It has been reported that nearly 300,000 women have served in combat zones since 2001 and there were 12,000 women serving in Iraq at one time, and there are even more in Afghanistan right now. While females are technically in support roles those jobs include flying aircraft, military police units and vehicle drivers.

It is a fact that many have come under fire with unfriendly forces.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps in a msg called ALMAR 012/12, “Assignment of Women to Ground Combat Units” wrote:

“I HAVE DIRECTED THAT MEASURED AND RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH BE CONDUCTED TO PROVIDE ME WITH THE INFORMATION AND DATA NECESSARY TO MAKE AN INFORMED AND EDUCATED RECOMMENDATION ON POTENTIAL POLICY CHANGES.  THE CUMULATIVE RESEARCH EFFORT WILL INCLUDE AN EXCEPTION TO THE GROUND ASSIGNMENT POLICY, QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH, AND A TOTAL FORCE SURVEY.”

Contrary to many news media reports the Commandant has not assigned Women Marines to ground combat. Please note that he has asked for research on the subject.

I asked a senior Woman Marine office (retired), whom I hold in high regard and could serve in combat with me any time, what she thought of the research.

“I actually think it’s a good move to see how many women actually volunteer for the training/research and then make it through. It may be a very small number and mostly put an end to the controversy, at least for the Marine Corps — that is, as long as the women actually have to keep pace with their male counterparts throughout the training. If the Infantry Officer’s Course (IOC) remains unchanged, I suspect a similar thing will happen as happened in the 70’s when Gen Wilson integrated OCS and TBS — female Marines were initially injured in such large numbers (breaking ankles and legs) that the Corps had to scale down the obstacle course and eventually develop a completely different “agility” course for the female candidates. If IOC stays exactly as is, most of the female volunteers will likely drop out or be dropped. The Corps will have to decide beforehand how they will assign the Women Marines who complete the training and also make it clear to the volunteers beforehand that they are not going to be assigned to infantry units directly. I imagine the volunteers will have to sign a letter of understanding so the Press and/or the ACLU won’t be able to claim discrimination.

“It would be a travesty if the Corps were forced by DoD to make the IOC training ‘gender neutral’ and, thereby, lower the standards to accommodate women. I pray that never happens.”

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“We’re within an inch of war almost every day in that (N. Korea)  part of the world, and we just have to be very careful about what we say and what we do,” Panetta said Wednesday on “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

Yet, on April 12, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, discussed what he called the “security paradox.” According to Dempsey, the good news in the world today, is that interstate conflict is currently minimal, human violence is at an all-time low, and the United States faces “no obvious existential threat.” He did allow that future threats may be on the horizon. Also, Dempsey did say that he envisions an expanding set of threats.

There seems to be a gap between the world Dempsey sees and the forces that will be available to future U.S. military commanders.

There is still Iraq and Afghanistan where there is the possibility of another attempt at a “Tet Offensive” style assault nation wide that may cause the US to over react. The Taliban may have recently tried to launch a Tet style assault but had minimum success.  Maybe they had lessons learned.

To quote a famous ancient Greek philosopher: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

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Any idea of a positive outcome from the so-called “Arab Spring” is all but gone. News reports confirm most that the Islamists will be the wielders of power in Egypt, Tunisia and possibly Libya and their agendas are what I warned it would be – radical Islam.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Salaf Nour Party are the big winners in Egypt. Guided by the Saudi-inspired school of thought, Salafist, Islamic hard lineer will not be friendly to the U.S. or Israel. Salafi groups in Egypt speak openly about their plans in Egypt where personal freedoms, free speech and women rights will be subject to sharia law.

Robert Haddick, writing in the Small Wars Journal, 13 Jan 2012, “This week at War: Playing Risks,” markes the most important fall out:

“… the Arab Spring has created collateral damage to U.S. relations with key Gulf countries. Leaders in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere were not pleased with the Obama administration’s abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. U.S. policymakers seem to make a clear distinction between external threats to the Sunni Arab countries, to which the United States has pledged to respond, and internal threats, which the United States sees as each country’s responsibility. The Sunni monarchies, fearing Iran’s covert and irregular-warfare capabilities, do not so neatly see the distinction between Iranian-sponsored external and internal threats. …having lost some confidence in U.S. reliability, are now looking east to India and China to diversify their security relationships.”

The Administration inexperience in international relations and military affairs are hurting U.S. positions around the world. The Arab Spring has sprung a trap on U.S. forein policy.

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A Special Operation, Senior Planner at US Special Operations Command, has written a short sighted and misinformed article called: “Libya Lessons: Supremacy of the SOF-Airpower Team… Or, why do We Still Need a Huge Army?”

Chris Rawley wrote: “A number of interesting learning points have arisen from the Libyan conflict. Foremost among them for me is the need to massively downsize the United States Army. …what the Libya campaign best demonstrates, or more appropriately, reiterates, is the utility of the special ops-airpower team. And by airpower, I’m referring to service-agnostic airpower in all its’ forms, although biased towards the flexibility sea-based aircraft provide.” 

In a comment to the article a wise man wrote: So IF we’re operating with SOF and airpower as part of a capable (relative to their opponents) local force, that’s a lot different than just destroying things on the ATO.  However, that means that there is such a force and that we somehow retain control over what happens when the shooting stops.

It is surprising to me that the major lesson from Iraq was the lack of a Plan B yet the misunderstandings of what you do after combat operation has major ramification that have to be part of the military plan. Obviously some just don’t get it.

Now thanks to our vaunted airpower and whatever SOF were helping there is no food or water in Tripoli and the people and the zoo animals are in dire straits.

The US is great at destroying things but do you think we could move an aircraft carrier into Tripoli harbor to help provide food and water for all?

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There seems to be a problem with math at the Washington Post or maybe they do not count all wars that the U.S. is involved in. Maybe they count only ”unpopular wars” and the ones that are being called “good wars” do not count.

If my math is right the U.S. is involved in five wars – count them: (1) Iraq, (2) Afghanistan, (3) Libya, (4) Yemen and (5) Somalia.

On June 28, 2011, the Washington Post, in an article by Greg Jaffe, “Lessons From Gates’s War Room More Pragmatic Than Visionary,” by Greg Jaffe, wrote: “In his four years in the Pentagon, Gates has become an indispensable force in the debate over two deeply unpopular wars. He’s been a savvy manager of the Pentagon bureaucracy and earned a reputation as the most ruthlessly efficient defense secretary in decades.”

Maybe the others are “popular wars.”

We have Yemen, where we are using UAVs to hunt and kill Al Qaeda members who are a large part of the rebels; and Libya, where we are funding or providing resources to NATO, not to mention the Navy in the Med flying reconnaissance missions; and, Somalia, where we have clandestine engagements to include providing funds, training (third party of course) and resources to the national government fighting the al Shabaab jihadist.

The Wash Post went on to write that as Gates leaves office, the criticism of him is that he has been more of an implementer of the Administration policies than a “bold visionary” for the military.

Gates responded in a recent interview: “There hasn’t exactly been time to be a bold visionary in the middle of two wars.”

If the focus has been on two wars who is watching the others?

 In January 2007, as the first 30,000 surge troops were heading toward Iraq, Gates scheduled a September review to evaluate whether the new war strategy and additional troops were producing tangible progress. He did the same thing again in Afghanistan. However, before we get to the next review the U.S. has already announced its withdrawal policy. The White House policy decision to send 33,000 to Afghanistan has generally had a positive effect on bringing the war to a successful conclusion – no victory but possibly a successful political conclusion.

Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, has predicted that the decision to have all surge troops out of Afghanistan before the next presidential election will result in the early exit from Afghanistan of all other coalition countries: “We’re going to see a domino effect here of this announcement. No elected leader of our alliance is going to tell his people they’re staying when the Americans are going.”

Maybe it’s not fair to call it a war in Yemen because what’s new is that this will be a CIA drone attack program that is a massive escalation over prior bombing campaigns; as was written last June in the Washington Post: “The new tasking for the agency marks a major escalation of the clandestine American war in Yemen, as well as a substantial expansion of the CIA’s drone war.”

Then on Libya, the Administration decided it had the legal authority to continue the U.S. military campaign in Libya without congressional approval over the objections of Justice Department and Pentagon lawyers, according to a recent article in The New York Times.

In Somalia in January 2007, the U.S.  militarily interceded in Somalia for the first time since the UN deployment by conducting airstrikes using AC-130 gunships against Islamist positions. Unconfirmed reports have stated that US advisors had been on the ground with Somali and Ethiopian forces since the beginning of the war. Additionally, naval forces have also deployed offshore to prevent support by sea. Just last week a U.S. drone aircraft fired on a convoy in southern Somalia carrying two senior members of al-Shabaab

News reports say that an overwhelming number of voters believe the U.S. is involved in too many foreign conflicts and should pull back its troops, according to a new poll conducted for “The Hill.” They report that seventy-two percent of those polled said the United States is fighting in too many places, with only 16 percent saying the current level of engagement represented an appropriate level. Twelve percent said they weren¹t sure.

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They say that ignorance is bliss and Col. Douglas Macgregor must be one happy fellow.

Macgregor gained fame in the Army battle against the Iraqis at the “Battle of 73 Easting” during the Gulf War. That’s like comparing a battle with an Army M1-A1 tank unit fighting an East LA street gang. He “became famous inside the Army” when he published Breaking the Phalanx, which argued for radical reforms.

Of course when you write about reform – very few do – you become famous. But then you become an academic when you get a PhD and forgo an Army career to become a “consultant.”

He recently wrote that the “Department of the Navy should be directed to disband the 20-plus Marine Corps F-18 fighter jet and AV-8B Harrier jet squadrons. Retire all the AV-8Bs and the older F/A-18s, retaining the newer F/A-18C/Ds and EA-6Bs until replaced with Navy aircraft. Reassign the carrier Marines to naval air groups until the remaining Marine jets are retired; and require the Marine Corps to call on the Navy and Air Force for tactical fixed-wing air cover.

This comes from a man who had a fleet of Apache AH-64 attack helicopters at his disposal for all his combat experience.

Macgregor doesn’t realize that the Marine Corps has given up a lot of heavy artillery and makes do with attack aircraft. Additionally, The Marine Corps AV-8Bs can be forward deployed like no USAF or Navy aircraft can. This is not to mention that neither the Navy nor the USAF can match the Marines in Close Air Support.

Someone in DoD recently asked why can’t the Army be more like Marines. That says it all.

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The USS Enterprise (CVN 65) just turned 50 years old. The super carrier was the first nuclear-powered carrier. Today she has four squadrons of fighter- attack aircraft with electronic warfare and airborne early warning aircraft and is one of the 11 nuclear-powered carriers of the Nimitz class in the U.S. fleet. Her replacement, the USS Gerald R. Ford, a new class of aircraft carrier, will not be in service until 2015. The “Big E” is a 93,000 ton ship and actually the longest carrier in the fleet – actually her 1,123 ft mkae her the longest warship in the world.

America’s newest carrier is the USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77). The USS Bush carries two million pounds of ordnance in the form of bombs, missiles, torpedoes, and air defense Gatling gun ammo. Bush stretches 1,092 feet and displaces over 100,000 tons, making her one of the world’s largest warships (though she is slightly shorter than USS Enterprise).

The carrier’s mission is to conduct safe flight operations in support of national objectives.

The nation’s aircraft carriers remain at the center of the most powerful, sea-going fighting force the world has ever seen. Together with their accompanying strike groups, the carriers provide the right balance of forward presence and surge capability to conduct warfighting missions or peacetime operations anywhere in the world.

The new Ford class of carrier along with the 11 Nimitz carriers will project dominate maritime  combat power well into the future.

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Very little gets in the news that is positive about the U.S. personnel serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

According to the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, St. Marys, GA, in 2006, only public record I could find, had about 11,000 Individual Augentee (IA) sailors serving in the 20-country U.S. Central Command, which included portions of the Middle East and Africa.

It was reported that the Family Support Center, Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, GA, was assisting on average annually 250 Georgia families who had a service member on and IA deployment. The family support Center says that many IAs go to Latin America, Caribbean, Africa and many other places.

In contrast to a Sailor that deploys with a ship, squadron or unit, a Sailor who leaves their assigned unit or command to deploy individually or with a small group become a different breed. Half of the deployed IAs are active duty and half are reservists.

According to the Navy IA website, the IA Continuum involves four stages:

1. Pre-deployment – Administrative/medical processing and online training
2. Man/Train/Equip – NMPS, Basic Combat Skills conducted at an Army base
3. Boots on Ground – Performing OCONUS Mission
4. Redeployment/Demobilization – Returning home and transitioning back to parent command or NOSC

The Air Force and the Coast Guard have IA personnel serving with Army units also.

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The three B-2 bombers that flew from Missouri to Libya cost $2.3 million in flight hours, $800K in refueling costs, and if each aircraft dropped 15 JDAMs (45 total), they delivered roughly $1.575 million in payload. That means those three B-2 strikes cost an estimated $4,675,000. If the US Navy has fired 210 Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles to date, and each TLAM costs $1.4 million, that is roughly $294 million.

The cost so far ranges from $600-700 million dollars. This was last week’s estimate and no one is announcing the total cost to date of our 3d war.

The U.S. reportedly still has war ships off Libya and it still has an Amphibious Ready Group with an embarked Marine Expeditionary Unit floating in the Med.

Also, yesterday it was reported that a Navy anti-submarine aircraft, for the first time in the history for this type of airplane, attacked a Libyan ship. Who knew that Navy ASW aircraft was flying combat patrols?

So, America is not in charge – even if the military burden sharing is a bit of an illusion – but our 3d war is costing millions each day.

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During the Gulf War the proponents for air power thought they could win the war by air strikes alone. Air strikes in Iraq and Kuwait started on 17 Jan 1991 and continued until 24 Feb 1991. Many of the air power advocates asked fo more time because they were convinced that air power alone would force the Iraqis to leave Kuwait.

Early air power prophets in the U.S. thought  that air power alone could win wars. Air power in the Gulf War was definitely a triumph for technology development programs. Stealth aircraft, “smart” bombs, Patriot missiles, the Global Positioning System, F/A-18 Hornets, and other new technologies, supplemented older technologies such as the B-52 Stratofortress and helicopters to destroy a war machine that was regarded as dangerous but in the end, was not advanced enough to stand up to coalition air and ground. forces.

In Libya, recent experiences have spotlighted airpower¹s two essential weaknesses. The first is that without the use of ground forces even total dominance of the air is insufficient to force a conflict to conclusion. Second, the rebel forces lack the means — numbers, training, firepower, heavy weapons, command & control system, ammunition, training, leadership and organization — to capitalize on the effects of airstrikes.

Success in Libya may not see U.S. forces on the ground but unless, as in Kosovo, there is a threat of a ground campaign there is no incentive for the Libyan forces to leave their bunkers and quit the fight.

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