Review: Zero Dark Thirty, "One of the Disappeared Ones"

I and many other people were a little surprised when the news broke on a Sunday evening in May 2011 that al-qaeda founder and terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces.  Ten years had passed between the 9/11 attacks and his reckoning, but Kathryn Bigelow's film "Zero Dark Thirty" helps explain the delay.  The first two hours of the film is much more intelligence procedural than thriller and the methodical pacing may turn off less interested viewers.  But just when you have had enough of angry looks and internal CIA politics the viewer is rewarded with the payoff.

After more than seven years of tracking down one dead end after another a relentless CIA analyst is finally able to put the pieces together.  She is 95-100% sure her prey is living in a nondescript, but fortified house in a quiet Pakistani town.  After months of handwringing the Obama administration orders a raid on the compound and as the cliche goes - the rest is history.  Zero Dark Thirty is too long and deliberate to work as a thriller, but it does provide useful insights into controversial CIA tactics like enhanced interrogation techniques.  I came away with a renewed appreciation of the anonymous intelligence and military personnel who have and continue to work so hard to keep the rest of us safe.

Long Live the Revolution

There seems to be a cadre of national security and military affairs analysts who believe the movement started in the 1990's known as the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is dead and good riddance.  This incorrect notion is at partially fueled, I suspect by their disdain for Secretary Rumsfeld, perhaps its most high profile proponent.  Anyone who has been paying attention for the last ten years should know that even if the label RMA has fallen out of favor, the tenets of the philosophy continue to be implemented including increased reliance on air power, smart munitions, networked command and control capabilities and smaller, lighter ground forces.

Its true that Secretary Rumsfeld made a lot of enemies at the Pentagon, but many of them parted ways with him years before 9/11 or OIF.  For example, there were a number of high-ranking officers in the Army who pushed very hard for the canceled self-propelled cannon known as the Crusader.  Soldiers understandably want heavy fire power to support their operations, but the secretary and other argued that big, heavy cannons were becoming less necessary in light of the advances in attack helicopters, attack planes and smart munitions.

If the detractors lost faith in RMA because it did not turn out to be a sliver bullet or a panacea then shame on them for not having more realistic expectations.  There is no magic, just hard decisions and hard work that will hopefully result in the most effective military possible.

U.S. Army: 2043

What will the U.S. Army be like in the year 2043?  It might seem like a long way off to some, but Pentagon planners are hard at work figuring out what shape its ground forces need to take to stay preeminent in the coming decades.  There are two main challenges that have to be addressed: the first is the pressure of shrinking budgets for the foreseeable future and the second is China's increasing defense expenditures to create a military capable of projecting power into the South China Sea.

Asking the Army to do less with more is a bit cliched, but it is unfortunately true.  It appears that one of the ways the Pentagon will deal with this is to shrink the forces while moving ahead with replacing and updating equipment and systems.  This can work up to the point where the Army finds itself without enough infantry and armor brigades to carry out relatively large-scale and sustained operations against for example, Iran and terrorist groups in the Horn of Africa.  No one really knows what the exact numbers are, but recent experience with OEF and OIF suggest the point has already been reached.

The Pentagon will have to come to terms with the economics of men versus machines - how many combat brigades it can trade for new helicopters and tanks.

Operation Iraqi Freedom: Mission Accomplished

This week marked the ten year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.  Gideon Rose wrote an article for Foreign Affairs arguing that OIF is, "..the most egregious American foreign policy failure since Vietnam."  People opposed to the invasion invoked Vietnam even before the first coalition troops crossed into Iraq, and the WMD were not found. The comparisons became almost a cliche as the days of the invasion gave way to the years of reconstruction, IED attacks and street fighting.

Mr. Rose could not be more wrong about Iraq because even though it was frustrating, brutal and expensive in both treasure and precious blood it succeeded in wrecking Saddam's regime and in helping an elected, sovereign government be born. Mr. Gideon should review his history if he believes this shares any similarities with the decision to leave South Vietnam to be conquered by the Communist North.

In 2007 President Bush ignore the cries to pullout of Iraq as we did in Vietnam and instead ordered the surge of forces and counter insurgency strategy led by General Petraeus.  This final push, along with the improving Iraqi forces and the Sunni Awakening were enough to break al-Qaeda and the other enemy forces.  Ironically, Mr. Rose would have had his Vietnam in Iraq if President Bush had listened to the experts who counseled precipitous withdrawal and defeat. It is time the naysayers accepted yes for an answer: yes, mission accomplished. The Obama administration and future administrations have the responsibility to see that it stays that way.

Benghazi: Shame on the President

It has been more than six months since the terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11th, but it seems there are still as many questions as answers.  The reason for this is that President Obama has successfully deflected questions and convinced many reporters in the months before the 2012 Presidential election that there was no there - there.  However, at least 2 questions remain: Why did the White House immediately blame the attack on protests that escalated into an attack. Also, why did the White House send U.N. Ambassador Rice on numerous Sunday talk shows to repeat the claim even after intelligence officials had told the White House information pointed to a coordinated terrorist attack?

The latest revelation is that as many as 33 survivors of the attack that killed the ambassador and 3 others are being pressured not to talk to Congress and the media.  Republican senator Lindsey Graham has stated he managed to speak to several survivors and that they wanted to talk, but were seeking assurances they would be protected from repercussions.  The House of Representatives should immediately call for public hearings and a renewed investigation along the lines of the work that was done that produced the 9/11 Commission Report. Shame on the President for dishonoring the dead and the survivors by trying to let the issue die away without his administration taking responsibility.

Camouflaging Common Sense

When I was in elementary school in the 1980's and decided i wanted to be a Green Beret the four services were preparing to fight the massive Soviet military machine known as the Red Army.  Somehow however, the four services were able to function using one primary camouflage pattern for their uniforms.  it was a woodland pattern suited for Europe, parts of Asia and the Americas.  When Desert Storm hit the pentagon pulled the now somewhat infamous "chocolate chip" desert pattern fatigues.

While new patterns were tested and a new desert pattern emerged around the time of OEF, the explosion of new camouflage patterns would soon begin.  The Marine Corps kicked it off with a nod to the Canadians who had developed a digital camouflage pattern.  After OIF the Marines began issuing two digital patterns: a green and brown woodland pattern and a brownish desert pattern.  Soon after the Army jumped in with its Universal Camouflage Pattern that was designed to be suitable for many different environments, but remained unpopular.  The Army began issuing a different pattern called Multicam in 2010 that has proven to be popular.

This near fetish continued continued in the midst of the GWOT as the Navy introduced 3 new digital patterns: a strange sci-fi blue/green pattern as well as 2 patterns similar to the Marine Corps patterns.  The Air Force got into the game with a retro tiger stripe pattern updated with the digital format.

A September 2012 Government Accountability Office report described this debacle as a fragmented approach as putting troops at risk and wasting millions of dollars on what are essentially fashion decisions.  No matter how much more effective research and testing can make camouflage patterns, they are still limited in how much any camouflage clothing can conceal the troops on the battlefield.  Going forward, all the services should be compelled to accept the Multicam pattern so everyone can get on the same page and then get back to focusing on more important issues like trying to make do with serious budget cuts.

What Would Ethan Allen Do?

The proud history of the Army Rangers goes back to before the Revolutionary War with Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys of Vermont.  Reaching legendary status with its exploits during World War II the Rangers continue to be one of the Army's most elite combat units.  The Obama administration's drive to transform the military by pushing females closer to combat jobs may be a boon to their careers, but is it a boon for combat effectiveness?  (What does this change say about the effectiveness/rigor of Ranger school?)

General Odierno believes failing to allow women to enroll in Ranger school and earn their tabs would hinder their infantry careers. Was there a time when this kind of politically correct drivel would have gotten you retired?  What infantry careers?Just because they are being assigned to units below Brigade level does not mean they are infantrymen, excuse me infantrypeople. Women will be allowed to serve in support capacities such as personnel, logistics chaplaincy and intelligence.

The Pentagon needs to check itself before it lets itself get carried away by an administration that seems to have more invested in gender politics than it does in the long-term effectiveness of the military and American national security.  If women are just as qualified to go to Ranger School, serve as Marine Corps infantry officers are become Navy SEALs than they can be put in all female units just as there have always been all male units.  Where would this fall in the politically correct triangulation the administration is so busy calculating?