Air-Sand Battle

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Air-Sand Battle
The fight against the Islamic State is forcing the Pentagon to rethink its plans for the
future of warfare.
BY KATE BRANNEN

he fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State is still in its early days, but
already it is challenging the Pentagon's assumptions about where and how

war will be fought and what the military will need to be prepared.
The conflict in Iraq and Syria represents the type of war the Obama
administration has tried to relegate to history. The days of fighting protracted
ground wars in the Middle East were supposed to be over. Instead, the White
House directed the Pentagon to turn its attention to the Asia-Pacific region, where
it's believed by some that high-tech weapons systems belonging to the Air Force
and Navy could be optimized in a more conventional fight.
But with new conflicts and pockets of violence and instability rapidly cropping up
in places such as Ukraine, the Middle East, and parts of Africa, defense
policymakers are being forced to revisit, if not rethink, some of the assumptions
that underpin today's strategy and resource decisions.
Among the ideas under scrutiny are the relevance of ground forces and whether
state actors pose the most dangerous threat to the U.S. homeland and global
security.
For the military services, the debate over these assumptions will directly affect
their size, budget, and the types of weapons they buy.

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For senior military leaders, the issue of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and
ISIL, "is as much about where the services are headed as it is about the problem to
solve," said David E. Johnson, a military analyst at Rand who from 2012 to 2014
directed the Army's Strategic Studies Group for Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray
Odierno.
The Pentagon has laid out a strategy that accepts greater risk in the ground forces
so that more resources can be poured into the Air Force and Navy -- the services
that play the biggest role in the Asia-Pacific region. A smaller ground force is also
believed to be necessary due to escalating personnel costs at a time when the
defense budget is shrinking.
As part of this plan, the Army is continuing to shrink from a wartime high of
570,000 active-duty soldiers to today's 505,000, with the goal of dropping to
490,000 by the end of 2015. And even deeper cuts are likely to come; the Army is
expected to downsize to 420,000 soldiers if Congress doesn't undo the automatic
budget cuts known as sequestration planned for 2016.
The assumption behind these troop reductions is that the United States won't
fight large-scale, protracted ground wars like it has in Iraq and Afghanistan
anytime soon. And although no one is recommending inserting large-scale U.S.
ground forces into Iraq -- the current cap is 3,100 "non-combat" troops -- events
there and in Ukraine are providing the Army support for its argument that it is too
risky to make the Army much smaller than it already is.
"I think there is a sense by many in the Army of, 'Hey, we told you you've been
engaging in some degree of wishful thinking and we think we're getting growing
evidence that we're not talking about hypotheticals,'" said Maren Leed, a senior
advisor to Odierno from 2011 to 2012 who is now at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. "It's ISIS, it's Ebola, it's Russia. Name your problem, ground
forces matter."

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Meanwhile, the other services are arguing, "You can do it with us and with other
people's boots," she said.
In Iraq and Syria, the Air Force and special operations personnel are doing the
United States' heavy lifting, conducting daily airstrikes and working with the Iraqi
security forces, the Kurdish Peshmerga, and the Syrian Kurds to try to halt the
Islamic State's momentum.
The Air Force points out its prominent role, noting that it has conducted nearly 70
percent of the missions against the Islamic State, including the majority of the
strikes in Syria. However, current and former Air Force officials grumble that the
bombing campaign has too many restrictions. Air power advocates say the Air
Force could deliver a knockout blow to the Islamic State if allowed to, but instead,
it's relegated to a supporting role to the forces on the ground.
Meanwhile, senior Army leaders point out the limits of airstrikes and advanced
technology in addressing the human drivers of war.
"A lot of times when the Army talks about the future of war, we don't have a
super-happy message," Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the deputy commander at the
Army's Training and Doctrine Command, said. "We're saying: 'War is hard. War is
difficult to resolve.' But there are those who actually have a happier message but
the problem is, it's self-delusion. It's visions of future war that are fundamentally
flawed."
Depending which side of the argument one lands on, what's going on in Iraq and
Syria is either an example of how much a military can do with air power alone or
proof that without competent ground forces, progress against the Islamic State is
limited.
"Each one of these conflicts has served to reinforce each narrative," Leed said.

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For senior Army officers, it's clear there is no solution to the Islamic State without
competent ground troops.
That thinking has clearly influenced the Obama administration's strategy, the
success of which hinges upon whether the United States and its coalition
members can train indigenous forces in Iraq and Syria to retake territory now
controlled by the Islamic State.
There will be "boots on the ground" -- they just won't be American boots.
This already represents a shift in the debate, Leed said. "Everyone agrees now that
boots of some nationality are needed but now the question is: How much can we
outsource?" she said.
Again, the debate returns to the Army's future role and the question of what is an
appropriate size for it.
Directly fighting the Islamic State is not a reason to grow the Army; but the speed
at which the militant group moved across Iraq this summer, taking Mosul, the
country's second-largest city, in June, and its ability to threaten Baghdad and
Erbil, "raise questions about our assumptions about the need for large ground
forces," said Paul Scharre, who before joining the Center for a New American
Security worked in the Pentagon's Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2008 to
2013 on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance policies, among other
issues.
If Baghdad and/or Erbil fell, what would the United States have done? Scharre
asked. Hypotheticals like that deserve consideration, he added.
Also, what happens if Iraqi security forces cannot win against the Islamic State?
For Johnson, that question is the "gorilla in the dark room behind the door," of the
current U.S. strategy.

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"The real moment of truth comes when the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish
Peshmerga try to retake territory. Are they willing and capable? And what are the
implications if they're not? What is the 'Plan B?'" asked Johnson.
The Defense Department assumes that on the spectrum of conflict, nation-state
actors pose the greatest threat to U.S. security. The Pentagon has yet to
reprioritize sufficiently to truly account for the threat extremist terrorist groups
pose, Scharre said.
Many defense planners tend to view Iraq and Afghanistan as distractions that do
not represent the types of higher-end, conventional threats that the United States
should focus on, but that is faulty thinking, he added.
McMaster also argues that this assumption should be challenged.
"In the past, we were mainly concerned with the most industrialized and capable
nation-states who could project power across the oceans and pose a threat to us,"
he said. "We weren't really that worried about the least-industrialized places and
we certainly weren't very concerned about non-state actors and we didn't think
they'd be very capable. But what we see now is technology is transferred and gives
these groups access to very destructive weapons," McMaster added.
STAFF/AFP/Getty Images

'Ethnic Cleansing at Work'

Harassment. Arbitrary arrest. Torture. Over the course of the last two months,
Myanmar's Rohingya minority has faced a brutal campaign of subjugation by the state.
BY EMANUEL STOAKES

n Oct. 3, while sitting at home in an isolated village close to Myanmar's

border with Bangladesh, Farid Alam, a 36-year-old businessman and

community leader, was summoned by the local border police to one of its bases in

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a nearby camp. On arrival, he was arrested and quickly driven to the agency's
headquarters. There, he was brutally tortured to death -- a visitor from out of town
who saw his body noted that one of his legs was broken, his penis burned, and his
testicles smashed.
Alam's murder is part of a recent escalation of violence in Myanmar's western
Rakhine state perpetrated by state forces against an ethnic minority known as the
Rohingya, according to the Arakan Project, a Bangkok-based rights-monitoring
group. Since September, the group has documented a spike in abuses, such as
arbitrary arrests and even torture, by the Border Guard Police (BGP), a
government agency that deals with suspected illegal immigrants, and by the
military. At least four people, the group says, were confirmed to have been either
beaten or tortured to death in custody.
The spike in violence has driven thousands to flee Myanmar via the sea in what
has been described by the Associated Press as "one the largest boat exoduses in
Asia since the Vietnam War." Some 16,000 Rohingya have fled the country by
boat since mid-October, according to the latest estimates by the Arakan Project -a figure nearly double that which it recorded during the same period last year.
U.S. President Barack Obama, who is visiting Myanmar this week, has claimed the
country as one of his chief foreign-policy successes. However, Myanmar's
transition has been undermined by ongoing human rights abuses, particularly in
Rakhine. The predominantly Muslim Rohingya community has faced dire
circumstances since sectarian conflict broke out between the group and its largely
Buddhist ethnic Rakhine neighbors in June 2012. According to Human Rights
Watch, pogroms committed against the Rohingya in 2012 at the hands of ethnic
Rakhine mobs and state forces amounted to a "campaign of ethnic cleansing."
Following this, the Rohingya endured a series of deadly sectarian attacks
perpetrated by groups of Rakhine, typically with impunity. In all, as a result of
these events, several hundred have died, and around 140,000 Rohingya remain

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confined to squalid camps for the displaced. Yet in the months leading up to
Obama's visit, as documented in a series of Arakan Project reports given
exclusively to Foreign Policy, the

Rohingya have
faced perhaps the
most sustained
campaign of
targeted abuse by
security forces in
years.

Rohingya have faced perhaps the most sustained

campaign of targeted abuse by security forces in
years.
In mid-October, Abu Tayab, a 27-year-old man, was
arrested by the BGP after returning to Myanmar
from a visit to neighboring Bangladesh. Brought to
an immigration facility in Nga Khu Ya, his dead
body, riddled with signs of torture, would be

released the next day to a medical clinic for a postmortem, according to the
group.
About a week after this incident, another man was found dead. Locals had
witnessed the 42-year-old man being apprehended in Kyauk Pyin Seik village.
Showing signs of assault, his body was later found in a river.
In addition to the killings, the Arakan Project has documented 144 arbitrary
arrests in 28 locations in recent weeks. (Ye Htut, spokesman for Myanmar
President Thein Sein, did not respond to a request to respond to the allegations.)
The allegations have emerged as Myanmar's government has begun to implement
its recently announced "Rakhine State Action Plan." The strategy's exact details
have not been made public, but leaked drafts outline the government's plans. The
policy offers members of the minority group two options: either present official
proof of their family's long-term presence in Myanmar while self-identifying as
"Bengali" -- in line with the government's belief that the minority is largely
composed of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh -- or face confinement to

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internment camps and eventual resettlement abroad. Those who comply will be
granted the chance to achieve a form of second-class citizenship. (Rohingya
would be granted what amounts to citizenship, though the government could
revoke it at any time pursuant to controversial junta-era legislation.)
Currently, very few look likely to assent to the government's plan. Lewa reported
that communities have been subjected to beatings, looting, and blockades by the
security forces for not complying with "family list verification" exercises led by
visiting immigration officials.
"It seems that the authorities may have been trying to get some Rohingya to
classify themselves as Bengalis without their consent," as per the requirements of
the Rakhine State Action Plan, she noted.
With the issue of Rohingya migration being placed center stage in media coverage
of Obama's trip to Myanmar, the president has taken the opportunity to speak out
against the Rakhine State Action Plan and emphasize his support for full
citizenship rights for members of the group.
Yet it is unlikely that these statements can stem what Lewa calls "new surges of
violence." Matthew Smith, executive director of Bangkok-based NGO Fortify
Rights, amplified these concerns, observing that attempts to force some Rohingya
into referring to themselves as Bengalis, combined with the abuses outlined by
Lewa, are likely to continue, contributing significantly to the increases in
Rohingya maritime flight.
The persecution, he said, represents "various forms
of ethnic cleansing at work."
To some advocates, the timing of the recent abuses
suggests some sort of coordination. Phil Robertson,
deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch,

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The persecution, observed that "an escalation of these attacks,

especially at the outset of the traditional sailing
he said,
season, when the weather in the Andaman ocean
represents
"various forms of calms down, is far too convenient to be a complete
coincidence."
ethnic cleansing at
"It appears that the ethnic Rakhine and their allies
work."
in Burma's security forces are doing what they can
to empty Rakhine state of the Rohingya," he added,
"one boatload at a time."
Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

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