Center for a New American Security

...consider this a continuation of our discussion of the economics of counterinsurgency.

Who knew Michael Caine was a veteran of the Korean War? I sure didn't. I thought this quote of his from an article in the New Yorker, though, was pretty awesome:

“When I was nineteen and a soldier, I often wondered how I was going to be if I knew I was going to die. At one point, we were ambushed in the paddy fields, just four of us surrounded by Chinese. And my instinct — which has lasted me the rest of my life — was: All right, I’m going to die. And that’s O.K. But” — he paused and levelled a heavy finger at the recollected enemy, and at any future adversaries — “as many of you as possible are going to die with me. I’ll take the whole fucking lot.” He grinned. “I’m going to die expensive.”

By the way, if you're looking for a primer in the effects of massed firepower delivered by disciplined infantrymen, you could do worse than to watch this Caine classic.*

*One amusing feature of this movie is listening to Caine -- born and raised in working-class South London -- trying to affect a middle-class Home Counties accent. Almost as good/awful as Sean Connery's infamous Russian accent.

Not a joke. Issandr reports.

Does this mean the blog should start selling lizard caps?

I have not seen the Hurt Locker. My only opinion of the director, Katherine Bigelow, is based on Point Break, which we can all agree is the greatest movie ever featuring Keanu Reeves shooting a gun up in the air while screaming. But I do not understand my fellow Iraq veterans complaining the Hurt Locker isn't realistic enough. When did war movies suddenly have to be realistic? Did Blackhawk Down start this? Was it the bank robbery scene in Heat? The reason I say this is that one of my best childhood friends was walking through a Walgreens in Nashville, passed a $9 DVD Double Feature of Kelly's Heroes and the Dirty Dozen and immediately thought, correctly, "Oh, man, this would make Ex's year if I bought this and sent it to him." Now there is very little that is realistic about either movie, but c'mon, they are surely two of the greatest war movies ever. And they both star Telly Savalas and Donald Sutherland, the latter of whom is high as a kite in both.

A lot of us have deployed to war and been in a few firefights, but surely we can all appreciate the tripped-out genius of this opening scene, right?

Oh, man, this is another classic scene.

I have not been posting much recently, enjoying my retirement from daily blogging, but Richard Fontaine and I got name-checked in the lead editorial from today's Washington Post on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on account of this policy paper we wrote on Yemen for CNAS, so if you have not read it, do. I re-read it today to make sure I still agree with what we wrote and ... yup, I still do. My friend Gregory Johnsen is the real subject matter expert on Yemen, though, and since he's the guy I turn to for a sanity check whenever I say anything about the Arabian Peninsula, you could do worse than to follow his blog for more information on Yemen and AQAP.

In other news, I read and greatly enjoyed Stefan Aust's page-turning history of the Red Army Faction this Christmas holiday. If you watched and enjoyed the movie (like Tom did), you need to read the book. Watching just this trailer, you could be forgiven for thinking a tour in the Baader-Meinhof gang must have been a lot of fun. The reality, as Aust chronicles, was a lot less romantic.

A few readers have sent me Sean Naylor's unbelievably damning article in the Army Times on the Stryker Brigade in southern Afghanistan. Friends like Gian Gentile are worried good battalion and brigade commanders are being slandered for not bowing to the COIN orthodoxy, but while I have some sympathy for that lament, the relevant question about Col. Harry Tunnell is is not whether or not COIN is the correct or incorrect operational response to the problems facing U.S. forces in Afghanistan but whether or not the commander is following the pretty explicit guidance issued by the commanding general in Afghanistan. Sean has been a friend of mine since he embedded with my platoon during Operation Anaconda in 2002, and he's not the kind to go hunting the scalps of tactical commanders for the sake of it. What he saw in southern Afghanistan, though, raised a lot of questions for him, and it segues in nicely with Noah's worry about whether the U.S. Army can or will even do what's being asked of it.

Now I'm trying to catch up with some work while listening to the Nosaj Thing remix of Charlotte Gainsbourg's "Heaven Can Wait", which has the second most bizarrely awesome video for any song to which I have ever listened. First prize in that category goes to Bat For Lashes for "What's a Girl to Do?":

Well, as we discussed yesterday, there are great books doomed to become (potentially) awful movies starring Matt Damon. But apparently there are also great books which can become potentially amazing movies starring Matt Damon*. I blogged about Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation being one of the best books I read last year. I am so excited to see this film:

*As a decidedly short version of the 6'3" Francois Peinaar, but still.

Well, this looks ... awful.

One of the world's brighter young Afghanistan scholars sent me an email asking if this was a movie about Pashtuns. Because all us mountain people fight over the same three things: land, women, honor. Often the three are related.

My cousin, a Marine Corps officer in Iraq doing whatever it is Marines do in Iraq these days (milking cows? wishing they were in Helmand?), writes in:

I'm sitting here on watch, sending some emails, and watching Return of the Jedi on my laptop.  It got me thinking.
 
Why didn't the Rebel Alliance pursue a strategy of insurgency in their rebellion against the Galactic Empire?  I would argue that they pursued a strategy of conventional war against the Empire and forwent every aspect of insurgent strategy and tactics.  They finally came around a bit in the end by co-opting the Ewoks onto their side.  Why hadn't they pursued that strategy on a larger scale? 
 
Instead, they simply staged two conventional assualts on the Empire's center of gravity: the Death Star.  Although both attempts were successful, I think they got lucky.  I think they would have been better served had read their Mao and followed his maxims.
 
Why didn't the Empire follow counterinsurgency doctrine?  Destroying Alderan was probably the dumbest move ever, one that the Alliance could have exploited to their advantage with the proper IO campaign.  What do you think the similarities are between destroying Alderan and 4ID tactics circa 2004-5 or liberal ordnance drop policies in Afghanistan?
 
And neither side seemed to subordinate their tactics and strategy to political goals?  Clausewitz would have been appalled.  Jomini and Summers, on the other hand, would have been most proud.
 
My thoughts on the subject are a little incomplete, but I think a good case study awaits a more dedicated set of eyes and a higher powered brain.
 
In any event, I bet the next time you watch the Trilogy, this is all you'll be able to think about.

Indeed, you can imagine what family dinners are like.