Center for a New American Security

Reading through the Washington Post on the bus this morning, these paragraphs jumped out at me:

“This is not classic combat, where you see people advancing and you shoot them,” [Amos] Gilad said. “Because you achieve the opposite results, and it’s not fitting for a country like ours.”

 

The Israeli military has experience in confronting unarmed protests. The first Palestinian uprising, which erupted in the late 1980s, pitted youthful stone-throwers against Israeli combat troops, who had to adjust their tactics and weapons, shifting from the battlefield to riot control.

 

Yet despite years of experience and acquisition of riot gear, the army remains fundamentally unaccustomed to confronting civilian demonstrators, and the prospect that such protests might increase has become a subject of Israeli concern.

Now this is ironic, since only five years ago people were saying the IDF lost in southern Lebanon because they had spent too much time preparing for stabilization-type operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and not enough time training for conventional combat. Now we're saying, apparently, that the IDF is too focused on conventional combat and cannot respond non-lethally to unarmed protests. Here's Yossi Peled, speaking to the Associated Press:

Ex-general Yossi Peled, who commanded Israeli troops on the Lebanese and Syrian borders, said border breaches will likely be attempted again and must be stopped at any cost — regardless of the political fallout — because they pose a direct challenge to Israel's sovereignty.

 

"Yesterday's promo leaves us little time to draw the conclusions and come up with a new method of warfare where Israel will confront unarmed civilians, children and women," he said.

We can argue with Gen. Peled about whether or not "war" is the appropriate lens through which to view these kinds of unarmed demonstrations. (Was rock-throwing what Clausewitz had in mind when he defined war?) But I think Gilad and the rest of the IDF understand two things: (1) that shooting unarmed protesters, even when they are throwing rocks at you, has a negative strategic effect and (2) that the IDF will continue to be expected to deal with these kinds of demonstrations.

The IDF, in other words, will continue to be expected to be able to respond to every contingency in the book from police operations to high-intensity combat until there is a viable political settlement that allows the IDF to primarily focus on the kinds of high-intensity contingencies for which militaries normally prepare. How the IDF copes in the meantime, with a conscript army and limited time and money for training, will be fascinating to observe for anyone out there trying to identify future spending and training priorities for their own military.

[Note: There is a vocal segment of this blog's readership that gets all bent out of shape when I dispassionately write about the IDF in the same way I would any other military organization. (Because, you know, "Don't Forget Palestine!" etc.) There is another segment of this readership that gets bent out of shape when I dispassionately write about Hizballah or Hamas in the same way I would any other military organization. (Because, you know, Islam! 9/11! Terror! etc.) All of you need to chill. Trying to analyze and write about the performance of military organizations in as value-neutral a way as possible is part of my job.]

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Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) got a pretty nice love letter in the mail from Walter Pincus today. All I will say is that getting this kind of public approval from such an experienced and wise observer of intelligence affairs says a lot. Rep. Rogers seems like exactly the kind of person you would want in his job.

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Sticking up for your friends, especially when those friends are reviled by everyone else, is admirable. Implying that your friend deserves different treatment in the eyes of the law because he is powerful, though, is repugnant. So too is a lack of empathy for victims of alleged sexual assaults. So too is single-handedly convincing your country to start an open-ended war in Libya that shows no sign of -- oh wait, that's another issue that should be dealt with separately. Let me conclude with a reminder to Bernard-Henri Lévy: aux États-Unis, Dominique Strauss-Kahn est un justiciable comme un autre. Deal with it.

My post mourning the death of Marcel Bigeard attracted some lively commentary, so I am going to up the Algeria ante by linking to this fascinating 1970 debate between Roger Trinquier and Yacef Saadi, old adversaries in the Algerian War. My friend Judah Grunstein passed this along, noting the way Trinquier and Saadi dispassionately discuss, among other things, the use of torture. U.S. readers will recognize Saadi as having played one of the lead characters in The Battle of Algiers, a film in part based on Saadi's wartime experiences. [via Ultima Ratio]

P.S. Yes, this is in French. Sorry.

One of the greatest warriors in history has passed. He was a hero of Dien Bien Phu and Algiers and was immortalized by several fictional representations, including "Raspéguy" in The Centurions. Gen. Petraeus reportedly kept an autographed picture of the great man in his room in Iraq in 2007. Le Monde's obituary is here. Le Figaro's obituary is here. "Bruno a quitté la fréquence," mourns Jean-Dominique Merchet.

Whew. It's been quite a whirlwind journey. After leaving Beirut on Thursday, I spent the weekend in Paris where, among other things, I paid a visit to my friend Etienne de Durand at IFRI and also lunched with another friend, Judah Grunstein (et fils). I am now south of the Blue Line staying with Charles Levinson, an old drinking buddy from Cairo who has gone all respectable of late. I plan to spend about two weeks here writing in coffeeshops, doing some tourism and conducting a few interviews. After spending almost three years in Beirut -- as well as stints in Cairo and Tangier (and, of course, Baghdad and Kuwait City) -- I have, incredibly, only spent seven days of my life in the Hebrew-speaking Middle East. So this next fortnight should be fun, and a great learning experience.

When I wasn't editing dissertation chapters in Paris, meanwhile, I was reading stuff for both fun (like this novel) and for personal enrichment. Like many of you, no doubt, I have been reading this excellent Krepinevich and Watts essay (.pdf) on U.S. strategic (in)comptence and what we are going to do about it. In light of our Afghanistan Strategy Dialogue and the compaint by a few of the readers (far fewer than I first thought, actually) that this blog focuses on operations at the expense of strategy, I was particularly struck by this observation:

The persistent recurrence of these strategy pitfalls argues that deciding in whose hands to place US strategy in the twenty-first century is a critical issue. The fact is, however, that few individuals — regardless of intelligence, education, credentials or experience — possess the necessary cognitive skills and insight to be competent strategists. The insight to see more deeply than one’s opponents into the possibilities and probabilities of a competitive situation is rare. Strategy may be a game anyone can play, but the evidence is strong that very few can play it well.

Krepinevich, of course, is a guy who has written brilliantly about counterinsurgency operations and possesses what many believe to be a first-rate strategic mind. (I myself would settle for either but am not, shall we say, holding my breath.) But he's a rarity. You need people who can excell at tactics, operations, strategy and grand strategy -- and they don't all have to be the same people. So a proven operational genius might not be the best strategist, and a good strategist might not be able to handle modern military operations or day-to-day diplomacy. All of this is to ask the readership a question: who, in your opinion, are some of America's best strategic thinkers? Krepinevich himself? Bacevich? Kagan? Cartwright? Slaughter? Brimley? Put your suggestions in the comments section. I'll be interested in seeing which names you consider. Bonus points go to those names of people who are either not currently in high-level government positions or are not yet well-known among the evil DC commentariat.

This blog has a fantastic network of spies who monitor the effect COIN doctrine is having on countries outside the United States. Our friend Stephanie Pezard sent along this speech that French defense minister Hervé Morin gave at the CSIS. (Another friend, Thomas Rid, aparently managed to even swing himself an invitation. He's cool like that.) A translation of the speech is available here on .mp3.

Now, one must remember that David Galula -- whose writings have been so influential on the development of U.S. COIN doctrine -- was first published in English and not his native French. It was not until just last year that Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice was published in French for the first time. (And with an introduction written by David Petraeus! Amazon.fr reports it is en stock. Which is more than you can say for my book.) During the speech, though, Morin referred to Galula's book as "the latest Bible," claimed he read the book over the course of a weekend, and said:

[This] writing should inspire, in depth, our action toward the Afghan population. This goes also through a strong respect for for the Afghan people -- for their traditions, for their faith -- and we must do everything we can to avoid side effects -- collateral damage -- which of course is giving strength to the recruiting for the Taliban...

Obviously, that sounded a lot better in French. But leaving out the fact that Gian Gentile is now deep in the basement of West Point's library, furiously translating his articles into French, this represents a milestone for population-centric COIN theory. For much of the 20th Century (and even the later years of the 19th Century), French small wars theorists have heavily influenced the way in which we in the English-speaking world have thought about countering insurrections. Now things have come full circle in the most ironic of ways, with Americans popularizing and interpreting a French thinker for the French themselves.

These are happy days -- though it bears keeping in mind that France is not exactly hurting for living Frenchmen in the first ranks of theorist-practitioners.

Read this entire article. Some good stuff on NATO, France, and Afghanistan.

President Sarkozy of France will tell Gordon Brown next week that France plans to send an extra 1,000 soldiers to Afghanistan to bolster the battle against the Taleban. Senior ministers have told The Times that Mr Sarkozy wants to underline his commitment to the alliance during his state visit to Britain.

The Ministry of Defence has made a working assumption that President Sarkozy will announce a deployment of “slightly more than 1,000 troops to the eastern region”, one said.

The deployment would deliver a significant fillip to the military operation in Afghanistan, ensuring that other countries such as Canada remain engaged. It would also provide concrete evidence that France was keen to forge a new relationship with Nato.