JAPAN MULLS TALKS WITH NKOREA, SURPRISING ALLIES

This is interesting.  Japan is feeling its oats and appears to want to reassert itself into a more dominate role international diplomacy (and perhaps other areas using other of its elements of national power in addition to economic) and the abduction issue has obvious domestic importance but can also be used an excuse for bilateral direct engagement.  But I also think it could be playing into the Kim Family Regime's hands. While a major part of the north's strategy has always been to split the ROK/US Alliance the past 6 months has demonstrated just how strong the Alliance is at this point in time and none of the regime's actions were able to drive a wedge between the two countries.  It should also be recognized that the most effective diplomatic and security actions occur when the trilateral relationship is in synch.  Since the regime has not been successful in splitting the ROK/US Alliance directly it may believe it can take advantage of rising Japanese aggressiveness in the international community to cause a breakdown in the trilateral relationship and pose a dilemma for the US in trying to manage both the ROK/US and the US/Japanese Alliances.  Of course the north may not be that strategically sophisticated at all and instead we all just stumble toward a condition that will benefit the regime and hinder both alliances.  I think in the end Japan will get played by the regime, will come away empty handed with the trilateral relationship damaged and the regime again coming out on top.

V/R

Dave

JAPAN MULLS TALKS WITH NKOREA, SURPRISING ALLIES

May. 22 1:14 AM EDT

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TOKYO (AP) — Japan's government is looking into re-opening official talks with North Korea to resolve questions over the abductions of Japanese citizens decades ago, raising concerns among allies who fear Tokyo's focus on that issue might weaken efforts to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.

Chief Cabinet spokesman Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday that high-level talks with the North are possible if they would lead to a breakthrough on the abductions. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has indicated he is open to holding a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if such a breakthrough could be made.

Abe dispatched a senior adviser to Pyongyang last week, catching Seoul and Washington off guard. Both said they were not given prior notice.

Washington and North Korea's neighbors have been stepping up their pressure on Pyongyang since it conducted a rocket launch and its third nuclear test earlier this year.

Though Tokyo is also deeply concerned by North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, the abductions have long been at the top of its agenda and are the biggest obstacle to resuming official talks, which have been stalled since last November.

But Glyn Davies, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, warned North Korea might be trying to use talks with Japan to drive a wedge between the policies of Tokyo, Washington and Seoul.

Details of the Japanese envoy's talks in Pyongyang have not been disclosed, but Abe said this week that Japan must take the lead in resolving the abduction issue.

(Continued at the  link below)

HTTP://BIGSTORY.AP.ORG/ARTICLE/JAPAN-MULLS-TALKS-NKOREA-SURPRISING-ALLIES

North Korea’s Risk-Taking Explained

An interesting theory of the "counter-intuitive marriage of risk-taking and rationality."  I find his conclusion sound.

As such, North Korea has taken the high-risk, high-potential-reward approach of seemingly irrational but ultimately rational action of provocative behavior to try to win further gains for regime survival. 

We may not like it, but North Korea’s risk-taking strategy is more likely to continue than end.

V/R

Dave

• May 22, 2013, 6:27 PM KST

North Korea’s Risk-Taking Explained

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/05/22/north-koreas-risk-taking-explained/tab/print/

By Jasper Kim

After a period of relative calm, North Korea’s short-range missile tests this week were a reminder that the Stalinist state is never far from the headlines with a fresh bout of provocative behavior.

Most commentators who track the country say it would never aim to initiate a war with South Korea and its allies because that would inevitably lead to the end of the Kim Jong Un regime. Self-preservation is something the Pyongyang leadership has been very successful at over the last six decades.

So what explains the North’s apparent affinity for risk in routinely confronting the South, mostly verbally but occasionally with deadly force?

Mathematical modeling helps explain the counter-intuitive marriage of risk-taking and rationality at the heart of decision making in North Korea.

Consider you have one of the two choices:

A: Receive $80 guaranteed; or
B: Receive a 90% chance to receive $100

Which option should a rational decision maker chose? Studies show that most people would decide to take option A, the sure thing. The thinking is that it is generally better to receive a guaranteed return even if it means receiving less.

But the rational choice is actually option B. Getting to the answer requires what’s called a standard expected value calculation. The expected value of option A is $80 (100% x $80 = $80). The expected value of option B is $90 (90% x $100 = $90). So, because $90 (option B) is greater than $80 (option A), option B would be the rational choice even though it involves taking a risk.

The stakes are much higher for North Korea than a token sum of money, of course.

(Continued at the link below)

http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2013/05/22/north-koreas-risk-taking-explained/tab/print/

COIN Lessons Ignored: The Philippines Campaign (1899-1902)

I would suggest that the Philippines was less counterinsurgency but more a pacification effort by a colonial power conducting an occupation (and the author does use the term pacification in the text).  That is a lesson I hope we do not see codified into doctrine as per the author's conclusion (except as a lesson to be avoided).  That said there are many important tactical lessons (positive and negative) from the campaign are worth studying as noted in the essay and summarized in the conclusion but I think we have to keep in mind the strategic context.  Perhaps if a different strategic decision had been made (e.g., not to colonize the Philippines and instead to allow self determination) we would not have expended such blood and treasure.

Conclusion:  Despite the Army’s success, the Philippines campaign of 1899-1902 remains one of the least known counterinsurgency efforts in the US Army today.  The key tactical lessons learned during the conflict remain as relevant in today’s fights as they were in 1902: the importance of small-unit leadership; the need for small-unit operations and mobility; the importance for local troops; the need for an effective intelligence apparatus; and the significance of degrading the insurgent shadow government infrastructure.  Each of these aspects can be found in FM 3-24 in some capacity, and remain core components of the military’s counterinsurgency doctrine.  Unfortunately, the Philippine lessons learned were never codified into any type of doctrine and this is one of the reasons why these lessons were forgotten. The Army has an unfortunate tradition of considering insurgent conflict a sideshow effort and relegating the study of insurgencies to the fringes of military science. The Philippines campaign is a prime example.

I  do not disagree that COIN techniques are useful and employed during Pacification.  The point I am trying to make is that our strategic decision not to allow the Philippines to determine their own form of government and for us to occupy and colonize their nation was a contributing factor to the resistance and insurgency.  Furthermore, I do like to parse this out between Pacification and COIN because of the legitimacy issue.  I think inherently COIN is a fight for legitimacy among a people and an external occupying power really has little to no legitimacy (except by force of occupation).  I am really trying to make the point that we should not be conducting "direct" COIN because by doing so we have inserted ourselves into a nations' and peoples' civil dispute.  We can and should support "indirect" COIN to help a friend partner or ally in their fight for legitimacy among their people (which of course may be FID in support of the government or UW in support of  resistance or insurgency).  My intent is to try to break the mindset that we should be conducting COIN for anyone but rather we should be supporting others COIN efforts (or insurgency or resistance efforts through UW).  Ironically I think too many Philippines lessons were learned and applied in Afghanistan and Iraq with the most critical ones that we could conduct COIN to pacify the resistance and that we knew better what those countries needed and that we could create their nations in our image (make the world safe for democracy!).  That is why I like to parse this out and say if we are in the lead we are not conducting COIN but instead conducting Pacification because we are de facto an occupying power which by definition fuels insurgency and resistance.  I wants us to be experts in COIN, not to conduct it ourselves, but to be able to advise and assist others to conduct it and if necessary with our support.

V/R

Dave

COIN Lessons Ignored: The Philippines Campaign (1899-1902)

by Bill Putnam

Journal Article | May 22, 2013 - 2:30am

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/coin-lessons-ignored-the-philippines-campaign-1899-1902

In December 2006, the US Army and Marine Corps published their new counterinsurgency doctrine manual to much fanfare.  Field Manual (FM) 3-24 Counterinsurgency (Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5) was well received by a military that has called for an updated counterinsurgency doctrine since at least 2003.  FM 3-24’s writing team used counterinsurgency literature from European anti-colonial struggles to form FM 3-24’s foundation.  Surprisingly, the FM 3-24 team chose to not utilize the vast numbers of US experiences in counterinsurgency, which date back well over 100 years.  One of these discounted experiences was the US Army’s counterinsurgency campaign in the Philippines in 1899-1902, which is regarded by many as one of the US Army’s most successful counterinsurgency campaigns.

The key tactical lessons learned during the Philippines experience are as relevant today as they were in 1902.  These lessons learned are the importance of small-unit leadership; the need for small-unit operations and mobility; the importance of local troops; the need for an effective intelligence apparatus; and the significance of degrading the insurgent shadow government infrastructure.  The Army, however, failed to place these lessons into doctrine after 1902 because of its long tradition of relegating insurgent warfare to the fringes of military art and science.  This decision ensured that Army officers and soldiers were not exposed to the Philippine lessons learned and that these experiences were eventually forgotten.  This trend, unfortunately, continues to the present day as FM 3-24 excludes the numerous insights gathered from a close examination of the Philippine campaign, thus preventing them from being part of Army counterinsurgency doctrine.

On 10 December 1898, Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American War and ceded the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the United States.  The US had been active in the Philippines since Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay in May 1898. Philippine rebels under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo declared independence on 12 June and began attacking Spanish forces throughout the archipelago.  US forces arrived to besiege Manila and tensions immediately increased between the US forces and Aguinaldo’s forces.  The Spanish in Manila made an agreement with US forces to surrender the city after providing only token resistance to reaffirm Spanish honor.  US forces subsequently attacked Manila on 13 August and took the city without Filipino help, although the Filipinos did seize some of Manilla’s suburbs.   Aguinaldo’s men returned to their trenches and began their own “peaceful” siege of the city, except this time the Americans were the ones in Manila being besieged. [1]

Tensions continued into the fall as both the US Army and Filipino forces worked to avoid a conflict.  The McKinley administration increasingly leaned toward making the Philippines a colony, despite a strong anti-imperialist movement in the US.  Aguinaldo and his supporters hoped those Americans opposed to colonizing the Philippines would win out.  Both sides did not want to make a move until negotiations between Spain and the US in Paris were concluded.  On 10 December 1898, the Spanish-American War was concluded when Madrid and Washington agreed to the Treaty of Paris, which gave the Philippines to the US in exchange for $20 million.  McKinley subsequently notified the secretary of war on 21 December that he wanted to administer the Philippines.[2]

Hostilities broke out on 4 February 1899; the US Army defeated the Filipino forces in a number of running engagements.  By mid-November 1899, Aguinaldo sought refuge in the hills and called on his forces to turn from conventional to guerrilla warfare.  According to Brian Linn, his strategy was to protract the conflict until the US Army “broke down from disease and exhaustion or the American public demanded a withdrawal.”  The Filipinos hoped the anti-imperialist candidate, William Jennings Bryan, would win the 1900 presidential election and demand a US withdrawal from the Philippines.[3]  They were to be let down yet again.

The Filipino forces were better able to fight an insurgency than a conventional fight.  They had experience fighting this kind of conflict against the Spanish in 1896-1897.  The geography was in their favor too:  the Philippines was composed of 7,000 islands (with a population of over seven million).  The insurgents were from the areas they were fighting in, spoke the language, understood the culture, and knew the terrain.  There were groups of full time partisans who operated in the countryside while a part-time militia remained in the towns.  The Republican government also established municipal and provincial governments and these later served as the insurgent underground government infrastructure.  These shadow elements collected taxes, supervised the organization of supplies, gathered intelligence about the US Army, hid guerillas, and intimidated those that worked with the Americans.[4]

By December 1899, the Americans under General Otis controlled the majority of the Philippines, had overwhelmed the Republican army, and were pursuing Aguinaldo and the remnants of his leadership.  Otis was convinced the war was, for the most part, over.  As occurred in Iraq in 2003, however, the Americans failed to understand that the war had transitioned from a conventional phase to an insurgency.[5]

One of the key reasons for success in any counterinsurgency effort is small-unit leadership.  This was certainly the case for the US Army in the Philippines.  US Army junior officers were in charge of small garrisons in isolated districts where they were expected to pacify the area, create local government, and engage in infrastructure development.  US army posts in the Philippines increased from several dozen by the end of 1899 to 639 two years later. The junior officers leading these posts quickly realized that Otis was incorrect in believing the war was over and that civic pacification programs would be enough to garner Filipino support.  They struggled, initially, to build municipal governments, as many of the townspeople were either supporting the guerrillas or were afraid the guerrillas.  Despite the initial frustrations, stumbles, and failures, the junior officers adapted to the environment and began developing counterinsurgency efforts tailored to succeed in their areas. Those that did not were eventually replaced.[6]

The successful officers engaged in many activities to defeat the insurgents.  They collected intelligence; hired Filipino auxiliaries to assist them even when Manila did not support this policy; used policies such as crop burning, food rationing, and concentration to isolate the population from the insurgents; and developed ways to reward Filipinos who supported US efforts, while penalizing those that did not.  The US Army had no counterinsurgency doctrine and leaders at the tactical level, at least in the beginning of the guerrilla fight, received inadequate guidance from the generals running the war in Manila.  Andrew Birtle believes one of the key reasons for US success in the Philippines was how US Army junior officers’ were willing to use trial and error to learn how to conduct counterinsurgency.  The junior officers were the tip of the spear in the fight.  Without their adaptability and initiative, the US Army would have been hard pressed to succeed in Philippines.[7]

Similar to the Philippines campaign, small unit leadership remains a core of counterinsurgency efforts in the present day.  Chapter Seven of FM 3-24 focuses exclusively on “Leadership and Ethics for Counterinsurgency.”  Paragraph 7-15 says, “Success in COIN operations requires small-unit leaders agile enough to transition among many types of missions and able to adapt to change…alert junior leaders recognize the dynamic context of a tactical situation and can apply informed judgment to achieve the commander’s intent in a stressful and ambiguous environment.” Additionally, Paragraph 1-157 of FM 3-24 says, “Many important decisions are not made by generals.”  Small unit leadership was essential in helping turn the tide in Iraq and it has played a critical role in the current effort in Afghanistan.[8]

(Continued at the link below)

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/coin-lessons-ignored-the-philippines-campaign-1899-1902

Is the War on Terrorism Over? Long Live Unconventional Warfare

My latest in Small Wars Journal.

V/R

Dave

Is the War on Terrorism Over? Long Live Unconventional Warfare

by David S. Maxwell

Journal Article | May 21, 2013 - 3:30am

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/is-the-war-on-terrorism-over-long-live-unconventional-warfare

The debate is in full force: Is Al Qaeda no longer a threat? Is the War on Terrorism over? Should we no longer talk about global terrorism to satisfy partisan political desires? Should we relegate countering terrorism to law enforcement and intelligence agencies?

There seem to be two competing worldviews in the US today. On the one hand there are those who think that terrorism has declined, is not a threat, and is only a problem because of American foreign policies that are disliked by a vocal and violent minority of Islamic extremists around the world. On the other hand there are those that view terrorism as an existential threat to the US as evidenced by the attacks on September 11 and they believe we should invoke the so-called one percent doctrine to prevent any attacks by violent Islamic extremists in the future: e.g., if there is a one percent chance that a terrorist attack may occur we must treat it as a certainty that it will occur and plan accordingly by expending all necessary efforts to prevent it.  These are of course the two extremes.  The truth certainly resides somewhere in between.

I would take this stand in the debate and offer a third view: Focusing solely on terrorism is wrong. What we really need to understand is that major threats to the United States and our friends, partners, and allies are not focused solely on conducting terrorism but instead are executing a very sophisticated and so far effective unconventional warfare strategy.  While the debate rages over whether the threat is best described by violent Islamic extremism or whether we should tie it or not tie it to a religion, perhaps if we focus on the functional application by the threat’s employment of an unconventional warfare strategy we can develop an effective counter unconventional warfare strategy that will achieve our strategic objectives and protect our vital interests. It is not necessary to prove whether Islamic extremists call for unconventional warfare in their writings and doctrine.  It is not necessary to prove that they are knowingly executing an unconventional warfare strategy.  However, by examining their strategy through a lens of unconventional warfare their functional strategy may be revealed and it may not be necessary to focus on the religious controversies surround this conflict.

To understand why this is we must begin with the definition of unconventional warfare and describe its major objectives so that we can end the myopic focus on the tactics of terrorism and defend against and counter the most difficult threat we face today and will likely face in the foreseeable future.

Simply put unconventional warfare consists of “activities to enable a resistance or insurgency to coerce, disrupt, or overthrow a government or occupying power through and with an underground, auxiliary and guerrilla force in a denied area.” While many will argue that this is an American centric view, in reality it applies to any nation or non- state actor seeking to achieve strategic objectives outside the realm of what most would call more traditional forms of warfare (although one could also make the case that unconventional warfare is not new and has a long tradition and certainly has been conducted more than world wars – just ask the French in Spain, the Germans in Africa or the Turks in Arabia or the British in the American colonies).

A major element of unconventional warfare is subversion and it is described in this way: “an activity designed to undermine the military, economic, psychological, or political strength or morale of a regime or nation. All elements of the resistance organization contribute to the subversive effort, but the clandestine nature of subversion dictates that the underground elements perform the bulk of the activity.”

Traditional strategic unconventional warfare objectives may include the following:

- Undermining the domestic and international legitimacy of the target authority.

- Neutralizing the target authority’s power and shifting that power to the resistance organization.

- Destroying the confidence and will of the target authority’s leadership.

- Isolating the target authority from international diplomatic and material support while obtaining such support for the resistance organization.

- Obtaining the support or neutrality of the various segments of the society.

Even the most cursory analysis reveals that Al Qaeda has all the hallmarks of an organization conducting unconventional warfare through enabling various resistance organizations (such as Al Qaeda affiliates but also “lone wolf” operatives) to at least coerce and disrupt the US and in some cases by clearly trying to overthrow friends, partners, and allies of the US.  Most importantly it is conducting a concerted campaign that includes subversion to achieve each of the strategic objectives outlined above. It of course executes this campaign through an underground that is the traditional subversive arm of any resistance organization. An underground is nothing more than a network that has been popularized in today’s counterterrorism terminology with such phrases as it “takes a network to defeat a network.” In actuality it takes a deep understanding of unconventional warfare by intelligence agencies, law enforcement and specific elements of the military to defeat an underground conducting subversion against the United States or its allies.

One of the most important aspects of unconventional warfare is that by nature it is both political and psychological. It can be summarized this way: “The intent of UW operations is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by advising, assisting, and sustaining resistance forces.” It is designed to achieve political effects and one of the ways it does so is through extensive psychological warfare efforts. One of the most concrete examples of this is Al Qaeda’s focus on radicalization throughout its target areas on virtually every continent of the world to include North America. In the case of the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing whether they were indirectly self radicalized and acted on their own or were radicalized directly through contact with Al Qaeda or affiliates matters little because either situation shows the effects of Al Qaeda’s psychological warfare campaign.

While I strongly believe that Al Qaeda and our enemies are conducting unconventional warfare; I am not asserting that they are not conducting terrorist operations. They certainly are and will very likely continue to do so. Terrorism is an integral part of the political and psychological component of unconventional warfare and no one has described this better than Bruce Hoffman in his seminal work, Inside Terrorism with parts excerpted here:

“...define terrorism as the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change. All terrorist acts involve violence or the threat of violence. Terrorism is specifically designed to have far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate victim(s) or object of the terrorist attack. It is meant to instill fear within, and thereby intimidate, a wider `target audience' that might include a rival ethnic or religious group, an entire country, a national government or political party, or public opinion in general. Terrorism is designed to create power where there is none or to consolidate power where there is very little. Through the publicity generated by their violence, terrorists seek to obtain the leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack to effect political change on either a local or an international scale.”

In sum we face a threat that is executing unconventional warfare against the US and its friends, partners and allies and because it is inherently political and psychological a major tactic employed includes terrorism.

Some will ask, so what? How does this help to defend the US and its interests? First a deep understanding of the threat and its methods allows a strategy to be developed to counter the enemy’s overall strategy and not solely on his use of terrorism to achieve his subversive political and psychological goals. As important as capturing and killing high value terrorist targets is, it is more important to be able to attack the enemy’s strategy because doing so not only can contribute to preventing terrorist acts but also will contribute to defending vulnerable people from radicalization as well as the general public from becoming disillusioned with the government and its agencies who are working hard to defeat the threats.

Second, by understanding the enemy’s strategy a counter-unconventional warfare strategy can be devised that will allow US law enforcement and homeland security agencies with intelligence support to locate and defeat the underground elements attempting to infiltrate, radicalize, and execute operations on US soil. Without an underground, effective terrorist operations cannot be conducted. Overseas, intelligence and military forces (with law enforcement support) who possess deep knowledge and understanding of unconventional warfare can advise and assist friends, partners and allies, to disrupt and defeat underground networks and deny sanctuary, resources, mobility, and popular support for the threat organizations.

For those who argue over whether the war on terrorism has been successful or not or whether we should or should not be waging a war against terrorism, I would say that we are having the wrong debate. We need to recognize that the threat, mostly in the form of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, exists and continues to operate. But more importantly we must understand that it is waging unconventional warfare and only using terrorism as one of the means of its strategy. In so doing we can then commence on developing a counter-unconventional warfare strategy and with that strategy employ the right means and ways to achieve our ends which must be the defeat of specified threats that are waging unconventional war.

RELATED CONTENT: 

The War on Terror - Over?

The War on Terror... Over? Part 2

Tags: Al Qaeda counterterrorism Global War on Terrorism GWOTterrorism War or Terrorism

About the Author

David S. Maxwell

David S. Maxwell is the Associate Director of the Center for  Security Studies and the Security Studies Program in the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University.  He is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel with command and staff assignments in Korea, Japan, Germany, the Philippines, and CONUS, and served as a member of the military faculty teaching national security at the National War College.  He is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, the Command and General Staff College, the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth and the National War College, National Defense University.

U.S. says (Korean) OPCON transfer plan on track but not guaranteed

I won't belabor the point but my thoughts are in the article at this link.

https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/globalsecuritystudiesreview/2013/05/07/the-elephant-in-the-room-north-korea-and-the-myth-of-roku-s-opcon-transfer/

V/R
Dave

2013/05/18 05:22 KST

U.S. says OPCON transfer plan on track but not guaranteed

By Lee Chi-dong

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2013/05/18/26/0301000000AEN20130518000200315F.HTML

WASHINGTON, May 17 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. scheme to transfer wartime operational control (OPCON) of South Korean troops back to Seoul remains on track but it is uncertain whether the allies will be fully ready for the agreed-upon target date -- Dec. 1, 2015, a U.S. official said earlier this week.

   "The timeline is, of course -- we expect it to be on track, but at the end of the day we have to be sure it is safe and it is secure to transfer that," Joseph Yun, acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a congressional hearing on Thursday, according to a formal transcript.

   He cited "a lot of work that needs to be done."

   "I would say among the most important work is the South Korean capability for intelligence, as well as having interoperable equipment," Yun said.

   Some conservatives in South Korea have consistently called for a further delay in the OPCON transition, arguing it may send a wrong signal to a nuclear-armed North Korea.

   South Korea handed over its operational control to the U.S.-led U.N. troops during the 1950-53 Korean War. Seoul regained peacetime OPCON in 1994.

   South Korea initially agreed to take back its wartime OPCON as of April 17, 2012. Shortly after North Korea's deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in 2010, however, Seoul requested a delay in the schedule. Washington accepted it.

(Continued at the link below)

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2013/05/18/26/0301000000AEN20130518000200315F.HTML

Socom's goal: Pre-empt wars

Great title (written with sarcasm).  I am sure the editor and author probably meant prevent wars as I think there is some baggage with a doctrine of pre-emption.  For more back to the future we should recall this excerpt from the 2002 NSS which also has been termed as the "Bush Doctrine"  While the second paragraph below seems completely logical the use of the word preemption connotes in particular the Iraq War and that of course has baggage.

The security environment confronting the United States today is radically different from what we have faced before. Yet the first duty of the United States Government remains what it always has been: to protect the American people and American interests. It is an enduring American principle that this duty obligates the government to anticipate and counter threats, using all elements of national power, before the threats can do grave damage. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. There are few greater threats than a terrorist attack with WMD. 

To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively in exercising our inherent right of self-defense. The United States will not resort to force in all cases to preempt emerging threats. Our preference is that nonmilitary actions succeed. And no country should ever use preemption as a pretext for aggression.

Coming soon to a country a near you  - the Afghan Village Stability Operations.  Wonder how chiefs of mission feel about that?

Given his vision, McRaven might consider clips from another movie: “Back to the Future.” 

A program special operators run in Afghanistan, for instance, where they work in villages training locals as police, is a modern version of what Green Berets did in Vietnam. 

This program can work around the globe, Bradin said.

I absolutely agree that the traditional Special Operations (and in particular Special Warfare – embodied most within Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations) missions and activities have the most continued relevance today and in the future for addressing the complex security threats we face now and will in the future (ones that are not existential to the US, but may very well be existential to our friends partners and allies).  But I do not think the journalist did any favors to USSOCOM in describing the narrative in terms of the Bush Doctrine as well as the vision of conducting VSO around the world.  The missions conducted as part of VSO are absolutely relevant and timeless but each will be applied uniquely based on the situation as it really exists and the VSO model may not be appropriate around the world and in fact may receive push back from countries or our own civilian government agency personnel.

V/R

Dave

Socom's goal: Pre-empt wars

http://tbo.com/list/macdill-air-force-base-news/socoms-goal-pre-empt-wars-b82486657z1

Tampa is headquarters for the commandos who are gaining a bigger role in military operations around the globe. Military writer Howard Altman travels with them this month in Afghanistan.

By Howard Altman | Tribune Staff

Published: May 19, 2013

They make small footprints at the edges of the Earth.

Sometimes they hunt and kill. Sometimes they teach rural tribes how to govern and farm.

But after more than 12 years of war, special operations forces are frayed — and in more demand than ever. With the military facing big spending cuts and a new emphasis on places around the globe, U.S. Special Operations Command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, is working to adapt to new realities.

Where will they make footprints next?

“There has been a shift in strategy away from war to defensive tactics,” said Stuart Bradin, an Army colonel helping bring a new global special operations network to life.

“The primary pieces are a pivot to Asia while keeping a very strong eye and focus on the Middle East, as well. We are going to go out in small footprints and work with key partners to ensure that small regional issues don't become major theater operations. We can't afford that in blood or treasure.”

The new network has a name, “Global SOF Network,” and a theme, “you can't surge trust,” and it's the vision of Socom commander Adm. William McRaven.

His first military priority remains winning the fight in Afghanistan. For commandos, that likely will extend well past 2014, when President Barack Obama has ordered that combat troops leave that nation.

At the same time, though, commanders in other parts of the world have a “pent up demand” for special operations forces, according to the Pentagon.

They'll be working with the new network of operators in the field partnered with members of agencies like the CIA, FBI and DEA and State Department personnel, as well as their as counterparts from other nations.

The goal is to prevent conflicts before they start and to keep U.S. troops off the battlefield by teaching others how to provide for their own defense, McRaven said.

With less money to spend, and a nation weary of war, the Pentagon wants the military of the future to be “agile, flexible, ready,” according to its planning documents. It will be leaner and rapidly deployable, the documents say, as well as persistent and possessed of operational reach.

These are precisely the qualities of special operations forces, which can fan out quickly across the globe, usually in small numbers, usually working with other militaries and governments to provide training and guidance, McRaven said.

But when it's necessary, no one delivers a lethal response like special operators — Navy SEALs and Special Warfare Combat Crews, Army Green Berets, Rangers and aviators, Air Force pilots, pararescue jumpers and combat controllers and Marine commandos.

As Socom commander, McRaven has no direct authority over where these forces are sent or what they do in the field. But he does control the doctrine by which they operate.

Col. Bradin, in his last year of service after a career that began in 1984, is leading a team of more than 100 men and women as chief of the Operational Planning Team with the new Global SOF, for special operations forces.

His mission is to meld McRaven's vision with a framework established by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that calls for increased use of special operations skills.

Bradin's team has been working since April 2012 and has until August to present its plan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The end result, Bradin said, is a plan that allocates special operations resources in a synchronized way to the six U.S. commands that control troops around the world.
(Continued at the link below)
http://tbo.com/list/macdill-air-force-base-news/socoms-goal-pre-empt-wars-b82486657z1

Release of E-Mails Shows Jostling on Libya Talking Points

Maybe when they get done with this they will shift the investigation to the important part – what happened before September 11, 2012 all there decisions made or not made and why leading up to the event.  I hope we can get to the real issues that will save lives in the future if we learn, adapt, and anticipate rather than focus on talking points that will not save anyone in the future.  Here is the link directly to the emails:  http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/16/us/politics/16benghazi-emails.html?ref=politics

V/R

Dave

Release of E-Mails Shows Jostling on Libya Talking Points

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MARK LANDLER

Published: May 15, 2013 85 Comments

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/us/politics/e-mails-show-jostling-over-benghazi-talking-points.html?ref=global-home

WASHINGTON — One hundred pages of e-mails released by the White House on Wednesday reveal intensive jostling among top intelligence and diplomatic officials over the government’s “talking points” in the aftermath of last September’s attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans.

The documents suggest that the top two officials at the C.I.A. disagreed about how many details the administration should disclose about the agency’s view of who carried out the attacks and its earlier warnings about terrorist threats in the region.

In a copy of a draft memo released by the White House, Michael J. Morrell, the agency’s deputy director, crossed out five sentences from the talking points that described the agency’s warnings about threats from Islamic extremists. State Department officials also strongly urged that the warnings be left out, according to the e-mails.

The C.I.A. director at the time, David H. Petraeus, evidently disagreed with his deputy and believed that the warnings should be made public. “Frankly, I’d just as soon not use this, then …” Mr. Petraeus wrote in an e-mail to colleagues, referring to a version of the talking points that excluded the warnings.

The version the administration used in the days after the attacks, primarily by Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, did not include suspicions about the involvement of a Libyan militant group with ties to Al Qaeda. State Department officials objected to the inclusion of that information.

The administration has since acknowledged the involvement of Ansar al-Shariah, an extremist group with Qaeda ties. The White House released the e-mails to reporters after Republicans seized on snippets of the correspondence that became public last Friday to suggest that President Obama’s White House staff had taken an active role in altering the talking points.

In releasing them, White House officials were hoping to show that intelligence officials, not political advisers, drove the debate over the talking points.

It remained unclear why Mr. Morrell objected to the inclusion of the warnings and whether his objections or the State Department’s played the dominant role in having them removed.

After the release, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Speaker John A. Boehner, criticized what he called the “political nature” of the State Department’s requested changes.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/us/politics/e-mails-show-jostling-over-benghazi-talking-points.html?ref=global-home