Although I must admit to feeling rather delicate in the mornings as I adjust to my first significant break from work in almost three years but the world’s probably not quite ready for those pics yet…
I took these at the 2011 Scale Model Expo in Wellington…the size of the placard with each model will give you some idea of the scale and the delicate work that has gone into these creations…
Possibly winding off the Thursday/Friday War for 2012, a short item from Josh Wineera wondering what the reverse side of the popular COIN theory of the inkspot might look like in 2014…
Josh Wineera
November 2012
For professional military planners, and even armchair strategist, the oil-spot concept for responding to an insurgency appears to be well understood. The counter insurgent objective of extending the security environment to establish and entrench a sustainable economic and political situation has been a particular feature of the latter stages of the War in Afghanistan. Conceived some 100 years ago by French Army Generals, Gallieni and Lyautey, the modern oil-spot concept is expressed in the form of a ‘Clear, Hold and Build’ strategy. Clear, Hold and Build has been the mainstay of ISAF coalition operations since the release of the 2006 US Army field manual, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency Operations.
Afghanistan experts have fiercely debated the merits of fighting the enemy, aka the Taliban, verses focusing on protecting the population. Recent ISAF commanders, such as Generals McChrystal, Petraeus and Allen, all recognised the necessity to engage in both. Kill-capture missions sit aside missions such as training and mentoring Afghan security forces – such is the nature of contemporary counterinsurgency operations.
As the exit date rapidly approaches for coalition governments to withdraw their forces, plaudits for the successful application of the oil-spot approach still proliferate. Manifestly the surge of an additional 30,000 troops in early 2010 provided better force ratios and counterinsurgent density to implement the expansion in to previously held Taliban-strongholds. At this time however, with transition and withdrawal leading every major conversation about Afghanistan, a natural question arises.
Having applied the concept, moving forward has any thought been given to what happens when the oil-spot concept ceases, or rather the ISAF forces contract and concentrate to leave? Granted, a critical precondition to leaving has to be the successful training of the Afghan Army and Police forces to take full responsibility for their own community’s internal security. They after all, are the most important counter insurgent force in Afghanistan – a point often missed. Regardless, the degree of their success is still open for debate. One measure has been the quantity of Afghan security forces being trained. As to the quality, plainly numbers do not convey the whole story. Recent insider attacks, known colloquially as a ‘green on blue’ incident, have placed immense pressure on the trust and confidence within those partnered ISAF and Afghan units. It would be unfair to generalise these extreme tensions across the whole country. In many places, such as the Arghandab River Valley in the Kandahar Province, conditions are in place to enable the Afghans to take the lead. Certainly in his address to the US Army Irregular Warfare Centre last month, former ISAF battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Michael Simmering explained the rational for his unit’s achievements.
Having expanded the security environment, in many cases literally being the outlier force, ISAF strategists and even regionally based planners must surely be conceiving a plan to reverse the oil-spot concept? Ideally, the full extent of ISAF control of the environment is manageable for the Afghan forces but common sense would suggest they are in for a very tough time. The absence of ISAF will almost certainly be a cue for prospective power brokers to demonstrate their credentials for control. In some provinces this demonstration has already begun.
Drawing back to a concentration area, or a central hub, for departure might seem like a logical method to reduce the ISAF footprint in the provinces. For this to be achieved an assumption would need to be made in terms of the previously held (by ISAF) security zone remaining intact. That is an assumption that will hold up in some provinces, for others it will remain questionable – certainly a major risk consideration. Possibly some ISAF contingents might contemplate holding the outer security areas in place and hollowing out the main force from the rear first. The last element to withdraw would be the outer security forces having provided a ‘shield’. Military proponents would recognise these two options as merely tactical methods of withdrawing from a main defensive position, and so they are. Could they however, become the basis to start conceptualising and visualising what ISAFs oil spots could look like in reverse?
For those ISAF soldiers still patrolling their area of operations, the time for theoretical conceptions matters little. Familiar tactical tasks, such as the options to withdraw or allowing the Afghan security forces to relive them in place, may not be considered particularly elegant or intellectually innovative. But they, in some way, will feature in every planning consideration. So might a new metaphor be coined to explain reversing the oil-spot? In an age where anything can be rebranded and often is, where the old can be made new age again, the likelihood is high.
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Major Josh Wineera is a serving military officer on secondment to the Centre for Defence and Security Studies,Massey University. He can be contacted at j.wineera@massey.ac.nz
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies or the New Zealand Defence Force.There I was...the opening phrase of many a great aviation yarn…when I spotted…yep, same old tried and true formula…
…a link to this story ‘New Zealand training organisation develops UAV qualification‘ which in turn led me to the one I am ‘pressing’…Aviation Business: What are the best aviation books ever published?…
I agree with the author that the published list looks just a little TOO British although top marks for slipping a Biggles tome in there and so, I thought, what would my top ten list look like? Or, hint, don’t come near one of my air power courses unless you’ve read at least half of them…
My number one would have to be the original 633 Squadron and I am just a little miffed that someone seems to have borrowed my very worn copy that dates back to the release of the movie…yes, I do have the four sequels by the same author but they are nowhere near in the same class as the original classic…
From this point on, I don’t really have a pecking order so here are the Top Nine…
Paul Brickhill’s The Dam Busters…a tale that STARTs with their most famous raid and tells the story from there through to the end of the war – the dams were just the opening act for this mob…
One of many books I added to the library while living in Singapore in the late 80s…a great pilot tells his story and that of a force that was built under a dark star…
Another Singapore acquisition…a great read for the dying days of the Cold War and, although we didn’t realise it at the time, a great insight into the myth of precision combat that’s dogged us across the last two decades…Dale Brown’s later works tend to succumb to the angst of a junior officer who aspired to chest-poke the generals but just didn’t quite get round to it before departing the forces but this would have to be his best work by a good country mile…I bought the game for my first PC when in came out in 1991 (yes, 21 years ago and we DID have computers back then!!) and I still play it when I have the time…one of these days I will get one of those tablet thingummies and be able to play it wherever I go…
I don’t remember when I first read Flight of the Intruder but the game was another early 90s acquisition and I remember that it came with the novel – at the time the game was one of the most realistic around, despite its 2D wireframe graphics…the book is based on the author’s experiences as an A-6 pilot during the Vietnam War, and its sequel, The Intruders is almost as good (but just misses out on my top 10 this week – maybe #11…)
Gerry Carroll wrote three aviation novels before his premature death: North SAR, Ghostrider One and No Place to Hide, all covering different facets of the Vietnam Air War. Each is very good but North SAR is my personal favourite.
Oh, yeah, baby..IF I was scaling my Top Ten, this would be #2 after 633 Squadron…I first read it as a Reader’s Digest abridgement in one of my Gran’s vast collection of Reader’s Digest bound volumes…if I thought the short version was great, I was blown away by the complete version when I found a copy in a book exchange when I was 12 or 13…This is one of a very few books that I would like to turn into a movie – maybe two because the story lends itself to various themes – I even started on a script once, before people started flying planes into buildings…
Another book exchange acquisition…yes, I know that Martin Caidin is now considered to not let reality stand in the way of telling a good story but that it no ways detracts from his telling of the early days of the Pacific Air War…rippingly good yarns…
I remember reading Thud Ridge on my first trip to the US in 1988 and great lead-in to a visit to the Pima Air Museum in Tucson…a great story of airmen at war by one of the leaders…
…and finally…
…as long as I can remember we had a copy of The Big Show in our crib at Waikouaiiti…and would have read it at least once every summer…I’ve heard that some low-browed individuals have criticised Pierre Closterman in later life for boosting his number of enemy aircraft ‘kills’ but, really, who gives a fat rats? There is no dispute that he flew hundreds of combat missions and did shoot down over 20 enemy aircraft and this is a great story well told that takes the reader from those early dark days after Dunkirk through to the post D-Day march across Europe…
I enjoyed sifting through the library to make up this list – in these items when the focus has been so much on land warfare in an irregular environment, and where the myth of precision endures, it is all too easy to forget the true rigours and realities of real air war…
Go ahead, stick a Morton’s fork in it. | rarasaur.
This particular topic came out this morning in a WordPress Daily Prompt, many of which light the muse before I get busy and forget about…one of these days, when I win the Lotto, I will sit out on the deck on my personal desert island and churn out all those unwritten or unfinished posts from all those overshadowed, OBE’d catalysts like the Daily Prompt…of course, being potentially out of work from next Friday, very soon I may be able to simply just sit around and that churning would, I guess, keep me off the streets…
So, anyway, the Hobson’s Choice idea this morning…
Daily Prompt: Hobson’s Choice. If you had to choose between being able to write a blog (but not read others’) and being able to read others’ blogs (but not write your own), which would you pick? Why?
…was one that gave me serious pause (much like a bad curry) and that I actually thought I would write something on…but then Rarasaur slammed into my inbox with her witty take on the question (that conversation stuff she talks about? It’s just called ‘marriage’!) and I’ve opted to support her by slapping the ‘Press This’ button – don’t really like the ‘Reblog‘ button on the page itself – too skimpy on the interface for me…)…so there…
My take on the question is the opposite to Rara’s…if I had to make the choice, then I would continue to write because that’s what I do…I can always find other catalysts to write about other than other blog posts although it would mean. of course, missing out on some really cool, entertaining and thought-provoking blogs…on the up side, it might encourage me to swing back towards mainstream media as a primary source of information instead of sifting through the blogosphere, although…hmmmm…the difference between contemporary media reporting and some of the crappier blogs might be pretty thin…
But, writing’s what I do and I think that it behoves us all to do what we can to contribute to the broad base of human knowledge and thought – it is all so easy to just keeping it putting it off and off and off til we can’t really remember what we wanted to contribute anyways…it is some important to keep a record of who you are and what you’ve done, even if for no other reason to have something to distract the grandies with…every one has a story to tell and if we gave up writing, that we would one less way of keeping that story alive….so yeah, I swing the other way on this one…
And as I write this I am quite chuffed with myself, having just completed the minutes of the annual meeting I chaired on Monday…a marked improvement on last year’s that I only completed last week! It’s all just a matter of application, of parking oneself in front of the writing device (whichever flavour you favour) and ordering oneself to write…(wish it was that easy…)
PS. OBE = Overtaken By Events
Weekly Photo Challenge:Reflections « illuminating the invisible.
One of the attractions of blogging and in particular for me, the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge, is backtracking to the site of someone who likes, comments or otherwise makes their presence known on post…these are the paths less followed that take me to places that I probably would not seek in the course of my normal surfing. At the moment that is largely constrained to researching various projects and implementing countermeasures to keep Dr Karma and the Mole Men (yes, I know it sounds like a bad 60s band – in reality, it’s worse…) so I really appreciate the light, life and diversity of these other paths…
I noticed the ‘like’ by Jess The Mess on my Reflections post on the weekend but only today after I got home from a gruelling trip to Wellington did I get to back track to Illuminating The Invisible and checking out The Mess’ response to the ‘Reflections’ challenge…both images show reflections so I guess meet the entry criteria but what I really liked about them was that each encouraged reflection of a more insightful nature…
The first, of the piles of an old wharf extending into the surf encourages questions about the history of the wharf, who built it and why, why did it fall into disrepair and eventual abandonment to the elements, who were the people who used to use it…?
The second of the mag wheels is a great pic of reflections in a highly-polished surface…but looking closer, what are the little folk thinking, what do they see in the reflection? do they know that a parent(?) is posturing in the background trying the get the shot? What’s caught the dog’s eye in another direction…?
Great photos…
On the general theme of reflections this week…
After a big storm blew the top off our water tank in 2010, we had a reflecting pool just outside our bedroom window til the Great Team Effort of Boxing Day 2012, fitted a new roof…(we replaced the tank anyway because the ripping-off of the rook also did quite a bid of damage to the plastic liner so it leaks quite a bit but is handy for car ashing, garden watering, etc…
I guess this is the second order effect of reflection…everything here looks so bright and clear after a snow fall because the white snow reflects the sunlight and delivers such delicious contrasts…
Waiting for the 471 bus at Gare du Nord in Brussels one morning a couple of month ago….an airliner contrail (you can just make it out as a vertical streak in the centre) was reflected all the way up the glass of both buildings…I couldn’t get the camera settings right to capture as spectacularly as it looked…then the bus came…
Many prototype aircraft meet the criteria for “….shiiineeee…” These are the highly reflective natural metal surfaces of the Fisher P-75 fighter at the National Air Force Museum near Dayton, OH.
It can be particularly reflective in Brussels…either that or there was a window washing blitz…
Purakanui, on the east coat of the South Island of New Zealand…a tidal inlet where the water is mirror smooth most days between tides….
Weekly Photo Challenge: Why I Don’t Invite Milla Jovovich to Tea | rarasaur.
There I was just strolling through downtown WordPressville – a small but growing community where you can run into the most amazing people – when I saw this title, and just couldn’t browse past it…actually I was just checking out the competition from those people that liked my Photo Challenge post…so I made a complimentary comment…then I thought, why not Press This? Now I’m looking at the list of post titles on the left and thinking hmmmm, maybe I’ll follow this one…
It’s not often I run across a post that just grabs me all the way to the end and, like a really good book, leaves me wanting a sequel right now…this is one that did…
Edit: Just in case anyone has just arrived on the planet, THIS Milla Jovovich…you know, with the hair, the fashion sense and the big gun…
Actually, my OCD just won’t let me load a post without a picture, it just won’t…
In the United States, yesterday was Thanksgiving, a holiday where people spend time with family and friends and remember the things they’re thankful for. I think the idea of being thankful and reflecting back on good things in your life is something that naturally happens towards the end of a calendar year.
I can identify with that…
That we finally got round to putting in a garage. It was a bit of a mission and we probably wouldn’t go back to Skyline Garages in a hurry but it was well worth it – now we just have to make room in its to get the cars in…
That these guys haven’t figured out how to use the remotes yet…
That we didn’t entrust more of our precious stuff to Conroys to bring up to the North Island after the ‘big shop’ of 2005…
That I got to see this for real, just once…
That this is the view from my office…
That these waves weren’t any bigger…(she’s standing on a rock!)…
That Kirk finally figured out how to get down off the trailer…
“What inspires you to blog? We blog because there are people, places, things, and ideas that we care about so much we can’t help but tell the world about them. We want to know what inspires you. For this special mid-week photo challenge, we want to see portraits of you doing something that inspires you to blog.”
Not all things that inspire my blogging are things that I do and of those are, not all of them are things that need a photo of me doing them to illustrate them…so these are the things that inspire…
Continuing on the ‘learning’ theme from yesterday, I’m sure that we have all had at least one ohnosecond experience in our professional lives…now that I am older and wiser (apparently) I have given up on sending strongly-worded but incredibly witty and insightful emails to senior staff detailing the errors inherent in current and proposed plans and strategies. I do however still have one minor foible (yes, that’s correct, just one!) that causes me to still have reason to occasionally curse the response times of the Outlook ‘recall’ facility. On occasion, normally only when the context is important, I transpose the words ‘not‘ and ‘now‘ i.e. when I mean ‘not‘, I will write ‘now‘ and vice versa. Hands up everyone who can see some potential for humour and general chaos in that…it’s just one of those things and the more that I am conscious of it and try to avoid it, the more likely it is that at least instance of this foible will slip through. It’s not even like ‘w‘ and ‘t‘ are immediately adjacent or that it is one of the unfortunate quirks of the demon the reside within the spellcheck tool…it just is…
Some mistakes may be career-ending and some potential contenders are listed in this link to InfoWorld’s annual roasting that a friend posted a link on Facebook this morning:
“It’s time again for that beloved holiday tradition in Cringeville known as the Golden Gobblers. These awards were created to honor individuals in the world of technology whose giblets we’d be happy to see roasted and served on a platter.“
But other mistakes, no matter how face-reddening, should be more opportunities for teach and learning…
Does anyone ever query why an individual acted in a certain manner?
Could it be a result of inadequate or incorrect training, the absence of good role models and mentors?
What is the work environment and its general culture and ethos – if any?
Has the individual been honestly reported on – or have superiors failed to confront and address issues with whitewash reports that make themselves look good (‘There’s no problems in MY organisation!“)?
And for the offended party…
Has an actual crime been committed or perhaps did you dress from the Emperor’s wardrobe this morning?
Is a wounded (slightly dented?) ego more important than developing and growing your people and your part of the organisation?
Even, could it be possible that you and some of your approaches and methods are contributing more to the problems than to the solution?
Are you contributing to the development and growth of the broader organisation or more aligned with maintaining a status quo, like the reed that refuses to bend…?
Without advocating rabid workers’ rights or the introduction of total workplace socialism, and noting that there are definitely people who need to move on or be moved on from an organisation, score-settling and retribution are not the best rationales for doing so… “I’ll teach them a lesson they never forget!” is NOT the mantra of a for-real learning organisation nor one that expects to continue to deliver credible and useful outputs (as opposed to just meeting its metrics)…And this brings us back to the three qualities discussed yesterday…leadership…initiative…balance…
On Petraeus
Frederick Humphries. The FBI agent who launched the investigation into Paula Broadwell’s email accounts did it as a favour [corrected US to real English!] for gal pal and wannabe-Kardashian Jill Kelley. He then leaked news of the probe to two right-wing congressmen, igniting one of the biggest scandals in CIA history and bringing down its director, General David Petraeus. Somewhere along the line he generously shared a pic of his pecs with Kelley, launching an FBI investigation into his own conduct.
This quote is from the InfoWorld Golden Gobblers mentioned above. Yes, note the irony that the agent who’s actions led to the resignation of the Director of the CIA for inappropriate behaviour appears to be guilt of the same offence himself. Under the incredibly wonky US justice system, doesn’t that automatically discredit the case against David Petraeus, noting that he doesn’t actually appear to have committed any criminal offence himself?
I hadn’t wanted to comment on this affair (no pun intended – OK, maybe just a little…) until the smoke had cleared somewhat in the wake of the Benghazi attack…and it now seems possible to derive a few insights from what’s been released…
Senior staff can have just the same sort of weak moments as normal people.
Said weaknesses do not necessarily affect their ability to do their jobs. This, of course, does not apply to those senior moments involving fraud or sexual (or any other form of) assault but then these are open and shut criminal offences.
The moral minority that screams for blood at every perceived wrong-doing may do well to wonder if militaries would be any better as organisations if the Dalai Lama was appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Chief of the Defence Staff or Chief of the Defence Force. Probably not…the love-ins and chanting would be pretty cool for a while but I would have to at some point question their deterrent value or usefulness next time there’s a need to respond to an unplanned contingency.
The organisation is unlikely to be a better place for losing the likes of David Petraeus and potentially John Allen – the mob once sated will put away their pitch-forks and torches secure in the knowledge that they are protected by the mantle of national security that they continue to erode.
I’ve watched some of the current and historical coverage of Paula Broadwell and the strongest message that comes across is that “It’s all about ME, ME and ME!!!” and my take is that she is a selfish and self-seeking individual who has abused the privilege of access and taken it as a right. I’m wondering if the oxymoronic joke about Army Intelligence applies to Ms Broadwell and whether this is something that the former general could have borne in mind from the first time he met her? While not excusing David Petraeus’ actions in the affair, those are really a matter between him and Mrs Petraeus. Jill Kelley strikes me in the same way, twisting the privilege if access as a Friend of MacDill into a perceived right of access to senior leaders who in all fairness may have been totally unaware of what was going on behind the scenes.
So what could have happened in a smart learning community? Ummm…
The FBI might learn from its part in the affair and ensure that its agents follow set protocols and procedures, certainly in regard to the triggers for taking an issue out of the organisation to Congress or the Senate.
The Friends of MacDill programme is reviewed to ensure that the definitions of privilege and right and well understood by all. My understanding is that this is a useful and beneficial support mechanism for the base that probably does not warrant threats of closure because of the actions of one or two individual.
The Director of the CIA is given some time off to sort his personal life out before returning to the job.
Commander ISAF is left alone to focus on a particular difficult period in the force’s existence i.e. is this really stuff that you want to be bothering your senior commander in your second most costly campaign in the last decade?
Ms Broadwell (it’s unclear whether she remains a Mrs) is encouraged to take some time out, sort her own personal life and stay away from the media where she is not doing herself any favours.
The moral minority have a fire sale on pitch forks and torches, all slightly used…or maybe just have a fire…
Leadership – initiative – balance
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