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The CENTCOM Af-Pak Conference [UPDATED]
June 9, 2010 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 7:26am | 35 Comments
[Editor's note: This post has been removed at the request of the authors. No, I am not happy about it. I thought it was starting a good debate and had planned on bringing the conference's organizers in for comment as well.]
Questions I have is..... Are
Questions I have is..... Are Counter-insurgents's victims of political, economic and social forces living in their own region?
JUNE 9, 2010.The Alien in the White House -WSJ
The distance between the president and the people is beginning to be revealed.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870330260457529423163131872...
Mr. Madison, what you've
Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Thanks for placing this news
Thanks for placing this news article on your Twitter Account AM.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/28/seeing-a-fallen-soldier-...
Very sad and this story needs to be retold again and again, to remind American's to wake up and support our troop's families, when their children / OUR brave veterans die in combat.
This story reminded me of Sgt. Byron Norwood, who's family was invited to Washington D.C. for the State of the Union Address in 2005. Feel free to investigate on your own AM, as to whom sent the invitation to the Norwood Family for this event.
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=25990
What you won't read in the link is, the Norwood Family had to pay for their one air-transportation to Washington D.C. and back home to Texas, they had to pay for own hotel / accommodations & meals, and the USG failed to provide ground transportation during their stay in Washington D.C.. Imagine someone's son being killed for his country, the family being constantly lost in our Nation's Capitol, taking cabs to Official USG Events (The White House & multiple USG Sponsored Media Events ) and dealing with situations like - being over-charged by manipulative D.C. cab driver's!
What would have it taken to put the Norwood Family in the Blair House or in BOQ at HQ of the Marine Corps? Or what would it haven taken to get a USMC Panel-Van to drive the Norwood family around Washington D.C. that week?
Sadly enough, the Norwood's were paraded around Washington that week and asked to attend Official Events / multiple media interviews by USG Employees. They felt obligated to attend these events and interviews, as they were representing the image and memory of their son, whom they were extremely proud of and had given his life in combat.
Someone should probably make a public apology to the Norwood Family for allowing this situation to occur.
Makes me sick thinking about it.
Beyond this specific
Beyond this specific conference or subject, I think the discussion of expertise and experience is critical to consider for most military and security related debates. A superficial criticism of this post would be that the authors are favoring academic study over experience in arriving at a greater understanding of a situation (which leads to better conclusions and policy recommendations).
I believe it is more nuanced that that. On the positive side, experience can be a great boon to garner information that just cannot be had from second hand study, and it can provide a lens for judgement of new information. However, on the negative, the information gained by experaince is very specific to the situation being experienced. If the application of experience isn't tempered with the understanding of this limitation, then the experaince will lead to misplaced assumptions of superior knowledge of other situations. Similarly, if experience serves more as a prison--to discount information that contradicts our own experience, and to highlight information that supports our own experience, then it is equally damaging to achieving better understanding.
As the authors point out, the term "expert" is probably counterproductive at this point--and its a pretty amorphous term at that. Expert in what sense? What are the bounds of a given "expertise"? As they point out, much of the "expertise" of the conference speakers is discredited by the failure of the policies based on the "expert" recommendations. I can't really judge in this case, but I'd assert it isn't the fact of expertise, but whether the expertise was really applicable to the situations the policies were intended to affect. I would also assert that the big difference between the acedemic sphere and the policy sphere is that academics are arguing points of knowledge and understanding. Policymakers (in the broadest sense, this ranges from strategic leaders down to tactical commanders) are trying to leverage understanding into effective action. This difference means that the expertise of any person is judged differently in the academic world than in the policy world.
As every situation is to some degree new, "expertise" can only get you so far in developing and implementing a policy. Every plan is a guess in foresight (even though it is readily judged in hindsight). The ability of "experts" of any stripe or degree to be self critical and willing to change their ideas based on new information (whether from study or experience) would seem to be the best indicator for making continuously relevant recommendations.
They keep sending our
They keep sending our warriors over there while they are trying to formulate a plan?! It's like BP is running the war. How much will be lost before a plan is formulated?
I find it darkly humorous that the military wants open criticism and debate but the authors felt they needed to remain anonomous... Why do you think retired generals/colonels have to push to make changes? They're no longer worried about budgets, political allies or promotion.
Where is the State Department in all of this. Why do they ALWAYS get off the hook at the Army's expense? I really enjoyed Tom Rick's books Fiasco, Gamble but I could help thinking when I put those books down that the State Department is run by a bunch of fools (both Bush and Obama administrations). That's just recent history. You'll find other examples of their complete failures laid at the feet of the Army if you look back.
I think this is a key
I think this is a key point:
That's all too true. I've lost track of the number of friends who have basically had their careers stalled because the criticized the wrong program, or said the wrong thing, or didn't kiss the right ring. That's no way for a organization - the DOD - supposedly so dedicated to learning to operate.
The largest failure where
The largest failure where COIN has feared to go is to develop and demonstrate a viable assessment methodology in order to prove that a COIN strategy is working. It appears that this was fully demonstrated, or not demonstrated at this conference, with the over use of experience vs. data. We can say that we are "doing COIN," but unless we have in place a viable assessment methodology that captures both the opinion of the population, the opinions of the soldiers executing the COIN mission, and some provable quantitative factors with good, independent data, then we are focused entirely on the tactical element of COIN and without focus on the strategic element of COIN - actually solving the country problem and completing the mission. What does and does not work in COIN is different in various regions and over time, an assessment process eliminates opinion and introduces what does work. Additionally, how does a command element lead, manage, command, and allocate resources for a country wide COIN effort if there is no uniform, common, and understood assessment program in place? A COIN strategy to be executed successfully must pull in both quantitative and qualitative factors against common, understood, and openly shared evaluation criteria to guide the mission to a successful conclusion.
Kind of reminds me of a
Kind of reminds me of a recent quantum physics research project of over six years that was published in Nature magazine concerning the ecoloy of warfare (insurgency) which indicated a core set of results that no one has attempted to disprove.
All that it garnered was "silence" from the side of DOD and academic pundits who were in a different life either defense contractors or who had worked for one of the three letter agencies. Some critqued it, but they never did or could actually point out just why the results were what they were. Maybe the "silence" was due to it's challenge of current COIN concepts?
By the way this goes for the SWJ as well-where open hard hitting dicussions is what one would expect to get, but nothing but flak comes up if one pushes against the norm.
-- And it’s a really huge
-- And it’s a really huge leap to assume that an individual’s personal or even professional experience can provide generalizeable insight into an entire region or social situation. --
Wait, next you'll tell me Danielle Pletka is not an expert on Hezbollah but rather just AIPAC's former go-to-gal on Sen. Helms' staff ...
Fascinating...thanks for
Fascinating...thanks for posting and linking.
Ken Pollack was the leading
Ken Pollack was the leading think-tank expert on Iraq in the run-up to the invasion and occupation, correct? The most discussed book at think tank conferences, the most widely promoted, was his "Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq."
Back then, the discussion wasn't about counterinsurgency or counterterrorism - it was about deterrence vs. invasion and occupation. The 'experts' agreed: Saddam had numerous WMDs, and was likely to hand them over to terrorist groups on a whim, 'cause he was a crazy unstable man. That was in 2002, and came out around the same time as the CIA White Paper on Iraqi WMD programs, which contained quotes like this:
"Iraq largely has rebuilt missile and biological weapons facilities... and has expanded its chemical and biological infrastructure under the cover of civilian production."
"All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program..."
"Most elements [of Iraq's offensive biowarfare program] are active and most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf war."
What is amazing is that these "experts" can spew such nonsense, have it shown to be complete bull, and yet they get to keep their jobs - and in a year or two, they're back playing the same idiotic propaganda monkey game again. Ken Pollack is now the director of the Saban Institute at Brookings, for example - despite the fact that every one of his 'analytical conclusions' has been disproved.
Think tanks, we must conclude, tend to be more focused on distributing propaganda on behalf of their financiers than on any kind of robust independent analysis of situations.
Think tanks distribute
Think tanks distribute propaganda? Hummm...Yeah and my name is Roberto.
Regardless of whether or not
Regardless of whether or not the expert has lived or breathed the subject matter, lived in an ivory tower, or gotten down and dirty in the muck shouldn't be counted for or against them, what matters here is the flexibility to change minds, both your own and someone else's. Because the alternative is fundamentalism, and I won;'t play in that game, nor will many other people who may have something to offer to the debate,. if you go in to a room already knowing that you cannot convince people to change their minds, or put your self in position to have your changed then it ceases to be a debate, and just becomes a slanging match.
I guess I'm lucky in that my opinion is just mine ad as I don't work in the field I don't have to fear being black balled, but if that is a legitimate fear, then I have to ask the DOD WTF?. Just because someone doesn't agree with you is no reason to refuse to listen to them. If you cannot criticize, how can we point out the mistakes?
"4. Go for discoverability,
"4. Go for discoverability, not just information."
Knowledge Management -- the DOD generally... no.. SPECIFICALLY sucks at this.
Anyone wandered through the morass that is AKO or AKO-S lately?
Too many non-interoperable separate systems because their are to many freaking COL and BG king guarding their ricebowls... and OERs. Doesn't matter if it pans out to be a POS in 3 or 4 years because they get their stellar bullet in the block and move on. The next guy has to fix it.
Hire the experts (Google), embed some of our guys with them on the military/private employer partnership and be done with it.
Intellipedia and MilSuite are moving us in the right direction but they only address a few of the issues...
"Government analysts should never, ever have to think about even the possibility that they or their boss will take heat because they criticized the pet project of a particularly prominent person or agency."
Reality sucks doesn't it?
Part of the problem with bosses who reject constructive criticism is that often times the smart junior leaders just keep their mouths shut and let things fail.
Or the junior leaders get tired of the BS, realize that they can not make a difference in that field and move on to greener pastures.
Such as this posted on Ricks blog:
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/04/here_is_why_i_soon_might...
Seriously... why'd Nagl, Abu, Finch and the others at CNAS and other agencies walk away from the green machine?
Oooh... I can feel my 20 year letter coming soon.
Speaking from previous
Speaking from previous personal experience working in the Center Of Excellence, the entire center is truly well intentioned. The goal of the center is to replicate the intelligence successes which led to the shift in momentum in Iraq. That said, my observation of the center was that very little innovative thought is permitted below the highest levels of leadership. Most of the information produced was a restatement of known information or innocuous updates on current situations. Very little original work was done.
The atmosphere was (and likely still is) geared towards not rocking the boat or postulating new or controversial theories or courses of action that would identify failings of either Afghan or American operations or policies. It was an unwritten rule that analysts would not bring anything up that would make anyone look bad, especially US operations. In the rare instances where criticism was levied, it was couched in such a way that it did not highlight any particular individual(s). The general attitude was never to be wrong and to never make a mistake- it was easier to not say anything at all.
I and many other have moved on to other areas where we are able to do work as analysts, where our insight, experience and knowledge are able to make a deeper impact. In my view, this indicative of not just the COE, but the entire Afghanistan intelligence environment. In the Afghan theater, very few people are held accountable for wrong calls. The mindset seems to be focused on not failing rather than being successful, from the top levels of ISAF leadership to ground level analysts.
"Experts" can kiss my ass
"Experts" can kiss my ass and lick my nuts.
That's all very true in an
That's all very true in an ideal sense, and too idealistic. Thoughts on the points:
Point 1: you are swimming against the tides of Human Nature, specifically self interest.
#2: People find the most persuasive arguments and evidence are their own experience. For instance most of the evidence that in the poster's opinions damn the conference came from their experiences attending it, and all too often they've seen ......etc. We need however doers and people who've implemented or had to live with the consequences of policies to explain what actually happened. While academia can supply treasure troves of knowledge and background policies must be implemented by the lowly doer.
There's an entire industry grown up around DC the last 60 years based on expertise, academic and otherwise. Of course they'll defend their turf. DC is also a giant carbuncle of money grubbing bureaucracies, with all that there's a lot of departmental turf and above all money and fortunes to be made and defended. That's our government.
I actually know a few idealists who hold true to their beliefs and walked away from great opportunities and for some their birthrights granted by family and the class ring. They're literally monks. However they still need to go and gather donations to support the order.
We should really blast the entire Beltway establishment away and have a spare and lean government if you want achieve ends of the State and Nation, but there's a lot of money at stake. Like probably the posters livelihoods.
What were the Nerds scared
What were the Nerds scared of?
Was this posted anywhere
Was this posted anywhere else? I think this was a highly valuable post, sort of a 'emperor's clothes' type thing.
I saved it. Will send it
I saved it. Will send it via e-mail for 20 bucks a pop. It's really good stuff.
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20 bucks my eye -- just google "the centcom af-pak conference abu muquwama" and you'll find the cached version intact
@Intellgenisiat Cowardly
@Intellgenisiat Cowardly Young Lions,
Holy smoke. If you have neither the forethought to see you might come into some flak for posting your experiences at the conference nor the guts to stick with it once it was done will you please have a look in the miror, realize you should not be involved with our nation's and people's defense at any level and GTFO.
And when you see wars terrible true face on whatever media, STFU.
In fact perhaps you should avoid policy or current events altogether. BTW the monks I mentioned have some vacancies..
The rule of thumb that everyone is entitled to their opinions is revoked for ye.
You can however claim expertise, and decorations. You are awarded the Garter of Sir Robin the not quite so Brave, and expertise in same.
eric dot listern at gmail
eric dot listern at gmail dot kom
pseudonymic email. I'd love to see a saved copy.
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