Hunter Baker at Southern Appeal had a post describing an encounter he had with a vagrant at his door, who showed up wanting work. The police showed up not long afterwards, and arrested the fellow on charges of burglary.
Our Joel Leggett put up a followup post taking Hunter to task for his foolishness. Joel and I have been discussing the ethics and practicalities involved in the comments. We disagree on the proper course of action, though I do wish to add that I respect the Captain's position, and the way in which he allows his deep personal faith to guide his life and thinking.
I don't mean to add to the debate here, but rather to direct you there should you wish to consider it. It's an important topic, I think, touching on heroic ethical issues such as hospitality and charity, duty and protection.
UPDATE: Although it touches an entirely different topic, I see that Doc is thinking along the same lines as I am about the underlying issues. Good luck to the lady, Doc, and yourself as well.
S.Appeal
Myers
The case of unqualified nepotism appointee Julie Myers, joined with Eric's British colonial references, has reminded me of something. The British colonial system ought to be critiqued for what we can learn of its failures, but we ought also to remember its successes. The British also dealt with the question of patronage positions, but they did it better than we do.
A piece of popular theater in the late 19th century was Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore." It made fun of the British empire, and particularly the Royal Navy. It was popular in America as well as elsewhere -- so much so that it was performed in Tombstone, Arizona not long before the shootout at the OK Corral. (Addendum to the cited article: in addition to being "a disreputable cowboy," Behan was also at times the sheriff.)
One of the characters most mocked is "the Ruler of the Queen's Navy," who is a patronage appointment who knows exactly nothing about the navy:
Of legal knowledge I acquired such a gripYet the song, though it mocks, is also a tribute to the British system. The Ruler of the Queen's Navy began as an office boy, whose hard work at cleaning out a law firm earned him a minor position copying letters. His devotion to accuracy earned him another opportunity; and through hard work and study, he moved up to that junior partnership. Through more hard work, he became wealthy, and then became a member of Parliament, where his party loyalty brought him to the position of command over the Navy. It is a testament to a lifetime's hard work and devotion to duty.
That they took me into the partnership,
And that junior partnership I ween
Was the only ship that I ever had seen;
But that kind of ship so suited me
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navy!
What has this to do with a thirty-six year old, whose tiny amount of relevant experience was only gained as the result of another patronage position? The Ruler of the Queen's Navy was a man of experience and character in his own right, who was laughable only because he was placed in command of something he didn't happen to know much about. Yet he did have experience, and what was really an extraordinary career behind him.
Who is Julie Myers? Not, I hope, the next head of the Immigration and Customs service.
M'sia
Our Ambassador to Malaysia, Christopher LaFleur, has called Malaysia a success story for democracy. (Shouldn't we ask American diplomats named after French flowers to adopt a nomme de guerre for the duration of their tenure? How about we call you "Chris Eastwood" just for the length of your appointment?)
Is it true? Well, there's one leading indicator to watch. Lim Kit Siang, the leader of the Democratic Action Party, has a blog. Lim is a fun character to watch. You can count on him to cause a near-brawl in the Malaysian parliament at least twice a year, usually by making some "insensitive" statement about the proper role of Islam in Malaysian politics. DAP is a secular party, and likes to remind the less-secular parties that the Malaysian constitution declares Malaysia to be a secular state. Malaysian politicians, somewhat like a certain brand of US politician, often like to call Malaysia an "Islamic nation," which is true in the sense that belongs to the OIC. The DAP can always be counted on to stand up and fight the idea, to the amusement of all.
JM
Reader J.M. sends this article by a UK army officer on the Basra mission. Except for the idea of running a tank into the building, he says, it was a great thought:
Right up to the point when someone thought a 17-ton armoured vehicle was the right negotiating tactic to spring two British special forces operatives from an Iraqi jail, the fact that two SAS troopers were disguised as locals (and sneaking around in a civvy car) showed the British Army was doing what it has always done, usually pretty well: getting down and dirty with the locals and gathering information.Well, fair enough, insofar as it's true. However, I can't help but notice that "getting down and dirty with the locals" apparently encompassed shooting Iraqi police. Doubtless this improved their credibility with the local insurgents tremendously -- but the rest of the Iraqi population has every right to take the demonstration just as seriously.
Why, precisely, were they doing this?
The Army is struggling to win the intelligence battle. When your enemy communicates through use-once-and-throw-away mobile phones, or motorbike couriers, when you don't speak the language, and the locals are all related, come from the same village, and won't talk to strangers, gaining actionable intelligence is very hard. Hence the covert ops.The author then compares this with the American method:
And technology won't help.Indeed they did, and also brought on as many human translators as they could locate or train. They also, however, hired teachers. And not just language teachers: cultural instructors as well. I know a charming young mother in Washington, D.C., who was introduced to me as an "urban warfare instructor." I was a little taken aback by the introduction, given that she didn't seem to have the build for urban warfighting, so I later asked her just what it was she had taught. It turned out that the Army had sought her out for roleplaying exercises with troops heading to Iraq. A Muslim from the Middle East herself, she was hired to teach them what to expect and how to deal properly with the cultures involved.
Faced with the language problem, the US army bought electronic translators. The British hired teachers.
We'll return to that in a moment.
When your threat is a man with an AK47, spy satellites aren't going to tell you that someone has moved into the empty house next to the centre-forward's cousin.The "Bobby on the Beat" is a little out of place in Iraq today. I don't see a future for this particular sort of SAS-style "old fashioned policing" either. The fellow has diagnosed the problem nicely, but has no remedy to hand.
This is nothing more than good old-fashioned policing - the Bobby on the Beat, albeit with a 155mm howitzer on call. What the British Army - and even more so the American forces - need is far fewer Rambos and a lot more Jack Warners.
There is an intelligence gathering method that works. It starts with building personal relationships, which in turn starts with treating people properly. The US Army knew that years ago -- that's why they hired instructors, like my kindly friend in D.C., to train deploying infantrymen. The dividends are paying off in Mosul, as Yon's pieces demonstrate, and throughout the USMC's AO.
The US military is using local tips, gathered from people who've decided they have a stake in the new Iraq. They've decided that partially because we've been winning on the military front, so the insurgents can't hold territory or guarantee peace. We've also been doing it because people have been building personal relationships, built on respect and honesty -- not sneaking around in sneakers and shooting your allies.
I hope the British army produces a better explanation than this for the little contretemps in Basra.
Who?
Well, she's President Bush's pick to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which includes the Border Patrol and is under the Department of Homeland Security. She has impressive qualifications:
Her uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She married [former Justice Department official Michael] Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood, on Saturday.No, wait, those aren't her qualifications. Her qualifications aren't that she is thirty-six years old and is related or married to important people with political connections. That's not why she's being put in a critical position for Homeland Security.
Here we are:
In written answers to questions from Congress, Myers highlighted her year-long job as assistant secretary for export enforcement at Commerce, where she said she supervised 170 employees and a $25 million budget. ICE has more than 20,000 employees and a budget of approximately $4 billion. Its personnel investigate immigrant, drug and weapon smuggling, and illegal exports, among other responsibilities.So, she has one year's experience. No one could be more qualified than that! See, it's not about her family and political ties at all.
Nobody is getting that the border is a critical vulnerability to "Homeland Security," are they?
I came across this report of that botched British Army operation to free some British (undercover?) soldiers from jail in Basra.
And more here (with pictures) from the BBC.
I have been concerned for awhile that the British in Basra haven't really been pulling their weight. Its just a hunch I have, but the initial "we know what we're doing, and the Americans are too heavy handed" comments from the British military in 2003, particularly after the insurgency in the Sunni triangle started, made me question whether the British command really had an idea of what they were in Iraq for.
Just what do they think driving tanks through a jail wall is?
The British have just screwed up big time. I don't even want to think about the implications of this.
Posse Comitatus
Arms and the Law has a short but useful post on the built-in exceptions in Posse Comitatus. If you aren't familiar with the phrase yet, you will want to become familiar with it, as you'll be hearing a lot about it in the wake of the New Orleans disaster. The term means "power of the county," although comitatus has an ancient and highly honorable heritage: the word, which is related to "comrade," meant in early Germanic society the warrior band that kept company with, and often elected, the king. These are the men who became Charlemagne's Paladins; these are the men who became knights and great nobles when the qualification for such status was a strong arm and a brave heart.
In the American legal tradition, Posse Comitatus is a law that limits the military's ability to be used as a law enforcement agency -- for example, to suppress riots and restore order in ruined New Orleans. However, one can offer another example: to storm houses of people suspected of illegal conduct in normal times, or to "stop" cars in the fashion our Mr. Yon explained is universal: by putting cannon rounds from a helicopter gunship through the vehicle's engine block. Assuming you don't miss, which even the most well-trained soldier will on occasion.
This is the law, in other words, that prevents the government from making war on the American people -- or, at least, the criminal element of the American people, as best as it can be identified by the government's agents. It is a law we ought to be very glad to have. We ought to be deeply suspicious of attempts to overturn that law. I yield to none in my respect and admiration for the US military, but their training and their firepower is not meant to be used against Americans except in extraordinary circumstances.
It would tarnish their honor to let the politicians use them in that way. It is not what they are for, nor what they are sworn to do. As Arms and the Law demonstrates, it is also not necessary -- legal exceptions exist to cover most extraordinary situations. As it is neither needful nor desirable, we ought to mistrust legislators who attempt it.
VA
Virginia is horse country, of a sort. Horse people know that there are many kinds of horses, but in America there are mostly two kinds of riders: "English" riders, and "Western" riders. English riders draw their traditions, and their gear, from the old Foxhunting traditions of England. Western riders draw their traditions and gear from the cowboys, vaqueros, and other riders from the American West. There are also Australian riders -- the kit is an interesting mix of the two other styles, as I gather -- and of course there are non-Western traditions as well.
Virginia is English country in a big way. Many of the great among the Founders were horsemen, and the English tradition was their tradition. It is so deeply saturated in the culture around here that every little waterway -- which would be called a "creek" or a "stream" anywhere else -- is called a "run." Around here there is Broad Run, Thumb Run, and of course the infamous Bull Run, which I should not have to tell you is near a city called Manassas.
Today I saw a fellow hauling hay for his horses, and on the side of the truck was a logo for his company. Turns out they have a website: "Journey's End Carriage."
"If I'm at the journey's end," I asked my wife -- who used to teach horseback riding in the days when the Girl Scouts of America had a big national camp out west in Wyoming -- "why do I need a carriage?"
It was worth it for the look I got out of her.
On Saturday, I went to the Village of Hume and saw a ring joust. This proves to be the state sport of Maryland, which is appropriate since Maryland is the only state with a proper coat of arms for a flag. The arms of Maryland were inherited from one of their colonial grandees, Calvert, Lord Baltimore.
It was a fun little exercise, featuring no "knights" but many young maidens. So, at least, the announcer proclaimed them as they rode through: "Such and such, Maiden of the Plains." "The Plains" is a small town near here.
The girls were all having a great deal of fun, and a few of them had even attempted to kit out their horses in something like a medieval style. I have some pictures, which perhaps I can upload. Anyway, good fun, even if the announcer from the Ruritarians who was hosting the event was entirely confused by the medieval jargon.
Another thing Virginia has is lots of military folks. It's common to see USMC bumper stickers (indeed, you can see them on my trucks), as well as stickers that say "Proud Parent of a US Marine."
Until today, however, I'd never seen one of these. They say every Marine is a recruiter -- and so, apparently, is everyone in his family, at least to one degree's removal.
A TRUE HERO
Please take the time to read this article about Cpl Ted Rubin by James S. Robbins. This authentic American hero will finally receive the recognition he so richly deserves on September 23 when President Bush presents him with the Medal of Honor. I have also posted this over at Southern Appeal.
Ice cream
I wonder about the Burger King "Allah" Ice Cream. But let me pass on the story in case you haven't heard it:
The fast-food chain, Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim.You can see the design through the first link, compared with the Arabic for "Allah." Judge for yourself, as JihadWatch suggests.
The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a “jihad”.
But my question is this: When one of our more Fundamentalist Christians thinks he sees in some commercial product Jesus' face, or the Virgin Mary, he takes it as a miracle that proves the existence of God. He tells us that it shows that even in these little things, these throw-offs of the godless capitalist system, God's work is done.
The more radical Muslim threatens jihad against Burger King.
Why is it that radicals in the one faith see the hand of God working something positive in these coincidences, while radicals of the other faith see a conspiracy to insult their god? Why is the radical arm of the Christian faith confident of God's power to work regardless of the intention of man, while the radical arm of the Islamic faith so ready to believe that it is man working evil in defiance of the Lord of the Dawn?
It suggests to me that there is a substantial lack of confidence at work in the radical forms of Islam. Why should that be? It's true that Islamic civilization is at a low point, while civilizations that have historic involvement with Christianity are still on top. But religion, because it speaks to issues of true power behind the obvious faces of the world, ought to liberate the intense believer from the mere facts of the world they know. The simple reality of the situation at hand should not be definitive for the true believer.
Yet, here we are. What say you?
small arms
The bottom fell out of the market for Kalashnikov rifles in Gaza this week, as smugglers from Egypt suddenly found that no one was really trying to keep their arms out of the place any more:
Palestinian gunrunners smuggled hundreds of assault rifles and pistols across the Egyptian frontier into Gaza, dealers and border officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The influx confirmed Israeli fears about giving up border control and could further destabilize Gaza.Another report has the price even lower:
Black market prices for weapons dropped sharply, with AK-47 assault rifles nearly cut in half to $1,300 and even steeper reductions for handguns.
News of the smuggling came as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas tried to impose order following the Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza this week. Militant groups scoffed at a new Palestinian Authority demand that they disband after parliamentary elections in January, saying they would not surrender weapons.
An arms dealer said the price of an AK-47 assault rifle has dropped from around £1,000 (€1,484) to around £650 (€965). Bullets for the weapon are now being sold for as little as three shekels (around 50p) when previously they cost up to 18 shekels.That's the price for black-market militant groups. One wonders what the Palestinian Authority is paying for its arms. Less, because it can take advantage of wholesale prices and commercial shipping? Or more, because it involves kickbacks to every corrupt official along the way?
Indonesia, meanwhile, has decided to address the problem of small arms being too expensive in another way -- build its own:
Indonesian arms industry PT Pindad has started to produce rifles which are lighter and cheaper than US-made M-16 or Russia's AK-47 and potentially will become the standard rifle of any Indonesian soldier, an executive said Thursday.Expense shouldn't be the primary consideration in picking a battle rifle. The question that you should be asking is, "But will it work?" Still, there's no reason it shouldn't work. Rifles aren't that hard to build -- the technology has been mature for a long time.
"The SS-2 rifle will be tested by a platoon of soldiers in the Army, the Air Force and the Navy," Sutarto, an expert staff for Pindad's director of military production, was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency.
He said the 5.5-mm caliber SS-2, produced with significant improvement from the earlier series of SS-1, is designed to become the standard rifle of Indonesian soldiers.
He claimed that the local rifle is much cheaper than any other rifles of the same category.
Pindad spokesman Timbul Sitompul said separately an SS-2 is priced at some 500 US dollars, far below the price of an M-16 which is sold at 1,000 dollars in the market.
HOWDY
Since this is a hall dedicated to the heroic life I will include my favorite excerpt from Thomas Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome.
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
``To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods,
CPT JL
I'm delighted to announce that Captain Leggett has accepted my invitation to join us as a blogger here at Grim's Hall. We will benefit greatly from "the Sheik Marine's" experience and analysis. The good Captain has been a reader and commenter for some time, so I expect most of you are familiar with him. Others of you may know him as a blogger at Southern Appeal, a "blawg" for lawyers of Southern extraction.
Welcome aboard.
IN
Live in Iraq is recommended to me by our own JHD. I've added it to the sidebar. It's apparently by a young officer. Give it a look.
Hm
Longtime readers know how I feel about the use of words like "liar!" In general, they have no place whatsoever in common discussion. They are deadly insults, which should not be used against people you don't actually intend to kill, or by whom you are not prepared to be killed.
You will have to imagine the strain that particular ethic is causing me, now that I find myself faced with this assertion:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said yesterday that Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an "ongoing victory," and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget.I must assume that the Honorable Gentleman was entirely misquoted. At least, I expect him to have the decency to claim that he was in tomorrow's paper.
DOL
President Jalal Talibani has a message for you. It's something Americans should hear.
“In the name of the Iraqi people, I say to you, Mr. President, and to the glorious American people, thank you, thank you."To the glorious American people." Now there's a phrase we might hear more often. But we ought to answer in the words of Robert the Bruce:
“Thank you because you have liberated us from the worst kind of dictatorship. Our people suffered too much from this worst kind of dictatorship. The signal is mass graves with hundred thousand of Iraqi innocent children and women, young and old men. Thank you.”
It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.Hat tip: Baldilocks.
Future Marines
The Adventures of Chester (hat tip Mudville's Dawn Patrol) has a summary of AEI's blockbuster seminar on the Future of the Marine Corps. Some extraordinary talent came out to discuss the question -- a question that never dies, I might add, because the larger services are always after the Marines' budget. We know that the Marine Corps has a future (I believe there are still about four hundred and fifty years on the lease), but the nature of that future is always up for debate.
Chester ably summarizes the debate, so I will refer you to his summary rather than reproduce it. The things that interest me are the discussion about "seabasing," versus a more Army-like approach with heavier equipment and more firepower in exchange for losing the ability to be sea-based; and the role of the USMC in special operations.
It's a big issue that has to be solved soon because, as Max Boot says, some major capital outlays need to be made soon one way or the other:
I remember, a few years ago, visiting Camp Lejeune and seeing a big demonstration for VIPs of amphibious warfare in action. It was all very impressive with the Amtraks and hover craft and landing craft, and Cobras and Harriers. It was a terrific demonstration and just watching it, I thought it was glorious, but I also wondered, Was this a glorious anachronism? Was this like watching the cavalry on parade in the 1930's?...Boot is suggesting that the USMC needs to make a commitment to an entirely different mindset -- a return to the days of being an imperial, colonial force, a refocusing on "small wars" and nationbuilding concepts. "I suspect that in the future, a core mission of the Corps will be doing the kind of things that it did in the past," Boot said, "such as setting up foreign constabularies, such as Smedly Butler's Haitian gendarmerie, or "Chesty" Puller's Nicaragua national guard."
It seems to me the problem with any kind of amphibious vehicle is that you're inevitably going to sacrifice firepower and armor for the sake of being able to swim. Hence, it's going to be less useful to Marines patrolling Iraq or Afghanistan, where there's not a lot of swimming to be done.
I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense, as an interim step, to buy more armored vehicles that are available on the world market, that might provide greater protection to Marines from IEDs and RPGs. You could buy vehicles like the Israeli-made Rhino Rhiner or the South Carolina-produced Cougar, which I know is being bought already, but in very small quantities.
And in the longer term, perhaps, the Marine Corps should work with the Army to develop Marine variants of the future combat system vehicles, rather than making this big buy of the expeditionary fighting vehicle.
It's certainly possible that a core mission of the US military may be that. The USMC, however, is not the right service to handle it.
Nation building exercises strongly benefit from two things that the USMC is not ideal to provide: very long term deployments, and the ability to draw on a large reserve/National Guard which is composed of people who have developed medical/police/technical skills over the course of a longer civilian life. The civilian capabilities and experience is obviously invaluable. The long-term deployments are valuable because they allow the formation of personal relationships in-country. The formation and maintenance of those relationships is the most effective strategy in counterinsurgency warfare. Finally, the Army already has a fully developed and effective special operations wing to this kind of low-intensity, relationship-forming warfare: the Green Berets.
All of these things can be better provided by the Army. The Army's far larger size means that it can more easily detail a unit to remain in an area for long periods of time. It's reserve size and access to the National Guard likewise far outstrip what the Marines can offer. Long term occupation and nation building should not be the USMC's core mission, simply because of economies of scale.
The shift away from mobility that Boot suggests is tied into the move to nation building. The Army's equipment stands up better to long term fighting. It's heavier, it's less mobile, but because we have a Marine Corps that is seabased and devoted to being expeditionary, the US military is not without rapid-entry capabilities. The Marines can secure what the Army may need to hold.
This brings us to the question of special operations. As noted, the USMC has only a small presence at SOCOM, although that may be changing. If it changes, however, it seems to me that it ought not to redefine what the USMC does in terms of special operations. The most effective thing that the USMC can do, for future special warfare, is not commando raids. The Navy SEALs are excellent commandos, and if more commandos is what we need then we need more of them -- if many more such men can be found.
The USMC's special operations competence, unmatched by anyone else, is the MEU(SOC) (pronounced, "Mew-sock"). That stands for "Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Operations Capable." It is a Marine fighting unit of about battalion strength, with integrated air support and transport capability, trained to special operations standards, capable of deploying with extraordinary speed.
The MEU(SOC) is the extension of expeditionary warfare to the special operations field. Its capabilities were on display early in the war in Afghanistan, which I think beautifully illustrates how the Marines ought to support special operations and low intensity conflicts. The Green Berets and CIA SOG made contact with Afghan units, and provided logistics, intelligence, and air support. The Northern Alliance did most of the fighting. But when it was necessary to suddenly close a route to the enemy, the 15th MEU seized control of an area to the south of the Taliban.
They were able to deploy from the Persian Gulf to southern Afghanistan -- a victory for the concept of seabasing, for until their deployment they were out of the range of enemy attacks, yet could be on the ground in hours. Had it been desirable, they could have been back off the ground again hours later, returned to the bases at sea.
This, I think, is the role the USMC can best serve in terms of fighting future small wars. They shouldn't be the primary forces on the ground -- the Army's strengths play to that area, and if anyone is going to redesign with that in mind, it's the Army who should assign some units to doing it. They shouldn't be doing commando raids, in imitation of the SEALs or the Deltas. They shouldn't be trying to replicate the Green Berets.
What they should do is focus on their seabased, expeditionary concept, but extend it. The ideal should be for a quick-strike force with rapid deployment and withdrawal capability -- a force who can follow on Sun Tzu's advice, "When you move, fall like a thunderbolt."
The ability to deploy in sustainable force, rapidly and in an unexpected sector, is invaluable in maneuver warfare. It serves the country well against opponent states, but also in insurgency warfare such as we see in Iraq. A Corps that focused on being rapidly deployable in that fashion, and which avoided being tied down with occupation duties, would be able to support Army units with sudden surges in manpower and firepower, as well as closing off at the last hour routes that the enemy was counting on for escape.
Special operations of this type would only be part of the Marine Corps' role, of course. The other missions of the Corps will require units of other types -- including the MEFs, whose power is unmatched by any similarly sized unit of infantry. Still, insofar as the Marines are going to be more involved in special operations and low-intensity warfare, I think this is the role for them: MEU(SOC) deployments in the support of nonconventional or conventional units, and also the same ability put to use in the service of Army nation-building units.
If I were betting on the future of the Marines, that's the way I'd bet.
UPDATE: The famous "Sheik Marine", Captain Joel Leggett of Southern Appeal sends this analysis:
Grim,I will agree that the USMC's institutional culture is an advantage -- in this as in every mission it undertakes. One of the things the panel was talking about, which I think is really true, is that the Marine Corps is the thinking man's service (although I've also argued, and do believe, that the military officers' corps as a whole is sufficiently intellectual as to serve as a parallel structure to academia for the life of the mind). Regardless of that claim, the USMC is certainly more flexible and able to embrace new ways of doing things, from the squad level up to the level we're seeing here, where it's possible to debate taking the entire service in a new direction.
I agree with most of what you said. Having said that I think you are
wrong when you say that the Marine Corps is not the force best suited
for small wars occupation duty. In fact I think we are ideally suited
for that mission. As the Small Wars Manual makes clear such duty
requires a high degree of flexibility and mobility, as well as an
institutional ability to operate in a vaguely defined operational environment.
With all due respect to our brothers and sisters in the Army, that branch
of the service does not posses the institutional culture necessary for
success in that setting.
My service with the Army in joint environments has demonstrated that
the Army is very insistent on people "staying in their lanes." In fact,
I heard that phrase used repeatedly as both a command and compliment by
Army personnel. Furthermore, it became increasingly clear to me that
much of the Army leadership that I dealt with would rather see a
problem go unsolved than have a person step out of the narrowly prescribed
duties of their billet to fix the problem. Such an institutional culture
is spectacularly ill suited for small wars occupation duty.
Consequently, since Marine Corps culture is the complete opposite (i.e. every
Marine a rifleman, fill in where needed, etc.) it should come as no
surprise that we are the service that produced the Small Wars Manual in the
first place.
The Marine Corps posses the necessary institutional culture to
successfully carry out such duties. The important thing to remember is that
due to our size we can't carry out much more than one or two such duties
at a time. Furthermore, such duties require time. We have to be
allowed the time to finish the job.
I think Mr. Boot has a point to a degree when he says that we might
want to examine getting some heavier vehicles for such duties. The
amtrakers I have talked to indicate that their vehicles have been used
incorrectly in situations that would require heavier vehicles.
Let me be clear. I don't think the Marine Corps should surrender its
expeditionary role or nature. However, I think that role will require
us to be the primary counterinsurgency/small wars force.
The question for me isn't that, but rather, "To what missions should we be applying that particular advantage?" And I think that the three things mentioned above -- the need for longer deployments, the benefit of drawing on a larger reserve and the Guard, and the integration with the Special Forces -- make the Army better suited for these kinds of long-term occupation / nation building duties.
Now, the USMC Reserve has its own citizen soldiers, whose quality I certainly don't mean to denigrate. LTC Coulvillon spoke glowingly of them at the dinner he held for the brothers of Iraq the Model. It's not their quality, but their size, that is is the issue.
To maximize effectiveness in nation building and counterinsurgecy, you need to be able to combine three elements:
1) A professional class of warriors who will not mind to stay in-country on a prolonged basis. They will have to manage the reconstruction and fight most of the battles. To be effective, they will need to be able to build family-like relationships within existing tribal/social structures, whether in Iraq or Thailand. The Regular Army can do this because it has the manpower.
2) A large reserve, which can be rotated in and out on shorter deployments to maintain its viability as a volunteer force. The need to move them in and out is a disadvantage, but it is balanced and offset by the expertise that the (usually older) citizen soldiers have learned in private life. This is well served by the Army Reserve and National Guard; the USMC Reserve is not large enough to manage rotations faster than the regular units.
3) Special units that can penetrate into harder to reach areas and make initial contacts with groups "beyond the pale." These contacts can be integrated into regular units as the "pale" expands, assuming an "oil stain" model of counterinsurgency. The Green Berets are specially trained for exactly this, for example being selected based on their score on the DLAB artificial language test as well as the physical attributes. The USMC has no parallel model, and would have to devote a lot of resources to developing one or do without.
I don't dispute that the Army would be improved by developing a culture more like the Marines'. (Rather, I shall let Eric dispute it. :) I do think, though, that the Marine Corps' culture is as useful an advantage in any sort of warfighting. It ought to be reserved to where it can do the most good, given the realities of force structure.
Comments
Given the apparent reality of new readers, I thought it would be wise to repost the comments policy. Please be welcome, so long as you will adhere to this form.
I adopted [this policy] from the sadly-defunct Texas Mercury, a fringe publication but one whose bold assertion of well considered and unusual ideas I always enjoyed:Fair enough? Well, fair or unfair, those are the rules.As we see it, modern society has all the important ideas of life exactly backwards: we are completely against the belief in sensitivity and tolerance in politics and raffish disregard in private life. The Texas Mercury is founded on the opposite principles- our idea is of tolerance and polite sensitivity in private life and ruthless truth in politics. Be nice to your neighbor. Be hell to his ideas.Comments failing to uphold those principles run the risk of being deleted without warning. In the year and some months since I adopted that as the policy here, I've added one additional point: hit-and-run comments, as well as anonymous comments, will generally be deleted. If you're a regular here, and willing to stand up and fight for what you believe, you can say pretty much anything that isn't a personal attack on a fellow reader. If you're just wandering through, or unwilling to leave your name (even a false name you'll stand by will do, e.g., "Grim"), pass on. This is a hall, and regular readers are honored guests not to be troubled by cowards.
PJM
I suppose I can't put this off any longer, since they've posted a profile of me at their site. Very well, then:
Grim's Hall has decided to join PajamasMedia.
I did so for the reasons that are laid out in the profile. I think that the MSM's astonishing refusal to admit alternative viewpoints can only be broken by hitting them at their foundation: advertising revenue. If we're going to have a serious effect on the media, we have to get their attention. Nothing will get their attention except cutting into their money flow.
I've read Althouse's critique of PJM, but she and I are coming at if from different perspectives. She is considering what's best for the individual blogger. What matters to me is the effect on the MSM, and looking past that, toward society and particularly to the Republic.
The thing reminds me of the early days of the unions -- a point that Jill Stewart, a charming lady who did the profile for PJM, redacted a bit in her necessary editing of my remarks. (Southerners, as I warned her on the outset, think slowly and talk slowly and take our time getting to the point. It's not her fault.)
In the early days of unions, there was a serious effort to get skilled laborers to join in with unskilled laborers to bargain collectively. By doing that, early union organizers thought, they could bring a lot more pressure to bear at once. Skilled laborers were not as easily replaced, for one thing, and so one faces a strike by skilled labor with more fear than a strike by unskilled labor (particularly in the days when the police and US Army were called out to break picket lines).
Similarly, if it is able to draw top bloggers as well as mid- and low- ranked bloggers, PJM will be able to bargain for a higher percentage of the total monies spent on revenue than bloggers individually could do. It's true that the top bloggers could make more, as Althouse says, bargaining as individuals. That is why the idea of getting skilled and unskilled labor to bargain together didn't really work out -- it was foolish for skilled laborers to go in with the unskilled, when they were in a fine position to negotiate on their own.
I am not interested in the money, however, but only in the wider effect on society. As a consequence, PJM is an initiative I wish to support.
What about the money? I have decided to spend it in three ways:
1) I offered my co-bloggers a chance to cut themselves in at whatever percentage they would care to name. I have to tell you, however, that Eric Blair and Daniel are two of the most modest and moderate people you will ever meet. I am proud to have them as co-bloggers here at Grim's Hall, and only wish they'd asked for more than they cared to do.
2) On the occasions that I get to meet with readers, it will be my pleasure to cover the costs of the feast. These chances come only too rarely, but I have enjoyed them when they have. It's your eyes that are making these ads worth what they are worth, so when we can feast together, consider that you've paid in advance.
3) I shall give the rest to my wife, who has suffered many a long adventure with me and has had little in the way of reward. She is the finest and noblest of women, one who deserves and could have gotten better than she's asked. The kind of money we're talking about won't make up for that, but at least once she will be able to say that she's profitted from our alliance.
In any event, soon enough I suppose we'll be seeing advertisements here at Grim's Hall. I trust you understand, good readers.