maliki government. The regional neighbors are not going to 

play that kind of role. It’s going to have to be an international peacekeeping force.

And then, finally, Basrah, I think is the bellwether. The British draw down there. It is going 

to be an opportunity in the coming months to watch and see whether the Iraqi Army is able to 

handle the intra-Shia competition that’s going on, and that’s been a decision made by MNFI to 

let the Iraqis try to sort that out, with support from SOF.

So it is going to be, I think, a very key test of whether at least minimal order can be established 

there without the US because the game changes if US forces have to flow down there, then this 

whole idea of drawing out a brigade every 45 days, which is roughly what’s been laid out as the 

way ahead, then you start having to wonder whether that’s possible.

Audience Member

The Iraqis deployed a bunch of troops that weren’t from Baghdad into Baghdad. I think they 

retrained some of them before they sent them in. But there’s no press about this. A year ago last 

summer, they were all stories about [inaudible] not wanting to go into Baghdad because this is 

the second summer in a row that they’ve attempted to do this. Do you have any background, 

or knowledge, of this? I read a story about three or four months ago, interviewing a Kurd unit, 

where some of the Kurds were quoted as saying, “We don’t want to go to no Baghdad.” But 

since we haven’t heard anything about it since then, they apparently probably did.

Ms. Robinson

Yes, they did get the nine battalion surge units of the Iraqi side into Baghdad, and some of them 

were Kurd units. The original present for duty numbers were around 50 or 60%, clearly not 

satisfactory. And then they were able to bump that up to 70%, roughly. Some of them are still 

low, but that, when you consider 25% are going to be on leave at any one time, because of their 

system, that is about as much as people in the MNDB headquarters think is possible.

But you do have ... actually, the Kurds, I don’t think, proved to be that much of a problem, but 
207

there’s an ongoing resistance to the units that are based elsewhere to coming in, and that results 

in this constant struggle for the full manning of the units.

So the longer term plan, which they’re now in the process ... and I was ... General Campbell went over the very complicated scheme. They’re both raising up entirely new battalions. 

They’re shifting some over. The east side of Baghdad is now going to be permanently covered 

by the 11th Division, which was newly created. And they’re adding brigades to that. So what 

they are going to wind up with, I believe it’s by next spring, are three brigades permanently 

devoted to securing Baghdad.

So I think that they have figured out that this rotating units in and out, and struggling to keep 

them up to strength every 180 days is not the good way to go. So again, it’s part of the growing 

of the force that takes time, and is constrained, above all, by now, as you all probably know, by 

the leadership challenges, and growing enough leaders.

Dr. Wright

Well, Linda and Kevin, thank you very much for a set of excellent presentations. We appreciate 

it.
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Panel 5—Non-State Actors, the

US Army, and the Law of War

(Submitted Paper)

At War With Nonstate Entities

by

Lee A. Casey and David B. Rivkin Jr.

Baker Hostetler Law Firm

The authors practice law in Washington, DC and served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. The views expressed herein are their own.

A Necessary War

To some extent, the question whether the United States can be “at war” with a nonstate 

actor like al-Qaeda is academic. The United States Armed Forces have, in fact, been deployed 

against al-Qaeda and its allied groups, including the Taliban Militia in Afghanistan and Pakistan, since shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks. The United States has, by any standard, 

asserted the rights of a belligerent with respect to these groups, and its military actions have 

been based on a specific congressional authorization for the use of force dated 18 September 2001. Whatever the President’s own constitutional war-making authority may be, it has 

been clear since John Adams’ Administration that Congress can authorize an armed conflict, to 

which the laws and customs of war will apply, without a formal declaration of war.

However, in the years since 11 September, the War on Terror’s character as a legally cognizable armed conflict had increasingly been questioned. This is especially true with respect 

to the issues involved in detaining captured al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters without charge or 

criminal trial and whether such detainees can ultimately be tried and punished by military commissions. At least one court, in determining that an al-Qaeda operative (who the Government 

believes to be a “sleeper” agent sent to the United States to participate in a future attack) must 

be brought for trial before a civilian court or released, has concluded that the United States 

cannot be at war with al-Qaeda.1

Although the al-Marri decision was badly flawed—among other things, the Court’s distinction between the Taliban as the “armed forces” of a state and al-Qaeda as a civilian if criminal entity has no basis in either fact or law—its reasoning has become increasingly important 

in the overall debate over how the Untied States and its allies should meet the challenge of 

transnational terrorism. And the implications are far reaching. If the United States is not, and 

cannot be, at war with al-Qaeda and similar groups, then its whole approach to defending the 

civilian population against future attacks must change, and it must change in ways that will 

make it far more difficult and very likely impossible to prevent future attacks.

First and foremost, if al-Qaeda and its allied groups are merely civilians engaged in a 
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violent criminal enterprise, then the United States Armed Forces cannot be deployed to use 

military force against them—either at home or abroad. Even if Congress were to amend the 

statutory limitations on using the Armed Forces for law enforcement purposes (principally the 

Posse Comitatus Act, 18 USC, sec 1385), criminal suspects still cannot be the subject of armed 

attack. Unlike enemy combatants, who can be attacked without warning or an attempted arrest during an armed conflict, deadly force can be used against criminal suspects in only very 

narrow circumstances. Unless a suspect is actually himself caught in the act of using deadly 

force, an attempt must first be made to arrest the individual, usually based on a properly issued 

warrant. Needless to say, the bases and refuges—whether in the United States or abroad—of 

criminal defendants cannot simply be the subject of armed attack.

Moreover, application of a “law enforcement” paradigm to the conflict with al-Qaeda 

would all but guarantee that group and its allies safe refuges in states that are either unable 

to effectively control their territory or that are sympathetic to al-Qaeda’s goals—as was the 

case in the Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan in September 2001. This is because there is 

no principle of international law that would permit one state to interpose its law enforcement 

officers (or armed forces for that matter) into the territory of another simply to seize criminal 

suspects.

Although it is true that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that Federal courts will 

not examine how a criminal suspect was brought within their jurisdiction (United States v. 

Alvarez-Machain, 504 US 655 (1992)), cross-border arrests remain an international delict if 

they are effected without the permission of the state where the suspect is physically present. 

The proper process would be to obtain an arrest warrant and then to seek the judicial assistance 

of the state in which the subject is located. If that state refuses to cooperate, there is very little 

that can be done—except to raise the matter in international institutions such as the United 

Nations—or to bring indirect pressure to bear through bilateral sanctions or other diplomatic 

measures. The refuge granted by Serbia and other states to individuals wanted as war criminals 

for actions in the Yugoslav conflicts of the 1990s serves as an excellent example of how a state 

can thwart judicial efforts for many years, even when it has a clear obligation to cooperate.

What this means, of course, is that abandoning the War on Terror in favor of a law enforcement approach to al-Qaeda would inevitably involve ceding the initiative to that group. The 

United States could still use its Armed Forces, but only as adjuncts to its policing power—subject to the same limitations as other police forces. Although opponents of the laws of war paradigm often ignore or deny this conclusion, neither have they suggested any legal basis—other 

than a state of war or armed conflict—on which the United States could use armed force preemptively as a means of disrupting al-Qaeda’s global operations and preventing future attacks 

on the United States and its allies. Only if the United States is engaged in an armed conflict 

does it have the maximum flexibility of using the full potential of its military forces and its law 

enforcement resources against al-Qaeda. In short, the stakes here are very high.

An Undeclared War

The United States decided on a military response almost immediately after the 11 September 2001 attacks. Given the irregular organization and shifting nature of al-Qaeda, and obviously prompted by a determination to avoid any suggestion of a war on or with Islam, the Bush 
211

Administration characterized this conflict as a “War on Terror.” It was not, in fact, the first to 

use this formulation. In August 1998, President Clinton characterized United States missile 

attacks on six al-Qaeda bases/training facilities in Afghanistan—retaliating for the bombings 

of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania—as an attack on terror, also to avoid any suggestion 

of a war with Islam.2

 Nevertheless, whatever the potential diplomatic benefits from a War on 

Terror, the use of this terminology introduced doubt very early on regarding the legal status of 

America’s campaign against al-Qaeda.

In particular, many opponents of the “War” on Terror have directly, and by implication in 

seeking to distinguish various wartime judicial precedents, claimed that the United States is 

not at war because Congress did not “declare war” pursuant to its constitutional authority. Consequently, the argument goes, captured jihadists must be treated as ordinary, civilian criminal 

defendants. In fact, however, the lack of a formal declaration is virtually meaningless—at least 

as a matter of law. The United States Constitution does give Congress the power to declare 

war,3

 but it does not require such a declaration before American military force can be deployed 

or the laws and customs of war invoked to govern a particular conflict. This much was settled 

by the Supreme Court in two cases arising out of the 1798–1800 undeclared or “quasi” naval 

war with France.

The issue of whether a state of war, or other hostilities to which the laws and customs of 

war might apply, exists has traditionally been treated by the US courts as a question ultimately 

to be determined by the political branches of the Government. As explained by Chief Justice 

Marshall in the early case of United States v. Palmer, 16 US (3 Wheat.) 610, 634 (1818), a 

piracy prosecution against individuals who claimed to operate under a commission from an 

unrecognized belligerent in South America:

The court will only observe, that such questions are generally rather political than 

legal in their character. They belong more properly to those who can declare what the 

law shall be; who can place the nation in such a position with respect to foreign powers 

as to their own judgment shall appear wise; to whom are entrusted all its foreign relations; than to that tribunal whose power as well as duty is confi ned to the application 

of the rule which the legislature may prescribe for it.

This rule has generally been followed by the Courts.4 However, the Courts have been called 

on to determine various questions that, in turn, depend on the existence or absence of hostilities. The most important such cases dealing with the question whether the United States can 

be “at war” without a formal declaration are Bas v. Tingy, 4 US (4 Dall.) 37 (1800) and Talbot 

v. Seemans, 5 US (1 Cranch) 1 (1801). Both of these precedents involved the question of how 

much “prize” money was due to US Navy personnel involved in capturing (or recapturing) certain ships from the French. Under the relevant statutes, the actual amount to be paid depended 

on whether the captured vessel was that of an “enemy,” that is, one with whom the United 

States was at war. The Court concluded that the undeclared hostilities with France was a war 

and consistent with the Constitution. As explained by Justice Chase in Bas v. Tingy:

Congress is empowered to declare a general war, or congress may wage a limited 

war; limited in place, in objects and in time. If a general war is declared, its extent 

and operation are only restricted and regulated by the jus belli, forming a part of the 

law of nations; but if a partial war is waged, its extent and operation depend on our 

municipal laws.5
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Chief Justice John Marshall reached a similar conclusion in Talbot v. Seeman. This case 

involved the capture of a neutral ship by France and then its recapture at sea by the USS Constitution, then commanded by Silas Talbot. The Court permitted one-sixth of the recaptured ship’s 

value as salvage under the applicable principles of international law. In reaching this judgment, 

Marshall explained that:

The whole powers of war being, by the constitution of the United States, vested in 

Congress, the acts of that body can alone be resorted to as our guides in this enquiry. It 

is not denied, nor in the course of the argument has it been denied, that congress may 

authorize general hostilities, in which case the general laws of war apply to our situation; or partial hostilities, in which case the laws of war, so far as they actually apply 

to our situation, must be noticed.6

The Court’s adoption of this rule is hardly surprising. By the time the United States Constitution was drafted and ratified in 1787–88, international law and practice clearly accepted 

that a state of war could exist without the formality of a declaration. Indeed, even as early as 

the 1620s, when Hugo Grotius first published his monumental The Rights of War and Peace, 

the necessity of a formal declaration of war in all circumstances was doubtful.7

 According to 

Grotius, such a declaration resulted in a “solemn public war,” the highest form of conflict between states in which—at least theoretically—both sovereigns and all of their subjects were 

public enemies one to the other. “But a publick War not Solemn, may be made both without 

any Formality, and against mere private Persons, and by the Authority of any Magistrate whatever.”8

 By the late 18th century, declarations were not invariably required even for a solemn 

public war—termed by some publicists a “perfect war”—when it was a defensive conflict. As 

explained by Vattel, “He who is attacked and makes only a defensive war, need not declare 

it, the state of war being sufficiently determined by the declaration of the enemy, or his open 

hostilities.”9

In the 19th and 20th centuries, formal declarations of war became even less common, and 

undeclared wars certainly predominated in the 20th century—only World Wars I and II having 

been generally declared by all the Great Powers. In the 220 years since the Constitution was 

adopted, the United States has formally declared war only five times: against Great Britain 

in 1812, Mexico in 1846, Spain in 1898, the Central Powers in 1917, and the Axis Powers in 

1941. It has, however, nevertheless been involved in dozens of armed conflicts, including major wars such as the American Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and 

the Iraq War, without a declaration.

Thus, when Congress authorized the use of “all necessary and appropriate force against 

those nations, organizations, or persons [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001,” Pub. L. No. 107-40, 

115 Stat. 224 (Sept. 18, 2001), it invoked the law of armed conflict in accordance with a wellestablished constitutional power. It did not have to “declare war”—either as a matter of international law or of American municipal law to invoke, on the United States’ behalf, the rights 

of a belligerent. The question remains, of course, can a state claim belligerent rights vis-à-vis 

nonstate actors?

A War Against Nonstate Actors

It certainly is true that states rarely, if ever, have dignified a group like al-Qaeda with a 
213

declaration of war. Nevertheless, there is no general principle of international law that affirmatively forbids a claim of belligerent rights against a nonstate actor, and states have exercised 

such rights against nonstate entities on numerous occasions. Most notable, of course, are the 

post-World War II “wars of national liberation.” In virtually every instance, one side in each 

of these conflicts did not enjoy the status of a sovereign in international law although military 

force was engaged almost from the outset, on both sides. Probably the clearest modern recognition that an armed conflict can exist between a state and nonstate party is found in Common 

Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. This provision imposes certain basic humanitarian obligations on the “parties” to “armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the 

territory of one of the High Contracting Parties.”10

The United States also has used military force against nonstate actors and has not felt 

constrained to treat enemy combatants in these conflicts as civilians—who otherwise are immune from deliberate attack and entitled to trial (among many other rights) in civilian courts.11

The question whether it has acted lawfully, however, has rarely been considered by the courts. 

There are, however, at least two important conflicts in which judicial decisions have been rendered, suggesting that the United States legally can use military force against nonstate actors 

operating pursuant to the laws and customs of war in its activities: the Indian Wars and the 

American Civil War.

The Indian Wars

For more than a century after achieving its independence, the United States fought a series 

of Indian wars on its western frontier. Although throughout this period the American Indian 

tribes were frequently described as “nations,” they were never recognized as independent sovereigns on a par with foreign states. In fact, Indian tribes were viewed as subordinate or dependent, nonstate entities from the earliest days of European settlement. As Chief Justice John 

Marshall himself explained in the early case of Johnson and Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh, 21 

US 543, 574 (1823):

In the establishment of these relations, the rights of the original inhabitants were, in no 

instance, entirely disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired. 

They were admitted to be the rightful occupants of the soil, with a legal as well as just 

claim to retain possession of it, and to use it according to their own discretion; but their 

rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished, 

and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, 

was denied by the original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title 

to those who made it.

While the different nations of Europe respected the right of the natives, as occupants, 

they asserted the ultimate dominion to be in themselves. . . .

That case involved the legal question whether direct Indian land grants or sales to private 

citizens constituted good and sufficient title in the US courts. Because, as Marshall reasoned, 

the original European claimants to American territory—and the United States as their successor—claimed and exercised “a power to grant the soil, while yet in possession of the natives,” 

Indians could not convey good title directly to non-Indians without the land having first been 

granted to the United States (or one of its predecessor states) as ultimate sovereign. He went 

on clearly to distinguish from Indian tribes the nation-states of Europe or Asia, explaining that 
214

“[t]he words ‘princes or governments,’ are usually applied to the East Indians, but not to those 

of North America. We speak of their sachems, their warriors, their chief men, their nations or 

tribes, not of their ‘princes or governments.’”12

Indeed, even the most westernized tribe, the Cherokee, was not considered to be a “foreign 

state” for constitutional purposes. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 US 1 (1831), the Cherokee brought suit against Georgia in the US Supreme Court to enjoin the state from executing 

laws “which, as is alleged, go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society, and to 

seize, for the use of Georgia, the lands of the nation which have been assured to them by the 

United States in solemn treaties repeatedly made and still in force.”13 The tribe claimed to be “a 

sovereign and independent state,” entitled to invoke the Court’s jurisdiction pursuant to Article 

III, section 2, of the Constitution as a “foreign state” suing one of the states of the Union.

Although the Court clearly sympathized with the Indians’ claim—as Chief Justice Marshall 

wrote for the majority “[i]f courts were permitted to indulge their sympathies, a case better calculated to excite them can scarcely be imagined”—it nevertheless ruled that the Indian nations 

were not foreign states.14 He discussed the paradoxical nature of the Indians’ relationship to the 

Federal Government and concluded that they were not foreign nations “not we presume because 

a tribe may not be a nation, but because it is not foreign to the United States. When, afterwards, 

the term ‘foreign state’ is introduced, we cannot impute to the [Constitutional] convention the 

intention to desert its former meaning, and to comprehend Indian tribes within it.”15

Thus, regardless of whether Indian tribes could be considered “nations” in some sense, 

they were not and could not be treated as foreign states. Nevertheless, even though the Indian 

tribes may have been nonstate actors in the modern sense, it is clear that the United States believed that it could be in a state of war with the Indians. (From the Indian perspective, of course, 

as one historian notes, “[t]he colonists were just rival tribes, and as such, they were subject to 

armed raids.”16)

Leaving aside the almost constant potential for Indian/settler violence along the frontier, 

at least six major Indian/US conflicts in the East can be identified between 1789 and 1841. 

These wars included the conflict in the Old Northwest from 1790–95, ending in the 1794 

Battle of Fallen Timers (near Toledo, Ohio) and the 1795 Greenville Treaty, the 1805–11 war 

with Tecumseh (in which future President William Henry Harrison commanded US forces at 

the Battle of Tippecanoe), which itself bled into the War of 1812 and the 1813–14 Creek War 

(where Andrew Jackson first became a national military hero), the 1832 Black Hawk War (in 

which a young Abraham Lincoln served as an Illinois militiaman), the Seminole Wars of 1818 

and 1836–41 (in which Zachary Taylor defeated a major Seminole force at Lake Okeechobee 

in 1837).

Congress, of course, never adopted a “declaration of war” pursuant to its constitutional 

power against any tribe or other grouping of American Indians. As early as 1795, however, it 

authorized the use of military force against hostile tribes:

Whenever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion 

from any foreign nation or Indian tribe, it shall be lawful for the President of the 

United States to call forth such number of the militia of the State or States most con-
215

venient to the place of danger, or scene of action, as he may judge necessary to repel 

such invasion, and to issue his order for that purpose to such offi cer or offi cers of the 

militia as he shall think proper.17

Of course, although the courts characterized Indian tribes as subordinate sovereignties, 

unlike al-Qaeda or other modern terrorist groups, they arguably retained some lawful right to 

make war. Although this issue never came before the Supreme Court for decision, Chief Justice 

Marshall did suggest as much (albeit in dicta) in Worcester v. Georgia, 31 US 515 (1832). This 

case was decided only a year after Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and, along with that decision, 

was part of Marshall’s contest with President Andrew Jackson over the Cherokees’ legitimate 

rights vis-à-vis the state of Georgia. Although Marshall concluded that the Cherokees were not 

a “foreign state” in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, his opinion in Worcester suggested that they 

were, nevertheless, a species of independent sovereign capable of making treaties as well as 

war and peace. It is with regard to this decision that Jackson is supposed to have said “John 

Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”18

Worcester itself involved the criminal conviction of a Vermont citizen and Christian missionary, Samuel A. Worcester, who was prosecuted under a Georgia statute forbidding—among 

many other things—non-Indians to reside “within the limits of the Cherokee nation without a 

license.” The gravamen of Worcester’s defense, and ultimately of Marshall’s opinion, was a 

series of treaties between the Cherokees and the United States that guaranteed their territorial 

rights and, Worcester argued, “acknowledged the said Cherokee nation to be a sovereign nation, authorised to govern themselves, and all persons who have settled within their territory, 

free from any right of legislative interference by the several states.”19

Marshall agreed, ruling that Georgia could not impose its laws on the Cherokees or in a 

manner to effect non-Indians living within Indian territory in accordance with the Indians’ 

own laws. In reaching this conclusion, Marshall again recounted the European discovery and 

settlement of America, focusing this time on the various limits imposed by royal charters on 

the English colonies that became the American states. He relied particularly on the 1791 Treaty 

of Holston between the United States and the Cherokees, entered after the Constitution’s adoption, noting the equality of its provisions and characterizing the relationship established as “that 

of a nation claiming and receiving the protection of one more powerful: not that of individuals 

abandoning their national character, and submitting as subject to the laws of a master.”20 Construing this, or other relevant treaties, to extinguish the Cherokees’ right of self-government 

within their own territory would, Marshall noted, be inconsistent with their spirit and “especially of those articles which recognised the right of the Cherokees to declare hostilities, and 

to make war. It would convert a treaty of peace covertly into an act, annihilating the political 

existence of one of the parties. Had such a result been intended, it would have been openly 

avowed.”21

At the same time, no other decision so openly suggested that the Indian tribes had the right 

to make war against the United States, and the decision in Worcester was clearly the zenith of 

the Supreme Court’s treatment of Indian tribes as sovereigns merely allied to and dependent 

on the United States. Its analysis did not survive the test of time, as noted by the Court in Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 US 145, 148 (1973) (“[t]he conceptual clarity of Mr. Chief 

Justice Marshall’s view in Worcester v. Georgia [citation omitted], has given way to more individualized treatment of particular treaties and specific federal statutes”), and Marshall’s lan-
216

guage must be read in the context where it was written—an increasingly bitter, and ultimately 

unsuccessful, battle to protect Indian rights against a President determined to implement a 

policy removing the tribes (including the well-organized and self-governing Cherokees), west 

of the Mississippi.

Perhaps more to the point, to the extent that Marshall’s Worcester opinion was based on the 

treaty-based relationship then prevailing between the United States and the Indian tribes, that 

practice ended well before the 19th century, and significantly, it ended before the Indian wars 

came to a close. In the Act of March 3, 1871 (ch. 120, sec. 1), Congress provided that “hereafter no Indian Nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or 

recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract 

by treaty.”22

From that time onward, relations between the Federal Government and the Indians have 

been governed by the Commerce Clause, which gives Congress the power to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes,” US 

Constitution, art. 1, sec 8, although preexisting treaty rights have not necessarily been extinguished. The Supreme Court’s leading cases on the question of Indian hostilities date from this 

later period, as do some of the longest and most desperate conflicts between the United States 

and the Indian tribes, including the 1872–73 Modoc War in northern California, the 1874–75 

Red River War in Texas, the Great Sioux War of 1876–79 across the Northern Plains, and the 

Apache Wars of the 1870s and 1880s in the Southwest.23

The Supreme Court addressed the question of whether the United States could be at war 

with Indian tribes or other less formally organized Indian groupings in Marks v. United States, 

161 US 297 (1896). That case involved construction of the 1891 Indian Depredations Act and 

dealt with claims arising out of a series of 1877–78 attacks by the Bannock and Paiute Indians 

in Idaho and Oregon. The Court denied recovery because the tribes in question were not “in 

amity” with the United States when the claimants’ property was destroyed. It accepted that 

hostilities between states could exist without a formally declared war but noted that the more 

appropriate test here was whether the Indians and the United States had actually been in “amity”—the word used by Congress in the statute—that is, that the tribe itself was not engaged in 

hostilities at the relevant time. Significantly, the Court noted that if a declaration of war, or abrogation of treaties, was necessary to establish hostilities—to prove that the tribe was not then 

“in amity” with the United States—“the killing of a hostile Bannock by one of the soldiers of 

our army, even if done within the limits of the Bannock reservation, would have been murder, 

on the ground that the Bannock tribe was still under treaty relations, and, therefore, in amity 

with the government.”24 Clearly, the Court did not believe this to have been the case. 

Similarly, in United States Montoya, 180 US 261 (1901), the Court considered the question of hostilities between the United States and Indian tribes. That case also involved Indian 

Depredation Act claims, this time for damages to property and livestock during the 1877–80 

war with Victorio’s band of Apache Indians. In 1876, the US Government determined to move 

the Chiricahua Apache from the Ojo Caliente Indian Agency in New Mexico (which had been 

used “as a virtual base camp for raids into Mexico”) to the San Carlos Agency in Arizona.25 In 

September 1877, an Apache leader named Victorio began a series of raids in Arizona and New 
217

Mexico. Driven into Mexico by the US cavalry in 1879, Victorio returned to the United States 

the next year and joined forces with a group of Mescalero Apache from the Tularosa Reservation in New Mexico.

Victorio’s band was finally defeated by joint US-Mexican Army operations in the summer 

and fall of 1880; he was killed by Mexican troops in Chihuahua Province on 16 October of 

that year. It was, however, his Mescalero allies who were responsible for the depredations at 

issue in Montoya. At issue there was whether the United States was at war with Victorio’s marauders—who at some points numbered in the hundreds—or whether his attacks were merely 

“depredations” committed by members of a tribe otherwise “in amity” with the United States. 

The object of the Indian Depredations Act, as the Court explained, was to “compensate settlers 

for depredations committed by individual marauders belonging to a body which is then at peace 

with the Government.”26 If, on the other hand:

. . . the depredation be committed by an organized company of men constituting a 

band in itself, acting independently of any other band or tribe, and carrying on hostilities against the United States, such acts may amount to a war for the consequences of 

which the Government is not responsible under this act, or upon general principles of 

law.27

In the event, the Court concluded that Victorio’s Mescaleros had broken from their tribe 

and were independently at war with the United States. As a result, no compensation was due. 

In reaching this conclusion, the Court again examined the nature of Indian political organization—“[t]he North American Indians do not and never have constituted ‘nations’ as that word 

is used by writers upon international law” and the criteria to be used in distinguishing acts of 

war from mere criminal behavior. In this connection, the Court explained that:

Whether a collection of marauders shall be treated as a “band” whose depredations are 

not covered by the act may depend not so much upon the numbers of those engaged 

in the raid as upon the fact whether their depredations are part of a hostile demonstration against the Government or settlers in general, or are for the purpose of individual 

plunder. If their hostile acts are directed against the Government or against all settlers 

with whom they come in contact, it is evidence of an act of war.28

This distinction, the Court noted further, had a long history in Anglo-American jurisprudence, having been the basis of differentiating treason in English law (that is, levying war 

against the Crown) from mere riot.29 By this test, of course, there is little doubt that the United 

States is at “war” with al-Qaeda. Although that group’s activities are manifestly illegal, its attacks against the United States, individual Americans, and American interests round the world 

are clearly “part of a hostile demonstration against the Government.”

War With the Confederacy

The United States has engaged in armed conflict with a number of nonstate actors throughout its history, but the Civil War is clearly the most significant such instance. Although the Confederacy had all of the ordinary attributes of a sovereign state, including a population, territory, 

and government, its claims to independent status were never recognized by the United States 
218

or by any other sovereign. Indeed, as the Supreme Court made clear in the years after the war 

itself, as a matter of law, the seceded states had never lost their character as states of the Union 

and never became entities foreign to the United States with the right to make war against it.30

Nevertheless, the right of the United States to make war on the Confederacy was fully recognized. The leading case was, and remains, The Brig Amy Warwick; The Schooner Crenshaw, 

The Barque Hiawatha and the Schooner Brillante, collectively known as The Prize Cases, 67 

US 635 (1862). As the name suggests, these cases involved ships captured at sea by US forces. 

All were either owned by Confederate residents or were neutral vessels attempting to run the 

blockade of the South declared by President Lincoln in April 1861. Declaration of a blockade, 

of course, was an indisputable claim of belligerent rights by the United States—and so the 

Supreme Court held.

In affirming the condemnation of these ships as prizes of war, the Court acknowledged that 

a state of war was necessary:

The right of prize and capture has its origin in the “jus belli,” and is governed and adjudged under the law of nations. To legitimate the capture of a neutral vessel or property on the high seas, a war must exist de facto, and the neutral must have a knowledge 

or notice of the intention of one of the parties belligerent to use this mode of coercion 

against a port, city, or territory, in possession of the other.31

It also recognized that a state of war can exist even though only one party actually is an 

independent state with the right to make war. In this regard, it noted that “[t]he parties belligerent in a public war are independent nations. But it is not necessary to constitute war, that both 

parties should be acknowledged as independent nations or sovereign States. A war may exist 

where one of the belligerents, claims sovereign rights as against the other.”32

In The Prize Cases, of course, the Court was speaking in terms of a conventional civil 

war rather than a war against a transnational terrorist organization. However, its reasoning is 

equally applicable to the War on Terror. The key, of course, is the claim of “sovereign rights.” 

The Confederacy had claimed both the right of self-government and the right to vindicate its 

claims to independence by armed force. These are sovereign rights. Significantly, this test of 

whether a “war” exists is similar to that articulated by the Supreme Court in United States v. 

Montoya, involving the question whether hostile acts are directed against the Government or 

merely “for the purpose of individual plunder.”33

Al-Qaeda similarly claims sovereign rights although of a far more ancient character than 

the Confederacy’s assertion of the right to establish an independent nation-state. Bin Laden 

has openly proclaimed a Muslim jihad or holy war against the United States and various other 

political and religious enemies. Traditionally, such a proclamation could only be made by the 

Muslim Caliph, or “commander of the faithful,” who was both a religious and political leader. 

For centuries, that title was held by the Ottoman sultan, and the last Caliph generally recognized was a member of the Ottoman family finally deposed by Ataturk in the 1920s. It is not 

necessary, however, for bin Laden to be recognized as a Caliph to, nevertheless, notice the 

political nature of his actions. By openly declaring hostilities against the United States and by 

targeting its territory, population, and military assets, al-Qaeda has claimed sovereign rights, as 

that term was used in The Prize Cases, as against the United States and the rest of the interna-
219

tional community, and the United States is fully within its rights to behave as a belligerent.

At the same time, it need not accord those same rights to al-Qaeda. As the Supreme Court 

noted in The Prize Cases, “the parties to a civil war usually concede to each other belligerent 

rights. They exchange prisoners and adopt the other courtesies and rules common to public or 

national wars.”34 This, however, clearly is on the basis of reciprocity—and it was on that basis 

that the United States and the Confederacy generally accorded the rights of belligerency to 

each others’ armed forces. Nevertheless, as the legitimate sovereign, the United States retained 

the right to treat Confederate “nationals” as either criminal offenders or wartime enemies. In 

this regard, The Prize Cases Court ruled that the property of individual southerners could be 

seized as a “prize” of war without a criminal trial, even though they might themselves still be 

considered “traitors”:

Now it is a proposition never doubted, that the belligerent party who claims to be sovereign, may exercise both belligerent and sovereign rights [citation omitted]. Treating 

the other party as a belligerent and using only the milder modes of coercion which the 

law of nations has introduced to mitigate the rigors of war, cannot be the subject of 

complaint by the party to whom it is accorded as a grace or granted as a necessity.

. . . They have cast off their allegiance and made war on their Government, and are 

none the less enemies because they are traitors.35

This does not, of course, mean that all Confederates could have been treated as “enemy 

combatants.” This status would depend on their individual actions—as later suggested by the 

Supreme Court in Ex Parte Milligan, 71 US 2, 121 (1866). That case, of course, dealt with the 

military trial of an Indiana resident and Confederate sympathizer, but one who, in the Court’s 

words, was “a citizen in civil life in nowise connected with the military service.” And, more 

than anything else, it is this issue that dominates the debate over the War on Terror’s legal status.36

Enemy Combatants and Enemy Civilians

Armed conflict with a nonstate actor highlights a number of issues that, although also 

present in state-to-state conflicts, are of much less consequence when the opposing forces 

are regularly organized military establishments. In such circumstances, it is, of course, much 

easier to identify the enemy and to determine who is a combatant subject to attack and who 

is a noncombatant or civilian and immune from deliberate attack. A nonstate actor may, of 

course, organize itself as a regular military force—as is sometimes the case in civil wars. In the 

American Civil War, for example, the Southern States did rely primarily on a regular military 

force, and that force was granted—at least as a practical matter—belligerent rights on the basis 

of reciprocity:

The legal relation of the rebels, who were citizens, was that of criminals; but the political department of the government treated them practically as belligerents. This was 

not only on grounds of humanity, but of policy, to prevent retaliation. Yet this course 

pursued by the government was not a recognition of belligerent rights in the rebels, or 

a recognition of a legal status in them as belligerents. It was a course of policy from 

day to day, and from place to place, held under political discretion all the while; liable 

to be discontinued or modifi ed as to persons or places, or altogether abandoned, in that 

discretion.37
220

If a nonstate actor fails to organize a regular military force, operating in accordance with 

the accepted laws of armed conflict, the situation obviously becomes far more complicated.

Traditionally, individuals who resorted to armed force, but who did not organize and operate like regular troops, were denied—even as an expedient—combatant rights: “Hence it is 

that in land wars, irregular bands of marauders are liable to be treated as lawless banditti, not 

entitled to the protection of the mitigated usages of war as practices by civilized nations.”38

Such individuals were considered to be combatants in that they could be targeted for attack by 

military force but were not entitled to the rights and privileges of prisoners of war (POW) upon 

capture and could be tried and punished as war criminals. As explained in the British Military 

Manual used during the World Wars: “[p]eaceful inhabitants . . . may not be killed or wounded, 

nor as a rule taken prisoners, and they have other privileges . . . . If, however, they make an attempt to commit hostile acts, they are not entitled to the rights of armed forces, and are liable 

to execution as war criminals.”39

This category of individual—someone engaging in hostilities but not enrolled in a regular 

armed force operating in accordance with the law of armed conflict—was described by the US 

Supreme Court as an “unlawful combatant” in the much discussed World War II precedent Ex 

Parte Quirin, 317 US 1 (1942). In that case, the Court ruled that eight German saboteurs were 

not entitled to be treated as civilians, triable only in the civilian courts, but could be tried and 

punished by a military commission convened specifically for that purpose under the laws of 

war. It was obviously on the basis of this decision that President Bush issued his original Military Order of November 13, 2001, 66 Fed. Reg. 57,833, authorizing the use of military commissions to try al-Qaeda members and others involved in acts of international terrorism against 

the United States and its citizens. This order has, of course, been superseded by the Military 

Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006, Pub. L. No. 109-366, 120 Stat. 2601, and by subsequent 

Executive orders.

The MCA’s constitutionality is still being challenged in the courts, and it is in that context that the continuing debate over the enemy’s nature in the War on Terror will most likely 

be worked out. Opponents of the President’s policies, and the MCA increasingly assert, that 

al-Qaeda agents, like Jose Padilla and Ali Saleh Hahlah al-Marri (both detained in the United 

States), are civilians who must be held, if at all, as criminal defendants and granted ordinary 

judicial process. The legal distinction between these individuals—who are believed to have 

trained at al-Qaeda camps and entered the United States to carry out attacks on the civilian 

population—and the al-Qaeda fighters battling US and Coalition forces in Afghanistan and 

Iraq is unclear. The Al-Marri Court concluded that he was a civilian because the legal category 

of “combatant” is reserved for conflicts between states.40 It based this extraordinary claim on 

a 2005 Internet posting by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), stating that 

“[i]n non-international armed conflict [that is, those subject to Common Article 3 of the 1949 

Geneva Conventions] combatant status does not exist.” This post was, in fact, inconsistent with 

the ICRC’s own views of Common Article 3 published in its 1960 commentaries. At that time, 

the ICRC recognized that Common Article 3’s application was principally geographic and that 

“the conflicts referred to in Article 3 are armed conflicts, with armed forces on either side engaged in hostilities—conflicts, in short, which are in many respects similar to an international 

war, but take place within the confines of a single country.”41 “Armed forces” and “hostilities” 
221

are, of course, terms of art that imply—indeed, that require—the existence of the legal category 

of “combatant,” whether or not both parties are state actors.

The ICRC’s claim that the combatant category does not exist in “noninternational” conflicts 

appears to be based on two related assumptions. First, there are no combatants because the Geneva Conventions (with the exception of Common Article 3) do not apply in such circumstances. Second, there are no combatants because states do not grant lawful combatant status, including “combatant immunity” from prosecution for hostile acts, to nonstate actors: “[m]embers 

of organized armed groups are entitled to no special status under the laws of non-international 

armed conflict and may be prosecuted under domestic criminal law if they have taken part in 

hostilities.”42 Neither assumption, however, is sufficient to support the proposition.

Important as the Geneva Conventions are, they are not the sum and substance of international humanitarian law. These treaties merely supplemented the international law of war; they 

did not replace it.43 In that connection, the treaties did not purport to eliminate the preexisting 

category of unlawful enemy combatant—either in the context of state/state or state/nonstate 

conflicts. Moreover, and perhaps even more to the point, the fact that states refuse to grant 

combatant immunity, that is, immunity from prosecution for hostile acts, to nonstate actors 

does not eliminate the legal category of combatant from noninternational conflict. There are 

always “combatants” in an armed conflict between a state and a nonstate actor, lawful combatants on the state’s side (assuming its military meets the four criteria to qualify as “armed 

forces”), and unlawful or unprivileged combatants on the nonstate side. Nonstate actors cannot 

demand combatant immunity as a legal right, although they may qualify for POW treatment if 

they also comply with the four criteria. This, of course, was the case during the American Civil 

War when, as noted previously, the United States granted “belligerent” rights to the Confederate armed forces as a matter of expediency.

In any case, even the ICRC did not suggest—as did the al-Marri Court—that nonstate actors who engage in hostilities must be treated as “civilians” who would, of course, be immune 

from military attack in the first instance. The ICRC did claim that unlawful combatants may 

be entitled to certain rights under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which does protect civilians, 

or potentially under Protocol I Additional where it applies. Whether any species of combatant 

is entitled to claim rights under the Fourth Convention is a debatable point. That treaty’s stated 

purpose is to “establish[] a Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.”44

“Civilian” is not defined in the treaty, but like “combatant,” it is a term of art—and one that 

excludes combatants.

The laws of war have, of course, long recognized a fundamental distinction between soldiers and civilians, combatants and noncombatants. This was recognized in the earliest codification of the modern laws of war, General Order No. 100, Instructions for the Government of 

Armies of the United States in the Field (24 April 1861), generally known as the Lieber Code, 

which stated that “[i]n modern regular wars of the Europeans and their descendants in other 

portions of the globe, protection of the inoffensive citizen of the hostile country is the rule.” 

The principle was stated more fulsomely in the 1914 British Military Manual: “It is . . . a universally recognized rule of International Law that hostilities are restricted to the armed forces 

of the belligerents, and that the ordinary citizens of the contending States, who do not take up 
222

arms and who abstain from hostile acts, must be treated leniently, must not be injured in their 

lives or liberty, except for cause or after due trial, and must not as a rule be deprived of their 

private property.”45

The key phrase, of course, is “who do not take up arms and who abstain from hostile acts.” 

This has been the touchstone of the immunity from attack enjoyed by civilians—at least in 

principle—since the Middle Ages. One leading historian has found the genesis of a noncombatant immunity from attack in the use of Canon Law to protect the clergy, noting statements in 

an early treatise on war by Honore Bouvet: “The evils of war . . . stemmed not from war itself, 

but from wrongful use and practices. Since wrong practices could be put right, it followed that 

something could be done for the non-combatant. This marked a change of attitude: here was 

a man asserting that, through the observance of canon law, the excesses of war might be prevented and the doctrine of proportionality observed.”46 Clerics, as well as women, children, and 

unarmed paupers were excepted because they did not and could not resist.47 This rule survived 

into the modern period and was restated more broadly by Grotius: “[w]hat we have said (of 

Women and Children) may be generally said of all Men, whose Manner of Life is wholly averse 

to Arms. By the Law of War, only those that are in Arms, and do resist, are to be killed.”48

As suggested previously, individuals who were not enrolled in a regular military force but 

who nevertheless did resist, who took up arms and engaged in hostile actions were not—and 

could not be—civilians. Moreover, they also were not entitled to the rights and privileges of 

combatants.49 The only conditions under which civilian noncombatants could lawfully engage 

in hostilities were participation in the levée en masse or belonging to irregular forces that complied with the four critical criteria of lawful combatancy.

The levée en masse was “[a] rising of ‘the inhabitants of a territory not under occupation 

who, on the approach of the enemy; spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading troops 

without having had time to organize themselves,” that also carried arms openly and conducted 

its operation in accord with the laws and customs of war.50 The four criteria, of course, were the 

requirements of a regular command structure, uniforms, openly carried arms, and operational 

compliance with the laws and customs of war that defined a state’s own “armed forces” as lawful or privileged combatants.51 Individuals who take up arms without falling into one of the exceptional categories are properly classified as unprivileged or “unlawful” enemy combatants.

Moreover, once a civilian became a combatant, he could not return to noncombatant status: 

“It is necessary to remember that inhabitants who have legitimately taken up arms cannot afterwards change their status back to that of peaceful inhabitants. Even if they lay down their arms 

and return to their peaceful avocations, they may be made prisoners of war.”52 In other words, 

although it is possible in certain circumstances for a civilian to attain a status as a privileged or 

lawful combatant, no one was permitted to slip back and forth across the line of combatant and 

noncombatant, soldier and civilian, demanding the rights and privileges of both. The individual 

must choose. This rule was not changed by the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.

Indeed, the Fourth Geneva Convention does not adopt a definition of civilian different 

from the traditional understanding and guarantees rights only to those who “find themselves, in 

case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of 

which they are not nationals.”53 It does not address the rights, if any, of individuals who are not 
223

“in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power” and who do not qualify for POW 

treatment under the Third Convention.54 It was, in fact, this very gap in the Geneva Conventions’ supposedly comprehensive coverage that Protocol I Additional was in part designed to 

fill by granting at least some rights to individuals who do engage in hostilities but who do not 

fulfill the requisite four criteria.

Thus, Article 45 of Protocol I Additional provides that “any person who has taken part in 

hostilities, who is not entitled to prisoner-of-war status and who does not benefit from more 

favourable treatment in accordance with the Fourth Convention shall have the right at all times 

to the protection of Article 75 of this Protocol.” This clearly recognizes that there will be individuals who have “taken part in hostilities” that do not enjoy Fourth Convention status. This 

very point was conceded, if perhaps grudgingly, by the ICRC in its commentaries on Protocol 

I Additional:

In armed confl ict with an international character, a person of enemy nationality who is 

not entitled to prisoner-of-war status is, in principle, a civilian protected by the Fourth 

Convention, so that there are no gaps in protection. However, things are not always so 

straightforward in the context of the armed confl icts of Article 1, paragraph 4 [wars 

of national liberation], as the adversaries can have the same nationality. Moreover, 

the concept of alien occupation often becomes rather fl uid in guerilla operations as 

no fi xed legal border delineates the areas held by either Party, and this may result in 

insurmountable technical diffi culties with regard to the application of some of the 

provisions of the Fourth Convention. This is one of the reasons why the paragraph 

under consideration here [granting rights to persons taking part in hostilities who are 

not entitled to POW status] provides that in the absence of more favourable treatment 

in accordance with the Fourth Convention, the accused is entitled at all times to the 

protection of Article 75 of the Protocol.55

In any case, neither Common Article 3 nor Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention 

requires that a “protected person” be treated as a civilian defendant under the laws of the detaining power.56 Such persons are guaranteed only “the rights of a fair and regular trial” if and 

when they are subjected to a criminal process.

The al-Marri Court, however, concluded that al-Qaeda members must be treated as civilians who are not subject “to seizure and confinement by military authorities.”57 Civilians, of 

course, also are not subject to attack by military authorities. The court never explained the legal 

basis on which al-Qaeda operatives, who in its view cannot be enemy combatants, could be 

the subject of armed attack anywhere in the world and simply noting with regard to al-Qaeda’s 

more traditional battlefield operations in places like Afghanistan that “the Government has 

proffered no evidence that al-Marri has taken a ‘direct part in hostilities.’”58 This issue, however, cannot be so easily or carelessly sidestepped—at least not by the executive branch. The 

United States must articulate a legal justification for the many armed attacks its forces have 

carried out against al-Qaeda since the War on Terror began—and earlier when President Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks on al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998. There 

is no such justification if al-Qaeda operatives are simply civilian, criminal defendants.

Of course, they are not civilians. Clearly, the court’s principal concern in al-Marri was 

to construct a plausible rationale under which al-Marri and others captured, like him, in the 

United States are not subject to the laws of war and must be treated as civilian criminal defen-
224

dants. Such individuals can, of course, be treated in this manner since the Government can—as 

the Supreme Court made clear in The Prize Cases59—exercise both belligerent and law enforcement rights in a conflict with a nonstate. But in reaching its desired result to require such 

treatment, the al-Marri Court ignored the very essence of al-Qaeda’s military organization—its 

most effective fighters have been men trained as terrorists or saboteurs and then sent to the 

United States to await the signal for attack. This, of course, was exactly the case with the 19 

men who carried out the 11 September attacks. It also ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling in Ex 

Parte Quirin, which dealt with exactly this type of combatant.

The al-Marri Court attempted to distinguish Quirin because that case involved saboteurs 

who were associated with the German Government with which the United States was at war.60

However, the enemy’s governmental character and the formally declared nature of hostilities 

were not factors central to the Supreme Court’s reasoning in that case. Rather, the Quirin Court 

relied on the customary laws of war as recognized by the United States.61 As discussed previously, the application of those rules was not, and is not, limited to wars formally declared by 

Congress and involving foreign states. Significantly, the Quirin defendants did not claim to be 

the soldiers of Germany, entitled to the rights and privileges of POW status or to be tried by 

regular courts martial, but claimed a civilian status entitled under Ex Parte Milligan to trial in 

the civilian courts.62

Ex Parte Milligan, of course, remains the Supreme Court’s leading precedent standing for 

the proposition that civilians cannot be tried by military courts in the United States while the 

civil courts are open and operating. It was distinguished by the Quirin Court on exactly that 

ground—because the captured Nazi saboteurs were not civilians but combatants.63 Milligan

does not, however, provide much guidance on the distinction between a combatant and a civilian—probably because Milligan was so clearly on the civilian side of that all important line.

Lambdin P. Milligan was a 49-year-old lawyer practicing in Huntington, Indiana, when 

the Civil War opened in 1861. “[H]ardheaded, dogmatic, and often imprudent,” he was also a 

Democratic Party activist and a prominent critic of both the war and the Lincoln Administration’s civil liberties record.64 At some point in 1864—an election year in which casualties were 

high and progress far from obvious—Milligan associated himself with the Sons of Liberty, one 

of several secret or “dark lantern” societies founded in the North by Southern sympathizers or 

Copperheads. In theory, at least, Milligan served as one of its four major generals.

Former Ohio Congressman and leading Copperhead, Clement L. Vallandigham was nominal head of the Sons of Liberty, although the group was founded by an Indianapolis printer/

publisher named H.H. Dodd. Whether the organization ever amounted to anything more than 

a secret, albeit highly seditious, political society is debatable. According to a leading historian, 

its military arm “existed more in Dodd’s mind than in practice,” and it is unclear whether Milligan knew that Dodd had conferred on him a military rank.65 Perhaps more to the point, the 

Government’s evidence at trial was long on the group’s rituals, secret signs,66 degrees,67 organization (including a literary committee), and meetings,68 but it was very short on evidence of 

actual hostile acts. Although the group did apparently attempt to obtain arms (several hundred 

revolvers supposedly connected to the Sons of Liberty were seized) and one witness suggested 

that there had been some (unarmed) drill,69 this evidence, as well as the organization’s military 

character overall, was contradicted by others.70
225

When it came to armed insurrection, however, there was a good deal of talk, but the use 

of armed force against the Government was always conditional in some way—awaiting, for 

instance, the appearance of a Confederate Army or (at least) guerrilla force in the state.71 In the 

event, the sign never came, and the conditions were never satisfied. As one witness answered 

to a question about a planned rising: “What was to take place on the 16th of August—An uprising in the States of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Missouri; the Confederates were to come up 

through the Cumberland Gap; but we did not rise, and the rebels did not come.”72 Based on the 

evidence at his trial, Milligan was at most an aspiring combatant who never quite made it. As 

“[o]ne disappointed copperhead declared angrily . . . there were ‘too many political soldiers in 

the Sons of Liberty.’”73

Significantly, the only charge against Milligan involving a “violation” of the laws of war 

was “attempt[ing] to introduce said enemies of the United States into the loyal States” and 

“organiz[ing] and extend[ing] a certain unlawful secret society or order known as the Order 

of American Knights or Order of the Sons of Liberty, having for its purpose the same general 

object and design as the said enemies of the United States.”74 In other words, no participation 

in, or material support of, armed action against the United States was alleged or proved.75 The 

charge against Milligan, as conceded by a very hostile Judge Advocate, was always conspiracy: 

“[c]onspiracy is the gist of the charges, and the other offences charged grew out of this.”76

Al-Qaeda, by contrast, is far more than a conspiracy. It has trained and deployed hundreds 

of fighters in the Middle East and other parts of the world. Since the 1990s, it has carried out 

a series of armed attacks on the United States at home and abroad, including both military 

and civilian targets. However much the opponents of the War on Terror dislike categorization of al-Qaeda operatives as combatants, attempting to classify individuals who have taken 

part in hostilities, or who are preparing to do so, as “civilians” is unrealistic and shortsighted. 

Throughout history, the critical attribute of civilian status has been that very “inoffensiveness” 

noted in the Lieber Code, which comes from the civilian’s quintessential character as a noncombatant.

Creating a category of civilian combatants, who may participate in hostilities and still retain their civilian status—even if in theory they may be prosecuted—will invariably endanger 

the civilian population as a whole. And that should matter. Experience teaches that, in the context of irregular warfare, it is already difficult enough to keep regular troops from viewing all 

members of the local population as enemies—because they are, in fact, all potential enemies. 

Creating a type of civilian who can take part in hostilities but who is otherwise immune to attack or trial in the military justice system will simply make that distinction all the more difficult 

to maintain.

Notes

1. See al-Marri v. Wright, 487 F.3d 160 (4th Cir. 2007), rehearing granted, No. 06-7427 (Aug. 

22, 2007).

2. See “Clinton Strikes Terrorist Bases,” Electronic Telegraph, 21 August 1998, http://www. 
226

telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/08/21/wemb21.html.

3. US Constitution, art. I, sec. 8, cl. 10.

4. See also The Prize Cases, 67 US 635, 669 (1862). 

5. 4 US (4 Dall.), 43.

6. 5 US (1 Cranch), 28 (emphasis added). For example, in Little v. Barreme, 6 US (2 Cranch) 

170, 177 (1804), the Supreme Court concluded that the President’s instructions authorizing the interception of American vessels sailing from or to France went beyond his authority. It reasoned that 

Congress had allowed only the interception of vessels proceeding to French ports. Although this case 

often is cited as authority for congressional power generally to limit the President’s exercise of his own 

Commander in Chief powers, it is better understood as a recognition that Congress’s specific constitutional authority to “make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water,” US Constitution, art. I, sec. 

8, cl.11, can limit the President’s authority in such cases.

7. It appears that France was the last great power formally to declare war by the declamation 

of “heralds at arms” in the public marketplace, when it entered the Thirty Years War against Spain in 

1635. Since that time, the general practice has been to issue a proclamation or manifesto within the 

relevant state’s own territory. See Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law (Boston, MA: Little, 

Brown, and Company, 1866, rev. ed. 1995, W. S. Hein ed.), 317. 

8. Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, vol. 1 (1625) (revised ed. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2005), 250.

9. Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations or Principles of the Law of Nature Applied to the 

Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns (1757) (Dublin: 1792, Luke White ed.), 475. This point 

was clearly understood and accepted by at least one of the Constitution’s principal architects, Alexander Hamilton. In response to the Jefferson Administration’s claims that the United States could attack 

and seize Algerian ships on the high seas only after declaring war, Hamilton wrote that a state of war 

“between two nations is completely produced by the act of one—it requires no concurrent act of the 

other.” He further noted that the Constitution did not incorporate such a rule, claiming that “[t]he framers of it would have blushed at a provision, so repugnant to good sense, so inconsistent with national 

safety and inconvenience . . . when a foreign nation declares, or openly and avowedly makes war upon 

the United States, they are then by the very fact, already at war, and any declaration on the part of 

Congress is nugatory: it is at least unnecessary.” See Alexander Hamilton, “The Examination,” no. 1, 

17 December 1801, reprinted in no. 3, The Founder’s Constitution, eds. Philip B. Kurland and Ralph 

Lerner (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987).

10. This provision was recently interpreted by the US Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 

126 S. Ct. 2749 (2006), as applying to the conflict in Afghanistan. It certainly is the case that Common 

Article 3 may apply to a conflict between a state and a nonstate actor. It is unclear, however, whether it 

applies to all such conflicts or only those that are confined to the territory of a single state.

11. A number of these conflicts are detailed in Max Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars 

and the Rise of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

12. Ibid., 600.

13. Ibid., 15.

14. 30 US, 15.

15. Ibid., 19.

16. Bill Yenne, Indian Wars: The Campaign for the American West (Yardley, PA: Westholme 

Publishing, 2006), 12.

17. An act to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions, 28 February 1795, quoted in Martin v. Mott, 25 US (12 Wheat.) 19, 29 

(1827).
227

18. R. Kent Newmyer, John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court (Baton Rouge: 

Louisiana State University Press, 2001), 454.

19. Ibid., 538.

20. 31 US, 555.

21. Ibid., 554.

22. 16 Stat. 566 (quoted in Treaties and Other International Agreements: The Role of the United 

States Senate: A Study Prepared for the Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate by the 

Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, S. Prt. No. 106-71, 106th Cong., 2d sess., 37 

(2001) [hereinafter Role of the United States Senate in Treaties]). This text is now codified at 25 USC, 

sec. 71, 1994.

23. Of the more than 3,400 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded by US Presidents since 

1861, 426 went to men fighting in the Indian Wars as compared to 124 awarded in World War I, 464 in 

World War II, 131 in Korea, and 245 in Vietnam.

24. Marks, 161 US, 302.

25. Yenne, supra note 16, at 257. 

26. Ibid., 264.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., 266.

29. Ibid. In noting that Indian wars were “imperfect,” not having been declared by Congress, the 

Court quoted Justice Washington’s discussion from Bas v. Tingy, in which he explained that France was 

no less a “public enemy” where Congress had authorized hostilities rather than declared war, although 

the conflict was an imperfect one. Washington went on to note, however, that the conflict was “[s]till 

. . . [a] public war, because it is an external contention by force between some of the members of the 

two nations, authorized by the legitimate powers.” Given the Court’s view of the Indian Tribes—“the 

word ‘nation’ as applied to the uncivilized Indians is so much of a misnomer as to be little more than a 

compliment,” In Ibid., 265, it does not appear to have considered such groups as “legitimate powers” 

capable of authorizing war. In any case, regardless of the rights of tribes recognized by Congress, ad 

hoc bands like Victorios clearly did not have a right to make war, even assuming that their tribes did 

have such a right by the late 19th century.

30. See Texas v. White, 74 US 700, 726 (1869) (Texas ordinance of secession and all acts of Texas 

legislature to give it effect “were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law.”), overruled on other grounds, Morgan v. Manhattan Savings Institution, 113 US 476, 496 (1885).

31. The Prize Cases, 67 US, 666. See also Matthews v. McStea, 91 US 7, 9 (1875) (“The 

President’s proclamation of April 19, 1861, declaring that he had deemed it advisable to set on foot 

a blockade of the ports within the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, 

Louisiana, and Texas, was a recognition of a war waged, and conclusive evidence that a state of war 

existed between the people inhabiting those States and the United States.”)

32. Ibid.

33. Montoya, 180 US, 266.

34. Ibid., 667.

35. Ibid., 674. See also Miller v. United States, 78 US 268 (1871). (Property (stock certificates) 

of Virginia citizen could be seized and confiscated by the United States without trial as legitimate 

incident of war.) 

36. The courts also considered the status of an armed conflict between the United States and nonstate actors in the form of an insurgency in the Philippines Islands. After the archipelago was ceded to 

the United States by Spain in 1898, an indigenous insurgency—which had challenged Spanish authority from 1896 onward—turned on American forces. In several cases, the United States Claims Court 
228

ruled that this conflict, if not a declared or “perfect” war, was nevertheless an armed conflict sufficient 

to justify grants of higher pay to officers, who had exercised commands above their actual rank, under 

a statute granting such pay and allowances “in time of war.” In Leigh v. United States, 43 Ct. Cl. 374, 

87–88 (1908), the Court concluded that there was a conflict in the Philippines sufficient to satisfy this 

requirement:

Now, while the insurrection can not be designated as war in a technical or international 

sense, the hostility of the insurrectionists was manifested in the most effective way 

known—i.e., resort to arms; and, as stated by the President in his proclamation, those 

“engaged therein, or those in sympathy with and abetting them, committed many acts 

in violation of the laws of civilized warfare.”

The purpose of the act in giving increased pay to those assigned to commands above 

that pertaining to their respective grades was evidently because of the increased danger incident thereto. Measured by that test, the claimant should recover, as the vessel 

he commanded was engaged in actual combat with the insurgent forces. . . .

See also Thomas v. United States, 39 Ct. Cl. 1 (1903). The Court correctly distinguished an earlier 

Supreme Court decision in Lincoln v. United States, 197 US 419 (1905), affirmed on rehearing, 202 

US 484 (1906), pointing out that the ruling in that case did not depend on the presence or absence of 

a war but on the status of the Philippine Islands as US territory. In that case, the Court had invalidated 

customs duties imposed by the US military commander in the Philippines, noting that the tariff laws 

did not support collection of such duties on goods imported into territory that was no longer foreign 

and that the insurgency was not of such a character as to render the Islands foreign territory once they 

had been lawfully be ceded to the United States. Ibid., 428.

37. Wheaton, supra note 7, 316. See also Ford v. Surget, 97 US 594, 605 (1878). (“To the 

Confederate army was, however, conceded, in the interest of humanity, and to prevent the cruelties of 

reprisals and retaliation, such belligerent rights as belonged under the laws of nations to the armies of 

independent governments engaged in war against each other—that concession placing the soldier and 

officers of the rebel army, as to all matters directly connected with the mode of prosecuting the war, 

‘on the footing of those engaged in lawful war,’ and exempting ‘them from liability for acts of legitimate warfare.’”). Thorington v. Smith, 75 US 1 (1868). (“It is to be observed that the rights and obligations of a belligerent were conceded to [the Confederate Government], in its military character, very 

soon after the war began, from motives of humanity and expediency by the United States. The whole 

territory controlled by it was thereafter held to be enemies’ territory. . . . That supremacy did not justify 

acts of hostility to the United States. How far it should excuse them must be left to the lawful government upon the re-establishment of its authority.”)

38. Ibid., 379.

39. War Office, Manual of Military Law, 238 (HMSO 1914).

40. al-Marri, 2007 US App. LEXIS 13642, *66.

41. ICRC Commentary on Geneva Convention III of 12 August 1949 Relative to the Treatment of 

Prisoners of War, 37 (1960).

42. ICRC Official Statement, The Relevance of IHL in the Context of Terrorism (July 21, 2005), 

http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/terrorism-ihl-210705.

43. This point was, in fact, recognized by the ICRC in its Commentaries to the Third Geneva 

Convention. See ICRC Commentary on Geneva Convention III, supra note 41, 51 and n.1.

44. Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of August 

12, 1949, preamble.

45. Manual of Military Law, 236.
229

46. Christopher Allmand, “War and the Non-Combatant in the Middle Ages,” Medieval Warfare: 

A History, ed. Maurice Keen (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1999), 263, 267.

47. Ibid., 255, 258.

48. Grotius, vol. 3, supra note 8, 1,443 (emphasis in original).

49. Manual of Military Law, supra note 39, 238.

50. Ibid., 240–241.

51. Ibid., 241–242.

52. Ibid., 242.

53. Ibid., art. 4.

54. This point was recognized and acknowledged by the ICRC in its commentaries on Protocol I 

Additional, which attempted to grant a protected status to irregular or guerrilla fighters (see infra note 

55 and accompanying text). The United States, of course, has rejected Protocol I and is not bound by 

its terms save to the extent a particular provision can be demonstrated to be a binding norm of customary international law.

55. ICRC Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 

12 August 1949, 558–559 (1987).

56. In particular, Common Article 3 does not prevent captured enemies from being treated as “unlawful” or “unprivileged” combatants. The ICRC commentary certainly makes this clear. In discussing 

Common Article 3(1)(d) (on required due process), it noted that:

No sort of immunity is given to anyone under this provision. There is nothing in it to 

prevent a person presumed to be guilty from being arrested and so placed in a position 

where he can do no further harm; and it leaves intact the right of the state to prosecute, 

sentence and punish according to law.

As can be seen, Article 3 does not protect an insurgent who fall into the hands of the 

opposing side from prosecution in accordance with law, even if he has committed no 

crime except that of carrying arms and fi ghting loyally. In such a case, however, once 

the fi ghter reaches a certain magnitude and the insurgent armed forces meet the criteria 

specifi ed in Article 4.A.(2) [the four classic requirements for lawful combatancy], the 

spirit of Article 3 certainly requires that members of the insurgent forces should not be 

treated as common criminals.

ICRC Commentary on Geneva Convention III, supra note 41, 40

57. al-Marri, 2007 US App. LEXIS 13642, *69.

58. Ibid., *66, n.13.

59. The Prize Cases, 67 US 635 (1862)

60. Ibid., *55.

61. 317 US, 30. (“Congress had the choice of crystallizing in permanent form and in minute 

detail every offense against the law of war, or of adopting the system of common law applied by military tribunals so far as it should be recognized and deemed applicable by the courts. It chose the latter 

course.”)

62. Ibid., 24, 45.

63. Quirin, 317 US, 46.

64. Frank L. Klement, Dark Lanterns: Secret Political Societies, Conspiracies, and Treason Trials in the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 112.

65. Ibid., 103, 109, 111–112.

66. American Trials: The Milligan Case, ed. Samuel Klaus (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1929) 

277, 325. 
230

67. Ibid., 266–267.

68. Ibid., 260–261.

69. Ibid., 323, 271, 282.

70. Ibid., 271, 284, 298, 366, 416.

71. Ibid., 316.

72. Ibid., 349.

73. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1988), 764–765.

74. Ibid., 73.

75. Ibid., 305–306, 447. The closest the prosecution came to showing such acts was evidence, 

unconnected to Milligan and otherwise unsubstantiated, asserting that a number of government boats at 

Louisville, Kentucky, and on the Mississippi had been destroyed using a form of “Greek Fire,” supposedly invented by a Dutch chemist named R.C. Bocking, who claimed to have discovered the secret of 

this ancient Byzantine weapon.

76. Ibid., 255.

76. Ibid., 255.
231

Panel 5—Non-State Actors, the

US Army, and the Law of War

(Transcript of Presentation)

Legal Doctrines for War Among the People

Dr. Michael F. Noone, Jr.

Columbus School of Law

Mr. Charles D. Collins, Jr. (Moderator)

Our next panelist is Dr. Michael Noone. He’s a professor at the Catholic University of 

America, Columbus School of Law. He served 20 years as a Judge Advocate in the US Air 

Force, retiring as a full Colonel. He is a fellow of the Inter-University Seminar of Armed Forces 

in Society, Director of International Society for Military Law and Law of War, and serves as a 

member of the International Advisory Board, Geneva Center for Democratic Control of Armed 

Forces. He will speak to us about the doctrinal problems with the law of war when dealing with 

non-state actors. Dr. Noone.

Dr. Michael F. Noone, Jr.

Thank you. I owe an apology to the organizers that I allowed that typo to float into the 

program. On the first page, it just has my law school listed, and not my institutional affiliation. 

I was doing this from a web café in the west of Ireland at a Euro a minute, and if you want it 

bad, you get it bad. But I was glad, in the first class session, General McCaffrey said something 

about my university.

Which leads me to the second point. Until General Caldwell’s speech, I thought that AlJazeera, who’s called me several times for interviews, I’ve done both interviews for their Arab 

program and for their English program, I thought they were calling on me because I was good 

looking, articulate, and most of all, available. And it may be that they were calling on me 

because I represent crusaders, Catholic U. and that’s really scary. I’m thinking twice about 

whether or not I want to go back there.

I’m a law professor, and when we heard about the rules on non-attribution yesterday, I was 

reminded of when I went to a conference in Zurich last fall on international security, and was on 

a panel. One of the other panels had an American law professor on it, and they call it Chatham 

House Rules, which is a cooler way of saying non-attribution. He said, “Chatham House Rules. 

I’m a professor. Nobody listens to me. I’m a lawyer. Nobody believes me.” And that’s kind of 

the category I’m in.

The third thing I should warn you about is that law professors do not lecture. What we do 

in class, you may know this, we ask our students questions, and then parse their answers. So 

don’t hold that against me as I begin my presentation.
232

On to the topic, and this is a topic that I’ve been following for 40 years. I wrote my Command and Staff College thesis in 1967 on legal problems of counterinsurgency operations. I 

wish now that I’d called it Legal Problems of Irregular Warfare, but my Air Force supervisor 

thought it was a nutty topic. This was pre-Mai Lai. Think about this, this was pre-Mai Lai. 

And I’ve been writing and thinking about it ever since. I wrote an article on whacking women, 

whacking unarmed women, which is legitimate if they’re spotting, or if they’re participating in 

carrying weapons during a firefight. This happened in Somalia. I guess I’ve got to start writing 

an article on whacking kids, now that they’re using 12-year-olds to plant IEDs. That’s going to 

be an interesting topic.

And I want to talk to you about the confusion that has come up regarding the doctrine that 

applies here. I’m going to start by telling you a story that may or may not be an OP-ED piece by 

me in the next Times: Army, Navy, Air Force Times. It revolves around this new book that just 

came out about the one survivor of that Navy SEAL team. You know, they went into Afghanistan; they were on a mission; they ran into some shepherds; they had a big discussion; they had 

a vote; they decided not to kill the shepherds; and then they subsequently got discovered. Three 

of them were killed. The Lieutenant in charge, died heroically, I mean they’re being considered 

for the Medal of Honor, I understand. Except there’s some question about whether or not he 

should have asked for a vote, but there’s a big controversy now over what happened.

What struck me, as I read the press reports, is this problem has been going on for years. I 

don’t think the Israeli is here now, but in the War of Independence in 1947, a bunch of Israelis 

got together to try to go into Jerusalem, which was besieged, to help out the Jews that were 

inside. And as they tried to enter the city covertly, they came on a shepherd. And they said, 

“We’re going to have to kill him, because he’ll go back and tell the locals that we’re there.” And 

then somebody else said, “We can’t act like that. That’s the way Nazis acted.” So, they had this 

mitzvah kind of discussion over what they were going to do. At last, they got him to promise 

that he wouldn’t tell, and they released him. He went back to the village, and he told, and most 

of them were killed. They named a kibbutz after them.

This happens in every war. In Sean Naylor’s book, Not a Good Day to Die, there’s a story 

about a Navy SEAL on patrol; they run into a shepherd, or an old man; they tag him; he’s 

down, and the rest of the SEAL team didn’t really like it, but he was the guy in charge who did 

it. So, this is a perennial problem. I talked to some Australians, you know, they ran this really 

intriguing special air service operation in Borneo in the 1980s against the Indonesians, who 

were sneaking across the border and going after the Indonesians before the Indonesians got to 

them. This was extremely secret. They didn’t even tell their Parliament what they were doing. I 

asked the Australian historian, who had written their narrative, I said, “Did you ask those guys 

what they were told about running into natives? What they should do if they run into natives?” 

And he said, “Yeah, they were told that the mission . . . an individual mission wasn’t worth that 

much. They should just pull back. It wasn’t worth carrying it out.”

And, of course, that’s the rule that applies. This is really a rule of collateral damage. If 

civilians get in the way of a military target, you’ve got to consider the value of the mission, 

its importance, and then decide whether or not you should go forward. Obviously, this should 

not be the responsibility of some Lieutenant who’s got lots of other things to worry about. He 

should be briefed ahead of time. The most embarrassing part of the whole story is, if you can 
233

believe it, is that talking to some Navy SEAL spokesman, he said, “We don’t have anything in 

our orders for that.” I said to myself, “Either you’re lying, or they haven’t told you the truth, or 

they are being unfair to those brave men that they’re launching into the field.”

I know there’s at least one Special Forces guy here. I can’t believe . . . and you don’t have 

to talk to me in public about this . . . I know the past SJA of the Special Forces, who’s now the 

Dean of Students at the Military Academy. I never talked to him about this, but I can’t believe 

that these kinds of issues aren’t discussed in an operational context, so that you don’t have to 

sit down and have a vote and a discussion about it. You may be wrong, and I’ll talk about what 

happens if you’re wrong. I mean if you’re wrong and you survive.

But at least that’s the kind of topic that I want to talk to you about today; the confusion 

about the law of armed conflict, and what it says, and what it doesn’t say. Particularly the 

widespread impression, both at home and abroad, that US Armed Forces have disregarded the 

protected status of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and thus violated the law of war.

My talk’s going to be in three parts, which they always were, pre-PowerPoint days. Part 

one will reflect on several recent claims by respected authors that paradigmatic wars of the 19th 

and 20th Century, on which all military doctrine has been based, are on the wane.

Part two will remind you of the legal context, the law of war, which is used to arrive at the 

decision to use deadly force against civilians, with particular emphasis on the origins of that 

law in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries. That context was, and is, the basis for US military 

legal doctrine, reflected in FM 27-10, the Law of Land Warfare, issued just over 50 years ago. 

If the claims of the authors I mentioned in part are valid, then there may well be consequences 

for FM 27-10, which has been under review for a very long time.

I’ll offer some thoughts explaining why the development of new or revised legal doctrine 

is so challenging. And in part four, I’ll comment on three recent policy documents issued at the 

highest level of government, the President’s National Strategy of the United States of America, 

the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review Report, and the unclassified version of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, to see what legal doctrinal 

guidance they offer.

Finally, I’ll conclude with some brief comments about the kinds of interim prophylactic 

steps that could be taken to respond to concerns expressed, not only by human rights groups 

and crusading journalists, but by supporters of the Armed Forces and its mission, that the military often fails to offer persuasive legal justification for the use of deadly force which harmed 

innocent civilians. My focus will be on deadly force, not on detention, although what I say has 

some application to that issue as well.

Part two, I guess, is The Faces of War. I’ll start by justifying my claim in the introduction, 

that three contemporary surveys of military developments have concluded that war, as it was 

understood in the 19th and 20th century, must be redefined. I took my title from one of those 

surveys. General Sir Rupert Smith’s, The Utility of Force. Smith, who had been General Officer 

Commanding in Northern Ireland, Commander of the British Armored Division in the 1991 

Gulf War, the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia in 1995, and the senior European of-
234

ficer in NATO’s 1991 campaign says, “Modern war doesn’t necessarily call for victory over 

an opponent, but simply to achieve the conditions for negotiation.” He describes this kind of 

conflict as, “ . . . war among the people, not in set peace battles, but war for the people’s popular 

support.”

Azar Gat, Professor of National Security at Tel Aviv University, arrives at the same conclusion in his Magisterial War in Human Civilization. In fact, he quotes the Prussian German 

Chief of Staff, Moltke, which Smith does not, “The days of the Cabinet wars are over. Now we 

have only the people’s war.” Gat speaks of the obsolescence of what he calls “machine age” or 

“industrial war” between developed states, and of liberal democracy’s reluctance to engage in 

what used to be called “imperial intervention,” as in China in 1900.

Smith and Gat both make the same point, not that war as people think of it is obsolete. It 

may still involve a trial of strength between states, but it sometimes does not. As Clausewitz 

pointed out, “War also involved a clash of wills.” This new mode of war focuses on the will, 

not just the will of our opponents, but on our own national will, and that of our potential allies. 

If, as Marshall Foch said, “War is the domain of moral force,” we must establish that we are 

complying with moral norms expressed in the law.

Neither Smith nor Gat have much to say about the legal consequences of the phenomena 

they describe. Smith speaks of the need for new customary international law. Gat says that new 

norms will have to be developed, but they offer no guidance.

Nor does Texas University law professor, Philip Bobbitt, do so in The Shield of Achilles: 

War, Peace and the Course of History. Bobbitt is a former director for Strategic Planning at the 

National Security Council, former counselor of international law at the State Department, and 

was legal counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Iran Contra. He’s been a player. He also 

says that circumstances have changed, due to what he calls the development of market states, 

and the consequences of their interrelatedness. Bobbitt calls for a new set of rules for the use 

of military force, but doesn’t suggest what those rules might be. None of these authors use the 

term “non-state actor,” but all wrestle with the problem of sovereignty, the defining characteristic of post-Westphalian states, a characteristic we’ll see in Part B as the foundation for the 

law of armed conflict.

But before we go there, I’ll draw your attention to the three other books listed on my chart. 

You know Callwell. You know the Marine Corps’ copy of it. And the third book, Heneker’s 

British classic that I picked up. None of them talk about legal norms, because they’re not talking about what they think of as the kind of armed conflict that the Hague and Geneva rules apply. They talk about domestic norms. They talk about the way soldiers should comply, or they 

assume that soldiers will comply, with their own domestic norms.

But even domestic norms can raise dilemmas, and I close this section by the classic quote 

from General Napier, 1834, who, when talking about the decision to use deadly force against 

civilians . . . he’d been given an order to do so when they were riding. He said, “If I refuse to do 

so, I’m liable to be shot for disobedience of orders. And if I do so, I’m liable to be hanged for 

murder.” And that’s the dilemma which still, in a smaller way, confronts our soldiers as they 

look at the war rules that are supposed to govern their behavior.
235

Now, if I can find chart . . . yeah, there it is. This is going to take me forward . . . that’s great. 

This is some sources on the law of armed conflict that might be helpful to you. We’ll start off 

by reminding you that when law-trained people look at problems, they analyze the problem by 

examining its legally relevant characteristics. Once those are identified, they apply the appropriate analysis. So I call this section, “Looking for an Analogy.” What are these problems like? 

What are they like? Now, there are often disagreements over the analogy. That’s what’s been 

happening in recent years as we talked about the application of the Law of Armed Conflict to 

what our people have been doing overseas.

Charlie Dunlap, then a Colonel, now a Major General in the Air Force, coined the term, 

“Lawfare,” and it’s a great term. I think he did it down at the National War College. This is really what we’re talking about, arguments over what analogy is appropriate. I’ll start by reminding you of another incident, historical incident, the Gibraltar incident. Do you remember this?

The IRA had sent an active team down to be part of a bombing squad, really professionals, 

sent an active team into Europe to carry out bombings. The Brits discovered that they were 

going into Gibraltar to plant bombs, so they set up a Special Air Service team, and they killed 

all three of the bomb team. They killed all three of the bomb team, and this is targeted killing. 

“Hey man, it’s what we did to Admiral Yamamoto in World War II.” That’s great if you’re at 

war. If you’re not at war, you just killed three civilians who were not posing an immediate 

threat. They were unarmed, and their bomb gear was back in the car. They were on foot, doing 

a reconnaissance.

Well, this is a problem. What kind of analogy are you going to apply here? You look to 

Dr. Lieber’s General Orders 100. Dr. Lieber’s General Orders 100 applied to internal wars, as 

well, right? You’ve heard this from our prior speaker. You can kill belligerents. Were these guys 

belligerent? Were we in a war? Interestingly enough, the British government took the position 

they were not in a war. They didn’t want the IRA to describe themselves as freedom fighters, 

and to claim the protections of Geneva Article III. So the British government treated these guys 

as criminals. But when can you use deadly force against criminals? Looks to me like you violated their human rights by doing this. You should have tried to apprehend them.

So their families brought a claim in the European Court of Human Rights, claiming that 

their human rights had been violated, their right to life had been taken, and the case went all 

the way up to the European Court of Human Rights, which accepted the British government’s 

premise. This was not a war, this was some sort of law enforcement operation where troops 

were being used.

And by ten votes to nine, the European Court of Human Rights concluded that their human 

rights had been violated, that deadly force was not necessary under these circumstances. For 

anybody who knows more about weapons than I do, particularly, you will flinch. The majority 

opinion, they said, “Well, the SAS wasn’t told to shoot to wound.” Hollywood has just ruined 

everybody’s vision of central body mass, but in any case, the nine-vote minority said, “Well, it 

was reasonable under the circumstances to use force.”

But somehow this law enforcement analogy doesn’t really seem to work very well. When 

you’re an occupying force in Iraq, when you’re helping out in Afghanistan, is it really ap-
236

propriate to describe these guys who pack trucks full of propane gas and shrapnel, is it really 

appropriate to describe these as a species of criminal activity? When all they want to do is kill 

civilians? But that’s the problem.

I cited Fionnuala Ní Aoláin. She’s a human rights professor and activist who opposed the 

British rights in Northern Ireland, as being the sort of person who still is pressing for a law enforcement analogy. But if the law enforcement analogy works out, then, we should be looking 

at civilian deaths the same way we looked at when the Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on 

the MOVE House in Philadelphia, or the way the FBI responded to the Branch Davidians in 

Waco. We should be asking whether or not those law enforcement guys, who happened to be 

wearing pixilated suits, were using force reasonably under the circumstances. Is that the analogy that really works well?

Now, I talked about that because that’s the law of war analogy. Ingrid Detter has kind of a 

classic book on it. The [inaudible] book, that’s kind of customary international law, published 

by the Red Cross. Their focus is on humanitarian law, on protecting civilians from unnecessary 

harm. They are also pushing, the Red Cross is pushing, for a strict application of the law of war, 

and when the law of war doesn’t apply, they’re looking for some sort of humanitarian, human 

rights law to fill in the gaps.

I cite John Yoo because he is the architect, I suppose, if any one person can be described 

as the architect, for the administration’s legal rationales for the war on terror. In his book, he 

makes the point that you can’t apply the law of armed conflict to non-state actors, because 

they’re not sovereign states. These are not sovereigns. It just doesn’t apply. And there’s an argument there. I tell a John Yoo story, it’s great, I have an audience. I can tell a John Yoo story.

The President’s War Order got issued, which ultimately, you know, was justification for 

military commission. I was asked to go on a panel, I think it was the only panel that Yoo appeared on, and the first panel after the War Order appeared. So I’d looked at the War Order, 

and did my homework, and appeared on the panel. I said, “You know, I read this, and this is 

terrific constitutional law. It follows World War II doctrine to the hilt, and the case law hasn’t 

changed.” I said, “A couple of things have changed. Military commissions are now governed 

by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, passed in 1951. We’ve got a whole body of human 

rights law out there that nobody quite knows what it’s about, but it wasn’t there before. What 

about the UCMJ in post-1951? What about the Geneva Conventions, which hadn’t been written at the time of the World War II Act?” I said, “I’m really interested in finding out what the 

administration spokesmen say about these radical changes, not in case law, but in treaty law 

and statutory law.”

So I waited, and Yoo got up, and Yoo said, “We’re not going to talk about those topics.” 

And as I think about that, I’m reminded of General McCaffrey’s comments in the first session 

about you can have bright guys who have bad judgment. Yoo’s background is a constitutional 

lawyer. I don’t think he knew squat about the UCMJ. I don’t think he’d ever heard, maybe, of 

the Geneva Conventions. You don’t have to if you’re teaching in Bolt Hall in California. Of 

course, those guys close held all the stuff that they did from the JAGs. They were so bad the 

JAGs turned them in, ultimately, to the New York Bar Association, which is unbelievable that 

military officers would go outside to talk about what was happening internally.
237

But this is the kind of background, the kind of conflict, that’s going on, even within the 

legal profession, over the appropriate analogies that should be applied. Worth thinking about. 

Let me talk about the . . . so this is why there’s been a fight. The fight has been Law of 

Armed Conflict doesn’t really seem to fit. You’ve got non-state actors, you don’t have sovereigns. How are we going to handle this? The alternative is the criminal justice analogy doesn’t 

really seem to fit. These people are more than criminals. But we need guidance. So the question 

arises, well, we can look to the national command authority for some guidance, because after 

all, they have been involved in this for quite some time. Well, as far as the President’s National 

Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review, not a word is said about this issue. Not one 

word. The JCS National Military Strategic Plan has a classified legal annex, which means that 

the rest of us will just have to trust that the doctrine organizers are going to do the right thing, 

because we have no idea what their rationale is.

Meanwhile, you folks have to live with things as they are. I commend the authors of FM 

3-24. They emphasize for portionality and discrimination, when and whether to use deadly 

force. The Air Force’s equivalent, Air Force doctrine document 2-3, alerts commanders to the 

fact that legal considerations will affect irregular warfare, and says nothing more. And maybe 

there’s not much more to be said at the doctrinal level.

I’ve just skimmed Andrew Birtle’s Center of Military History book, US Army Counterinsurgency and Contingency Operations, 1942 – 1976. There are only four references to FM 

26-3, none of them critical. No evidence of the kind of legal turbulence that led me, 40 years 

ago, to write my Command and Staff College thesis. I think there is more to say, and it was 

said recently by the journalist, Anthony Dworkin, who’s the web editor of a really fine website 

called thecrimesofwar.com. His article in the Kassimeris book that I quote asks, “How do we 

persuade soldiers to extend a legal and moral obligations to fighters who do not, themselves, 

observe the law?” That’s what it’s all about. That’s what it’s all about.

I haven’t seen any videos of American soldiers having their throats cut, and eviscerated. 

The Afghans used to circulate those of Russian prisoners that they took. Everybody knew that. 

Sling them over the compound so that troops could see them. How do you prepare troops for 

that to happen? How do you want them to respond? Well, that’s a training issue, and I’ll conclude by turning from doctrine to training.

The organizers may have thought I was kidding when I proposed, as my original working 

title, “Better To Be Tried by Twelve Than Carried by Six.” That’s an old cop slogan, and that’s 

really what we’re talking about here. Police know they’re going to be questioned about their 

decision to use deadly force, and they must be prepared to explain that decision. Perhaps trainers can learn something from history. Any reason why US soldiers aren’t trained to cope with 

criminal investigations after a war crimes allegation? Training doesn’t suggest that they’re going to do something wrong. Training suggests that it’s liable to happen.

In 1980, the British Ministry of Defense decided that it was time for them to train their SAS 

troops, who were operating for the first time in the UK, to be trained to respond to interrogations by friendly UK police in case they used force. A friend of mine, who was then a Captain 

in the British Army Legal Services, was their trainer. Man, they had a final exam that wouldn’t 
238

quit. It was called Operation Nimrod. That’s where they went in and took out the Iranian terrorists who had taken over the Embassy. They killed five of them, with no casualties, and captured 

one of them. They faced a British coroner’s inquest, and literally they had just finished their 

legal training on how to respond to these kinds of hearings and interrogations.

The coroner commended them, even though two of the terrorists that they shot were unarmed, and didn’t seem to even have a weapon next to them. But they were able to explain the 

situation and why they had to use deadly force, and they went away. I think that’s great. I don’t 

see any reason why we can’t do something like that.

The British Army always had a lawyer on call when they were operating in Northern Ireland. He was called the Lawyer on Call, and as soon as they got a report that there had been a 

shooting involving a death of a civilian, they launched the lawyer, because the British Northern 

Irish Police were going to be doing the investigation, and they wanted the soldier to know that 

there was somebody there who cared about their interests.

Now caring about their interests didn’t mean . . . I hope it didn’t mean covering up criminal 

activity. A couple of those British soldiers got prosecuted and got sent to jail. But they never 

had the feeling that their command had left them out to dry. You may know the story about Oliver North and Jim Webb, who went back to Vietnam to testify on behalf of one of the accused in 

the Marine equivalent of the Mai Lai incidents. These were young Marines who killed people 

without good reason. There’s no doubt about it. Just like Mai Lai, Na Trang. And both Webb 

and North went back, not to say these guys were innocent, but to say these had been decent 

young Marines. One of them had saved North’s life in an earlier firefight.

I’m not that close to what’s happening now in the Army, but I hope there’s that same kind 

of attitude that just because somebody’s in trouble, you don’t walk away from them. That’s step 

one of what kind of steps are being taken internally. Then I’d like to see some consciousness 

raising among . . . well, I’ll finish up. The Marines are doing great stuff. We can talk about what 

they’ve done in response to this, and I think it’s great.

My final word, and then you can ask me questions about this, is General McCaffrey talked 

about our weak NATO allies. They’re not weak because they don’t want to fight. They’re weak 

because they’re put under all sorts of restrictions, called caveats, by their national government. 

I just want to close by telling you that I trained with some of their legal advisors a year ago at 

Strasbourg, and they called the American soldiers the lowest common denominators, because 

you guys go where nobody else was permitted to because it was too risky. I just want to say I 

salute the lowest common denominators. Thank you.
239

Legal Doctrines for War Among the Peoples

I. Introduction

II. The Faces of War

• General Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force, Alfred A. Knopf,

2007

• Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization, Oxford University

Press, 2006

• Philip Bobbitt, The Shield of Achilles, Alfred A. Knopf, 2002

• Major-General Charles J. Napier, Remarks on Military Law

and the Punishment of Flogging, London: T&W Boone, 1837

• Major C.E. Callwell, Small Wars. HMSO, 1899

• Lieutenant Colonel W.C.G. Heneker, Bush Warfare,

London: Hugh Rees, Ltd. 1907

• Small Wars Manual, United States Marine Corps, 1940

Sunflower Press ed. Manhattan Kansas

Legal Doctrines for War Among the Peoples

III. Looking for a Legal Analogy

• The Law of Armed Conflict

3⁄4 Francis Lieber, Instructions for the Government of

Armies of the United States in the Field New York:

D. Van Nostrand, 1863

3⁄4 The Law of Land Warfare, FM 27-10, US Army,

revised, 1976

3⁄4 Ingrid Detter De Lupis, The Law of War, Cambridge

University Press, 1987

3⁄4 J.-M. Haenckerts & L. Doswald-Beck, Customary

International Humanitarian Law, vol. 1, Cambridge

University Press, 2005

3⁄4 John Yoo, War by Other Means, Atlantic Monthly

Press, 2006

Dr. Michael F. Noone, Jr. Slide Addendum:

The French-Algeria War

Slide 1

Slide 2
240

III. Looking for a Legal Analogy (cont’d)

• Human Rights Law

3⁄4 United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human

Rights, 1948

3⁄4 International Covenant on Civil and Political

Rights, 1976

3⁄4 European Convention for the Protection of Human

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1953

3⁄4 Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, The Politics of Force, Belfast: The

Blackstaff Press, 2000

IV. Conclusion

• Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24, US Army 2006

• George Kassimeris, ed. The Barbarisation of Warfare,

NYU Press, 2006

Legal Doctrines for War Among the Peoples

Slide 3
241

Panel 5—Non-State Actors, the

US Army, and the Law of War

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

Mr. Lee A. Casey

Dr. Michael F. Noone, Jr.

Moderated by Mr. Charles D. Collins, Jr.

Mr. Charles D. Collins, Jr.

I’m going to take General Caldwell’s advice and not speak on an area where I am not an expert, 

and not my lane, and I will open the floor to your questions or comments.

Audience Member

Yeah, Dave Duffy. I’m out of Army Special Operations Command. I want to . . . I run special 

programs for the command, of which unconventional warfare is a huge piece. While we’re 

reevaluating our doctrine, or updating is a better term, our doctrine due to the expanded application of unconventional warfare against non-state actors, particularly the use of irregular 

forces, a legal review is a huge piece of that. I’m really tired of our JAGs looking at that . . . 

its not changing the way we’re doing business at all, but it’s just something we’re doing to try 

and protect our soldiers when it comes to expanded force that’s being given, in issues of money 

and mission.

Particularly we’re operating in countries that we’re not at war with, and yet we’re still required 

to do some sort of preparation, or infrastructure involvement. That’s in process, and it’s not a 

cut-and-dry thing, by any means. I can talk to you more when it comes to specifics, but particularly I was in Afghanistan in January of 2002, and our rules of engagement were if you feel 

threatened, eliminate the threat. But we did have legal at the battalion level if needed. While we 

didn’t feel abandoned, there certainly wasn’t a lot of role playing, or scenario development. If 

you run across that shepherd, then you make the decision to shoot or not. That’s all I have, sir.

Audience Member

Rick Herrera, Combat Studies Institute (CSI). I have two questions for Mr. Casey. First, if he 

could speak to the impact in the place of justice resulting in the declaration of Indians as domestics and of nations in the formulation of their belligerence status. And then the second one, 

if you might elaborate on the according of belligerence status to rebels, those engaged in rebellions, which was one of the terms also applied to the southern states in the Civil War.

Mr. Lee Casey

Right. With respect to both very good questions. I do actually, in the paper, get into this, and not 

because of time constraints here, but it is true that in the 1830s, 1920s and 1930s, the Supreme 
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Court was trying to work out what the actual status of the Indian tribes were. There are a series 

of decisions where the Court progressively recognized that the Indians were more and more 

like sovereigns, who might actually have a right to make war against the Federal government. 

The Court only came out and said something like that in dicta. It never held that.

And then, those cases, after Justice Marshall’s death in particular, but perhaps even more importantly after President Jackson left office, receded. Certainly by the late 19th Century, by the 

time where I think the critical cases were decided, the Montoya case, and another case called 

Marks, the status of Indians was still stated as dependent nation, sovereign dependent nations, 

but it was quite clear that neither the Court nor Congress considered them, at that point, to be in 

any way independent, or having a right to make war. The Congress, of course, stopped entering 

treaties with the Indians in 1871. So, I think the sort of applicable law is after that.

I also think that the Marshall cases are interesting, perhaps not so much legally . . . and I should 

also say that today’s Indian law is very different, either from the Marks and Montoya case, 

since we no longer have Indian wars, and from Marshall’s cases in terms of how the Court 

goes about deciding what are still some very difficult decisions. But if you look at the Marshall 

cases, I think you do have to look at them very much as the Supreme Court’s reaction to what 

certainly Justice Marshall, and a number of his colleagues, felt. And what most of us feel from 

today’s vantage point, was a wrong-headed policy in terms of Indian relations at the time. That 

was a push forward, not by President Jackson alone, of course, but of which he is obviously 

represented. Even though he probably never actually did say, in response to one of the decisions in one of these cases, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” The 

tension between the White House and the Court during those years was such that I think that 

characterizes these decisions more than anything else.

Now, in terms of granting belligerent status to rebels. Certainly it is the case that, during the 

Civil War, as a matter of practice and comedy, the Federal government granted belligerent 

rights to the Confederacy, even if they didn’t say that straight out. Confederate prisoners were 

not tried as war criminals. Confederate officers were not tried for treason, although they could 

have been, at least under what I think the Court is saying in the Price cases, and a couple of later 

cases. They could have, but they were not.

I think the Confederacy got belligerent rights, frankly, because it behaved like a belligerent. 

There was no question, in large part, that the war would be fought pretty much along the lines 

of a normal state-to-state conflict. There were issues of irregular warfare, especially out here 

in what was then the West, but in terms of the legal principles that were enforced, it was very 

much like a state-to-state conflict.

I guess the question is now do we have to grant al-Qaeda belligerent rights? In particular, do 

we have to grant them combatant immunity? I would say that no, we don’t have to grant them 

combatant immunity, because no matter how you cut it, they don’t have a right to make war. 

We don’t really have to deal with the second question unless they start organizing themselves 

as lawful combatants; if they actually start wearing uniforms; if they actually start having a 

regular command structure; carrying their arms openly, and obeying the laws of war.

We do have a little problem. That is, I think they can at least earn POW status, if that is what 
243

they choose to do. Whether they can earn combatant immunity, I think, is an open question. 

Both of those questions, though, of course, are hypothetical, given their current attitudes towards the laws of war. So I guess I should just leave it there.

Audience Member

[Inaudible] and preemptive action, and to be able to react against law actions in front of the 

European Corps, and so and so.

Dr. Michael Noone

I agree entirely. I found myself in that position very often. I do a lot of stuff with BBC World, 

and with Al-Jazeera, and I’m embarrassed that I’m the only American who supports the Armed 

Forces who’s willing to do that. By inclination, academics think that they’re like journalists, 

they have to speak truth to power, and they think that that means opposing the establishment. 

Our institutions are very reluctant to come forward and speak. The Air Force has a terrific man, 

this General Dunlap, who goes out at every opportunity to speak. But he has other obligations. 

I think it’s a wonderful idea.

In fact, from this conference, I’m going to go back and see if I can encourage some people to set 

up a blog. Unfortunately, the only realistic people are typically in the Pentagon. Some of you 

may know Hays Parks, who is responsible for 27-3. He knows his stuff, but he can’t say anything because he works for the government. Jim Berger, retired Army officer and OSD General 

Counsel. He knows his stuff, but he can’t talk. It’s very hard to find people outside who will 

carry the kind of realistic experience that you’re looking for, and that’s a problem.

Mr. Lee Casey

I agree entirely. I think General Caldwell’s remarks were very well taken, and this is a topic of 

frequent discussion that I have certainly been involved in in Washington among those who are 

out front, and outspoken in support of the US policies of how we get our message out and how 

we do it better.

There are a couple of problems with that. One, indeed, is the film clips that were shown earlier. It shows we are a very open society, and so it’s very difficult to both craft and manage a 

message, because they don’t have to just take what the President says, or what the Secretary of 

Defense says. They can go out and they can find things that Americans, prominent Americans, 

are saying that are totally opposed to what administration, or what government policy is, but 

they’re still being said here, and they can still use them. That gives them a real advantage in 

how you go about, from our perspective, putting together a message, and then getting it out 

there in a way that does not arouse suspicion, and doesn’t get called propaganda and such.

This is an area where I think you are absolutely right, that the West needs to be much more 

cognizant of using the current institutions, both of international and domestic law, is certainly 

an interesting idea. One of our problems, of course, in doing that is that these guys already are 

subject to those institutions, sometimes many of them, if we choose to put them through there. 

But they tend not to result in the same kind of informational message boost that they get when 
244

they sort of use our institutions against us.

Like, for example, Jose Padilla was recently convicted of material support for terrorism. Everyone was actually disappointed, or critical, of that decision. Unfortunately, that’s what the 

prosecutor could prove. He may well have done many other things, and many other things that 

would be considered sort of more sexy from a media standpoint. But what the prosecutor could 

prove beyond a reasonable doubt in open court was material support, and so that’s the charge 

that stuck. It’s probably going to send him to prison for a very long time, and into a place that’s 

going to make Guantanamo Bay look like the Beverly Hills Hotel, but it really didn’t get very 

much media attention because it was kind of a disappointment.

Audience Member

Richard Stewart, Center of Military History. To what extent, this is for both of you gentlemen, 

to what extent does it seem that there are some European organizations and institutions that are 

heading off in very different directions than we are legally? I mean, you mentioned the International Committee of the Red Cross seeking almost to make its own law, and make it enforce 

itself upon us regardless of international treaty. The International Criminal Court controversy 

that they, in a sense, would like our soldiers subject to the ICC, and perhaps brought up on trial 

on their own terms, and we, of course, find that insupportable. To what extent will this cause 

tensions in the alliance over the next few years, as it seems like our conception of how to fight 

terrorists legally is going off in two very different directions?

Dr. Michael Noone

Quickly, the ICRC, yes. First of all, they’re another truth-to-power bunch. It was easy enough 

when they were balancing the Cold War, and they beat on the Russians, and they beat on us. 

They are trying to change the statement of humanitarian law, the customary law of war. DOD 

and the Department of Justice wrote a stinging attack on this book, which has been published 

online. The ICRC has responded, explaining what they are trying to do. Within the law of war 

community, this is an important intellectual battle. What it ever turns into in the way of sound 

bytes is whatever anybody wants to extract from it, but the ICRC people are acting in good 

faith, and I think they’re trying to do what is expected.

The ICC, the International Criminal Court, remember, we start from the premise that you’ve 

got two obligations if a war crime has been committed. You either prosecute them yourself, or 

you turn them over to the ICC. I had a quote that I couldn’t use, and which now I will, from 

the Article XXXII investigation of Lance Corporal Justin Sharratt, who is one of the Haditha 

Marines. And the Article XXXII investigating officer was Lieutenant Colonel Ware, who has 

done all the Haditha cases. Ware recommended that the charges be dropped, and I wanted to 

give the quote that he said. He said, “The charges were based on unreliable witness accounts, 

insupportable forensic evidence, questionable legal theories. To believe the government version of the facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.” He didn’t think 

the kid should have been charged, and he’s saying so. Never got to the press. That died.

When these cases went up to General Mattis, the convening authority, General Mattis apologized to the young Marines for having to put them through this, and he said that. So at least we 
245

can go back to the International Criminal Court, if they ever want to charge Lance Corporal 

Sharratt with a war crime, they can say, “We’ve investigated this, and we wanted to drop the 

charges.” Supposedly, double jeopardy should not apply in a context like that.

But none of these quotations, none of these events, ever got out to the press. I got reminded of 

them because I had been quoted in The New York Times, out of context, which sounded like I 

thought there was a miscarriage of justice, and I got beat up. That was the great thing about it. 

There are enough people out there who will say, “Wait a minute. You didn’t say the right thing.” 

And they told me why I was wrong. So it’s happening. But at the international level, you still 

have some stuff going on.

Mr. Lee Casey

I think your question is very well taken. There is clearly a divergence going on between where 

the US is and where a lot of its allies are. Much of this is being driven, on the international 

level, by human rights groups, amnesty, human rights watch, many, many other groups, as well 

as the ICRC. They clearly have a vision of where the law should go, and they are attempting to 

move the law in that direction. It is, indeed, much more imposing a policing-like model onto 

armed conflict. Not just irregular armed conflict, but frankly all of armed conflict.

The institutions that are being built up around that, like the International Criminal Court, I 

think, are very worrisome. Because it’s true, the court, in theory, is supposed to pursue matters 

only that have not been properly pursued by the member states, but it is ultimately the court that 

decides whether that matter has been properly pursued. In a case like this, where the investigating officer says, “Well, there’s just nothing there,” the court would still be potentially within its 

rights to say, “Well, we think there is something there, and as far as we’re concerned, you’re 

unwilling or unable to move forward, and so we will move forward.”

Now, so far the ICC, which has now been operating for, you know, three, four years, has been 

very cautious. Whether that will continue in the future is anybody’s guess, but that is, I think, 

still a matter of concern. Frankly, as we move further away from many of our allies, who, while 

I would certainly never suggest that they are unwilling to fight, the fact is that they are . . . the 

responsibility that they have for global stability is just very different than the responsibility that 

we have. It’s perfectly conceivable, indeed, the United States currently is involved in two real 

wars, one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq.

It is less conceivable, certainly for a lot of European countries, even though they are assisting 

us in those wars, that they should become involved in wars like that, at least without us. And I 

think if it ever did happen, though, the doctrines that they have been developing, that the human 

rights community has sort of been developing, and that has been written into a lot of things, on 

the European level anyway, are going to be real problematic in terms of how you actually go 

about fighting a war with those kind of constraints.

Audience Member

At the risk of opening another Pandora’s Box . . . this is Colonel Reese from CSI. I wonder if 

either of you gentlemen, or both, would opine a little bit on the laws of war as they regard to 
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the detention of individuals apprehended, either on the battlefield or elsewhere.

Mr. Lee Casey

Well, this . . . in many ways, it is the detention issues that have got the court’s exercise. That is 

why lawyers like me have become involved in an area that traditionally has been much more 

the JAGs, and the military itself, because this war is different. We are detaining people in various locations, for what is often claimed to be an indefinite period of time. I mean, I can’t tell 

you the number of times I’ve tried to explain that no, we can only detain them until the war 

ends. Yes, the war is less definite, but every war is of indefinite duration until it ends.

The difficulty in this war is defining exactly what that is. I would suggest it’s when al-Qaeda 

is no longer capable of carrying out military level of attack against us. But the rights that these 

individuals, who do not . . . I don’t think they particularly fit under Geneva. They certainly 

do not fit under Geneva very well, what rights they should have. Whether they should get the 

rights of civilians, whether they should get the rights of some form of lawful combatant type 

rights. That is really what the courts are now determining. It’s interesting.

I think, looking back on it, that the two greatest mistakes in this area that the Administration 

has made was in taking both Jose Padilla and Al-Amiri out of the civilian system, where they 

initially were . . . I mean I don’t think either of them were civilians, but they could be treated 

as such, and they were originally arrested by the FBI, and processed in the Federal courts, and 

then they were designated as enemy combatants. Had that never happened, it is very likely that 

the courts would not have become engaged in quite the same level as they are now engaged.

We are heading . . . now, in any number of cases, we are heading up to the Supreme Court for 

more decisions. So how you handle the detentions here is very much driving this from a legal 

standpoint, and we’re working it out. We’re working it out through the courts, which is never 

really a great thing.

Dr. Michael Noone

I guess, just thinking about it, lawyers, it’s a rat’s nest. There are really three problems here. 

One is determining their status. You snatch somebody off the battlefield, or in the Balkans, or 

wherever else you snatch them, should they have any kind of a right to an independent hearing 

as to whether or not their status can be challenged? Hey, I was just there with my Boy Scout 

group. That’s problem number one, is what kind of rights they have for status determination. 

We haven’t done a great job on that. We just stonewalled people for a very long time. The Brits 

came up with a better system in Northern Ireland, but they had fewer people and it wasn’t as 

violent. So there’s a status issue.

Then there’s the duration issue that he’s talking about. How long can you hold them? Americans have a right to a speedy trial. French are great. I was talking with some French guy . . . no, 

it wasn’t the French. It was the Germans. It was . . . because they have no speedy trial statute, 

but the French have the same basic statute. You can bring a guy up before the magistrate, and 

the magistrate says, “Oh, are you ready to go to trial yet?” “No, we’re not. But we’re working 

hard at it.” “Okay, bring them back in two weeks.” Go back for two weeks. At least the Euro-
247

peans are satisfied that there’s somebody who’s a judge asking periodically, “How long are you 

going to hold that guy?”

Germany, they told me they had this one guy they were holding for three years under suspicion 

of murder, and at last the magistrate said, “Look, I don’t care whether he did it or not, even if 

he’d killed his wife, he wouldn’t be in prison for any longer than this.” They let him go. But 

we don’t have any system that satisfies anybody that somebody’s checking periodically on their 

status. This guy lost, another Guantanamo Bay thing.

Then the third thing, of course, is the conditions. Should we give them violins and the other 

things required by the Geneva Conventions and so forth? And that’s a silly, trivial situation in 

the US, but it does need to be addressed.

Those are just prisoners. Then, they move over to perpetrators. These are guys who have done 

bad things, then you’ve got the whole problem all over again. So it’s a legal rat’s nest, and as 

I said, we’re still kind of searching for the right analytic modes to do this, because it doesn’t 

really fit back into the traditional legal regimes that we’ve been working at. And that’s why we 

look like idiots.

Audience Member

Lieutenant Colonel Story, Center of Military History. The very last phrase, “That’s why we 

look like idiots.” I want to ask you to expand on that. This morning’s presentation on strategic 

communications, and I’d like you to address this specific comment in the war on terror. Because, as you’ve laid out very effectively in these two presentations, the fact we have serious 

legal problems and challenges, and we’re not exactly sure of the way ahead, but at the policymaking level, the strategic level, the message has almost come out, not currently, but in recent 

years, that we’re going to create new law because the old law doesn’t apply. I’d like you to 

address the strategic communications aspect of this.

Mr. Lee Casey

Well, I think you’re absolutely right. Since September 11th, it is clear that we have been finding 

our way. These issues had not been presented . . . some of them hadn’t been presented at all. 

Most of them hadn’t been presented very much. By the way, it is significant that I am sitting 

here talking to you about cases that were decided mostly in the late 19th Century, with one case 

that was decided in World War II. There are, in this area, certainly Constitutionally, maybe a 

dozen cases that are relevant, and that talk about things that are of use to us, or interest to us, in 

trying to work out these rules. That is extraordinary.

I mean, when I . . . in my regular practice of law, we’re used to having dozens, if not hundreds 

of precedents to draw on when we are trying to solve a problem. This type of war is unusual, 

and it is unusual to get the courts involved in the war as much as they have been. I think in 

many ways it’s a little amusing.

Why do we look like idiots? The problem is often we have, not so much, frankly, the military, 

as the lawyers, because we are finding our way, and we’re doing it in real time. That’s go-
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ing to continue. I think, frankly, given the threat posed by al-Qaeda, that the laws of war is a 

pretty good fit. It’s not a perfect fit. In fact, there’s a lot of real problems, but it’s a pretty good 

fit. It’s a much better fit than the law enforcement model, because I can tell you, anyone who 

knows anything about actually prosecuting cases, it’s not going to work for the vast majority of 

these people because we don’t . . . all the things that one would normally expect in a criminal 

prosecution, authentications, chains of evidence, just don’t work when you’re dealing with a 

battlefield situation.

I think the Supreme Court has recognized that long ago. In a case called Eisentrager, Justice 

Jackson has a couple of paragraphs where he explains exactly why the Court should really stay 

out of this area, because it just doesn’t make sense. The fact is, the courts are now in this area, 

and we are naturally, as we do everything in our society, we’re working this out publicly. As a 

result, the entire world is our audience.

So, for a while to come, we’re probably still going to look pretty bad, and I think the efforts 

that General Caldwell was talking about are critical to try to sort of explain . . . its not . . . we’re 

not doing this just to be authoritarian. We’re trying to figure out how do we protect the civilian 

population, and to make sure that we don’t actually lock up innocent shepherds. I mean, there 

probably are some, but not everybody is. It’s a very difficult balancing process.

Dr. Michael Noone

We have a tendency to think of us against the world, or whatever. In August of this month, 

2007, this year, the Human Rights Watch, for the first time, issued a document accusing a nonstate actor, Hezbollah, of violations of the Law of Armed Conflict because of their indiscriminate rocket launching from Lebanon into Israel. I think it’s the first time that a non-state actor 

has ever been identified as a violator of the Law of Armed Conflict. These are the folks who 

are perennial critics of what we’re trying to do.

They’re struggling. They’re trying to come up with the solutions. The Israeli Supreme Court 

last year tried to set criteria for targeted killing, which is some place between belligerency and 

shooting criminals. The Israeli Supreme Court is troubled by this and said, “There should be 

norms.” Norms to protect the soldiers, as well as protecting the people that the soldiers kill. 

So there’s movement going on, but man, whenever you create a new category, and that’s what 

we’re doing, we’re creating new categories and new boundaries. It’s got to be slow, because 

you’re talking about people’s lives, as well as the national interest. So we’re trying.

Mr. Charles D. Collins, Jr.

We’ve pretty much used up all of our time. Thank you.
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Day 2—Featured Speaker

(Transcript of Presentation)

The Army and the Future of Irregular Conflict

Major General (Retired) Robert H. Scales, Jr.

Defense Consultant; Author; Historian

Colonel Timothy Reese (Director of CSI)

I have the pleasure of introducing our next guest speaker, which is retired Major General 

Robert H. Scales. Another person, who needs no introduction, but I’m going to try anyway.

General Scales is currently an independent scholar on defense matters far and wide. Prior 

to joining the private sector, of course, General Scales served for more than 30 years in the 

United States Army, retiring as a Major General in 1995. He commanded units in Vietnam, 

earning the Silver Star for heroism in action. He ended his career as the Commandant of the 

United States Army War College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Since that time, he’s been a prolific writer and author, having authored several books, 

among them Certain Victory, the account of the US Army in the Gulf War, a book called Firepower in Limited War, which I have a particular affinity for. And he has also published a book 

on the current war in Iraq called Iraq, A Military History, written with Williamson Murray.

He is a national military analyst for National Public Radio and Fox News Network, and 

frequent commentator on radio and TV, as you all well know. He’s a graduate of the United 

States Military Academy at West Point, and has a Ph.D. in history from Duke University.

So we’re pleased, once again, to have General Scales back here. He addressed this symposium two years ago, and we are glad to see you back here today, sir. We look forward to your 

comments.

Major General (Retired) Robert H. Scales, Jr.

Thank you very much. I talk so much around the country to disparate groups. I always start 

off with the same line. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I know that you’re—you know, fill in the 

blanks—businessmen, Congressmen, lawyers, engineers. You may be that, but you’re locked 

in this room and you can’t get away, and I’m a historian, and you’re going to hear some history 

from me. Of course you’re all historians, so this is like coming home.

I just left talking to the Commander about strategic communications. I do a lot of that, and 

it’s a very interesting sidebar about the Army, and about land power. You know, the Army and 

the Marine Corps are doing 95% of the killing and dying for less than 30% of the budget.
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You know, I love my Air Force friends, but we haven’t been seriously contested in the air 

since what? The Christmas bombing in 1972. The last major sea engagement was what? Leyte 

Gulf in 1944. Yet we live in a military that’s got the operative phrase in OSD, it’s called excessive overmatch. Only something like JFCOM could come up with that word. We have two 

services that have too much stuff. But we have more combat tonnage in the Navy than there are 

in the next 17 Navies combined, and 14 of those are our allies.

So we’re in this period of overmatch, if you will, and the reason is why hasn’t the Army 

been able to break through, if you will, and change the apportionment? Unrelated to what I’m 

talking about, but I think part of it is because of strategic communications, and our inability 

to form a picture of the future. A picture of what the nature and character of war is going to be 

like in the future. And it’s not only hurting the Army, I believe, today, but it’s also hurting our 

ability to prepare for the future.

When I was here two years ago, remember the topic of my talk was how we use history as 

a mechanism for gazing into the future. I promised you two years ago that when I came back, 

I’d think a lot about that and see if I can’t offer you a hypothesis about the future. It’s related, 

in many ways, to strategic communications. One of my concerns with the Army today is that, 

embroiled as we are in Afghanistan and Iraq, we haven’t really been able to ask the “So what?” 

or the “What next?” question. It’s very interesting, thank you for sharing, we appreciate your 

sacrifice and service to the nation, but where is all this going? And we’re wrapped in this cloud 

of all sorts of disparate and goofy ideas.

We went through the shock and awe, lift the fog of war baloney back in the late 1990s. 

We’ve already gone through the fourth generation thesis, but with no solution. We’re now in 

an era of people looking to the future and hypothesizing a military that’s going to be fixed by 

rearranging the deck chairs. This is the Tom Barnett, Hans Benedict thesis about all we need 

to do is reorganize at the top and we’ll be fine. Sort of what we did for Homeland Security, I 

guess. But no one has stepped forward yet, I think, to try to offer a vision of where experiences 

in the past are going to leave us.

Recall what I told you when I was here two years ago, for all of you CSI long marchers. 

I said that as you look into the future there are five things that determine success in changing 

your view of the art of war to anticipate the future. You’re the catalyst, you needed ideas, you 

needed some form of experimentation. You needed to create a common cultural bias, and unlimited support from the top. And the question is how many of those five are we able to match 

today?

And then I told you, also, that future gazing really is looking across a continuum of time, 

and it breaks itself down into three critical elements. The first of those is history is metaphor. 

Looking back, trying to find those sinews, trying to find those sign posts, if you will, that reach 

back into the past and lead up to the present. The second is interpreting contemporary operations. That is looking at what’s happening now to try to see if those sign posts continue to line 

up, and see if there’s continuity in all that, or is there some sort of discontinuity that would 

cause you to change your opinions of the future.

And the third, and the most difficult, of course, is experimentation, either real or virtual, 
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where we can take those sinews and those sign posts, pull them into the future, walk out 20 

years, 30 years, climb the top of the mountain, and see if that connect the dots routine, if that 

continuity, is still there.

Well, I’ve been doing that for awhile, and what I’d like to do, very briefly, this afternoon 

is offer you some thoughts on that. I spent a lot of time on this. In fact, I’m in the process of 

writing a book and an article. The article will be coming out here pretty soon in Armed Forces 

Journal. The book will be titled—this is a plug, I need the money—will be called American 

Gladiator. I use that term because it tends to sell books. But it’s a way of looking into the future 

from the perspective of land power.

So three means of investigation. Looking into the future, some would say, needs to be 

a joint exercise. We have to view the future in terms of each different entity, each different 

dimension of war, making some sort of contribution to be able to define what that process of 

change is going to be like. I think that’s absolute baloney. I think that the epochs of history, the 

continuum of history, is defined by how the art of war has changed on the ground. Like any 

other profession, we can measure the shifts in epoch from theocracies, to autarchies, to democracies. We can go from barter economies to globalism. In other professions it is a fairly even 

sweep that we can use history as a means to chart the course of change and look for those shifts, 

or those periods of discontinuity.

What we historians do, and what future gazers use history to do, is to use battles as the Petri 

dishes, as the elements of inquiry, as the laboratories that we can use to determine where we’re 

going in the future, to connect the dots, if you will.

So therefore, in many ways, the history of land warfare determines the epochal shifts of 

land power as we look back through the continuum of history. Now, I know Mahan might disagree with what I’m about to say, but let me take a moment and try to walk you through how I 

see the epochal shifts, and then to offer you a hypothesis of what contemporary history tells us 

about whether or not we’re in one of those shifts right now. And then end with what I think this 

means for the future of the Army as it begins to move forward into this new epoch.

This is all Military Science 101, so bear with me. You could make the argument that the 

first epoch of land warfare was the age of infantry. Some historians, most historians, will say 

that it ended at the Battle of Adrianople in 378 A.D. where the Gothic horsemen defeated the 

Roman legions. If the Goths didn’t necessarily believe that, we know from the writings of the 

Romans in the period that the Romans sure as hell did. We saw the end of the legion as the 

center of gravity, or the center of focus, if you will, for how the Romans fought. And for the 

next almost 1,000 years, the mounted warrior dominated the battlefield, whether it was a steppe 

warrior, or the Saracens, or the mounted knights in Western Europe, the infantry formations 

were essentially auxiliaries, if you will, to the clash of the horsemen.

So we had that first epochal shift. Again, I realize that everybody didn’t wake up after the 

Battle of Adrianople and look around and say, “Okay, guys, let’s get rid of the gladius, and 

we’re going to pick up a lance here.” I mean, you could make an argument that we’ve always 

had infantrymen with us. But what I meant was that the amplifier, the center of focus of warfare, was infantry. And then cavalry. And then we shift forward to the battle . . . and I picked 
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the Battle of Pavia in 1525 as another one of those battlefield markers that marked this fundamental shift, if you will, or this epochal shift, in the nature and character of war. Why? Well, 

because of many different factors, some of them social, some of them related, of course, to the 

enlightenment in the Renaissance, and equally to technology, the invention of a truly effective 

gun powder—a shoulder fired gun powder weapon.

We saw the beginning of the end of the battle of the heavy mounted knight, because the 

ability of a one ounce lead ball to penetrate plate armor simply couldn’t be overcome by adding more armor. For the next 500 years, we saw the dominance of infantry. Now don’t get me 

wrong. Obviously, cavalry was still part of the battlefield. I mean lancers rode off in 1914 to 

face the machine guns at [inaudible], but nonetheless, infantry dominates the battlefield for the 

next 500 years.

So now we get a little bit closer to this next third epochal shift. What brought that about? 

Many different things, but again, principally technology. The first precision revolution, the 

invention of the small bore rifle, smokeless powder, the machine gun and artillery doomed 

the dominance of the infantry, beginning in 1914, and of course, solidified over the next four 

years.

And so once that period of infantry domination ended, then the first precision revolution 

drove us to beginnings of another epoch. I’m going through this quickly, but I think the point 

needs to be made. And that’s the beginning of the Blitzkrieg era, or the era of big machine 

warfare. The second age of infantry died in World War I, replaced by big machine warfare. The 

first precision revolution made that happen.

So now battlefield dominance depended on the ability of direct tank-on-tank engagements 

as your operational maneuver force. The tip of the spear. Germany went to war in 1940, or 

1939, with 114 divisions, only 11 of which were armored, mechanized, or motorized, but these 

were the decisive element in operational maneuver. Eventually, over the next four years, the 

advantage went to the big gun tank, the ability of one tank to defeat another tank in open warfare.

But for us, in many ways big machine warfare created two parallel universes, one real, 

and one potential. As we moved into the American era, if you will, of warfare, after World 

War II, as all of you know in this room, the American Army, in terms of doctrine, equipment, 

training, and so forth, really wrestled with two universes. One that was potential, the thought 

of facing the Soviets in tank-on-tank warfare in Western Europe. The other was real. A series 

of sign posts, beginning in the Korean War and going through a series of conflicts, interrupted 

only once between now and then—twice, between now and then, where suddenly big machine 

warfare didn’t fit anymore.

Now, the Army, of course, preferred big machine warfare for many reasons, but part of the 

reason they preferred it is because any time a soldier fought mounted in this period of American 

wars, any time he fought he stood a tenfold greater probability of surviving than if he fought 

dismounted. Interesting fact that in wars fought since the end of World War II, four out of five 

of all of those who died at the hands of the enemy, Americans who died at the hands of the 

enemy were infantry. Overwhelmingly, most of those were light infantry.
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Let me put that in other terms. Within the Department of Defense, four out of five were 

Army and Marine infantry. So we have a force of less than 4% suffering four out of five killed 

in action on the battlefield. Now that number slips down when you include diseases and accidents. That goes down to about 67%. Nonetheless, more than half of all the names on the monuments for the Korean War and the Vietnam War are infantrymen, mostly light infantrymen.

So the obsession with big machine warfare carried all the way through DESERT STORM, 

and I would argue even up to the march to Baghdad. It’s interesting, isn’t it? A quick question. 

In the period of American wars, how many American soldiers were killed in tank-on-tank engagements through frontal penetration by an enemy main guy? Eight. Eight. I’ve been through 

the books. That’s all I can . . . if you guys can find more, have at it. By the way, I got all this 

useless information when my team wrote Certain Victory. I asked all these questions. Please go 

back and tell me, and they came back with some astounding answers. Eight. How many tanks, 

American M-1s, in DESERT STORM were destroyed through frontal penetration? Zero. And 

how many tanks, M-1s, in DESERT STORM were hit on the front slope of either the turret or 

the front slope of the hull? One.

So we have an Army that was essentially designed around tank-on-tank engagements where 

tank-on-tank engagements simply didn’t happen. So the Army preferred to plan for tank-ontank engagements. It found itself fighting principally as light infantry, but it didn’t like it.

Let me take a quick diversion. There’s an old saying that the best way an army can learn is 

to lose, and the best way a winning army can learn is by having a really, really tough opponent 

that forces the learning to occur. Any of you familiar with the Battle of Solferino? The French 

against the Austrian coalition. The interesting fact . . . you know, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on European military intellectual thought in the mid-19th century, and I was amazed at 

how rich . . . this is a historical diversion. Only you would appreciate this. Most people start 

walking out when I talk about this.

In the mid-19th century, one of the richest forums for discussing the art of war was in 

France. This was the era of the salon culture over art, and business, and so forth. It was also a 

very strong military salon headed by Baron [inaudible] and others, and it brought in members 

of the arts, politicians, of course a lot of military men from all over Europe.

If you read the professional literature of the period, which was just beginning to be important in France, the debate was very, very rich about the influence of technology on the art of 

war. Whether or not Napoleon’s line and column method of fighting would survive the introduction of the needle gun. And the answer was we don’t know, but we’re going to continue to 

talk about it. Then we march off to Solferino where the army of Napoleon III absolutely beat 

the bejesus out of the Austrians, who were equipped with a primitive bolt action rifle. The rich 

debate had ended, and the traditional, or the conservative, forces had won. Napoleon’s line, 

the great master is alive and well and will be with us for generations. All we have to do is fast 

forward to Sudan in 1870, 1871 and understand that they got it wrong.

But the point was, the visceral trumps the theoretical every time. The practical experience 

in war always, almost always, determines where you go in the future, because it’s so deeply 

ingrained in the soul, if you will, of those who practice the art of war. It’s extremely difficult to 
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overcome that. So we see, when we march off in 1870, the line and column didn’t work. You 

could make an argument that throughout this period, the experience of the American Civil War, 

fill in the blank, the Manchurian War, the Russian-Turkish War, and of course, even the early 

days of World War I, those lessons refused to be learned.

My point to you is that the Solferino effect is very, very powerful. You could make an argument, I would make an argument, that in many ways, not only the march to Baghdad, but the 

great wheel in 1991, had about it this great sort of Solferino effect on our Army. It’s not that 

we failed to see it, but the passion to believe that blitzkrieg warfare will exist from now on into 

the future was enormous.

Then we come to the last battle that I’ll discuss with you, and that’s the Battle of Bint Jbeil 

in August of 2006. How do I know this? Because they drug me into the studio at Fox back in 

July and August, and I sat there . . . you know, you talk about how war has changed. I’m sitting there with a cell phone, my own cell phone, my Blackberry, and I’m looking at a screen in 

Israel, and there’s Jennifer Griffin and Shep Smith sitting there with their Blackberry, and the 

cameras on them, and over them we’re watching rockets coming in to Bint Jbeil, and I’m trying 

to talk them through what they’re about to say during a commercial. No Shep, it’s not a gun, 

it’s a howitzer. No, that’s not a tank. It’s a . . . I know it looks like a tank, Shep. Please, listen to 

me. It’s a howitzer, for Christ’s sake.

But my point was, as a I sat there for three weeks and watched this play out, suddenly I 

thought to myself, “Good God, is this that sign post that we’ve all been looking for? Is this the 

. . . excuse our own experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is this the example? Is this the third 

party example that puts paid to the thought that maybe for the last 50 years, we have been undergoing another tectonic shift in the epochs of war? That the days of the big tank, the days of 

big machine warfare are over?” As we watched the Merkavas try to work their way through the 

villages, we got a sense that maybe the second precision revolution, a precision revolution that, 

for the first time, allows unskilled, untutored terrorists to employ precision weapons in the back 

alleys of villages might be another reinforcement to our own experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe we’re on the verge, or we’re in the midst of, this next shift in the art of war.

As you know, most of these shifts occur to folks on the ground, particularly soldiers on 

active service, and they miss it. It might be a generation before they wake up and think to 

themselves, “This is a battlefield dominated by infantry, or a battlefield dominated by big machines.” So my hypothesis is that now the cycle of war has turned again, and that we’re in an 

era, a second . . . or I guess in many ways you could argue a third age of infantry. Let me define 

infantry very broadly. It’s not the purview of a single service.

To paraphrase Bill Caldwell earlier today, it really is a function, not a specialty or an MOS. 

It deals with the need to aggregate manpower densely, to perform a series of functions that 

can be both kinetic and non-kinetic, but it deals with the need to make close contact with the 

people, either in terms of area control, influence operations, as you heard here, or the nasty, 

dirty business of intimate killing. So it applies across the spectrum, and it embraces many services, Army, Marines, Special Operating Forces, and all of those who perform these infantry 

or infantry-like functions.
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Also understand that this is not an epoch that’s . . . obviously just as armies of the postPavia period weren’t made up entirely of infantry, of course, we all know that all armies are 

heterogeneous formations. They have old equipment, new equipment. They have units in formations that provide essential functions across the whole spectrum of combat, and across the 

whole spectrum of the different branches and services. But we’re moving into a period, I believe, that increasingly will be centered on the infantryman, or infantry-like functions, that will 

be the decisive element in future warfare.

So, in many ways we face a 21st -century dilemma, a corollary very similar to what was 

faced by 16th century France. But we’re a big machine Army, so we have to be able to anticipate where we’re going, and to shape and reshape our doctrine, the way we go to war, the materiel, and the way we produce people to anticipate this new epoch. Of course, the conundrum 

is, and here’s the uniquely American problem with dealing with this, is as I said earlier, infantry 

combat is not only manpower intensive and dense, but it tends to be close, and therefore many 

of the characteristics of infantry-like fighting accrues to the enemy and not to us.

First of all, it goes to the value of intangibles. Things like courage, skill at arms, patience, a 

willingness to sacrifice, an enthusiasm for death, mass. Not all of these are necessarily American equities. Of course there’s this issue of casualties. There is a common perception among 

those in the defense establishment that engaging in close combat, fighting as infantry, creates 

more casualties. It has in the past, but I’m not convinced, as a futurist, that that trend necessarily has to continue into the future.

All too often over the last 50 years, from Korea, to Vietnam, to Somalia, fill in the blanks, 

connect the dots, all too often what we find is that the American infantry is engaged inside the 

red zone, whether in humanitarian operations or in the close fight, and so they are obliged, 

when it gets down to the nasty business of intimate killing, to participate in a fair fight. That 

is what has caused us to back off from building an infantry dense Army, simply because we 

. . . the enemy understands that our most vulnerable center of gravity is dead Americans. We 

believe that, humanitarian concerns aside, we believe that that’s true. Therefore there’s a reluctance on the part of our political betters to commit ourselves to combat or infantry where the 

infantry conflict will be central. There’s a certain reluctance on our own part to do the same.

So the big question we have is that if we’re moving into an era of distributed combat 

against primitive enemy, virtually all of whom are infantry, scattered across the most obscure, 

distant places on the planet; if we’re facing the prospect of fighting this type of warfare, not 

incrementally or incidentally, but generationally; if we’re facing an enemy who wants us to 

fight on his terms, on his turf, can we do it, and yet still fight at a cost that’s acceptable to the 

American people? I believe we can.

Let me end my talk by offering you some insights into how that might be done. One of the 

interesting things about infantry fights is that it is a battalion, company, platoon, squad level 

fight, and as you pull down the level of war, the level of focus, from strategic, to operational, 

to tactical, the balance point between those things that make a difference, technology, begins 

to matter less and less, and be less and less decisive, and the human elements begin to become 

more important. But that’s not to say that technology can’t be applied to that. It just says that 

infantry fights, particularly tactical fights, the two are in balance.
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Let me very briefly go down some suggestions between the two, and offer a way that we 

could enter the new age of infantry, and yet fight the infantry fight on our terms for a change, 

not on the enemy’s terms.

The first, number one principal is—even in the infantry fight—we must fight mounted. 

Instead of taking a small part of the ground force and thickening it, we must redistribute our 

mounted formations such that we have more infantry, or more soldiers, that are mounted longer, and allowed to be closer to the enemy. More soldiers, mounted longer, closer to the . . . our 

investigation, I think, proves the fact that, as I mentioned to you earlier about frontal penetration, that the greatest chance of survival is protection all around, not just protection in the front. 

And keeping as many infantry, particularly in the assault formations, under armor. Also, if we 

can, as much as possible, to keep all of the formation under armor, and then allow them to stay 

protected, literally up to, and in many cases, through the red zone.

We have to have a leap ahead in protection. Now the physical scientists will tell you this 

is too hard. It’s too hard simply because we haven’t devoted the resources to it. I mean how 

many trillions of dollars have we spent . . . hundreds of billions of dollars . . . have we spent on 

perfecting stealth? And my question is, is there a ground corollary to stealth? Is there a way that 

we can obscure the presence of our forces, even in daytime, from a tactical enemy? Particularly 

inside the red zone, because that’s where . . . another interesting fact, 96% of all Americans 

killed in combat die within a mile of the point of contact with the infantry. 96%. Virtually all 

of those in the first quarter mile. There’s a slight blip at about 600 to 800 meters, which is normally from enemy mortar fire. But that’s about it.

So keeping soldiers mounted and protected, and offering them a way to get up to and 

through the red zone through some sort of either physical protection or protection using obscurance has to be a national, not an Army or Marine Corps, priority.

We have to be able to outmaneuver the enemy at the strategic, operational, and tactical 

level. A wonderful piece, if you haven’t read it, I’d offer to you is Barry Posen’s wonderful 

article in, I think it’s an MIT journal. It’s called “Command of the Commons.” It’s a wonderful 

article, and it didn’t get the attention that it deserves, mainly because he’s helping to make my 

point. But his point was that we own the commons. This is a spin off of Mahan. We own the 

commons, that’s air, sea, and space. We command the commons. We dominate the commons. 

But we do a lousy job of exploiting the commons. We don’t use the global commons with 

the efficiency that we should be able to use it in order to get to distant theaters of war, to be 

able to maintain ourselves in these theaters of war for a long period of time, and to do it very, 

very quickly, before the enemy sets himself, psychologically and physically, at the operational 

level.

And, oh by the way, that type of speed, if you will, needs to be just as effective at the 

tactical level as it is at the operational level. Right now the problem is that we can get there 

quickly and fight dismounted. We can get there slowly and fight mounted. But we can’t get 

there quickly and fight protected. We’re not able to do it. We have to be able to do that. It’s all 

a function of speed.

We have to be able to sense and kill outside the red zone. The red zone, of course, in the 
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march to Baghdad was 2,400 meters, approximately, but what is it in places like Fallujah and 

places like that? Some interesting, useless pieces of information.

Let’s talk about exchange ratios and kill rations just for a moment. It’s an important point. 

Any of you know what exchange ratio is? Any pilots in here? In World War II, the exchange ratio for air-to-air combat over Europe was eight to one, and the Pacific was 11 to one. In Korea, 

it was about 13 to one. Interesting, in, I think, April 1967, it suddenly slipped to one to one, because of some interesting things that the North Vietnamese did, and that led to the red flag, and 

Tom Cruise, and Top Gun, and a huge assortment . . . $1.34 trillion worth of aircraft, with the 

promise that we would never have to face those types of ratios again. So that the exchange ratio 

today for the F-15 series of aircraft in the hands of Israeli and American pilots is 107 to one.

Inside the red zone, what’s the kill ratio? I’m using Marines now, the only data I can really 

find that I think is credible. What’s the exchange ration inside the kill zone in a place like Fallujah? Six to one. The Marines will tell you that once you’re inside a building, it’s about one to 

one. So when you fight in the red zone, without being able to kill outside the red zone, increasingly it’s going to be a fair fight, so the deal is to break the back of the enemy, to achieve this 

sort of dominance, if you will, long before you enter the red zone. Otherwise, the cost of close 

combat is too high. Now, there are many ways to do it.

The two principle ingredients, of course, are control of the low air, number one. Number 

two, the ability to apply killing precision very, very close and very quickly to soldiers as they 

come up to and enter the red zone. I would define the red zone in urban terrain as about 50 meters. Certainly no more than 100 meters. So some means must be developed to kill the enemy 

with great precision that close. We cannot do it today, really. We say we can, but we can’t.

Mission times today, particularly from aerial delivery fires, are no better today than they 

were . . . they haven’t changed at all, really, in about 50, 60 years. That problem has got to be 

fixed. You guys are smiling up there. What was the average mission time of an artillery close 

support mission in the European front in 1944? This is after the break out in [inaudible]. Anybody have an idea? The average mission time for a close support mission. Four minutes. Four 

minutes. The most effective artillery . . . the most effective artillery we’ve ever produced. In 

Vietnam, close support mission was 11 minutes. DESERT STORM, it was about 50 minutes. 

Same rule applies for close air support. You can follow that same tracking.

Why is that? You have automation, we get these wonderful airplanes. It has to do with the 

human element. It’s the human element. Every time firepower is applied in the battlefield and 

you add a decision layer, it takes exactly eight minutes. Take it to the bank. It’s got nothing 

to do with the speed of light, it hasn’t changed. It’s got to do with someone who has the rose 

pinned on them to make a decision to fire or not to fire, knowing that the consequences could be 

professionally terminal. And oh, by the way, terminal to those who you’re supporting. You can 

take that to the bank. So if you have five layers that a mission has to go through, or any type of 

mission has to go through, in order to achieve effects, you quintuple the time. There’s nothing 

you can do to change that. You can’t change it because a person sets back in his chair, crosses 

his arms, and thinks, “Is that right?” Oh, by the way, you put a bunch of lawyers in the talk, 

and it gets even more difficult. Add the media, and it gets very, very, very hard.
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So as our technology has gotten better to reduce the technological frictions of killing inside 

the red zone, we have other frictions that have grown in proportion. Many of you will be able 

to cite me some wonderful examples of almost instantaneous firepower being delivered from 

many different sources. The truth is, collectively . . . warfare is a collective business, it ain’t 

happening. We need to find a way to do that.

The next one is to restore tactical touch. This is an interesting observation from the Marines. There’s a historical precedent here, which I think is wonderful. Any of you seen the 

movie Saving Private Ryan, or Band of Brothers? One of the things that we learned in World 

War II, or we taught our soldiers in World War II is, the value of marksmanship. Americans are 

marksmen. When you get on the beaches, you wait, you listen to your . . . you keep your mouth 

shut, listen to your squad leader, and when something pops up, you see a target, you engage it. 

This is all in S.L.A. Marshall’s book, Men Against Fire.

Of course, what we learned was in the Bocage country in Northern France, once we started working our way through the hedgerows, all of a sudden, as soon as the first round was 

fired, usually by the Germans, the Germans were noisy as hell. Remember reading about that? 

They’d stand up and shout, shoot in the air, tracers flying everywhere, singing, whistling to 

each other.

Why? Because after four and a half years of war, the Germans understood the value of 

tactical touch, far better to prevent soldiers from breaking under the pressures of close combat through team chatter, I guess, for lack of a better term, than keeping your mouth shut and 

waiting for a target to appear. Better to hose down the enemy, even if you couldn’t see them, 

because . . . not because of the physical effect of that, but because of the psychological effect 

of that.

In the 1970s we called it suppression. The psychological term is palliation. Palliation, of 

course, is fear of dying alone. Remember that story in S.L.A. Marshall where the company 

commander gets up to go back to the rear to take a leak, and the whole company follows him 

back? That has to do with this sense of palliation, and fear of isolation, of dying alone.

So how do you overcome it? You overcome it by establishing tactical touch. In the Civil 

War we did it by simply attacking frontally, sleeve to sleeve. But today, often times, you can’t 

even see people in an urban environment if they’re within a squad. So we have to make sure we 

have the tactical means for maintaining touch. If you can’t maintain it directly, then you have 

to maintain it artificially, through the use of radios and other types of communication devices, 

such that every soldier is able to communicate with every soldier to reduce palliation. Right 

now we don’t do that. Why? Because our radios are developed by communicators, not necessarily by close combat soldiers.

Those are the technological things that I think we need to do in the future to fight better 

at less cost as infantry. But as I said, I think, increasingly, as you move to the small units, it’s 

probably more important to focus on the human. What do we have to do to fix this problem in 

this new age of infantry?

Number one is make more of them. If you put every infantryman in this nation in one sta-
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dium . . . they would not fill FedEx stadium. We have more first line Air Force and Navy fighter 

aircraft, costing between $50 and $450 million apiece than we have infantry squads. 2,475, if 

you want to know the number. So we just need more. So as the Army grows, 30,000, 40,000, 

over the next four or five years, disproportionately that has to go . . . those numbers have to be 

applied to the close combat arms.

Second is psychological inoculation. You know, palliation can be lessened, it certainly can 

be delayed, through proper psychological inoculation and preparation prior to entering combat. 

As the Israelis learned last year, also during an operation. In the Israeli Army, as units came 

off the line, increasingly the AAR (after action report) also became a psychological session. 

Often times, psychologists, psychiatrists were brought in to help soldiers refill that crucible of 

courage, if you will, in order not to take too much attention to their own sensitivities. It’s very 

interesting. And the Israelis found that it worked remarkably well.

We have to create world class small units. We have wonderful units in the small units, and 

what amazes me is how good they are. But let me use a football analogy for a moment. You 

know, there aren’t that many squads in the NFL. In the NFL, the object is to win, so what do 

they do? They pay them a lot. They keep them together for a long time. They specialize in 

three areas, offense, defense, and special teams. The coaches get fired if they don’t win. They 

are kept physically fit and psychologically prepared by expending an extraordinary amount of 

money in the preservation of those particular attributes. The quarterback hears footprints every 

day as he vies to keep his job.

You know, if we have so few squads, fewer than 2,500, then I would think in this new age 

of infantry, as probably the highest priority, not just for the Army and the Marine Corps, but 

for the nation, would be to focus on those who are most likely to die, and who we expect to do 

most of the killing.

I believe, from my own research, particularly going back to Certain Victory, that it takes at 

least a year to a year and a half to build a platoon. I think that platoon leaders, and even squad 

leaders, should be kept together and kept in those jobs for years. Maybe even a decade.

Another interesting fact. I get this from my buddies at Walter Reed. What is the optimal age 

to be an effective small unit soldier? Not leader, but soldier. By that I mean less likely to suffer 

a harmful death, and more likely to be effective in a close fight longer. Twenty-three? Thirty? 

Who said 30? Bingo. Twenty-eight to 32. Older, more mature. I certainly learned in Vietnam, 

one of the ways you survive in close combat is not through audacity, but through caution. And 

what we’ve learned, particularly in Special Forces units, is that this element of caution, this 

lack of impetuousness, if you will, this ability to understand the moment and to be able to operate with your brain instead of your testosterone, often times keeps units alive in close combat. 

So older soldiers make better close combat soldiers.

What do we do? We hire them 18, 19 years old. I said this to the Marine leadership about 

two years ago, when Mike Hagee was the Commandant. They got all upset at me, but then 

again, they also started to change their philosophy. The Marine philosophy is what? Three 

deployments and you’re out. 70% of the Marine Corps walks away after four years. They want 

the 18 and the 19-year olds. Interesting story. Second Battle of Fallujah, the dominant rank 
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among the 6th Marine Regiment when that battle was over, at the squad leader level, was Lance 

Corporal.

Why? Because when the bullets start to whack over your head, and people die all around 

you, small unit leadership tends to take on sort of a Darwinian context, doesn’t it? And they all 

look at each other and say, “Who’s going to keep us alive over the next five days? Okay, Smith, 

it’s you.” Almost invariably it was a kid who was better educated and older, not necessarily the 

squad leader. Interesting, huh?

So what I’m saying is we need to start treating small units, in this new infantry age of warfare, as accepted organizations. We need to spend the money to keep them together. We need to 

spend the money, and the time, and the resources, to build these extraordinary teams. We have 

combat experienced men and women coming back from combat. Now is the time to pull back 

and rebuild, but do it very, very carefully.

In extremist leadership and decision making . . . look, you’re locked in here, you can’t go. 

You’ve got to hear a war story. Here’s a war story. One of the things that’s really wrong with 

the Army is our personnel system, particularly our officer assignment system. It’s been broken 

for 40 years. We all know that. It’s the last unreformed bureaucracy in the Army. I was assigned 

to an Honest John Battalion in Germany. Didn’t want to die. I was in the class of ’66 at West 

Point, and there was a lot of people dying. So I went to Germany, and lo and behold, three 

weeks . . . and it’s a nuclear capable rocket unit.

Lo and behold, three weeks after I gave up command . . . I was commander of B Battery, 

319th, in the Battle of Hamburger Hill. I was there three days, and we just got our ass handed 

to us. It was awful. And I’m sitting there on a sandbag, surrounded by smoke and crap flying 

around, after it was over, and this gentleman came up to me, his name was Harold Erickson, 

his call sign was . . . we all had call signs. Mine was Cold Steel, his was Viking, because Erickson, he looked like . . . you know, a big, tall guy. Played football for Georgia Tech, and later 

played quarterback for Philadelphia. Never said much. The only thing I ever saw Viking ever 

do was clean his rifle. Totally inarticulate. Retires after 30 years as a Community Commander 

in Darmstadt.

I remember him coming up to me, I’m sitting there, and he leaned over and he said to me, 

“Okay, Captain Scales, what are you going to do now?” And I’ll never forget this. I said, “Well, 

Viking, I’ve been seriously considering law school.” And he said, “No, no, no, no. What are 

you going to do now?” And I said, “I don’t know,” because I didn’t know.

And for the next three hours, Viking led me around that fire base, Berchtesgaden, and 

taught me how to do it right. Why? Because Viking had that special something, the right stuff, 

that tactical finger [inaudible], whatever you want to call it. That innate sense of terrain . . . I 

don’t know how . . . I can’t explain it to you, but he had it. After ten assaults up Hamburger 

Hill, he led the eleventh assault, found a way to get in behind them, and with B Company, 

1/506th finally took that hill. He had only two KIA in that unit. It looked like the Pied Piper 

every time he walked around. Soldiers followed him. If you got assigned to B Company, everybody said, “You know what? You’re going to make it through this year.”
261

Why? It’s all about Viking. But what is it that Viking had? I don’t know what he had. He 

had that right stuff. Here’s what I think he had. That he had the ability to see and sense the 

battlefield in an extraordinary way, and he had the ability, under duress, to make the right decisions. You know, we can all talk about leadership as being . . . you know, looking good, being a 

West Point graduate, marrying the General’s daughter, having the ethics and values of a soldier. 

All of those are important, but let me tell you, when the bullets start to crack over your head, 

the good leader is a guy that goes to ground, and intuitively—not by going through a five paragraph field order, or coming back for three alternatives—intuitively starts acting like a one-man 

band. Viking could do that.

If warfare in the future is going to be increasingly tactical, and increasingly focused on 

infantry, what are we doing in our Army and Marine Corps today to find the Vikings? To find 

the eagles and separate from the turkeys bloodlessly before the nasty business of close combat 

begins? I mean the Air Force and Navy learned that with pilots in the 1960s. What are we doing for tactical pilots in the 21st century? How do we find the Vikings at an early age, and then 

find a way to steepen their learning curve bloodlessly before they start to command units? Why 

can’t we do this in our ROTC or West Point? Call a cadet in and say, “Your dad’s in the infantry, 

you have three little West Point helmets by your name. I got that. I understand. You want to be 

infantry more than . . . but have you thought about law school?” Why can’t we do that . . . why 

in the infantry do we have to rely on failure at the tactical level, potentially, to be able to find 

those with the right stuff?

We have to be able to change the bureaucratic instruments and policies that will nurture and 

enhance the creation of first class infantry. Right now, a computer programmer in the Pentagon 

makes more than some poor sucker walking point in al Anbar Province. That’s baloney. We talk 

about recruiting problems. We have a recruiting problem because increasingly we try to take 

Cold War recruiting policies and procedures and apply it to real war times. I mean, a bonus to 

me is a bribe. What we need to do is start paying soldiers for risk as well as skills. Blackwater 

does not have a problem finding security guards because they pay them what they’re worth. 

Look, only about 9% of the DoD every really gets involved in the nasty business of close combat. I hate to say it, but that’s true. It’s always been that way for our Army. So we ought to find 

a way to reward those, and pay them more. Particularly base it on risk.

The other thing we need to do is give soldiers credit for doing the nasty business, as I said, 

of humping a rucksack in 130 degree heat. The Romans did this. You know what the enlistment 

length was for a Roman soldier in the Empire, who spent his time on campaigns? Twelve years. 

It was reduced from 25 to 12 years, cut in half. Why? Because the Romans realized this guy had 

paid his dues. And oh, by the way, he was probably physically and psychologically broken.

The German Air Force did this in the 1970s and 1980s. The Luftwaffe. So we have to have 

a flexible way to take those who do this nasty business, keep those that are going to be leaders 

at the small unit level, squad leaders and platoon leaders, and let the others retire.

We have to over staff close combat units. Lincoln calls it the arithmetic. Remember in 

the movie Band of Brothers, after the fiasco of MARKET GARDEN? Captain Summers goes 

back and he gets that new infusion of guys in the regiment, and all of a sudden, they all know 

each other. They’re drinking beer in the Belgian bar. Remember that scene? Why is that? Well, 
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compare it to the rest of the Army in the ETO. It was essentially an Army of strangers, because 

the arithmetic, the attrition, was so great that our Army in the ETO fought principally as strangers. It wasn’t all from close combat. It was from disease, and trench foot, and woundings, and 

psychological trauma, and reassignment. I mean you name it.

How did they do it? Because when Colonel Lee started building the airborne, he built in 

huge redundancy at the close combat level. Up to a third in some regiments were over staffed. 

When the bullets start to fly, arithmetic takes over, and attrition’s going to happen regardless 

of how high your casualty rates are. And if you don’t accommodate that, if you don’t build this 

band of brothers deal early, before close combat begins, we’re going to wind up in the close 

combat units fighting as strangers.

We have to increase the density of our leaders, leader to led ratio. If a squad is separated 

into thirds and can’t see each other, then we have to have viable leaders at each of those subunits. Who says that a company commander can’t be a Major? Or that a squad leader can’t be a 

Sergeant First Class? It’s only money, for Christ sake. You know, why can’t you over staff the 

Army and the Marine infantry . . . or increase the density of leader to led in Army and Marine 

Corps infantry units just as we do in Special Operations units? They proved the value of that. 

That’s something I’ve never understood.

And then we have to select and promote those who demonstrate this tactical right stuff. 

And reward them in such a way that they stay in these units for a very, very long time, if we’re 

going to fight a protracted war, and I believe we will. If this is a war that’s going to last a generation, then merely peaking for peace time won’t work. One of the lessons we’ve learned in 

this war is that, for close combat units, the units you start with at the beginning of a campaign 

aren’t going to grow. That that slope is going to go down over time, and there’s nothing you can 

do about it. You have to over staff from the very beginning.

I also think, and I won’t go into this because I’m running out of time, but we have to be able 

to redefine jointness in a new way in this new age of infantry. It’s not about equal sharing. It’s 

about paying attention to war as it is, rather than the war we want. It’s coming up with a military 

method that allows us to kill the enemies that we have rather than those we want. Instead of 

trying to find enemies worthy of our weapons, let’s design our weapons to defeat the enemies 

we have. Trying to be non-controversial here. What are your questions?
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Day 2—Featured Speaker

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

Major General (Retired) Robert H. Scales, Jr.

Defense Consultant; Author; Historian

Audience Member

I have a comment, and then a question. My comment, when you were talking about infantry 

centric organizations that had better mobility, better ability to view the battlefield, ability to 

fight dispersed, sounds very strikingly like what the Stryker Brigade Combat Teams thought 

they were going to fight like in 2003, before the first one got overseas. That’s just a comment.

Major General Scales

You’re absolutely right. Absolutely. I spent a lot of time with Jim Dubick out at Fort Lewis in 

the formative days of that, and I’ve been back periodically ever since. He’s over in Iraq now, 

but before he left, and what I saw . . . if I could just spin on that for a minute. What I saw in 

the Stryker Brigade, from long conversations with Jim, was the seed corn of this close combat 

transformation, or this change in close combat, because of the machine, but also because of the 

attitudes of the people who fought in those machines. Anybody that says that machines don’t 

shape your ability to fight are absolutely wrong. What the Striker Brigade taught me is that, by 

golly, it did. I’m sorry. What was your question?

Audience Member

I’m right with you, sir. I was the historian up there for several years. I was surprised that you 

didn’t mention non-lethal weapons technology, because I’m hearing an awful lot about the 

Marines really clamoring that in the fight they’re fighting—and Army guys too—a non-lethal 

weapon would be a really nice thing to have.

Major General Scales

That’s interesting you should say that. I was on the Defense Science Board in 2006, and one of 

the committees I was on was a non-lethal committee. As a guy who’s been in combat, when I 

went into that, I thought that was nothing but absolute, total, unadulterated crap. But once I got 

into it and saw how the Marines were thinking about using non-lethals operationally, and the 

potential benefits, particularly inside the red zone, I found it to be incredibly intriguing.

If you mix the two together, non-lethal and lethal, it’s not about just riot control. It’s one of the 

ways you can control the enemy inside the red zone. For instance dazzling, obscuring. Some 

type of paralytic effect of some sort or the other. Again, lessens the probability of dying inside 

the red zone. Then you kick in the building and you kill the bastards. But that’s okay. It’s a joke, 

guys, come on.
264

But up until that point, there is an enormous value in non-lethals, but it was the Marine’s ability 

to tie those two together, to build this sort of symbiosis, if you will, between lethal and nonlethal, which I found to be intriguing. Good point. And I don’t think we spent enough time on 

it, because real soldiers don’t do non-lethal. We should.

Audience Member

Not really a question, sir. It’s Michael Noone, from Catholic University. I’d like to read you an 

excerpt from a news report dated August 30th from The Army Times, which in summary says 

that the Pentagon balks at non-lethal energy beam gun because the main reason the tool has 

been missing in action is public perception. “With memories of Abu Ghraib scandal still fresh, 

the Pentagon is reluctant to give troops a space age device that could be misconstrued as a torture machine.” Isn’t that heartbreaking? Marines have asked for it. Army’s asked for it.

Major General Scales

I absolutely agree.

Audience Member

John McGrath, CSI (Combat Studies Institute). I’ve been doing a little work on the tooth-to-tail 

ratio, and everybody’s heard the story of the contractors on the battlefield, which seems to be 

the opposite direction from what you’re talking about. I’d like to hear your comments on that.

Major General Scales

I disagree. I have a great affinity for contractors on the battlefield. I mean, God, look at 

18th-century warfare. I mean, geez, contractors did artillery in the 18th century. I don’t have a 

problem with that. I do have an issue with tooth-to-tail. Now that I agree with. By tooth-to-tail, 

I mean, you know, the numbers of close combat soldiers in relation to the rest of the force. I do 

think that’s way out of whack.

Just for your information, for the Army right now, it’s about 11 to one. Anybody know what 

the Marines is? It’s about 14 to one. Not that much difference. If you include the air wing to 

that, which I didn’t, it’s about the same. Maybe even a little worse, actually. As we increase 

the size of the Army, the tendency is to increase it as a slice, if you will. I’ve been talking to a 

lot of people in the Army leadership to try to increase the proportion of close combat soldiers, 

because I believe you can without damaging . . . but everybody has to have a piece. So the 

wonders of TRADOC. Everybody’s got to have a part of the action. I don’t believe that.

I think we ought to, as I mentioned, over staff close combat units to some proportion, and so 

when the bullets start to fly, you don’t drop down to some other horrific ratio.

Audience Member

[John McGrath-cont’d] CSI did a little work on second Fallujah, and it was kind of an analysis 

of the Army operations there under the Marines. The Army elements were mechanized battal-
265

ions, and tank battalions, and the Marines were just infantry. By the use of the armored forces 

in the ...

Major General Scales

What was the KIA ratio? What did you come up with?

Audience Member

I’m not the one who did it, but the Army had a smaller KIA ratio.

Major General Scales

Right. And what was the proportion?

Audience Member

Much smaller proportion to the force.

Major General Scales

Thank you. Fight mounted. By the way, my friends . . . I consult with the Marines, and there’s 

a guy by the name of Colonel Zotti who is going through this reappraisal of Marine Corps futures, and they really have latched on to that and trying to reform their close combat units. They 

understand now the value of fighting mounted, more than they have before. Now, if you read 

Bill Lind in his Fourth Generation Warfare, he doesn’t agree with that. He takes the Austria/

Hungarian approach. We’ve all just got to be light infantry and we’ll be fine. But Americans 

simply can’t fight that way.

Audience Member

[John McGrath-cont’d] One of the findings that the Army guys had was that there was sort of 

a feeling, maybe, in certain elements that it was unmanly to fight mounted, or blow a building 

up before trying to take the building out instead of just going door-to-door.

Major General Scales

You normally hear that from people who don’t go into close combat. Trust me, I’ve been 

through this. Okay, young man, you can kick the door down and charge in, or I can blow up 

the God damn building. Sir, I think we should blow up the building. Another interesting fact, 

in wars of the American era, 52% of all killed in action in close combat were suffered finding 

the enemy. More than half of American deaths in these wars are suffered finding the enemy. So 

if you use mounted forces to find the enemy, even if you have this love affair with dismounted 

warfare, you’re already halfway there. And then if you aren’t able to do it outside the red zone, 

through the use of low flying UAVs . . . interesting story.

When I was in Iraq last time, right after the battle of Fallujah, and I was talking to this Marine 
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regiment commander who said to me, “You won’t believe this. The other day this contractor 

came in and said ‘Look, I have a wonderful way that I can help you out, Colonel. I have a 

special muffler kit we’re going to put on your UAVs to deaden the sound of UAVs. It will only 

cost you x number of billion dollars.’” The Colonel said, “No, no, no, no. In fact, why don’t 

you take the muffler I have off. I don’t want a UAV that’s quiet. I want one that’s really, really 

loud.”

Why? Back to the psychological nature of close combat. Remember, it’s human, not technological. Because if the enemy . . . I don’t care if it’s got a camera in it. I just want it over his 

head, orbiting, making a lot of noise. That changes his patterns of behavior. He goes to ground, 

and he’s not able to reinforce. He’s isolated. Palliation. Don’t give me something that flys high; 

give me something at 30 feet. And if they shoot them down, we’ll just make more. It’s an interesting philosophy.

But remember now, we don’t have a close combat view of warfare, even after four and a half 

years we don’t have a view inside of the office of the Secretary of Defense that this is important.

Audience Member

Don Connelly, Command and General Staff College. Earlier this morning we heard panels that 

talked about the nature of military urban operations involving Army and police units. With 

Ms. Robinson’s speech, not just police units, but perhaps local militias who provide the local 

lay of the land. Given that we have, also, an environment where we have combatants and noncombatants, and maybe semi-combatants, and it’s hard to distinguish, how does that affect your 

theory and what we need?

Major General Scales

When individual soldiers are surrounded by civilians or by the type of situation you just described, increasingly we have to be able to build into each soldier the ability to think independently because he’s isolated, he’s alone in a field of ambiguity, and he’s going to have to make 

very key decisions, often times in isolation, by himself.

We’re asking privates to be [inaudible] so in order to be able to deal with those types of complexities, we have to change our professional military educational system to be able to do this 

earlier, much younger in a young soldier’s career. We have to give him more opportunity to 

practice this, and make the situation so he’s comfortable with it. And we have to select those 

young soldiers who can do what you just described in such a way that they’re not overwhelmed, 

which argues for a time [inaudible] specialization, how we educate and train. This has enormous consequences throughout the Army and the Marine Corps. It’s enormous.

You know, it’s interesting. We know more about pilots and astronauts. I tried to write a book 

about this about two years ago. Remember [inaudible] there’s a book in here. So I went back 

to ARI and ARL, and all these other people. I said, “Okay, give me a book about the dynamics 

of close combat.” And they laughed, and they said, “You know what? I can tell you how fast 

a fighter pilot’s fingernails grow in close combat. But I don’t know crap about what happens 
267

inside that objective data. I don’t know. I can’t tell you. It’s a mystery.”

Well, why is it a mystery? If 80% of all of our dead in the last 60 years have come from those 

circumstances, why don’t we pay attention? All over Walter Reed . . . there’s a wonderful guy 

at Walter Reed named Lieutenant Colonel Castro who does this type of analysis, but most of 

our analysis is based on what? PTSD. That’s what it’s based on. In other words, it’s the negative part of psychological preparation rather than the positive part of psychological preparation. 

Why do we do that? I mean we’re living in a primitive era when it comes to understanding 

something that will be with us for the next generation.

Audience Member

Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Farrell, US Military Academy. Haven’t we seen this before? 

One army in the 20th-century had identified these traits and emphasized discipline and cohesion in units, and the focus on forming combat leaders, keeping them together. The German 

Army of the Second World War, in particular their mechanized formations being among their 

best. Company Commanders having the ability to select soldiers for promotion and training. So 

what you’re advocating isn’t anything new, I don’t think. And this accounts for the very successful ratios that the German Army experienced in the Second World War. Your thoughts, sir.

Major General Scales

One of the few good studies about this had to do with the German tactical . . . they called it 

hedge hog. The question was how could the Germans remain effective in close combat when 

they were winnowed down to 1/20 the size of what they started off with. We say if you suffer 

more than 30%, you take them out of the line and rebuild them because they’re combat ineffective. The Germans were fighting battle groups down to, shit, I don’t know, 200 people, and yet 

they were fighting very effectively.

Why is that? Well, you hit on several of the reasons why. First of all, promotion by merit. The 

other thing the Germans did is they never broke unit identity. They would pull whole units back 

instead of going through a replacement system and sort of throw people back into strange units. 

They never fought as strangers. They always fought as . . . by the way, it’s also true in the Civil 

War. Particularly in the South. Some companies by 1864 were down to 15 to 20 men, but they 

were all from the same hometown, and they had this great bonding that was based on factors 

other than just being assigned to a unit. And there are other reasons for that as well.

The other thing the Germans did is they were very reluctant to commission leaders. You’d see 

Company Commanders that were NCOs, not unlike the Marine example in the second battle of 

Fallujah. Very, very good points. We’ve got a lot to learn. But you know, what have we done 

since then? We haven’t done a damn thing, really. I don’t know . . . unless you know of any, 

Kevin. I don’t know.

Audience Member

[LTC Farrell-cont’d] Sir, my position is usually reviled, because there are a lot of negatives 

to be drawn, obviously, but I think this is the great lesson of the German Army of the Second 
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World War, that how was it that they were able to maintain this cohesion and fight against such 

overwhelming odds, and not break apart at levels where our units would have disintegrated? 

And I think there’s much to be learned from that today.

Major General Scales

Yes, absolutely right. Absolutely right. Oh, one other point. This is an interesting point. If you 

read the [inaudible] series in its recruiting of the army, close combat was, as in the American 

Army, were always at the lower end of the spectrum. They were actually shorter than combat 

services. They had lower GT scores. They were less well educated. They were less physically 

fit.

Why? Well, because in the American Army, no one wanted to do it. Now, the greatest generation, they [inaudible] but if you read Trevor Dupuy’s[inaudible] work on combat fighting 

ratios, he said this a lot of times. So he came across saying the Germans against the British and 

the Americans were about 1.2 times more effective. Exchange ratios. This is a very coarse approximation, because the Germans [inaudible] but you know what I’m saying. I think there’s 

truth to that, because in the Japanese, and the German, and the British Army, traditionally, service in close combat units was considered to be elite service, whereas in our Army, you were 

always left at the bottom of the heap to go into the infantry.

Audience Member

Sir, Dave Duffy. I’m out of Army Special Operations Command. Do you think it’s because of 

this lasting blitzkrieg effect, we’re a big machine Army, that the Army’s just not vested in Special Forces. Because of that, with the QDR direction for the general purpose forces to become 

more SOF-like, do you think that this will be a way to overcome this cultural barrier, and kind 

of bring Special Forces back to the Army to learn some of the models that we effectively use? 

Because we’re not technology driven, and because we deal with the indigs, we are infantry ...

Major General Scales

I went to the . . . I told this to your Commander. I went to the mess hall, again, in Fallujah, 

and I’m walking around, and I told him, I said, “It looks like a God damn bar scene from Star 

Wars.” No two guys in this organization had the same uniform on. There was Special Ops 

guys, you know, guys that had other organization . . . civilian clothes. Guys driving trucks, 

Navy guys working computers. They were National Guard, Reserve, Marines, Army guys.

And my take away from that was holy moley, what we have here is not a service description, 

or an MOS description. What we have is a bunch . . . a functional description of what was going on. They were all pretty much engaged in the same task, and they came from many, many 

different backgrounds.

And do you think that prior to 9/11 that you would have a unit like the 10th Mountain Division 

out doing what, in essence, is a Special Forces direct action mission in Afghanistan? Of course 

not. Why? Well, because an adaptive enemy, and the nature of the combat environment is driving us towards this convergence towards focusing on small unit excellence. And the people, 
269

quite often, who lead are from your community, because for those reasons that you mentioned, 

and then . . . why can’t we have selection, for instance?

Why can’t we build a core of elites that incorporates many of the characteristics, and attributes, 

and training methods, and so forth, and psychological preparation that your organization goes 

through? If we expect them to do exactly the same thing. A small unit walking the point in 

al Anbar Province, right? Doing kinetic one day, not kinetic the next, you know, and you look 

at what they’re doing, other than the color of their uniforms and the fact that they’re fairly immature kids without the background that you have, they’re doing the same thing. This is what I 

mentioned to your Commander a few months ago. Maybe it’s time to reshuffle the relationship 

that we have with the Special Ops, and the Marines, and the Army.

Look, everybody gets upset about goals and missions. Jesus Christ, we’ve got enough land 

warfare to go around for us for the next 40 years. Let’s don’t worry about what our missions 

and functions are. I mean, let’s don’t worry about what our MOS happens to be, or the color 

of our uniform. Let’s worry about centering around a function, which quite frankly, at least 

in terms of numbers, is not being addressed to the degree it should if this war is going to last 

another generation.

But now, your boss, Doug and I had this conversation. He gets mad at me when I talk about 

this. You guys have not been as open, I believe, and as egalitarian when it comes to spreading 

what you do into the big Army.

Audience Member

Ralph Peters, unemployed retiree. Two questions. First of all, sorry I came in late. What did I 

miss? I’m always concerned about the selective use of history, and I think certainly this audience should be. And when it comes to the example of World War II, I get very worried. I’d say 

remember three things. One, German units were more experienced. They were at it longer. And 

when the Germans had to rely on a full draft army, rapidly trained, those units collapsed pretty 

quickly.

Second, oh, this is an ouch for you guys, when a unit was encircled on the eastern front or the 

western front, they consistently did the same thing. The Germans always rescued the staffs. 

They did everything they could to rescue division, and even brigade, staffs. They’d fly special 

planes in with skis. Get them out. Save the staffs. The German Army’s elite were the staff officers. Now I’m not sure the American Army is quite ready to do that and have a split, where 

the staff officers live in their own little world and never lead troops, or almost never do. So at 

any rate, just keep it in perspective. The staffs mattered.

The third point, they lost.

Major General Scales

We talked about this before, and I could tell by looking at him this was going to come out. Let 

me put it back . . . let me push back a little bit. Let’s face it, even beginning in . . . even as early 

as 1940, the German Army was 95% bolt action. It was a clone of the World War I army, but I 
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would argue with you for close combat. What the Germans did do is they had the ability to select 

out those who would do the most dangerous and challenging things first. Like Fallschirmjäger 

Regiments, to use your analogy. And of course, obviously, the armored mechanized units. The 

Fallschirmjäger units that dropped on Fort Eben-Emael and opened up the way into Northern 

France. So maybe you could . . . let me see if we can come to a compromise here.

The Germans knew how to put talent and capability towards the greatest challenge, whereas 

we, on the other hand, had a sort of homogenous view of armies, so we took something like the 

Special Services Force, and had them fight in mountains in Italy rather than giving them the 

tough missions. Is that a compromise? Would you buy that, or not?

Audience Member

[Ralph Peters-cont’d] No, that’s fine. My point is you’ve just got to look at everything. What 

the Germans did at the tactical level with leadership, it’s great. But from the German perspective, it was the staff work that really mattered to them, and they were willing to write off the 

infantry and let the Russians take them.

Major General Scales

I agree. That’s a good point. Next. This is fun. Anybody out there? I know you’re out there. I 

can hear you breathing. Yes, sir.

Audience Member

Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Story. The central difficulty that we face today is not apparently dismounted or mounted warfare. The difficulty we’ve been talking about so much today is how 

do we secure the population? And how do you do that if you’re going to mount? Now, if we 

face an enemy who is willing and determined to hold terrain, mount it. But if it’s securing the 

population, that’s a different problem.

Major General Scales

I absolutely disagree with that. I think that is old think. Let me give you the opposite. Okay, you 

can secure the population. You can establish an FOB, or an outpost. You’ve got two choices. 

You’re talking to a Private now. You can either do this in a mounted vehicle, or you can make 

a sandbag hooch and you can do it in the sandbag hooch. Sir, I think I’ll go with the vehicle. 

Soldiers aren’t stupid.

The idea that you can’t use mounted soldiers to do counterinsurgency types of missions, or 

population support, whatever you want to call it, I think is absolute baloney. Read Donn Starry. 

He wrote a book, From Camp Colt to Desert Storm, which is the history of mounted warfare, 

and he gets . . . he also wrote a book called, Mounted Combat in Vietnam, and he gets passionate 

about that. He says it’s absolute crap. He said the French Army was desperate in the early 1950s 

to try to mount more and more of their mobile groups, because of the mobility, the protection, 

the communications. Here’s another interesting peck. If you can lighten the size of a mounted 

unit, and increase the density of infantry, then you can break the base element of maneuver 
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down to ever smaller increments.

What is it now? It’s a brigade. Because this stuff is so incredibly huge and difficult to maintain. 

That’s why. Not because they’re mounted, it’s because they’re mounted in Cold War materiel 

that gets less than a mile to a gallon. With 43,700 sorties a month on the MSR, to feed this 

monster, which 40% of which are hauling fuel. So it’s not whether you mount or dismount, it’s 

whether you mount right.

Let’s just hypothetically say, if you were able to take shock action, firepower, maneuver, communications, touch, all the rest of that, and put it in to say, one vehicle, instead of a brigade. 

Or two, or three, and then distribute your forces in such a way that it’s centered around the 

capabilities of a vehicle rather than a station, or a sandbag [inaudible], and move them around 

continuously so the enemy’s kept off guard. Let’s just say the combat outposts in Baghdad, 

which you can’t do now. Let’s say you could do that. By the way, Stryker units learned this.

So instead of having a platoon laager, or a battalion laager, you’ve got a squad laager. Then all 

of a sudden now you’re controlling an immense territory. And oh, by the way, you still have the 

dismounted capability, because if you put enough infantry in vehicles such that you’ve got a 

squad or more there instead of . . . what’s a Bradley got? Six? Six dismounts? Whatever it is 

now. But let’s say you had 12. Well then you’ve doubled the dismounted presence, but you’ve 

got touch, you’ve got killing power, you’ve got protection, you’ve got mobility, you’ve got the 

ability to interact, you’ve got the ability to reposition, you’ve got the ability to break yourselves 

down into ever finite increments. Or then coalesce again if the enemy is dumb enough to mass 

against you.

No, I’m sorry. I hear this . . . you know who I hear this from a lot? In Congress. I get this all 

the time from Congressional staffers. You know, this 26-year-old Georgetown MA who knows 

more about the Army than I ever hope to.

Audience Member

Lieutenant Colonel François, from the French Doctrinal Employment Center. Sir, I concur with 

what you just said because in the war amongst population you can have mounted infantry and 

cavalry mixed together. They are very effective working very close, two-by-two. Two tanks, 

two [inaudible] according to the level of violence, or the signal that you want to show to the 

population, you can make . . . for example, you [inaudible] your mounted if you want to give 

some sort of a warning to the population. And when you want to show the population that everything is okay, you will be dismounted with the capability to remount very quickly in your 

vehicle. That’s the first point.

Second point, I concur with another point, which is the capability to distribute operation. That 

is to have very low level leaders being able, on the crossroad, or block of buildings, to perform 

a mission of presence. And as you have already said, the capability of the situation, the tension 

is growing to regroup the platoon, to regroup the company, to regroup the battalion to make 

action. That is some sort of very flexible organization, relying on mounted vehicles, as well as 

soft skin vehicles, if needed also, to be very light. That’s my point.
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Major General Scales

But we still have, in this country, this sort of Willie and Joe image of what armies are all about. 

Somehow that if you’re not just a guy with a rucksack, and a rifle, and two hand grenades, 

somehow you’re not a real infantryman. Guys, these days have got to change. Those images . . . 

this is coming from Congress, and other influencers, the media, the Congress, and elsewhere.

Look, we’re still going to have to have some poor little guy walk point. I got that. I understand 

that. That’s what close combat’s all about. But have we done all we can as a nation, not as 

the Army, not as the Marine Corps, but as a nation, to build a fighting force that’s focused to 

facilitate this new age of infantry, and keep them alive in close combat, and allow them to be 

successful? I submit to you that we haven’t.

Listen, this has been great. Thank you very much for your attention. Absolutely terrific. 

Thanks.
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Day 3—Leadership Lecture Series Guest Speaker

(Addressing Symposium Members and the

Command and General Staff College Student Body)

(Transcript of Presentation)

US Representative Ike Skelton, IV (D–MO)

Chairman, House Armed Services Committee

Major Jim Tenpenny

Good morning. My name is Jim Tenpenny. As a proud Missouri native, and a product of 

the Missouri Public School System, I have the privilege of introducing our guest speaker this 

morning. Representative Isaac Newton Skelton IV, affectionately known as Ike, has represented Missouri’s Fourth District since 1977.

Mr. Skelton’s district is home to Fort Leonard Wood, Whiteman Air Force Base, and the 

Missouri National Guard Training Center. Mr. Skelton was instrumental in bringing the Army 

Engineer, Chemical, and Military Police schools to Fort Leonard Wood, and the B-2 Stealth 

Bomber to Whiteman Air Force Base. A leader in the House of Representatives on defense issues, Mr. Skelton is the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Skelton’s relationship with the military began as a child, following his father’s service 

on the battleship Missouri during World War I. He later went on to graduate from Missouri’s 

Wentworth Military Academy, and received a law degree from the University of Missouri, 

Columbia. His list of awards and achievements are too numerous to mention during this introduction, but I wanted to highlight that the Congressman is an Eagle Scout, he received the 

General Creighton W. Abrams Medal from the Association of the United States Army, and most 

impressively, received an honorary Master of Military Art and Science from the United States 

Army Command and General Staff College.

Congressman Skelton is also here today as the keynote speaker for the fifth annual Combat 

Studies Institute Military History Symposium. We welcome all symposium attendees to what 

is also an event in the CGSC Leadership Lecture Series. Please give a warm CGSC welcome 

to the gentleman from Missouri, the Honorable Ike Skelton.

Representative Ike Skelton

Thank you. Major Tenpenny, after hearing that introduction, I can hardly wait to hear what 

I’m going to say. Thank you very much. It’s certainly good to be with you. Really, my message 

to you, every one of you, is that of appreciation for what you do. So thank you for wearing the 

uniform, thank you for being the treasure of our country.

I was here about 15 years ago. I had a prepared text. It was a snorer. My staff, the Armed 

Services Committee staff, worked hard and well on an excellent speech for today. I read it over 

several times, and I think it rated very well with the one I gave before as a snorer. It was 15 
274

years ago, and unbeknownst to anyone, a Kansas City Star reporter was seated in the middle, 

toward the back ... now this was a Friday afternoon, late, when I spoke. And you can imagine 

the yawns, the comments to each other, the lack of attention to what was going on with the prepared speech. The front page of the next days Kansas City Star reported this in great depth, to 

great embarrassment to the leaders here at Fort Leavenworth. I decided not to risk that again. 

My prepared speech was really pretty good, will be submitted to the Military Review, and 

if they see fit, they will print it. If not, you’re missing a great read, I must tell you.

Thank you for this opportunity to be with you. I’m flattered that I’ve been asked to share 

a few words and moments with you. Not long ago, Secretary Robert Gates gave a graduation 

speech at the Naval Academy, and the following day gave a graduation speech at the Air Force 

Academy. I called him and complimented him, because in those two speeches, he told the 

graduating student bodies that the media and the Congress are not their enemy, and that they 

should feel engaged to talk with the media, level with them, and also to understand Congress.

Understanding Congress is really a life long endeavor, but that’s what I’m all about. I was 

fortunate to have been elected in 1976, and reelected ever since. I got on the Armed Services 

Committee in 1980, and slowly moved up from the bottom rungs toward the top row. Now the 

old timers on the Armed Services Committee in those days did not treat those on the front row 

with great distinction that we thought we were entitled to have. The Army came to me, a Major 

General, and said ... right before the mark up of the defense bill, “I want to ask you a favor, 

a non-controversial amendment to establish a $3 million Army museum here in Washington 

DC.” “Sure, be glad. No problem at all.” He said, “Well, it’s non-controversial.”

Mark up day came, I offered my amendment, $3 million for an Army museum in the capital 

city. The entire top row, Democrats, Republicans, most of whom were World War II veterans, 

took out on this amendment, and you’d think I had offered an amendment on treason. It was 

unbelievable how little they thought of this non-controversial amendment. I got three votes. 

But I want you to know, since I’ve been on the top row and Chairman, I treat those on the front 

row much nicer than I was treated. It was a bath, to say the least.

Congress. Dealing with Congress. I was down at the Joint Forces Staff College a little 

over a year ago, spoke to a class, and after I told them briefly about what I do, question and 

answer. A Lieutenant Colonel stood up and he said should he ever have the opportunity to appear before Congress as a witness, how should he act? I said, “Tell the truth.” And he said, 

“Remember, General Shinseki and Secretary White told the truth, and look what happened to 

them.” This has bothered me ever since. It’s bothered me a great deal. And those of you who 

are here, there’s a good chance at some point in your life you’ll be exposed to Congress, either 

preparing or delivering remarks. Despite that, Congress needs to hear from you, straight from 

the shoulder.

The Constitution of the United States. Every one of you raised your hand when you became 

a Second Lieutenant, and actually when you got promoted, you swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. In that Constitution, the roles of the members of Congress are spelled 

out, to raise and maintain the military. That’s what we do. Some years we get it right, some 

years we get it wrong.
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Those of you who are historians know that we did not get it right in the 1920s and the 

1930s. We were ill prepared. Again, in the 1940s, after the Second World War, we didn’t get it 

right either. I have a book list. I prepared a book list. Some of you may be familiar with it. It 

was done, really, for the National War College and the ICAF students. Fifty books for military 

officers to read, but the first item on there is the Constitution of the United States, and I’m 

surprised every once in awhile, in talking with a military officer, that the knowledge of this 

document is not fully understood.

Three branches of government ... this is Government 101 in high school. The first is the 

Congress in the United States. The second item is the President, the Commander in Chief. The 

third is the Supreme Court and the judiciary. It’s interesting to note that the Congress is spelled 

out first in the Constitution of our country. Under that, we raise and maintain the military. 

Oversight is a good part of that. We authorize, in the committee that I’m blessed to chair, the 

appropriators come behind us and fill in what we authorize. Sometimes they disagree with us, 

sometimes they wish to give more dollars toward a certain project.

We not only buy the tanks, and the ships, and the guns, we do our best regarding health 

care, and barracks, and facilities, and families. All of this comes out of the authorization, and 

later appropriation, process.

Interesting things happen in committee. We had a hearing this week, there was a great deal 

of media hype over it. I am convinced that when the history of this decade is written, despite 

the very able two witnesses that we have ... General Petraeus happens to be a good friend of 

mine, but all of the hype and all of this will probably be no more than a footnote in history. 

Why? Because the course is not changing.

But under the Constitution, we have the obligation to take testimony, to ask questions, to 

authorize and appropriate dollars for the military. And that, of course, was the bottom line. You 

saw reflected, if you watched that hearing, the entire gamut of American thought. Those of us 

on the committee stand in the shoes of the folks we represent, and pretty well speak for them 

and ask the searching questions that they would ask. That’s our role.

Along that line, some of the areas that we touch upon in our House Armed Services Committee go back a long way, and we try to be as up-to-date and modern as possible. 1943, the 

Navy and the Army were having a tug-of-war, during the war, as to what roles and missions 

they should perform. The difficulty was put off until after the war, and Harry Truman, the 

President in 1947, called the Army Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of War, the Chief of Naval 

Operations, and the Secretary of the Navy to his office and discussed this problem with them, 

and he said, “Fix it.” 1948, you had the Key West Agreement that spelled out the roles and 

missions of the Army, the Navy, and the newly created Air Force. 1948. That was updated in 

1953, and again in 1958, and nothing has happened since 1958 regarding who does what role 

or mission for the military.

Things have changed. You only have to speak about cruise missiles, nuclear warheads, 

Stealth Bombers, UAVs, the list goes on. And there is a struggle between the services now as 

to what they should do, and what they don’t want their fellow military friends to do. Consequently, I named a panel headed by the Congressman from Tennessee, Jim Cooper, to study this 
276

issue and report back to us, and there’s a possibility, after he does a series of hearings, we may 

have some viable answer, either to recommend to the Pentagon, or to enact into law. That’s one 

of the things that we do.

One of the great achievements in which I participated started in 1982, when Dave Jones, 

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force, went public with the fact that jointness is 

not working, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in particular, are not working. The advice they give 

is pabulum, because the advice that they give is of the lowest common denominator, which 

usually meant the Navy. As a result, Richard White of Texas held a series of hearings in the 

Armed Services subcommittee, the subcommittee on investigations, and then retired. Went 

back to Texas.

Staffer by the name of Arch Barrett, who some of you may recall, and who I refer to as a 

national treasure. West Point graduate, F-4 pilot in Vietnam, Ph.D. from Harvard, staffer on the 

Armed Services Committee, convinced me to get involved with this issue, which I did. So I 

introduced legislation in 1983 that abolished the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I must tell you there was 

not one member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that had a sense of humor whatsoever. It went on 

from there.

We had a series of hearings, passed legislation in the House, revised this into established 

jointness three times. John Tower, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate killed it the first two times, dejected my friend Arch Barrett. I said, “Some day we’ll get 

something.” 1986 came along, Barry Goldwater was Chairman of the Senate Armed Services 

Committee, and Sam Nunn was his ranking member. They wrote their own legislation, and 

sure enough, we were able, in conference between the House and the Senate, to come up with 

legislation called Goldwater-Nichols. It’s part of your doctrine today. It’s law. It did not come 

from the White House. It did not come from the Pentagon.

As a matter of fact, the Joint Chiefs, even a week before we passed this into legislation, 

at a breakfast where six of us House members were invited, were adamant it should not pass 

and become law. Chief of Naval Operations said, “What you’re doing is downright unpatriotic. 

Bill Nichols, chairman of the investigation subcommittee, who lost a leg as a Company Commander in World War II said, “Admiral, I resent your calling us unpatriotic.” The breakfast 

broke up, we met back in the chambers, and within a few days we passed a bill ... we named, 

out of respect for Bill Nichols and Barry Goldwater, the Goldwater-Nichols legislation. It created jointness in fact.

I’m here to tell you it works. It’s a little tough getting all of the services to join in, and I 

suppose I shouldn’t pick on the Navy, but I suppose they drag their feet a little bit more. But 

it’s part of the culture today to be joint, to understand how you work with someone in blue, 

someone who wears wings, and it’s working. None of this legislation, Goldwater-Nichols, 

came from the Administration or the military.

It’s really interesting, another footnote, Sonny Montgomery, who’s gone now, retired from 

Congress after 30 some odd years, World War II veteran, one of the great guys in this world. 

Anybody here from Mississippi? All right. Sonny Montgomery was an icon on the Armed 

Services Committee from that great state. He had a great idea, and he wanted to put it into law, 
277

called the GI Bill, to help service members go to college as the GI Bill, which was passed in 

1944, and so many took advantage of after the second World War. You would be surprised at 

the military leaders that came over and spoke against what turned out to be the Montgomery GI 

Bill. Today, those that spoke against it, now retired, I’m sure are eating their words, because it 

has helped tremendously in recruiting young people for all of the active duty National Guard 

and Reserve across the country.

I might say that that did not come from the White House or the Pentagon, but came from 

within the bosom of the Congress of the United States. Raising and maintaining the military. 

That’s our job. Two examples. I had the privilege in 1987, 1988, where I had my very own 

panel on PME, Professional Military Education, a follow-up on the Goldwater-Nichols legislation that became law in 1986. Assigned to me was an Army Colonel, John McDonald, a Navy 

Captain by the name of Bob Natter, an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel by the name of Don Cook. 

And for a year we held hearings, our very first hearing was here at Fort Leavenworth, when 

Gordon Sullivan was the Commandant, and had hearings all over the country, including visiting war colleges in other countries.

As a result, we upgraded the system, made it tougher, changed the course of the Joint 

Forces Staff College as we know it today. And I think we did well. I’m really pleased with the 

fact that I wrote those OERs and fitness reports. John McDonald ended up as a Brigade Commander in Desert Shield and Chief of Staff for SOUTHCOM. Bob Natter, Commander, ended 

up a four star Admiral. Don Cook ended up a four star Air Force General, and they stay in touch 

to this day. Great experience for this country lawyer who has an interest in history.

Those of you who have been, or will be, at the Carlisle Army War College will see a street 

there named Henry Bouquet Street. Not an accident. It’s an example of the importance of 

studying and understanding military history. You see, I think everybody in uniform ought to 

be a historian. I know I’m dreaming, but you should be. I had a history professor by the name 

of Dr. Lewis Atherton who once told me that some people have a sense of history like some 

people have a sense of mathematics. Well, I don’t expect everyone in uniform to have a sense 

of history, but at least an appreciation.

Henry Bouquet was a Colonel, a Swiss national, who had a brigade of Highlanders and 

American volunteers during Pontiac’s Rebellion, Pontiac being the fierce Iroquois leader. And 

he was to get some supplies to Fort Pitt from eastern Pennsylvania. He was set upon by approximately 400 of Pontiac’s warriors at a place called Bushy Run. About 60 of his troops were 

killed, and the Indians didn’t fight at night, and sundown came, and he knew in the morrow he 

would be faced with the same problem, and would possibly get wiped out.

We know he knew six languages. We know he did a great deal of study. We know he read 

Caesar’s commentaries. Out of it all, there’s a strong possibility that he read about Hannibal’s 

victory over a larger force at Cannae, and he did just that. He allowed part of his perimeter to 

cave in quickly, and went after the Indians from each side, and after a good number of them 

were killed, the Indians fled the field, and he continued on to Fort Pitt. The importance of either 

being extremely bright, or extremely well read, the importance of military history.

Now sometimes military history gets a little personal. 1782, Yorktown had already hap-
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pened. George Washington defeated Cornwallis, but the war was still on. The Revolution was 

still on. The treaty had not been signed. British soldiers and Shawnees attacked Brian Station 

in northwest Kentucky. The stockade held out, the Indians and the British decided to leave, and 

about that time, a group of relief Kentucky militia arrived with a large number of the Boone 

family, the famous Daniel Boone, his son, Israel, a brother, I believe his name is Samuel, nephew name of Squire Boone. And someone said, “Let’s follow them. Here are their footprints.” 

And Daniel, being the great frontiersman, said, “There are a lot of them. They are walking in 

each other’s footprints.”

But they did, they followed the Indians and the British, and they came to a place called 

Blue Licks, a small stream, a small hill, and Daniel said, “This is going to be an ambush.” Nevertheless ... when five or six Indians showed themselves at the top of the ridge, they [inaudible] 

the few horses that the nearly 200 frontiersmen had, said, “Them’s that ain’t cowards, follow 

me.” They crossed the little stream, and up the ridge he went. Everybody followed, and sure 

enough, it was an ambush. Seventy of the Kentucky militia were killed. Many tomahawked 

from behind as they tried to run across the stream.

Israel Boone was shot through the neck, he fell to the feet of his father, Daniel, who had a 

guilty conscience the rest of his life because he left his son to die. Squire Boone was shot in the 

femur, and someone threw him over a horse and got him out of the melee. Squire Boone later 

had a distinguished life, became a Baptist minister in Kentucky. Had a son named Thomas, a 

grandson named James, a great-grandson named John, and a great-great granddaughter named 

Carolyn. She was my mother. The morale of that story is if a British soldier or Indian had been 

a little bit better shot, you wouldn’t have a speaker today. So sometimes a piece of history becomes quite personal.

One of the issues I have raised in the committee, and I know you struggle with on your deployments and in your training, is that of readiness. I’m deeply concerned about the readiness 

of our forces. That’s why we have added additional money for equipment and training over the 

last two years.

It’s interesting to note that since I’ve been in Congress now some 30 years, a little more, 

we have been engaged in 12 military contingencies, four of which have been major in size. 

And you don’t know what’s around the corner. You hope nothing. You hope that your training, 

and your study, and your efforts will allow your generation to not have to be tested. Doctors 

practice medicine every day. Lawyers try lawsuits every week. Professional people, ministers, 

prepare a weekly sermon. They are practicing their professions all the time, but people in uniform, maybe once, maybe twice, in your case probably more often, practice your profession 

only several times in your life.

But that’s why it’s important in between those times to come to a school like this and to 

read on your own, and become a historian, so that if a [Battle of] Bushy Run comes along in 

your path, instinctively you will know what to do. It’s a challenge. It’s a great challenge, too. I 

hope for the sake of you and our country that there will be an era of peace. Where the Middle 

East will settle down and not be the military challenge that it is today. That the other parts of the 

world that are potential challenges, whether it be China, Latin America, Eastern Europe, who 

knows? It’s your job, however—as the Boy Scout motto is—to be prepared.
279

Well, I can only tell you that I’m proud of you. Enjoy working with you, your leaders, and 

all of what you do and what you stand for. You’re the best. You are the best. And a special note 

of thanks to your spouses. Those who keep the home fires burning. You know, you say, “Skelton, what do you know about it?” Well, I ... and it will stay within this room, my wife and I 

were blessed with three sons, one of whom is a budding young businessman down in North 

Carolina. So proud of him. And one who’s a sailor, and one who’s a soldier.

But the star of their shows are the wives, or the spouses. For the long days they’re gone at 

sea, on deployment, TDY here for several weeks, TDY there, the uncertainty of potential combat, daycare, babysitting, church, neighbors, spouse’s clubs, loneliness, I suggest, as I did with 

my bride of 44 years, next time you see him or her, just say a special thanks. For without that 

support, you would not be the great professionals that you are now, or the great professionals 

that you will be in the years ahead. Remember you’re the best. You need to continue to be the 

best. The road ahead for a professional military person is bumpy, at best. It’s disappointing, it’s 

challenging, it’s difficult, and you have more problems that you can’t even dream of, but you 

still do it, and you do it well.

So from this country boy from nearby Lexington, Missouri, who is blessed to represent 

some 600,000 great people in west Missouri, I want to just say thanks. Cicero, the great Roman 

orator, said that the greatest of all virtues is gratitude, and with that in mind, let me express my 

gratitude to you and your families for what you do. Thank you. God bless.
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Day 3—Leadership Lecture Series Guest Speaker

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

US Representative Ike Skelton, IV (D. MO)

Chairman, House Armed Services Committee

Moderator

Thank you, Congressman. Sir, we’ll open the floor up to questions and answers. As a moderator, I have the honor to ask the first question, sir. Sir, what is your committee’s role in ensuring 

inter-agency cooperation and unity of effort in fighting the global war on terror?

Representative Skelton

That is an absolute serious problem. We have jurisdiction merely over the military. Even over 

the Coast Guard the only jurisdiction we have is over the Coast Guard Reserve, not the active 

duty, because that is in the Homeland Security. We’ve discussed it, and there’s a possibility that 

we’ll have a panel on this similar to the panel on roles and missions, and the panel on professional education that I chaired a few years ago. Because of the lack of jurisdiction, we can only 

make recommendations, and if any legislation were to be introduced, it would have to have 

joint jurisdiction.

I raised this issue in a small meeting with the President, Condoleeza Rice, Secretary Rumsfeld, 

over a year ago at the White House, particularly pointing out the fact that the State Department 

was not furnishing either enough representatives from that Department, or they’re not staying 

past 90 days. It’s hard to make friends within 90 days of a foreign culture. The military is doing 

it. Actually you, ladies and gentlemen, are doing the job of other agencies in the Middle East. 

It’s going to take a recognition of this fact.

There have been some think tanks, in particular CSI has a study underway on this. Possibly 

next year we will have a panel on it, but the problem, of course, is going to be the limited jurisdiction. Excellent question.

Audience Member

Sir, Major George Walter. Sir, do you see a stable Iraq as being in our national strategic interest? 

If so, why does it appear that there is such a push in Congress to begin withdrawing forces?

Representative Skelton

I think it is in the national interest to have a stable Iraq. We have been there now, as you know, 

for several years. An unstable Iraq would leave the possibility of that being a haven for international terrorists. The problem is a political problem, and this is a political world in which 

we live. It began with the initial entry into Iraq, with the allegations that were made, with the 
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disputed allegations that were subsequently made, and after a period of time, and non-recognition by the Pentagon of the insurgency, popular support across the country began to wane. It 

has continued to erode.

In hearing the testimony of Ambassador Crocker ... and by the way, General Petraeus, I 

thought, did a good job. On top of that, the American forces are superb, but the Iraqis have to 

solve their own problems. We in the military, your military, cannot do it for them. I was absolutely dismayed ... the purpose of the so-called surge was to give time and space for the Iraqis 

to have reconciliation in their Parliament. Nothing happened. According to their own benchmarks, their own benchmarks, of 18, they fulfilled three within the last year. This, frankly, is 

very discouraging.

On the other hand, an unstable Iraq, with the potential influence of Iran, is a dangerous place. 

That’s why I’m hoping against hope that the Iraqi Parliament, the Iraqi leaders, will strike a 

blow of sanity and start gluing Humpty Dumpty back together again. I’m very, very concerned 

about this. As we speak, the erosion of the American people continues. It happened in the Vietnam era, it’s beginning to happen today.

If you saw the hearing, you saw reflection of the folks back home and their concerns. I must tell 

you, it’s up to the Iraqis to solve their own problems. I was, frankly, stunned when Ambassador 

Crocker said we shouldn’t push them too hard. Well ladies and gentlemen, they haven’t done 

anything thus far, and if they’re not pushed, if they don’t know the consequences, if they can’t 

take over their own security as we trained them, I don’t know what the future’s going to be for 

that sad country. It was a country glued together from the Mesopotamian provinces in 1921 by 

the British with the assent of the French, who wanted influence in Syria. 

As a matter of fact, I spoke yesterday with the French ambassador about just this. But the British, after drawing up the lines ... and notice some of the outlines of the country of Iraq are 

straight lines, regardless of tribes or interests, they just drew the straight lines, and you have 

the result of divided tribes and clans today. 1922, the British bailed out, and you can follow the 

history of that sad country ever since.

Audience Member

Sir, good morning. Lieutenant Commander Brendan Sellers. First, I’d like to thank you, sir, for 

your 30 years of distinguished service in the House, and the great things you’ve done for the 

military. We certainly appreciate your advocacy. Sir, a recent Gallup Poll this summer showed 

that only 14% of the American public had a great deal of, or quite a lot of confidence in Congress, while at the same time, 69% of those surveyed had the same amount of confidence in 

the military. At the same time, the percentage of veterans serving in Congress has decreased 

from 29% a year two years ago to 24% this year. Only nine persons who have served on active 

duty in the last two decades. My questions for you, sir, are first of all, to what do you attribute 

the public’s loss of confidence in Congress? And second, do you think that this nation, and 

Congress in particular, would benefit from having more veterans serving in national elective 

office? And what are the Democratic National Committees and Republican National Committees doing about that?
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Representative Skelton

Do I dare ask him to repeat that? [laughter] Congress is never popular. Because of the nature 

of the debate, the discussions, the disagreements. And why is it that someone from downtown 

New York City and I don’t agree on a lot of issues? Or pick a place in California, or Arizona, or 

Cleveland. Just pick a place. I stand in the shoes of conservative, small town, patriotic Americans. Others are patriotic, but they have different issues, and look at things ... in particular, they 

look at things military different.

After the First, and after the Second World War, Congress had a great number of veterans. 

They understood. When I first went on the Armed Services Committee, the entire top row were 

veterans. We still have a handful on the Armed Services Committee who have served. I didn’t. 

A teenage illness kept me from doing ...I wanted to go to West Point. That was my dream, but 

military history became my hobby, and hopefully I, in some small way, made up for it. But 

people are elected based on various and sundry issues.

Being a veteran in 1946, when my dad ran for Congress, was a big deal. And today it is not 

at the forefront. Often how one stands on medical care, agriculture, and other issues, or for or 

against the war, and it’s not delved into as to whether one served in uniform or not. I think it 

helps tremendously, but they’re not nearly as plentiful as they once were.

It’s interesting to note, of those that have been veterans, Bob Michael, one of the nicest human 

beings I’ve ever known, was at Normandy, and I revisited Normandy with him on the 60th 

anniversary of that. Major Devereaux, the defender of Wake Island ... where’s my Marines? 

By the way, he was a retired Major General in the Marine Corps ... was in Congress for several terms. But those eras have passed, and those are not the people being elected. It does not 

seem to be the highest criteria. It’s how people stand on various issues, including the conflict 

in Iraq.

Audience Member

Major Andy Gignilliat. Mr. Skelton, the need for survival and creative thinking has significantly changed the role of the US soldiers in Iraq. Is it possible that Congress should also increase their personal role in the political coaching and mentoring of the Iraqi government, thus 

significantly increasing the likelihood of our nation’s success in Iraq?

Representative Skelton

Absolutely. We have had need for people in the law, in law enforcement, in engineering, in 

health care, and lack thereof in the country of Iraq. This has been made plain, and when that 

has been lacking, you, my friend, and your colleagues in uniform have performed that function. 

The American Government has been very slow in helping in those various areas. Had we done 

it early on, had we gotten a good hold on Iraq in the non-military sense, with advisors, with 

help, keeping the electricity on 24 hours a day, having potable water everywhere, due to more 

engineers and more people skilled in those areas, I think the story of Iraq might very well be 

different. We have been lacking in that.
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I have raised that issue with the President, Condoleeza Rice, and sadly, it has not been fixed. 

You can order a soldier over there ... out of curiosity, how many of you have been to Iraq? 

Raise your hand please. God bless you. I venture to say you have done some non-military work. 

You’re stretched thin, and you may know that you have sailors and airmen over there working 

side by side with you in convoys, and doing various other Army missions as well.

We have had a lack of volunteers from the other Departments; of the Justice Department, or 

State Department, or Transportation Department to fill the void, and that’s been a major problem.

Audience Member

Sir, Major Hurel Johnson. In terms of the State Department, sir, can you talk about any initiatives or efforts to increase the budget in the State Department so that our diplomatic corps can 

do the things that you kind of hinted that they’re not stepping up to do at this time? You look at 

the defense budget ... I may be a little off here, but even as high as it is at this point, it’s roughly 

4% of our GDP. At its height one time it was maybe over 30% plus GDP during World War II. 

So no need to take away from the defense budget, because it’s such a little portion of it, but 

increasing the State Department so that our diplomatic corps can offer its mid-career personnel, 

$25,000 bonuses or whatever to stay in continued service, because we need those personnel. 

Any thoughts on the efforts to do just that?

Representative Skelton

I really can’t give you much encouragement for State Department increase, other than possibly 

the cost of living. As a matter of fact, I was disturbed and distressed when the State Department budget regarding the country of Colombia was cut some 10% this year. A few years ago, 

the IMET program, which comes out of that State Department ... you know what IMET is, the 

foreign exchange military education system, was in jeopardy, and I did what little I could to 

keep that budget up. I think it’s some of the best money we’ve spent. That’s not within our purview in the Armed Services Authorization Committee. I can’t give you a great deal of positive 

feedback on that, though several of us are fully aware of it.

Audience Member

Yes sir. Major Finfrock. Sir, as we sit in class this year and we discuss potential future threats, 

one threat that I know will continue to be presented to the US Government will be the threat 

of natural disaster here domestically. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, has there been any 

thought to giving governors greater flexibility to respond to natural disasters in their states by a 

potential rebalance of Guard and Reserve forces while your combat support and combat service 

support and 100% of your Civil Affairs assets, which are so vital to humanitarian assistance, 

are in the Army Reserve? Has there been any thought to giving governors like Kathleen Blanco 

that flexibility?

Representative Skelton

Obviously, a great deal of effort has been given and thought about. The Homeland Security 
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Department was established for this coordination. I do know that the various states, particularly Guard units, are working potential natural disasters. I do know that the Missouri National 

Guard has a program that I was briefed on not too long ago regarding a potential earthquake 

... remember, 1811 was the horrible earthquake called the New Madrid Fault, and the Missouri 

National Guard is establishing independent communication cells that could be used, not just 

in Missouri, but all across the Midwest should that come to pass. I think it’s being worked and 

worked well. Is it doing exactly what you wish or suggest? I don’t think we’re there yet.

By the way, in a joking manner, when I was getting the briefing in Jefferson City, Missouri on 

the communications cells for a potential New Madrid Fault earthquake, I thanked the Guardsmen for their work, and I mean they really ... it’s really good. You’d be proud of them. But I 

told them I think that they’re about 400 years too early, and I hope I’m right, because the New 

Madrid Fault of 1811, among other things, caused the Mississippi River to run backward, and 

it would wipe out southeast Missouri and eastern Illinois, including the city of St. Louis and 

East St. Louis. So let’s hope I’m right instead of them.

The issues put before us are not easy. We don’t deal in black and white. You do more than we 

do. You either get a good OER or you don’t. You either perform your mission or you don’t. 

The Commander’s either satisfied with you or you’re not satisfied with someone who is under 

you. But legislation is a matter of compromise, and it’s either a half a loaf, or 3⁄4 of a loaf, or 

none at all. And it’s hard sometimes for a member to bite a bullet, and compromise, and work 

something out. But at the end of the day, that’s what the framers did in creating Congress, in 

creating those of us, now 435 in the House, 100 in the Senate, and sometimes you feel like 

you’re herding cats. But it still works.

Winston Churchill said that ... Churchill commented democracy is the worst form of government, except all others. And that’s your job is to keep our country in business. To keep us able 

to debate, discuss, disagree, compromise, everything is not as you or I would like to have it. 

But that’s legislation, that’s the political process, that’s what’s in the Constitution. That’s why 

I hope that every member of the military understands the nuances and the challenges of the 

United States Constitution. It’s not easy. Democracy’s not easy. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen mistakes made. We’ve seen great things happen. And some of the great things that have happened 

in recent days have been due to you. God bless.

Moderator

Thank you, sir. Congressman, your comments this morning could not be more timely or more 

instructive. The members of the symposium, both the conferees, and those that have been presenting to the conference have been grappling with the role of our nation in this world as it exists today for this past week, and the officers in attendance for the Command and General Staff 

School, and the various schools associated with the college are wrestling every day with their 

role as professional military officers in doing the hard work of this great democracy.

I think we all had the privilege of seeing how the Congress contributes to that effort during 

the hearings that were held this week, and we thank you, sir, for your leadership there, for the 

great work that you do every day, and we look forward to having you back again to continue 

the lessons. Thank you, sir.
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Panel 6—Studies in 21st Century Non-State Actors

(Submitted Paper)

Hezbollah as a Non-State Actor in the

Second Lebanon War: An Operational Analysis

by

Lieutenant Colonel Abe F. Marrero, Ph.D.

Center for Army Tactics, Command and General Staff College

Foreword

The Second Lebanon War, as the latest Middle East conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is referred to in Israel, is a prototypical case of a non-state actor engaging a nation-state. 

The Second Lebanon War may signal the advent and preview of the nature of possible future 

conflicts. This paper examines from an operational view how Hezbollah, a non-state or transformational state player, managed to induce Israel into a conflict it did not desire and was 

unprepared for.

If we accept the premise that the Second Lebanon War represents, in large part, the tenets 

of fourth-generation warfare (see “Hezbollah and Fourth-Generation Warfare” in the May 2007 

issue of Armed Forces Journal), then a further operational analysis can be conducted using the 

analytical frame work of PMESII-PT. The acronym PMESII-PT accounts for several variables 

that allows for a more in-depth and comprehensive analysis of a given operational environment 

(political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, information, physical environment, and 

time).

The body of the paper will examine Hezbollah as a non-state actor, how Hezbollah acquired this status within Lebanon with the collusion of Syria and Iran. Israel’s response also 

warrants consideration in that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) may simulate how other Western 

armies may respond in a similar situation. It is important to note that Hezbollah’s performance 

will not be lost on other terrorist organizations, that is, Hamas. The manuscript will conclude 

with a rendering of the consequences and implications of the Second Lebanon War, especially 

as they may pertain to understanding irregular warfare in the current operational environment.

Brief Historical Background

It is beyond the scope of this paper to cover the long saga of conflict in the Middle East. 

What will be provided are enough salient points to set the context and to provide a basis for further application in subsequent topics. The IDF has a relatively short history, coinciding with the 

birth of Israel as a nation. Throughout various military engagements, the IDF can be generally 

characterized as using overwhelming firepower (air, armor, and, to a lesser extent, artillery) and 

rapid, deep maneuver to achieve victory. In fact, commencing with the 1956 Sinai Campaign to 
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the First Lebanon War in 1982, it was the modus operandi of IDF infantry and armored forces 

to operate deep in enemy territory.1

In the modern era, one needs only to look at the 1967 Six-Day War to gain an appreciation 

for the IDF’s masterful employment of maneuver and firepower in a combined arms arena. 

When Egypt expelled the United Nations Emergency Force from the Sinai Peninsula, increased 

its military activity near the border, and blockaded the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships, Israel 

launched a spectacular preemptive attack on Egypt’s Air Force. Syria shelled Israeli villages 

from the Golan Heights; Israel and Syria engaged in aerial clashes in which Israel shot down 

six of Syria’s MiG fighter planes. Jordan, in turn, attacked the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and 

Netanya.2

 With unchallenged air superiority and using operational maneuver, the IDF quickly 

defeated the Arab armies of Egypt in the Sinai, Syria in the Golan Heights, and the Jordanians 

in Jerusalem and the West Bank. At war’s end, Israel had seized the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River (including East Jerusalem), and the Golan Heights.

As Nietzsche has so eloquently stated, war makes the victor stupid.3

 Flush with a Davidian victory over Goliath and secure in the knowledge that they were the unchallenged regional 

superpower, Israel was ripe for a military disaster. The national expectation was that the IDF 

and associated intelligence apparatus would provide enough advanced warning of any Arab 

attack in time to plan and execute an effective preemptive strike. In addition, if deterrence 

failed, the IDF had shown in convincing fashion that the outcome to any conflict would not 

be in doubt. It was this national and military mindset that played into the strategy of Egyptian 

President Anwar Sadat. Simply stated, he would seek to win by not losing.4

 The war began on 

the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur (6 October 1973) with a surprise joint attack by Egypt and 

Syria crossing the cease-fire lines in the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively. Desiring to 

remain under their Soviet-supplied surface-to-air missile umbrella to negate the superiority of 

the Israeli Air Force, the Egyptians and Syrians set themselves modest operational objectives 

(penetration of about 10 kilometers). When they achieved their objectives, they halted at their 

own initiative. This allowed the IDF to regroup, launch armored counterattacks, and regain lost 

territory in the Sinai and the Golan Heights. But it was not without a heavy price in casualties. 

Military historians are in consensus that the IDF hubris was responsible in part for the early 

successes of the Egyptian forces and IDF’s lack of tactical and operational agility. Postconflict 

accords stipulated Israeli withdrawal to the Purple Line and the establishment of a UN buffer 

zone. The result of this war has had major regional geopolitical implications to this day, not 

the least of which was the emerging importance of Lebanon as a forward base from which to 

confront Israel.

In 1970 and again in 1971, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was engaged 

in the attempted overthrow of the Jordanian monarchy. The resulting struggle caused a large 

influx of Palestinian fighters and refugees into neighboring Lebanon. By 1975, they numbered 

more than 300,000. The PLO, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other Palestinian groups established a quasi-state in southern Lebanon, using it as a base for raids on northern 

Israel. The continued PLO attacks prompted an IDF military response in 1978, an invasion of 

south Lebanon to the Litani River. The IDF achieved its operational objective of pushing PLO 

forces north of the river. Diplomatic efforts on behalf of the Lebanese Government led to UN 

Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426, resulting in the creation of the UN Interim Force 

in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and a partial Israeli withdrawal. However, lasting peace on the IsraeliLebanon border would prove to be elusive.
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Once again in 1982, the IDF found itself in southern Lebanon. The invasion was a response to the assassination attempt against Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom by 

the Abu Nidal Organization, as well as the ever ubiquitous terrorist attacks by PLO guerrillas 

based in Lebanon. After attacking PLO, Syrian, and Muslim Lebanese forces, Israelis occupied 

southern Lebanon until their unilateral withdrawal in 1982. From 1982 to 2000, Israel was still 

enmeshed on the northern border with the occupation of southern Lebanon (1982–85) and the 

Israeli Security Zone (1985–2000). Leading up to the most recent conflict was the de facto occupation of most of Lebanon by Syria (1976–2005). As will be explored later in greater detail, 

the control over much of southern Lebanon and southern Beirut by Hezbollah (1980s–present) 

would set the stage for the Second Lebanon War. During the 1982–2000 interwar years, Hezbollah waged a guerrilla campaign against Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon. The invasion and subsequent withdrawal are considered to be the major catalyst for the creation of the 

Iranian and Syrian supported Hezbollah organization. By 1991, it was the sole armed militia in 

Lebanon and, by 2000, had completely replaced the vanquished PLO in southern Lebanon.5

As can be gleaned from this cursory historical review, a progression emerges from direct, conventional engagements (1948 War, Six-Day War, and Yom Kippur War) characteristic 

of second- and third-generation war to fourth-generation war (1978 Lebanon Conflict, 1982 

Lebanon War, 1982–2000 South Lebanon Conflict, and 2006 Lebanon War).

Major Players

An examination of the major players is required to fully understand the genesis and conduct of the Second Lebanon War. Four nations and one non-state organization within a state 

were involved in the latest Middle East conflict. Lebanon served as the recruiting, training, and 

staging base for Hezbollah. Iran provided military equipment, training, political direction, and 

major financing to its proxy. For the most part, Syria served as a conduit to supply Hezbollah 

with military equipment and, to a lesser extent, political expediency. Israel was once again 

fighting for its national survival.

Lebanon may be regarded as an unwilling participant because the government did not have 

the political force to confront Hezbollah and its patrons, Iran and Syria. The First Lebanon War 

had second- and third-order effects throughout Lebanon and the region. The Israeli victory rendered the PLO ineffective as a terrorist organization in Lebanon. A proxy of Syria, the PLO’s 

demise reduced the influence of Syria in Lebanon. The collapse of the Lebanese Government 

soon followed. Seizing the opportunity created by the power vacuum, Iran quickly moved to 

energize the previously disenfranchised Shiite majority. Having taken the brunt of Israeli military retaliations, Syria acquiesced to Iran’s overtures into Lebanon. Emboldened and with the 

consent of Syria, Iran dispatched approximately 2,500 Revolutionary Guards to unite, train, 

and equip the dissimilar radical Shiite groups that coalesced into Hezbollah. The Revolutionary Guards proceeded to plan and manage the establishment of a formidable military-logistics 

infrastructure to support Hezbollah operations against Israel.6

For its part, Iran capitalized on the opportunity to establish a de facto presence on the 

border of Israel. It had been Ayatollah Khomeini’s grand strategy to obviate the religious rift 

between the Shiite and Sunni sects by the creation of a pan-Islamic revolution. The catalyst 

and unifying goal is to confront the “Great Satan” (United States) and/or the “Little Satan” 

(Israel).7

 Toward this end, Iran provides generous financial support to subversive elements, 
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especially those that serve to advance Iranian hegemony in the region. With this generous 

benefactor and a weakened ineffective Lebanese Government, Hezbollah was able to establish 

a stronghold in the Shiite-dominated region of southern Lebanon. The positioning of Hezbollah 

on the Israeli-Lebanon border provided Iran with a viable instrument with which to advance its 

regional interests.

Syria has been careful to avoid another direct confrontation with Israel. Accordingly, Syria 

was not as prominent a player as Hezbollah or Iran but did provide a conduit for modern weapons and substantial financing (estimated at $100 million per year).8

 Syria also provides Hezbollah diplomatic backing by refusing to support international efforts to disarm the organization. 

From the occupation of southern Lebanon by the IDF through the end of the Lebanese civil 

war, Hezbollah has served as Syria’s strategic partner. The partnership was further strengthened when Syria, under the auspices of the 1989 Taef Accord, allowed Hezbollah to remain 

armed while ensuring that the other militias involved were disarmed. The relationship between 

the two evolved from one of benign tolerance under the late Syrian President Hafez Assad to 

that of important allies under his successor Bashar Assad. As Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon 

became stronger, Syria’s languished. The turning point came in February 2005 with the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. With strong suspicion of Syrian collusion, 

international and Lebanese pressure resulted in the removal of Syrian forces from Lebanon in 

April 2005. The withdrawal of Syrian troops after a 30-year occupation further eroded Syria’s 

position in the region while strengthening Hezbollah’s and, by extension, Iran’s.9

 Israel, while 

aware of the political situation on its northern frontier was, nevertheless, decisively engaged 

with the Palestinian situation in the Gaza Strip.

The last full-scale military operations conducted by Israel on the northern border ended 

with the IDF’s complete withdrawal from south Lebanon on 24 May 2000 in fulfillment of 

UN Security Council Resolution 425. Soon after the IDF departure, Israeli intelligence noted 

massive shipments of weapons into Lebanon. Not wanting to provoke a crisis on its northern 

border, Israel all but ceased its active intelligence-gathering operations in this theater. In fact, 

the IDF’s comptroller report (March 2006) indicated that there were severe intelligence gaps 

on the northern front.10 The Israeli decision to ignore the buildup would be criticized by some 

as the Zimmer Policy, so named in reference to zimmers and hotels remaining full in northern 

Israel.11 Meanwhile, on the southern front, the Palestinian intifada continued terrorist attacks 

(typically suicide bombers) against Israel from 2000 to 2004. In an effort to quell the attacks, in 

2005 Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The attacks from Gaza would continue; 

only the method would change as Hamas began lobbing an estimated 700 Qassam rockets into 

southern Israel. In June 2006, Hamas pulled off a daring assault that killed two Israeli soldiers 

and kidnapped Corporal Gilead Shalit. This event on the southern front would indirectly lead 

to the Second Lebanon War on the northern front.

Understanding the Operational Environment

“If that’s not a description of Fourth-Generation Warfare at work, I don’t what is: you 

take the military beating gladly in order to win the peace.” (Thomas P.M. Barnett, in The 

Economist, 16 September, 2006). An examination of this war is important. It was conducted 

on not only difficult terrain but also on complex physical, human, political, and informational 
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landscapes. It was modern in the sense of tactics and technology employed yet old in the sense 

that it validated much of what is indelible in war. Accordingly, an analytical tool that will allow for the situational understanding of Hezbollah and the Second Lebanon War is warranted. 

An approach that considers the complex variables of the current operational environment is 

represented by the acronym PMESII-PT (political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, 

information, physical environment, and time). In the remainder of this paper, each category 

will be applied to Hezbollah and its conduct of the war.

Political

From the political standpoint, it’s important to view Hezbollah from a more macro regional 

context. It has been suggested by some analysts that the incidents in southern Lebanon in July 

were instigated to deflect attention away from the international hot water that Iran found itself 

in, that is, UN Security Council deliberations on Iran’s nuclear program.12 Coming down to a 

micro perspective, the events of 12 July could be regarded as Hezbollah’s attempt to move from 

a politically defensive domestic position where it found itself since in the wake of the Hariri 

assassination and the Cedar Revolution.

In contrast to other Islamic radical elements (for example, Hamas, PLO), Hezbollah has 

skillfully managed to craft some semblance of political legitimacy in Lebanon. In the 1992 and 

2000 parliamentary elections, it acquired 12 seats.13 Indeed, the Hezbollah movement serves as 

a viable political option to Shia who, in effect, have been politically disenfranchised in Lebanese politics.

The world view of Hezbollah is indelibly connected to the cannon of their faith. The central 

and perhaps unifying theme of a jihad is the demise of a martyr for the glory of Allah, known 

as shahada. Thus, the two main components of the Ayatollah Khomeini brand of Islam is the 

jihad, to protect and promote the Muslim way of life, and shahada, to facilitate any jihad.14 This 

region dynamic is important to note when considering Iran’s influence (through Hezbollah) on 

events in Lebanon.

The regional aims of Iran as it concerns Lebanon appear to be based on three pillars: instigating and abetting an active jihad in Lebanon against Israel, creating an Islamic caliphate, 

and establishing a de facto shared border with Israel. This strategy, if effective, will provide 

Iran the ability to attack Israel through its proxy Hezbollah and/or destabilize the region by 

undermining the legitimacy of the Lebanese Government. This is especially pertinent and of 

concern if there is an attempted military strike by Israel or the west on Iran’s so-called nuclear 

energy research facilities.

Military

In a fourth-generation war, one combatant is not organized and under the operational control of a nation-state. In addition, it will take full advantage of a weakened or ineffectual government to advance its political and/or military aims. Such is the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

In this environment and with the resources provided by Iran and, to a lesser extent, Syria, Hezbollah deliberately and methodically evolved into an effective, formidable foe.
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To minimize the ability of the IDF to identify and target Hezbollah’s operational center of 

gravity (command and control), Hezbollah developed a relatively flat and decentralized organizational arrangement. Interestingly, the area of operations in southern Lebanon was divided 

into an interconnected network of territorial units based in and around villages. For the most 

part, these territorial units were decentralized and operated autonomously. Their sustainment 

and manpower originated from the villages. Thus, the need to transport supplies and troops, always extremely vulnerable to interdiction by the Israeli Air Force (IAF), was negated. Indeed, 

during the intervening years from the time that the IDF unilaterally withdrew from southern 

Lebanon (2000), Hezbollah has been on a relentless effort to prepare for the next IDF incursion. This involved building fortified underground tunnels and bunkers (“nature reserves”) 

with overlapping and mutually supporting fields of fire. Supply depots; weapons; ammunition 

caches; and command, control, and communication (C3

) outposts were established within civilian population centers for obvious reasons. Antiarmor ambush sites were well positioned on 

major avenues of approach to take advantage of the defensible terrain and IDF tactics. These 

sophisticated and well-orchestrated ambushes involved multiple weapon systems (for example, 

mortars, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), antitank mines) firing multiple volleys at a target, taking a relatively heavy toll on IDF armor. These forces represent a hybrid—a 

combination of guerrilla (decentralized, population-based forces) and conventional (combined 

arms ambushes) tactics and organization. This tactical-level hybrid fight proved to be an effective formulation for a short conflict. On the operational level, Hezbollah employed a wide array 

of rockets to strike perhaps the operational center of gravity of Israel, its civilian population. 

This is another cardinal feature of fourth-generation warfare. The almost continuous barrage of 

Hezbollah rockets in the face of the IAF’s best efforts to neutralize the threat had a significant 

impact on how the war was waged and the eventual outcome. Especially noteworthy is the fact 

that Hezbollah’s ability to turn off (during the UN cease-fire) and turn on (up to the last day 

of the war) the rocket barrage, which remained intact despite the IDF’s efforts to destroy the 

C3

 apparatus. It attests to how Hezbollah planned and executed the C3 portion of its campaign; 

to wit, centralized planning and decentralized execution, flat organizational framework, use 

of redundant communications (for example, wire, bicycle couriers), and no doubt the best that 

Iran had to offer in techniques and crypto equipment.

In sum, Hezbollah has studied IDF tactics and doctrine. It organized, equipped, trained, and 

employed to minimize IDF strengths and take advantage of vulnerabilities (attrition, casualty 

aversion). Hezbollah fighters are well organized and trained professionals who are willing to 

experience shahada for the jihad.

Economic

For Hezbollah to build the forces, infrastructure, and charitable institutions in Lebanon 

requires significant financial resources. It is believed that the effort is primarily bankrolled by 

Iran. This is accomplished through a clandestine network using the embassies in Beirut and 

Damascus, the foreign ministry, and disbursed through the Revolutionary Guards’ Qods Force. 

The annual operating budget for Hezbollah is estimated to be approximately $100 million.15

Notable is the social welfare budget line that pays for schools, clinics, and other institutions 

that demonstrates Hezbollah’s efforts to provide goodwill and win allegiance to its political 

cause. In light of the fact that the Lebanese Government has not provided the same services to 

southern Lebanon as it has to Beirut, Hezbollah’s social programs will no doubt be effective in 
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swaying the poorer Shiite population to its side.

Social

In contrast to most terror organizations, Hezbollah has attempted to secure the “hearts and 

minds” of the Shia of southern Lebanon by investing heavily in the social sector. The tangible 

manifestation of this social capital is a vast affiliation of hospitals, schools, clinics, and welfare 

and cultural institutions. If this looks like something the government should be providing, that’s 

the point precisely and why Hezbollah is so successful in Lebanon as a non-state actor within 

a nation-state. It’s important to note that the Shia are the most numerous sect in Lebanon, a 

mosaic of many sects (for example, Druze, Christian, Sunni, and Palestinian). Additionally, the 

Shia have historically been marginalized and deprived socially and economically. Accordingly, 

because Hezbollah is well entrenched in the country’s political process and has nurtured the 

social ills of the Shiite communities, recruitment to man the Al-Muqawama Al-Islamia (Islamic 

Resistance) militia from these communities is secured.

Hezbollah comprises an Islamic religious indoctrination in which the ideology is rooted in 

the Koran and Shiite traditions as interpreted by the ruling Iranian Ayatollahs. The significance 

of this ideology is that, in Hezbollah’s view, its adherents are not merely Lebanese but, more 

important, Shiite Muslims and jihad fighters. This concept has worked well as a rallying and 

unifying theme among a tribal sect that has traditionally been quite disjointed.

Infrastructure

As has been stated previously in this paper, Hezbollah has instituted a broad development program ostensibly aimed to address the social deprivations found in southern Lebanon. 

This Jihad al-Binaa’ (jihad of construction) has resulted in the improvement and construction 

of civilian and concurrently of military infrastructures within Lebanon.16 As previously mentioned, military infrastructure included elaborate vertical bunker systems, extensive camouflaged underground fortifications, and caches. In fact, Hezbollah put into place an extensive 

logistics system dispersed among civilian residences and public buildings, including mosques. 

The civilian infrastructure development focused on providing services to community needs, for 

example, hospitals and educational institutions.

Information

An area in which Hezbollah and Iran have seized the initiative is that of the information domain. Understanding the power of perception and how it shapes opinion, Hezbollah unleashed 

a comprehensive and cohesive information campaign. The main effort was television news 

media (for example, Qatari-based Al-Jazeera satellite television) that could be provided instantaneous feeds of destroyed/disabled IDF armor and/or wounded IDF soldiers. Due in large 

part to the fact that Israel has a relatively small population and is, therefore, generally casualty 

aversive, a few of these visual images have a disproportional effect on public opinion. Hezbollah is cognizant of this and is quick to provide information and disinformation to influence the 

psychological dimension of war. Hezbollah also appreciates that it is important to dominate the 

stage of international public opinion. Toward that end, Hezbollah’s propaganda apparatus put 

out damning information/disinformation on IDF mishaps, that is, images of wounded Lebanese 
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women and children. The deliberate use of information to attack (psychologically) the culture 

of an adversary is another component of fourth-generation warfare.

Physical Environment

In essence, the terrain in southern Lebanon greatly favors the defender. Geographically, 

this difficult terrain is characterized by numerous valleys, wadis, ridges, and small mountains. 

The terrain does not allow for maneuver of armored vehicles, except along roads and valleys. 

Although vegetation is generally sparse, it is littered with numerous boulders and large rocks, 

which provide cover and concealment for dismounted infantry. There are densely built-up urban areas in villages that make it difficult for the maneuver tactics preferred by the IDF and 

allows for the establishment of strong defensive positions. Orchards and localized wooded 

areas provide additional cover and concealment (for example, Katyusha rocket launchers) as 

well as ambush sites. In sum, the physical environment is extremely conducive to the defensive 

tactics employed by Hezbollah and pretty much negated the IDF’s superiority in combined 

arms maneuver warfare.

Time

The critical importance of the element of time is often overlooked and underappreciated. 

From Hezbollah’s perspective, it didn’t need to win on the battlefield to “win.” It needed only 

to survive the onslaught and fury of the IDF. The critical variable in this equation is, of course, 

time. How long will the clock run before international pressure (enabled by the information 

instrument) intervenes to limit the duration of the war? Perhaps Hassan Nasrallah, the leader 

of Hezbollah, appreciated that, if his militia could survive, it would, in fact, be considered the 

victor (at least in the Arab world).

From the IDF operational perspective, time was lost by the belated and indecisive use of 

ground forces. The initial Israeli response to the incursion and kidnapping was to unleash the 

IAF to destroy Hezbollah and to punish Lebanon by attacking its infrastructure for harboring 

the terrorists. It was believed that precision strikes against rockets and rocket launchers could 

curtail the attacks. The exclusive use of airpower to neutralize the rocket barrages proved to be 

ineffective. By the time the IDF mobilized its reserve forces in sufficient numbers to conduct 

decisive ground operations, international pressure to end hostilities had reached the critical 

point. Accordingly, the piecemeal use of ground forces and the change in the operational concept consumed time that, in effect, limited what could be strategically accomplished.

Implications

The most striking finding of an analysis of Hezbollah as a non-state entity is how effective 

the organization has learned from previous encounters with the IDF. This is evident in several 

constructs of PMESII-PT: the tactics employed to defeat IDF armor (military), the understanding of the importance of culture and social dynamics (social), the skillful use of information as 

a potent psychological and political weapon in postmodern war (political and information), flat 

and decentralized organizational structure (military), dispersed logistics (infrastructure), and 

appreciating the consequence of timing (time). In effect, Hezbollah has provided a template on 
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how to prepare and conduct operations that limit the strength of Western militaries by the adept 

use of information operations, psychological warfare, and attrition tactics.

Most troubling is that Hezbollah demonstrated how a non-state actor with ample support 

from a suitor can successfully take advantage of a weakened nation-state to further its political 

cause. Hezbollah is one of the few examples of a successful export of the Iranian version of Islamic revolution. This phenomenon does not portend well for the stability in the worlds regions 

where politically ineffectual nation-states may serve as breeding grounds for radical elements 

that may want to emulate Hezbollah.

Notes

1. Amir Kulick, Hezbollah vs. the IDF: The Operational Dimension, Strategic Assessment, Vol. 9, 

No. 3, (November, 2006), Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University,1-2.

2. Chaim Herzog,The Arab-Israeli Wars: War and Peace in the Middle East (New

York: Random House, 1982), 172-177.

3. F. Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 163.

4. George W. Gawrych, The 1973 Arab-Israeli War: The Albatross of Decisive Victory (Leavenworth Papers Number 21, 1996), 1-3.

5. Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?: Israel and Lebanon after 

the Withdrawal (Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 4, No. 3, Fall 2000), 4-6. 

6. Hezbollah as a Strategic Arm of Iran (September 8, 2006) Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, 6-8.

7. Ibid. 5

8. Ibid. 24

9. Reuven Erlich , Syria as a Strategic Prop for Hezbollah and Hamas. (August 3, 2006) Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies, 2-5.

10. Yoaz Hendel Failed Tactical Intelligence in the Lebanon War. Strategic Assessment, Vol. 9, No. 

3, (November, 2006), Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 4.

11. Yaakov Katz, “IDF Report Card,” (August 24, 2006), online edition, Jerusalem Post.

12. David Makovsky and Jeffrey White Lessons and Implications of the Israel-Hizballah War : A 

Preliminary Assessment, Policy Focus #60, October 2006.

13. Angel Rabasa, Peter Chalk, Kim Cragin, Sara A. Daly, Heather S. Gregg, Theodore W. Karasik, 

Kevin A. O’Brien, William Rosenau, Beyond al-Qaeda: The Outer Rings of the Terrorist Universe, Part 

2 (2006) Rand Corporation, Arlington, VA.).

14. Brig. Gen. (res.) Dr. Shimon Shapira, Countdown to Conflict: Hizballah’s Military Buildup and 

the Need for Effective Disarmament, Jerusalem Issue Brief Vol. 6, No. 8 August 20, 2006 by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. 

15. Hezbollah as a strategic arm of Iran, September 8, 2006 Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies. 

16. Failed Tactical Intelligence in the Lebanon War, Yoaz Hendel, Strategic Assessment, Vol. 9, 

No. 3, November, 2006, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University.
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Panel 6—Studies in 21st Century Non-State Actors

(Submitted Paper)

Iraq and Global Insurgency: Dien Bien Phu or Khe Sanh?

by

Wm. J. Olson, Ph.D.

National Defense University

In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that an insistence on hard-headed 

clarity issues from sentimental feelings, as it were a mist, cloaking the perplexities of 

fact. Insistence on clarity at all costs is based on sheer superstition as to the mode in 

which human intelligence functions.

—Alfred North Whitehead

Who can wait quietly while the muddy waters settle? Who can remain still until the 

right moment of action?

—Tao Te Ching

All insurgencies are alike. All insurgencies are different. Both are true statements. Different insurgencies share a family resemblance. They are not, however, clones. As in the old cliché 

that holds that good families are all good for the same reasons, while bad families are all bad 

for different reasons, insurgencies are all the same for different reasons, or they are different 

for the same reasons. These differences in similarities or similar differences make it difficult to 

provide any hard and fast comparisons across the range of insurgent experiences, thus making 

lessons learned and conclusions problematic if they don’t pay attention simultaneously to both 

differences and similarities, the whys and wherefores of them. Iraq is no exception. Studying 

classical insurgencies from the past, or even present ones, can offer useful understanding and 

guidance, but it can also mislead and deceive. Iraq is both past and future. It is unclear whether 

either is understood.

Not long ago, one hardly heard of the idea of calling global terrorism global insurgency. It 

is now becoming a la mode to describe al-Qaeda as a global insurgency. As with many fashions, 

however, the style is assumed more than it is explicated. Exactly what does the term “global 

insurgency” mean? There is a vast literature on insurgency, with a long and venerable history. 

Its depths have been plumbed. Its secrets extracted by both insurgents and their opponents.1

Its whys and wherefores have been much discussed, cataloged, and implemented. Yet, despite 

a growing tendency to call the likes of al-Qaeda an insurgency operating across international 

boundaries, there is relatively little discussion of just what this entails, either as a practice or 

what it means for policy.

The primary motive for the change in perspective, apart from terminological restlessness, 

stems from the realization that terrorism is a tactic not a process. Insurgency implies a sustained 

and sustainable process that employs various tactics in a long-term strategic plan in which ter-
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roristic violence is but one component. In al-Qaeda’s case, it began not as a small group devoted 

to using terrorism but as an armed movement more typical of insurgencies that evolved from a 

war of national liberation. It moved from these beginnings in Afghanistan into an international 

movement. Its resort to terror tactics internationally tended to obscure its underlying structure 

and purpose. Direct US experience on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq with insurgent organizations, which may or may not have international connections and ambitions, has helped to 

deepen thinking on the issue. Hence the shift in thinking about insurgency and terrorism as the 

United States has had to deal with localized insurgent movements in its international efforts to 

combat terrorism.

If, however, the term is to be something more than a trope, sentimental feelings flying 

under a new label without content, or a fashion statement, then something more needs to be 

done to make the term clear, or at least more substantive, to draw out its perplexities. If there 

are certain realities that accompany an insurgency, verities on its conduct and on how to deal 

with it within its traditional context, how might these play in a global setting? Does a global 

insurgency share these verities? Is it similar in name but substantively different in reality? If 

different, how and what does it mean? If not different, then what does this portend?

Combating an insurgency on a local scale is hard work that takes dedication, resources, and 

patience. If we face a global insurgency, operating on the principles we are familiar with, what 

does this mean for engagement? Is what we are dealing with familiar to what we know, or is 

it a new circumstance flying under familiar colors? If it is the latter, a new phenomenon, then 

resorting to old labels in new contexts is not likely to offer much in the way of advice on how 

to proceed. If similar, then the resemblance must be examined for what it means.

With Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States finds itself firmly engaged in localized insurgencies, one with a longstanding pedigree, Afghanistan; the other evolving largely in response 

to the US invasion of Iraq and continuing US presence in the unstable political environment 

that followed intervention. Although both have many homegrown elements that are purely local, the presence of al-Qaeda fighters and other Islamic-motivated opposition movements raise 

the specter of a transnational organization with global ambitions and capabilities that transcend 

local struggles and politics. Certainly, the presence of the United States gives the insurgency 

a global character from another direction not just from al-Qaeda. But what are these groups? 

Once described as global terrorists, it is these groups that are now being increasingly labeled as 

global insurgents. Is this the case? And if so, what exactly does that mean in terms of insurgent 

actions and counterinsurgency? Does global insurgency mean global counterinsurgency? If 

fought on similar principles, the implications for policy for such a reality are extreme and will 

require some deeper analysis than is currently the case.

If global insurgency is a reality and Iraq is one of the battlegrounds in the war, then what 

might insurgency tell us about what Iraq means and what might Iraq tell us about the future of 

that battleground? The following is an attempt to put some meat on the bones.

Insurgency Defined

There are as many definitions of insurgency as there are insurgencies, and as with definitions of terrorism, there is little agreement on how to make these various delineations coincide. 

As with Potter Stewarts’ famous remark about pornography, “I can’t define it but I know it 
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when I see it,” insurgency is likely to remain elusive in definition but real in practice. Terminology has also been a conundrum, insurgency sometimes described as guerrilla warfare, or small 

wars, or internal war, or more poetically, “the war of the flea.”2

 The Marine Corps’ Small Wars 

Manual describes it thusly:

The term ‘Small War’ is often a vague name for any one of a great variety of military operations. As applied to the United States, small wars are operations undertaken 

under executive authority, wherein military force is combined with diplomatic pressure in the internal or external affairs of another state whose government is unstable, 

inadequate, or unsatisfactory for the preservation of life and of such interests as are 

determined by the foreign policy of our Nation.

Mao Tse-tung is generally regarded as the father of modern insurgency movements.3 Mao 

was not interested in studying insurgency but in providing a handbook on how to fight one. 

He discusses a war of national liberation using classic guerrilla tactics with a large admixture 

of revolutionary political ideology as the guiding intellectual framework and justification for 

prolonged conflict. The success of his revolution made his views the canonical text for virtually all subsequent movements aimed at removing foreign occupiers or unwelcome indigenous 

governments, a style of warfare on display today in Nepal, Colombia, and Peru in its Marxist 

variant and now in Iraq and Afghanistan in a non-Marxist setting.

Based on Mao’s insights, the practice of various imitators, and on the vast literature attempting to define and describe insurgency, a working definition might read as follows: insurgency is the use of armed and political violence carried out by irregular units and dissident 

political organizations in a protracted conflict to overthrow an existing political order and establish a new one. While this or any definition does not capture the complexity of the reality, it 

focuses on several salient features: the struggle is political; it is fought between opposing forces 

with asymmetrical capabilities and responsibilities—governments and regular armies versus 

clandestine political groups and irregular units; it is, for that reason, necessarily protracted in 

nature; it evolves through various phases; and it is total war in that the goal of the insurgents 

is a victory that replaces an existing order absolutely. Also, given modern political realities, 

like any major conflict, it is very likely to have an international dimension. Traditionally, this 

has meant movements against foreign invaders or the involvement of various outside parties in 

support of either governments or insurgents.

As it has evolved since World War II, insurgency is typically described as taking one of 

four forms:

• Classical model: national liberation movements or wars of resistance that use guerrilla warfare as a fighting manual.

• Mao model: rural-based political/guerrilla warfare evolving through various stages.

• Foco model: Mao without the sweat equity; that is, guerrilla warfare without the 

need for protracted conflict and the various stages outlined by Mao. Theoretically 

based on Castro’s revolution in Cuba and practiced by Che Guevara with total lack of 

success. 
300

• Urban model: Mao goes downtown; that is, guerrilla warfare waged in cities, famously and disastrously practiced by Carlos Marighella in Brazil.

Characteristics of Insurgency

The nature of insurgency is as hard to pin down as is a definition. As outlined by Mao, it 

divides itself into various stages, flexibly applied and appreciated:

• Strategic defensive.

• Strategic stalemate.

• Strategic offensive.

Strategic defensive is the organizational phase of an insurgency when combat is a gleam in 

the eyes of a small cadre of leaders, dedicated leadership being essential to everything that follows. The focus is on building an initial organization, on establishing a social base, propaganda 

work—which may include terror attacks or other criminal activities to raise money and attention—and training. This phase may be years in the making with setbacks and failure common. 

Strategic stalemate fast forwards the insurgency to a stage at which it is able to conduct more 

sustained guerrilla operations, has established a base for operations, and is able to lay claim to 

a territorially secure base in which it controls the population, at least part of the time. Strategic 

offensive is the culmination of previous efforts to organize and build military and political 

forces and begins to look more like regular, conventional war than a guerrilla war. It is characterized by larger, more sustained military operations designed to displace government control 

over increasingly large areas leading to victory.

While acts of deliberate terrorism—violence against noncombatants—and terror-like attacks—improvised explosives used on military or political targets—may have a role in insurgent operations, they are not the focus of the effort, and insurgency in its guerrilla warfare 

guise bears many similarities to regular warfare, although fought irregularly. As the foregoing 

illustrates, it also has a long-term, strategic planning capability, the goal of which is to design 

coherent plans and actions carried out over time by a centrally directed organization and leadership for political goals.

These, in general, typify Mao’s idea for success, the essential, most central factor in the 

effort not being military operations but political goals and objectives. Military operations are 

never undertaken for their own reasons but are, at least in intention, always subordinate to political considerations. Military operations are political acts.

There is no hard and fast rule about when an insurgency can make the transition from one 

phase to another, and the insurgent leaders are prepared to go backwards into earlier stages if 

they meet failure. The key is patience and a faith in inevitable victory, a willingness to trade 

everything for time and opportunity, waiting for the blunders of the opponent. Insurgencies 

begin with nothing but liabilities. For insurgents, everything is a weakness. The goal is to make 

their weakness irrelevant and the opponent’s strength useless.4
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Insurgencies face a host of practical liabilities, many corollaries of organizing a program 

to overthrow an existing order through political violence. Since the effort is illegal at the outset and is likely to attract unfavorable official attention, it must be clandestine—unless, as in 

Afghanistan, it can take advantage of political chaos and a power vacuum—to survive. The organization never completely escapes this need for obscurity. The requirement to operate below 

official attention imposes severe restrictions on the leadership and its efforts to organize. This 

quite often leads incipient insurgent groups to seek some form of safe haven, locales in which 

official presence and capability is limited or, preferably, nonexistent. This generally means 

remote areas with potentially sympathetic populations that, because of their remoteness, lack 

many of the amenities that would make organization easier. From this situation, a further set 

of problems arise.

These include supplying the effort with money and equipment; providing transportation; 

developing adequate security for people, resources, and money; developing decent, secure 

communications; building support locally, regionally, and, it is hoped, internationally; and 

gaining access to weapons, recruits, information, and the means to broadcast the message that 

will ensure future sustainability. Since the goal is to build an effort that can eventually challenge existing authority, which theoretically has a monopoly on the means of violence, all these 

undertakings pose major problems of organization.

The nature of these challenges imposes its own requirements. Generally, this means that, 

at least initially, the movement must be cellular in organization to prevent official penetration 

and quick success in rolling up key leaders. This requires a dispersed structure, which offers 

its own special burdens. In addition, because of this dispersed structure, the movement quite 

often faces problems of splintering, of various elements striking off on their own in defiance of 

central control, even in cases where there is a strong, unifying message or common ideology. 

It can also mean more freedom for human factors to intervene, such as jealousy, greed, or frustration, which can fragment overall organization and open the movement to disabling internal 

divisions or official penetration. And the movement can become prisoner to more radical elements that act without discipline and thus undermine the overall effort or to entrepreneurs who 

challenge leadership for motives of their own. These are inherent problems quite apart from 

the inevitable actions of the authorities once they become aware of the threat. Indeed, in some 

cases, it is official reaction that the insurgency is building toward, counting on it to help further 

the cause and lend it legitimacy.

Insurgency in Iraq

There is not a single insurgency in Iraq but several that may share ties and provide some 

support to one another but that, for the most part, operate independently with different motives 

and objectives. The distinct insurgent groupings are also typical of such efforts, cellularly organized with a dispersed leadership structure to avoid easy countermeasures. There are conflicting estimates of how many combatants there are in these various organizations or how broad 

their popular support is among the general population, with numbers ranging from as few as 

5,000 full-time fighters to more than 40,000.5

 In addition, the environment that brought some 

of these efforts into being and in which they now operate has some significant differences 

from the nature of many more traditional insurgencies, making characterization and response 

harder.6
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There are at least four separate insurgent nodes, points around which opposition to the 

US presence and a successor Iraqi Government have formed, and one additional conflict 

source—organized crime—that is, not strictly speaking an insurgent movement, but one that 

contributes to the overall conflict environment, compounding many of the problems, contributing to the level of violence, and confusing the understanding of what is going on, its true 

nature.

• Sunni insurgency: The largest and most complicated insurgent movement is that 

which has evolved around various Sunni-based groups, many of which are composed 

of former regime loyalists but also include nationalists who oppose US occupation. 

Although not confirmed, there is some indication that Saddam Hussein’s government 

developed an incipient command structure and stockpiles of arms before Operation 

IRAQI FREEDOM to form the core for a protracted, internal war. [In this sense, there 

is both a Sunni and Ba’athist component within the overall Sunni-based insurgency, 

separate but related.] Even without this, the sudden collapse of the government and 

the dispersal of the army put large numbers of trained officers and soldiers along with 

untold quantities of small arms and ammunition available for future insurgent operations at the disposal of various groups. In the months and years following the invasion, 

these groups have grown in size and sophistication, aided by continuing US presence 

and military operations that alienate indigenous groups further.

• Tribal insurgency: Also largely Sunni-based, many tribal groups have their own 

informal command structures and access to small arms. These groups—some of which 

may have loyalty ties to the former regime but many of which are responding to US 

presence and US military actions taken against tribal groups creating, in effect, blood 

feuds—operate largely in traditional tribal areas in southern and southwestern Iraq. 

Some Shiite and Kurdish tribal groups, which have longstanding grievances against 

the exercise of central authority, are also involved in the mix, although at relatively 

low levels of violence and engagement. In some cases, these groups target one another, 

increasing the climate of violence and complicating overall security and restoration 

efforts.7

• Combat militias: Such groups as the Mahdi Army and the Badr Army, while largely Shia and not engaged in major operations, at least not yet, constitute another armed 

element in Iraq, with the potential for escalating sectarian violence.8

• Radical groups: There are internal as well as international extremist groups claiming links to al-Qaeda or to one or another of various Islamic opposition groups that 

oppose the United States. Groups with ties to the Islamic Brotherhood, to various Wahhabi radical groups, as well as links to bin Ladin, constitute a mixed opposition element 

with a strong ideological set of beliefs. Before the US invasion, these groups were the 

main concern for US policy. These groups are among the smallest of the various insurgent organizations, and it is unclear how well they are accepted within Iraq, although 

tactical alliances for convenience with other groups may add to their effectiveness.9

• Criminal gangs: The presence of various organized crime groups that resort to 

violence to sustain their activities complicates the overall picture. While not true in-
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surgents, their activities may be indistinguishable from insurgent operations and make 

developing a clear picture difficult. In addition, such groups are not immune from 

nationalist or Islamic sympathies that may lead them to contributing money and assistance to more distinct insurgent efforts.10

The consequence of this complex interplay of different movements is a mixed insurgency 

environment that is part nationalist struggle, part religious-ethnic conflict, part ideological opposition movement, and part the result of a collapse of central order and the presence of a 

foreign occupying power. The goals are similarly mixed, with some groups seeking to preserve 

power and privilege from a previous time, some groups responding to offended pride and social norms, some groups working to realign the nature of power along ethnic or religious lines, 

some seeking to prosper from chaos, and some waging an international struggle on behalf of 

Islam.

The insurgency has also benefited from a number of blunders and missteps by the United 

States, which has fulfilled part of any insurgent’s expectations, that is, for constituted authority 

to assist through its actions and mistakes the overall effort to justify the insurgency, broaden its 

support, and help to enlist new recruits and allies.

Characteristics of Iraq’s Insurgency

Based on generic understandings, Iraq is currently experiencing an insurgency, or several 

insurgencies, but its nature is unique and grows out of a set of circumstances familiar but singular. As with many post-World War II insurgencies, the Iraqi movements are in essence national 

liberation struggles designed to drive out a foreign occupier. The singular nature of the situation is that the occupier, the United States, did not invade to be an occupier and would leave 

if it were not for the insurgency that is trying to drive it out. The United States, from all appearances, miscalculated the extended consequences of regime change for its ability to change 

regimes and depart quickly. The result is a protracted stay to provide the stability necessary to 

leave quickly—a particularly vicious circle.

The insurgent movements enjoy some unique assets not found in many other examples of 

the type. Because of the nature of the previous regime and the manner of its collapse, there are 

large quantities of arms scattered around the country and a large, well-trained population from 

which to draw political organizational skills and military capabilities. Much of this population 

was alienated or unemployed after invasion and occupation and thus was available to appeals 

for action or in the need of something to do. Additionally, the ethnic makeup of the country and 

the distribution of populations, linked with Ba’athist elements, meant that there were built-in 

areas, geographic safe havens, sympathetic to potential insurgent movements. Thus, some of 

the inherent startup problems that many insurgencies face were not present, and the various 

movements were able to go from meager beginnings to sophisticated operations in short order.

The nature of the collapse of the regime also exacerbated many of the normal problems of 

the permeability of international borders. Unpoliced borders, the lack of reliable internal policing capabilities, and limited US or Coalition assets to secure internal or external borders meant 

that insurgents had considerable freedom of movement early on and did not face sophisticated 
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counterintelligence threats at critical early stages of organization and response. It meant the 

ability to establish links to international sources of support and to move goods and services 

without let or hindrance. Once established, these routes and methods have become increasingly sophisticated and flexible as the resistance organizations are better able to protect them 

or change them in response to countermeasures. Permeable borders also increased the ability of 

neighboring states and international extremist groups to play a role within Iraq, chaos breeding 

opportunity and temptation.

Iraq also has longstanding religious and ethnic divisions that have troubled the country’s 

short existence. In the case of the Kurds, there is a sophisticated insurgency structure with international assistance that has effectively partitioned the country and ruled part of it for many 

years. This, plus deep social divisions, meant a built-in grievance structure on which to base 

appeals for action, while the collapse of central authority made those appeals realistic and a 

means to settle old scores. Thus, even before the US invasion and regime collapse, Iraqi internal dynamics created an environment favorable to insurgent options and, in some cases, insurgency benefits from a preexisting organizational structure and practical experience.

There is also a deep tradition of conspiracy theorizing in Iraq and the region generally that 

adds to the ability of groups to explain complex events in simple terms to increase their appeal: the invasion is just about oil. The United States is acting as an agent of Israel. The goal is 

to destroy Islam in a new crusade. There are no informational responses or public diplomacy 

tactics that can refute this generalized environment, thus making it harder to respond to. The 

regime, before its collapse, made extensive use of this fact to prejudice the present situation. 

The US presence and its general unpreparedness for dealing with protracted conflict aid and 

abet conspiracy thinking and the appeals for support.

In the midst of all of this, the United States finds itself directly engaged in fighting insurgent movements with no direct experience of counterinsurgency and is thus facing an unfamiliar situation while trying to decide how to respond.11 This makes it an unwitting ally of the 

forces it is seeking to defeat. That is one of the things Iraq’s insurgency shares with others, its 

reliance on the aid of authorities to help the insurgents win. The fact that the United States is 

contending with one type of insurgency, a localized one, on the ground while also engaging in a 

broader conflict, with an international movement, makes the situation confusing as perspective 

keeps shifting between the layers. In combating traditional insurgencies, it is often difficult for 

authorities to understand exactly what kind of fight they are in, often mistaking combat for war. 

In the multilayered context that is Iraq, clarity is perplexing if unsentimental. Taken together, 

these various factors help to make insurgency in Iraq unique while sharing many features with 

other situations. As with most insurgent situations, what is most common to them is how they 

must be responded to. Counterinsurgency, like good families, is very much the same no matter 

the differences in various insurgent movements, their origins, purposes, and trajectories. This is 

a fairly simple notion. It is indescribably difficult to do. More on that below.

Dien Bien Phu or Khe Sanh?

Invoking these two events is not meant as some invidious comparison of the current situation in Iraq to Vietnam, as if Iraq is a replay of Vietnam with a similar outcome inevitable. 

If what is occurring in Iraq today is a representative model of an emerging style of global 
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insurgency, then Iraq must be seen not as a battlefield in and of itself, at least in this regard, 

but as a point of engagement for the insurgents, a siege with a strategic goal fought locally for 

global intent. As such, only one element of the various insurgent movements in the current Iraqi 

environment is relevant, the others having no broader ambitions for global engagement. It is 

also an asymmetric conflict, but not in the way commonly conceived. The fight is not between 

dissimilar forces fighting with different means and capabilities, although that is true, but it is 

asymmetric in its consequences. Success in Iraq for the likes of bin Ladin is likely to have serious strategic consequences for the United States, while defeat for bin Ladin and associates in 

Iraq will have only tactical consequences. The insurgents can win by losing; the United States 

can lose by winning.

Dien Bien Phu was fought from March to May 1954 between French regular forces and 

North Vietnamese main force units with tanks and heavy artillery. In many ways, then, Dien 

Bien Phu was not a typical guerrilla fight but more a standup siege in which the lightly armed 

regular French forces were completely outmanned and outgunned on a terrain they chose but 

were completely unprepared to dominate. For the French, defeat ended any chances for reestablishing colonial rule in Indochina. It was a fixed, localized siege with a strategic outcome. If 

General Giap, the Vietnamese commander, had lost at Dien Bien Phu, however, it would have 

been a military setback but would have had little meaning for Ho Chi Minh and the overall 

campaign. It was decisive only for the French.

General Giap was prepared to invest virtually all of North Vietnam’s limited conventional 

military capability to the battle, calculating the potential strategic advantages of such a standup 

fight. It was a risk but not a fatal one. Similar planning went into the plans to commit forces 

against the US Marines at Khe Sanh, which was also a standup fight between main force units 

on both sides.

The siege of Khe Sanh lasted from January to March 1968. There were many similarities 

between Khe Sanh and Dien Bien Phu, at least in the sense that the North Vietnamese sought 

to use the Marine base camp in the border highlands as a focus for combat operations to inflict 

a physical and psychological defeat on US forces. Unlike the French, however, the Vietnamese 

failed totally in isolating the Marine base. The military effort ended with the North Vietnamese 

breaking off contact after taking severe losses. At the same time, however, and often overlooked 

in discussing the siege, the Vietcong launched the Tet Offensive, which put the whole country 

under siege. Thus, two dramas unfolded simultaneously as Vietcong units seized villages and 

small cities all over the South, controlling parts of them for some time until US and South 

Vietnamese forces crushed them, destroying Vietcong power in the process. Key to both offensives, from the North Vietnamese side, the main aim of the attacks, was not a military victory 

but a strategic blow designed to affect American political will. In that regard, the two attacks 

worked, fraying US domestic support for the war. Shortly after the fighting ceased, Lyndon 

Johnson chose not to run again, and the resulting Presidential campaign became a referendum 

on the war between candidates, both of whom promised to find a way out of the fighting. Thus, 

the North Vietnamese won a critical strategic victory by engaging in a fight on the ground that 
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they could not win militarily. Once again, as at Dien Bien Phu, defeat at Khe Sanh was not fatal 

for the North Vietnamese, and victory was not decisive for their enemy.

If the Islamic insurgent elements currently operating in Iraq are part of a global insurgency, 

then it seems fair to draw an analogy between Dien Bien Phu and Khe Sanh in the sense that 

the insurgent goal is to lay siege to the US presence in Iraq to not win any particular fight but 

to score strategic gains that will eventually lead to US withdrawal. Iraq is a strategic moment. 

It suggests that there is a distinct and considerable strategic planning capability resident in the 

hands of US foes. It raises the thought that other international attacks linked to Iraq—such as 

those in Spain and Britain—are part of an overarching concerted plan, if not deliberately organized campaign, to isolate the United States internationally and exhaust its will locally. Victory 

lies, as in insurgency generally, in strategic and political success not in military campaigns, at 

least not considered apart from their political meaning and affect. If the analogy holds, then losing in Iraq will not be decisive for them; whereas winning Iraq will not necessarily be decisive 

for the United States in combating the bin Ladins of the world, but losing could give added 

impetus to their efforts globally.

Global Insurgency

Is there such a thing? On the face of it, the idea of a global insurgency seems a stretch and 

comparisons to more limited insurgency movements, an analogy in search of a home. Analogies are all well and good but only insofar as they bear a relationship to some relevant reality. 

An analogy is not a fact, and multiple metaphors are not data. Unlike traditional insurgency, 

there is apparently little to draw on in which to discuss the nature and principles inherent to 

global insurgency. There is, however, more than appears at first sight, a rich history in fact that 

leads me to argue that we indeed face the first global insurgency, but not a novel one. What is 

new in the idea is not its insurgency components or its global nature but in the unique features 

that an increasingly globalized international society gives to its dissident forces with mayhem 

on the mind. Globalization is helping to create or expand opportunities and vulnerabilities that 

make global insurgency a distinct occupation. While the groups that form the base for such an 

insurgent effort use terrorism as a tactic to advertise their presence, as theater, their intent is to 

form a deeper movement more along the lines of Mao’s thematic program with the world as 

their stage.

For convenience and in keeping with the definition of insurgency above, what follows will 

define global insurgency as the use of armed and political violence carried out by irregular units 

and dissident political organizations with a global presence to overthrow the existing international political order and replace it with a new one.

Bin Ladin is not the father of global insurgency or at least not of the idea of carrying a 

fight to change the world to an international stage. One of the first, best known such figures 

was Tom Paine, who made his name propagandizing for American independence from Britain. 

What is often forgotten is his career after the success of America’s war. He spent the years following advocating a more generalized world revolution—sometimes attacking his erstwhile 

American comrades—and working with French revolutionaries to give effect to the most radical beliefs to emerge from 1789. Paine was not a solitary figure. Not necessary to repeat here 

is the subsequent history of the various European radical ideologies and the emergence of the 
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European anarchist movement in the mid-19th century on a wave of international terrorist attacks and localized revolutionary efforts bent on remaking the international political order. A 

European prime minister or two, several crowned heads, a number of parliamentarians, and a 

US President died at the hands of anarchists operating on behalf of an international movement 

that believed a few well-chosen deaths would expose the corruption of the existing order and 

bring it crashing down so that a new dawn would bring wholeness, peace, and harmony to a 

troubled world.

Nor was it just individual radicals that became involved. With the success of the Communists in Russia in 1917, this radicalism gained a geographic base that Lenin and then Stalin and 

his successors tried to use to globalize their ideas. The Comintern in part tried to use local wars 

of national liberation, people’s wars, as a vehicle to restructure the international system. To the 

degree that this effort, coupled with US promotion of self-determination, delegitimized colonialism and helped to liquidate European-based empires, it was, in fact, successful. The Cold 

War also saw the United States get into the act. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980 saw 

the United States attempt to organize an international effort to defeat the Soviets using guerrilla 

warfare in a specific theater of engagement. It is not without some irony that al-Qaeda got its 

start and perhaps inherited some of its international character and contacts from US-supported 

insurgency in Afghanistan to defeat its Cold War enemy. Thus, there is nothing new in internationalized radical movements or in state support to them.

The Environment of Global Insurgency

While internationalized violence is not new, the emergence of groups prepared to act internationally on behalf of some favored transnational, universal agenda is on the rise. The nature 

of the globalized environment is providing such groups a facility to act not available in the past, 

and they are able to do so without state sponsorship. Further, these emerging groups are more 

attuned to exploiting those advantages, often faster and with more acuity than governments or 

international organizations.

Two deep elements foster this growth. The first is of longstanding. One of the major features 

of historical development over the past several hundred years is the emergence of a spirit of oppositionism, a belief that the current political, social, economic order is fundamentally corrupt 

and evil and is immune to reform, and that only a radical transformation of all relationships will 

put things right. The force for this ultimate correction is a group of the enlightened—fill in the 

blank—who not only know the ultimate source of alienation but have the formula for remaking mankind to end alienation. Although originating in Europe out of the Reformation and the 

Enlightenment, such thinking spread with the wave of revolutionary movements after 1789. 

The emergence of Marxism became the vehicle for universalizing these underlying sentiments 

in the 20th century. Although communism collapsed, both as a state-owned enterprise and as a 

philosophical justification, the mode of thinking, of oppositionism, did not disappear and has 

spread into countless channels with a host of variants and believers. This type of thinking is 

independent of nation-states or the current architecture of the international system. Indeed, it 

exists in direct opposition to both.12

The second major element is a fundamental unraveling of the current international order, a 

process that has been underway for some time, but whose features US-Soviet Cold War rivalry 
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disguised. The complexity of this unraveling is not the subject here.13 Only a brief outline is 

possible. The international order itself, as it is currently structured, is largely the product of the 

spread of European states beyond Europe and the creation of empires over much of the globe—

one of the first major globalization movements. The spread of European empires globalized 

European modes of political organization, legitimizing concepts underpinning the international 

system and the existence of discrete nation-states as the principal components of that system. 

Although evolutionary in nature, the main features of the current international system are a 

product of European politics and intellectual development, while nation-states were the practical and intellectual emanations of how people should be organized locally.

Ironically, it was the spread of these ideas that also formed the means for challenging European hegemony—particularly the idea of self-determination as the answer to imperial domination. Unfortunately, the “nation-states” that formed from the collapse of European empires 

were incomplete entities, more notions than nations—failed or failing states from the outset, 

testament to the hard realities of nation building. Thus, as European empires receded, so did 

much of the rationale for or commitment to international order. Along with this recession came 

the emergence of a host of poorly organized states as heirs, eroding international political, social, and economic order. US-Soviet rivalry dammed up many of the negative consequences of 

imperial collapse and incompetent governance, but with the demise of the Soviet Union, many 

of these constraints collapsed or lost their force, leaving the mess after the parade to clean up. 

One of the central problems that has now come to the fore is ungovernability, the inability 

of governments over much of the planet to provide the essential services for which government 

exists. Incompetent, corrupt, or vicious, many governments, products of failed nation building, 

are governments in name only, presiding over states that are fictional, sharing international 

recognition but lacking virtually everything else. The state system is in crisis, and along with 

that and in part because of it, the international system as such is in crisis. The central element 

of that crisis is governance, how to do it, how to justify it, how to sustain it. In addition to this 

and contributing to the overall problem is the existence of a series of ungovernable spaces that 

tax the ability of even the richest and most competent of governments and societies.

Ungovernable Spaces

It is common in recent discussions to hear about “ungoverned spaces.” While such may 

exist, the real problem is the existence of domains that are beyond governance. Where there 

are deficiencies in governing ability, we may hope to remediate. Where no governance is possible, we can only hope to accommodate, to find the means to cope. There are five such zones: 

geography, the Internet, the sea, the market, and idea spaces—the geography between people’s 

ears.

• Geography: One of the characteristics and requirements for statehood is the ability to exercise binding legal authority over the geography of jurisdiction, that is, the 

national territory. What many modern states currently lack is precisely that ability, 

exercising only minimal control over the national territory or significant parts of it. 

Given that this situation might be rectified with improvements in capability, many of 

these spaces are ungoverned but not beyond control. There exists, however, a separate 

category, that is, areas that are simply ungovernable, beyond ability and capability. 
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In many cases, these are border areas. No state currently possesses the ability, even 

when it possesses considerable capability, to maintain control over its borders. For 

weak or failing states, the problem is much worse, but even the United States, for all 

its sophistication and resources, cannot adequately police its own borders to filter out 

determined threats or criminal agents. Because smuggling and smugglers, like much 

criminal activity, hide by mimicking legitimate commerce or by corrupting vulnerable 

officials and private citizens to betray their trust, even totalitarian states cannot isolate 

their borders. Thus, past a certain point, there are critical geographic spaces that are 

beyond monitoring or control.

• The Internet: Like the discovery of printing for an early age, the development, 

growth, and spread of the Internet is revolutionizing life, affecting social, political, 

economic, and psychological contexts in unpredictable ways based on a logic and trajectory of its own and beyond anyone’s control. Governments cannot control access 

much less regulate content or consequences. One major obstacle to past revolutionary 

movements was inadequate and insecure methods of communication. The Internet provides the means to escape that constraint and provides a medium that is the message. 

It is constantly available, indifferent to authority, indiscriminate in its access, without 

conscience in its use, and virtually infinite in its flexibility. It is ideal for career oppositionists. It is ungovernable.

• The sea: Like certain elements of land geography, the world’s oceans are beyond 

control by individual states and are, therefore, ungovernable. While the sea imposes 

special limits and requirements on anyone wishing to venture into troubled waters, 

boundless open spaces and intricate margins where sea and land come together afford 

infinite opportunities to evade control. Piracy and smuggling are only two ways that 

the sea makes itself available for use, providing havens and distances that make enforcement impossible, apart from luck and marginal interventions.

• The market: The hallmark of international capitalism is its claim to be beyond anyone’s control or, rather, that the marketplace itself, to function and deliver its benefits, 

must be left to govern itself by forces that may be influenced but that are unregulatable 

and should, therefore, not be interfered with so far as is possible. Indeed, the argument goes further, that efforts to control it will ultimately fail because the marketplace, 

while operating on recognizable principles, is inherently beyond the control of any individual, group, or national authority. Many argue that its freedom to operate on these 

principles is intimately connected to human freedom itself and that, therefore, efforts 

to promote and sustain the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness must lie in giving as 

much freedom to the market as is possible. If true, and there is much evidence to this 

effect, then the market is not only ungovernable in important ways but is off limits, or 

should be, to much that governments might want to do. Unfortunately, this freedom is 

a benefit to the just and the unjust alike, many of the latter depending on freedom, the 

rule of law, and legal commerce to disguise their activities.

• Idea spaces: The ancient Romans tried to wipe out Christianity by wiping out 

Christians. The harder they tried, the more converts they created. The effort failed. 

People are flesh and blood and die. Ideas are virtually immortal and seem to thrive on 
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bad times every bit as much as good ones. No one, so far, even with the most draconian of means, has found it possible to eliminate ideas or govern sufficiently the space 

between people’s ears to control what goes on there and what might eventuate as a consequence. This is an area that might be influenced, although just how to do that is one 

of life’s little mysteries, but it is beyond control. Even modern totalitarianism failed to 

suppress ideas it did not like. This is a geography that is, ultimately, ungovernable in 

any sustained and meaningful way. 

Taken together with a failure of governance and the existence of oppositionist groups bent 

on mischief, these elements combine to make the current international environment a troubled 

and troubling place, one that is increasingly welcoming to radical, oppositional forces with a 

commitment to violent change, without conscience or moral restraint. Escape and evasion become uncommonly easy, enforcement and constraint infinitely harder and more complex.

The Nature of Global Insurgency

The combination of these various elements means that global insurgency is similar to more 

localized insurgencies, but deceptively so. What is most similar is the existence of insurgent 

groups. What is very different, or at least far more complex, is the environment in which they 

exist and the capabilities and resources available to them accordingly. The temptation is to mistake the apparent ease of recognizing the one as a clue for how to respond to the latter.

There are a number of unique features that characterize globalized insurgency. One touched 

on previously is its virtual nature. Because of the Internet, it exists not only physically wherever players reside but also in electrons spread across the vastness of time and space. This means 

it has virtual presence, an electronic safe haven, any place where there is connectivity. While 

not immune to interception, the presence itself is resistant to interdiction, and therefore, disruption of operations or the exchange of ideas is particularly difficult. The sheer volume of traffic 

and the ease of access, within which much can be disguised in plain sight, mean that the global 

insurgent faces a much less serious problem for securing communications or for fearing meaningful penetration of them. Other forms of communication, the public media and the air waves, 

also are far more accessible to global insurgents because individual authority cannot stop the 

access or use it to pinpoint targets as it might in more geographically based movements. One no 

longer has to seize a radio station to broadcast a message or advertise for recruitment.

Global insurgency can call on an emerging parallel international system for support. Global 

movements no longer must rely on states as major sources of funding or aid. There is a sophisticated network of nonstate support systems able to provide a host of services to international outlaws who are part and parcel of this parallel system. Many of these exist on the 

margins of legality or are outright illegal in themselves but are able to exist and operate because 

the enforcement capacity of individual countries or international bodies is not up to the task 

of controlling them. These range from services for smuggling goods and people, to banking, 

to building false compartments, to providing arms and ammunition (and perhaps chemical, 

nuclear, and biological materials as well), to preparing false documents of every description, 

and, of course, to providing or arranging for cash. Emerging connectivity between criminal 

gangs, insurgent movements, terrorist organizations, pirates, and service providers is creating 
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an environment outside state control or ability to control to facilitate every variety of mischief, 

including insurgency.

Because of this, there are now multiple opportunities for groups and individuals to seek to 

make their personal or individual passions a matter of international action. Thus, another aspect of the global insurgent environment: it has multiple sources for justification and action as 

well as support. Current thinking tends to equate global insurgency with al-Qaeda, for obvious 

reasons. What al-Qaeda’s visibility obscures, however, is the much broader reality. Al-Qaeda 

is a messenger. It is preeminent among a growing phenomenon of groups and individuals who 

pursue their agendas on an international scale, agendas fraught with utopian imaginings and 

dark resolve. Modern global insurgency, which is evolving, does not have an ideological center, 

no center of gravity that can be singled out for attack, is self-generating and self-regenerating, 

and emanates from a globalized sense of alienation that is immune to easy fixes and formulaic 

responses, much less jingles and catchy public service messages.

Given the problems of governability over much of the physical geography noted previously, opposition groups can also rely on finding jurisdictions that cannot or will not challenge 

them. Thus, in addition to an electronic landscape in which to operate, global insurgents can 

count on using or hiding out in un- or under-policed areas of the globe. These groups’ venue 

shop for the best and most accommodating of such environments. They have a wide range from 

which to choose.

The international environment for insurgency is profoundly complex and significantly different from that which harbors traditional insurgency. While there may be recognizable insurgent groups, targets for traditional counterinsurgency approaches, the nature of the environment 

is radically different and may not be susceptible to traditional responses or will significantly 

raise the costs in money, manpower, and commitment beyond what anyone has taken into account. If action is global, if intent is global, then such groups cannot be met but on an international level. Iraq offers a challenge on the ground that must be addressed, but it also suggests a 

new context that goes well beyond what we face on the Tigris.

Countering Insurgency

This is not the place to recapitulate all the elements of successful counterinsurgency strategy. There are no secrets to defeating an insurgent movement, although given how frequently 

the lessons are disregarded and have to be relearned, if then, the main elements might be called 

“mysteries.” There are four main mysteries that remain true across time and experience.

1. What the insurgents teach us: That it is all about governance. The main case that 

insurgents make is that the current ruling authority is illegitimate and must be replaced 

with better. While this may be ideologically driven and may or may not be the actual 

case, government incompetence—its failure to provide security, justice, opportunity, 

health, welfare, and education—offers exploitable shortcomings that ideological insurgents use to build their effort. The response to remedy these shortcomings is to build 

effective government, to provide for “a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure 

domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to...Posterity. . . .” These are why govern-
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ments are instituted among men and are conditions that must be met to win against an 

insurgent movement.

2. What operations teach us: That the military is always the supporting element, never the supported element. If everyone in the military does not understand this and act 

accordingly, then they are not trained, and you are not succeeding. Militaries tend to 

think of the challenge from insurgents in military terms. That is precisely one of the 

hopes insurgents have, that the military will mistake the nature of the problem and 

react.

3. What success teaches us: That it is all about will. Like baseball, it isn’t over until it’s over, which given rule #1 means extra innings. Insurgents face an impossible 

task—winning. Only a confidence immune to failure and an indifference to the time it 

takes to succeed can see them through to a conclusion. The insurgent counts on a failure of will on the part of the government or its supporters to prevail. If not now, later; 

if not later, later still. Insurgencies almost always fail. They fail because they cannot 

win. They win when opposing them no longer seems worthwhile.

4. What Mozart teaches us: It’s an opera not a song. Counterinsurgency involves 

multiple agencies and, quite often, international engagement. It requires the coordinated—the harmony—efforts of many voices to achieve success and, similar to baseball, 

isn’t over until the fat lady sings. The insurgent has an easier task. He does not have to 

govern, only provide its semblance. He does not have to coordinate a host of different 

departments and agencies or manage interagency rivalries. He does not have to ensure 

that the effort be just nor is he concerned with legalities. Government cannot ignore 

these things and not only must provide them but also be seen to do so and bring a host 

of different, bickering elements together to do it and sustain the effort until it’s over.

While not exhaustive, not covering the importance of intelligence, for example, these are 

the critical elements for combating an insurgency—at least a traditional one. The question is, 

are these translatable into a global counterinsurgency? The implications, if true, are considerable.

Global Counterinsurgency?

An additional lesson of counterinsurgency is that it is very difficult to do. It is labor and resource intensive if done right, and it can take years even if done right; far longer if done poorly. 

The insurgency in Colombia is more than 30 years old. Sri Lanka’s is now of ancient vintage. 

Insurgency can even survive if the government does everything right, at least at some level. 

Since it is a direct challenge to governance and exploits failures and gaps, it means responses 

involve a constant effort to build and then rebuild capacity to secure broad public support. Not 

only is the effort costly, but it also requires sustained commitment and intensive cooperation 

among agencies and between governments and involves patient resolve, all things that time and 

frustration over a lack of quick results abrade and unravel. This is insurgency in one country. 

If any of the principles that guide, that need to inform, counterinsurgency in one country apply to the global context, then the implications for engagement, commitment, and duration are 
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considerable. A simple labeling exercise that converts al-Qaeda from a terrorist organization to 

an international insurgency is freighted with consequences far beyond naming the thing.

If governance is at issue and the world is facing a severe shortage, then the costs for rebuilding governance internationally, even if it can be done one country at a time, are staggering. If this is not in play, then one must reconsider whether insurgency is the right label, or 

perhaps, it needs yet a different rectification of names. If the military is a supporting element, 

then some thought must be given to how such a global fight is to be conducted and by whom 

or what agency. If not, then, once again, the question is whether the principles of traditional 

counterinsurgency translate to an international context or whether something very different 

must be done. And if so, how and by whom? If it is a question of will and time, then where 

is the stamina to engage the implications going to come from for a struggle without borders 

and without a timer? And finally, if Mozart is right, then no single player is going to carry the 

production to an end. It is going to require many voices over many acts. It is likely to require 

a number of encores. 

We suffer from ‘the terrible mattering that possesses modern times,” an earnestness that 

kills, a certainty that lays waste, the vision that blinds. We suffer from a murderous caring, 

righteous slaughter, and confident destruction. It takes a madman with a match seconds to destroy what many hands having taken decades to build. Madness is never uncertain. It does not 

lack confidence. It is not troubled by conscience. The mark of sanity is self-doubt, a nagging 

questioning of motive and method. And so, even as we engage and cope, we must deal with our 

own doubts. It is no easy task we face and no easy future beyond the lintel.

Notes

1. Some 20 years ago, I founded Small Wars and Insurgencies, an international journal, to be a 

vehicle for discussing the nature of small wars now and in the past. After 20 years, it is a repository of 

information on the issues. The literature on insurgency and small wars is extensive, as are the various 

studies done by governments that have been involved in fighting them. There is a similar literature on 

terrorism. One of the first, systematic studies of small wars is Colonel C. E. Callwell, Small Wars: Their 

Principles and Practice, 3rd ed. (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1996). It is based largely on the 

British colonial experience. An interesting companion piece is a study undertaken in the pre-World War 

II era by the US Marine Corps, Small Wars. This study was based largely on prewar US involvement 

in interventions in Latin America and the insurgency in the Philippines. It was published before Mao’s 

success and the effect this had on thinking. Still, what is of interest is the durability of counterinsurgency concepts regardless of time and place. The Marine Corps also operates a small wars website that 

provides on-going information and resources. See http://www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/search/resources.asp. The site lists some 330 small wars since the mid-1660s involving mostly the United States. 

This represents various internal wars that have received attention. It includes, for example, US-Indian 

wars from the 19th century. It is not, however, a comprehensive list of the range of non-US small wars. 

Doctrinal manuals from the United States and many of its allies, often employing one of the current 

euphemisms—stability operations—are abundant as are many of the studies using earlier terms, such as 

low-intensity conflict. 
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2. The names are endless, including unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, war in the 

shadows, irregular warfare, revolutionary warfare, and so on, ad infinitum.

3. See Mao Tse-Tung on Guerrilla Warfare, trans. Brigadier General (USMC) Samuel B. Griffith 

(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1961).

4. There are a multitude of paradigms or insurgent models. For a general discussion of these, see 

Bard O’Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary Warfare (New York: Brassey’s, 

1990). For earlier, classical studies, see Sir Robert Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: The 

Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966); Brigadier Richard Clutterbuck, The Long Long War: Counterinsurgency in Malaya and Vietnam (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 

1966); and Bernard Fall, Street Without Joy (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 1989). 

5. See Anthony Cordesman, Iraq’s Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War (Washington, 

DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 2006), 147, for a discussion of the confusion 

over numbers.

6. There is a growing literature on the conflict environment in Iraq. These include Anthony 

Cordesman, Michael Eisenstadt, and Jeffrey White, Assessing Iraq’s Sunni Arab Insurgency, Policy Focus Paper #50 (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2005); Amatzia Baram, 

“Who Are the Insurgents? Sunni Arab Rebels in Iraq,” Special Report #134, United States Institute of 

Peace, Washington, DC, 2005; Patrick Clausen, “Iraq’s Future: A Concept Paper,” The Middle East 

Review of International Affairs, 10, no. 2 (June 2006); Elizabeth Young, “Quelling Iraq’s Sectarian Violence: What the United States Can Do,” Policy Watch #1090, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 

Washington, DC, 2006. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a number of studies 

or has testified before various congressional committees on the nature of the insurgency and US efforts: 

GAO, Rebuilding Iraq: More Comprehensive National Strategy Needed to Help Achieve U.S. 

Goals, GAO-06-788, (Washington, DC, July 2006); GAO, Rebuilding Iraq: Governance, Security, Reconstruction, and Financing Challenges, GAO-06-697T, (Washington, DC, April 2006). The 

Administration has also issued a national strategy for Iraq: National Security Council, National Strategy 

for Victory in Iraq, (Washington, DC, 2005). Pursuant to an act of Congress, the Department of Defense 

also submits a quarterly report to Congress on stability in Iraq that can be found online at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/may2006/ d20060530SecurityandStabiltyRptFinalv2.pdf. The difficulty in assessing 

any insurgency while it is underway is its inherent clandestine nature and deliberate attempts to disguise 

efforts or to obfuscate realities complicating understanding. It is typical of such situations to mistake the 

level of violence for an indication of insurgent success, a high level somehow demonstrating that the 

insurgency is winning. It is sometimes the case that well after the fact it becomes clear that the culminating point for the insurgency was reached well before anyone recognized the fact. Incident reporting and 

body counts are not necessarily indicators of success or failure. 

7. Cordesman, Eisenstadt, and White, 8ff.

8. See Lionel Beehner, “Iraq: Militia Groups,” Council on Foreign Relations, available online at 

http://www.cfr.org/publication/8175/iraq.html?breadcrumb=default. 

9. Baram. 

10. See Cordesman, Iraq’s Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War, 147ff.

11. Direct involvement in counterinsurgency would mean the US Government dealing with a 

purely US domestic movement. The closest the United States comes to this is the various Indian Wars, 

which were only loosely insurgent situations and whose lessons, if relevant, have been unstudied. Other 

US involvements have been in environments in support of local governments fighting their own brand 

of insurgency. With the collapse of any indigenous Iraqi Government, the United States, in effect, became the sole governing authority in Iraq and thus faces, for the first time in modern times, having to 

respond to an insurgency. A further complication arises from the fact that the United States has for years, 
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following Vietnam, shunned developing inherent counterinsurgency doctrine in its various government 

bodies, including the military and is thus trying to learn by doing at the same time that it is trying to create a functioning government to replace US presence. That government, plagued by internal problems 

as complex as those that mark Iraq’s political landscape, is similarly learning by doing. If the United 

States has problems finding reliable local partners, local authorities must labor under the burden of US 

support. The US Army and the Marines are currently engaged in rewriting doctrine for insurgency and 

counterinsurgency. The draft manual largely focuses on the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan trying to 

capture the experience as it is happening.

12. There is an endless literature on this topic. The central thematic element in it is the various 

reactions to modernity, with disenchantment on the one hand—a feeling of great loss to the impersonal 

forces of the modern unleashed by revolutions in science, industry, technology, and commerce that 

seemed to make social life less intimate and more vulnerable to unspeakable and unknowable forces and 

hubris on the other—a sense that a few, enlightened individuals understand these forces of alienation and 

possess the secrets for harnessing them to remake mankind in such a way as to restore a sense of community and wholeness. Such an awareness means a duty to act not to understand the world but to change 

it. Heady stuff. When these ideas journeyed overseas in the wake of expanding European empires, they 

found fertile ground as sources of inspiration for how to resist. They found a home in the sense of humiliation that many non-European cultures, especially the intellectuals among them, felt as European 

political imperatives and norms took precedence over local themes and modes of life.

13. I hope to explore this environment in more detail in a further essay on “Terrorism in the Mind 

of the Age.” It is deeply linked to intellectual themes and ideas that emerged in Europe with the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the revolutionary movements that followed the French Revolution, which 

was among the first fruits, along with the American Revolution, of the maturing of these themes and 

ideas in human affairs.
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Panel 6—Studies in 21st Century Non-State Actors

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

LTC Abe Marrero, Ph.D.

Wm. J. Olson, Ph.D.

Moderated by Mr. John McGrath

Mr. John McGrath

LTC Marrero talked about non-state actors that was kind of acting like a de facto state that set 

up a template that provided a possible patent for other groups around the world to use in different situations. Hezbollah’s situation, though, is pretty much tailored for its exact situation. So 

for it to be used in the global level, it would require tailoring again by the other groups.

Dr. Olson talked, also, about globalization, and pointed out that there’s no center of gravity in 

the Clausewitzian sense in the insurgencies around the world. The one common thread that both 

presenters have brought up is the need for good government, places that are governed well.

In previous talks yesterday and other days, we heard about things like the raw sewage in East 

Baghdad and stuff like that. It seems like places that are governed well do not ordinarily have 

non-state actors acting up, or insurgencies. This is a common thread that both of these presenters brought forward.

Now we’re ready for any questions from the assembled crowd.

Audience Member

Jeff Clark, Army History. This is a question for Lieutenant Colonel Marrero. Looking at the 

Hezbollah end state, and it would seem to me that one of their most important end states, the 

real end state, is the elimination of Israel. If I was a Hezbollah leader, I can’t enter their heads, 

I don’t know enough about them, but what have I accomplished?

Hezbollah is a learning body, but so is the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), and so is Israel. They’ve 

expended a lot of resources, dug a lot, used up a lot of rockets, this, that, and the other thing, but 

what have I accomplished? I know if I do it again, the Israeli response might be a little different, 

and it might be a lot more effective. I’m really no closer to my long-range goal, and the next 

attempt to do anything like that, I might wreck myself. In the long run, I haven’t really achieved 

very much, maybe, for my people.

I haven’t got anything more from Jordan, Syria is not going to give me that much more. The 

Egyptians are . . . I mean I don’t see, except for capturing honor and maintaining their local 

power base, you know, I don’t see any really long-range objectives that they can look forward 

to.
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LTC Marrero

Thank you for that question, and it’s a good question, especially if you try to consider it from 

our Western way of thinking. The elimination of Israel, a stated goal, no secret to anyone, is 

ideological in nature. Can they accomplish it militarily? Well, that remains to be debated. Like 

you stated, the IDF is very much an adaptable, flexible force that will heed the lessons from this 

latest conflict, and I think . . . by the way, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb, but I predict that 

this conflict will be renewed in the near future. So we’re going to see what happens in round 

two, or round four, depending on how you want to look at it.

It’s a very difficult question to answer, again, from our way of thinking about achieving a longterm strategic goal like that. I can only say that their ideology is such that it’s worth the effort, 

even if it doesn’t bear fruit. To die in a jihad campaign is something, to them, that is worthwhile, and honorable. I don’t know if that answered your question, but it is hard to conceptualize. What effort . . . this effort, what fruit has it bore?

Well, and the point that you made about the honor, again, in my study on this, is that it’s very 

important to them in that part of the world, to be able to . . . even if it’s just in Arab eyes, to say, 

“We stood up to Israel and survived.”

Audience Member

Rich DiNardo, Marine Corps Command and Staff College. Two questions for Dr. Olson. First 

of all, you said at the beginning of your talk that the Army, as it’s constituted now, for the current conflict, is too big. How big should the Army be? And the second thing is, isn’t all warfare 

political? I mean even [inaudible] would agree with Clausewitz that war in itself is a political 

act.

Dr. Olson

I didn’t say that the Army was too big. I said the military was too big. I include all of it. And I 

said it was too big for the circumstances that we’re involved in. I don’t have a precise answer 

on what the numbers should be. I do know that what we are in the process of doing is trying to 

convert, in most circumstances, what needs to be involved with small-scale units on a smallscale engagement, with main force units, and trying to adapt them to the circumstances, and 

that is not, I think in the long term, going to work.

One of our principal problems that we had in Vietnam was never being able to decide if what 

we were doing, was involved in, was an insurgency, or were we involved in a conventional 

war? Our inability to answer that question meant that we ended up trying to do both badly. My 

argument is that in terms of non-state actors, and again, al-Qaeda is not a synonym for nonstate actor, that we have lots of other things on the table that we need to think about, and how 

to deal with them.

One of those, in particular, is post-conflict management. When I came back from Baghdad, I 

spoke to a Civil Affairs group. The subject of the conversation at that time was post-conflict 

management. And my point to them was basically we will not . . . you only will know that 
319

we take post-conflict management seriously when, in the process of our planning for military 

operations, we not only plan for the post-conflict, but if what we learn from listening to the 

post-conflict management discussion tells us we should not be engaged in the military operation, and we follow that advice, is the only way we’re ever going to know that we actually take 

it seriously.

So I don’t have a specific answer as to force size. What I think we need to address is what kind 

of environment are we in? What struggle are we involved in? And then decide from there what 

kinds of forces do we need to have in order to do that.

Audience Member

Dr. Stewart, Center of Military History. For Dr. Olson, I can, perhaps, agree with you that this 

fight that we’re engaged in worldwide is not primarily a military fight, but I do take issue with 

your saying that the military is too large. I submit that much of the rest of our instruments of 

national power are too small. You mentioned the Coast Guard, grossly underfunded for the 

responsibilities that it has. The State Department, half the size that it ought to be. When you 

look at the efforts of the British Empire as it gained toward its heights, the size of their Colonial 

Office, the size of their civilian Civil Service to run the Empire was fantastic.

I submit that we don’t put enough resources in the rest of our government, but that the military 

itself is by no means too large for, not just the struggle we’re engaged in, but the wider struggle 

of maintaining basically the world-wide police environment that allows globalization to occur. 

Your comments, sir.

Dr. Olson

I’ll probably condemn myself at this point, but I spent seven years as a senior staffer on Capital 

Hill, so let me talk to you about some budget realities that we exist, that we all live with, which 

sometimes don’t get into the conversation. And then touch on a brief part of history.

The Federal budget only has a certain amount of discretionary spending available in it. That 

discretionary spending, in fact, is not the major portion of the budget. So most of what Congress decides, or administrations propose, as far as budgets are concerned, deal with only a 

portion of the total budget. Out of that budget, everything has to be funded.

So let us take for an example that you hear sometimes, in talking about our circumstance, that 

the military is to the political, or the civilian under these circumstances, is as three to one. 

Which ought to suggest, if that’s the case in dealing with these kinds of environments, that 

what we ought to be spending is three times the amount of money on political efforts, not on 

the military effort. But if you look at the discretionary budget that is available, that, in fact, in 

these environments, is not the case. And that has arisen for a variety of reasons. We have spent 

the last 25 or 30 years making larger and larger investments in the military to deal with certain 

kinds of problems, and I’m not saying that those aren’t real, or essential to think about, or to 

deal with, I’m talking about the process that we’ve actually gotten ourselves into, of creating, in 

fact, a force and force structure with a role in our strategic policy system that is disproportionate to the problems we’re dealing with.
320

The Department of Defense, as a bureaucratic player, has an Army, a Navy, a Marines, and an 

Air Force with which to engage, and has to fund. That force is now structured in such a way 

that it is funded through every Congressional district in the country, which means that it has 

a very large capability to lobby Congress on how that money is spent. There are more people 

who work in the Pentagon than are in the entire foreign service of the United States. There are 

25,000 plus people in the Pentagon alone. There are fewer than 10,000 foreign service officers. 

There is no surplus. And we’ve done this all across the budget, in terms of the way we do this.

So, both in terms of history and in terms of the way we’ve done this, we have created an imbalance that’s not simply going to be met because there isn’t the money to meet it, without shifting 

it from one place to another. When the nature of the budget that we’re in, you want to spend 

money here, you have to take it from somewhere else. And you’re not, in fact, going to be in a 

position to be able to do that without a fight. Who, in that kind of bureaucracy and Washington 

in-fighting is best postured in order to win that battle? By the sheer size, and the nature of the 

way we budget, that is the Department of Defense. And so the question then becomes if we 

want to increase the other, where are we going to get the money, and how are we going to pay 

for it? If we had the will to do it.

Audience Member

And I would submit that Congress is perfectly capable of expanding the size of the budget if the 

political will is there. By saying there’s only a certain amount of the budget they can dispose of 

is a false argument, because they can take the straight jacket off any time they wish by political 

will, and that is not seemingly there.

Dr. Olson

Well, let us go back to the fact that what Congress responds to is a budget submitted by the 

President. So if the President is not submitting a budget, or is working within certain constraints, and we also have a very long history in here in terms of how we have arrived at the 

budget arrangements we have, the whole idea of which, and we’ve got into the situation, is 

Congress is not supposed to simply print money. The consequences of simply printing money, 

which is what you’re suggesting we start doing, in fact creates a whole host of other sets of 

problems that you’re going to have to deal with, and the reason that we’re in budget constraints 

that we have now is simply because we have to learn to live on a budget.

But the President could certainly submit a budget to Congress . . . I worked for two Administrations. I was in the Department of Defense, and I was in the Department of State, in senior 

positions in both those agencies. I was involved in both the making of strategy for this, and the 

making of budget policy. It’s certainly possible for the President to do this. But as a country, 

we’re in a situation in which we’re not doing it. And there is another national debate.

So let the President or somebody else begin the debate on the enlargement of this, but that still 

goes back to the question of whether or not it’s necessary to spend that much money to pay for 

the war that we’re actually in. The issue comes back is whether that’s what we need to fight 

this. And that’s a strategic and political debate which I suggest we have not had. Following the 
321

end of World War II, we engaged in a very sophisticated discussion and debate politically in 

this country over what we were going to do and how we were going to do it. What we never did 

after the end of the Cold War was to have a similar discussion to build the basis for a consensus 

foreign policy on how we were going to deal with these kinds of situations.

We, in fact, instead decided that what we were going to do was live on the peace dividend or 

whatever else. And we have now politically divided ourselves over these issues in such a way 

that we cannot have a consensus debate. What we get now are serial foreign policies, not a consensus foreign policy. And until such time we reach a circumstance in which we, all of us, are 

prepared to have a serious discussion about the uses of American power, and how we’re going 

to support it, and what the nature of the conflict we’re actually engaged in, we’re going to find 

ourselves in this endless series of debates among ourselves, political debates, and an exchange 

of blows, and not a serious foreign policy.

At this point, I’m not convinced that, in fact, we can have a foreign policy. We may have foreign relations, and we may do a variety of things, but what we are in a state at this point, is that 

every four to eight years, we have a Democratic foreign policy, to be followed by a Republican 

foreign policy, and so forth and so on. That is not necessarily the best way to try to deal with 

the complex environment in which we’re in.

Audience Member

Colonel Tim Reese from CSI. I have a question for Lieutenant Colonel Marrero. I wonder if we 

are making too much of Hezbollah’s non-state actor status, and its use of asymmetric warfare. 

And, in fact, whether we ought to look at it as a case of Hezbollah devising a particularly effective fixed defense, a la the Western Front of World War I, the Kursk battlefield of World War 

II, and the Israelis doing a particularly unskillful job of attacking it. And that if we give it credit 

for being something new and sui generic, that we risk developing the wrong response to it. I’d 

be curious about your thoughts.

LTC Marrero

Thank you, sir. If you look at the history of Hezbollah, and their presence in Southern Lebanon, 

it doesn’t go back very far. Hezbollah, and without getting too much into details, Hezbollah 

was actually born as a result of the vacuum that was created when the PLO moved their . . . and 

started a front there. And so, the fact that Hezbollah started out with those humble beginnings, 

and was able to not only take advantage of the terrain—which you accurately point out—but 

more importantly, in my mind anyway, is the fact that they were able to integrate other elements 

of the environment, (i.e., the social, the political), to establish a viability there. Otherwise, their 

manpower, which came from Shia communities, would be lacking. Unless they found a way . . 

. because, you know, the Shia are, again, not going to sign up to the Lebanese, or to the Islamic, 

more accurately, they’re Shia.

And so, the Hezbollah’s effort was to try to get them beyond that, to think in terms of no, you’re 

not only Shia, you’re Islamic, and by the way, jihadists. And so from a social science perspective, that’s quite sophisticated. Aside from the tactical . . . using the terrain effectively, yes, I 
322

think Hezbollah does show, if you will, an advance in how to make themselves, as a non-state 

entity, an effective one within a nation state. I don’t know if that answers your question, sir. But 

that’s my take on it.

Audience Member

Thanks. I’m Steve Melton from the Center for Army Tactics. My question is for Dr. Olson. 

Very interesting remarks that you made. Your first of the lessons, or the mysteries, of counterinsurgency, that it’s all about the governance, but then you talk about these ungoverned spaces 

that are inherently ungovernable, is what you say. It seems to be a paradox here. You know, 

right now what we’re trying to do in Afghanistan and Iraq, arguably, and the whole Thomas 

Barnett thesis is bring governance to these ungovernable places, or these ungoverned places. 

Do you have any insights on how we would do that? In the long-term strategy, in the opera 

that you envision being played, how would we bring governance to those areas? Or is it just a 

problem that we’re going to constantly have to manage that has no solution?

Dr. Olson

Remember, at the beginning of my remarks, I promised not to tie everything up at the end. But 

I also drew the distinction between ungoverned and ungovernable. And we have two sets of 

problems. One of our major problems, which is a problem I started talking about 25 years ago, 

is that, in fact, our major challenge, which at that time was still the Soviet Union, was not, in 

fact, the Soviet Union, but was the increasing inability of government on much of the planet to 

govern. And that the consequences of that for us, the United States, the developed world, was 

going to figure out how we were going to deal with the inability of governments to govern.

Much of that failed government system is the result of failed Imperialisms, which we didn’t 

have a role in. It was the recession of Empire that left a series of political entities that claimed 

to be states, but that weren’t governed. So the problem that we face is how we’re going to deal 

with that part of it.

Ungovernable spaces are not anything we can do a whole lot about, except on the margins. And 

those are inherent, regardless. I mean, I would not call the United States, perhaps a chaotic political environment in many ways, but it’s not an ungoverned society. So it is possible. But we, 

ourselves, have most of these ungovernable situations, especially when it comes to non-state 

actors. If you look at it in the large sense, and one of the things that was not done here was to 

define what a non-state actor is.

So, it is possible to begin the process of dealing with the issue of governance. But if we’re going to talk about global insurgency, and we recognize that at the insurgent level, not global, that 

these kinds of things need to be done, and we’re now going to talk about responding to a global 

insurgency, then it seems to me that the policy implications for the short term and long term for 

that, if governance is involved, is, in fact, a very large, significant, and long-term investment in 

how we help other people and other places govern, in order to deal with those things that are at 

least within the possibility of governments to deal with. I submit that at this point, we have not 

done that globally, and that continues to be a problem.
323

Ungovernable spaces, we can work on the margins to deal with, but I just caution that there 

are certain things out there that are beyond our ability to actually do much more than deal with 

them on the margins.

Audience Member

Don Connelly, from Command and General Staff College. I would submit that most non-state 

actors seek to become state actors, whether it’s the Bolsheviks or Hezbollah, and in turn, you 

have states supporting non-state actors to attack other states. And we’re tending to forget one 

of the problems that exists.

Terrorism, I do not believe, is simply a tactic. It has a quality, particularly in the modern world, 

all its own, just as nuclear bombs are not simply weapons. So that nuclear bombs or wide-scale 

chemical weapons, in the hands of Hezbollah, have a quality all their own in things. And that 

state actors, non-state actors using . . . state actors using non-state actors, and using state resources to attack other states is a very significant problem. We have largely forgotten it in the 

last couple of years, and we may come back to that problem with a big jolt. Thank you.

Dr. Olson

Well, I would observe that one of the largest group of non-state actors, and in fact, the bestfunded group of non-state actors, are criminal organizations, and they have no interest whatever 

in becoming a state. They are very happy to have states, as long as they don’t get in their way, 

or to try to intimidate states if they do get in their way, or to work in environments of chaos, as 

long as that chaos will take money, or some version of money, as recompense for allowing the 

business operation to go forward. Non-state actors of the criminal organization type, are eating 

up countries all over the planet. Such that, in many cases, the governments themselves have 

become little more than extended criminal operations.

And we blind ourselves to one of the problems . . . if we’re going to talk global insurgency, and 

we’re going to talk governance as part of that, if all we’re thinking about here is certain kinds 

of terrorist organizations, and al-Qaeda as sort of the premier example of this, and ignore all 

of these other things, all of these things are going to come back and bite us. And they already 

are, all over the planet. And we, if we’re going to shoulder the responsibility for this, and it 

seems like that’s what a large part of what we’re talking about is trying to do, we need to, in 

fact, figure out how we’re going to deal with other kinds of non-state actors who are out there, 

and how we’re going to build the support that we need to be able to deal with that in terms of 

dealing with these.

I said in part of my remarks that this is a war without a center of gravity, but if there is a center of gravity for us on how to deal with this, it lies in our ability to build a coalition of the 

willing, and to build a coalition of those who are capable of working with us. And that means 

dealing with lots of different people and lots of different places, to bring them to a point where 

they are prepared to work with us, even if they don’t like us. Quite frankly, under the present 

circumstances, if I thought we could do that by writing in a midget car, with a large, red nose, 

and greasepaint, and baggy pants, and large, floppy shoes, if I thought that would convince 
324

them, then send in the clowns. Because if we cannot arrive at a situation in which we can build 

such a coalition of the willing, and build the capacity of the willing to help us, then this is not 

a problem that we can solve on our own.

Mr. John McGrath

Okay, that concludes the question and answer period for this session.
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Day 3—Featured Speaker

(Transcript of Presentation)

The Nature of Irregular Conflict in the 21st Century

Mr. Ralph Peters

New York Post Columnist; Author

COL Timothy Reese (Director of CSI)

I have the pleasure, now, of introducing our first speaker after lunch, Mr. Ralph Peters.

He’s a popular media commentator, again, one of the people that almost needs no introduction, but I’m going to say a couple of things about him. He asked me to be brief, and I will. 

As you all know, he’s an opinion columnist for The New York Post, a member of the Boards of 

Contributors at USA Today, and Armchair General magazine—who has been represented here 

this week, by the way. He’s an Associate Editor for Armed Forces Journal, frequently appearing on the TV news as a military analyst.

Before he began his public life, or this version of his public life, Ralph, a Pennsylvania native, served a full tour in the US Army, rising from Private to Lieutenant Colonel before retiring 

in 1998. He has experience in more than 70 countries and six continents, including and since 

his retirement. That kind of gives him a very unique, first-hand, informed perspective on the 

topics about which he speaks.

He’s the author of numerous books, the most recent one being Wars of Blood and Faith: 

The Conflicts that Will Shape the 21st Century. He’s a frequent visitor to Fort Leavenworth and 

other military posts around the country, where his views are highly sought after by the members 

of the military profession.

Now, as most of you probably now, Ralph is normally pretty subdued with the written and 

spoken word, and it’s often difficult to grasp the nuances of his subtle discourse. So I’ve asked 

him today to be as frank and direct as possible so that we can understand what he has to say. So 

without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ralph Peters.

Ralph Peters

Well, I’ll try to keep you awake after lunch. I shall start by defining the convention, and 

actually speaking about history at a history conference. I think we’ve come to a point in our 

national and world history where all of us, consciously or unconsciously—usually unconsciously—cling to old paradigms. Washington, certainly, is trapped in the 20th Century—20th 

Century models, and 20th Century thought—as surely as al-Qaeda and their ilk cling to a mythologized version of an idealized Islamic past.
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Now, I take what I call a “GPS approach” to strategy. First, figure out where you are in the 

great stream of history. Oh, and another thing. I’ll apologize. I don’t use PowerPoint slides. The 

military destroyed any possibility of me ever touching PowerPoint. It’s a tool of the Antichrist. 

I also believe that with the proliferation of media, for all its marvelous uses and media technologies, we must struggle to preserve the art of speaking directly to one another, not to a screen, 

not to a text, but speaking to one another. Looking each other in the eyes, and having a give and 

take. And that, I often worry, a sign I’m getting older, about the inability, or the unwillingness, 

of our school system to concentrate on clarity of expression, whether spoken or written.

As those of us who have served in the military know, when the orders aren’t clear, people 

die. The English language is a magnificent treasure, and we need to show it more respect. But 

that’s an aside.

Where are we in history? Well, I’ll use another cliché. The tectonic plates truly have shifted 

in an astonishing confluence of events. Several eras came to a close within the last generation, 

many within the last 15 or 16 years. I’ll hit only a few of those transitions, but they’re utterly 

important. I do not need you to agree with me. I don’t get an extra book royalty if you agree. I 

beg you to think, because the other great danger that goes well beyond clarity of expression and 

engagement with an audience is group think, of which Washington is certainly a prisoner.

People in Washington imagine that they have different views of the world because they are 

Republicans or Democrats. They don’t. They start from the same flawed premises. They just 

take different courses. But we’ve got an incestuous governing elite, a little new blood now and 

then, that really go to the same schools. They read the same text. They go to the same briefings 

at Brookings or CSIS. They go to the same dinner parties. And it just dumbs everything down. 

Unconsciously, people start to have this same world view, and we don’t all need the same world 

view. We need a proliferation of world views now arguing with one another.

You’ve heard differing world views here, you’ll hear more this afternoon. To my great 

regret, I won’t be able to hear Dr. Barnett, who’s done marvelous things offering us alternative 

visions. I do, unfortunately, have to go to the airport right after this. But we need to break free 

of the conventions. The greatest power in history, the greatest force for freedom, is trapped into 

very small thinking. Now, in Washington, as in the military, when your boss tells you to think 

outside the box, he means come back with fresh reasons why I was right. But worse than that, 

we insist on narrowing the sandbox to make it ever smaller.

We need to think innovatively, and instead of simply yelling at each other, to try honestly 

and sincerely to see the other’s point of view. With that advertisement, let me go on to the first 

great shift. Whenever President Bush says we’re in a war of ideas, I cringe. Exemplary of portrayal of 20th Century thinking. The age of ideologies is over, and this is critical. For almost 

exactly 200 years . . . we’ll date it neatly, from 1789 and the French Revolution, to the collapse 

of the Soviet Union in 1991. Humanity took a baffling detour. One of those instances of mass 

delusion that logic, that rational explanations, can’t quite clarify for us.

Human beings moved from the mainstream into this odd detour of 200 years, the age of 

ideology, where first of all, individuals become so egocentric and egomaniacal that they imagine that sitting at a desk in the British library, or in a café in Zurich, or perhaps in the provinces 
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in China, that one individual could design a better system of human social, political, and economic organization than the human collective could do. Now you don’t have to be brilliant to 

figure out that no human being, no individual, no matter how brilliant, is going to design an all 

encompassing system that takes into account all human complexity, all human needs.

Even more amazing, astonishing development was that hundreds of millions, if not billions 

of people, signed up for these ideologies. The totalitarian version, Fascism, Nazism, Marxism, 

Leninism, Stalinism, Mao, and they’re a little bit different, one from the other. And what happens when humanity disappoints the thinkers? You’re on the road to Auschwitz, or the Cultural 

Revolution, or the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Humanity will always defy the efforts to corral 

it within a theoretical framework.

One of the marvelous, indeed, virtually miraculous strengths, of our blessed country is that 

we’re pragmatists. One of the many things that worries me now, although I’m confident about 

America’s future, one thing that worries me is we’re starting to behave like Europeans. The ideological divide in Washington, whether it’s the neocons, or the totalitarians from MoveOn.org, 

or even a few people in the military—certainly in the Air Force—want to sign up for theories 

of warfare. Theories don’t win wars. Theories lose wars. Pragmatism wins wars. Our great 

strength is that we weren’t married to theories concocted by Clausewitz, certainly brilliant, 

worth reading, or Jomini, the K-Mart version of Clausewitz, or any others. We didn’t insist on 

sending wave after wave over the top to prove the theories. When Depuy didn’t work out, we 

did something else. Although the Air Force is still fighting for Depuy, God help them.

But pragmatism, is our great strength, and whether you try to confine humanity within a 

theory, or the military, a unified field theory of warfare, or counterinsurgency, or anything else, 

you’re in trouble. Now that doesn’t mean models aren’t worthwhile. It doesn’t mean it’s not 

worth exploring hypotheses. This is not an anti-intelligence argument, it’s an anti-intellectual 

argument. Pragmatism is our strength. So the age of ideology, this disastrous age for humankind, comes to an end in 1991. It still echoes, of course, in Latin America, of which more a 

bit later. Or in Nepal, a few other places around the world. But by and large, the good news is 

we’ve moved on from the age of ideology. They’re discredited, it didn’t work.

The bad news is we’ve returned to the human mainstream. Conflict’s over, blood and belief, religion, ethnicity. And Washington is utterly in denial about this, but I don’t see how you 

can deny it. Now, again, I’m not proposing single solutions, singular explanations here. On 

the contrary, any problem you look at that involves human beings will always have complex 

motives. But what you have to do in a complex age, an age of transition such as this, and the 

transition will last at least through the end of the century. We’ll all be gone.

You’ve got to look at the human default positions. You can’t go to the capital city, speak to 

the local who was educated in Oxford or Columbia, and speaks English, and think you know 

what’s going on in the hearts and minds out in the bush, if their minds are even on it. You’ve got 

to look, in times of crisis, to what do human beings default? They default to fundamental identities, and globalization. It’s great news for most of us, for the golden crust on the human loaf, 

or especially for the platinum specks on that golden crust. But for the human beings inside, 

the bulk inside that loaf, those who cannot profit, or do not profit from globalization, who are 

fundamentally threatened in their basic values by the information revolution, really conactivity 
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in general, it’s bad news, it’s threatening, it’s frightening.

And in this time of great dislocation, of which more a bit later, people are defaulting to 

the fundamental human identities, blood and belief. Now, Darwin, like all thinkers, had blind 

spots. Same applies to Spencer too, this is almost more Spencerian. Darwin missed something 

really, really big because of his own Victorian era blind spots.

Religion is the most potent evolutionary tool for preserving the human collective that we 

have yet seen. Why the most potent? Because it even goes beyond ethnicity in its appeal. Religious commonality of belief can get people of even different skin colors to sacrifice their lives 

for this greater ideal.

Now America is an exception in so many ways, because we’ll sacrifice for the group, a 

very anomalous kind of group. It doesn’t necessarily transfer. But if you look at most of the 

world . . . and I’m not saying this to be critical of religion. I’m a religious believer. But as an 

analyst, I’ve got to separate that, and when I look at religion, it is the powerful organizing 

principal for enabling a human collective to survive. Now, you’ll be told in Washington in any 

number of briefings about suicide bombings and terrorism, it’s not really about religion. Well, 

where are the Western atheist suicide bombers? But beyond that relatively flippant remark, 

although I think it’s valid, we make this classic Western mistake.

Our cult of the individual blinds us to the human reality of most of the world. We examine 

individuals, and extrapolate, and generalize about the mass. In the Middle East, elsewhere as 

well, but especially in the Middle East, study the mass, then extrapolate to the individual. If 

you only talk to that educated Iraqi in Baghdad, you’re going to get the wrong answer. You 

won’t get the answer that applies to the proletariat in Sadr City that supports Muqtada al-Sadr. 

You’ve got to just . . . I call it the “Hyatt Regency syndrome”. You’ve got to break out of the 

comfortable hotels and really get out in the bush with the people. If you don’t, you will screw 

it up every damn time. I swear to you. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth talking to people in the 

capital city, because they give you a view too, but it’s a narrow view.

Westernization is often very fragile, very thin, added to which, in the Middle East, they’re 

figuring out what you want to hear and how they can profit by telling it to you. So it’s complex. 

But if we underestimate religious identity, which we do, we’re going to continue to run into 

these, not brick walls, but stone walls.

Now there are two kinds of struggles going on about religion, and this is, among other 

things, going to be a century of religious conflicts. The obvious one is a struggle between elements within the Islamic world of the greater Middle East and the West. But the one that may be 

more interesting in the long run is the struggle within each of the great religions, Christianity, 

Judaism, Buddhism, militant Buddhist monks, Hinduism. If you don’t believe in the power of 

religion, kick a cow in downtown New Delhi and see what happens.

In all these religions, all the major religions, and for what I know, in lesser cults as well, 

but we can’t cover the water front, there’s this struggle between those who believe in a merciful, loving God, and those who believe in a punitive, disciplinarian God, who put us here to 

look for excuses to punish us. And you see it in our own country, with a stern approach to the 
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“Thou Shalt Not” religion, in which, of course, the Sermon on the Mount gets utterly ignored. 

So you’ve got these two struggles. You may have more struggles between religions, but watch 

the struggles within religions.

Our own obsession with radical extremists, violent Islam, blinds us to the great struggle 

within the Islamic world that goes far beyond the Middle East, for the soul of a great and enduring religion. Islam is not going to go away. It has tremendous problems with its intellectual 

constructs, it’s not adaptable. It’s not a malleable religion. It locked down in the 15th Century, 

and it’s trying to break through a 15th Century behavioral pattern. It’s tough, and we have to 

wish it well. Beyond even religion . . . I mean religion is the cornerstone of every civilization, 

and religion endures. Even when God dies, religion endures.

Look at modern Europe, post-modern Europe. No longer believe in God, but they’ve retained the behavior patterns of centuries of militant Christianity, including the self-righteousness. It’s still there. You can kill God, but you can’t kill religion. So it’s a potent force, and 

you ignore it at your peril. And it’s dodgy, because in Washington nobody wants to deal with 

it because it is so politically sensitive, and our language is so debased, we don’t know how to 

speak cogently and clearly about this most volatile of all topics.

Now, to cede from religion, to which we will return . . . I guess about 14 years ago now, 

Samuel Huntington published his notorious article, “The Clash of Civilization in Foreign Affairs.” Academics across the world went nuts, which told me he was probably right. I didn’t 

understand the fuss. Clashing is what civilizations do. It’s their implicit mission statement. This 

is an audience largely of historians, please, show me an example of great and contiguous civilizations cooperating and graduating over an extended period. It doesn’t happen. Civilizations, 

too, are Darwinian or Spencerian mechanisms. Now I’m not arguing that we should accept it 

and kill everybody. Of course not. But you’ve got to start looking at the hard facts of human 

existence from a macro perspective, to take a much longer view of history than we do. For us, 

Vietnam is medieval history. The Korean War is ancient history. We’ve got to go far beyond 

this.

And my concern with . . . one of my concerns with the counterinsurgency manual, even 

though the final version was somewhat better, it really was locked into the 20th Century counterinsurgency models. Now, go back to that, think about the age of ideology changing, disappearing. Well, if you took, as that manual did, 20th Century examples, they will give you the 

wrong answers for the 21st Century. In wars, in insurgencies, revolts, rebellions, terrorism in 

the age of ideology. Except for the absolute hard core maniacs, the [inaudible] types, you could 

reconvert people. No one in Malaysia was born a Maoist. They became Maoists. And sometimes you had to kill them, but others could be talked out of being Maoists.

You will not talk people out of their religious identity, and you cannot possibly talk people 

out of their ethnic identity. I mean we’re back to the flat line of identities. This is it, the default 

position. So now you’re dealing with insurgencies that are really much, much tougher, especially if you try to fight them within light and rules. You know like peace in our time, we’ll all 

sit down and have a conversation and negotiation. By the way, the cult of negotiations we need 

to get over. The only time negotiations work is if you hammer the shit out of the guy first and 

make him want to talk to you. But the idea that you can negotiate from a position of weakness 
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and get a positive result is foolish. You’ve got to get their attention first.

In Iraq, we keep saying a negotiated settlement is the only answer. We’re the only people 

that want to negotiate. Everybody else believes they can win. Although fortunately, the Sunnis 

have seen the light, and that’s another interesting sidelight. In Iraq, people are shifting. They’ve 

moved on from 2003 and 2005. Washington hasn’t, which is certainly fascinating to me.

But in rebellions, insurgencies based upon religion and/or ethnicity, the good news is that 

contrary to popular myths, historically they have overwhelmingly been defeated. Overwhelmingly. In fact, even political insurgencies, the only reason they succeeded so often in the mid20th century is because the imperial powers of Europe wanted to go home. They wanted to get 

out of there. [inaudible] was an exception, of course. Much more complex, but in general, they 

wanted to get out. They weren’t putting up much of a fight.

But even in the 20th century, when you look at the examples, be careful of selectivity. We 

were talking about the Wehrmacht the other day. Hey, careful how you select.

Well, you folks like to look at Malaysia, because Malaysia was comparatively easy. Even 

though the Brits were a lot tougher and bloodier than is usually realized, but the more instructive contemporary example, contemporary with Malaysia, was Kenya. The Brits destroyed 

Mau Mau. They could have stayed forever. They just wanted to go home. How did they destroy 

Mau Mau? Well, after negotiations and police work utterly failed, they did three things.

Kangaroo courts hanged just under 2,000 Kenyans. Somewhere between 110,000 and 

190,000 Kenyans were put into concentration camps. This was the 1950s. And the military 

pursues Mau Mau into the highlands, into the caves, and kills every last one that won’t give 

up. Every last one. Much more applicable model, because Mau Mau had a certain cult like 

transcendence that went beyond mere political ideology.

But now we’re faced with these wars . . . historically insurgencies based on blood and belief have failed because . . . here’s the bad thing. They were put down with enormous amounts 

of bloodshed. Now it’s also more complex than just saying, “Well, now it’s all going to be 

religious warfare.” Very rarely do human beings default immediately from pseudo-rational 

behavior into religious madness. There’s usually a transition phase. And please listen to this, 

because this is historically proven. It applies to the zealot’s revolt 2,000 years ago in Palestine. 

Of course, zealots aren’t the only faction, there are multiple others. See Monty Python and 

“Life of Brian”, which was really a pretty accurate depiction.

And I’m going to talk a little bit more about the era of the early years of the Protestant 

Reformation, and the Bundschu. But whenever human societies, native societies, or nativist 

societies come under threat from a powerful foreign element with foreign cultural attributes 

it intends to impress upon the local people, the first default is not automatically to religion, or 

even ethno-religiosity, or anything like that. People actually do try political solutions first.

The Jews of Palestine 2000 years ago actually tried to come to an accommodation with 

the Romans, but the sides were too far apart. In Germany, I always cite the events . . . the 

West, Osama bin Laden, Tomas Minser, the peasant’s revolt in the 1520s, we forget about that, 
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haven’t we? Absolute savagery, was put down with extreme bloodshed, and things got peaceful 

for awhile. For awhile, because peace never endures.

To me, Clausewitz has it upside down, as does everybody else, the enduring condition 

of humankind is warfare. Peace is the interlude between wars. You know, the Chinese would 

argue right now that we’re always at war, and it never stops. And they make a good argument. 

It’s just not always violent warfare. But if you look at what happened in Germany, it’s an interesting example. The Bundschu Rebellion, the religious rebellions, multiple rebellions in 1525, 

1526, they didn’t suddenly happen. The roots go back about 150 years. And as the holy Roman 

Empire, and the emperor comes in and starts imposing Roman trans-Alpine . . . see, this is Alpine law . . . on Germany, and doing away with traditional Germanic law, human beings cling 

to what they know, and what they love.

There’s a line from [inaudible] that I love, “A man will always love the barren hills where 

he was born.” People cling to what they know. The local German peasantry, and the minor 

nobility that’s getting sidelined by the advance of the Imperialists, for 130 years, they have 

these minor rebellions, demonstrations, basically work stoppages, everything else, arguing for 

political rights and the restoration of traditional rights under Germanic law, 130 years they 

tried. They get no traction whatsoever. This sets them up. When the Protestant Reformation 

comes, and the whole system cracks, and everything they knew, and were told, and valued, and 

believed in is suddenly dubious, at best, then you have the hour of the demagogues. When the 

political solutions fail, the hour of the demagogues arrive.

Where has that happened in our own lifetime? Palestinians. Now, I’m not making a proPalestinian pitch at all, I’m just giving you a clinical analysis here. For over a generation, the 

Palestinians weren’t religiously motivated. They had a religious identity, but it was a political 

movement for political rights, and using terrorism and everything else got it, but it wasn’t millenarian. It wasn’t chiliastic, by any means. But as a the political rights continued to recede 

further and further in the distance, as the struggle for political reform and change failed, human 

beings go to the default position, as the zealots did, as the peasants of Germany did, as the 

Palestinians did, as others will do.

Human beings do first try for the political answer, and that’s your window of opportunity. Because if you can’t find a reasonable accommodation while they’re fighting for political 

goals, once it transitions into ethno-religious rebellion, or just religious identity, once you go 

from the reformers to the [inaudible], there’s no way back except killing a lot of people, which 

we have trouble doing. And again, you know, I always get this bull, “Oh, Peters just thinks you 

can kill everybody.” That’s nonsense, of course not. On the contrary.

You know, in fact, counterinsurgency, as complex and nuanced as it is, infinite variety of 

situations, really comes down to one compound sentence. You’ve got to kill the people that 

need killing, help the people that need helping, and be able to tell the difference between the 

two. The last clause of the sentence is the problem. Because if you get in early, you wind up 

killing dozens, or hundreds. If you postpone the trip to the dentist, the cavity does not get better, 

and you’re faced with killing thousands or tens of thousands.

I mean, think about if, in the summer of 2003, and I’m not going to talk too much about 
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Iraq, because it’s talked to death. Imagine if, when we had the legal justification as well as the 

moral justification for killing Muqtada al-Sadr, how much different things would have been. 

He was killing the clerics who supported us, giving the orders to kill. In 2003, Muqtada al-Sadr 

had a bodyguard. Now he’s got an army.

There are different ways to put it, and one . . . to military audiences, I put it this way. If 

you’re unwilling to pay the butcher’s bill up front, you will pay it with compound interest in the 

end. Or the civilian version, don’t postpone the trip to the dentist. The cavity doesn’t get better 

on its own. But we want to postpone the trip to the dentist. And it’s tough in the structures of 

a democracy, everything from Congress, to our own values, to our self-regard lure us into the 

idea that somehow, if we just put a band-aid on the hemorrhage, it’s going to get better. Well, 

maybe sometimes it does, but those are the anomalous cases.

The surest way to minimize casualties of warfare is to take the pain up front and get it over 

with. I mean you can run many different scenarios for Iraq, but what happened after the fall of 

Baghdad is largely our fault because of the sins of omission and commission we committed.

Well, I’ve talked . . . and I wish I had more time, but I do want to leave plenty of time for 

questions, so let me move on to the next thing. Talk about the end of the age of ideology. Return 

to the human mainstream of identities based upon, and conflicts over blood and belief, or at 

least over the popular interpretation of faith. I’m always amazed when I talk to American fundamentalist Christians how few of them really understand what their denomination believes. 

The differences our European ancestors slaughtered each other over for centuries, people don’t 

understand them. You ask people, only the church deacon might know, but most people don’t 

know what’s supposed to be in the Communion cup anymore. This was 130 years of European 

warfare over, and we often do not know.

Well, we’ve moved from the age of ideology onward, but what other great transitions have 

we seen? Academics, God love them, certainly nobody here, but the other academics, when 

they talk about the post-Colonial era, they’re talking about usually 1945, or 1947, or maybe 

1948, until the fall of Saigon, 1975. Now think about that. Depending on which part of the 

globe you’re looking at, for 300 to 500 years Europeans transformed, reformed, malformed, 

and deformed, and just pretty much swirled up the entire Colonial world. Latin America, Africa, Asia, different timelines, of course, but in this . . . if, for 300 to 500 years, Europe has 

pushed these systems out of their organic balance, how on Earth could we expect them to come 

back into their natural equilibrium within 30 or even 50 years?

Really, if you think about humanity, you’ve got to stand way back. So many of the conflicts we’ve seen since 1945, even before, but especially since ’45 . . . you just saw the long 

European recessional, they’re really human ecosystems, or human physical systems, trying to 

regain their organic balance. Now, junior high school physics, what happens when a powerful 

external force pushes a system out of balance, holds it out of balance, then the external force 

is suddenly removed? The answer is the reaction is at least equal to the force exerted to push 

them out of action.

So think about 300 to 500 years, in some cases 200 years, of European pressure to push the 

world into the artificial forms they wanted it to be in, and then suddenly remove the pressure. 
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Human societies, from Iraq to Somalia to Nigeria, and well beyond, Indonesia, are trying to 

find a natural equilibrium again. And unfortunately, beyond all the Green Peace kind of organic 

talk, doing that often involves a great deal of bloodshed. Now how long will it take?

Well, here’s one model for you. Virtually every country in South America gained its independence by the second decade of the 19th Century. Brazil was a little bit later. South American 

states are only in this generation, 200 years later, throwing off the vestiges of Colonialism, 

Colonial mentalities, Colonial structures of everyday life, and they’re a long way from being 

finished. The behavioral archetypes inherited, really from Samarkand by way of Andaluthia 

through the Conquistadors, all the way to Buenos Aires, and Santiago, and by the way, East Los 

Angeles, are very, very powerful and enduring.

So our great strategic weakness as Americans is pretty obvious, we’re impatient. Though 

sometimes that’s good. We want to get things done. Quarterly earnings reports. But when it 

comes to grand strategy, and the mantle we have inherited, like it or not, and I don’t like it, 

personally, but we’ve got it, the mantle of responsibility for so much of this world, you’ve got 

to have patience. You’ve just got to, otherwise you will fail every single time.

Now obviously we have worked constructively and cooperatively with Europeans on many 

issues, but we also have to recognize the fact that, even though they kind of look like us, our 

civilizations are diverging, not coming together. European values and American values are 

very, very different. Most of our ancestors left Europe for a good reason, they wanted change. 

In fact, probably the most perverse behavior of Americans is those people who are fascinated 

by British or European royalty. My God, you know, we got rid of those folks, guys. You know, 

the long faces, the bucked teeth? Let them go.

Dylan Thomas has a great line in “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” where he talks about the 

“Duchess-faced horse,” but at any rate, we can work constructively with the Europeans, but 

just as the Europeans have no right to expect us to behave like them, we have no right to expect 

the Europeans to behave like us. They’re profoundly different. Now, at the risk of offending our 

European brethren, who . . . I want you on our side, but I always caution people about linear 

analysis. Here in the United States, “Oh, the Europeans can’t fight anymore. They’re all pacifists.” Oh really? Well it might have looked that way in the 1920s too. Europe is a continent 

that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, and the idea that Europe is going to surrender to 

Islamists immigrants based on demographics, is probably the most foolish idea ever propounded by someone who is not a member of Congress. It’s just not going to happen.

Europe . . . I’m not predicting they’re going to build death camps for the Muslims by any 

means, but look, Europeans have dealt with this problem before. The expulsions, the waves 

of expulsions. When Shakespeare wrote “The Merchant of Venice”, he didn’t know any Jews. 

They’d been kicked out, and they only started filtering back 50 years later, 50 years after 

Shakespeare’s death during the Commonwealth. Oh, and by the way, on the subject of the 

Commonwealth, this is a great aside for historians, Taliban? Read the letters written during the 

[English] Civil War by Oliver Cromwell, and Henry Ironton, and beyond them, the levelers, 

and the diggers, and just . . . it’s incredible. This is Taliban speak.

In the clinch, actually, Oliver Cromwell proved amazingly tolerant about religion. He was 
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amazingly tolerant of Catholics. He was arguing for tolerance, but his belief in the divine will, 

that his victories were ordained by God, this is something we’ve lost now. But even the early 

20th Century, German belt buckles said “God With Us” (Gott mitt Uns), and we all believed 

that. God was always on our side. Now there’s a lot of advantages of getting past that, but the 

danger is that we lose the sense of the power of religion, which I want to come back to in a 

moment. Just stay with the break up of empires.

Well okay, fine, theoretical, it’s going to be 200 more years until the world rights itself after 

the Colonial era. Okay fine, as long as it stays in the realm of pure theory, but it doesn’t. Every 

violent conflict the United States has been involved in since the fall of the Soviet Union, and 

even in ’54, have been problems created by Europe. The travesty and tragedy is that the greatest 

force for democracy in history has bought into—completely bought into—a European design 

of the world. Since the 1980s, one fight after another, we have fought to preserve borders designed by the representatives of dead kings, Czars, Kaisers, prime ministers.

I mean think about it, the great, the vicious legacy, Europe left behind . . . and I differentiate 

. . . look, Colonialism wasn’t all bad, by any means. Without Colonialism there is no identity. 

The Brits were the best, by far. The French were mixed. They taught people how to cook, and 

they did a lot of good things. The Belgians, hey, the Belgians and the Dutch were savages, the 

Portuguese were utterly brutal until they sort of ran out of steam. We forget that. The Dutch, 

the peace loving Dutch? Except for the Portuguese, they’re the most brutal Colonists ever. The 

Dutch, in the 16th and 17th Century were far worse than the Belgians in the 19th, but history 

moves on. That’s an aside.

At any rate, we’ve inherited a world drawn for the advantage of European governments in 

the 1880s through the 1920s, and in a few cases, post World War II. And it was observed before 

in this conference, we’ve got Iraq with these vast, straight lines on a map. Africa, in the Berlin 

Conferences, they didn’t know where the tribal boundaries were, and they didn’t care. They 

didn’t know where mountain ranges were. They still weren’t 100% convinced they knew the 

source of the Nile. At that point, they’re pretty sure, but they’re not 100% convinced. And the 

tragedy of the post-Colonial world is that all of those formerly subject peoples bought into it. 

Nobody wants to give up an inch. My God, it’s astonishing.

Well, you deal with the world as it is, of course, but look, this is a simple . . . this is a nobrainer. If we do not design, in concert with our allies, and like minded democracies, a better 

. . . a somewhat better system for changing boundaries than the current one, which is sheer 

violence, you’re going to see no end to these conflicts. What do the European boundaries do, in 

essence? They either push people together that don’t want to be together, or they drive people 

apart who do want to be together.

The world is going to find its organic balance, whether it’s in 100 years, or 300. The question is how bloody a path it will be, or a course, to that balance. But we . . . you know, Marx 

wasn’t right about much. He was a terrible doctor, he killed the patient, but he’s a pretty good 

historical analysis in the sense that he recognized big things. Like Freud, he got the big things 

right, and there are tides in history. The United States of America, since 1991, has been on the 

wrong side of history. The side of history, and the side from which the United States has always 

profited, was we were a force for change.
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Woodrow Wilson was a lot smarter than he’s given credit for. Woodrow Wilson didn’t argue for democracy. Woodrow Wilson argued for self-determination. It’s a very different thing. 

Self-determination works, even where democracy doesn’t. And if any American in history is 

unfairly vilified, it’s Woodrow Wilson. He is much more of a realistic idealist than people realized. But what happened? Wilson’s sick, he gets sidelined, utterly, at Versailles. The Europeans, 

they used America to win the war. They don’t want to hear it anymore. But the tragedy is we’ve 

inherited this.

The State Department, God help us all, if you want to create a panic attack at the State, 

mention changing borders. The mentality of Foggy Bottom is that borders are eternal, that every border that exists always existed and always will exist. Borders change. Think about what 

we went through as Americans. The Soviet Union . . . the Cold War’s over. We beat the suckers. 

And Jim Baker, I mean this is a bipartisan failing, Jim Baker flies to the Soviet Union to try to 

persuade it to stay together. Well, they’re not having any of that, so watch this.

The ever shrinking Balkans . . . you know, first Republicans, and then Democrats fly over 

to try to persuade a doomed Yugoslavia to stay together as the parts keep falling off, and we’re 

still trying to get Kosovo as right as Kosovo can be. God, and that’s still a question mark. We’re 

in an era of devolution. The trend is not reversible, it is only briefly arrestible, at a great cost in 

blood and treasure. By trying to hold these Frankenstein’s monsters of countries, these artificial 

states concocted by Europeans, together, we throw away American lives and God knows, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and King Leopold the Belgian, and all of the others, God knows, the diplomats 

of Versailles, must be laughing in their graves at how they put one over on the United States 

of America.

Now this isn’t a call for supporting revolutionary movements everywhere. Of course not. 

We live in a real world where there are many, many different considerations. I’m just arguing 

when the train is hurtling down the track toward you, it’s wise to step off the track, or use another metaphor. I like metaphors and analogies. We’re standing on the beach, commanding the 

waves not to crash. The tidal currents are in full play, and we’ve got to become realistic about 

the problems we face. Instead, what we do, because of short term historical memory, short term 

focus, we focus on each problem as though it’s distinct. Surely every geostrategic problem has 

its distinct characteristics, and what works in Belfast doesn’t work in Basra. Of course, I got 

that.

But it also helps to stand back and look at the broad historical pattern. Something we’re 

very poor at doing. And I personally believe that when you stand back, it is undeniable that the 

age of ideology was an aberration, that we return to this human mainstream, and by the way, 

that Europe . . . the dysfunctional borders imposed by Europe cannot last. When I say they cannot last, some may last 200 more years. I’m a long sweep guy. But think about it, think about if 

the boundaries . . . if Nigeria didn’t exist. The boundaries had been drawn on tribal lines, you 

would have certainly saved the Biafran civil war, much of the violence now. But it wasn’t drawn 

with the locals in mind, and now, the locals are having their say, and you’d better listen.

America should be, when possible, when strategically feasible, we should be on the side of 

the little guy, not on the side of, you’ve already heard, our number one enemy, the Saudis. Feel 

free to ask me about that in the question and answer period, and I’ll give you some different 

takes on that.
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But I want to get in at least one more revolution, and then a few brief remarks about Iraq. 

There’s so many revolutions, I can’t touch them all, but across the last half century, we have 

seen the culmination of the greatest social revolution in all of human history. Greater than the 

development of the state, greater than the development of capitalism, or democracy, or anything else, and that’s the attainment of equal, legal rights for women, and equal social rights. 

They’re still imperfect, but we have come so far, so fast, it is phenomenal. Just think about it. 

It broke all the paradigms of all history.

Women, except for a few odd tribes, the matriarchal tribes, women just didn’t have the 

power. Just didn’t. And what’s happened in our country, and parts of northwestern Europe, 

where women have gained roughly equal rights? There’s still some glass ceilings, but a new 

one shatters every five minutes. We doubled our human capital. This is another no-brainer. Why 

are the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer? Because the poor oppress women.

Now there are other factors in play too, but I’ll give you a sure test for countries that are 

going to fail in the 21st Century. The countries that are going to fail are the countries that are 

going to make trouble for us. They’re going to suck us in whether we want to stay out or not. 

Countries that deny women reasonable social and legal rights are never, never, meritocracies 

for men either. It’s an ironclad rule. They’re always dominated by the clan, or the tribe, or 

ethnicity.

So many wonderful things happened to the United States. We didn’t all like each other, but 

when the “injuns” were coming, you really didn’t worry about whether the neighbor was a Baptist or a Methodist. You just hoped he could lock and load real fast. You know, the frontier was 

so good for America, because civilizations change on their frontiers. Also, religions change on 

their frontiers, which is why Islam is actually doing quite well, thank you, in Senegal, or Indonesia, or Detroit, Michigan. The long overdue liberal reformation of Islam is coming. It’s going 

to probably happen in Michigan, or maybe Toronto, slight chance in northwestern Europe, but 

I doubt it. Probably happen in North America.

And then you’ll see the same kind of splits that you see between American Episcopals and 

mainstream Anglicans, between American Jews and hard core Jews in Israel. It’s just the way 

it is. America humanizes the faith. And why? Why are we so successful at humanizing faith? 

Europeans make fun of us. Okay, fine. Make fun, but we’re doing just fine, thanks. It’s because 

competition works. We accept that competition works in the political arena. It’s necessary, I 

wish we had more of it, thanks. We know it works, it’s essential in an economy, although it has 

to be governed.

But we don’t think about religious competition. Now this is, by self-selection, a conservative group. How many of you have relatives, or friends, or acquaintances that have changed 

their denomination, or even religion. Well over . . . about half. Very conservative, slightly older 

group. Were any of them burned at the stake? This matters when you get these Muslim fatwahs, 

if somebody tries to convert to Christianity. Monopolies are corrupting. All monopolies, in any 

sphere, are corrupting. That’s what happened to the Catholic church from the high middle ages 

through the Renaissance. And corrupt monopolies ultimately decompose with a push from the 

outside, if they don’t simply wither from within.
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Saudi Arabia, how can you possibly . . . you know, the tragedy of the Middle East, one of 

the many tragedies, but the modern tragedy, is look who got the oil money. Muslims, Arabs 

love to tell you, “Well, when you Europeans were living in filth and squalor, we built the great 

cities of Damascus, or Baghdad. Well, that was then, this is now, but yeah, that’s true. What 

have you done for me lately? And look who got the money. The Saudis didn’t build cities, they 

built sheep pens if they built anything. It’s as if in the United States the meanest fundamentalist 

cousins of the Beverly Hillbillies cornered the market on the economy.

It’s a tragedy for educated Arabs, and all other Arabs, for Egypt, and others, that the most 

backward Arabs got the bulk of the oil money, and used it very destructively. Of course, that’s 

an aside. But okay, religion. Religious monopolies are dreadful, dreadful, and they hinder people.

So many factors you look at, you look at the Middle East, it’s hard to be optimistic. I was 

for getting rid of Saddam. I would do it again, but competently, please. I mean, God help us, 

if you made a checklist for how not to do an occupation, the Administration hit every single 

one.

Why would I be for getting rid of Saddam? Well, I think morals, ethics, have a long term 

role. And he was a Hitler. But more importantly, the Middle East was so broken that we had 

to do something. We had to try to jump start change, even if it doesn’t work. Not everything 

works. But the Middle East was on a course, I don’t care if there wasn’t a single al-Qaeda operative in Iraq in 2003. Don’t care. It’s about the entire region. It was so broken and backward, 

that unless you could somehow kick start change, it wasn’t going to get better.

And the idea that Iraq created all these jihadists, we created all these jihadists by ignoring 

the problem for 30 years, Republicans and Democrats alike. I mean it’s the school yard bully 

principle. If he takes a nickel of your lunch money and you don’t fight back, the next day it’s 

a dime, then it’s a quarter. Well, I guess these days it’s five bucks. Look, we never fought back 

against these guys. First with post-Vietnam syndrome in Beirut, then later . . . and look, I’ve 

worked for the Pentagon, in Intelligence, and in the Executive Office of the President during 

the Clinton Administration. The Clinton Administration just wanted terrorism to disappear. 

They just wanted to postpone that trip to the dentist, and then after the Cole bombing, God, just 

hand this off to Bush.

The Clinton Administration, and every preceding Administration back to Nixon, or maybe 

even beyond, if you want to include our relationship with the Saudis, brought us 9/11. It wasn’t 

. . . for all the Bush Administration’s countless faults, you can’t pin 9/11 on them. But at any 

rate, the Middle East is . . . the rage toward us, it’s the . . . the excuses about oh, it’s about our alliance with the Saudis, hey, Bahrain’s right about that. We shouldn’t be aligned with the Saudis, 

but that’s so topical. What this is about, a failed civilization. Whether or not you believe in the 

clash of civilizations, we’re indisputably witnessing historical phenomenon without precedent 

in our kin, and that is the crash of a once mighty, still proud civilization, that of Middle Eastern 

Islam. And it’s a self-wrought failure.

The European imperialists did not invade the kingdom of Atlantis, nor did they invade 

Sparta. They invaded an utterly decrepit culture that had been atrophying for at least three 
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centuries, and just needed a shove. Now, that’s all well and good, but imagine if we were in 

their place. Imagine if all the values we treasure, hold dear, idealize, that we inherited, were 

suddenly dysfunctional. That’s one of the downsides of globalization. We’re not going to stop 

globalization. I don’t want to. I profit from it, thanks. International stocks, got it, but for those 

who are left behind, it is a nightmare of humiliation. Ignorance was bliss.

An Indian peasant 100 years ago had no idea how the Brits lived in the west end of London. 

Now they do, or think they do, because thanks to Hollywood and the global media, not only do 

they have this image of us as rich and powerful, it’s utterly distorted, of us as debauched and 

degenerate. It’s not the church-going America that I grew up in and come from, you know, the 

snake in one hand, Bible in the other, but you know, as some of you have heard me remark, 

most of my relatives thought “Deliverance” was a love story. You know, in the coal towns of 

Appalachia, the operative legal question is if you get divorced, are you still brother and sister? So I have no trouble dealing with religious fanatics. They’re my homeys. I get them. But 

Washington doesn’t.

Washington doesn’t, because even Washingtonians, who go to church or synagogue every 

single week, have been so secularized by education that they do not understand the visceral 

power of faith, of transformative faith, of revelatory faith. And you’ll hear, “Well, that suicide bomber was a wild teenager. He rode a motorcycle ...” So on the road to Damascus, 

conversion happens like that. But also we fail to understand that religion is, again, it’s about 

the total environment. It’s not just about our cult of individual belief, Luther’s Revolution of 

Conscience, and salvation through faith alone. No.

Religion is about forming that greater context, a context in which suicide bombing is admirable. Now we have our own forms of sacrifice we reward and admire. It’s just different. 

The religious greater atmosphere, context, environment, choose your word, of the Middle East 

makes it much easier for these people to make this snap change, for the mother to be proud of 

her suicide bomber son. And while, believe me, I am not defending terrorists. I want them all 

dead. We also have to recognize the fact that we applaud the Marine who throws himself on a 

grenade to save his buddies. The Islamic equivalent is a suicide bomber who drives his car into 

a US convoy.

Now I am not . . . get this clear. I am not defending suicide bombers and terrorism, but we 

need to get beyond emotionalism. I’m an emotional guy myself, but we need to get beyond it. 

The cold, clinical, end zone analysis that gets over your personal faith, and predilection, and 

belief, and by the way, don’t defend your dissertation for 40 years. We are all wrong sometimes, 

and the most powerful tool you can have as an analyst, is the ability to realize and admit that 

you were wrong about something. God knows I’ve been wrong about things. I’ve been right 

about other things.

So as we move on, we’re faced with a world that’s, in the Middle East, I believe . . . I truly 

believe that the one, unbridgeable chasm between us and Islamist extremist has to do with the 

role of women. I find Sigmund Freud much more valuable than Clausewitz. We’re dealing 

with a civilization, that of Middle East Islam, that’s terrified of female sexuality. I understand 

that too, given my dating history. But seriously, this is . . . I mean the idea of burkas, and locking women up, where the woman is she-demon, 72 virgins. Why virgins? Why not hot babes? 
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Why not career women? The focus on virginity, the obsession with virginity, which was long 

prevalent in our culture, especially southern European culture for a very long time, it’s a fear of 

male inadequacy, you know, that the guy that got there first might have been better. And there 

is genetics tied up to it, and all sorts of cultural baggage.

But the Middle East, a situation that fears women, and cannot accord them reasonable 

rights, how can it possibly compete? And I know everyone in this room can probably cite some 

Saudi women, or Kuwaiti who came here, and wore a Chanel suit, and spoke beautifully, and 

was educated at the Sorbonne. Hey, good luck folks. What about gals back in Sadr City? You 

cannot base your judgments about any culture by mere imaging with fellow academics, or fellow diplomats, or even fellow soldiers. You’ve got to break through that carapace and get to the 

soul of the people, which is rarely represented by the intelligentsia. Rarely.

I spent a lot of the last five years in Africa, long stretches, working my way from the Cape, 

up east Africa, the old Swahili Coast, over to west Africa, and I will tell you, you stay in the 

capital city, you will not get it. You just will not understand. At any rate, what do I . . . I wish 

I had more time, and I’m sure you don’t, but I want to have a dialog, give you time for questions.

Let me review quickly. The age of ideology is over. We’ve returned to the human mainstream. War of conflicts over blood and/or belief. The greatest revolution in social history, 

beneficial to us, women’s self-emancipation. Self-emancipation, because they did it while the 

guys were watching the Super Bowl. Really, it’s amazing. Amazing phenomenon. It’s also the 

most threatening aspect of our society to Middle Eastern males. I don’t care what anybody 

says, they’ll never convince me otherwise, been there too much, talked . . . dealt with too many 

of them.

Third thing, the practical problem we face in the world today, the great strategic problems, 

are bad borders. Problem number one. And if we keep fighting to preserve dysfunctional borders, you’re going to get no end of Somalias, and Yugoslavias, and Iraqs, etcetera, etcetera, 

etcetera. Now, in the real world, there are good times, where it’s going to just pay us to preserve 

that state, as artificial as it is. I got that. There’s no unified field solution to this. I’m just arguing 

for recognizing the problem before we make the necessary mistake, because sometimes things 

that are necessary in the short term are mistakes in the long term, and you’ve always got to 

balance them.

So I’ve talked about all those other things that, having just returned from Iraq, I just say 

one thing, obviously no guarantees of success. None whatsoever. I am more hopeful now than 

I was just last autumn, guardedly hopeful that we can get through to sort of a half baked solution. But I think, from talking to General Petraeus over the months, and in Baghdad, I would 

sum up what he’s trying to do—this is my summation, not his—as three things: al-Qaeda down, 

Iran out, sectarian violence reduced to a level that makes governance possible. They’re all 

attainable.

On the first count, we’re doing spectacularly well, thanks to a constellation of events. And 

again, you look at the flip of the Sunni tribes. Maybe some of you were smarter than me, but 

had you asked me in December, 2004, and the month after the second battle of Fallujah, if the 
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people of Fallujah would ever look favorably upon US Marines, I would have said it’s impossible. Now they’re engaging us, kids are waving, they realized a couple things. One, we meant 

to leave eventually, al-Qaeda didn’t. And as much as they might not have liked us, or resented 

us getting rid of Saddam, al-Qaeda was a lot worse.

Al-Qaeda did what religious fanatics always do, thank God they do it, they over reach. 

Whether it’s Anabaptists in Minster 400 years, 500 years ago, or the Commonwealth period 

in England where you banned Christmas, thanks, didn’t work. Or al-Qaeda, extremists bear 

within themselves the seeds of their own destruction. The problem, of course, is they can sow a 

lot of death and destruction along the way. So the Sunnis realized they can’t beat the US, we’re 

not going to help them. The surge was critical psychologically.

It convinced them that we weren’t going to be driven out. We were upping the ante, and 

for all the accusations of failure, don’t discount the psychological importance of that gesture. 

It was critical. And they flipped very, very fast. And fortunately we had commanders on the 

ground, like Sean McFarland, and others as well, who had been there before, had been through 

this, and recognized the opportunity. That’s key. If the commanders on the ground, Army and 

Marines, hadn’t recognized the opportunity, it wouldn’t have happened. And they had to fight 

to push that through, because obviously the Sunnis were our enemies, and the Shiite certainly 

didn’t want to hear anything about this.

But you had this constellation, then you get a commander in Baghdad, General Petraeus, 

and I think he’s batting .999. I don’t say he’s batting 1.000 because only God is perfect. It’s 

amazing. And I would argue that General Petraeus’ first tour was a failure as commander of 

the 101st. He got it all wrong. Not all wrong, he got major things wrong. He did okay with the 

Kurds, but they’re easy. Second tour was a mixed bag, but he’s that rarer than a unicorn phenomenon, a general officer that can learn. And he did learn. He did learn.

I mean his counterinsurgency manual, published in December, he’s not doing that. About 

40% of what he’s doing is from the counterinsurgency manual. Dave Petraeus, Ph.D. from 

Princeton, he’s the best killer we’ve had in Iraq, and he’s relentless about it. One of the problems with Iraq, we’re always stop, start, stop, start, reduce Fallujah, then like that and take a 

nap. You’ve got to be relentless. I’m sidetracking myself here. Don’t want to do that.

What’s happening in Iraq? What’s really happening? Iraq is now about two things, and 

the hearings earlier this week utterly missed the big picture by focusing on the dysfunctional, 

utterly dysfunctional al-Maliki government failing to meet these benchmarks. The al-Maliki 

government probably isn’t going to work out. I wish there was a neat way to get rid of it, but 

in the meantime, what’s happening is happening at the street level, neighborhood, city, and regional level. It’s that organic reconstruction from the ground up. It’s slow, and it’s painful, and 

it’s ugly, and it can all be reversed. Got it. But it’s happening. But here’s the big thing, we’re 

obsessed with the al-Maliki government, and Baghdad, and did the surge make the world safe 

for democracy.

No matter what the case may have been in 2003, brothers and sisters, Iraq is now about our 

national security. It goes back to those three points: al-Qaeda down, Iran out . . . don’t want Iran 

being the henchmen of the Persian Gulf, and giving Iraq a chance to at least become, if not a 
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Jeffersonian democracy, or a Jacksonian one, more likely, but at least can it be semi-functional. 

Can it be reasonably responsive to the needs of most of the citizens, most of the time? In other 

words, can it be a huge success for the Middle East? And I’m not being flippant on that point. 

Even that would be a huge success for the Middle East.

But what really matters to us is that, again, we’re locked in 2003 thinking, or 2005. AlQaeda declared that a central front in their war against us, utterly foolish move. Al-Qaeda has 

suffered a strategic defeat and humiliation that is the greatest information operations victory we 

could have ever hoped for. Public diplomacy triumphed. Sunni Muslims turned on al-Qaeda, 

who pretended to be their champion. And we’re not exploiting, we’re not pushing this. We 

should be broadcasting this to the world.

Fortunately, Arabs aren’t as dumb as the neocons thought they were, and as malleable, and 

word gets out. No matter what Al Jazeera said, the grapevine in the Arab world is amazing. And 

al-Qaeda stock is way, way down. Sunni Muslims, in large numbers, rejected al-Qaeda and 

their theocracy. This is a huge win for us. Now obviously, I could be utterly wrong, it could be 

reversed, we could do stupid things, but 30, 40 years from now, when we’re first getting some 

perspective, we may decide that the Sunni flip in Anbar, as complex as the reasons may have 

been, that Sunni flip in Anbar may have been the high water mark of al-Qaeda, and the beginning of their long and truculent decline. We’ll see. That may be wishful thinking on my part, 

but it’s amazing to me that we’re not pushing that, and we’re not pushing the Iran card hard.

Look, no matter what you think about, you know, oh well, Americans are all baby killers, 

their soldiers get our soldiers out, blah, blah, blah . . . look, this is about our national security, 

and certainly about Europe’s. And it amazes me that Europe simply will not recognize the fact. 

Hey folks, that’s your oil, that’s not ours. We can get it elsewhere. At any rate, there’s price issues. I got it. But we obviously do need to work together.

But it troubles me that, again, what I said at the very beginning. The worst tendency I see 

in American politics is this ideological hardening. It’s not just party-to-party fighting, it’s ideological now. And that is European. We don’t fight over ideologies. We’re all from Missouri, just 

the facts ma’am. We’re all Joe Fridays. That’s what keeps America sane. And no . . . I guarantee 

you, no American soldier ever went into battle saying, “By God, I’m going to sacrifice my life 

so my folks can vote straight party line.”

Party lines are for fascism, Bolsheviks. They’re not for Americans. Party line voting is 

un-American, but this party line thinking we’ve got now, and moveon.org is a totalitarian organization. I’m a Soviet hand. I recognize totalitarianism. This is neo-Stalinism, pure. Not that 

there aren’t problems on the right too, but these guys are a mess.

And you know what’s fascinating? When they ran that ad with General Petraeus? Not one 

Democrat, Ike Skelton mentioned this briefly, not one Democrat stood up. Not one stood up to 

defend General Petraeus. They are terrified of MoveOn.org, which claims to have over three 

million members. I don’t think it does, but even if it did, that’s 1% of the American population. 

Are we the Balkans, where 1% of the population determines the future?

If you, as Americans . . . I’ll end on this note. I’ve jumped all over the place, I know it, but 
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there’s a lot of world to cover. I wish we had more time to talk about Mexico. If you, as Americans, can do only one thing in our collective dotage, as we age, fight for the center. Sometimes 

Republicans are right, sometimes Democrats are right, and usually the answer is somewhere 

near the middle. Ideologies and extremists are un-American. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. 

Let’s hear the questions, and answers, and accusations.
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Day 3—Featured Speaker

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

Mr. Ralph Peters

New York Post Columnist; Author

Audience Member

How do we get Washington and [inaudible] off the dime?

Mr. Ralph Peters

To prove that I’m not a real Washingtonian, I don’t know. But I guess the short answer is vote. 

It’s tough. People think that changing minds, etcetera, is a war of maneuver. You know, you 

write one book or one article and it changes things. I’ve been doing this for 25 years now, in 

uniform, out of uniform, it’s a war of attrition. God knows changing the Army is a war of attrition. You’ve got to wear the suckers down. You know, the flash in the pans, they come and 

they go. The point is to still be standing and still be fighting the good fight. And that’s very important. If you give up, you will change nothing. It’s like Iraq, you know, if you’re discouraged 

at every setback, you won’t win. You’ve just got to be tenacious, [inaudible]. German words 

are nice for this. It has that sound. But fortitude. Good people have to fight for this country 

at the polls, in their communities, letters to the editor, articles, speaking in clubs. The human 

networks do work. It’s not just MoveOn.org. You’ve got to do your part for the community, 

and you change things over time. But one election doesn’t change it. Newt Gingrich’s win, way 

back when, or the Pelosi re-win. America is a big aircraft carrier. It takes a long time to change 

course, one more cliché there. But time and attrition.

Audience Member

Yeah Ralph, this is Bill Darley. I have two questions. First of all, I’m very interested in your 

thesis reference, the end of ideology. When you look at some of the ideologies you’re referring 

to, Stalinism, Leninism, Nazism, and they have kind of the look, and the smell, and the feel, 

and the appearance of religion. They seem to be religious entities unto themselves. The first 

question I’d be interested in is ...

Mr. Ralph Peters

Can I answer that one first? Because I have a short-term memory thing. No, you’re absolutely 

right. They never quite got there, but they came close. And what I would do, I’ll turn it around 

and say we just don’t get Beijing, the Tiananmen thing and all the oppression since then. And 

especially Falun Gong. We were all mystified. This crazy little cult, doing little dances, what’s 

the big threat? The Chinese know their history, we don’t.

You know, throughout Chinese history, the great upheavals have been millenarian, chiliastic 
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revolutions, usually from the hinterlands. And even in the last two centuries, the Taipings, the 

fists of righteousness, also known as the Boxers. These are millenarian movements, and what 

terrifies the guys in Beijing is the idea of Chinese being Chinese and galvanizing behind a Messianic figure. And boy, China’s got huge problems.

You know, you go to Shanghai, oh, it looks great folks. Get out where you can’t even breathe, 

and it looks pretty different. Not all Chinese are driving Bentleys just yet. And so they’re really 

terrified of Chinese history repeating itself. The emergence of a Messianic figure, terror number one for the men in Beijing. So yes, there’s not a clear line where suddenly this is ideology 

and this is religion.

Obviously, religious movements, you know, the religious movements of the Middle East have 

taken a lot of techniques from Fascism and Nazism. The Mufti started it. In fact, you could argue it started before that. So there’s certainly overlap and interplay, but ultimately, the dynamic 

is different in the sense that religion ... you can bomb Berlin flat, and you bomb Dresden, bomb 

Hamburg, nuke Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, and change their minds. But ideology, even with all 

the trappings and stuff like that, but boy, you just can’t exterminate religion. You know [inaudible] they’re still there, making really good wine.

Audience Member

By extension, Ralph, you’re saying that it’s the end of ideology, and in the same sentence you 

said that the seed is still there, it could grow, and that there are nations and civilizations that are 

still afraid of it. So I’m not sure where the grounds of saying it’s over really lies. In addition 

to that, some of these things you were talking about, there are still Fascists. There’s rising ... 

you know, in Latin America, rising socialist movement, Chavez and others. So I’m not sure 

where ...

Mr. Ralph Peters

But again ...

Audience Member

... ideology and religion.

Mr. Ralph Peters

It’s not ... it’s a question of where it’s weighted. And even in the great age of ideology there 

were still monarchists. There are always ghosts. You know, you go stand on the bluffs above the 

Missouri River and you’ll certainly feel the ghosts, and see the ghosts. It doesn’t just disappear. 

And a Messianic figure, another Hitler may arise in a troubled state, New Jersey, for instance. 

But somebody may arise, and we may see a return of ideology. It could come back.

But when I look, as honestly as I can, at the world today, I see the return to the mainstream, the 

default to the dominant factors of religion and ethnicity. But that doesn’t mean that all Fascist 

behavior, or totalitarian tendencies have suddenly disappeared. Human societies are accretive, 
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and now we’re going back to religion, these basic identities, but we’re probably taking a lot 

of baggage with us, technique type baggage from the age of ideology. So it’s not clean. I don’t 

mean to suggest that, that it’s over, the slate’s wiped clean.

I think if you look at the dominant forces of the times, though, for this century, to the extent one 

can look ahead, and we have to try and look ahead, the dominant powers are these primitive, if 

not primeval powers of religious identity and ethnic identity.

Audience Member

Sir, as a European, and a French citizen I just want to ask a question. If you go back to [inaudible] one class against the other, and so on and so on. Don’t you think that what you consider 

an ideology is the mix of democracy and [inaudible] can be seen throughout the world by other 

civilizations as an ideology that they have to fight? For example, [inaudible] ideology, democracy, [inaudible] is based, as you said at the beginning on [inaudible] that is everybody’s equal 

before God and so on and so, but for other civilizations, that’s ideology. So when you say that 

that’s the end of ideology, I don’t agree because in 1989, we said that history was gone and we 

would see the beginning of peace. You said that ideology is gone, I don’t think so. I think there 

is always an ideology to explain the world. What do you think about that?

Mr. Ralph Peters

I think, you know, we’re using different definitions of the term. To me, first of all, democracy is 

not an ideology. Democracy is a technique. In the right hands, it’s a wonder drug, in the wrong 

hands, it’s a loaded gun. But it’s a technique from which discontented intellectuals insist on 

elaborating an ideology. But at heart, it’s a technique.

When I speak of ideology, I’m talking about political, socio-economic, and political systems 

designed by human beings. That’s my definition of it. You may not subscribe to the definition, 

that’s a definition I am using. Now, religions can certainly ... religious movements can contain 

ideological components within them. You know, Fascist behaviors or beliefs, racist beliefs, 

there are all sorts. So it’s not pure. But what we have to do is try to get at the source motivation. 

And when the source motivation is to change a political system, based on ideological and an 

ideological interpretation of the world, that’s one problem. When you are looking at someone 

who is trying to jump-start the Apocalypse, that’s something else.

And I know many people disagree with this, but I think there ... among civilizations, you can 

get to a point where there’s a death wish. And what does worry me about Middle Eastern Islam 

is this rush to the Apocalypse [inaudible] or with us, the deluge. And when you look at Ahmadinejad, you’re always arguing, “Well, is he really a rational actor putting on, or is he really a 

nut case?” Well, we forget the fact that somebody can be perfectly rational in the morning, and 

an absolute screaming nut case in the afternoon. Hitler was brilliant. Until he goes to Russia, he 

calls it almost all right, until he over achieves, over reaches. And that’s something that people 

just don’t understand.

Osama bin Laden, he’s not really an Islamist extremist, because he’s too smart. He’s a strategist. You can be an absolute religious maniac, and still be a brilliant strategist. So again, I’m not 
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trying to draw clear boundaries. Europeans have already done that for us, thanks.

What I’m trying to do is talk about these great title shifts of which Marx speaks at profound 

length. Samuel Johnson said of Milton’s “Paradise Lost”, that surely no man ever wished it 

longer. And I think you would say that about Marx. Marx desperately needed a good editor, 

he’d still be working. But at any rate, your position and mine probably isn’t very far apart, it’s 

just that I think we have a cultural difference in that the French cult of the intellect just has no 

place in America, so when I say ideology, it’s just ... it just means something else to me. To me, 

ideology is a pejorative term, it’s an evil term, it’s a destructive term, whereas to Europeans, 

it’s a very natural thing.

I’m not sure that’s a good answer, but I’m not sure there is a good answer. What I’m trying to 

do is just get you all to think. But I am certainly not pretending I have all the answers. I don’t. 

I’ve just got a lot of questions. So what I’m giving you is one man’s report from the world. It 

might not be right.

Audience Member

A question about keeping Iran out of Iraq. How is that possible short of executing regime 

change in Iran?

Mr. Ralph Peters

Again, no clean answer. It might be another war of attrition, matter of persistence. Do we have 

the stomach for it? I don’t know. The paradox is that long term ... it’s not a long term threat 

because Persians are such racists, that you know they will never get along with their fellow 

Shiites, who happen to be Arabs, over the long term. The danger is the kind of danger that you 

created in Yugoslavia after Versailles, this rush together without thinking it through. So you get 

this sort of enosis effect where, you know, all the Shiites are going to get together, and then 

once they’re together, they realize that, “Oh, I don’t like the Serbs. I don’t like those Croats.” 

The differences come out later.

Our problem is to avoid the short to mid-term effects. How do you prevent it? God only knows. 

I don’t. This is a long-term struggle. We have made so many mistakes that, God bless him, 

Dave Petraeus is struggling to repair damage really. No better answer than that. I’m sorry. If I 

did, I’d be in Baghdad.

Audience Member

Yes, sir. You talk about bad borders. What about the effect of all the water that’s gone under 

the bridge since these borders were drawn? Like the other day somebody mentioned that all 

the Iraqis love the Iraqi flag and consider themselves Iraqis, even though they might kill their 

neighbor that night or something. Isn’t this an effect since those borders were drawn? I’m sure 

there’s some people in Nigeria that consider themselves Nigerians first too.

Mr. Ralph Peters

Yeah, but that’s ... I think that’s really a phenomenon of talking to the intelligentsia. The intel-
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ligentsia tends to have more of a national identity. The intelligentsia and the military usually 

do. All I can say is I’ve been to a different Iraq.

You know, the first time I went to Iraq, several years ago, I walked across the border, the Turkish border, and just linked up with the Kurds, and I watched the American Army from the outside. Never touched it. I watched the 101st and other units. I just stayed with the Kurds. And I 

never met a Kurd who thought he was Iraqi. Now, out in Anbar Province last month, the Sunnis, 

they’ll nod their heads about Iraq. And if anybody’s going to have a nationalist identity, it’s the 

Sunnis, because they were on top. Iraq was theirs.

But when you listen to what they’re saying, when a Sunni ... I was telling one of the Generals, 

an Iraqi, good guy actually, I’d back that horse because he knows that you can’t steal everything. You have to limit how much you pocket, and that’s important in the Middle East. I’m 

very serious about that. But when you talk to this guy, he says, “I’m an Iraqi patriot. I want Iraq 

to be an independent country, strong.” But you listen to him, really listen, shut up, don’t ask 

questions, listen to the guy, let him roll. When it comes to him, Iraqi patriot means Sunni Arab 

patriot. Very different.

And then when you get down to the tribal level, it’s one of those things where ... in the Middle 

East, the rule is this. You never cheat a member of your immediate family. You can cheat your 

cousins, but you align with your cousins against the second cousins. You and your first cousins 

can cheat the second cousins. But then you all get together against the next family. But you and 

that family from the same tribe get together. All these onions ... these layers.

And again, it’s a question of we look at it through an atomized Western view of a state being a 

collection of individuals. I think Lieutenant General Jim Mattis, in my view maybe the greatest 

Marine since Chesty Puller, gets it right when he talks about a democracy of the tribes. Basically the Shura in Afghanistan, but he’s talking about really getting the consensus within the 

tribes, then getting the tribes to agree among themselves. One of the many mistakes we made 

was trying to cut the tribes out. But some states certainly have a much stronger national identity 

than others.

You go to Africa, Tanzania has a pretty strong national identity, because it never had an alpha 

tribe. Nyariri, for all his many failings on the economic front, was really good about bringing 

people together. Kenya is much more fragile than people realize, much more fragile. Tribalism 

is still very powerful, plus you’ve got the Muslim/Christian split. You go to the Swahili Coast, 

go down in the slums of the Swahili Coast, and I will tell you, the Muslims do not identify with 

Kenya. Thanks not least to Saudi money. It depends on where you go.

Senegal, very strong identity despite the complexities of their society. You go to Cote d’Ivoire; 

its tribe is much more powerful, and much more destructive. I’m sure there are Nigerians that 

are proud to be Nigerians, and they’ve got a deal for you on the Internet. But there are others 

that are strictly based on religion and tribe. In fact, one of the great fault lines to worry about is 

that fault line where the desert meets the forest. Not where the desert meets the jungle. That’s 

something we get wrong. The great barriers to civilization were never jungles, they’re forests.

And the great religions ... this is a little off your topic, but it’s a fun thing to think about. The 

great religions, the conquering religions, whether it’s expansionist Islam, or crusading Chris-
348

tianity, both hit dead ends for centuries, in the case of Islam, forever, when they reach the [inaudible], when they reach the forests. They can’t penetrate, because the forests are the domain 

of magic. And with our rational view of the world we always want rational explanations. I 

believe in magic. Having spent time in West Africa, and you don’t insult the witch doctor or the 

shaman. Don’t insult the local beliefs, because whether or not you believe that it works, they 

believe that it works. And Christianity, and even Islam, can be very, very superficial.

So I really believe that beyond these surface identities, there are all these old identities now 

coming to the fore. And while people may rally behind the national flag, the question is when 

the chips are down, when the crisis hits, will they? And no, I think we’re in a period of devolution, of atomization, and trying to hold together these artificial states at all times is foolish. 

Sometimes you’ve got to, but I think overall we’re in a losing battle by trying to hold together 

the European designed world.

Audience Member

Maybe this is too simplistic, but I’m trying to understand this boundary, this border comment 

that you made. I’m thinking one, how do you get there from here? But two, I’m trying to imagine a world where, let’s say, China gives up Tibet, and Afghanistan gives up the Pashtun region, 

and the Turks give up the Kurdish region, and the Spanish give up the Basque region, and the 

United States gives up most of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. And I don’t ... it 

doesn’t compute with me. I don’t understand how you’re ...

Mr. Ralph Peters

Well, that is too simplistic, because that’s not remotely what I said. What I said, when the train’s 

coming down the track toward you ... hurtling toward you, get off the track. I am not an activist 

who says we’ve got to change all these borders now. We shouldn’t, we couldn’t, we can’t, and 

we won’t. But I am arguing that we need to look at these intervention problems that arise, and 

try and understand the underlying problems. It’s not just about getting General Idid. It’s about 

a collection of tribes that Europeans decided to pretend was a country.

And by the way, on the subject of our Southwest border, yeah, it’s dysfunctional, and we’ve 

made it so, thanks. But anybody who thinks ... you know, all this crap about Mexicans want to 

take back the Southwest for Mexico, nobody who has lived in a rule of law state, where their 

children can go to good schools without paying a bribe, where they haven’t had the fear of police corruption, wants to go back. What’s happening, if we only had the brains to see it, isn’t the 

Mexicanization of the United States, it’s the slow but sure Americanization of Mexico.

Now that’s not an argument for illegal immigration. We’ve got to control our borders. But don’t 

underestimate the power and the glory of the United States. The greatest losers in history have 

been those who have bet against the United States. You know, we’re pretty darned good. We 

have the strength of mongrel dogs, God bless us. We’re the mix of all the tough breeds, and 

we’re getting better and stronger, not weaker.

But again, I have to go to the airport, but I’ll say this, here’s how people write articles in the 

world of journalism. To try to revive Armed Forces Journal, which was dead in the water, I 
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agreed to write ... they had asked me to be the editor. I don’t have the personality to be an editor, because it would be nothing but a sea of red, some of it blood. But I agreed that I’d write an 

article a month, for as long as I could sustain it, for the first year or two, to try and get it going 

again. And it’s going again. It’s really a pretty good pub now. You should look at it.

So I’m going to throw it all back, because I’m tired, but last spring, it’s time to write something for them. I promised. What the hell do I do? Now I’ve written like 23 articles in the last 

23 months, so what’s left to say? I scratched my head. Well, the clock’s ticking, what are the 

problems? Well, bad borders are a problem. Okay, I’ll do a piece for American policy makers 

to just try to illustrate to them how dysfunctional the borders are.

And so I drew a little map in about half an hour, showing if the local people could determine 

their own affinities, how the borders would look. And I wrote an article pretty quickly, in one 

afternoon, sent it in, bang. It hit the Internet. The Middle East went absolutely nuts. It was a 

secret American plot. I mean, the Middle East, I love them. It’s published in Armed Forces 

Journal, and it’s not an official pub, but it’s published. How could it be a secret plot if we 

publish it? And it says explicitly in the article that this isn’t going to happen, we won’t make it 

happen. I’m trying to make people aware of the problems, the complexity, the natural affinities. 

But they went nuts.

It started in Pakistan, jumped to Turkey, went through the Middle East, and suddenly I was the 

evil king, and out to destroy all Islam. And so when you can’t even have a rational dialog at that 

level with the civilization, how can you make progress? But as far as changing borders, I am 

not advocating American activism to change borders. I am arguing for playing strategic judo 

and letting the opponent follow his own weight, when it makes sense. Not wasting American 

blood to preserve borders that cannot and should not be preserved. So this isn’t activism, this 

is strategic common sense.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. God bless you all.
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Day 3—Featured Speaker

(Transcript of Presentation)

Global Security: Continuing Conflict in the Middle East

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett

Enterra Solutions

Colonel Timothy Reese (Director of CSI)

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, as many of you know from his writings, is the Senior Managing 

Director for Enterra Solutions. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University 

of Wisconsin–Madison in Russian Language and Literature, and later his Master’s and Ph.D. 

in Political Science from Harvard University. From 1998 to 2004, Dr. Barnett was a senior 

strategic researcher and professor at the United States Naval War College, and following the 

9/11 attacks, between October, 2001 and June, 2003, Dr. Barnett worked as the Assistant for 

Strategic Futures in the Office of Forest Transformation inside of DOD. In 2003, he wrote the 

famous article, The Pentagon’s New Map, which he later developed into a book called, The 

Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, that came out in 2004. The 

views in those works have received great analysis and acclaim, and he has since published a 

sequel called Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating in 2005. He also is a contributing 

editor for Esquire magazine, a scholar and author at the Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public 

Policy at the University of Tennessee, and a columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel. So 

ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Thomas Barnett.

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett

I always hate following people who disrespect PowerPoint. I found that people who brag 

about not using it do so primarily because they’re not very good at PowerPoint. So it’s not a 

good choice for them. But I love using it. I’m going to give you a brief overview of the first 

book, the parts that pertain. I’m going to make most of my arguments about the realities of 

how we’re going to deal with a non-state actor community based on the second book. I have a 

third book that I’m signing up for right now with Putnam that we’re calling The Coming Realignment: Reconnecting American Grand Strategy to a World Transforming. So you’re going 

to hear similar arguments from me as you heard from Ralph. I’m just a bit more optimistic. 

I’m going to give you a preview of that concept, something we’re working on right now in 

Kurdistan with great success. The notion that we describe as “development in a box”—the 

idea that you have to get better at connecting societies post conflict, post disaster, as rapidly as 

possible.

I want to make an argument of where my book lies in terms of the big debates of the 1990s. 

Think back to the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989. Seemingly everybody on the same rule 

set page. That famous book written by Fukuyama [The End of History and the Last Man] in 
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which he asked the essential post Cold War question, which is after ideologies, and I agree with 

Ralph’s definition of ideology. What are we going to fight over? And if you read all the way to 

the end of that book, he has a great chapter at the end called “Wars of the Spirit,” where he says 

the fights aren’t going to be over systems. They’re not going to be over stuff. They’re really 

not going to be over territory in the truest sense. They’re going to be over questions of identity. 

And if you think about globalization with its gender neutral networks coming into traditional 

societies, which I’ll define simply as male control over female in all aspects of life, those 

gender neutral networks tend to come in and empower women disproportionately to men. And 

by doing so, I guarantee you’re going to get a certain segment—typically young men, barely 

educated, they know enough about the world. They know they don’t want this to come down 

their throats. And they’re going to stand up and they’re going to fight and die and kill under 

the most perverse conditions to prevent that pathway from unfolding because it’s just too rapid 

social change. It’s never happened as rapidly as globalization demands it happens or enables it 

to happen right now in these traditional societies.

One of the first guys out of the box tried to answer the question, my favorite professor at 

Harvard, Sam Huntington, great book, Clash of Civilizations. As Sam gets older and wiser, he 

gets more concerned about the world. His take on history is people got together, they learned 

how to make war; they got organized into states, they made bigger war; they got organized 

into blocks, they made even bigger war. So his prescription, his look ahead for the post Cold 

War world, quite simply, he just ups the unit of aggregation one further, describes even more 

intractable conflicts. He gives us a point to debate. That debate joined most famously by Tom 

Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. You could draw a line between these two books because the line’s a spectrum. They approach globalization from diametrically opposed angles. 

Friedman, in a nutshell, says, “Some got it, some don’t. It’s going to spread very rapidly. That 

spread cannot be stopped.” This is very much Marx on steroids. Sam’s take—much darker. He 

says basically, “Globalization, some people are never going to get it. They lack certain genes.” 

What I try to do in my book is give you the third leg of that stool, define a plane. My argument 

being, as we look to the conflicts that are going to arise—and they’re going to come almost 

exclusively from non-state actors. We don’t wage wars against states anymore. We go into 

countries looking for bad guys. If you get the economic determinism from Friedman, if you get 

the social Darwinism from Sam, I’m giving you the political military implications of that ying 

and yang like struggle. People want globalization to be one thing or another. They want it to 

either integrate or disintegrate, to stabilize or destabilize. The reality is it does both things at the 

same time and it tends to do so on a frontier expanding sort of way. So my take on globalization 

is, some got it, some don’t. The spread is inevitable. It’s been moving since it originated in New 

England, I would argue, in the second industrial revolution in the United States, second half of 

the nineteenth century. But it can get stuck. It got stuck on the Berlin Wall for about 50 years. 

When the global economy has expanded over the last 150 or 200 years, it’s done so in violent 

spasms as new frontiers are integrated and societies are reformatted and resistance is incurred.

I believe you can map that spread of the global economy on that basis. My conceit is I’ll 

tell you where the future of conflict is going to be geographically. Here’s the map we did for 

Esquire back in March 2003. What you’re looking at, about 150 times we sent forces abroad 

since the end of the Cold War. All I do, simple political scientist that I am, is draw a line around 

95% of the cases, 95% capture. And that’s the shape I get. Equatorially centric. Not all of these 

countries have oil, although most of them are driven by exports that are raw materials or com-
353

modities, which is one of the problems they face in terms of economic development. What I’m 

arguing is you’re looking at the frontier of globalization right there. On the outside, you have 

what I describe as the functioning core of globalization. Basically, the “Old West” of North 

America, Europe, industrialized Asia, plus the New East, the three billion new capitalists who 

are the biggest dynamic in the global economy right now, creating the most change, creating 

the most R&D, creating the most trouble in the global economy, and the rising south. Twothirds of humanity. I argue that they’re increasingly synchronizing their internal rule set with an 

emerging global rule set—free markets, free trade, collective security. Doesn’t mean they turn 

into middle classes overnight. Sure as hell doesn’t mean they turn into democracies overnight. 

Most countries that make this rapid embrace of globalization do so as single party states. The 

chunk in the middle I call the nonintegrated or nonintegrating gap. No matter how you measure 

connectivity—fiber optic cable laid, foreign direct investment, traveling abroad for tertiary 

education, whatever—it is thinner on the inside of that shape and thicker on the outside.

I think you could shrink this gap. I think sometimes it takes military power. I think we 

did it quite effectively in the Balkans across the 1990s. Didn’t feel very good at the time, like 

kissing your sister in terms of conclusive outcomes. But we’re going to recognize that much 

like we recognized the Korean War as a valid model for containing the Soviets, that’s a valid 

model for shrinking the gap. The mantra from the first book, disconnecting this defines danger. 

Show me a part of the world that’s less connected—whatever measure you want to pick—less 

connected, and I’ll show you where all the wars, all the civil wars, all the ethnic cleansing, all 

the genocides, all the mass rapes as a tool of terror, all the children lured or forced into combat 

activities, all of that stuff concentrated; 95% of the terrorist activity inside that shape. Your 

expeditionary theater for the twenty-first century, not a neocon invention, cannot be voted out 

of office. I emphasize this is a snapshot of a frontier integrating age. We like to think we’re in 

charge of globalization. If America gets too tired, or bored, or pissed off, and just stops playing 

globalization’s bodyguard in effect, this process will end and we can be rid of it. Like we’re in 

charge. The answer is, you add the three billion new capitalists in the east, you’re no longer in 

charge of this. That’s the biggest non-state actor out there. Three billion new capitalists in the 

east who want their stuff now, and will make the planet [inaudible] in trying to achieve that 

process.

But I’d like to emphasize. Do not believe the hype about the age of unending war. It’s 

complete nonsense. We’ve had more poverty reduction in the last 25 years than in the previous 

500. I’m talking absolute numbers. We’ve never had a global economy so big, so robust, facing 

such a huge expansion as the addition of a billion people with disposable income in the next 

10 to 15 years. We’ve never had it. We’ve never had peace as widespread as we’ve got it right 

now. On a per capita basis, less people are involved in war than we’ve ever seen. We’ve never 

been more peaceful than right now. So the terrorism, the transnational, the non-state actors is 

what’s left. It’s not additive upon everything else unless you have to cling to previous enemy 

images because it connects you to programs or records you’d like to protect. And I understand 

that dynamic.

Make a three-pronged strategic argument here. You got to work across the court or withstand shocks to the system, whether it’s SARS, avian flu, 9/11, whatever. Second, you’re going 

to have to firewall off the core from the gap’s worst exports, obvious ones, but you’re going 

to have to leave the immigration gates open. Why? Eighty percent of the population growth 
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inside the gap over the next 40 years. Meanwhile, the core is going to rapidly age, which is why 

there’s a lot of hype and a lot of fear about all these Muslims having babies. Go back and read 

American history in the nineteenth century, and you’ll see all the same arguments about those 

dirty, filthy Irish Catholics, of which I’m one. Shrink the gap is my third argument by exporting 

security to the worst situations there. I argue you need two different forces to pull this off. The 

first half force, the war fighter, we got. That one I call the leviathan, right out of Thomas Hobbs, 

an unparalleled capacity to wage war. The second half force is the disaster reliever, the counter 

insurgency force, the force that’s going to deal with all these non-state actors. It’s not going to 

come home. It’s going to rotate ad nauseam. That one I dub the “system administrator force” 

or “sys admin” for short. The paradigm I’m reaching for there, it’s going to be more civilian 

than uniform; it’s going to be more US Government than DOD; it’s going to be more rest of 

the world than United States. The notion that the United States can reconnect a society to the 

outside world all by itself is pretty crazy. And it’s going to be more private sector funded than 

public sector funded. The notion that you can get a bunch of military guys and a bunch of A 

workers and somehow you’re going to create an economy—I mean, we’re talking two populations quite frankly that didn’t go into the entrepreneurial business.

Arguments about the differences between these two different paradigms. The leviathan has 

got to work with traditional allies. They’re all going to look suspiciously like the Brits and their 

former colonies. The sys admin has got to work with everybody. So Erik Prince, Blackwater, 

very bright future. The leviathan is all about jointness, we’re basically there. The sys admin 

is about interagency, much harder. Basically means what jointness meant when I got into this 

business 18 years ago. I like to describe it as the tee shirt with the fat arrow pointing to the side 

and the words “I’m with stupid” written across the belly button. Or as I like to say, interagency 

means never having to say you’re responsible. The leviathan, I call it “your dad’s military.” 

It’s going to be all military. The sys admin, I call it “your mom’s military.” If it’s your dad’s 

military, it’s going to be young, male, unmarried and slightly pissed off. Your mom’s military 

is going to be older, more gender balanced, more educated, more married, and they’re going to 

have more children. And the problem is that’s the force that’s going to be far more expeditionary because that leviathan force comes and goes, but the sys admin has got to stay, meaning 

your personnel issues get dramatically more complex. You’d see an aging out from one force 

to the other. How do I know? I’ve been to Moyock, North Carolina, where Blackwater has its 

headquarters, and I’ll tell you, everybody there is retired military. So one force takes down networks, okay? Largely fights non-state actors. Another one that’s going to be putting societies 

back together, non-state actors up.

We’re watching this process in Iraq where we can’t hold the center, but it’s the region’s 

external to the center that are recovering. Best example of this split right now, AFRICOM, I 

wrote about it in a piece called “The Americans Have Landed” for Esquire in July of this year. 

I was asked to come down to an MRX in Norfolk and they said, “Why? We think we’re your 

perfect sys admin example.” Combined joint task force, point of Africa. No pointy end on 

the spear. Two thousand guys, couldn’t fight anybody because there’s really no guns attached. 

Okay? Medics, well diggers, some mil-mil trainers, civil affairs galore. When the SWAT has 

to show up though, it does so. Like they did in the recent kinetics as they described them in 

southern Somalia. The SWAT flies in, takes care of business, leaves. The precinct cops have 

to stay behind, have to deal with the enduring reality. So this is the first time post 9/11, post 

Iraq, the military gets a chance to define itself and the split is absolute. There is a wire inside 
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the wire at Lemonier Air where SOCCE (Special Operations Command Control Element). 

Everybody in Lemonier Air does not deal with those people. I was advised not to look at the 

wire, never to pull my camera out anywhere near the wire. Why? Because nobody in Lemonier 

Air knew anything about what those guys were doing. It’s almost a perfect split between SWAT 

and precinct.

In terms of the capabilities, how they’re going to get spread out. The Marines overwhelmingly go to the sys admin resuming a historical role they had working under the State Department prior to the second world war. In terms of the Navy, strategic goes to leviathan, service 

combatants go to the sys admin. My joke is some of them are actually going to be that size. 

You want a thousand ship navy, great article, wrote it for August—or excuse me—this current 

issue of Esquire right now, the October one—based on Harry Ulrich’s work in Naples to create a sea traffic control model based on air traffic control. So he says, “I’ll get you a thousand 

ship navy, but I’m going to borrow about 800-900 from other people’s coast guards to make it 

happen, and the network’s going to be the primary force.” Carriers go both ways because they 

live forever and they’re just really amazingly flexible. Airborne, like carriers. Tanks go to the 

leviathan unless you believe in the Israeli approach to counterinsurgency which I like to shorthand as, “It takes a tank to raze an entire village.” Overwhelmingly, boots on the ground go 

to the sys admin. You can win wars from above. You cannot secure victories from 30,000 feet. 

Air Force—strategic air lift go both ways. You’re going to see much fewer bombers and fighters. They’re going to belong to leviathan. How do I know? Last air force pilot ever involved 

in a dog fight is a one star general, ditto for the last naval aviator. He’s now a one star admiral. 

In terms of special operators. The trigger pullers go to the leviathan because we don’t care to 

explain what they do publicly. Civil affairs, that bastard child of the Army, given away to the 

foster parents in Tampa after Vietnam because we weren’t going to do that anymore, goes back 

to the birth parents in the form of Army Reserve, because it’s not going to be a niche capability. The trigger pullers though make me do this part. They say we have no off season, we drop 

in when we need to, then we’re gone. Now you see me, now you don’t. I was never here. The 

world is my playground. I say not facetiously, I want my trigger pullers trigger happy. I want 

them to go out, kill bad guys distant from our shores, stop the plots long before they’re hatched. 

If they make mistakes, I want them to cover it up very quietly because that kind of perversion 

I find much less frightening than the political perversion of our system if the opposition ever 

pulls off a million dead in Chicago. In terms of the Reserve component—retrain, renegotiate, 

overwhelmingly sys admin. You strip out the combat capabilities from the National Guard and 

they become largely homeland defense, homeland security. In terms of the intelligence community, war is still classified, peace is not. Great example. That story about the retired Marine 

major, Mac, front page of the Wall Street Journal a few days ago, how he becomes the cultural 

advisor for marines operating in the Sunni regions. Perfect. It’s not the kind of problems you 

need to deal with classification. So that’s how it breaks down.

Main argument about thinking about the seam between war and peace, which is hard for 

Americans because we tend to be so binary. We like to declare war on just about everything. I 

like to distinguish between what I call first half war and second half peace. I believe this is the 

guy we’re going to fight over the most of the twenty-first century. On average, he’s going to be 

14, 15, 16 years old, second grade education. Unfortunately, he’s going to be on drugs way too 

much or under the influence of a drug-like ideology. Now if for some reason, this guy doesn’t 

want to take on our leviathan. For some reason, he considers this a patently unfair contest. So 
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he will go quite literally underground. He will hide behind women and children. He’ll refuse to 

fight that force. He’ll wait for those crazy Americans to declare mission accomplished and then 

when the B team is sent in under equipped, under trained, under armored, under funded, under 

prioritized, under everything, he’s going to put them under the gun. His goal, because as a nonstate actor he can’t defeat that force militarily, is very simple. He wants to kill three Americans 

a day and he’s willing to throw unlimited labor at the problem, so he’s a formidable opponent. 

Hamas likes to say, “The seeds of our victory lie in the wombs of our mothers,” which is a poetic way of saying, “I can grow them faster than you can stand killing them.” Either you defeat 

this game plan or you’re going to see it unfold time and time again. We’re going to have a force 

we can’t use because of the capability we don’t have. This is the lesson Israel got in southern 

Lebanon last August, which is why they’re revamping all their training right now. So I like to 

distinguish between war and peace.

This is a terrible question on Iraq. Maybe a question on Iran soon enough, but it’s a question on Iraq for now. How did we lose the war? Why are we losing this war? Why is it not 

going well? I’m very clear on the point. We won a war in Iraq in 2003 in about five weeks 

with 137 combat casualties. That was JUST CAUSE on steroids. What we’ve been losing ever 

since is the peace, and it took us almost three years to come up with some understanding of 

that point. This guy was right about the footprint for the war. People don’t want to hear it. This 

guy was right about the footprint for the peace. People don’t want to hear that either because it 

takes a lot of commitment and you better have a lot of friends for that package. So I say I got 

my department of war, I got my department of peace. Here’s my bad cop. He is stuck working the gap. He dreams of getting it on with the core, specifically China, Taiwan straits, 2025. 

It’s always 20 years in advance. Why? It fulfills a sort of grand strategy that allows us to buy 

weapons systems here on out.

This guy is my good cop. Our problem with him is that he doesn’t understand the gap 

much at all. Their preference is 27 years in Paris and call it an ambassadorship. I go to plenty 

of exercises on the left; I go to plenty of seminars with the bow tie crowd on the right. What 

I do not go to are serious explorations of how you get countries from instability to stability, 

from disconnectedness to connectedness, from war to peace, or from what I call the gap to the 

core. And that process is a bottoms up process. You cannot create governments or economies 

from above. So either we master that transition or it’s drive-by regime change. Some people 

make the argument. Let’s just go back every six to seven years and kill the same bad guys all 

over again. That’s the Powell doctrine in its residual form. We don’t do aftermaths. We just 

win clean wars. I say eventually you’re going to have to create a bureaucratic center of gravity 

inside the US government to deal with this reality. I dub my version the “Department of Everything Else.” I call it that because I’m not quite sure of everything that needs to go into it, but I 

guarantee you, when Dave Petraeus says there is no military solution to this political problem, 

his real problem when he comes back and testifies is he doesn’t work for the department he 

really belongs to. When he goes to the Defense Department by and large, they say, “I’m busy 

planning my brilliant war against the Chinese or maybe the Iranians.” He goes to the State 

Department and there’s nobody there who can talk to him on the subject because they really 

don’t have that expertise. His problem is he works for that department and it does not yet exist, 

although we already have one presidential candidate—a serious one, Giuliani—talking about 

creating a standalone agency that does exactly that. Blended. That’s how you’re going to get 

your package we call 3D.
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Okay, we’ve got two legs of this stool. This is the argument you hear out of CJTF-HOA: 

“Defense, Diplomacy, Development.” if you want to be serious about development in the postwar reconstruction, all that kind of activity, you’ve got to have them out at least on par with the 

Brits in terms of a [inaudible] that stands alone as a serious representation of your commitment, 

which is why I think you’re going to see this commission, the Help Commission, which was 

created by Frank Wolf, just like the Iraq Study Group, I think you’re going to see them come 

out with a recommendation soon, which I hope they act on in the last months of the Bush Administration, to break you off from State and show commitment to really pursuing development 

in a much more comprehensive fashion. Why? Jobs are the ultimate exit strategy. You leave 

a place with 70% underemployment or nonemployment, and I guarantee you you’re going to 

have radical ideologies take hold because that’s survival in those times.

So I’m going to describe a mission gap between the department of war that I’ve got, and 

the department of everything else that I don’t got. This is a problem of success, not failure, and 

it’s a problem of habit instead of realizing we’re in a different world. In the Cold War, if we had 

to use that leviathan force, huge footprint. That’s the way we planned wars. Industrial era. So 

if we had to engage in a follow on sys admin effort, it was easy because we already had tons 

of boots on the ground. The paradigm here in terms of the civil affairs specialty, Normandy, 

June 1944. Huge invasion force. Right on its heels, preprogrammed and even bigger sys admin 

force, because they knew they were going to run France and everything else after that. The 

problem we’ve got today is we have so transformed that leviathan force. It can be still deadly, 

still decisive, still hugely lethal and agile, and be incredibly small. It can come and go, victory 

cigars lit up before we bother mounting the sys admin effort. The lost year in Iraq was basically May 2003 through March 2004. We went from 70 casualties a month in the two month 

war, March and April, and then from May through March of 2004, our casualties dropped from 

roughly 70 to about 40. We didn’t take advantage of that honeymoon period. Since then, we’ve 

averaged 75 casualties a month, 42 months running. We had a capacity right then to deal with 

that reality where we had the bulk of the population on our side and we did nothing about it. 

We basically diddled for about 10-11 months.

So here’s the dynamic we’ve got to get used to. Wars have gotten incredibly shorter. The 

average war today is about 35 days long. It used to be 7-8 years 50 years ago. The peace has 

gotten incredibly longer. Counterinsurgency, post-conflict, post-disaster reconstruction, most 

experts will tell you it’s a nine to ten to twelve year process. This has gotten easier. This has 

gotten incredibly harder. This has gotten cheaper. We did the war in Iraq for about $130 billion. 

This is about $500 billion and counting. I can do this with a small footprint; I cannot escape 

the body requirements here which everybody knew about going into Iraq, 22 to 24 troops on 

the ground per 1000 local population. You get that number and your casualty rates go to almost 

zero.

Art Cebrowski, my old boss, liked to ask the question, “Who sizes our force?” In the Cold 

War, we knew exactly who sized this force. It was the Soviet Union. The question we need to 

be asking ourselves is who’s sizing this force? Because those are going to be basically non-state 

actors. I will tell you the best phase four competition we’ve got out there right now, I would 

argue, is Hezbollah. You may not care for the tactics or the goals, but they will kill you and 

rebuild you better than anybody out there. I would say the best phase zero package out there is 

750,000 Chinese nationals operating across Africa, according to no master plan other than to 
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create activity and connectivity. The army is ambivalent about this shift. They feel they’re going to lose their war fighting ethos and yet we know from reenlistment rates people love doing 

this. I’m traveling around East Africa in the spring. Everybody I meet—army, marines, reservists—say this is the best tour they’ve ever done. Most of them will resign on the spot. Most of 

them didn’t want to go home.

We’re watching the army shift from what it was in the twentieth century, the main war 

force, where it was the navy and marines that did the crisis response. We’re going to see them 

eclipse that naval role and become the main peace force in a shift we haven’t seen in over a 

century. You can track this in terms of the supplementals. We spent more than a half trillion dollars since the end of the Cold War on supplementals, on how you actually pay for operations. 

You break it out. We’re rocketing past an 80/20 breakdown, which makes perfect sense to me. 

The counterinsurgency doctrine comes out and says the answer is about 20% kinetic and about 

80% non-kinetic. That’s because your spending patterns are roughly the same. It’s not a new 

concept. Mom talked about it about 70 years ago.

The shift though is going to be dramatic and it’s profound and I always love delivering 

this message here in Leavenworth with the Buffalo Soldier monument and everything else. I 

say you got to go back to Dances with Wolves to find this sort of structure. We’re talking three 

[inaudible]. We roll everything up into divisions for the twentieth century. [Inaudible] breaks 

it all back down. Why? Because we’re go to rotate just like we did back at a different frontier 

integrating age. The army’s going to be used very differently.

So my argument is you’re going to see this sys admin function grow inside of DOD. Why? 

That’s where the bucks and the bodies are. So when this problem happens for the next President 

and the next President after that, they’re going to keep coming to Defense. Defense is going 

to try to get rid of this function. They’re going to figuratively lob some new office across the 

Potomac every couple of years hoping it sticks in the State Department or USAID or somebody 

else who can please take this tar baby away from me because I don’t like to do it, it’s not my 

core competency, and it’s a bitch politically. It’s very, very, very hard work.

Good example of this—kind of change that we’re going to see. Lockheed Martin buys Pacific Architects and Engineering this year. If you’re not paying attention to that acquisition, that 

is a bellwether for the industry. PA&E is basically the KBR of the State Department. Why did 

Lock-Mart buy them? Lock-Mart is moving into the second half. They’re going to get involved 

in what I call the aftermarket because that’s basically where the money’s going.

I’m making a large argument now about where we need to think about and construct a rule 

set for the core as a whole, as I describe it, in terms of how we’re going to apply US military 

power against largely non-state actors. I want to make an analogy here because the response 

is going to be based on a nation/state level to the issue of economic sovereign bankruptcy. If 

you’re a state and you experience economic sovereign bankruptcy, you refuse to pay your Tbills one afternoon, you get turned over to the IMF and they put you through an A to Z system 

to rehabilitate you and get you back on the playing field. The Russians went through this in 

1997 and 1998 and paid 50 cents on the dollar. Argentina went through it about two or three 

years ago, paid 35 cents on the dollar. If we had a system for processing ungovernable areas, 

what would it look like? My definition of an ungovernable area is in effect a politically bank-
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rupt state. We have plenty of them out there. I’ll give you two definitions. One is they don’t 

have enough government. We call those failed states. Two-thirds of the states inside my gap 

on average can’t keep a leader four years in a row, which is a problem in terms of investment. 

Second type, too much government. Authoritarian. Roughly, one-third of the states inside my 

gap can’t get rid of a leader on average in less than eight years. As an international investor, I 

don’t care to invest in that country. Why? I got to bribe the prick, his brother-in-law, the mother, 

the cousin, the whole clan.

If I had a system A to Z for taking care of this problem, what would it look like? I’m going 

to give you a description of a six-part system. You’re going to say visionary, brilliant, never 

going to happen. I’m going to tell you it’s happened twice already in the Balkans quite nicely. 

All I’m asking is that we make it transparent and regularize it. Why? I’m going to distinguish 

again between that first half and the back half. In the first half, you better have allies, military 

people. In the second half, you better have investors because if you don’t have money, you’re 

not going to make this thing work in the second half. The people who are going to fight you on 

the first half are those who are going to fear economic zero sum outcomes in the second half. 

The countries that fought us going into Iraq turned out to be, not surprisingly, the countries that 

tended to be involved in the oil for food scandal. They saw an outcome in the second half they 

were nervous about and they preferred to keep their exclusive connectivity intact.

The six part system. We’ve got three parts and we’re missing three parts. What we got to 

start it is basically the UN Security Council which acts as a grand jury in the system. It has its 

special prosecutors, basically the technical agencies, like the IAEA that go in and cite violations 

and put it up for the collective will to act upon it. The problem is there is no power attached to 

that collective will. Downstream, you’ve got the Americans with its leviathan like capability 

who says in effect, you want me to take that guy down? I’ll be happy to take him down. I’ll take 

him down on Tuesday and it will cost you $63 billion. But here’s the deal, I’ve got to be home 

for the weekend because the Gators are on television. If we let him talk, he’d talk just like that. 

Way downstream, we’ve got the International Criminal Court set up to try non-state bad actors 

from inside the gap. By definition, if you’re in a political system that has a functioning legal 

system, the ICC has no purview over you. They only pick up when there’s no functioning legal 

system. So by definition, they’re only interested in non-state actors, to include bad government 

leaders. All their indictments so far have come from inside the gap. Now what’s sad about the 

ICC is they have an internationally credentialed system for adjudicating and imprisoning bad 

actors; what they don’t have is a system for getting any. What the Americans have is this amazing force that will snatch and grab anybody they want with impunity and then what do we do? 

Secret evidence, secret witnesses, secret tribunals, rendition programs, prisons we’d rather not 

have you visit. Eventually, our system of snatch and grab is going to get married up to this one. 

Not with this administration, but eventually we’re going to see the logic on it because we can’t 

create a rule set for dealing with non-state actors around the world and pretend we have only 

brand of justice to apply to it. We need to build the case law.

The three parts that we’re missing. A functioning executive to translate that will adequately 

expressed into action by that bad boy and those who could play with him. Second thing we’re 

missing. The sys admin force that’s numbered appropriately, which means going into Iraq, 

SOCCE’s numbers should have been met. We should have had 50,000 Russians. We asked 

for 40,000 and they said no. We should have had 50,000 Indians, quite frankly. We asked for 
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17,000 and their parliament narrowly said no. We should have 50,000 Chinese in Iraq right 

now. We don’t even talk to the Chinese on that level. Why? Inconceivable, I tell you. And yet 

it’s going to be by and large, when all things are settled, it’s going to be Russia’s energy sector 

more than ours. It’s going to be definitely China and India’s oil and gas, a hell of a lot more than 

ours. So I say if it’s going to be their oil, make it a little bit of their blood. We need some sort 

of international and financial institution to fill this gap between the sys admin response and the 

adjudication. And since the World Bank and IMF really don’t do what they did 10-15 years ago 

because the system self healed a lot of these issues, I say one of them ought to be able to step 

forward and take this job on. You’re going to get that functioning executive organically growing out of the G8 as it expands and takes on other emerging powers. That’s how you’re going 

to decide how the money gets spent.

I’m going to describe a black hole in our capabilities. The inability to deal with the connectivity issues post-conflict, post-disaster, which to me is the sin of [inaudible] successful 

intervention. You leave the place more connected than you found it. It’s not about democracy; 

it’s about empowering masses. That’s what we call development in a box.

I’ll make a simple argument here. George Lucas makes a lot of money on movies, but he 

makes even more money on merchandising. I will give you a cell phone so I can put you on a 

subscription plan. I’ll give you a razor so I can sell you blades for the rest of your life, and damn 

if they’re not becoming awfully expensive.

Same basic model here. We’re looking at the aftermarket. GM doesn’t make anything on its 

cars. It makes all its money on selling you the financing for your cars. We got to start looking 

at these aftermarket situations post-conflict [inaudible] like the Chinese do. These are virgin 

market territories. Our real competition with China over the next 30-40 years is who makes the 

most emerging markets happen inside the gap. We don’t look at it like that. We’re almost as 

obsessively myopically focused on Taiwan as their military is, which is sad because it doesn’t 

correspond to either of our strategic challenges. So I’m talking about sort of the perfect push 

package in terms of making a country as connectable to the global economy as rapidly as possible, following whatever kind of disaster you can name. It’s what we should have had for 

Katrina. It’s what we should have had for Baghdad, and it was sad. Dave Petraeus talks about 

the man on the moon scenario or sentiment he gets from the Iraqis. They say if you could put 

a man on the moon, why can’t you make our system work since you’ve come here and taken 

down the most powerful force in the universe, Saddam Hussein. What was so sad when they 

watched Katrina unfold from a distance in Baghdad was they basically said, “Oh now I get it. 

You people are terrible at doing that at home too. Why did we think you could ever possibly 

pull it off in Baghdad?” It’s the same kind of package we should have had for Afghanistan, 

same kind of package we should have had for the Pakistani earthquake. Best example recently 

of a job fairly well done would be Aceh after the Christmas tsunamis where you’ve got now 

the former rebel leader as the elected governor of that situation. His favorite new mentor now 

is Lee Kwon Yu. He’s got the Boston Consulting Group working for him, rewriting his investment laws, and he’s attracting foreign direct investment creating a kind of clean government 

that that place hasn’t seen in quite some time.

So I say we’re searching for an ISO 9000 series analogy here. The cookie cutter comes in 

just this respect. I make the analogy. You come to my subdivision and you want to build a house 
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in my subdivision. I’m going to tell you what all the pipes and the standards and the codes are 

going to be. I am not going to tell you what kind of furniture to pick out or how to run your 

family. I’m going to tell you what the standards are so you can connect up, but I’m not going 

to preach to you about democracy or how to run your system or deal with religion or cultural 

identity within your community.

First order of business, we go into any note as established trust. Why? We want to connect 

it to something larger. This is the dominant global dynamic of our age—the spread of the global 

economy. We either work with it or against it. You want them to plug so they can play, we say 

standardize the interface as much as possible. Why? The private sector is already doing this 

across the board. Excentra, for example, biggest consulting company in the world, has mapped 

out the 1,400 core, common banking practices—the same thing any bank has to do the world 

over, 1,400 of them—so this has been mapped out and this has been digitized and this has been 

put into algorithms like you wouldn’t believe. Argument is let’s provide it to them up front as 

much as possible, attract the private sector backbone providers—our one great success in Iraq 

in this regard, cell phones—so we can connect the place as rapidly as possible. And we’re finally seeing that kind of connectivity come about distant from Baghdad, especially in Kurdistan.

In terms of the standards we use, we say keep it simple. Here are two countries—Singapore 

and China—attracted a lot of foreign direct investment. What threshold have they crossed to 

make them so attractive to the outside world? We say walk the dog backwards because it’s not 

that complex. There’s got to be some level of infrastructure so you can come in and do some 

level of business. Shouldn’t be built out. In fact, most companies want to come in and make 

their money in building out infrastructure. There’s got to be a certain level of social wellbeing. 

Security is about 100% of your problem until you get it, and then maybe it’s 10% of your going 

forward solution. Behind that, there’s got to be a certain legal structure. It doesn’t have to be 

perfect. As an international investor, I come in when it’s sloppy. I’ll be more than happy to help 

you write your foreign direct investment laws. There’s got to be a state behind that, and there’s 

got to be a certain level of security.

Our efforts in Iraq are sad because we think if we create security forces, put enough names 

on enough government doors, we’re done. We’ve created a nation with 70% unemployment, 

otherwise known as the Great Depression. So it’s about connecting countries and being realistic 

about the task at hand. We’re trying to take less developed countries and turn them into this 

magical category that everybody loves, known as a low cost country. What’s the difference 

between a low cost country and a less developed country? I don’t want to invest in a less developed country. I cannot wait to exploit cheap labor in a low cost country. The flip can be as 

easy as Andy Grove saying I’m going to put a billion dollar microchip factory in Ho Chi Minh 

City. Vietnam goes instantly from less developed to low cost and attracts as much foreign direct 

investment in about four years as India has accumulated in the previous 25. So they filled in 

enough of these blanks so they got into the business of getting out of the business of accepting 

official developmental aid as their main form of accessing capital, and they got into foreign direct investment. Traditional official developmental aid is hospice care for the worst cases. The 

Bush Administration created the Millennium Challenge Corporation—fabulous idea. Basically 

a government sponsored sort of hedge fund to get countries up to threshold status. Our argument is if you’re post-disaster or post-whatever, you get to go to the head of the line. If we’ve 

expended blood and treasure on your situation, we’re going to make a special effort to connect 
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you as rapidly as possible, and yes, make an example out of you because you’re the mouse that 

roared in the system. You did something bad or had some sort of tragedy that we had to pay 

attention to.

The Mouse that Roars is actually a Peter Sellers movie from the early 1960s. Small principality with no military power whatsoever declares war on the United States. Why? They 

watched what happened to Germany and Japan. They figured the Americans will come over, 

defeat them instantaneously and then flood them with aid and rebuild their economy and society. Now, what’s funny about this movie when it came out, that was the state of our brand 

in terms of interventions. People wanted us to show up. It was considered a good deal. Now, 

frankly you want to be the country next to the mouse that roars. You get the stupid guy next 

to you to pick a fight with the United States because he’ll get trashed and you’ll make a ton of 

money from all the resulting activity.

In terms of the minimum standard, what we’re shooting for here—we see it as a four part 

process. First, it’s all about best practices and standards. The key ones tend to come in finance. 

What we find in these countries, we’re fighting it right now in Kurdistan. They lack all the basic infrastructure even to have an economic exchange with somebody. Our revolutionary idea 

with Kurdistan, we’re pursing it right now under [inaudible]. We’re going to set up a B-to-B 

exchange basically for Kurdistan in Dubai. So if you want to buy something from Kurdistan, 

there’s actually a way to make the transaction happen without carrying in suitcases full of 

money. Basic stuff.

So we say give them the hardware and the software up front. Our connectivity is our transparency. It’s not about firewalling off American. It’s about spreading our networks as much as 

possible. I want to connect to your port so I can make it as transparent as possible, make it as 

secure as possible so al-Qaeda and other players can’t activate things there.

We say embed the rules in the process. Stop making people rewrite and invent it on their 

own. If you’re going to connect to the global economy and you’re going to have a central bank, 

it’s going to look like a central bank like everybody else’s. If you’re going to do it in a country 

with Sharia, you’re not going to charge for interest. Simple concept. We say you got to prepackage the training, everything else, service contracts three to four years. Everything is as turnkey 

as possible so you create stakeholders as quickly as possible. Again, we’re doing this right now 

in my company in Kurdistan with great success. Why? They’re incentivized. They got cash. 

That’s a country that’s been built. Most successful nation building America’s done in the last 

30 years, and you know what we told them in terms of advice? Absolutely nothing. That gives 

you the sense of how much quality there is in our advice.

As we think about doing this kind of activity though, we’ve got to keep it simple and 

ground level. Americans, when they come into situations, tend to price everything out according to Six Sigma. We gold plate everything. Why? Because we know how to make things happen. Reality has most of the gap needs Two Sigma, One Sigma solutions. Yeah, we want the 

pipes to be gray, but in terms of what you put in and in terms of technology, it should be very 

simple. Great example from CJTF-HOA. They had these well pumping stations. They figured 

out how to make solar panels go on top of them so they could operate 24/7. Brilliant stuff. 

Locals would show up and throw rocks at the solar panels, knock them off, sell it for parts. So 
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they decided to go much more simply. Foot pump. Hard to screw up. Nobody’s going to steal it, 

but it works. So simple things. My advice to Bush would have been going into Iraq, subcontract 

the whole damn reconstruction to the Chinese. I guarantee you, it will be on time, under budget, 

and you’ll have to begin repairs almost immediately. It will not be up to EPA standards. It will 

be ridden with lead. It will work, it will stink to high heaven, you’ll get credit for it. The notion that somehow we’re going to connect these places up according to American standards is 

ludicrous. Get to the arguments from the environmentalists, you’re going to need five planets to 

make this happen. Reality is you connect in Africa, it’s going to be a knockoff of India, which 

is a knockoff of China, which is a knockoff of South Korea, which is a knockoff of Singapore, 

which is a knockoff of Japan, which a long time ago was a decent knockoff of the United States. 

You want to connect places to the global economy, you need to have models from countries that 

are currently connecting. So keep it simple.

I’m with Peters, I would have done Iraq again, absolutely. I would have done it better in 

terms of the postwar, but I would do it again because that system was so ossified, it made sense 

to go in and take down the biggest hombre and unleash something different. The problem with 

the Bush administration is they seem amazed that Shia revival results. But we got to remember, 

our connectivity to the region is limited. These are the countries we have strong connectivity 

with. If we don’t bring the Europeans into the process, we’re missing Syria, Lebanon, Turkey. 

If we don’t bring the Russians into the process, we can’t figure out central Asia very well. Let’s 

be honest. We need the Chinese because of their long term relationship with Pakistan and their 

emerging strategic alliance with Iran. So the notion of economically isolating Iran is just not 

going to work. China’s energy requirements double over the next 20 years. India, same kind of 

situation. With Iran, key connectivity with the Gulf states.

The next step forward is an obvious one. To me at least. The same argument you got from 

the Iraq Study Group. You’ve got to create some sort of regional security dialogue to socialize 

the problem so to speak. We created that in Europe in the early parts of détente. We negotiated 

without violence, without pounding the hell out of somebody, without being in a position of 

dominance or of weakness. With that process we set in motion the connectivity that brought the 

Soviet Union down economically without firing a shot. If you want the [inaudible] and the [inaudible] to arise in the middle east, you’re going to have to create diplomatic top cover. What’s 

going to start this process? What’s going to start this process is Iran’s going to get the bomb 

and Israel’s monopoly on WMD in the region is going to end in about two or three years. And 

that thing is a fait accompli. Iran can basically veto our efforts throughout the region. They’re 

benefiting tremendously from a Shia revival. They’d like to keep that Shia revival focused on a 

pan Islamic message because whenever it becomes Shia versus Sunni, they get the hell kicked 

out of them historically.

They think they’re going to get protection from a US invasion if they reach for a bomb. I 

say if I walk up to a park bench and there’s three guys sitting on the park bench and I shoot the 

guy in the right through the forehead, then I double tap the guy on the left. In the meantime, if 

the guy in the middle reaches for a gun, my question for you, is he irrational? Or did I just make 

that decision for him? That’s exactly how the Iranians look at it when you talk to them. We take 

down the Taliban on the right, we take down Saddam on their left, and they wonder why we 

find it strange that they’re reaching for a bomb in the meantime. Is Iran too irrational to deter? 

I think they’re preemptive, war by proxy against Israel just before our midterm elections was 
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brilliant. These guys invented chess. We want to make them all out to be irrational nutcases and 

this notion that somehow they’re going to get a bomb and turn it right over to terrorists, unfortunately there’s no good history for that. This tendency to extrapolate suicidal nations from 

suicidal individuals is ahistorical. My dad was dealing with kamikaze’s in the Pacific in World 

War II. It didn’t make Japan a suicidal nation. Don’t confuse the two levels. When I look at Iran 

today, I see something very much like late Breshnev in the Soviet Union. The mullahs pretend 

to rule; the public pretends to obey. It is an overwhelmingly young population—70% under age 

30. By and large, they want their connectivity, they want their opportunity, and they don’t see 

it under Ahmadinejad who promised a populist outcome and has not delivered. Ahmadinejad 

suffered a worst midterm than Bush if you can believe it. His candidates lost all across the dial. 

His attempt to pack the assembly of experts that pick the next Supreme Leader, the Supreme 

Leader himself crossed out almost all of his candidates before the election. And guess who 

wins? Rafsanjani. He was just named the Chairman, just like being the Chairman of the College 

of Cardinals. If the Supreme Leader dies tomorrow, I guarantee you Rafsanjani will be the next 

one. Just like that. It’s basically the model Benedict used.

Good news on the middle east though. Long term, everything is flowing in our direction. 

Going to give you four arguments. First one is going to be internal in terms of demographics. 

There are several countries having lots of babies in the middle east. There are as many countries suffering a huge drop in fertility. Iran is chief among them. There is an amazing birth 

dearth going on in Iran in addition to a brain drain. What that means is you’ve got a youth 

probably between 10 and 29 right now that I guarantee you demographic center of gravity is 

going to move into that 30 to 50 range over the next 20-25 years, which means the middle east 

in terms of its dominant center of gravity demographically is going to middle age over the next 

20-25 years. And if you’re bin Laden, if you’re the radical Salafi jihadist, you know society 

changes when that happens and so the clock is ticking on them. Our point is not to screw it up 

in the meantime.

Three other external blowbacks are going to have profound impact on the middle east. We 

have a tendency to equate Islam with the middle east. But let me ask you what you think the 

five biggest Muslim countries are in the world because I’ll tell you none of them are in the 

middle east. Half of Islam’s population are in five countries that do not belong to the middle 

east, none of whom are Arab, and yet we confuse the two constantly. So the first one, there’s 

going to be a religious reformation led by uppity Muslim women in North America. It will be 

broadcast by Iranians out of Los Angeles. I say to Islam, too damn bad. It’s happened to every 

religion that’s ever come here. There’s going to be a political reformation in Europe which is 

inconceivable from today’s perspective, but we’re going to watch it happen. It’s going to happen and it’s going to be big and it’s going to probably start in France. You’re going to see the 

rise of Islamist parties and you’re going to see their inclusion in the political system. It will 

be as inconceivable to us in the long war as the rise and inclusion of Marxist parties were in 

western Europe during the Cold War and yet they will serve the same function. They will connect disenfranchised, ghettoized, socioeconomically deprived populations to a larger political 

system and economics. Third one is going to be much more important though. It’s going to be 

the economic reformation led by the lead geese in south and east Asia. Key players—Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore. Sure you could be roughly pluralistic, market oriented. Indonesia, 

Malaysia for example. Pioneers in this concept of Islamic bonds. They went to the middle east 

eight years ago and asked the mullahs, “Can we get permission for floating debt of sovereign 
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nations.” And all the imams in the middle east said absolutely not, it’s against Sharia. They 

somehow pioneered a version since then. It’s now an $800 billion industry and the middle east 

is glomming onto it like crazy. In fact, it’s becoming so popular, they’re selling that to nonMuslims.

What’s interesting about the oil boom this time—and you’re going to see all these arguments in the Wall Street Journal. The money this time is not coming to America to be recycled. 

The money this time is going to Asia to tap into a huge infrastructure boom. We always describe 

our problems in terms of dangerous, extremist non-state actors. The reality is the non-state actors who are going to change the middle east are all located in our neck of the woods. All these 

things are about creating a public/private division. Our religion is really not that different in 

terms of our arguments. You ask any Christian and a lot of them will tell you that God’s law is 

supreme. But the answer is, even though I’m not for abortion as a Catholic, I can’t impose that 

on a political sphere. And that’s the same sort of division we’re going to see happen. As Islam 

globalizes they’re searching for that definition and we can’t confuse the girl who goes to school 

in France wearing the head scarf as somehow shoving her identity down our throats when what 

she’s trying to do is get permission through that identity to actually go to that public school and 

to create a private and public distance between those two different realities. 

I’m going to make an argument about how we have to think about a different sort of alliance structure as we look at this frontier integrating age and realize that the non-state actors that 

are going to drive this process are going to be overwhelmingly civilian and not military. I’m 

going to reveal my bias here, which is important. There is a family photo. That’s me, that’s my 

wife, that’s my daughter, that’s my son, that’s my second son, and that’s our second daughter, 

fourth child as I like to describe her possibly a fifth column. She hales from an interior providence in China called Jung Shi, from a small village of only 400,000. Want to make an argument out of China and how we need to think about China in similar ways as to how the Brits 

thought about us as we rose as a power. There’s a great new book out on the subject, in many 

ways, it’s by Jay Winik. It’s called ... I can’t remember the name, but he’s the guy who wrote, 

April 1865. Great book. I want to make an argument that if you look at China right now, you 

can find the last 125 years of American’s developmental experience. And by that I mean basically everything from the kind of product worker safety issues that you’re seeing China deal 

with now in terms of their products that we had 125 years ago, right up to the go-go entrepreneurialism that we’re experiencing now. China is one of the most entrepreneurial societies out 

there. In terms of their foreign policy, it looks an awful lot like about Teddy Roosevelt time. 

In terms of their space program, I raise my glass of Tang in salute. And yes, when they shoot 

down one of their satellites, they’re signaling us. In terms of their internal investment, it’s like 

our 1920s. In terms of their emergence on the sports stage, I guarantee you they’re going to 

win the most gold medals in Beijing in 2008 and I guarantee you the Senate is going to launch 

an immediate investigation into this national humiliation. Sexual revolution going on all across 

China. They’ve got a movie industry to die for. They’re post-industrial. They still like to break 

heads. They got women joining the labor force in a virtual revolution. All of this going on at 

the same time. The best mass media representation of what it’s like to engage in capitalism in 

China right now, I say catch the last season of HBO’s Deadwood, because that’s exactly what 

it’s like, and it’s stunning.

On top of all that change, you’ve got the biggest rural to urban migration in human history. 
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You’ve got the biggest shift from a planned to a market economy we’ve ever seen. You’ve got 

a country that was closed to the outside world connecting very rapidly. And you’ve got a shift 

from being a relatively young country to an amazingly old country. On top of that, they’re going to create an environmental disaster that we’ve never seen before in terms of its scope and 

scale. And we’re seeing a shift from a generation of leadership that didn’t travel abroad for its 

tertiary education to those who came and studied in America who see the world very differently 

from the fourth generation. I know. I went to school with these guys in the late 1970s and early 

1980s, and when you talk to the next generation that’s going to be named in terms of political leadership inside China later this fall, and will transition over the next three to four years, 

you’re talking about a generation of leaders, political scientists, business majors, economists 

replacing technocrats. It’s going to be a dramatic upgrade in China’s diplomatic capabilities 

which is why what I’m going to describe next is not at all inconceivable.

I want to make the argument that the Brit’s choice on us at the beginning of the 1900s is 

much like our choice with China. The Brits at that point could see the rising, their star kind 

of fading in terms of their economic dominance and so they hitched themselves to the rising 

star in the west, otherwise known as the Americans. On that basis, Britain was able to punch 

above its weight the entire twentieth century. It was a brilliant bet, and quite frankly it wasn’t 

as carved in stone and as inevitable as people make it out to be. You go back and look at how 

they viewed our rise in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, and you go back and look 

at America during the outbreak of World War I when we were not quite sure whether we were 

going to go with the Germans or with the Brits because as a country of about less than a 100 

million people, we had 12 million new German and Irish immigrants, neither of whom were 

particularly interested in making that call. The call the Brits basically had to make was, do we 

[inaudible] this guy so we can deal with this guy? And they made the right call.

In terms of our century of economic dominance, it has peaked. It’s not because we’re not 

the most entrepreneurial, innovative society or economy out there. Really, the only countries 

that compare are Israel and Taiwan, and increasingly China on the margins. It’s because when 

you invite three billion new capitalists, the biggest non-state actor of them all, you change 

global history when they join the marketplace. So my argument is either we attach ourselves 

to the rising star in the east or we’re not going to be able to punch above our weight and we’re 

proving that right now in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The mil-mil cooperation we got with China right now is pathetic, and yet we’re talking to 

them, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you got rid of Kim Jong Il for us,” which I equate to wanting to go 

all the way on the first date. I say over here, you’ve got the unprincipled leviathan. He’s willing 

to invade anywhere, looking for non-state actors he wants to put in jail. He doesn’t give a rat’s 

ass about international law. Over here, I’ve got the ultimate unprincipled sys admin. He’ll come 

anywhere you want, anywhere you allow him. He’ll build roads, infrastructure, he wants your 

stuff, he wants to conquer your markets. He doesn’t care if you don’t respect human rights. 

He’s not interested. I put these two together, I almost have a semi-principled full service super 

power for shrinking the gap.

Think about the countries that helped us define the leviathan in the cold war. We’re going 

to need all their help to help us figure out the sys admin. It’s not coincidental that that the best 

advisor Petraeus has is Kilcullen, not surprising at all. But we don’t have the bodies in those 
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shops to make this thing happen. Frontier integration takes a lot of bodies. You’ve got to locate 

bodies from the rising frontier integrating powers of the age. So when I think about a sys admin strategic triad for the twenty-first century, no doubt who it’s going to be. It’s going to be 

the United States, it’s going to be China and it’s going to India. My argument is you locate the 

labor, where the problems are. All the proliferation we worry about around the Indian Ocean 

rim, we’re interested in going into Africa. The Chinese are already there en masse. If you think 

about this in a larger globalization sense, it all makes sense. You go back to the seventeenth, 

eighteenth centuries, the beginning of nation states, the original construct we call globalization 

now began in the European environment. And what did they do across the nineteenth century? 

They replicated themselves successfully in North America, not so in South America or Africa. 

So what happens after Europe self destructs in a half century of civil war, basically? Well, the 

Americans replicate that experience more and more in the rise of the Asian economy. So when 

you think about who’s going to make this gap get shrunk in the future, it’s not going to be the 

Europeans, and quite frankly in body count, it’s not going to be the Americans. Both of us price 

out too high—politically and economically. It’s going to be the countries that join globalization 

last, and what we have to do is start realizing that when China penetrates these places, India 

does increasingly, Brazil does. It doesn’t represent a threat. It represents an opportunity if we 

can wake up and realize who our allies are going to be, the ones that are going to be most important to us as we move ahead.

This exploitation process, this replication process, it’s all about resources and labor up 

front. But over time, it’s about exporting of downshifted industries. So the same industries that 

Europe didn’t want, that they sent to America in the nineteenth century, and then we sent to 

Asia, Asia’s going to turn around and send to places like Africa over the twenty-first century.

An argument echoing Ralph’s points about remapping the world. A country’s capacity for 

stability following any sort of civil war or disaster directly equates to how squiggly its borders 

are. They’ve done this analysis. Africa is a good example. The more squiggly your borders, 

the more stable your society and government and polity. Why? If you’ve got squiggly borders, there must be some sort of natural line—mountain, river or something—or you must 

have fought some wars to make that thing squiggly. The straighter they are, the more likely it 

is that somebody else drew the lines for you. Forty-two percent of the lines inside of Africa 

are straight. They were drawn by the Europeans. Big surprise. So when we think about Africa 

coming online, I guarantee you there’s going to be a certain remapping process. Why? Seventy 

percent of the so-called bottom billion in the global economy—70% of the one billion out of 

six plus that are the most poor, 70% of them are in interior countries in Africa. None of those 

countries should have been created. They really shouldn’t have. They’re not sustainable. The 

reality is you’re going to see a remapping process. It’s going to come about through a variety of 

means, but somehow those countries are going to become economically, politically networked 

in terms of their connectivity towards the coast. That process in many instances is going to be 

violent. Think about the United States. You can see the pattern pretty quickly. Here’s the original 13 colonies. Fairly squiggly. Defined mostly by the coast. Look how we settle the trans-Appalachian west. Two big dividers—basically, the Mississippi and the Ohio Rivers. Then look 

how easy it got after the American civil war. Notice how they get so straight and kind of boxy 

looking. Same basic process.

This is the process we’re going to see in a lot of different countries as we move ahead. 
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We’re going to see the dissolution of fake states. Yugoslavia was a fake state. What happened 

when globalization came to Yugoslavia? It happens in every country. The most competent rich 

one wants out. He says, “I can cut a better deal on my own. I want a divorce.” That’s what 

happened with Slovenia, then Croatia said me too, then Bosnia said me three, and that’s when 

the fighting really got serious, and we spent the 1990s dismembering Monty Python’s Black 

Knight—Milosevic—who idiotically taunted us to fight on. And we were told by Bob Kaplan 

don’t go. These hatreds are ancient. They’ll go on forever. You’ll never solve this equation. I 

sat down in Dubrovnik summer before last, June 2006, with the Prime Ministers around the 

table of all the surviving republics, plus Albania. They went around the table over lunch. Each 

of them said, “I’m going to be the best new member of NATO possible.” We actually put in 

fewer NATO peacekeepers into the Balkans than they send out to help us elsewhere, which 

means they’re already security exporters. And they all said, “I want to be the best new member 

of the EU.” My favorite point when I actually spit out my food was when the President of 

Albania stood up—and if you know anything about Albanian history—said, “My dream is to 

make Albania the most attractive target for foreign direct investment in the world.” I checked 

my Kool-Aid at that point.

Same basic problem you’ve got with Iraq, which was drawn by the Brits. Fake country. 

Notice the straight lines. Basically, the first surge was to make [inaudible] came to the conclusion they weren’t going to get it the way it was. And to flip them into turning al-Qaeda/Iraq out. 

What Petraeus is basically proposing with the next surge, which is to keep troops for the next 

six months at this level, is basically to turn necks to dealing with the Shia, and the number one 

problem there is frankly helping them understand they’ve won. So get over it.

We’re doing right now the development in a box concept up in Kurdistan. Why can we do 

it there? Because it’s peaceful for now. But the reason why they want countries and companies 

to come in dramatically and create connectivity to the outside world is they know they’re basically going to get an al-Qaeda like challenge very soon, plus they’re going to face pressure 

from the countries that have Kurd populations around them. So we’re watching America’s role, 

basically a Vietnam done backwards. We’re going to go from direct action to advisory because 

we did the Balkans backwards. We took the dictator out first and then we let the ethnic cleansing unfold instead of doing it the other way around.

This process, we’re going to see repeated time and time again. Here’s a conceptual description of it. This curve. I’m not talking all states, I’m talking fake states on the left. They’re 

usually held together by a dictator. If globalization comes in, the place falls apart, the most 

competent won out first, then you get the civil strife. You get the disillusion. And if you’re unlucky, you get a failed state with a lot of genocide. It’s disconnected, it’s ungovernable. Often, it 

will be described as never possibly governable, so we should not even go there. My argument is 

you’re going to have to find some way to deal with that decomposition and reconnect first and 

foremost in terms of economics, letting the politics come back over time. We’re watching that 

process in Iraq right now. The connectivity that’s happening in terms of Shia, Sunni, Kurd with 

the outside world is actually working fairly decently economically. And that’s going to create a 

political process over time that’s going to take quite some time.

You could jump this chasm. Countries that do it do as single party states. I’ll cite three examples. There’s the Russian example. They dismember politically. That gets rid of the Soviet 
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Union. Yeltsin economically liberalizes way too much. Putin is the legal retrenchment. You’ve 

got the Chinese model. Done smarter. Chose economic liberalism first. You see the legalization 

of their economic connectivity to the outside world. You’re going to see the political pluralism 

come about very, very slowly. The model we’re more familiar with, the tigers, they create a 

firm legal structure, export driven growth, you get a middle class, you get a South Korea that 

becomes truly democratic about 10 years ago. So the three constructs I’m giving you to deal 

with this curve, which I think you’re going to see time and time again. You’re going to see fake 

countries come apart. You’re going to see them break into smaller constituencies. If you’re 

lucky, you’re going to make that constituency work in terms of its economic connectivity. And 

over time, bundled back up into new political packages. You’re going to need the leviathan 

to deal with that downward curve. You’re going to need the sys admin which is basically the 

surge strategy we’ve got going now in Iraq to deal with the bottoming out process, and I actually think we’re doing a fairly decent job if our political will can last long enough. But you’re 

going to need the development in a box kind of capacity to connect countries if you’re going 

to move them forward. And the place to watch in that one, I’d say is Kurdistan. I’ll end it there 

and take questions.
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Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett Slide Addendum:

Global Security: Continuing Conflict in the Middle East

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Day 3—Featured Speaker

Question and Answers

(Transcript of Presentation)

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett

Enterra Solutions

Audience Member

I’m Don Wright from CSI. Quick question on getting the nonfunctioning groups into the functioning core. How would you rule such a deal with religious fervor. Interpretations of the 

Qur’an that requires spread of the faith, or for that matter, Christian missionaries coming into 

those not-integrating nations?

Dr. Barnett

Sure. The revival of religion is not a cause of problems, it’s a symptom of problems. The best 

guy to read on this is a French scholar named Olivier Roy, wrote a book called Globalized 

Islam, and a second book called Secularism versus Islam, which makes the argument that you 

get the religious revival not because the Soviets go away and all the terrorist groups needed to 

have some other justification for their activity. That is true for the terrorist groups. But you get 

the larger revival of radical Islam and the globalization of Islam primarily in response to globalization’s embrace in the middle east and the fact that you get a big outflow of population.

So Islam has lost in effect its cultural identity and becomes like all other transcendent religions 

largely devoid of cultural contact. It can survive in any place. Anybody can convert. And once 

you get that process—we saw it with Christianity previously—you get the missionary kick-in 

big time. So any country that’s recently globalized or join my core, I guarantee you, go look at 

them. South Korea. You look at the rise of religion in China. The countries that are connecting 

and integrating with the outside world, there is always a revival of religion because it’s a way 

to maintain your sense of identity under hard conditions. You move from the rural to the urban. 

Under a similar package 100 years ago, you might have reached for Marxism. Not available 

now and you really ... really, just identity.

We’re seeing the same things in terms of a big flow of people from the middle east to Europe. 

So it’s not a package so much to be fought as one to be massaged over time. I mean, it’s a 

reality you’re going to have to live with and it’s not a bad thing because that kind of religious 

connectivity by and large is hugely beneficial. It is a survival mechanism. What you have to 

do though is connect on a political and economic basis those populations before they get ghettoized. You know, ghettoized Muslims in Europe is just like a ghettoized middle east in the 

global economy. You have to deal with the fact that it’s the poor connectivity that gets you the 

suspicion and the reach for kind of radical identities to preserve what they think is a pass path 

that’s under onslaught from a homogenizing effect called globalization. And the more globalization comes to the middle east, and it’s not a product of American imperialism as much now 

as it’s just a simple function of those three billion new capitalists creating resource flows and 
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financial flows and all sorts of stuff that’s profound. You’re going to have to deal with that rising religious fervor, not only in what I call the gap, but throughout the core. I agree with Ralph, 

it’s going to be a very religious century. I don’t see that as a problem in and of itself. I see that 

as a reality that’s symptomatic of a frontier age. If you go back and look at America when we 

were conquering the west, it was a very socially conservative, religious, strict ... great example 

of honor killings in American cinema is John Wayne in The Searchers hunting down Natalie 

Wood, his niece, who was taken away by the Indians and ruined. His goal was to find her and 

kill her because she had been so ruined by the experience. You have to go back to that kind of 

time frame in our paradigm to understand why that kind of logic makes sense. We’re going to 

see it repeated.

Audience Member

Bruce Beavers from JCISFA. What’s the difference between China and your three billion entrepreneurs that you referred to in those two very different terms?

Dr. Barnett

They are about 40% of them. You know, China’s got an economy that’s more capitalistic than 

just about any economy in the world right now. I mean, it’s brutally so. And I’m serious about 

the comparison to Deadwood. I mean, there are so few rules right now in China. We call it a 

police state because you can’t speak about democracy openly. Now, you can dam up a river and 

totally torch a village and come in and pollute the place like crazy and build huge factories and 

treat your workers under slave-like conditions. That you can do at will. But if you talk about 

democracy it’s a police state.

Their shift towards acceptance of more rules is going to be one of the big dynamics of the 

twenty-first century, and it’s going to be driven just like it is now—primarily by scandal. As we 

become more connected to them, we’re going to find more things we don’t like about products 

and their labor standards and what they’re doing to our environment, and how they’re creating 

pollution that reaches the west coast and all that kind of stuff. They’re going to be such a huge 

force in terms of an environmental footprint across the twenty-first century. Global warming 

being one of the classic examples. They’re going to be the biggest emitter of CO2

 if they’re not 

already. Not on a per capita basis, but on a sheer volume basis. But we’re going to see the adjustment of their version of entrepreneurialism to a new sort of more economically and socially 

and environmentally sustainable model, which is going to be different from the one that we’ve 

had because we live in a very resource rich country and the Europeans have kind of perfected a 

more modest lifestyle based on a smaller resource base and because they’re more crowded.

What China and India and the countries that are emerging right now are going to have to do 

is going to be—it’s going to be, I think, a dramatically different version of capitalism, but it’s 

going to be one that’s going to be exportable in the next round to those places I call the gap. 

So I think accessing that immense amount of R&D and creativity that’s going to go to these 

problems in these countries because they have the biggest problems. I mean, if 80% of your 

males smoke, I guarantee you you’re going to have a huge cancer industry really fast. Because 

they don’t have the litigious society that we do, what’s fascinating to watch—this is a great 

example—they take genetic cures for cancer that we think are too risky here and they try them 
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like crazy in China. Kill a few people? They don’t care. Then once they got the model, what do 

they do? They come to America and they get a patent because they want to sell that new cure to 

the United States to help fund the pursuit of that kind of cure for their own population. We’re 

going to see that dynamic happen again and again on hybrids in terms of cars. All sorts of innovations are going to be picked up by the Asians and the Chinese in particular first because 

they have the biggest problems and they’re willing to take the most risks and we’re going to 

benefit from all that activity.

Audience Member

Richard Stewart, Military History. I appreciate your view of China as a rising economic power 

which we’ve obviously seen play out over the last few decades. But perhaps your understating of the still inherent instability within China on a number of levels before we sign up for a 

big global partnership with them, that we’re such different societies, unlike the British and the 

Americans who were very similar in many ways. The Chinese, of course, have a demographic 

problem with their killing off of a lot their young females. They’re ending up with a disbalance 

within their own population of an excessive number of males that will add to instability over 

the next few years.

Dr. Barnett

That’s a theory.

Audience Member

Yeah, it’s a theory.

Dr. Barnett

It’s never happened in a modern sense in Asia, but it’s a theory. Please go ahead.

Audience Member

All right. The other, of course, is even though there are 300 million Chinese who have risen 

to some degree of wealth and prosperity over the last few decades, there still leaves about 800 

million or at least 600 million that are in desperate poverty that I’m sure keeps the Chinese 

leadership awake at night wondering when they’re going to wake up and flood and riot in the 

cities as they have done in past cycles of history. So I can certainly sign up perhaps to your partnership with India, a sloppy democracy, but a democracy nonetheless with fewer demographic 

problems perhaps than the Chinese before I’m going to look for a Chinese-American alliance. 

Anyway, that’s my take.

Dr. Barnett

Yeah. The instability questions on China are huge, but that’s what makes them such a conservative power in terms of international relations. Their problem, and they know it, is that their 

level of economic connectivity to the outside world is dramatically rising. It’s like looking at 
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America about 1880. And yet their political and military ability to deal with that huge connectivity that’s rising with the outside world is very small, and it’s the gap between that capacity 

to manage that connectivity and that huge rise in connectivity that’s really their number one 

security problem. Not Taiwan. And when you talk to fifth generation leaders, they get that. 

Now, what did America do when it woke up to that reality in 1880 to 1890? We created a whole 

notion of grand strategy. We created a great white fleet and we basically reran the US military 

from this force that mostly fought itself and fought Indians to this force that was a global power 

that could access conflicts distant from our shores. We rebranded basically from 1890 to 1920. 

And I would argue that the PLA basically has to do the same thing much more rapidly because 

they’re going to find themselves in situations time and time again and we’re just starting to see 

this on the tip of the iceberg where their workers are going to be killed, where their companies 

are going to be attacked, where radical elements are going to try to drive out Chinese economic 

interests because they represent globalization.

Now, you make the argument about the cultural difference between us and China. I would say 

spend some time in China because the cultural differences in terms of the economics I would 

say are really mild to almost nonexistent increasingly. When I look at the European version of 

capitalism, we’re closer to the entrepreneurial type that you see in England, but you look at the 

continental version of capitalism in Europe and compare that to China, I would argue that we 

have a hell of a lot more in common with China on the economics than we do with Europe on 

the economics. And I think we’re moving from an age—and I know it’s a hard one to explain 

or convince people on—where America’s going to view countries as friends less on the basis of 

their political similarities and more on the basis of their economic similarities because I think 

the competition and globalization is going to become so fierce, we’re going to recognize allies 

more in countries that look like us economically than that assumption we carry over from the 

Cold War that if you look like us politically then you must be our friend. If you don’t look like 

us politically, then you must be our enemy. That’s a mindset that’s very strong, and I understand 

it.

I also think as you see the rise of that kind of strong connectivity between Asia and the United 

States, especially in terms of Asia’s media exports which are profound and not well understood—I have two teenagers and two young kids—I will tell you all my kids are turning Asian. 

I’ve got one Asian kid and I’ve got three who are turning Asian right before me. Why? All 

they want to do is study Japanese and Chinese, and what are they obsessed with? Anime, video 

games from South Korea, the rise of that cultural influence in the United States is profound, 

but it’s generationally at a low level at this point. You give it another 20 years, the similarities 

between the United States and Asia on culture is going to achieve that kind of Blade Runner

mix a lot more than people realize. And the influence of the European cultural traditions and 

what-not are going to diminish pretty dramatically. I guarantee you, that’s a hard argument to 

make to a Sam Huntington and others who would make the argument that the United States 

is basically defined by its European heritage. But I’ve seen this country change a lot of times 

over 20 or 30 years and I think it’s going to change dramatically over the next 40 to 50 years, 

especially as we see a rising Hispanic quotient which is going to be profound in terms of our 

culture and our politics. But I’m not—I don’t buy the argument in many ways that we have to 

pick India over China, especially since if I pick China I basically get India in the bargain. But if 

I try to take India, Australia, South Korea, Japan and hedge against the rise of China by creating 

an encircling containment sort of package, which is very openly discussed in the national secu-
389

rity establishment, I think it’s going to lose because when I spend time with all those countries, 

they all say the same thing. I mean, the military guys will say we’ll choose you. If you talk to 

the business leaders, they’ll say, you know what? We’re going to choose China if you make 

us choose because we’re not going to miss out on that package. There’s just too much money 

to be made. And I believe the political realities create military realities, and I think economic 

realities create political realities. And it’s not going to be surprising as you see China rise and 

become such a huge economic player that you’re going to see political alliances shift on that 

basis, and countries that we called enemies, we’re going to call friends because money talks 

more. So I’m a realist.

Audience Member

Lieutenant Colonel George Sarabia with Combat Studies Institute. Could you expand a little 

bit more about your views of the African Command? The decision to move in that direction? 

I know you recently visited and you talked about that briefly, and you saw a lot of the system 

administrations piece. But as you bring in all of the things that go along with that headquarters 

and bring in potentially more of that leviathan force or the potential for that leviathan force, that 

can be going in the wrong direction potentially. Could you expand on that, sir?

Dr. Barnett

Yeah, and there’s a lot of fear expressed from African countries, and there’s a lot of nervousness 

by countries like China that worry that this is going to be a flashpoint for kind of a competition and a rejection of China’s economic penetration of Africa. Like, you know, we’re going 

to make that call with 10,000 troops or something. If you take the model of CJTF-HOA which 

they’re going to do, and replicate it—north, south, west and central—I mean, you’re really talking about 10,000 troops basically. And how many SOF operators do you need to kill bad guys 

on occasion? Well, we used two dozen to take care of southern Somalia when we were trying 

to create a kill zone with about 3,000 foreign fighters and al-Qaeda. So I mean, it’s like a joke 

about a carrier. How many carriers do you need? I need one carrier. I just need to know where 

to put it all the time.

So how many SOF leviathan like forces do I need for Africa? I would argue the number’s 

frankly in the dozens if you do your picking well because the bulk of your activity is going to 

be that low level integration kind of stuff and peacekeeping. And what Darfur needs is a visit 

from some guys to take out a few people, but then it needs a whole bunch of guys to come 

and sit there for awhile. And that’s where I see the possibility of strategic redefinition of our 

relationship with the Chinese because the Chinese are already there. They’ve already committed themselves to that kind of peacekeeping model and becoming one of the biggest providers. 

Still embryonic, but that’s a big force, a big budget that’s rising that I would like to tap over the 

next 20 or 30 years to make a different sort of outcome possible in Africa. I believe it’s possible there because we don’t have any strategic bagging with the Chinese there. And both the 

Chinese and us are kind of treated suspiciously by the locals, but there’s no animosity like there 

is with the former colonial masters.

As that package comes about with AFRICOM, and you see the franchise model, my advice 

would be don’t put the headquarters anywhere there. I think there’s no reason to do so. I think 
390

the best thing would be to have the five franchise models. If it was up to me, I’d put AFRICOM’s headquarters in northern Virginia because my whole focus would be 3D. I’d also rewrite whatever you had to rewrite to make the commander, so called, of AFRICOM a retired 

four star, and then I’d do what they’re going to do which is make a USAID person or state 

person, I would make USAID the deputy commander and I would build an Africa command 

that within five years all military planning was done through the Africa command.

All developmental planning was done through the Africa command. All diplomatic strategy 

was done through the Africa command and you get the package that we should have had for 

Iraq for this part of the world that we’re trying to preemptively deny to a radical Salafi jihadist 

penetration over time. Because when they get kicked out of the middle east, as they will over 

time. Al-Qaeda has never won anywhere. We buy their bullshit propaganda, but they never 

win anywhere. I guarantee you, they’re going to try to go to central Asia, but there’s so many 

players, including Iran, who don’t want to see that happen who will kill to make sure it doesn’t 

happen. Like Putin and the rest of that crowd, and China and the rest of them. The Shanghai 

Cooperation Council. So you’re going to see that when they have to evacuate, so to speak, the 

middle east over time the only place they can go is sub-Sahara in Africa. To the extent we strategically cut that off over time, we’re shutting down, not opening up, a front in the long war. 

So my argument would be a very different package—preemptively nation build there—and I 

would elevate my four star civilian retiree commander of AFRICOM to an almost US ambassador to the UN sort of level in the US cabinet. That would be the basis for my department 

of everything else. I would grow it organically that way, and I’d let AFRICOM become such 

an example, picking up on the muted example of Southern Command and I let those things 

be the cannibalizing agents that remake my combatant commands over time to get toward an 

ideal, which for me is—and I got this argument from SOCOM years ago, we should just sort of 

have one command that is going to sys admin around the world, and then we should just have 

SOCOM which goes after bad guys. Because the model of war fighting that we got more and 

more over time is we come looking for two or three dozen, four dozen, five dozen bad guys. 

We’ll defeat a certain force, but at the end of the day, we want the deck of cards. We want Milosevic and then 10 of his cronies. We want Manuel Noriega. We want Adid in Somalia. I mean, 

wherever we go, we seem to want some collection of guys at the end of the day. So I think it 

could be a tremendously positive thing. If you get that model of AFRICOM developing, you 

get ... USAID broke off. You get the creation of Civilian Reserve Corps. You get a Giuliani or 

somebody else. I mean, Giuliani is talking about it. I guarantee you, if you’re the next President, you’re going to get sucked into one of these things and if you don’t have a package that 

works next time, the American public is going to look at you and say, come on, after Iraq and 

Afghanistan, how can we not sort of get this right at some point? You’re going to reflexively, 

if you’re smart, reach for some sort of bureaucratic agency, create a center of gravity in the US 

government to make the possibility of that execution a lot better next time. And it won’t be that 

much better. I mean, it will be a learning curve that we get better at over time, but I think it’s 

going to be a problem set we’re going to face time and time again. And to the extent that Africa 

Command can teach us about it, it’s going to be great. Thank you very much.
391

Appendix A

Conference Program

Day 1

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

0730 – 0750 Registration

0750 – 0800 Administrative Announcements

0800 – 0805 Opening Remarks

 Colonel Timothy R. Reese

 Director, Combat Studies Institute

Keynote Speaker

0815 – 0930 Keynote Presentation

The Army and the Global War on Terrorism

 General (Ret) Barry R. McCaffrey

 Adjunct Professor of International Relations

 United States Military Academy

0930 – 0945 Break

Panel 1

0945 – 1115 International Perspectives

A French View on the War in French-Algeria

 LCL Philippe François (FR Army)

 FR Center of Army Forces Employment Doctrine

 Political Consequences of Military Operations in

 the Long War: The Israeli Experience, 2000-2006

 Mr. Adam Harmon

 Author; Military Consultant

 Moderator

 Dr. Ricardo A. Herrera

 Combat Studies Institute

1115 – 1300 Lunch

Day 1

Tuesday, 11 September 2007
392

Panel 2

1300 – 1430 The Role of Culture

 Caliphate and Islamofascism: Two Irrelevant

 Factors in the Long War

 Dr. Michael Scheuer

 Jamestown Foundation

 The American Culture of War

 Dr. Adrian Lewis

 University of North Texas

 Moderator

 Dr. Curtis King

 Combat Studies Institute

1430 – 1445 Break

Panel 3

1445 – 1615 Shaping the Battlefi eld

 The Policing Paradox: The Dilemma of Colonial

 Policing and Military Security in the Age of Terrorism

 Dr. Derek Catsam

 University of Texas of the Permian Basin

 Shaping the Conditions for a Post Confl ict Environment

 Major(P) Doug Davids

 US Army Combined Arms Center

 Special Operations Forces Cell

 Moderator

 Lieutenant Colonel George Sarabia

 Combat Studies Institute

1615 – 1630 Administrative Announcements

Day 2

Wednesday, 12 September 2007

0730 – 0750 Registration

0750 – 0800 Administrative Announcements

0800 – 0930 Featured Speaker

 Strategic Communications—The Information Battlefi eld

 Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell IV

 Commanding General

 US Army Combined Arms Center

0930 – 0945 Break

Day 2

Wednesday, 12 September 2007
393

Panel 4

0945 – 1115 On the Ground in Iraq

 The Challenge of Providing Security in the

 Post-Combat Phase Urban Environment

 Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Farrell, Ph.D.

 United States Military Academy

 The Baghdad Security Plan and Non-State Actors

 Ms. Linda Robinson

 US News and World Report

 Moderator

 Dr. Donald Wright

 Combat Studies Institute

1115 – 1300 Lunch

 Optional Tour of Historical Fort

 Leavenworth (w/ Bag Lunch)

 Mr. Kelvin Crow

 Combat Studies Institute

Panel 5

1300 – 1430 Non-State Actors, the US Army, and

 the Law of War

 At War with Non-State Entities

 Mr. Lee A. Casey

 Baker Hostetler Law Firm

1300 – 1430 Non-State Actors, the US Army, and

 the Law of War (cont’d)

 Legal Doctrines for War Among the People

 Dr. Michael F. Noone, Jr.

 Columbus School of Law

 Moderator

 Mr. Charles D. Collins, Jr.

 Combat Studies Institute

1430 – 1445 Break

1445 – 1615 Featured Speaker

 The Army and the Future of Irregular Confl ict

 Major General (Ret) Robert H. Scales, Jr.
394

Day 3

Thursday, 13 September 2007

0700 – 0745 Registration

0745 – 0800 Administrative Announcements

Panel 6

0800 – 0930 Studies in 21st Century Non-State Actors

 The Second Lebanon War, 2006: A Preview of

 Fourth Generation Warfare

 Lieutenant Colonel Abe Marrero, Ph.D.

 Center for Army Tactics

 Iraq and Global Insurgency: Dien Bien Phu

 or Khe Sahn?

 Dr. Wm. J. Olson

 National Defense University

 Moderator

 Mr. John McGrath

 Combat Studies Institute

0930 – 0945 Break

0945 – 1115 Leadership Lecture Series Guest

 Speaker (Eisenhower Auditorium)

 US Representative Ike Skelton, IV (D. MO)

 Chairman, House Armed Services Committee

1115 – 1300 Lunch

1300 – 1430 Featured Speaker

 The Nature of Irregular Confl ict in 

 the 21st Century

 Mr. Ralph Peters

1430 – 1445 Break

1445 – 1600 Featured Speaker

 Global Security: Continuing Confl ict in the Middle East

 Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett

1600 – 1605 Administrative Announcements

1605 – 1630 Concluding Remarks

 Colonel Timothy R. Reese

 Director, Combat Studies Institute

Day 3

Thursday, 13 September 2007
395

Appendix B

Conference Program

About the Presenters

Thomas P.M. Barnett, Ph.D., is the Senior Managing Director of Enterra Solutions. He received his B.A. (Honors) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 

Russian Language and Literature, and International Relations with an emphasis in 

US foreign policy. He received his A.M. in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as well as his Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard. From 

1998 through 2004, Barnett was a Senior Strategic Researcher and Professor in 

the Warfare Analysis & Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies, 

U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island. At the Naval War College, Barnett 

served as Director of the New Rule Sets Project an effort designed to explore how 

the spread of globalization alters the basic “rules of the road” in the international 

security environment, with special reference to how these changes redefi ne the 

U.S. Military’s historic role as “security enabler” of America’s commercial network 

ties with the world. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, from October 2001 

to June 2003, Barnett worked as the Assistant for Strategic Futures in the Offi ce of 

Force Transformation in the Department of Defense. In 2003, he wrote an article 

titled “The Pentagon’s New Map” for Esquire magazine and later developed the article into a book titled The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First 

Century published in 2004. A sequel Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating

was published in 2005. In addition to his duties at Enterra Solutions, Dr. Barnett is 

also a contributing editor for Esquire magazine, a distinguished scholar and author 

at the Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee, 

and a columnist for the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Derek Catsam, Ph.D., Derek Catsam, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of History 

at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Dr. Catsam has also been a fellow 

with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington, DC-based antiterrorism think tank, the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, the Institute for Southern Studies 

at the University of South Carolina, the Deep South Regional Humanities Center, 

and the American Political Science Association’s Centennial Center. Dr. Catsam is 

the blogger and writer on South Africa and African issues for the Foreign Policy Association and is on the editorial board for Safundi: The Journal of South African & 

American Comparative Studies. He is a diehard sports fan and has died hardest for 

the Boston Red Sox. His book, Bleeding Red: A Red Sox Fan’s Diary of the 2004 

Season chronicles his particular form of madness.

William B. Caldwell IV, Lieutenant General, US Army, serves as the commander of the Combined Arms Center at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, the command that 

oversees the Command and General Staff College and 17 other schools, centers, 

and training programs located throughout the United States. The Combined Arms 

Center is also responsible for: development of the Army’s doctrinal manuals, training of the Army’s commissioned and noncommissioned offi cers, oversight of major 

collective training exercises, integration of battle command systems and concepts, 

and supervision of the Army’s Center for the collection and dissemination of lessons 

learned. His prior deployments and assignments include serving as Deputy Chief 
396

of Staff for Strategic Effects and spokesperson for the Multi-National Force – Iraq, 

Commanding General of the 82nd Airborne Division; Senior Military Assistant to 

the Deputy Secretary of Defense; Deputy Director for Operations for the United 

States Pacifi c Command; Assistant Division Commander, 25th Infantry Division; 

Executive Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Commander, 1st 

Brigade, 10th Mountain Division; a White House Fellow, The White House; Politico-Military Offi cer in Haiti during OPERATION RESTORE/UPHOLD DEMOCRACY; 

Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations, 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division during 

OPERATIONS DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM; and Chief of Plans for the 82nd 

Airborne Division during OPERATION JUST CAUSE in Panama. Lieutenant General 

Caldwell graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1976. 

He earned Masters Degrees from the United States Naval Postgraduate School and 

from the School for Advanced Military Studies at the United States Army Command 

and General Staff College. Lieutenant General Caldwell also attended the John F. 

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University as a Senior Service College 

Fellow.

Lee A. Casey, is a member of the Baker Hostetler legal fi rm. Mr. Casey focuses on 

federal, environmental, constitutional, election, and regulatory law issues, as well 

as international and international humanitarian law. Mr. Casey’s practice includes 

federal, district and appellate court litigation, as well as matters before federal 

agencies. Mr. Casey is a member of the California, Michigan, and District of Columbia Bar Associations, and served from 1990 through 1994 as an Adjunct Professor 

of Law at George Mason University School of Law, Arlington, Virginia. Mr. Casey, 

from 1986 to 1993, served in various capacities in the federal government, including the Offi ce of Legal Counsel (1992-93) and the Offi ce of Legal Policy (1986-90) 

at the U.S. Department of Justice. The Offi ce of Legal Counsel is responsible for 

advising the Attorney General and the White House on issues of constitutional 

law and statutory interpretation. The Offi ce of Legal Policy served as a strategic 

“think tank” for the Reagan Justice Department and was responsible for reviewing 

candidates for appointments to the federal bench. In addition, from 1990 to 1992, 

Mr. Casey served as Deputy Associate General Counsel at the U.S. Department of 

Energy.

Doug Davids, Major(P), US Army is an active duty Civil Affairs offi cer, formerly 

branched Special Forces. He is the author of Narco-Terrorism. A Unifi ed Strategy to 

Fight a Growing Terrorist Menace, as well as various articles, to include a classifi ed 

paper on “Civil Military Operations in a Counterinsurgency: More than ‘Hearts and 

Minds’”. He has a B.A. in History from Purdue University, and an M.A. in Liberal 

Arts (concentration in International Studies) from Louisiana State University. His 

future plans are to obtain a Ph.D. in International Relations.

Kevin Farrell, Lieutenant Colonel, Ph.D., US Army, is a 1986 graduate of the 

United States Military Academy (USMA) and currently serves as the Chief of the 

Military History Division in the Department of History at USMA. He possesses the 

M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University and also has extensive operational experience as an armor offi cer with service in the Balkans, Afghanistan and 

Iraq. Prior to joining the faculty in the Department of History at West Point in July 

2006 he served as the Battalion Commander of 1-64 Armor, a combined arms 

maneuver battalion, in the 3rd Infantry Division, which included a yearlong combat 

deployment to East Baghdad, Iraq from 2005 to 2006.
397

Philippe François, Lieutenant-Colonel (LCL), French Army, is not an historian. 

After having served as a platoon leader then Company commander and S3 in FR 

Marine infantry, in operations in the Balkans, and in Africa, he is now working as a 

staff offi cer in the FR Center of Army Forces Employment Doctrine. LCL François is 

the offi cer in charge of the lessons leaned development board. His job is to try to 

develop from past and current operations lessons that might be useful to ongoing 

or future battles. After LCL François’ graduation from the FR staff college, he came 

to study the war fought in FR Algeria by the FR Army.

Adam Harmon, has served with the Israeli Paratroopers and a Special Operations 

reserve unit since 1990, conducting operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and 

missions in the West Bank and Gaza. He participated in Operation DEFENSIVE 

SHIELD in 2002 and in 2003 his unit took part in operations that led to the capture 

of a leader of the Islamic Jihad, several suicide bombers, and other organizers of 

terror. Since 2003, Mr. Harmon has been a consultant for the US Marine Corps 

and the US Army on his experiences with the IDF. His book, Lonely Soldier, has 

received a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly and advance praise from Bing 

West. He has also appeared on several CNN and Fox programs. Adam lives near 

Washington DC with his wife and newborn son in a house that is managed by three 

cats and a dog.

Adrian Lewis, Ph.D., University of North Texas, has been the Chair, Department of 

History at the University of North Texas since 2005. He also serves as a Professor 

at the Naval War College, College of Distance Education. Dr. Lewis served as a US 

Army Infantry Offi cer from 1977 to 1994 before retiring at the rank of Major. He 

is the author of many books and articles. His most recent books are The American 

Culture of War: A History of American Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Omaha Beach: A Flawed Victory.

Abe Marrero, Lieutenant Colonel, Ph.D., US Army. Recalled to active duty from 

retirement, LTC Marrero is currently serving as a Tactics instructor at the Army’s 

Command and General Staff College. He is currently on a military leave of absence 

from Rogers State University in Oklahoma where he serves as department head 

and professor of psychology. LTC Marrero has a Bachelor of Science degree from 

Cameron University, a Master in Education from Southwestern Oklahoma State 

University, and a Master of Science and a doctoral degree in Biological Psychology 

from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Barry R. McCaffrey, General (Retired), US Army, is President of his own consulting fi rm based in Arlington, Virginia. He serves as a national security and terrorism analyst for NBC News and writes a column on national security issues for 

Armed Forces Journal. The Washington Speakers Bureau exclusively represents his 

speeches. General McCaffrey is also an Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at 

the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. From January 2001 to May 

2005, General McCaffrey served as the Bradley Distinguished Professor of International Security Studies. General McCaffrey is active in national security affairs. He 

co-chaired the Atlantic Council of the United States NATO Counterterrorism Working Group, leading a delegation to Moscow, Mons, Brussels and Warsaw. In January 

2004 and again in June 2005 he visited Iraq to conduct a country-wide analysis of 

the security situation. In 2004 he addressed the “Security of the Americas Conference” in Mexico City and met with senior offi cials of the Mexican Government. In 

April 2004, General McCaffrey helped release the CSIS Bi-national Commission Reports on Migration and Border Security. In August 2004 and again in August 2005 
398

General McCaffrey visited Afghanistan and Pakistan to conduct a political-military 

assessment. In February 2002, General McCaffrey visited Cuba and participated in 

a small group session with Fidel and Raul Castro discussing U.S.-Cuba policies. His 

most recent visit to Iraq was April 2006. His most recent trip to Afghanistan was in 

May 2006. He visited Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in June 2006. Prior to confi rmation 

as the National Drug Policy Director, General McCaffrey served as the Commanderin-Chief of the US Armed Forces Southern Command coordinating national security 

operations in Latin America. During his military career, he served overseas for 

thirteen years and completed four combat tours. He commanded the 24th Infantry 

Division (Mech) during the Desert Storm 400-kilometer left hook attack into Iraq. 

At retirement from active duty, he was the most highly decorated four-star general 

in the U.S. Army. He twice received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s 

second highest medal for valor. He was also awarded two Silver Stars and received 

three Purple Heart medals for wounds sustained in combat. General McCaffrey 

served as the assistant to General Colin Powell and supported the Chairman as the 

JCS advisor to the Secretary of State and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Michael F. Noone, Ph.D., is a Research Ordinary Professor at the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. He served twenty years as a judge 

advocate in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a colonel in 1978. He’s a Fellow of the 

Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society, Director, International Society for Military Law and the Law of War, serves as a member of the International 

Advisory Board, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, and 

on the executive board of the Judge Advocate’s Association Inn of Court. He was a 

distinguished visiting professor of law at the US Military Academy (West Point) in 

1991 and co-authored the textbook used by the law department. His research and 

writing on peacekeeping and political violence have taken him in recent years to 

Russia, Australia and New Zealand, to Ukraine, South Africa, and to Northern Ireland and Israel. Professor Noone holds a B.S. in F.S. from Georgetown University’s 

Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, an LL.B., and LL.M. from Georgetown 

University Law School, and an S.J.D. (1965), from The National Law Center of 

George Washington University. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the USAF Air 

Command and Staff College.

William J. Olson, Ph.D., is a professor at the Near East and South Asia Center for 

Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Recently he was the President 

and CEO of Olson & Associates, a diversifi ed consultancy providing a variety of services to corporate, government, and private sector clients. Most recently, he was 

the Chief of the Information Management Unit (IMU) in the Coalition Provisional 

Authority (CPA), Baghdad, Iraq. The IMU reported to the Administrator and was responsible for the collection, analysis, and publication of CPA-related information on 

Iraq reconstruction. He was formerly the Staff Director for the US Senate Caucus 

on International Narcotics Control. Before joining the Caucus, Dr. Olson was a Senior Fellow at the National Strategy Information Center, a Washington think tank. 

Dr. Olson was the Offi ce Director in OASD SO/LIC and served as Deputy Assistant 

Secretary of Defense (acting). He also served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of State. His published works include over 50 articles and books on light forces, 

US strategic interests in the Persian Gulf, the Iran-Iraq war, the Soviet invasion of 

Afghanistan, guerrilla warfare, terrorism, the war on drugs, confl ict management, 

and most recently on studies on international organized crime and homeland security.
399

Ralph Peters is a retired military offi cer, a popular media commentator, and the 

author of 22 books. He is also an opinion columnist for the New York Post, a member of the boards of contributors at USA Today and Armchair General magazine, an 

associate editor for Armed Forces Journal, and a frequent guest on television and 

radio. With experience in more than 70 countries on six continents, he has covered 

or studied fi rst-hand confl icts and civil disturbances in Iraq, Israel, the Caucasus, 

Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia, West Africa, East Africa and the Andean Ridge. His 

most recent book Wars of Blood and Faith: The Confl icts That Will Shape the 21st 

Century continues a series of works by Mr. Peters on strategy, confl ict, and the 

military.

Linda Robinson, is a Contributing Editor for U.S. News & World Report specializing in military and national security issues. She received the Gerald R. Ford Prize 

for Reporting on National Defense for 2004. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard 

University 2000-01 and was awarded the Maria Moors Cabot prize by Columbia 

University in 1999. She has also been a Senior Consulting Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a Media Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover 

Institution. Before joining U.S. News in December 1989, Ms. Robinson was Senior 

Editor at Foreign Affairs magazine. Her book about the U.S. Army Special Forces, 

Masters of Chaos, was a New York Times bestseller. She is currently writing a book 

about General David Petraeus and the endgame for the Iraq war. Ms. Robinson is 

a regular guest on PBS’s “Washington Week in Review” and also discusses international issues frequently on radio and cable news networks.

Robert H. Scales, Major General (Retired), US Army, is currently an independent 

consultant for defense matters. Prior to joining the private sector Dr. Scales served 

over thirty years in the Army, retiring as a Major General. He commanded two units 

in Vietnam, winning the Silver Star for action during the battles around Dong Ap 

Bia (Hamburger Hill) during the summer of 1969. Subsequently, he served in command and staff positions in the United States, Germany, and Korea and ended his 

military career as Commandant of the United States Army War College. In 1995 he 

created the Army After Next program which was the Army’s fi rst attempt to build 

a strategic game and operational concept for future land warfare. He is the author 

of Certain Victory, the offi cial account of the Army in the Gulf War, and Firepower 

in Limited War, a history of the evolution of fi repower doctrine since the end of the 

Korean War. He was the only serving offi cer to have written books subsequently 

selected for inclusion in the offi cial reading lists of two services; Certain Victory for 

the Army and Firepower for the Marine Corps. In addition he has written Future 

Warfare, a strategic anthology on America’s wars to come, and Yellow Smoke: 

The Future of Land Warfare for America’s Military. His latest work, The Iraq War: 

A Military History, written with Williamson Murray was published by Harvard University Press in October 2003. He is military analyst for National Public Radio and 

Fox News Network and is a frequent commentator and consultant for other major 

media networks on issues relating to military history and defense policy. He is a 

graduate of West Point and earned his Ph.D. in history from Duke University.

Michael Scheuer, Ph.D., served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004. 

He served as the Chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 

1996 to 1999. He is the once anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West 

is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, 

Radical Islam, and the Future of America. Dr. Scheuer is a Senior Fellow with The 

Jamestown Foundation.
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US Rep Ike Skelton (D-MO) has represented Missouri’s Fourth Congressional District in the US House of Representatives since 1977. His district includes Missouri’s 

state capital, Jefferson City, and much of the Ozark region of the state. He is a 

graduate of Wentworth Military Academy and the University of Missouri at Columbia where he received A.B. and L.L.B. degrees. He was named as a member of Phi 

Beta Kappa and the Law Review. Prior to his election to Congress, Skelton served 

as Lafayette County Prosecuting Attorney and as a Missouri State Senator. A leader 

in the House on defense issues, Skelton is the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Skelton’s district is home to Fort Leonard Wood, Whiteman Air 

Force Base, and the Missouri National Guard Training Center. Skelton was instrumental in bringing the Army Engineer School to Fort Leonard Wood and the B-2 

Stealth bomber to Whiteman Air Force Base.

About the Moderators

Kelvin D. Crow, earned a B.S. from the University of Missouri in 1976. He served 

as an infantry offi cer with assignments in the Berlin Brigade, HQ US Army, Europe, 

and as a Staff Ride Instructor in the US Army Command and General Staff College 

History Department. He earned an M.A. from Oregon State University in 1988 and 

an M.M.A.S. from the Command and General Staff College in 1989. Mr. Crow has 

published several articles in the popular historical press and a book, Fort Leavenworth: Three Centuries of Service (Command History Offi ce, Combined Arms 

Center and Fort Leavenworth, 2004). Since 2002 he has served as the Assistant 

Command Historian for the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth.

Charles D. Collins, Jr. is an assistant professor and the Sioux Wars course author for the Staff Ride Team, Combat Studies Institute, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

He received a B.A. in History from Southwest Missouri State University and an 

M.M.A.S. in History from the US Army Command and General Staff College. While 

on active duty, Mr. Collins served in various armor and cavalry assignments. He 

retired from the Army in 1996. Mr. Collins’ published works include The Corps of 

Discovery: Staff Ride Handbook for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, The Atlas of the 

Sioux Wars, and numerous articles on a wide variety of military topics.

Ricardo A. Herrera, Ph.D., joined the Combat Studies Institute’s Staff Ride Team 

in January 2006. A 1998 Marquette University Ph.D. in U.S. history, he received 

his B.A. in history from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1984. Formerly 

Director of Honors at Mount Union College and Department Chair at Texas Lutheran 

University, Dr. Herrera also served as a Cavalry and Armor offi cer. He is the author 

of several articles and chapters on American military history.

Curtis S. King, Ph.D., graduated from the US Military Academy (USMA) in 1982 

with a B.S. in History and English Literature. He received an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then was an instructor at USMA for three years. 

In 1998, he became an associate professor, Combat Studies Institute (CSI), US 

Army Command and General Staff College. While at CSI, Dr. King received his 

Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet history (1998) and spent a 6-month tour in Sarajevo, 

Bosnia (1999-2000) as a NATO historian. Dr. King retired from the Army in May 

2002. In October 2002, he joined the Staff Ride Team, CSI, as a civilian associate 

professor and is an adjunct professor at Kansas State University.
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John J. McGrath, has worked for the US Army in various capacities since 1978. 

After retirement he worked for four years at the US Army Center of Military History 

in Washington, DC, as a historian and archivist. Mr. McGrath is a graduate of Boston 

College and holds an MA in history from the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He is the author of numerous articles and military history publications including Theater Logistics in the Gulf War, published by the Army Materiel Command 

in 1994 and several works with the Combat Studies Institute, which he joined in 

2003. He was also the General Editor for An Army at War: Change in the Midst of 

Confl ict, published by CSI in 2006. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. from Kansas 

State University.

George Sarabia, Lieutenant Colonel, US Army, earned a B.S. from the United 

States Military Academy in 1989 and a Master of Arts degree in American History 

from Princeton University in 1999. He was commissioned in armor and has served 

in a variety of command and staff positions in armor units in the United States and 

overseas. He has also served as Associate Professor of History at the US Military 

Academy. His most recent deployment was to Sadr City, Baghdad where he served 

as Squadron Executive Offi cer for the 2/2 Armored Cavalry Regiment from May 

2003-July 2004. He is currently A.B.D. and is continuing his dissertation work.

Donald P. Wright, Ph.D., graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1986 with a 

degree in History and Russian. He received a Ph.D. in Russian History from Tulane 

University in 2000. Dr. Wright has also served in the active and reserve components of the US Army as an infantry and military intelligence offi cer. He joined the 

Combat Studies Institute in 2002 and currently serves as the Chief of the Contemporary Operations Study Team.
Combat Studies Institute Press ombat Studies Institute Press

Combined Arms Center ombined Arms Center

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas ort Leavenworth, Kansas

Visit Our Website At: isit Our Website At:

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/csi/RandP/CSIpubs.asp ttp://usacac.army.mil/CAC/csi/RandP/CSIpubs.asp