Military Training
Training the Afghan Military
Army Major Christopher Miller was in Afghanistan in 2006-2007 helping to train up its security forces. An infantryman, he was there as part of a four-man embedded tactical trainer – ETT – with the 41st Brigade Combat Team, …
2-to-1, We’re Losing
…at least that’s Monday’s “green-on-blue” score per this latest press announcement from the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
The two soldiers killed in Laghman province were Americans.
This is …
Training Troops for the Gore of War
Louis H. Smith IV has been an Army combat medic for a decade, and currently is serving in Afghanistan as the medical officer for the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment. He argues, in a recent post on Small Wars Journal, that …
Who Do You Think Is Right?
There are growing doubts about the chances of success for the U.S.-initiated war in Afghanistan. Rarely are opposing views crystallized as sharply as they were over the weekend: Marine General John Allen, the top U.S. commander …
Army Special Forces’ How-To Manual
Want to know how to set up camp in hostile territory? The Army’s Field Manual (FM) 3-05.230, Special Forces Tactical Facilities, is now on-line. It goes into a fair amount of detail about how the Special Forces troops establish outposts, and makes for fascinating reading. It deals with everything from calling in close air support, to …
Death in 11 Seconds: When Headlights Become Stars
You can fly the nation’s hottest warplanes flawlessly for 1,462.6 hours. But modern warfare is unforgiving. So in your final 11 seconds of flight, and life – when night and dust storms blind you, turn headlights into stars, and …
WHAM* (*winning hearts and minds)
“Winning hearts and minds” has been a key to recent U.S. wars ranging from Vietnam, to Iraq, and now in Afghanistan.
But Thomas H. Henriksen says that such costly ventures may have outlived their usefulness. “In …
Goldilocking the “Insider Threat”
Make no mistake about it: when Afghan “insiders” turn their weapons on their U.S. and coalition allies and kill them, most either escape or are killed in the act. So gleaning intelligence about motivation can be tough. Forty …
Three Crash Reports…
A trio of detailed reports on sad, and sordid, military misfortunes have surfaced in recent days. They make for great time-wasters at work. But here are the cases summed up in a nutshell:
— Regarding the crash of an Air Force …
Semper Infidelis
Of all the horrible “green on blue” killings that have happened recently in Afghanistan, perhaps the most horrific took place in Helmand province on Aug. 10. That’s when Aynoddin, who like many in that country goes by a single …
Of “Green-on-Blue” Killings, and Army Suicides
Battleland was invited to be on Friday’s PBS NewsHour, but this invitation had a twist that made it different than all that had come before. Host Jeff Brown and his producer, Dan Sagalyn, wanted a two-fer: first, they wanted to …
What U.S. Troops Are Doing to Curb Insider Attacks
On Tuesday, Pentagon leaders said they’d prefer to call the rash of “green on blue attacks” – where members of the Afghan security forces kill their U.S. and allied partners – “insider attacks” instead. They …