peace is not an option

earlier in the week, as the details emerged of wikileaks' posting, i was more curious as to how the federales would react.  i didn't have my hopes very high, but i was fairly pleased.  i find the whole 'opsec' culture in the army quite tedious, to tell you the truth.  there is a time and a place for secrecy, but the amount of information we keep secret is higher than i think it ought to be.  warfare more closely resembles the chaotic aftermath of a natural disaster where limiting information flow hurts organizational performance, not the comfortable confines of a garrison environment.  even in garrison, i rarely had access to secret information because of the infrastructure requirements.  we do a much better job over here, obviously, in exchanging sensitive information.

what was once probably our greatest asset, namely the ability of junior leaders and troops on the ground to quickly read the situation on the ground and improvise and adapt to accomplish the mission, has been turned on it's head.  our adversaries are manifestly better at turning the tactical situation on the ground into a strategic victory, regardless of the tactical outcome.  part of this lies in the fact that they speak the language of the locals, and we of course are foreigners.  the fact that we never spend more than a year on the ground, and when we do we roll around in massive armored vehicles wearing body armor and the like which serves, i'm sure, to strip us of our humanity in the eyes of the population we are striving to protect, cannot help matters much.

so what is to be done?  i always thought it odd that we send units back to the united states before we've achieved victory.  a deployment with an end date of 'UTC' would sink the whole volunteer army thing, but it would have the added benefit of curtailing the ambitions of chickenhawk politicians who take war a little less lightly than they should.  something i think that would be reasonable, though, would be to deploy units to the same location every time.  AfPak Hands is a pretty brilliant idea, but why not expand on the concept?  units wouldn't spend the first several months of their deployments relearning their, ugh, 'battlespace.'  the afghans, i would hope, would be more prone to believe our statements of our enduring support if they saw the same faces return.  of course, this would mean that the majority of soldiers and leaders would have to remain with their units, but for the most part, i doubt this would cause an uproar.  i'm sure many soldiers and their families would at least appreciate the stability that would afford.

in terms of initiative by junior leaders, well, there are two things i can think of.  general mattis gets it.  we've never learned to fight with the radios off.  there is almost no unit out there that doesn't have a constant leash going back to the TOC.  situational awareness is great, but the tendency to micromanage is always there.  i have to wonder if it doesn't do more harm than good.  i'd rather have soldiers in the field operating off of the commander's intent and their own judgment than someone miles away giving orders through a radio based on what the predator sees.

initiative won't get you very far without capable, competent and intelligent soldiers.  we need them, and we need to pay them whatever it takes to get them to join.  too expensive?  then don't fight a war like this.  having spent a little bit of my life in command, i can say that the drop in recruitment standards really hurt the quality of the army.  that cohort was pretty sad.  and for every disciplinary and medical issue i had with a soldier, it took an NCO to babysit them until they were gone, which took months.

add into that the army's very bureaucratic training methods.  qualified with your weapon twice a year?  you're good to go!  nevermind that you still carry the thing like you don't know which way to point it.  you want to do room clearing and detainee search procedures?  where does that fit on your METL crosswalks?  nevermind that the army hasn't even gotten your ARTEP transitioned over to CATS yet, let alone adopted the tasks for the contemporary operating environment.  but we sure did learn how to set up our camo nets and emplace our chemical detectors, so i guess we're ready.  peacetime training, until you get your mission, should revolve around three things:  competence in your unit's core mission, functional high-intensity physical training and open-ended problem solving in stressful environments that replicate likely scenarios the unit will face.  the only place that 'tasks, conditions and standards' should have is the first one.

but i've come a long way from the start of this post, and i need to get back to the point.  i was pleased with the reaction of the government because i don't think they oversold the value of secrecy.  in fact, they may have undersold it.  as abu muqawama, josh foust, and i'm sure quite a few others have pointed out, julian assange didn't just endanger the lives of americans (though it will take a lot of time for the taliban to digest the information, and by then we won't be operating the same way anyway), he endangered the lives of afghans as well.  i think it is worse for wikileaks to have removed the names of americans but not that afghans.  the americans over there CHOSE to be over there in one way or another.  we chose that fight, and to put our lives on the line.  the afghan names posted by wikileaks never chose to live this war, but they're in it and i'm sure most of them are just trying to make it to the end with their families and their livelihoods in tact.  that the people at wikileaks went through all of these documents, saw their names, and chose to do nothing to protect them, despite what we know about the taliban and their lack of humanity, is utterly unforgivable. 

there is a role for the whistleblowers, the leakers, and even the loose-lipped bloggers out there.  sometimes information is more valuable in the public domain, even when its release has negative consequences.  it can serve to keep the government honest, the citizenry more informed about the true nature of war, or maybe just what daddy is up to.  and while kant would say that mr. assange has done nothing immoral, those of us in the real world know that actions have consequences.  releasing this information without protecting these afghans is incredibly callous and shows that mr. assange does not care about the means, he cares about the ends.

i'm angry, so i'm going to listen to some agnostic front.*

*i was going to get into my struggle as a libertarian, coming from a liberal family, of dealing with these wars.  how i desperately want to help these people, and knowing how bloody and painful it is to even try, with little guarantee of success.  how little i can do as one man to make a difference; how i've already spent a third of my life in the military and done nothing of consequence.  i doubt that the ability of the taliban and al qaeda to do us any real harm can't be managed by better intelligence work and targeting.  but i don't think i could put anything down that would be coherent, as different parts of my brain are still fighting it out on this one.  that, and it's time to finish my laundry and call my folks.  oh, and i'm lazy.