Posted on 11/20/2005 8:15:51 PM PST by neverdem
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - The Pentagon's leadership, recognizing that it was caught off guard by difficulties in pacifying Iraq after the invasion, is poised to approve a sweeping directive that will elevate what it calls "stability operations" to a core military mission comparable to full-scale combat.
The new order could significantly influence how the military is structured, as well as the specialties it emphasizes and the equipment it buys.
The directive has been the subject of intense negotiations in the Pentagon policy office and throughout the military; the deliberations included the State Department and other civilian agencies, as the order aims to push the entire government to work in greater unison to plan and carry out postcombat operations.
The directive also envisions sending abroad more civilian officials, including State Department personnel, to help the military establish the peace and rebuild after combat.
The newest draft of the document, delivered in recent days to the acting deputy secretary of defense, Gordon R. England, for final approval, states, "Stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support."
The stability operations carried out by the Department of Defense "shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all D.O.D. activities," the draft says.
Although the American military is now virtually in a class of its own when it comes to conventional combat, the wars in Afghanistan and in particular Iraq prove that winning the peace is just as important - and sometimes more difficult.
Congress has criticized the Bush administration, and the Pentagon, for not devising effective plans to stabilize and rebuild Iraq after the swift capture of Baghdad. Many lawmakers have accused the administration of utterly failing to coordinate its postcombat efforts across the executive...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
(cough.....cough)
and I don't make a practice of sticking my head down a Porta-Potty either.
Clinton's sleepers in the Pentagon up to no good again.
So where do we get to try this new plan out first? Syria or Iran?
Isn'this Civil Affairs?
They are running in a wrong direction. The best way to achieve stability is to destroy your enemies utterly.
If I had to choose between transforming the military, in particular the ground forces, especially the Army, and having to win the war at hand, I would win the war at hand because we can't afford to lose.
If you haven't read "Rumsfeld was focused on one kind of war, got another", you might find it interesting. I think the administration has underestimated its enemies, foreign and domestic. Everything that I've read supports the notion that we gave Phase IV short shrift, and that has only emboldened both of those enemies.
That's part of what you need during a hostile occupation when the potential for a long guerrilla conflict is underestimated.
I work in an Army training program for senior leaders. When the Army was prepping for the invasion of Iraq there was an exercise that afforded them the chance to deal with issues affecting stability and security. They instead chose to ignore those issues and instead focus on traditional offensive combat operations. The main target of our training focus, a corps commander who has since been promoted, natch, later stated that "the enemy we trained for was not the one we faced." Well, no s---, big guy. You had the chance but you chose not to take it. And now our troopies are paying the price.
total view count check bump
Actually, that quote was printed in the NY Times. It was more or less a mis-quote to make the Army look unprepared for the assault into Iraq. Later, they were forced to print a correction (which means someone smart was keeping a tape of the conversation, or else the Times would have never back-tracked). I could probably dig up more details.
I'm in an Army Civil Affairs unit. We help Army combat units interact with local civilians at every phase of combat -- from the initial build-up, to the fight, to support & stabilization operations.
It sounds nice in theory, but in all honesty I'm not sure the Army's doctrine is really all it needs to be -- especially for support and stabilization operations. I'm glad they're going to put more emphasis into this area.
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