IMPLICATIONS OF THE LONG WAR: Real Time Dispatches

The Forum is hosted by The Marine Corps Association and The US Naval Institute.

Today’s keynote speaker was the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Edmund Giambastiani, who began by saying, “We are engaged in an “all-hands fight,” and that it requires “friends, allies, and a focus on those who would destroy our way of life.”

Admiral Giambastiani made three main points. First, he shed some light on what he referred to as the “non-kinetic” aspect of the war, and the Navy and Marine Corps contributions to that fight.

“Our success in Iraq and Afghanistan is foremost in our minds, but the Long War is also being fought in the realm of ideas. It is a struggle between extremists and the vast majority of Muslims.” Moreover, he stated that “The struggle within the Muslim community is off-limits to us. It is a struggle among them.” However, he stated, “We do have a tremendous impact in setting the conditions under which this struggle takes place. To the extent that extremists can claim a clash of civilizations, then they receive support within Islam.”

He then drew attention to the details of Indian Ocean Tsunami Relief in 2004 and Pakistani earthquake relief more recently.

Thanks to US military efforts, “the favorite toy in Pakistan today is a Chinook helicopter,” he said. “When US engineering forces left, we left all the heavy equipment behind for the Pakistanis…” along with all of the hospital equipment too.

Admiral Giambastiani elaborated on the effects of these efforts.

“These operations, believe it or not, have an unbelievable impact on the people in these countries … they change and reinforce very positive perceptions of the United States across the region. These are not sideshows, these are very important examples of what Americans can do.”

The Admiral’s second point was to ask the audience to reconsider, what “expeditionary” means.

“I would urge a very broad conception of what it means to be expeditionary … all too often I find many folks who find that expeditionary means ‘forcible entry.’ From a capability perspective, it means thinking beyond a Marine Air Ground Task Force to what I call a ‘Joint Air Ground Task Force,’” though he stated that that concept is still a ways off.

“The QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] addresses this in its guidance to shift our weight to meet our catastrophic, destructive, and most relevant challenges,” including the Navy’s riverine capability; the delivery of small ships to the Navy; the new Marine Special Operations program; and the Naval foreign officer program.

“Developing an expeditionary capability to meet irregular challenges” will remain a priority.

Finally, the Admiral asked attendees to consider “what the Long War means to human capital.”

“Developing the right human capital to fighting the Long War is essential,” he argued, and included cultural skills, a diplomatic knack, and changes in career patterns as key points of this effort. “A central challenge to winning this long war is how we invest in our human capital.”

The audience had questions for Admiral Giambastiani that dealt with the interagency nature of the current fight. He recalled some key controversies within the interagency community, dealing with, for example, giving funds to military commanders for us in reconstruction, noting that many agencies asked, “Why should we give money to a military commander out on the ground?”

The Admiral also asked a few rhetorical questions in this regard:

“How can we assist the State Department, who normally deals with security assistance and foreign aid, how can we help them with projects that are more than just what USAID does?” He then recounted that “there was a fight on the hill with various congressmen and Senators as to who controls the money [involved in these aid efforts].” Moreover, he stated that “Many government agencies don’t have an expeditionary culture like the military,” but “in the long term, we’ve got the State Department leaning toward longer tours with more senior personnel.”

He summed up the role of the President in adjudicating such disputes. “There are all kinds of incentives across agencies to make these types of tours attractive and rewarding …In some cases, these types of assignments of a year would be out of the mainstream of normal career paths … The President is working very hard to push this across the interagency community … One example is to use the lessons learned from military planning to embed military planners in other agencies, such as the State Department and Homeland Security Department.”

More to come …