BOOK REVIEW: The Utility of Force by General Rupert Smith

The Utility of Force draws on British General Sir Rupert Smith's extensive personal experience to illuminate modern conflict in the age of international coalitions, humanitarian interventions, and asymmetrical warfare. Citing examples from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the recent forays into the Balkans, Smith rejects the notion of war as an series of exercises independent from political and current events or culture. The book is divided into three parts. First, the rise of “interstate industrial war” introduced by Napoleon, described by Clausewitz, and culminating in the World Wars. Second, the Cold War, which Smith calls the “antithesis” of the previous generation of wars. Third, Smith describes “War Amongst the People” and the new understanding that modern operations require a more complete look at the human battlefield. Smith concludes with his vision for the way ahead – a future fighting force equipped with better analysis and planning for the human dimension, one that understands that the enemy is no longer a monolithic army of a foreign state.

Educated at Haileybury, the Imperial Service College, and at Sandhurst, General Sir Rupert Smith commanded the British Armored Division during the Gulf war and the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia in 1995. Smith was also the senior European officer in NATO during the 1999 Kosovo campaign before retiring in 2002. NATO Review called Smith “one of the most outstanding officers of his generation.” Unmentioned on the dust jacket or anywhere in the text is Guardian journalist and UN political analyst Ilana Bet-El. It is unclear what role Bet-El played in drafting this book, however Smith has acknowledge Bet-El in interviews and she does share the copyright. Bet-El writes a regular column on foreign affairs and defense policy, occasionally criticized as being “too soft” on the United States out of career self-interest.

Published only three years following his retirement, The Utility of Force occasionally betrays Smith's desire to explain his decision-making. He engages in some “if only” talk, which is not entirely useless. The first part of the book is an academic review of the theories of war that precede Smith, illustrating quite nicely his radical break from tradition.

Smith advocates for a fighting force that engages with minds before machines, that anticipates the challenges of the modern world, and that understands that war is dead – only operations have survived. Smith also suggests a military that include the media, or at least the perceived reaction of the media, in every operation. He clearly understands the vital role the media play in framing events, and the importance of capitalizing on that ability:

...the media [is] to a large extent the source of the context in which the acts in the [military] theatre are played out: they do not make the facts, but it is they who express and display them...that is why establishing the context of the event and getting the story correct from the start is so important. To act effectively one is trying to gain a position where the majority of the audience and people on the stage are following your script in the context, and not that of the opponent.

Smith's understanding of the new media and how it has shaped public opinion reveals a thoughtful approach to the world that the warrior must fight in. Instead of reacting to coverage by the media, Smith exhorts commanders to anticipate and shape what the media see – actively using the media as an arm of the fighting force. This unity of media and war can only be shouldered by a commander who knows that guns and bullets are not everything.

The Utility of Force is useful in two contexts. First, for the student of warfare, it is a crisp look at the past 250 years combined with the personal reflections of a senior commander during the Gulf War and operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. Second, the book challenges the military theorist with its provocative assertion that “modern”, meaning industrial, state-on-state warfare is dead, and that militaries must adapt not only to new technology but to a human battlefield and an ever-changing media.

This does not mean that Smith is necessarily correct. He is a prophet of a coming age, but if this new warfare that Smith envisions fails to materialize – if states return to industrial warfare – then his book will be regarded by futures scholars as a curious misstep in judgment, but useful for its personal reflections nonetheless. All in all, an interesting and thoughtful book grounded in sound academic research.

References:

Cooper, Robert “Review: The Utility of Force by General Sir Rupert Smith” Sunday Times 18 September 2005

“General Rupert Smith DESACEUR” NATO Review Vol. 49, No. 2, Summer 2001

“General Sir Rupert Smith” Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA) Speaker Biography 16 May 2007

Bet-El, Ilana “Who needs Fox News when you've got John Bolton?” Guardian 8 June 2006

Good Luck, Britain! Good Luck, World!

Oil production in the UK will take a 40% hit today due to a strike at a Scottish pipeline. Supply and demand are the greatest determinants of price, and since spring typically causes gas prices to shoot up like the dandelion stalks in my front yard (two feet tall, no kidding), I think we can safely say that Monday morning is going to be ugly.
Remember world - what happens to one part of the oil supply/demand chain, happens to all. Have fun!

Elections in Iran

I love it when the Tehran Times prints garbage like this.

President Mahmud Ahmadinejad here on Thursday urged the regional countries to be vigilant in the face of conspiracies by the United States and be prepared to foil them.

“We should always be prepared and have a plan for foiling the U.S. movements in the region,” Ahmadinejad told visiting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem in Hamedan where he was on a provincial tour.

Great. Awesome.
This is in the wake of the Iranian Majiles (Parliament) elections, which resulted in a victory for conservatives - both Ahmadinejad's party and his conservative critics. At least the Washington Post bothered to report on it for a change.

It's my birthday!

Happy Birthday to me, Ella Fitzgerald, Justice Brennan, Al Pacino, and Oliver Cromwell.

Iran, the Chador, and Prostitution

Slate, Washington Post's online nook for B-grade news for the twenty-some set (news with an attitude), wrote a brief piece explaining prostitution in Iran. According to the authors, prostitution is rampant in Iran, even though it carries an incredible sentence for both man and woman/women involved. Because prostitutes wear veils and chadors, it can be rather challenging for a potential John to approach the right lady. Perhaps because of this, any wary John can bring the prostitute before a cleric and arrange a "temporary" marriage. Perfectly legal in shari'a, the temporary marriage lasts for some specified amount of time, no need for witnesses.
The Tehran Times, to its credit, acknowledges the problem of prostitution in the holy city of Qom. In 2001, a group claiming to want to "clean up the streets" killed a dozen prostitutes, sparking an investigation. Tehran Times did not report on the outcome of the investigations, and the articles were little more than blurbs.

Side Note: there seems to be a distinct difference in how Tehran Times reports on crime, compared to the Western style, but I can't quite figure out what it is. To some extent, it may be the lack of standard phrases such as "allegedly" or "The Washington Post does not identify victims of rape or sexual assault". Interesting.

Oil is to blame for... Starving Palestinians

So:
Palestinians are starving
Because UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine had to halt food deliveries
Because Israel cut off fuel to the area
Because Hamas was firing rockets at civilians
Because Israelis have taken their land
Because the British gave it to them
Because the Jewish people had no home
Because of the diaspora by the Romans
Because of....

So, yeah, oil IS to blame.

Oil is to blame for... global instability?

So, ascribing to a realist theory of international relations, what happens when Royal Dutch Shell finally decides they've had enough of these Nigerian rebel groups destroying their energy infrastructure? When energy prices become untenable?
A.) Small wars to secure resources
B.) Neo-colonialism
C.) Collapse of international institutions
D.) All of the above?

Constructivism is all well and good when resources are abundant, but don't tell me that a starving nation would prefer to perish nobly adhering to the international norms.

Personal Reflections of a National Security Advisor

How it happened and why:

The first problem the White House faced is that we did not have an agenda. How could we? The agenda of the President in the real world is set after a great deal of contemplation. Our executive leadership had nothing they wanted to accomplish, other than to “have fun”. We were doomed from the beginning to end up dancing to the tune of others because we had no music of our own to play.

We needed to hold a press conference, but we really had nothing to say. Of course the press was severely disappointed! We also never reached out to any other government – I think we were so busy paying attention to what was happening in the real world that we forgot we could let go of that a little bit and actually have talks or debates.

I observed a decided lack of initiative and little risk-taking (which is probably common to bureaucracy in general – the neck stuck out is the one that fits the guillotine). The press slammed us before, during and after the press conference. Some criticism was legitimate, some was absurd. I was frustrated (see below) but did not feel excused to act. My final move was to address a letter directly to the reporter my colleagues seemed to hate the most, and with whom things were entirely out of hand. The ANSA probably does not take time to write a sincere email to a foreign media journalist, but I was sick of the caustic tone (which, admittedly, I encouraged at first – see below).

I genuinely believe that each member of the group wanted to enjoy the assignment and play to the best of their capability. Unfortunately, involvement did not match role, and as a group, our schedules were dissimilar enough to prevent us from ever really coming together.

Although working in a group, as usual most of my insights are about myself. First, I learned that I hate indecisive leadership. If I am going to follow someone, I need to know that he or she has a vision. As the National Security Advisor, I felt incredibly restrained to providing support and guidance only. I did not “set” the agenda because I needed to stay on top of any potential security threat. I had no political desire to see any particular threat become the central focus for the media – in fact I did my best to remain apolitical and focus on facts. I prefer to lead, but I know I can follow gracefully if convinced of the leader's worth. I tried to follow in this case, with lackluster results.

This is the second thing I learned about myself – I hated not having a forum for response. The National Security Advisor, I believed (perhaps wrongly?) does not have time to correct all the egregious errors and rumors promulgated by the press. Some of the articles I found to be completely worthless and unprofessional. I wanted to denounce the ridiculous assertions (“the surge in Iraq is no longer necessary” “General Patreus”) but also didn't feel like being drawn into the trap of responding to everything and letting the media lead me around on a leash. In the end, the best I could do was release a situation report that subtly addressed a few of the points from the journalists, without directly responding. I made sure not to speak for the Administration – as it became clear that the Administration had nothing to say – but somewhat appeased my own desire for rectification. I should have liked to be one of the bloggers, free to ridicule and make everything my business. Turning my nose up at shoddy journalism was all too frustrating.

Still on the subject of the media, I found myself wanting to purposefully make their job difficult. Why? I couldn't say – perhaps retribution for having my inbox jammed with questions beneath my attention. It was my suggestion that the press conference invitation only be offered to the members of the media we had had contact with. It was my suggestion (perhaps a stronger word is in order) that we refuse to respond directly to the press. It seemed clear to me from the beginning that press perceived themselves in an antagonistic role towards our administration, especially since the administration didn't help itself by failing to immediately set a professional tone and agenda.

As a group, we didn't work together much. I think we all felt a general sense of helplessness – the senior executives lacked initiative to implement and follow through on any plans of action, and as I mentioned before, I felt that my role was to advise, not direct. Most likely this was a mistake on my part. I'm certain I could have pushed any agenda I wished through the leadership – the President read almost word for word the update on Iran I prepared – but I felt compelled to remain loyal to the administration. I suppose I might have “leaked” my frustrations, but again, some sense of duty restrained me. I anticipated at the beginning that my role would be to feed the executive leadership security concerns on any pressing issues, but I was never asked for any. I provided my thoughts anyway. But again, I didn't have an agenda. I think if the exercise began with a one page individual and private memo answering the question “what is your agenda?”, I would have been able to think of several agendas I could have had – pressure Congress to give more funding/fewer restrictions to the IC, pressure various foreign governments into committing more funding to the GWoT. I should have thought of these, or anything, but instead I tried to play with the team, in the support role.

Finally, and truly the most frustrating: I spent a good deal of the simulation locked away in a SCIF. This created two problems for me. One, I received the daily blitz mostly in one lump sum. Since the reports typically consisted of regurgitated news focusing on the non-security matters, I largely dismissed my classmates' contributions. Two, after being surrounded by real news and real national security all day long, I had to recuse myself from speculating on national security situations for fear of alluding to classified material. I was extraordinarily reluctant to play this role with much vigor, and I felt the constant need to keep my head “out of the game” as it were. So while it was good OPSEC practice, I was certainly restrained.

Overall – I could have done better. I should not have let my “advisor” title tie my hands. I should -

I just read a White House release with my name on it. To which I did not provide input. I change my mind. Everyone could have done better. I didn't observe anyone handle their job, myself included. Opinion veiled as “journalism”, mouthpieces with a mind of their own, leaders who didn't lead....

I've already written too much, so the last few points will be quick: when presenting, compartmentalize- economics and Iran should never have been mixed. Give Neil Barlow an A. He was probably the one person in the class with energy and commitment. And in the future, I can't function unless I always have a plan.

Alert the Press! Tehran Times publishes actual news!!

Sadly, it is because of a deadly explosion at a mosque in Shiraz. Sympathy to the families, and interesting how a tragedy can be reported so clearly when most other news is not.
WaPo got in on the story for a change, too.

Arash, or Why I Love Persian Music

Arash, born in Tehran, left for the wider world like so many Iranians in the 70s and 80s. Currently living in Sweden, Arash is probably one of the best-known Persian singers since Googoosh. Greatest hits include Boro Boro, Arash, Tike Tike Kardi, Temptation, and his newest single, Donya. Arash has gone gold in five different countries and reached the top of the charts across Europe.
To celebrate the appearance of the Iranian national football team making the German World Cup in 2006, Arash collaborated with DJ Alligator to produce "Iran Iran". The song is both incredibly nationalistic and at the same time, critical of the regime.
"You are the voice of Iran - for the people of Iran!" The singer says, "I am an Iranian child... with one voice we sing, everyone with one voice: Iran! Iran! Iran!" The chorus is simply a mass of hundreds cheering "Iran! Iran! Iran!", the music video depicts Persians of all ages dancing and cheering. But the flags they are waving say "IRAN" across the white band in the middle, instead of the coat of arms of Iran, which spells the name of God with the sword of the revolution. The flag waved in the video also lacks the twenty-two iterations of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) along the border of the white part of the flag (see image), which represents the 22nd day of the 11th month - the day of the revolution.
Displaying the flag of Iran without the additions approved by the revolution is a common method of expatriates to show disapproval of the current Islamic regime.
So, curious, I searched for Arash in the archives of the Tehran Times. Nothing. I shouldn't be surprised. As an arm of Iranian government, Tehran Times probably can't discuss any hint of dissent.
It is a strange mix - patriotism and dissent. Or perhaps dissent is the most powerful form of patriotism.


On a side note, Washington Post hasn't heard of Arash, unlike their European counterparts.

Psyops!!

The Psyops Cyclops!!!

So, today in class we talked about "covert" ways to frame/set agendas... Public Relations, Advertisements, PSYOPS!!!

I just really like the word psyops.

But, seriously, what kind of moral questions are attached to psychological operations? If ends can be achieved, are the means justified? What kind of attachment to "truth" do we have? Is a psychological operation better/less invasive than other kinds of operations?

Personally, my time at Georgetown has made me more of a realist than I'm sometimes comfortable with. I find myself able to justify all kinds of quasi-ethical operations in the name of national security. What happened to my convictions about liberty??

Ahmadinejad: Iran’s nuclear drive ‘non-negotiable’

More excellent news from the Tehran Times:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview published Friday that he would reject any new incentives offered by world powers in return for suspending uranium enrichment.

Asked about possible incentives that Iran suspend its enrichment activities, Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling Japan’s Kyodo News: “This is a non-negotiable subject.”

He said, “Iran is a nuclear country and has no reason to give up the technology. If there are to be any preconditions, we must propose preconditions.”


Washington Post says:









What are they doing over there? Singing Sweet Caroline?

Aren't safe and Canada the same thing?

So while the Tehran Times is offline - a bit of humor from a "news organization" that doesn't even pretend to be independent from the Islamic Republic:

The Persian Gulf region is the world safest oil supplier, Minister of Oil Gholam-Hossein Nozari said Saturday evening.

He stressed that as a powerful country in the region, "Iran plays essential role in security of the Persian Gulf."
The minister made the remarks after a meeting with the Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Abdullah al-Badri who arrived in Iran on Friday on a three-day visit.

Persian gulf? Safe? Safer than Nigeria, okay, but safer than Canada??

Fitna or Football

So in the news this week we had blond Dutch parliament member/filmmaker with his incendiary piece "Fitna" which pairs footage from terrorist attacks with quotes from the Koran. So I opened up the Tehran Times, just to see what they had to say today and... nothing? This is the headline photo:


Okay, so those poor girls have to play soccer with all those layers on but... but... I can't help but feel some small amount of hope when I look at the photo.

CORRECTION: Okay, so apparently Tehran Times hasn't been updated in over a week... probably because of Norooz, the Persian new year. My lack of oversight - should have looked at the date.
In other news, interesting that they don't publish at all during the holiday - its not a religious holiday, just a cultural one. Hmm.

Book Report?

Haven't had class in awhile - I really thought we were supposed to show up last Wednesday but there only ended up being about 10 of us so... okay!
Not sure how the book report fits in to the rest of what we are doing with these journals and etc, but I'm just going to jot a few ideas here:
1.) I just finished the Utility of Force by British General Rupert Smith, who led UN forces in the Bosnian and Gulf War conflicts. General Smith looks to "update" the Clausewitzian Trinity to the modern age and extensively looks at the role of the media and the increasingly-involved international community.
2.) Language Shock, by Michael Agar, sits on my shelf (a bookstore purchase that hasn't made it to the top of the queue yet - it's somewhere after Paris: The Secret History and The Fabric of the Cosmos). It claims to be about not taking language for granted - that language is a byproduct of culture. This relates in class to the idea of looking at the foreign media - an English translation of an article, or even an article produced in English but intended for the consumption of a specific audience is very, very different down to the level of the very words...

Tehran Times Still on Vacation

It's still the holidays in Iran and so the Tehran Times is still not publishing.
But here is a cool picture of Shiraz:!عید فطر مبارک

Oil is to blame for... lame spring breaks?

Price of oil increases, ergo the price of vacations increase. Hooray! Thanks Washington Post for the cheery news!

Why We Fight

I've been thinking about the documentary by Frank Capra that we watched in class today. In no particular order:
(1) We forget sometimes the propaganda that our country engages in. We think of "propaganda" as a peculiar element of Soviet countries and other enemies of the state, but we churned out one-sided media just as readily. The difference of course is that the free market makes room for more than just the propaganda, whereas the closed market disseminates only state approved messages.
(2) It's amazing how transparent the propaganda is to our savvy 21st century eyes. It makes me wonder what I am accepting as unbiased today that future generations will giggle at.
(3) All those Biblical references in a film produced by the Department of War and intended for Army use - wouldn't see that today. I liked it.
(4) The narrator (Walter Huston) at times sounded like Burl Ives in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
(5) Speaking of Hollywood and WWII, I've been meaning for some time to track down a book about the Hollywood prop masters who fooled the enemy into believing in the existence of entire brigades that were entirely fabricated.

What questions do I have?
(1) Is propaganda an appropriate tool for a democracy to use?
(2) During war, does the media have an obligation to cooperate with its government or is its responsibility to scrutinize it even more carefully?

(1) I think that propaganda is usually not terribly useful, as it seems that anything published by the government is immediately suspect. What about items covertly published by the government? It may be that the internet may ferret some of these out, but overall I suppose the intent must be scrutinized. A democratic government should not be in the business of duping its own people. However, propaganda targeted at foreign allies, neutrals, and enemies, I suspect may be of value.

Tehran Times suspects conspiracy!!!

I'm reproducing this article in full. It is the top headline at the Tehran Times for March 17, 2008.

U.S. biggest loser of Iran poll
Tehran Times Political Desk

TEHRAN -- Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini declared here on Sunday that the United States is the main loser of the parliamentary election in Iran.
“Surely the biggest loser of this election was the United States, and the real winners were the people of Iran,” Hosseini told reporters at his weekly press briefing.
About 60 percent of eligible voters in Iran took part in Friday’s parliamentary elections.
The Western plot to discourage the Iranians from participating in the elections was foiled, the Foreign Ministry spokesman stated.
The U.S. put great pressure on its European allies and other countries sitting on the Security Council to approve additional sanctions against Iran prior to elections in order to discourage people from turning out for polls.

Wow. I'm currently reading The Persian Puzzle which looks at Iranian-American relations. One of the main points the author pushes is that Iranians perceive the United States to be more interested and involved in Iran than it actually is. This article I think is a perfect example of that mentality.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, covered Iran's parliamentary election by reproducing a Reuters article which called into question the legitimacy of the elections, but otherwise does not appear to have paid much attention.

Oil is to blame for... the war. Or is it?

The Washington Post presents a column that actually rationally looks at the case of blood and oil in the Middle East. Columnist Steve Mufson states that it is nearly impossible that the invasion of Iraq was at the behest of Big Oil, but also admits that yes, the government does have an eye on oil and it is impossible to extricate energy security interests from our national security interests.
Some of the comments following the column, however, are impossible.
A sample:
"Of course, AA 77 never took off, and no plane struck the Pentagon. Explosives were planted in the Pentagon, and it might have been struck by three cruise missiles."
"...let the Europeans, Japanese and Chinese defend their oil interests with their own soldiers. The Arabs would not be whining about their relatively benign treatment under US occupation anymore. I'll bet they would be very well behaved if they were occupied by the Chinese Army- the Chinese wouldn't put up with the kind of b.s. that we do out of some misguided sense of political correctness."
"I do not believe Iraq was about oil directly; but it was about preserving the "Imperial Dollar" as the world's currency standard."
"Israeli security interest as represented by the neocon architects of this disaster. For the Jews, having a major American land army invade one of their sworn enemies and having to deal with resentful fundamentalist suicidal Muslims was perfect. They can’t be too open about it but you see their silent hand on it. Joe Lieberman and subtle Jewish influences in the media are obvious."

My question - how is the article improved by this commentary? It seems quite clear that a number of the commentators did not read the article or address it. Some of these outrageous
statements seem ripped straight from the Tehran Times. It seems a shame that a decent article was ruined by the obnoxious and ignorant commentary that followed. It is no surprise that the Post hides comments behind a link, unlike other papers which stick comments right on the bottom.