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A Balanced Strategy
If by "balanced" you mean completely unbalanced, then yes, this is a balanced strategy.
U.S. Military: The War Within
Like Charles Dunlap, Jr., Mr. Weinberger criticizes SecDef Gate's short-sighted policies of seeing Iraq, Afghanistan, and COIN as the basis upon which to plan future forces, with the result that the Air Force is being systematically ignored, even slowly dismantled. Dunlap cites this piece by Weinberger. Both make very strong arguments about what's wrong with the dominant assumptions that underlay current DoD policies.
Iraq's Winning Vote
A Washington Post op-ed, reproduced on the Iraq Updates site.
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In short, Iraq appears to have taken a step toward becoming the moderate Arab democracy that the Bush administration long hoped for.
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Add Sticky NoteOddly, the biggest beneficiary of the election other than Mr. Maliki may be President Obama, who has been a skeptic both of progress in Iraq and the value of elections in unstable states. Mr. Obama acknowledged on Monday that "Iraqis just had a very significant election with no significant violence" and called that "good news" -- but only in the sense that it could justify withdrawing "a substantial number" of U.S. troops this year. While such a drawdown is certainly a desirable goal, the president would do well to recognize, value and exploit the very real political progress Iraq has made -- and to be careful not to undercut it by acting too quickly on his exit strategy.
- Instead, however, it appears that he will give up just as we are seeing success in Iraq so that he can shift focus to Afghanistan, which most analysts are saying is likely a lost cause at this point. Win-lose isn't great, but it's better than lose-lose, which is a very real possibility. - on 2009-02-06
Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq, September 2008 - Council on Foreign Relations
70+ page report on the situation in Iraq. It is the 13th such report, whch have been mandated and funded by Congress.
The News Media's Withdrawal from Iraq
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The withdrawal from Iraq is progressing at a precipitous pace.
No, not the withdrawal of American troops. I’m talking about the withdrawal of the American news media. -
- While American troop strength in Iraq is being slowly reduced, the press corps there is being rapidly reduced. The raw numbers tell the story:
- Only four U.S. news organizations now staff bureaus in Baghdad, compared to a dozen in the early days of the war. CBS and NBC have no correspondents based in Iraq.
- The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post—which all continue to staff small Baghdad bureaus—published a total of 858 front-page stories from Iraq in 2003, but only 138 in the first nine months of this year. The three major American television networks broadcast 130 stories from Iraq between September 2007 and September 2008, compared to 242 stories in the previous 12 months.
- In September 2007, 219 U.S. journalists were “embedded” with American combat units. Last month, that number was only 39.
The Story of the Surge
A review of Bing West's latest book on the Iraq war, one which describes the "surge" and shift to a COIN strategy as a largely bottom up development. Sounds like an interesting read.
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One of the most important aspects of Bing West’s new book—“The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics and the Endgame in Iraq”—is his retelling of how the “surge” of American combat forces in Iraq actually came about. The popular imagination (and simplistic retellings by politicians and lazy journos) seems to have latched on to the idea that General Petraeus hatched the plan himself, and heroically dragged everyone else along with him on the road to victory.
How to Leave a Stable Iraq
Biddle, O'Hanlon, and Pollack provide a detailed and balanced assessment of the prospects for a stable Iraq and what the U.S. can do to promote such an outcome. In short, rapaid withdrawal is not it. They argue that U.S. troop strength should remain close to where it is now through 2009, with cuts by half only occuring in the 2010-2011 timeframe.
The U.S. Military Index
In an exclusive new index, Foreign Policy and the Center for a New American Security surveyed more than 3,400 active and retired officers at the highest levels of command about the state of the U.S. military. They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight.
Not a Game: Online Only Video
A short video about using videogame, Virtual Iraq, as a tool to treat soldiers with PTSD.
Disregard academic critiques of the new COIN manual
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Doctrine is collaborative and basically an effort in consensus-building within an institution for practices that some members are already using (or rejecting). Academic writing for peer review is about delivering information to a guild-like community through prescribed forms and standards, mostly by individuals or very small groups. Not the same thing.
Military doctrinal writing that tries really be peer review will not be of much use to 18 year old recruits. Or their commanding officers. Or often, the civilian policy makers. The COIN manual paid attention to the substance of Anthropology, a novelty in itself, but not to Anthropology's weird, little, professional fetishes prized by bearded dudes who have cubicle offices on campus.
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