Insurgents and their supporters communicate with the world through daily press releases, weekly and monthly magazines, books, video clips, full-length films, countless websites, and even television stations. Mainstream Arab media amplify the insurgent message to a mass audience.

The insurgency's media efforts are decentralized, fast-moving, and technologically adaptive, with the overall message emerging from the collective efforts of individuals and small groups, transmitted daily to an audience of millions. Anti-Shi'ite hate speech is an increasingly prominent part of the insurgent message.

Kimmage and Ridolfo argue that popularity of online Iraqi Sunni insurgent media reflects a genuine demand for their message in the Arab world. At the same time, the greatest strengths of the insurgency's media strategy -- decentralization and flexibility -- have revealed vulnerabilities that can be exploited by forces interested in a free and democratic Iraq.

Join the New America Foundation and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for a timely discussion (12 July - Washington, D.C.) on the Iraqi Sunni insurgency's media campaign with Daniel Kimmage and Kathleen Ridolfo, followed by commentary from James K. Glassman and Jeffrey Gedmin. Schwartz Senior Fellow Peter Bergen will moderate the question and answer session.

Copies of the report, "Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas," will be available at the event.

Ultimately, Gershenfeld envisions not a roomful of equipment, but a single machine that might sit on your desktop and be able to "print" complex objects in 3D. But this is far down the road and far removed from our concerns here . . .

What does this have to do with counterinsurgency?

For now, consider the implications of the fact that a suite full of inexpensive machines -- say between $5,000 and $25,000 in cost -- can be used to fabricate just about anything, given a little training on the machines and a good bit of ingenuity.

Who might be able to use such a setup? Consider who is . . .

a) frequently called upon to create creative solutions to unusual problems?

b) frequently located in areas of the world far removed from regular resupply of just about everything?

c) often comprised of a number of natural tinkerers?

Perhaps now you can see where this is heading. Seems like any of the following might have good use for a "Fablab" as described by Gershenfeld:

-military engineers, such as Marine Combat Engineers or Navy Seabees

-Civil Affairs folks

-regular infantry and other combat units deployed to austere environments at the end of a long supply chain

-Special Operations Forces personnel who frequently have to fend for themselves in underdeveloped locales.

Consider the infantry example (the easiest one for me to imagine since it's what I do). What if, in addition to a company intelligence cell, made up of a handful of Marines whose primary or collateral duty is to spot enemy patterns and relationships, there was also a "Fixit" or "Fabrication" or "Manufacturing" cell at the company level, comprised of a handful of Marines who have a penchant for tinkering, building, fixing, etc., and outfitted with the equipment mentioned above. What sorts of things might it come up with? Here are some possibilities:

a) Mods to existing equipment: Ground combat types love to play with their gear and figure out new and better ways to make it do what it needs to, or to meet new requirements -- hold something else in a certain way, mount something here, fasten something there, and so forth. A "Fabrication Cell" could easily develop such solutions.

b) Stand-ins for the supply chain: I doubt that a Fabrication Cell would be able to recreate major end items from scratch, but its worth considering how they might be able to make the teeth less reliant upon the tail. End-using units could probably create a number of solutions for items that the supply chain either doesn't have or that take a very long time to arrive.

c) Reconstruction: One of the frequent complaints about reconstruction in Iraq is that the focus is on large-scale, big ticket items that take forever, have an astronomical cost, and have little immediate impact on the daily lives of most Iraqis. This is an area that begs for decentralization. A company-level Fabrication Cell would be well-positioned to repair or create a number of kinds of local infrastructure, whether power generators, wells, irrigation machines, milking devices, incubators, air conditioners, or other such items that help keep the populace happy and on our side, instead of the insurgents'.

d) Mission-specific products or solutions: In February, The Wall Street Journal carried the interesting story of the development of a portable fingerprint scanner for use by US troops in Iraq.

This is a story of can-do in a no-can-do world, a story of how a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in Anbar province. They did this in 30 days, from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Compared to standard operating procedure for Iraq, this is a nanosecond.

Conclusion

This all might make for one of the stranger ideas to have been floated here on SWJ, but it seems like there's something there waiting to be exploited. My rifle platoon of reservists contains a mechanical engineering major, an electrical engineer, a number of welders, auto aficionados, and construction experts. Seems we're only a step or two away from having an in-house Fabrication Cell already . . .

Captain Manchester serves with 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines.

Fatah is now like 'Sarge' in the Beetle Bailey cartoon. It has gone over the brink and is holding onto a tree on the side of the cliff. The Americans and Israelis have offered Fatah a rope. The question is both whether the Fatah leadership will grab it and whether the Americans and Israelis will know how to handle the lifeline. None of this is a given. This is, at best, a tenuous situation. It might lead to a happy ending, or it might be a debacle. Everything depends on how Fatah handles Israeli and American support, and how they handle Hamas.

First, Fatah has to commit to real reform and transparency. Its own people and its allies have every right to demand it. There should be a rigorous World Bank audit of how every dollar in aid is spent. Hamas did not win the last election because of its stand toward Israel; it won it by providing the only responsive social services in the Palestinian territories. Fatah must work with non governmental relief agencies to create a truly responsive social service network that will be prepared to create a climate of confidence in the West Bank and prepare the political battlespace before Fatah counterattacks militarily in Gaza. Once Fatah regains military control, it must be prepared to win the battle for the hearts and minds of Gaza's population. If they cannot do that, no amount of military force is relevant.

From an American and Israeli perspective, we must keep our fingerprints off the direct planning for the Gaza counteroffensive, which will take at least a year to prepare. We should finance the Jordanians, Egyptians, and Sunni Gulf states to provide training, advisors, and equipment to the abysmal Fatah security forces. All of those nations have a vested interest in eliminating the unholy alliance between Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian Quds organization. However, direct American or Israeli involvement in the conflict would likely be the kiss of death for Fatah.

It will likely take at least a year for Fatah to be ready to launch a counter-attack in Gaza. The Fatah security forces must be instilled with pride, training and discipline to match Hamas. They need to gain confidence in their reformed political leadership; if Fatah can reform, and that is a big if, the Israelis have to accept the fact that, to win in a stand up fight, Fatah will need a reasonable amount of tanks and some attack helicopters. The quantity of such weapons needed to retake Gaza would never pose even a minimal threat to Israel, but the thought of such weapons in the hands of any Palestinians in any amount has long been anathema to the Israelis.

The is won't happen overnight, and that is not necessarily a bad thing The best way to prepare the battlefield for the return of Fatah is for the secular and relatively sophisticated Gaza Palestinians to live under the fundamentalist yoke of Hamas for a while under continued western sanctions. Let's see how they vote in eighteen months.

The Hamas victory in Gaza was not necessarily a bad thing. The Palestinians have long needed a dash of cold water. Their great weakness is that the Palestinians have always found others to blame. To be sure, they will still try to do so. Until they realize that their future is in their own hands, they will never be a viable society.

We should encourage our Arab allies to train the Palestinians differently than we have done with the Iraqis. We have tried to build the Iraqi Army in our image. This is alien to Arab soldiers who have a much different view of male bonding and unit cohesion. Our Arab friends should be encouraged to give the Palestinians basic weapons familiarization and small unit skills training as well as building clearing drills. However, they should pick the best and brightest of the students and make them small unit officers and NCOS. At that point, they should allow the students to work out their own tactics. They know how Hamas fights. Ironically, this is how the Israelis built their nascent army in the 1940's.

If we Americans can indirectly help our Arab allies solve this situation it could prove to be a model for how we handle such challenges in the future.

Gary Anderson was a UN Observer in Lebanon and Gaza and has traveled extensively in the region. He has also served as a counterinsurgency advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

This piece of pseudo-history below bounces around the internet every year about

this time. Like most things of its ilk, it probably has a few errors, and its author

is writing to reinforce a point with succinct and selective facts. But darn if it

doesn't strike a nerve.

As we in the U.S. chill our lite beer (ughh!) and refill

the propane tanks to burn plenty of meat for the 4th, let's not forget the stories

and sacrifices of the many proud Iraqis and Afghanis who are out there trying to

do the right thing, whether it be for their country or just for their family. Their

history, when it is finally written, looks like it will be on par with this list,

at least in terms of blood. Unfortunately, the outcome is still very much in question.

Perhaps they have underwhelmed us with a lack of 56 such bold and audacious men,

who have had all they can stands, can't stands no more, and stepped off in unison

with a flourish just begging for a remake starring Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford.

But, hey, this thing started on our schedule, not theirs. And our sterile expectations

and remote perceptions are not their ugly reality.

I, for one, shall raise at least one frothy cup on this holiday to the many patriots out there. May their journey eventually be as successful as ours was. I wish our helping them get it started had been more helpful.

----------------------------

Why we celebrate the 4th of July

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration

of Independence?

• Five were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they

  died.

• Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
• Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons

  captured.

• Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary

  War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

• Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers

  and large plantation owners: men of means, well educated. But they signed the

  Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death

  if they were captured.

• Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader saw his ships swept

  from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his

  debts and died in rags.

• Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his

  family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family

  was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his

  reward.

• Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery Hall, Clymer, Walton,

  Gwinett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas

  Nelson, Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson

  home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open

  fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

• Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his

  wife, and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's

  bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields

  and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests

  and caves, returning to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few

  weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston

  suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not

wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education.

They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall and straight, and

unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of the declaration, with firm reliance

on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our

lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

They gave you and me a free and independent America. The history books told you

a lot of what happened in the Revolutionary War. We didn't fight just the British.

We were British subjects at that time and we fought our own government!

Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't. So take

a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots.

It's not much to ask for the price they paid.

Remember: Freedom is never free! I hope you show your support by sharing this

with as many people as you can. It's time we get the word out that Patriotism is

NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball

games.

~Author Unknown~

Edited to add: Read more about this bit of internet fluff, also circulated under the title The Price They Paid, on the Urban Legends Reference Pages.

William Kristol at The Weekly Standard - Richard Lugar, Meet David Kilcullen

... Contrast Lugar's speech with an assessment of the situation in Iraq posted the very next day on the Small Wars Journal website. David Kilcullen, a former Australian military officer, is one of the world's leading experts on counterinsurgency warfare. A sharp critic of the previous U.S. strategy in Iraq, he was asked by General Petraeus to serve as an adviser during the development and early execution of the new strategy. Now finishing up his tour of duty, Kilcullen offered "personal views" of "what's happening, right now." It's worth reproducing much of Kilcullen's report, "Understanding Current Operations in Iraq"...

Max Boot at Commentary's Contentions -- Kilcullen's War

Readers of contentions interested in learning more about current military operations in Iraq than what they get from the headlines (which invariably focus on casualties, not on why or how they were incurred) would be well advised to read two Internet postings. The first is a report by Kimberly Kagan, an independent military historian and analyst, on the website of her think tank, the Institute for the Study of War. The second is a blog post written by David Kilcullen, a former officer in the Australian army with a Ph.D. in anthropology who has been serving as General David Petraeus's chief counterinsurgency adviser. Kilcullen's item is especially interesting because for the past few months he has had an insider's perspective on the operations conducted and planned by U.S. forces in Iraq; in fact, he has been helping to shape the very operations that he explains here...

Rich Lowry at NR's The Corner -- Understanding the Surge

Here's a post by David Kilcullen over at Small Wars Journal on the surge so far...

Paul Reynolds at the BBC - Iraq: Debate on the Baghdad Surge

... Informing the debate is a key article in the Small Wars Journal, a discussion forum founded by former members of the US Marine Corps.

On the site's weblog, the Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser in Iraq, David Kilcullen, an Australian expert, has written about how the plan is supposed to work. He withholds judgment on whether it is succeeding or will do so. On that, he simply observes: "Time will tell."

He points out that major operations in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces started only on 15 June. "This is the end of the beginning: we are now starting to put things onto a viable long-term footing," he said....

Andrew Sullivan at Atlantic's Daily Dish -- Understanding the Surge

I'm still a skeptic, but I'm a better-informed skeptic after reading this.

Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement -- Surge of Understanding

Australian LTC David Kilcullen, counterinsurgency advisor to Petraeus, explains current ops. Mandatory reading...

Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard - Danger Room Kilcullen Exclusive

Over at The Danger Room, Noah Shachtman managed to score an interview with Dr. David Kilcullen, chief counterinsurgency adviser to General David Petraeus. Kilcullen seems to have taken a special interest in the power of the blog, posting regular contributions to the blog run by the Small Wars Journal, the most recent of which can be found here, and participating in the OSD's series of blogger conference calls--excerpts of that conversation can be found here...

John Dwyer at American Thinker -- A Winning Counterinsurgency Strategy

Dr. David Kilcullen, a retired Australian army Lt. Col. with 1st-hand experience of counter-insurgency operations in East Timor and elsewhere, has become one of the leading experts on the formulation of effective 21st century COIN doctrine. (Google his name for documents he's authored on the subject).

Dr. Kilcullen is now the senior counter-insurgency adviser to General David Petraeus, Commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq. Dr. Kilcullen recently spent 6 weeks traveling throughout Iraq visiting U.S. and Iraqi combat units, tribal & community leaders and others. Based on that and his knowledge of the subject, he wrote an article for the Small Wars Journal blog titled: Understanding Current Operations in Iraq."

Jane Roh at National Journal The Gate - Trying To Get Beyond The Politics Of War

U.S. commanders may have reason to hope. An assessment written by a key counterinsurgency adviser to Petraeus is making ripples in the Beltway. Pundits are seizing on it as an I-told-you-so rebuttal of withdrawal advocates, which is why it's worth the time to read it yourself.

The writer is David Kilcullen, an Australian military expert who is now serving as the senior counterinsurgency advisor to Multi-National Force-Iraq. In a post to Small Wars Journal, a blog founded by ex-Marines and one of the go-to guides for a strategic view of Iraq, Kilcullen lays out in plain English the wherefores of ongoing operations there.

Richard Lowry at California Republic - Are We There Yet?

... I want to know what is happening, so I search out the information on my own. During my daily search for information about the war in Iraq, I came across two outstanding articles, one written by a member of General Petraeus' fighting brain trust, David Kilcullen and the other written by a nationally respected scholar, Frederick W. Kagan. Kilcullen, an anthropologist who studied Islamic extremism in Indonesia for his PhD dissertation and former Lieutenant Colonel in the Australian Army, is one of General David Petraeus' closest advisors. He exemplifies the caliber of the leaders gathered on Petraeus' staff. Dr. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former professor of military history at the United States Military Academy. Kilcullen's blog is a report directly from the front lines, while Kagan's article is a summary of his recent testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs...

Jack Kelly in the Toledo Blade -- Keep on Surging

"These operations are qualitatively different from what we've done before, " Mr. Kilcullen said in a post at the Small Wars Journal. "Our concept is to knock over several insurgent safe havens simultaneously, in order to prevent the terrorists from relocating their infrastructure from one to another. Unlike on previous occasions, we don't plan to leave these areas once they're secured. These ops will run over months, and the key activity is to stand up viable local security forces - to permanently secure them."

Al-Qaeda had made Baqubah the capital of its "Islamic state of Iraq," and U.S. officials had hoped to bag a lot of its leaders with Arrowhead Ripper. But it appears that many of them read the tea leaves and fled before the operation got under way. This has caused some in the news media to portray Arrowhead Ripper as unsuccessful.

Lt. Col. Kilcullen is unperturbed. "The 'terrain' we are clearing is human terrain, not physical terrain," he explained. "It is about marginalizing al-Qaeda, Shiite extremist militias, and other terrorist groups from the population they prey on. This is why claims that '80 percent of al-Qaeda leadership have fled' don't overly disturb us: The aim is not to kill every last AQ leader, but rather to drive them off the population and keep them off."

Wretchard at The Belmont Club -- Bearings

... David Kilcullen, in explaining operations in Iraq, seems to be mentally at that point already. He does not categorically say 'we are going to win'. He says 'we are making progress here' and 'things are working there'. He is encouraged without being certain. He sees the political and the lead bullets strike home and knows things are not hopeless; that the enemy, like us, are simply men. If they can be defeated individually and in groups they can be defeated collectively. They too are uncertain of victory, perhaps more than we should be and yet have not despaired of it. To their credit they fight on in doubt, sustained by necessity, faith or habit born of a desert patience against adversity. Whether the West can do the same is open to question. It is one thing to criticize current strategy and call for better, to shift more of the burden to Iraqis, to use all the "sources of national power". But it is another thing to say: we have lost. From this there is no redemption; victory can never be guaranteed. But defeat can. What will happen? All Kilcullen can offer in the end is the assessment, "time will tell." Indeed it will.

Noah Shachtman at Wired's Danger Room - Baghdad Walls Key to Baqubah Push?

... Retired Colonel (and present-day blogger) David Kilcullen says that the walls were necessary to turn the security of Baghdad into a more manageable problem -- one that could handled with somewhat fewer American troops...

Phillip Carter at INTEL DUMP -- Explaining "The Surge"

Australian army officer and anthropologist Dave Kilcullen, adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Baghdad, published a note yesterday on the Small Wars Journal blog discussing the theory behind current operations in Iraq. It is probably the best single-source explanation I've seen for how and why we're doing what we're doing, such as the recent offensives in Baquba and the "Baghdad Belts."

Michael Totten at Middle East Journal - The "Surge" Can Not Yet Have Failed

You can be forgiven if you thought the United States military's "surge" in Iraq has failed. At least you'll be forgiven by me. I quietly assumed some time ago, before I had ever even heard of the surge, that the U.S. is going to lose this war in Iraq because the American public doesn't have the will to stick out a grinding insurgency that might not ever be winnable. I'm not saying it isn't winnable. I really don't know. How could I possibly know? But we live in a democracy with civilian control of the military. If Americans want to give up -- it's over.

But the surge is only just now beginning...

That was two weeks ago. Between then and now, the surge finally started. Only just now has it finally started. It can't yet have failed.

Go over to the Small Wars Journal where Kilcullen describes what the surge strategy is...

Charles Sheehan-Miles at Charles Sheehan-Miles -- Why There May Still be Hope in Iraq

For me, the war in Iraq has never been about domestic politics. It's been about the incredible damage we did in 1991 by encouraging the Kurds and Shia to rebel against Saddam Hussein, then abandoning them to be massacred by their own government. For me the question about the war always centers around: how do we get to a viable end-state in Iraq where the people have a chance at a decent life. Dave Kilcullen over at Small Wars Journal has written an excellent piece which gives some hope to that possibility.

Kilcullen's blog entry is a simple explanation of what the intent of the surge operation is all about. This is important, because a lot of folks are running around saying "the surge has failed!" According to Kilcullen, and most of the other military folks I've been reading, the surge is only now starting. Everything up to now has only been preparation...

Grim at Blackfive -- A Continuing Education in Military Science

Colonel (and Ph.D.) David Kilcullen has a piece up explaining the current operations in Iraq from a COIN perspective. Dr. Kilcullen is, as BlackFive readers know but Pandagon readers probably do not, an Australian officer who has rewritten much of current COIN theory. He is currently serving as General Petraeus' senior advisor on COIN in Iraq.

He is posting to the web in order to talk to you, the citizens of Coalition nations, to tell you what we are doing in Iraq -- what the plan is, and why that is the plan...

John at OPFOR -- Colonel Kilcullen Reports

... So yeah. Go educate yourself.

TigerHawk at TigerHawk -- The "Surge" Explained

A couple of weeks ago I listened to Austin Bay's interview of David Kilkullen, an Australian counterinsurgency expert advising General Petraeus in Iraq, which podcast I highly recommend. Now Kilullen has written a very clear and accessible explanation of the purpose of the "surge" at Small Wars Journal. He does not say whether it is succeeding or not -- it is way too early to tell -- but he does provide the reader with an analytical prism through which to interpret the news...

Westhawk at Westhawk -- Learning Lessons in Baquba

... In this article from the Small Wars Journal blog, Mr. Dave Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency advisor to the military command in Iraq, explains that it is success enough to separate the insurgent enemy from the general population, which the insurgents need for support and protection. From this perspective, the apparently meager results from the Battle of Baquba are really an important incremental success in a larger counterinsurgency strategy...

Abu Muqawama at Abu Muqawama -- Thoughts on Kilcullen

... Okay, says Abu Muqawama, that all sounds good. But the reality is that at this stage the future of the American presence in Iraq is going to be determined by the domestic political debate in Washington, not by events on the ground in Iraq. Abu Muqawama suspects Kilcullen knows this and just can't say it, but even though the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have settled on what very well may have been a "winning" strategy, the American public and its politicians have lost faith in this effort and think it will be about time, come the fall, to bring (most of) the boys home. Abu Muqawama also suspects that Kilcullen and Petraeus are going to end their time in Iraq deeply disappointed, both because they'll wonder what, exactly, was the point of it all if the U.S. was going to pull out anyway and, also, why the Iraqi politicians and factions couldn't get their %$#@ together to allow at least some sort of hope-giving political compromises to take place. Man, how many of us out there wouldn't love to hear Kilcullen's honest thoughts on this a few years from now over a bottle of Scotch?...

Merv Benson at PrairiePundit -- Real Surge Just Beginning

... If you want to understand what is happening in Iraq, read everything Kilcullen has to say. He is there and he understands the strategy better than anyone else who is talking about it. The counterinsurgency strategy is about protecting the people. They are the booty in these operations. As he says, the enemy wants the people to act in a certain way for him to win. When they do not, we are the winners and that is being proven in Diyala and elsewhere. I still maintain that the tip line from the people to the troops is a better metric of success in Iraq than the violence metric of the media.

In briefest of terms, these are to (1) Develop a New Lexicon, (2) Get the Grand Strategy Right, (3) Remedy the Imbalance in Government Capability, (4) Identify New Strategic Services, and (5) Develop Capacity For Strategic Information Warfare. While others will comment in learned fashion on all five of these topics in due course, this commentary will concern only the first -- the proposed New Lexicon.

To make a medical analogy, this is an enemy which is not in the nature of a state-based, clearly definable tumor to be neatly cut out by a scalpel but is, instead, an ideology-based cancer which been metastasizing for several decades and is attacking far-flung elements of Western Civilization simultaneously and seeking a "death by a thousand cuts" result.

The first of Kilcullen's five steps toward an effective antidote -- a worldwide chemotherapy counterattack -- on the raging AQST cancer is his call for "a new lexicon based on the actual, observed characteristics of [our] real enemies ..."

In so doing, he clearly recognizes that in order to meet Sun Tzu's ancient admonition that we must "Know The Enemy," we absolutely must have a truthful common language by which to achieve that end and then to communicate such knowledge effectively to multiple audiences.

Although he does not list particulars of this proposed new lexicon, here are more than a dozen of the Arabic and Islamic words of which he would almost surely approve. They are the words, the semantic tools and weapons, we will need to break out of the habit-of-language box (largely invented by Osama bin Laden himself) which currently depicts us as us the bad guys, the "infidels" and even "the Great Satan" -- and which sanctifies suicide mass murderers as so-called jihadis and mujahideen ("holy guys") and "martyrs" on their heroic way to Paradise.

Importantly, the ubiquitous (It's everywhere! It's everywhere!!) word Jihad is entered four times in order to more clearly define its several confusing and often conflicting meanings.

irhab (eer-HAB) -- Arabic for terrorism, thus enabling us to call the al Qaeda-style killers irhabis, irhabists and irhabiyoun rather than the so-called "jihadis" and "jihadists" and "mujahideen" and "shahids" (martyrs) they badly want to be called. (Author's lament: Here we are, almost six years into a life-and-death War on Terrorism, and most of us do not even know this basic Arabic for terrorism.)

Hirabah (hee-RAH-bah) -- Unholy War and forbidden "war against society" or what we would today call crimes against humanity. Among the many al Qaeda-style crimes and sins which constitute this most "unholy war" are such willful, and unrepented transgressions as those enumerated in the next section of this proposed glossary of terms.

Jihad al Akbar (gee-HAHD ahl AHK-bar) -- this "Greater Jihad" is a personal and spiritual struggle or striving to become closer and more faithful to Allah and his teachings as set forth in the Qur'an.

Jihad al Saghir (gee-HAHD ahl Sahg-HEER) -- "Lesser Jihad" can be a physical -- and even a military -- struggle to protect or to free Muslims and non-Muslims from oppression, but only in strict accordance with reasonable and non-terroristic standards set forth in the Qur'an, which provides that only the Caliph (or head-of-state?) can legally declare such a Jihad. Osama bin Laden is neither.

Jihad al Kabir (gee-HAHD ahl kha-BEER) -- the spiritual and intellectual quest to promote common knowledge of Divine Revelation through all of Allah's Prophets and to carry out ijtihad (consultative efforts throughout the Umma) in applying both Revelation and Natural Law -- and Reason -- to human affairs.

"Jihad" (gee-HAHD, so called) -- al Qaeda's false label for both Irhab and Hirabah, which is at heart an anti-Islamic, apostate and forbidden "war against society" and a satanic assortment of "crimes against humanity," such as the many ruthless and willful violations of Qur'anic standards listed below.

mufsiduun (moof-see-DOON) -- Islam's word for evildoers, sinners and corrupters whose criminality and sinfulness, unless ended and sincerely repented, will incur Allah's ultimate condemnation on Judgment Day; Islam's optimum antonym for "mujahiddin."

munafiquun (moon-ah-fee-KOON) -- hypocrites to Islam who pretend to be faithful to the Qur'an but who willfully violate many of its basic rules, mandates and prohibitions. Once again, please refer to the ten AQ-style transgressions listed below.

hizb (hizb) - a political party, as in Hizballah (Party of God), or as the senior Saudi cleric Sheik Jafar Hawali recently called this radical and arguably apostate Shi'a organization Hizb al-Shaitan (Party of Satan, Party of the Devil).

Jahannam (jyah-HAH-nahm) -- Islam's antonym for Paradise and meaning the Eternal Hellfire to which Allah on Judgment Day condemns unrepentant, unforgiven evildoers and hypocrites of the unholy war variety.

khawarij (kha-WAH-reej) -- outside-the-religion and outside-the-community individuals and activities; derived from the ancient al Qaeda-like militant Khawar or Kharajite sect, eventually suppressed and expelled as apostates and enemies of authentic, Qur'anic Islam.

istihlal (eesh-tee-LAHL) -- Islam's cardinal sin of "playing God," as Osama bin Laden is doing when he attempts to pervert Islam into his own suicide mass murderous image, and turning it into nothing but a perpetual killing machine -- of all Christians, all Jews and all Muslims who happen to disagree.

irtidad (eer-tee-DAHD) or ridda (REE-dah) -- apostasy, a certifiably correct conviction for which is punishable by death in this life and by Allah's eternal damnation in the next, with al Qaeda's murderous extremism eventually to be labeled "The al Qaeda Apostasy."

takfir (takh-FEER) -- the Wahhabi and al Qaeda-style practice of making wholesale (and largely false and baseless) accusations of apostasy and disbelief toward Allah and the Qur'an. Those radicals, absolutists and judgmental fanatics who engage in this divisive practice of false witness are called "takfiri."

Shaitan and shaitaniyah (shy-TAHN and shy-TAHN-ee-yah) -- Islam's Arabic words for Satan and satanic [example: Osama Abd' al-Shaitan, Osama Slave or Servant of Satan]

While there are at least as many more, even dozens more, Arabic and Islamic words which could and will be added to any such "New Lexicon" of anti-Terrorism, this is at least a decent start. It consists mainly of words and meanings that the al Qaeda, al-Sadr and al-Shaitan killers do not want us to know or to use in making them, rather than us, the real enemies authentic, Quranic Islam.

It comes at a time when (even after almost six years of the GWOT) there is no US Government-approved lexicon or glossary of terms at all. Not in the Pentagon. Not in the State Department. Not in the White House. Not even in the Intelligence Community. In both the ongoing "war of words" and the overlapping "war of ideas" this is definitely NOT a good idea.

Benefits of the New Lexicon

So, what is the point of this new and improved lexicon of Arabic and Islamic words and frames of reference? In terms of the vital "hearts, minds and souls" aspects of the Long War (or is it the Endless War?) on AQ-style Terrorism about which Dr. Kilcullen is so appropriately concerned, the rewards could be great, indeed.

Just for starters, imagine the khawarij (outside the religion) al Qaeda's great difficulty in winning the approval of any truly devout and faithful Muslims whatever once these genocidal irhabis (terrorists) come to be viewed by the Umma (the Muslim World) as mufsiduun (evildoers) engaged in Hirabah (unholy war) and in murtadd (apostasy) against the Qur'an's God of Abraham -- and as surely on their way to Jahannam (Eternal Hellfire) for their Satanic ways.

In this context of truth-in-language and truth-in-Islam, bin Ladenism's so-called "Jihadi Martyrdom" becomes Irhabi Murderdom (Genocidal Terrorism), instead, with it a hot ticket to Hellfire rather than to Paradise. And is this not precisely the powerful disincentive we need for the unholy cancer of suicide mass murder?

Of course, to sustain the validity of such condemnatory labels, there must be a true-to-the-Quran basis for their application to the al Qaeda, al Sadr, Hizballah, Hamas and assorted other Terrorists.

This is readily available in the fact that at the heart of AQST's own false labels and false promises of a sex-orgy Paradise is a pattern of plainly satanic and cultic violation of many of the fundamental precepts of authentic, Qur'anic Islam -- including such sinful transgressions and such de facto desecrations of the Qur'an as:

- Wanton killing of innocents and noncombatants, including many peaceful Muslims

- Decapitating the live and desecrating the dead bodies of perceived enemies

- Committing and enticing others to commit suicide for reasons of intimidation

- Fomenting hatred among communities, nations, religions and civilizations

- Ruthless warring against nations in which Islam is freely practiced

- Issuing and inspiring unauthorized and un-Islamic fatwas (religious edicts)

- Using some mosques as weapons depots and battle stations, while destroying others

- Forcing extremist and absolutist versions (and perversions) of Islam on Muslims, when the Qur'an clearly says that there shall be "no compulsion in religion"

- Distorting the word "infidels" to include all Christians, all Jews and many Muslims, as well -- when the Qur'an calls them all "Children of the Book" (the Old Testament) and "Sons of Abraham," and calls Jesus one of Islam's five main Prophets

- Deliberate misreading, ignoring and perverting of passages of the Qur'an, the Hadith and the Islamic Jurisprudence (the Fiqh)

If all of these ruthless and unrepented evils (and many more, too numerous to list here) do not constitute a monumental Apostasy against the "peaceful, compassionate, merciful, beneficent and just" Allah who is repeatedly so described by the Qur'an, then there is no such thing.

But, of course, there is such a thing in Islam and its proper name in Dave Kilcullen's proposed New Lexicon should be "al Murtadd al Qaeda" (The al Qaeda Apostasy) -- not by the pseud--Islamic standards of the "takfiri"-prone Salafi and Wahhabi cults which gave birth to Bin Ladenism but as Allah's just punishment for the many ruthless and unrepented transgressions and desecrations of the Qur'an listed above.

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Jim Guirard -- TrueSpeak Institute 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com ... and Truespeak.org

A DC-area attorney, writer, lecturer and anti-Terrorism strategist, Jim Guirard was longtime Chief of Staff to former US Senators Allen Ellender and Russell Long. His TrueSpeak Institute website is devoted to truth-in-language and truth-in-history in public discourse.

The story of how the Army found itself less than ready to fight an insurgency goes back to the Army's unwillingness to internalize and build upon the lessons of Vietnam. Chief of Staff of the Army General Peter Schoomaker has written that in Vietnam, "The U.S. Army, predisposed to fight a conventional enemy that fought using conventional tactics, overpowered innovative ideas from within the Army and from outside it. As a result, the U.S. Army was not as effective at learning as it should have been, and its failures in Vietnam had grave implications for both the Army and the nation." Former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army General Jack Keane concurs, recently noting that in Iraq, "We put an Army on the battlefield that I had been a part of for 37 years. It doesn't have any doctrine, nor was it educated and trained, to deal with an insurgency . . . After the Vietnam War, we purged ourselves of everything that had to do with irregular warfare or insurgency, because it had to do with how we lost that war. In hindsight, that was a bad decision."

The Evolution of Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency

Doctrine is "the concise expression of how Army forces contribute to unified action in campaigns, major operations, battles, and engagements. . . . Army doctrine provides a common language and a common understanding of how Army forces conduct operations." Doctrine is thus enormously important to the United States Army; it codifies both how the institution thinks about its role in the world and how it accomplishes that role on the battlefield. Doctrine drives decisions on how the Army should be organized (large heavy divisions or small military transition teams to embed in local security forces), what missions it should train to accomplish (conventional combat or counterinsurgency, or some balance between those two kinds of warfare), and what equipment it needs (heavy tanks supported by unarmored trucks for a conventional battlefield with front lines, or light armored vehicles to fight an insurgent enemy).

Although there are many reasons why the Army was unprepared for the insurgency in Iraq, among the most important was the lack of current counterinsurgency doctrine when the war began. When the Iraqi insurgency emerged the Army had not published a field manual on the subject of counterinsurgency for more than twenty years, since the wake of the El Salvador campaign. The Army therefore did not have all of the equipment it needed to protect its soldiers against the time-honored insurgent tactic of roadside bombs. It had not trained its soldiers that the key to success in counterinsurgency is protecting the population, nor had it empowered them with all of the political, diplomatic, and linguistic skills they needed to accomplish that objective. The Army did not even have a common understanding of the problems inherent in any counterinsurgency campaign, as it had not studied such battles, digested their lessons, and debated ways to achieve success in counterinsurgency campaigns. It is not unfair to say that in 2003 most Army officers knew more about the U.S. Civil War than they did about counterinsurgency.

Belatedly recognizing the problem as the insurgency in Iraq developed, the Army hurriedly set out to remedy the situation. The Doctrine Division of the Combined Arms Center (CAC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, produced an interim Counterinsurgency Field Manual on October 1, 2004, designated Field Manual (Interim) 3-07.22. Work on a replacement manual began immediately but did not catch fire until October 2005, when Lieutenant General David Petraeus returned from his second tour in Iraq to assume command of CAC and take responsibility for all doctrinal development in the United States Army.

Petraeus is an atypical general officer, holding a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University in addition to his Airborne Ranger qualifications. He commanded the 101st Airborne Division in the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, taking responsibility for governing Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, with a firm but open hand. Petraeus focused on the economic and political development of his sector of Iraq, inspiring his command with the question, "What have you done for the people of Iraq today?" He worked to build Iraqi security forces able to provide security to the people of the region and quickly earned the sobriquet Malik Daoud (King David) from the people of Mosul.

Petraeus's skill in counterinsurgency soon led to a promotion. In June 2004, just a few months after his return from Iraq with the 101st, he became a Lieutenant General with responsibility for the Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq. Petraeus threw himself into the effort to create Iraqi Security Forces for the next fifteen months, and was then assigned to command CAC and Fort Leavenworth—not so much to catch his breath as to drive change in the Army to make it more effective in counterinsurgency. He focused on the Army's extensive education systems, making training officers about counterinsurgency his top priority. Petraeus also built a strong relationship with his Marine Corps counterpart, Lieutenant General James Mattis, who had commanded the 1st Marine Division during the initial assault on Baghdad and later during a tour in Al Anbar province in 2004. Mattis made his Division's motto "No better friend, no worse enemy—First Do No Harm." The two generals established an impressive rapport based on their shared understanding of the conduct of counterinsurgency and of the urgent need to reform their services to make them more capable of conducting this most difficult kind of war.

To take lead on perhaps the most important driver of intellectual change for the Army and Marine Corps—a complete rewrite of the interim Counterinsurgency Field Manual—Petraeus turned to his West Point classmate Conrad Crane. Crane, a retired lieutenant colonel with a doctorate in history from Stanford University, called on the expertise of both academics and Army and Marine Corps veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. He took advantage of an Information Operations conference at Fort Leavenworth in December 2005 to pull together the core writing team and outline both the manual as a whole and the principles, imperatives, and paradoxes of counterinsurgency that would frame it. Chapter authors were selected, given their marching orders, and threatened with grievous physical injury if they did not produce drafts in short order. All survived, and a draft version of the Field Manual in your hands was produced in just two months.

The tight timeline was driven by an unprecedented vetting session of the draft manual held at Leavenworth in mid-February 2006. This conference, which brought together journalists, human rights advocates, academics, and practitioners of counterinsurgency, thoroughly revised the manual and dramatically improved it. Some military officers questioned the utility of the representatives from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO's) and the media, but they proved to be the most insightful of commentators. James Fallows, of the Atlantic Monthly, commented at the end of the conference that he had never seen such an open transfer of ideas in any institution, and stated that the nation would be better for more such exchanges.

Then began a summer of revisions that bled over into a fall of revisions as nearly every word in the manual was argued over by the military, by academics, by politicians, and by the press, which pounced upon a leaked early draft that was posted on the Internet. The final version was sharper than the initial draft, finding a balance between the discriminate targeting of irreconcilable insurgents and the persuasion of less committed enemies to give up the fight with the political, economic, and informational elements of power. It benefited greatly from the revisions of far too many dedicated public servants to cite here, most of whom took on the task after duty hours out of a desire to help the Army and Marine Corps adapt to the pressing demands of waging counterinsurgency more effectively. Among them was Lieutenant General James Amos, who picked up the torch of leading change for the Marine Corps when Mattis left Quantico to take command of the I Marine Expeditionary Force.

The finished book was released on December 15, 2006, to an extraordinary international media outcry; Conrad Crane was featured in Newsweek as a "Man to Watch" for his contribution to the intellectual development of the Army and Marine Corps. The field manual was widely reviewed, including by several Jihadi Web sites; copies have been found in Taliban training camps in Pakistan. It was downloaded more than 1.5 million times in the first month after its posting to the Fort Leavenworth and Marine Corps Web sites.

Impact of the Doctrine

Perhaps no doctrinal manual in the history of the Army has been so eagerly anticipated and so well received as Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency. It is designed both to help the Army and Marine Corps prepare for the next counterinsurgency campaign and to make substantive contributions to the national efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most important contribution of the manual is likely to be its role as a catalyst in the process of making the Army and Marine Corps more effective learning organizations that are better able to adapt to the rapidly changing nature of modern counterinsurgency campaigns. The most notable section of the manual is probably the Zen-like "Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency" in the first Chapter on page 47. These capture the often counterintuitive nature of counterinsurgency. The nine maxims turn conventional military thinking on its head, highlighting the extent of the change required for a conventional military force to adapt itself to the demands of counterinsurgency.

The field manual emphasizes the primary role of traditionally non-military activities and the decisive role of other agencies and organizations in achieving success in counterinsurgency in Chapter 2, "Unity of Effort." In Chapter 3, "Intelligence," the field manual shows it understands that, while firepower is the determinant of success in conventional warfare, the key to victory in counterinsurgency is intelligence on the location and identity of the insurgent enemy derived from a supportive population; one of the Principles of Counterinsurgency is that "Intelligence Drives Operations." The Appendix on "Social Network Analysis" helps drive the Army's intelligence system away from a focus on analysis of conventional enemy units toward a personality-based understanding of the networks of super-empowered individuals that comprise the most dangerous enemies the United States confronts today.

The Field Manual introduces new doctrinal constructs including Operational Design in Chapter 4 and Logical Lines of Operation in Chapter 5. Operational Design, a gift from the Marine Corps members of the writing team, focuses on identifying the unique array of enemies and problems that generate a contemporary insurgency, and the adaptation of operational art to meet those challenges. The Operations Chapter promulgates multiple lines of operation—examples are Combat Operations, Building Host Nation Security Forces, Essential Services, Good Governance, Economic Development, Information Operations—that must be conducted simultaneously to achieve the objectives of the Campaign Plan. Chapter 6 focuses attention on the need to build and develop the host-nation security forces that ultimately will win or lose counterinsurgency campaigns; third-nation forces can only hold the ring and set the conditions for success of local forces. The manual also recognizes in Chapter 7 the unique leadership challenges inherent in any war without front lines and against an enemy who hides among the sea of the people, and then prescribes solutions to the logistic problems of counterinsurgency campaigns in Chapter 8.

The "Guide to Action," based on an influential Military Review article by the Australian counterinsurgent Dr. David Kilcullen, provides tips and guidelines for the sergeants and young officers who will have to implement the precepts of counterinsurgency on the mean streets of distant lands. The manual concludes with an annotated bibliography listing both classic counterinsurgency texts and more modern works more directly applicable to the Global War on Terror. The inclusion of a bibliography of non-military texts—to this author's knowledge, the first ever printed in an Army doctrinal manual—is key evidence of the Army's acceptance of the need to "Learn and Adapt" to succeed in modern counterinsurgency operations.

The Long Road Ahead

Population security is the first requirement of success in counterinsurgency, but it is not sufficient. Economic development, good governance, and the provision of essential services, all occurring within a matrix of effective information operations, must all improve simultaneously and steadily over a long period of time if America's determined insurgent enemies are to be defeated. All elements of the United States government—and those of her allies in this Long War that has been well described as a "Global Counterinsurgency" campaign—must be integrated into the effort to build stable and secure societies that can secure their own borders and do not provide safe haven for terrorists. Recognizing this fact—a recognition spurred by the development of the Counterinsurgency Field Manual—the Department of State hosted an interagency counterinsurgency conference in Washington, D.C., in September 2006. That conference in turn built a consensus behind the need for an interagency counterinsurgency manual. It promises to result in significant changes to the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the other agencies of the U.S. government that have such an important role to play in stabilizing troubled countries around the globe.

Of the many books that were influential in the writing of Field Manual 3-24, perhaps none was as important as David Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. Galula, a French Army officer who drew many valuable lessons from his service in France's unsuccessful campaign against Algerian insurgents, was a strong advocate of counterinsurgency doctrine. He wrote, "If the individual members of the organizations were of the same mind, if every organization worked according to a standard pattern, the problem would be solved. Is this not precisely what a coherent, well-understood, and accepted doctrine would tend to achieve?"

Precisely.

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The SWJ thanks the University of Chicago Press for permission to repost The Evolution and Importance of Army/Marine Corps Field Manual 3-24, Counterinsurgency and encourages our site visitors to follow the link for additonal timely, topical and important works on the issues that are shaping our Small Wars future.

FM 3-24 'hard copies' can be purchased here from the Univiersity of Chicago Press.

Discuss at Small Wars Council.

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Excerpt from pages xiii to xx of The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual by the United States Army and United States Marine Corps, published by the University of Chicago Press. (c) 2007 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the University of Chicago Press.

This post is not about whether current ops are "working" — for us, here on the ground, time will tell, though some observers elsewhere seem to have already made up their minds (on the basis of what evidence, I'm not really sure). But for professional counterinsurgency operators such as our SWJ community, the thing to understand at this point is the intention and concept behind current ops in Iraq: if you grasp this, you can tell for yourself how the operations are going, without relying on armchair pundits. So in the interests of self-education (and cutting out the commentariat middlemen—sorry, guys) here is a field perspective on current operations.

Ten days ago, speaking with Austin Bay, I made the following comment:

"I know some people in the media are already starting to sort of write off the "surge" and say 'Hey, hang on: we've been going since January, we haven't seen a massive turnaround; it mustn't be working'. What we've been doing to date is putting forces into position. We haven't actually started what I would call the "surge" yet. All we've been doing is building up forces and trying to secure the population. And what I would say to people who say that it's already failed is "watch this space". Because you're going to see, in fairly short order, some changes in the way we're operating that will make what's been happening over the past few months look like what it is—just a preliminary build up."

The meaning of that comment should be clear by now to anyone tracking what is happening in Iraq. On June 15th we kicked off a major series of division-sized operations in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces. As General Odierno said, we have finished the build-up phase and are now beginning the actual "surge of operations". I have often said that we need to give this time. That is still true. But this is the end of the beginning: we are now starting to put things onto a viable long-term footing.

These operations are qualitatively different from what we have done before. Our concept is to knock over several insurgent safe havens simultaneously, in order to prevent terrorists relocating their infrastructure from one to another, and to create an operational synergy between what we're doing in Baghdad and what's happening outside. Unlike on previous occasions, we don't plan to leave these areas once they're secured. These ops will run over months, and the key activity is to stand up viable local security forces in partnership with Iraqi Army and Police, as well as political and economic programs, to permanently secure them. The really decisive activity will be police work, registration of the population and counterintelligence in these areas, to comb out the insurgent sleeper cells and political cells that have "gone quiet" as we moved in, but which will try to survive through the op and emerge later. This will take operational patience, and it will be intelligence-led, and Iraqi government-led. It will probably not make the news (the really important stuff rarely does) but it will be the truly decisive action.

When we speak of "clearing" an enemy safe haven, we are not talking about destroying the enemy in it; we are talking about rescuing the population in it from enemy intimidation. If we don't get every enemy cell in the initial operation, that's OK. The point of the operations is to lift the pall of fear from population groups that have been intimidated and exploited by terrorists to date, then win them over and work with them in partnership to clean out the cells that remain -- as has happened in Al Anbar Province and can happen elsewhere in Iraq as well.

The "terrain" we are clearing is human terrain, not physical terrain. It is about marginalizing al Qa'ida, Shi'a extremist militias, and the other terrorist groups from the population they prey on. This is why claims that "80% of AQ leadership have fled" don't overly disturb us: the aim is not to kill every last AQ leader, but rather to drive them off the population and keep them off, so that we can work with the community to prevent their return.

This is not some sort of kind-hearted, soft approach, as some fire-breathing polemicists have claimed (funnily enough, those who urge us to "just kill more bad guys" usually do so from a safe distance). It is not about being "nice" to the population and hoping they will somehow see us as the "good guys" and stop supporting insurgents. On the contrary, it is based on a hard-headed recognition of certain basic facts, to wit:

(a.) The enemy needs the people to act in certain ways (sympathy, acquiescence, silence, reaction to provocation) in order to survive and further his strategy. Unless the population acts in these ways, both insurgents and terrorists will wither, and the cycle of provocation and backlash that drives the sectarian conflict in Iraq will fail.

(b.) The enemy is fluid, but the population is fixed. (The enemy is fluid because he has no permanent installations he needs to defend, and can always run away to fight another day. But the population is fixed, because people are tied to their homes, businesses, farms, tribal areas, relatives etc). Therefore—and this is the major change in our strategy this year—protecting and controlling the population is do-able, but destroying the enemy is not. We can drive him off from the population, then introduce local security forces, population control, and economic and political development, and thereby "hard-wire" the enemy out of the environment, preventing his return. But chasing enemy cells around the countryside is not only a waste of time, it is precisely the sort of action he wants to provoke us into. That's why AQ cells leaving an area are not the main game—they are a distraction. We played the enemy's game for too long: not any more. Now it is time for him to play our game.

(c.) Being fluid, the enemy can control his loss rate and therefore can never be eradicated by purely enemy-centric means: he can just go to ground if the pressure becomes too much. BUT, because he needs the population to act in certain ways in order to survive, we can asphyxiate him by cutting him off from the people. And he can't just "go quiet" to avoid that threat. He has either to come out of the woodwork, fight us and be destroyed, or stay quiet and accept permanent marginalization from his former population base. That puts him on the horns of a lethal dilemma (which warms my heart, quite frankly, after the cynical obscenities these irhabi gang members have inflicted on the innocent Iraqi non-combatant population). That's the intent here.

(d.) The enemy may not be identifiable, but the population is. In any given area in Iraq, there are multiple threat groups but only one, or sometimes two main local population groups. We could do (and have done, in the past) enormous damage to potential supporters, "destroying the haystack to find the needle", but we don't need to: we know who the population is that we need to protect, we know where they live, and we can protect them without unbearable disruption to their lives. And more to the point, we can help them protect themselves, with our forces and ISF in overwatch.

Of course, we still go after all the terrorist and extremist leaders we can target and find, and life has become increasingly "nasty, brutish, and short" for this crowd. But we realize that this is just a shaping activity in support of the main effort, which is securing the Iraqi people from the terrorists, extremist militias, and insurgents who need them to survive.

Is there a strategic risk involved in this series of operations? Absolutely. Nothing in war is risk-free. We have chosen to accept and manage this risk, primarily because a low-risk option simply will not get us the operational effects that the strategic situation demands. We have to play the hand we have been dealt as intelligently as possible, so we're doing what has to be done. It still might not work, but "it is what it is" at this point.

So much for theory. The practice, as always, has been mixed. Personally, I think we are doing reasonably well and casualties have been lower so far than I feared. Every single loss is a tragedy. But so far, thank God, the loss rate has not been too terrible: casualties are up in absolute terms, but down as a proportion of troops deployed (in the fourth quarter of 2006 we had about 100,000 troops in country and casualties averaged 90 deaths a month; now we have almost 160,000 troops in country but deaths are under 120 per month, much less than a proportionate increase, which would have been around 150 a month). And last year we patrolled rarely, mainly in vehicles, and got hit almost every time we went out. Now we patrol all the time, on foot, by day and night with Iraqi units normally present as partners, and the chances of getting hit are much lower on each patrol. We are finally coming out of the "defensive crouch" with which we used to approach the environment, and it is starting to pay off.

It will be a long, hard summer, with much pain and loss to come, and things could still go either way. But the population-centric approach is the beginning of a process that aims to put the overall campaign onto a sustainable long-term footing. The politics of the matter then can be decisive, provided the Iraqis use the time we have bought for them to reach the essential accommodation. The Embassy and MNF-I continue to work on these issues at the highest levels but fundamentally, this is something that only Iraqis can resolve: our role is to provide an environment in which it becomes possible.

All this may change. These are long-term operations: the enemy will adapt and we'll have to adjust what we're doing over time. Baq'ubah, Arab Jabour and the western operations are progressing well, and additional security measures in place in Baghdad have successfully tamped down some of the spill-over of violence from other places. The relatively muted response (so far) to the second Samarra bombing is evidence of this. Time will tell, though....

Once again, none of this is intended to tell you "what to think" or "whether it's working". We're all professional adults, and you can work that out for yourself. But this does, I hope, explain some of the thinking behind what we are doing, and it may therefore make it easier for people to come to their own judgment.

David Kilcullen is Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser, Multi-National Force—Iraq. These are his personal views only.

Joining the Caravan? The Middle East, Islamism and Indonesia

By Anthony Bubalo and Dr Greg Fealy

Lowy Institute Paper #5:

Since 9/11 a number of claims have been made about the global nature of the threat posed by militant Islam, many of these have been debated extensively at the Small Wars Journal. This significant monograph from a part of the world directly engaged in these issues provides a fresh, research driven and policy focused perspective on this topical issue. From the paper's executive summary:

"Against the background of the 'war on terror', many people have come to view Islamism as a monolithic ideological movement spreading from the centre of the Muslim world, the Middle East, to Muslim countries around the globe. To borrow a phrase from Abdullah Azzam, the legendary jihadist who fought to expel the Soviet Union from Afghanistan in the 1980s, many today see all Islamists as fellow travellers in a global fundamentalist caravan. This paper explores the truth of that perception. It does it in part by looking at the way Islamism has evolved in the Middle East. It then assesses the impact that Islamist ideas from the Middle East have had in Indonesia, a country often cited as an example of a formerly peaceful Muslim community radicalised by external influences".

The paper offers several important policy recommendations arising from its conclusions; (these are expanded at the link):

1. In focusing on the global, do not lose sight of the local;

2. Adopt a more nuanced categorization of Islamists and neo-fundamentalists;

3. Take a less timorous approach to engagement with Islamists;

4. Think about education and the 'war of ideas' in broad terms;

5. Encourage transparency; and

6. Be conscious of double standards and the democracy dilemma.

About the Authors:

Anthony Bubalo is the Director of the West Asia Program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. Anthony is a fluent Arabic speaker and has worked as an Australian Diplomat in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Prior to joining the Lowy Institute he was a Middle East Analyst at Australia's peak intelligence body, the Office of National Assessments (ONA).

Dr Greg Fealy is a research fellow and lecturer at the Australian National University specialising in Indonesian Islam and politics.

The Lowy Institute for International Policy is Australia's premier independent foreign policy think tank. Its objective is to generate new ideas and dialogue on international developments and Australia's role in the world. Its mandate is broad. It ranges across all the dimensions of international policy debate in Australia - economic, political and strategic -- and it is not limited to a particular geographic region.