Proactively “From the Sea”; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.
Well, reader Thomas Shugart (@tshugart3) took time to answer to my question via a simulation of 3 FREMM (IT GP ver) vs 5 LCS/FF (SPY-1F, 16 NSM, SLQ-32). Otomat range & Aster SAMs seem to win. 2 FREMM survive. There you go.
I guess it is time, again, as I have done every few years for the last decade+, to review how we got to where we are in AFG. To understand why we are here, you have to know how we got here. It isn’t an easy story, but it should not be a surprise. Click the AFG tab if you want to see what I’ve written in the past on the topic, but I’ll summarize a bit here. It can be best described in seven acts. Act 1: Original Sin – Take the institutional arrogance of United Nations bureaucrats, business-class flying NGO leadership, Davos world view, and imbue it with a slight whiff of residual colonial parochialism, and you have the immediate post-911 Bonn Agreement. It was finalized when many of our Special Forces still had not washed the horse sweat from their DCUs. It set up a structure for the future Afghanistan before the power centers there could weigh in. Afghan solutions to Afghan problems and all that was simply not transformational enough. There were good people there who meant well, but it was asking too much, too soon, with too little appreciation for the realities of Afghanistan. This isn’t 20/20 hindsight either. We argued it at the time along the lines of, “Are they really committed to this for the long haul?” This ran for roughly the first 2-3 years. Two recommendations for the later portions of this period that don’t get the attention they deserve: First, Sarah Chayes’s book, The Punishment of Virtue, and the documentary by Sedika Mojadidi, Motherland Afghanistan. Act 2:Allied Hope – NATO decided to prove that it was more than just an exercise club and more than Euro-centric. As with a rather small footprint the USA seemed to have AFG under control, NATO believed it could take charge. From 2005-2006 it was decided while the USA remained in control of Regional Command East (RC-E), the Brits, Canadians, and Dutch would take RC-S, the Spanish and Italians would take RC-W, the Germans RC-N, and the Turks would take RC-C in Kabul. It looked OK for a while, but the security situation started to spiral out of control. The exercise club also took some of its bad habits with it to war, and it stumbled. First, the Combined Joint Statement of Requirements out of Mons just never got filled. Some of the contributing nations who did throw their hat in the ring only did so with so many national caveats and ROE restrictions that they could never leave base, or if they did, couldn’t do much. They didn’t bring the right kit, or for some newer NATO nations, had no idea how to deploy. The assumption was Uncle Sam would, as always, pick up the slack. Act 3: Buyer’s Remorse – By late 2006, the NATO-sceptics critique started to break above the happy-talk. AFG was more serious than NATO and the USA were saying, and most of the alliance member were not up to the challenge, and if they were – their staying power was brittle at best. If you had to draw the line somewhere, it would have been the summer of 2007 when NATO failed to fill the rotary-wing aviation bridging force. At the last minute, a combination of US military and civilian contractors filled the gap. After that goat rope, it was clear that NATO culminated. It was clear to the Americans in NATO and at the USA Joint Staff. Planning began to, in unkind terms, take back the keys … as long as the surge in Iraq worked. Some of the larger minimal-caveat maneuver forces, the Dutch and the Canadians, had already signaled they had enough and were going home. We needed to not only replace them over time, but increase the national presence overall. Bit by bit, RC by RC, we took the keys back. Act 4: Classic COIN’s Stillbirth – There is a little overlap between Act 3 and 4, as they transitioned slowly in parallel. A new Scots-Irish General came to lead the US forces in AFG and ISAF, General McKiernan, USA. He brought with him “Shape, Clear, Hold, Build” – a plan to combine civilian, governmental, and military efforts district by district to enable government of Afghanistan control. Shape and Clear required additional forces. Through late 2007 and 2008 the planning for the uplift of forces (surge) was made. The Iraqi surge’s success happened just in time, and forces were able to begin coming in by the summer of 2008. Then we had an election. The new administration came in to Kabul to look over the surge plans, and with minimal changes, allowed it to continue. It was clear that there were new ideas with Holbrook and his fellow travelers, but that it would take a year for them to get those ideas ready for President Obama to issue derived D&G. With SCHB and the uplift, we thought at the time this was a decade long effort if we stuck with it. In Destile Gardens we would darky speak that if we ditched this conditioned based plan and went to a calendar based plan, we might as well just retreat to the nearest airhead and go home. It took less than a year. Act 5: Retreat – President Obama’s December 2009 West Point speech where he announced a calendar based plan that signaled retreat, it seemed everything else was just commentary on the inevitable drive to The Friendship Bridge … if we were lucky. In a story yet to be told well by anyone … over the course of the next year, someone competent and knowledgeable about military matters got the ear of President Obama and we never fully left in the summer of 2011 as he outlined. We hedged, and we got lucky. Act 6: The Great Dithering – Obama moved the decision point to the right, to the next President. We treaded water in quiet, drone filled dreams of hoping that Afghanistan would just go away. From the end of his first administration through his second, we dithered. We mowed the grass and relied on hope. He hoped a disaster didn’t happen on his watch, we hoped for something we could call a win. Act 7: Acceptance and Salvage – Here we are in Act 7. As with the change from Bush to Obama, the first year of Trump will mostly be the conditions created by the prior administration. As with McMaster and Mattis having better first hand knowledge of the area, it appears that we may see changes faster. This week, we have heard that President Trump has a plan to look at;
The Washington Post this week reported that senior administration officials are pushing President Donald Trump to effectively return to the combat mission against the Taliban, adding thousands of troops to the fight.
Sources told the paper the new plan would also authorize the Pentagon to set its own troop numbers for Afghanistan, instead of following White House recommendations. Pentagon officials would also review the rules of engagement for troops operating there, following a Trump campaign trail promise to give military leaders more autonomy.
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White House spokesman Sean Spicer said no decisions on troop levels in Afghanistan have been finalized yet, but he reiterated Trump’s promises to keep America safe and root out terrorist threats across the globe.
“One of the things he has asked our national security team to think through is to think through the strategy,” he said. “How do we win? How do we eliminate the threat?”
We should wait and see – and serious national security people need to give Mattis and his team the benefit of the doubt and a chance. We can’t rewind back to 2009. The window long ago closed for SCHB and helping district by district drag Afghanistan to where we would like them to be. Perhaps in Act 7 we can salvage something from Act 6. We keep enough forces in place to help build capacity of the ANSF (#evergreen) and to have the ability to kill AQ and ISIS where they pop their head up, as it pleases us. We accept that Afghanistan will have to come to peace on Afghan terms as best it can with its always restive Pashtun plurality. As long as trans-national terrorists can’t use it as a base, then that should be OK. That should be good enough, and perhaps where we should have kept it before Act 1 set everyone off this long, sordid task almost a generation ago.
Since the opening of this blog almost 13 year ago, I have been a firm advocate of the “2% of GDP” benchmark for not just NATO, but for all nations we have defense arrangements with. Yes, we are the big kid in our club, but in such an alliance, big and small, strong and weak, everyone should make the best effort they can to contribute given their size. As a measure of national wealth, % spending of GDP is as good as any measure to determine any nation’s relative, “Give a Damn Factor” when it comes in defending themselves. Just as the good Lord helps those who help themselves, it is fair that Uncle Sam should help his friends who are making an honest effort to defend themselves. To be a useful measure, this requires a mutual understanding and appreciation of the security environment. Some nations may have “national” security needs that are outside the alliance, or may not have those same needs that other nations have. The gift/curse of geography, demography, and historical baggage. As such, numbers can vary a bit, but shouldn’t too much over time as the world changes. If we are pledging to defend each other, then we should be in rough alignment on what that threat is at any moment in time, and how our different democratic governments can deliver a response to it. How do we measure it? Which nations “get it” with regards to the Long War focus since 2001 that replaced the Cold War focus that died about 25 years ago? Here is one way to look at it. Let’s look at just those who were allied with us in the Cold War and today. What did they spend as a percentage of GDP on defense in the waning days of the Cold War, 1988, vs. what they are spending in the recent years of the Long War, 2015? As this is USA-centric, let’s look at what we did. We went from 5.6% GDP to 3.3% GDP in that timeframe. In 2015, our % of GDP was 59% of that in 1988. That is our benchmark. Let’s look at our European and Pacific allies through the same lens. If they decreased their defense outlays, “Cold War Retention,” to the same effort that we did – then from a defense needs point of view, we can consider our nations in rough alignment. Let’s call the measure of that alignment the “Security Alignment Coefficient” (SAC). 1.0 is full alignment. More than 1.0 means you feel a need for greater investment in defense than we do relative to these two data points. Less than 1.0 means, notsomuch. We have to allow for a little nation-state wiggle room, so I’m going to put ½ standard deviation from the average. Our allies, as a group, are not that bad. The average SAC is 1.04. With ½ standard deviation of 0.139, that means we can assume we are aligned in our defense world view with a SAC from 1.18 to 0.90. We have a few over-performers; Japan, Australia, Portugal, Turkey & Greece. We have some under-performers; Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, & Belgium. You can see some limitation of this method; money or alignment does not necessarily reflect will, capability, or deployability. If we are going to argue who is, “paying their fair share” then we should be using a little better definition of “fair” when it comes time to twist elbows.
Whenever there is a global crisis, natural disaster or manmade, civilians or of a security related issue - the world turns their eyes to the United States of America. The indispensable nation. The only global super-power. You all know the drill. Is it an honor, or a burden? Is it a habit we should, or can sustain? Our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to discuss this and related issues will be Christopher Preble, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. As a starting point for our discussion, we will use the article he co-authored with William Ruger at War on the Rocks, No More of the Same: the Problem with Primacy. Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio or Stitcher. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.
Prince Philip was in the news this week after the decision that he was going to retire from official duties. After over nine decades on the planet, I think he's earned it. The usual haters, there are always haters, were making snide comments here and there - but they just showed that they were blinkered, bitter people. They aren't qualified to collect the guy's recycling. No one is perfect, but he's led an exemplary life under the microscope. Even this small "r" republican has to give a nod to the service Philip provided to his adopted country. He also more than earned the uniform he wears on occasion. As such, and as a nod to his service, let's take a moment today to recognize a good XO.
Hargreaves was a yeoman aboard the destroyer HMS Wallace on which Philip, son of Prince Andrew of Greece, had been appointed first lieutenant - second-in-command - at the age of 21. In July 1943, engaged in the Allied landings in Sicily, the ship came under repeated bombardment at dead of night and its crew realised that they would probably lose their lives.
It was then Philip conjured up a plan to throw overboard a wooden raft with smoke floats that would create the illusion of debris ablaze on the water. As he hoped, the German plane was fooled into attacking the raft while the Wallace sailed to safety under cover of darkness.
Hargreaves recalled the terrifying events of that night on the website: 'It was obvious that we were the target for tonight and they would not stop until we had suffered a fatal hit. It was for all the world like being blindfolded and trying to evade an enemy whose only problem was getting his aim right. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that a direct hit was inevitable.
'There was no question but to accept that on the next run or the one after that we had little chance of survival. I had been through so much that the feeling of anger and frustration was as great as the fear I and everyone else felt.
'It was less than five minutes after the aircraft had departed and - if the previous space in time was approximately the same - we had about 20 minutes to come up with something. We couldn't steam far in that time, not even far enough to make the aircraft think we had moved.'
He continued: 'The first lieutenant [Philip] went into hurried conversation with the captain, and the next thing a wooden raft was being put together on deck. Within five minutes they launched a raft over the side - at each end was fastened a smoke float. When it hit the water the smoke floats were activated and billowing clouds of smoke interspersed with small bursts of flame gave a convincing imitation of flaming debris in the water.
'The captain ordered full ahead and we steamed away from the raft for a good five minutes and then he ordered the engines stopped. The tell-tale wake subsided and we lay there quietly in the soft darkness and cursed the stars, or at least I did. Quite some time went by until we heard aircraft engines approaching.
'The sound of the aircraft grew louder until I thought it was directly overhead and I screwed up my shoulders in anticipation of the bombs. The next thing was the scream of the bombs, but at some distance. The ruse had worked and the aircraft was bombing the raft. I suppose he was under the impression that he had hit us in his last attack and was now finishing the job.
'We lay there waiting for him to leave, which he did, and, in view of the solitary attacks so well spaced apart, we were convinced he would not return. It had been marvellously quick thinking, conveyed to a willing team and put into action as if rehearsed.'
Speaking from his home in Westport in Ontario, Canada, Hargreaves told The Observer: 'Prince Philip saved our lives that night. I suppose there might have been a few survivors, but certainly the ship would have been sunk. He was always very courageous and resourceful and thought very quickly. You would say to yourself "What the hell are we going to do now?" and Philip would come up with something.'
