About SJPONeill

Retired(ish) and living on the side of a mountain. I love reading and writing, pottering around with DIY in the garden and the kitchen, watching movies and building models from plastic and paper...I have two awesome daughters, two awesome grand-daughters and two awesome big dogs...lots of awesomeness around me...

Almost famous…

Posted on 10 October 2009 by SJPONeill

…excusing a bit of a time lag from unwinding the rubber band back to NZ over the last few days hence the silence…I was quite flattered to open up Cheeseburger on Monday to find one of my comments re the Birmoverse starring on the front page as it were. Certainly led to an interesting dialogue – people should check out the various discussions re what’s next in the Birmoverse and maybe even contribute if they have anything meaningful to say…while I’m interested in a 50s/60s sequel to the Axis of Time trilogy, I’m way more interested in a 21C prequel that explores the modern Birmoverse (less the wormhole device) – this would be a great tool (shades of self-interest!) to explore possibilities for where our version of this century might go…

Am now safely back at home (thank you very much to Singapore Airlines – truly a great way to fly!!) having enjoyed another brief stopover in Singapore which I largely slept through despite being booked into the Crowne Plaza Changi which is right by the main runway (ask me how I know that the last flight into Changi is at 0230 and the first out at 0600!!!. The beauty of Singapore though is that the light rail system can get you pretty well anywhere in an hour or so absolutely max so I still got to spend a good 4-5 hours in town hopping from one airconned enclave to the next. I very much enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with Miniature Hobbies (03-380) in Marina Square – so fun fun to explore an unfamiliar top-class model shop and of course I managed to make a couple of acquisitions that I’ll probably never build: the Academy I-19 sub is very nice, more so for only $20 and comes with some very nice etch work; and the Trumpeter B-4 203mm gun is one of those big chunky ‘I was built in a tractor factory‘ bits of Soviet kit.

The Singapore Air entertainment programme for October was a bit weak – I was expecting Up, GI Joe and G-Force at least but had to make do with Transformers II which didn’t rock and I watched first movie straight after just to confirm that it wasn’t just a teeny screen issue…even though I was awake the whole Singapore-Auckland leg, all I watched was the canned TV episodes because there was nothing in the movies that appealed in the slightest…I did enjoy the first Doctor Who special from Season IV and have to wonder what is going to happen between the Doctor and Lady Christina who is just way too hot to be written out so early in the season…as I was watching Doctor Who of which I have always been a fan since it stopped scaring me witless in the late 60s, It struck me that the whole idea of the Tardis drifting aimlessly lost in space and time may have been inspired by a BBC writer who got caught up in the Oxford Ring Road space-time discontinuum (no, obviously, I’m still NOT over it yet!!)…

Just doing a final peruse of the blogs before I sign off…yes it is 0158 which just shows how screwed up my body clock is from the rubber band…anyway here’s a commentary on the Coming Anarchy about the US and China buddying up in Afghanistan – when you step back from currently-held models, it sounds sensible and when you get down to it, China has a pretty good track record for countering insurgencies as well – just not according to our book, speaking of which, David Kilcullen’s visit to Wellington on 1 Oct, from all reports, went exceptionally well and I hope to get a more detailed backbrief in a few days…

And making a good point for possibly the wrong reasons, The Strategist has mention of what is probably the best chance of success for Afghanistan ( as opposed to every other man and his dog who are trampling around the place)…good old COIN principle #1 Compromise IS Good!

I’ve been thinking….

Posted on 5 October 2009 by SJPONeill

….and I’m not even from the ACT Party…(sorry, NZ in-joke – Google for ‘Prebble’, ‘I’ve been thinking’ for more info – the most common response to the book was a request for some evidence that he had actually thought very much about anything).

This COIN thing – the more I think about it the more parallels I see with Vietnam (and someone drew a parallel between the ANA and the ARVN on the latest thread on the COIN blog over the weekend):

♣ What’s it all about? We went into Vietnam on the premise that it was an insurrection supported by a hostile neighbour to the north, all in support of global world domination by the communists. The real issue in Vietnam was one of reunification and perhaps if we had identified that up front we would have conducted the whole war with a totally different aim and approach and achieved the ultimate endstate earlier and with way less cost on blood and treasure. What is the real issue in Afghanistan? COIN and SSR are means. To what end are we applying them?

♣ An underlying principle of COIN is that in the end the successful campaign by Western standards seeks to redress wrongs and address/resolve the core issues, which may in the end, as in Malaya, Aden, Ireland (across the 20th Century), and New Zealand (1840-90), pretty well give the insurgents what they want. What are the issues in Afghanistan and what do the insurgents want? That’s what do they really want as opposed to what we think they want…

♣ The non-HN COIN forces in Vietnam were largely from Western nations (US, Australia and New Zealand. The only Asian forces there were from Korea but there were no forces from what we now know as ASEAN. In all fairness, that might not be a bad thing as most of the those military forces were still in a fledgling stage of capability in the 60s. The main exception would be Indonesia but it was a bit scarred from The Misunderstanding with Commonwealth forces in Borneo and Southern Malaysia around the same time. There was an interesting discussion over dinner on Saturday regarding Iran’s role in Middle East politics at the moment…while it has been happy to stir up trouble in Iraq to further its national interests regarding the Gulf, it is less happy to do so in Afghanistan because Iran does not actually want a fundamentalist Islamic nation sitting on its own borders. Apparently it is one thing to be or have been one, and quite another to have to live with one. As a result, Iran considers it in its own interests to have a stable Afghanistan. Perhaps the current defrosting (warming is probably too positive a term) in the relationships between Iran, the US and the UN may lead to an Iranian force deploying to Afghanistan, possibly even as lead nation in an Islamic brigade/div under ISAF. This might bring the necessary degree of cultural awareness and engagement to the ISAF campaign that it currently so clearly lacks.

♣ Following on from the point above, perhaps the engagement that GEN McCrystal needs to be doing is not with the US and UK, or the parsimonious NATO contributors, but with the informal Islamic Alliance including Iran, Iraq (yes, you did read that right – how better to learn COIN for domestic use than understudy in another campaign), the Gulf States (how nice just for once to see them ante up, especially since they contributed so much to the original mess – yes, Saudi Arabi, that means YOU!!), Malaysia (whose forces had a good rep in Somalia and Bosnia – partly because of the Islamic cultural connection, partly because the Malaysians are very laid back and laissez-faire in their approach to just about anything), Indonesia, and Pakistan (see Saudi comments). Maybe the last thing Afghanistan needs is more Western troops…This point also came out in 2000 after the INTERFET deployment into East Timor, after Australia announced the Howard Doctrine whereby Australia would become more active in regional affairs. There was a massive kickback from ASEAN which felt, probably with some justification that it could look after its affairs and those of its members very nicely thank you very much. Similar regional interventions have been attempted with varying degrees of success in Africa. perhaps the actual question is What’s in Afghanistan for NATO?

♣ Would it just be easier to load up everyone who does not want to return to the living hell of Taliban rule and relocate them to New Afghanistan somewhere else? Is the war about saving the people or is it about stopping the Taliban getting their hands on nukes as per the head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards’ warning last week?

♣ In another parallel with Vietnam, the Taliban are being supported by a neighbouring nation albeit without the direct blessing of the Government of Pakistan. Like North Vietnam, although for different reasons perhaps, NATO is unable to shutdown this support via military means and diplomatic means only have limited effect because Pakistan is not officially support the Taliban. Applying the ‘isolate the insurgent’ line from COIN doctrine, how do we isolate the Taliban from its support base in Pakistan over what is some of the most unnavigable and inhospitable terrain on the planet (You’re not in the Fulda Gap anymore, Dr Ropata)?

One day the records will be unclassified…

Posted on 5 October 2009 by SJPONeill

…and we might know the real story behind the cancellation of the second Great White Hope, abbreviated as TSR2…

I never thought that I might be lucky enough to ever seen a TSR2 in the flesh, let alone two in two days – it really is one of the most beautiful aircraft and it is tragic that it was scrapped so ignominiously, heralding the death knell of the British aviation industry that brought us such names as Spitfire, Lancaster, Hunter and Vulcan…

In my travels over the last two days I have been very impressed by the British motorway system (less the Oxford Ring Road which I still spit upon); visited the Imperial War Museum at Duxford and the RAF Museum at Cosford; and grown to really despise the stupid German hire car. I can heartily recommend that anyone with an interest in aviation and/or 20th Century history visit both these great facilities which I would rate as being up there with the Udvar-Hazy part of the Smithsonian in DC. Having said that and while applauding the resources being applied to preserve Britain’s aviation heritage, it’s also rather sad to see some of the gaps in the collections…some of the lesser known of the Few who took the war to Germany in those early days; Wellington, Hampden, Blenhiem, Beaufort, Whirlwind, Defiant, Whitley, Manchester, Stirling…these museums are great places for kids and not because of the range of big boys toys but also to sow the seeds of awareness of our history and those who sacrificed to preserve a way or life – it was really good to see so many children and family groups of all ages at both venues.

Lot 31, miscellaneous, unclassified

Posted on 4 October 2009 by SJPONeill

I really needed a quiet night last night after a week of full-on CLAW engagement. I didn’t have high hopes of actually pulling it off, noting my rather parlous record this week, did actually enjoy a couple of hours post-dinner immersed in a massive leather armchair and glass of Bud (I have learned this week that the real deal bud actually comes from the Czech Republic) and worked through The Telegraph and The Independent.

Snippets…

The UK Attorney-General has to decide whether or not to order the prosecution of BAe for ‘greasing the wheels’ in its securing of numerous international arms contracts. The short-term gain; a billion £ fine for government coffers and an opportunity for UK pollies to morris dance their way around the moral high ground. The longer term pain: factory closures and job losses as BAe scrambles to pay the fine; loss of orders as other, less scrupulous competitors wing into the vacuum leading to more factory closures and job losses.

There are some unpalatable facts of life about doing business in most of the world and wheel-greasing is one of them – the moral high ground doesn’t develop much GNP…of course, the silver lining if BAe does step off centre stage is that the customers would then have a better chance of buying kit that a. works, and b. doesn’t need a PhD in Mechanics just to change the spark plugs…

The courts here have just issued their first order via Twitter. It’s a cease and desist order to an unknown offender who posts anonymously on a blog using the same username as the blog owner. Have fun enforcing that one and don’t too surprised if soon everybody starts abusing that username…there’s no Highway Patrol on the information superhighway…

There was an item on BBC4 this afternoon on the problems facing schools with yobbo students (this is in the same country that decided that yobs aren’t really a Police problem as the Police have better things to do – clearly if they can only manage 6 hours per bobby per week actually on the beat – and you should call your local council if you’re being harassed to the point of suicide, hammering your head beaten in with a hammer or having rocks hiffed through your front window every other night).

Anyway…there seemed to be some close parallels with current COIN campaigns: schools are disguising rather than confronting the problem; there is no clear or uniform strategy within any one school let alone nationally; the problem might go away if we can move it to another area; if we change the metrics (much as I hate the term and the philosophy), the problem might disappear; we don’t actually know what the problem is because we are too busy addressing the symptoms.

It kinda struck me as I did my 15th lap of the Oxford Ring Road (I spit on the Oxford Ring Road and all its descendants for a thousand years!) that the solutions might be similar as well: identify what the real issues are; identify what strategy will work in that society and environment; accept there are no easy answers or quick fixes; apply the strategy long enough for behaviours to change and become the norm. As schools deal with compressed generations of students, I thought it might be an idea to observe the various anti-yob initiatives and analyse what works and why as a possible cue for COIN concepts…after all, anyone with teenagers knows you don’t have to travel to encounter strange alien cultures…

Well, it’s sad to say…

Posted on 3 October 2009 by SJPONeill

…I’m on my way….

Yep, the great homeward bound rubber band is starting to kick in now. The CLAW is over, another job well done by the lessons team, with the final report due for release in a week or so…have the weekend to finalise and also have a bit of a look around this corner of England…I’m not really that organised for touring though as did no homework at all scouting out any places of interest so will see where I end up…

It has been a brilliant week and possibly the last time that the veterans of CLAW 1 will be together so there is an element of sadness today as well. But it has also been very rewarding and I will depart the UK with a head full of ideas for when I get home (just hope they are still all there when I get there!) Certainly we have totally validated the CLAW concept and what we need to focus on now is working more on the next stage of the process…

In all honesty I am no longer that fussed about being away for this long as so I will be more comfortable once the big silver bird departs Heathrow on Monday night heading for home…

The Birmoverse

Posted on 2 October 2009 by SJPONeill

John Birmingham, the Australian author of World War 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 (Axis of Time trilogy), and Without Warning (1st of the ‘The Wave’ series) has set up blog entry over at Cheeseburger Gothic for discussion on both series…if you haven’t read any of these you really want to give them a go…a secondary theme of the AoT trilogy is a prescient (probably because it agrees with me) glimpse of one version of the next decade of so of the 21st century….

I see on the COIN blog today that Canadian forces are advocating a new approach in Afghanistan but as discussed by a number of members on the blog, this appears to be a desperation-driven attempt to accelerate the course of the campaign and it probably hasn’t been all that well considered. Trying to make the people the new bad guys is probably one of the more innovative approachs to COIN I have seen but will it fly? Like a brick…

From the COIN blog:

“In Afghanistan one of my close friends (an Afghan that would die to save me and almost did) let me know the difference in “their ways” of thinking. “If you just give me something I may be thankful, but I am not grateful. I think – look what I was able to get from you, not thankful of what you gave me. If you attached a price to what you gave me in favors or later chips to be used when you needed something, now we are communicating and building our relationship.” At first that bothered me but I then began to see through his eyes. If we take that to winning the “hearts and minds” we have missed the boat. It does nothing to give to these people as it does to have their own countrymen give, help, and make choices for themselves. We need to be the facilitators and not the handout.”

Think about it….

And there I was…

Posted on 2 October 2009 by SJPONeill

…just standing in the library waiting for the nice young lady to log me into an Internet PC (I have 24/7 run of this magnificent library but have to get one of the staff to log me into a internet PC – go figure!) when I noticed a stack of papers and such on a table under a big sign “Please Help Yourself”…Always being in for a giveaway, I grabbed a couple of interest for later reading…

Some important people really need to have a serious read of Strategic Communication: A Primer, written by, of all things, a RN Commander, Steve Tatham…quite positively the best reference I have found for IO, Influence and Perception Shaping…it should be compulsory reading for anyone in the PR, IO or COIN games…

I would most interested to hear of anyone else’s thought’s on this treatise…

Another balmy (barmy?) day here at CLAWville – analysis and reporting is progressing well and I finally have a tick in the box to take photos of the big boys toys that are lined up all throughout the venue…

Coming Anarchy…

Posted on 1 October 2009 by SJPONeill

Note to self – check all informing blogs before doing one’s own daily post…then one will not have to post twice in a day…

Anyway, ComingAnarchy is an interesting and stimulating blog that Peter over at The Strategist put me onto…

Straining the info flow…

Posted on 1 October 2009 by SJPONeill

Here’s a tool that might be worth a look, a widget called Gist which sounds like it be one way to start getting on top of all those contacts on all those different networks…I only read the promo stuff on the link and a couple of comments on LinkedIn and obviously I won’t be able to download the beta til I get home: not only do I not have a laptop here but the wireless coverage is dodgy as to say the least though rumour has it that the McDs by the main gate has free wifi…

CLAW continues to go well and I must say what a top job our hosts have done setting it all up from a standing start (all the other nations have reps like me who have already participated in at least two of the three previous CLAWs) in such a top location (less the dodgy wifi coverage which is not really their fault)…our part of the report is well progressed so once I do some tuning to my section tomorrow morning, I will hopefully be able to slip in some time with the camera in the technology museum here…

Another social tonight but less formal than Monday – we’re all off to experience a genuine English pub and a meal as part of the broader ABCA experience…

I will have to do some organising in my room tonight as I have misplaced the paper I acquired the other day which was scathing about the Soviet approach to COIN and which, from my initial scan, I thought totally missed the point re the endurance characteristic of successful COIN…

The rules murdering their troops…

Posted on 30 September 2009 by SJPONeill

A top article from the NY Post on the COIN Center blog – most definitely stimulating for the grey matter and really makes you wonder what’s it all about. The day of 911, I was working with a guy who had just come back from a US college and I clearly remember his words that this was Pearl Harbor all over and from this point on, America would consider itself at war. The implications of this were that the gloves would come off and any pretence of being a team player would vanish if it got in the way of the main effort…

Somewhere along the way, the ‘war’ seems to have been lost out of the whole ‘war amongst the people’ model – the key part is that, unlike peace support and reconstruction and peacekeeping and all the nice safe sounding words (like offshore and deployment and operations…) is that war is war and there not very much nice about it – certainly it is not about trying to be nicer to the bad guys or potential bad guys than to your own troops, or hobbling them with rules to prevent anything bad happening (apparently except to them)…this is a war.

Bad things happen in wars. Sometimes people get caught in the middle and get hurt. That’s war but we accept these risks because there are bigger things at stake…Any non-combatant death is bad but the key is whether there was an intent to kill, either directly or passively by failing to apply a reasonable duty of care (key word: REASONABLE!!) War is and always has been (possibly always will be so long as people are involved) messy, untidy, dangerous and indiscriminate…we should not be kidding ourselves that we can write a book and toss in some technology and all of a sudden make it squeaky clean and politically palatable.

However, this article and FM 3-24 both skirt around or possibly even overlook the key point: the keys to successful COIN are probably endurance and habit forming – the foe that can stick it out the longest AND ensure that the habits it desires are embedded over a couple of generations (Note: speed is not a characteristic of COIN!!) will most likely be declared the winner. While the Malaysian Emergency may have been declared ‘over’ (won?) in 1960, the last CT did not surrender til 1988. Similarly, and they are probably halfway there, it will still be another ten or so years before anyone can confidently state that the troubles in Ireland are truly over. You want to be out of Afghanistan in ten years? You’re dreaming – you might as well pull the pin and bail out right now…

Wars are wars and you can not fight (definitely not win) them with a sterile ‘big arrows, little maps’ approach…forget the non-lessons of DESERT STORM and get down and dirty…