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Author: Ben Connable
Publisher:
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781977405074
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is a study of Iraqi Army will to fight. It applies the RAND military will-to-fight model and assessment tool to three cases and recommends changes to U.S. security force assistance.
Author: Daniel P. Bolger
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 565
ISBN-13: 0544370481
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA high-ranking general's gripping insider account of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and how it all went wrong. Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost -- but we didn't have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy. Why We Lost is a timely, forceful, and compulsively readable account of these wars from a fresh and authoritative perspective.
Author: Ben Connable
Publisher:
Published: 2018
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781977400444
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis report defines and describes will to fight and provides a model of unit will to fight that can be applied to ground combat units of any scale. It also provides a theoretical basis for adding will to fight to military war gaming.
Author: Capt. Eric Navarro, USMCR
Publisher: Potomac Books Incorporated
Published: 2008-02-27
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781597971690
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTen U.S. Marines are assigned to live, train, and go into battle with more than five hundred raw and undisciplined Iraqi soldiers. A member of this Adviser Support Team, Capt. Eric Navarro, recounts their tour in vivid and brutally honest detail. Their deployment comes at a particularly important time in the war. The Battle of Fallujah is raging, and President Bush has proclaimed training the Iraqi forces is the key to winning the war. Once they stand up, we can stand down, or so the theory goes. Navarro's team, nicknamed The Drifters, faces countless roadblocks—no interpreters initially, limited supplies, little contact with other U.S. forces, and a vast cultural gulf with the Iraqis. One hackneyed and fatalistic Arabic phrase seems to sum up the mission, “Insha Allah,” which translates as “God willing” or “if God wills it.” Whether riding into downtown Fallujah in an unarmored Nissan pick-up truck, living in squalor in abandoned buildings, dodging trigger-happy troops, sharing FHM magazine with Iraqi soldiers to boost morale, or getting attacked by insurgent rockets less than an hour after arriving, life is never easy and more often surreal. The Drifters' trials and tribulations help shed light on this most under-reported aspect of the war: What is wrong with the new Iraqi Army? The answer is not as pretty as the politicians would like.
Author: Leonard Wong
Publisher: Strategic Studies Institute
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 44
ISBN-13: 9781584871330
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince World War II, studies have argued and conventional wisdom has claimed that soldiers fight for each other. Cohesion, or the bonds between soldiers, traditionally has been posited as the primary motivation for soldiers in combat. Recent studies, however, have questioned the effects of cohesion on unit performance. This monograph reviews the combat motivation literature and then analyzes findings from interviews conducted during the recent Iraq War. By examining the perspectives of Iraqi Regular Army prisoners of war, U.S. troops, and embedded media, the monograph argues that unit cohesion is indeed a primary combat motivation. The report also notes that, contrary to previous studies of U.S. soldiers, notions of freedom, democracy, and liberty were also voiced by soldiers as key factors in combat motivation. The monograph concludes that soldiers continue to fight for each other, but today's soldiers are also sophisticated enough to grasp the moral concepts of war. The report suggests that this is a result of the transformation of the Army from a fledgling all-volunteer experiment to a truly professional force.
Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Published:
Total Pages: 38
ISBN-13: 1428910786
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: William F. Andrews
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Published:
Total Pages: 143
ISBN-13: 1428912568
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFor nearly two decades the United States Air Force (USAF) oriented the bulk of its thinking, acquisition, planning, and training on the threat of a Soviet blitzkrieg across the inter German border. The Air Force fielded a powerful conventional arm well rehearsed in the tactics required to operate over a central European battlefield. Then, in a matter of days, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait altered key assumptions that had been developed over the previous decade and a half. The USAF faced a different foe employing a different military doctrine in an unexpected environment. Instead of disrupting a fast paced land offensive, the combat wings of the United States Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) were ordered to attack a large, well fortified, and dispersed Iraqi ground force. The heart of that ground force was the Republican Guard Forces Command (RGFC). CENTAF's mission dictated the need to develop an unfamiliar repertoire of tactics and procedures to meet theater objectives. How effectively did CENTAF adjust air operations against the Republican Guard to the changing realities of combat? Answering that question is central to this study, and the answer resides in evaluation of the innovations developed by CENTAF to improve its operational and tactical performance against the Republican Guard. Effectiveness and timeliness are the primary criteria used for evaluating innovations.
Author: Wesley R. Gray
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2009-04-01
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 1612514065
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn his November 19, 2005 presidential address, President George W. Bush summarized U.S. military policy as, "Our situation can be summed up this way: as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." EMBEDDED offers a firsthand account by a young Marine military advisor serving on the frontlines with the Iraqi Army of the effectiveness of America's efforts to help the Iraqis stand on their own. As a Division I track athlete and a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, Wes Gray was given a full scholarship to the Ph.D. program in finance at the University of Chicago, the top ranked program in the world. However, after passing his comprehensive exams and while weighing offers from Wall Street, he had an epiphany: the right thing to do before taking on the challenges of the business world was to serve his nation and fulfill a lifelong dream of becoming a United States Marine. In 2006, 1st. Lt. Gray was deployed as a Marine Corps military advisor to live and fight with an Iraqi Army battalion for two hundred and ten days in the Haditha Triad, a small population center in the dangerous and austere al-Anbar Province of western Iraq.What he encountered was an insurgent fire pit recently traumatized by the infamous “Haditha Massacre,” in which 24 Iraqi civilians – men, women and children – were shot at close range by U.S. Marines at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing. Despite the tensions triggered by the shootings, Gray was able to form a bond with the Iraqi soldiers because he had an edge that very few U.S. service members possess 3⁄4 the ability to communicate because of his proficiency in Iraqi Arabic. His language skills and deep understanding of Iraqi culture were quickly recognized by the Iraqi soldiers who considered him an Arab brother and fondly named him “Jamal.” By the end of his advisor tour, he was a legend within the Iraqi Army. During his time in Iraq, Wes kept a detailed record of his observations, experiences, and interviews with Iraqi citizens and soldiers in vivid and brutally honest detail. Ranging from tension filled skirmishes against the insurgents to insights into the dichotomy between American and Iraqi cultures, he offers a comprehensive portrait of Iraq and the struggles of its people and soldiers to stand up and make their country a nation once again. His book is a Marine intelligence officer’s compelling report about the status and prospects of America's strategy for success in Iraq.
Author: Michael Zacchea
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2017-04-01
Total Pages: 366
ISBN-13: 1613738447
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDeployed to Iraq in March 2004 after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, US Marine Michael Zacchea thought he had landed a plum assignment. His team's mission was to build, train, and lead in combat the first Iraqi Army battalion trained by the US military. Quickly, he realized he was faced with a nearly impossible task. With just two weeks' training based on outdated and irrelevant materials, no language instruction, and few cultural tips for interacting with his battalion of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Yazidis, and others, Zacchea arrived at his base in Kirkush to learn his recruits would need beds, boots, uniforms, and equipment. His Iraqi officer counterparts spoke little English. He had little time to transform his troops—mostly poor, uneducated farmers—into a cohesive rifle battalion that would fight a new insurgency erupting across Iraq. In order to stand up a fighting battalion, Zacchea knew, he would have to understand his men. Unlike other combat Marines in Iraq at the time, he immersed himself in Iraq's culture: learning its languages, eating its foods, observing its traditions—even being inducted into one of its Sunni tribes. A constant source of both pride and frustration, the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion went on to fight bravely at the Battle of Fallujah against the forces that would eventually form ISIS. The Ragged Edge is Zacchea's deeply personal and powerful account of hopeful determination, of brotherhood and betrayal, and of cultural ignorance and misunderstanding. It sheds light on the dangerous pitfalls of training foreign troops to fight murderous insurgents and terrorists, precisely when such wartime collaboration is happening more than at any other time in US history.
Author: R Alan King, Lt. R. Alan King
Publisher:
Published:
Total Pages: 366
ISBN-13: 9781610607612
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLieutenant Colonel R. Alan King and his 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion became operations central after the collapse of the Iraqi army and the beginning of the occupation of Iraq in March 2003. While under his command, these civil affairs and psychological operations soldiers were not content to stay in secure offices inside the green zone. Instead, they knew that to do their job they had to get out and make "house calls," and in the process the 422nd became the most highly decorated civil affairs unit in the history of the U.S. Army, with twenty-one individual awards for valor and five purple hearts. King was particularly well-suited for the new kind of war being waged in Iraq. Armed with his rifle, a Palm Pilot that contained an English translation of the Koran, and an informed and nuanced respect for Middle Eastern culture, King and his team captured or arranged the surrender of almost a dozen of the most-wanted villains from Saddam's regime, including several from the famous deck of cards. He became privy to secrets as weighty as those of Iraq's nuclear weapons program and as light as those behind the outlandish press briefings of the infamous Baghdad Bob. Twice Armed - its title is taken from Plato's maxim We are twice armed if we fight with faith - provides a compelling view of the Iraq war, and the experience from the Iraqi perspective, from one of the war's most decorated officers. The regional expertise that helped King negotiate with clerics and sheikhs also informs his provocative opinions about what it will take to win the battle for the hearts and minds of Iraq, an ancient, mystifying, and deeply religious culture. King has been compared to the legendary T. E. Lawrence, with the press dubbing him “Alan of Arabia,” and this book sheds light on a new and necessary component of modern warfare, one that goes far beyond artillery and armor, and instead tells King's story of cultural interaction and respect that yielded results in his area at the beginning of the war. A trenchant and necessary look at how the winning of the hearts and minds of people in Iraq is as crucial to success as the winning of tactical military goals.
