In December 2011, the last U.S. combat troops were withdrawn from Iraq after an almost 9-year presence in that country. This day was welcomed by the U.S. public after years of sacrifice and struggle to build a new Iraq. Yet, the Iraq that U.S. troops have left at the insistence of its government remains a deeply troubled nation. Often Iraqi leaders view political issues in sharply sectarian terms, and national unity is elusive. The Iraqi political system was organized by both the United States and Iraq, although over time, U.S. influence diminished and Iraqi influence increased. In this monograph, Dr. W. Andrew Terrill examines the policies of de-Ba'athification as initiated by the U.S.- led Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) under Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and as practiced by various Iraqi political commissions and entities created under the CPA order. He also considers the ways in which the Iraqi de-Ba'athification program has evolved and remained an important but divisive institution over time. Dr. Terrill suggests that many U.S. officials in Iraq saw problems with de-Ba'athification, but they had difficulties softening or correcting the process once it had become firmly established in Iraqi hands. Other U.S. policymakers were slower in recognizing the politicized nature of de-Ba'athification and its devolution into a process in which both its Iraqi supporters and opponents viewed it as an instrument of Shi'ite revenge and political domination of Sunni Arabs. Dr. Terrill's monograph considers both the future of Iraq and the differences and similarities between events in Iraq and the Arab Spring states. He has examined both Ba'athism as a concept and the ways in which it was practiced in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. He notes that the initial principles of Ba'athism were sufficiently broad as to allow their acquisition by a tyrant seeking ideological justification for a merciless regime. His comprehensive analysis of Iraqi Ba'athism ensures that he does not overgeneralize when drawing potential parallels to events in the Arab Spring countries. Dr. Terrill considers the nature of Iraqi de-Ba'athification in considerable depth and carefully evaluates the rationales and results of actions taken by both Americans and Iraqis involved in the process. While there are many differences between the formation of Iraq's post-Saddam Hussein government and the current efforts of some Arab Spring governing bodies to restructure their political institutions, it is possible to identify parallels between Iraq and Arab Spring countries. Some insights for emerging governments may, correspondingly, be guided by a comprehensive understanding of these parallels. The Arab Spring revolutions that have overthrown the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen at the time of this writing are a regional process of stunning importance. While these revolutions began with a tremendous degree of hope, great difficulties loom in the future. New governments will have to apportion power, build or reform key institutions, establish political legitimacy for those institutions, and accommodate the enhanced expectations of their publics in a post-revolutionary environment. A great deal can go wrong in these circumstances, and it is important to consider ways in which these new governing structures can be supported, so long as they remain inclusive and democratic. Any lessons that can be gleaned from earlier conflicts will be of considerable value to the nations facing these problems as well as to their regional and extra-regional allies seeking to help them.

Veterans in rural communities face unique challenges, who will step up to help?
Beginning with a brief scenario of a more gentle view of rural life, the book moves through learned information about families, children, and our returning National Guard and Reserve civilian military members. Return experiences will necessarily be different in rural and frontier settings than they are in suburban and urban environments. Our rural and frontier areas, especially in Western states with more isolated communities, less developed communication and limited access to medical, psychological and social services remain an important concern. This book helps provide some informed direction in working toward improving these as a general guide for mental health professionals working with Guard and Reserve members and families in rural/frontier settings. An appendix provides an in-depth list of online references for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
Specific areas of concern include: Morale, deployment abroad, and stress factors Effects of terrorism on children and families at home Understanding survivor guilt Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and suicide Preventing secondary traumatization Resiliency among refugee populations and military families Adjustment and re-integration following the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Vicarious trauma and its effects on children and adults How rural and remote communities differ from more urban ones following war experiences in readjusting military members Characteristics important in therapists/counselors working with returning military
Doherty's second volume in this new series "Crisis in the American Heartland" explores these and many other issues. Each volume available in trade paper, hardcover, and eBook formats.
Learn more at www.RMRInstitute.org
PSY022040 Psychology: Psychopathology - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
SOC040000 Social Science: Disasters & Disaster Relief
HIS027170 Military - Iraq War (2003-)

This monograph is an account of the role of communications within the I Marine Expeditionary Force and the Marine Forces Afloat during the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War. It is one of a series covering the operations of the I Marine Expeditionary Force; the 1st Marine Division; the 2d Marine Division; the 3d marine Aircraft Wing; Marine Combat Service Support; Marine Forces Afloat; and Marines in Operation Provide Comfort.

Significant changes lie ahead for U.S. security strategy in the Persian Gulf after almost a decade of stasis. In the decade between the Gulf War and the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the strategy of dual containment of Iraq and Iran was a key driver of American military planning and force posture for the region. During these years, the overriding U.S. concern was preserving access to Gulf oil at reasonable prices; both Iran and Iraq possessed only a limited ability to project power and influence beyond their borders; the Persian Gulf states acquiesced to a significant U.S. military presence on their soil despite the domestic costs; and the United States was reasonably successful, at least until the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, in insulating its relationships with key Gulf states from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the end of the Clinton administration, it seemed safe to assume that the regional security environment would continue to evolve more or less on its present trajectory and that the challenge confronting the United States was how to manage U.S. forward presence for the long haul under increasingly stressful conditions. This premise is no longer valid. The strategy of dual containment, which is just barely alive, will expire in one way or another in all likelihood because the United States decides to end Saddam Husayn's rule. American success in engineering a regime change in Baghdad will require a substantial increase in U.S. forward deployed forces followed by a multinational occupation of Iraq that is likely to include a significant U.S. military component. At the same time, even if regime change does not occur in Iraq, other factors are likely to put pressure on the United States over the next decade to alter the shape of its military posture toward the region. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implications of these political, strategic, security, and military factors for U.S. military presence and force posture, defense and security relationships, and force planning for the region. Specifically, the chapters that follow seek to frame the issues, options, and tradeoffs facing U.S. defense planners by focusing on the following questions: To what extent does the emerging security environment-that is, the changing nature of U.S. interests and threats to those interests- require changes in the size and composition of forward deployed forces, peacetime engagement activities, military operations, and force protection? Does the United States need to reconfigure its security and military relationships with regional friends and allies to take account of their changing security perceptions and policies? Are there trends in the strategic environment that are likely to generate new demands and requirements for the Armed Forces? How can the United States reconcile the call in the Quadrennial Defense Review 2001 for greater flexibility in the global allocation of U.S. defense capabilities with the harsh reality that, for the foreseeable future, forward defense of the Persian Gulf will remain dependent on substantial reinforcements from the United States? The main conclusion of this study is that, with or without regime change in Iraq, the United States will need to make significant adjustments in its military posture toward the region.

Recent proliferation surprises in the Middle East-the failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, Libya's decision to eliminate its WMD, and evidence of significant progress by Iran toward a nuclear weapons capability-underscore the need for the nonproliferation community to reassess some of its key assumptions about WMD proliferation and the nature of the evolving international landscape. Such a reassessment must be highly speculative. Much about Iraq's WMD programs is likely to remain a mystery due to the destruction of records and the looting of facilities following the fall of Baghdad, as well as the continuing silence of many Iraqi weapons scientists and former government officials.1 Likewise, the calculations driving key proliferation-related decisions by Libya and Iran remain murky. This lack of knowledge, however, should not inhibit attempts to grasp the implications of these developments for U.S. nonproliferation and counterproliferation policy. Although this paper focuses primarily on Iraq, it also seeks to draw lessons from recent experiences in Libya and Iran to understand better how proliferators think about WMD; the challenges in assessing the status and sophistication of developing world WMD programs; the contours of the emerging international proliferation landscape; and the efficacy of various policy instruments available to the United States for dealing with these so-called ultimate weapons.

The focus of air planners was to envision the use of air power in achieving coalition objectives and military strategy. This report begins with the genesis of that plan with some background to place it within an historical perspective and traces in development through what existed on 16 January 1991.

This report brings together analyses of three crucial determinants of an armed force's overall capability: - weapons-the tools used by the soldier, sailor, and airman. - tactics-the way in which the tools are used to produce desired effects. - training-the way in which the individual soldier, sailor, and airman acquires the skills required to combine weapons and tactics into the operation art of warfare.

A very Australian story of heroism and healing. In 2004 Garth Callender, a junior cavalry officer, was deployed to Iraq. He quickly found his feet leading convoys of armoured vehicles through the streets of Baghdad and into the desert beyond. But one morning his crew was targeted in a roadside bomb attack. Garth became Australia's first serious casualty in the war. After recovering from his injuries, Garth returned to Iraq in 2006 as second-in-command of the Australian Army's security detachment in Baghdad. He found a city in the grip of a rising insurgency. His unit had to contend with missile attacks, suicide bombers and the death by misadventure of one of their own, Private Jake Kovco. Determined to prevent the kinds of bomb attacks that left him scarred, Garth volunteered once more in 2009 - to lead a weapons intelligence team in Afghanistan. He was helicoptered to blast zones in the aftermath of attacks, and worked to identify the insurgent bomb-makers responsible. Revealing, moving, funny and full of drama, Garth Callender's story is one of a kind.

"Surprise" is a familiar term in military writings: the achievement of tactical surprise has such obvious benefits that it is enshrined in the military doctrine of most nations. Surprises that emerge in tactics, however, can also operate at the strategic and operational levels. These surprises are particularly dangerous, because they can test the relevance and adaptability of military forces and the "institutional" defense establishments that create, develop, and sustain them. A military establishment that is too slow to recognize and respond to such surprises places its nation's interests at grave risk. In the bipolar strategic environment of the Cold War, deep knowledge of a known adversary reduced the likelihood of such surprises. The same is not true now. This monograph thus comes at an important time, as Western nations contemplate major reductions in defense spending with consequent limitations on force structure. The range of enemy capabilities that a force will be able to match, qualitatively and quantitatively, will become smaller; hence the potential for operational and strategic surprise will increase. In this monograph, Brigadier Andrew Smith uses the improvised explosive device threat as it manifested itself in Iraq between 2003 and 2009 as a case study of such a surprise and how defense establishments responded to it. He argues that, although tactical in itself, this threat posed an operational and strategic threat in a modern "war of discretion" that demanded institutional responses from both the U.S. and Australian institutional militaries, including major equipment, training, and budgetary changes within iv time frames that circumvented the normal peacetime force development cycles of those countries. There are disappointments in the way both countries met this challenge. A key conclusion from this analysis is the critical role of strategic leadership in recognizing the scale of surprise and in forcing the necessary institutional response. At a time when budgets will not allow surprise to be addressed by maintaining large and technically diverse forces at high readiness, the ability to recognize and respond adroitly to operational and strategic surprise may be a critical requirement for a modern defense establishment.

The United States' (US) invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the subsequent removal of the Taliban regime are considered monumental successes. In the wake of this success remained the challenge of developing an Afghan National Army (ANA) in order to defend the democratically elected Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA). This monograph proposes that international assistance, the development of internal Afghan industrial capacity and improved strategic level mentorship are the critical components in forming a self-sustaining ANA. The approach to analyzing ANA development centered on four areas within this research. ANA logistics culture was studied by reviewing the current, past and a desired logistics system to determine its potential for self-sufficiency. Regional neighbors were analyzed to identify their relationships with Afghanistan that could enhance partnered efforts in order to improve internal capacity. The analysis then explored the role of US advisors in Afghanistan as they seek to train and mentor Afghan leaders for the purpose of planning and executing strategic level logistics operations. Finally, the US success in developing a self-sustaining Greek National Army (GNA) following World War II offered some lessons learned that could be applied to the ongoing advisory effort in Afghanistan.