Marine Corps Gazette

8. Sheikh, Fawzia, “Milley: Khyber Border Center Has Eased Communication Woes,” Inside the Pentagon, Washington, DC, 18 December 2008, p. 17.

9. Qalats are fortified family compounds often constructed on elevated ground and residing on up to an acre of land that appear throughout the countryside.

10. Many estimates say that the Taliban generates between $100 to $300 million each year from the heroin trade, that 90 percent of the world’s opium comes from Afghanistan, and that drug trafficking accounts for about 60 percent of the nation’s economy (multiple sources).

11. Zamir Kabulov, a former Soviet official, said that America’s attempts to change Afghan society are not well received, “Just as the Americans have tried to improve women’s rights and instill democracy, the Russians tried to instill Communism,” quoted in Mark Sappenfield’s article, “Afghanistan: Soviet Failures Echo for US,” Christian Science Monitor, 19 December 2008, p. 1.

12. Barnes, Julian E., “Gates Calls for Scaled-Back Goals in Afghanistan,” Los Angeles Times, 28 January 2009, p 5.

13. Barnes, “Obama Discusses Afghan War,”

Los Angeles Times, 29 January 2009, p. 4.

14. Landay, Jonathan S., “Obstacles Are Many for US in Afghanistan,” Kansas City Star, 25 January 2009, p. 11.

15. Cooper, Helene and Thom Shanker, “Aides Say Obama’s Afghan Aims Elevate War,” The New York Times, 28 January 2009, p. 1.

16. Focusing on the region in which one is stationed while simultaneously studying the “main enemy” elsewhere is not a new idea. During the Cold War, Marines across the globe were trained not only to respond to specific crises within their area of responsibility but also to the ever-pres-ent Soviet threat. Today, we tend to keep our eyes and our minds on where we are. A Council on Foreign Relations study, called “Preparing for Sudden Change in North Korea” and released on 28 January, said that the United States and allies might have to deploy 460,000 troops to North Korea if that country collapses into an unstable insurgency. An interesting theory, but this does not mean that U.S. Pacific Command Marines should ignore Afghanistan while reexamining plans for the Korean region or preparing for a potential China-Taiwan conflict.

17. ALMAR030/07, Marine Corps Professional Reading Program, explains how and why Gen

Conway made LtGen Victor H. Krulak’s First to Fight (U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1984) the “marquee” title of the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program. Discussion guides were developed to assist the mandated professional education efforts as all Marines were ordered to read that book.

18. U.S. Army COL David B. Haight as quoted in “US Troops Shifted to Afghan Hot Spot” by Fisnik Abrashi, Newark Star-Ledger, 28 January 2009, p. 6.

19. The Deputy Commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, VADM Robert Harward, said in December 2008 that the “impact of insurgent’s information operations is much greater than the equivalent US effort.” This quote may be found in “Conventional Forces, SOF [Special Operations Forces] Could See Roles Reversed,” Aerospace Daily and Defense Report, 17 December 2008, accessed at http://www.military-quotes.com/forum/con- ventional-forces-sof-could-see-t70485.html.

20. Brook, Tom Vanden, “Afghan Insurgent Tactics Shift to Dodge Airstrikes,” USA Today, 20 January 2009, p. 8.

21. Ibid.

22. CBS Evening News, 21 January 2009.

23. Ibid.

24. Constable, Pamela, “Resistance to US Plan for Afghanistan,” The Washington Post, 16 January 2009, p. 16.

25. MOJAVE VIPER has been conducted as “Afghanistan-specific” for some time already, but this should be improved upon and become the norm. The 35-day-long exercise always receives accolades from the Marines, but it must continue to evolve with the mission and the threat.

26. Sprenger, Sebastian, “Afghanistan Shows Need for More Training,” available at InsideDe-fense.com, dated 26 May 2006.

27. The PTA is shared between Services via a memorandum of agreement signed by the Commander, U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii, and the Commanding Officer, Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

28. Gen Conway said in November 2008 that two places were being looked at as potential areas where the Corps could concentrate its new training—Twentynine Palms and Bridgeport:

You can’t match the Afghan environment in many places [domestically], except for the Mountain Warfare Training Center or maybe at . . . Horno Peak here [Camp Pendleton]. . . . It gets close to it, but it’s still not 7 or 8,000 feet.

Reported by Gidget Fuentes, “Corps mulls training for Afghanistan,” Marine Corps Times, 1 December 2008, accessed at http://www. marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/11/ma- rine_conway_113008w/. In fact, the PTA would match extremely well that Afghanistan environment the Commandant mentioned.

29. Rogers, Rick and Steve Liewer, “Marines Marching on With Expansion,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 November 2008, available at www.sognonsandiego.com/news/military, accessed 29 January 2009.

30. The insurgency flourished across Al Anbar in 2004 as the huge majority of Marine forces were pulled to support the second clearing of Fallujah that November; it’s likely that had we “surged” sooner, the “sons of Iraq” would have awoken much more quickly.

31. O’Hanlon, Michael, “How to Win in Afghanistan,” The Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2008, p. 17.

32. Collins, Joseph J., “Regaining the Initiative—Afghanistan: Faltered but not fallen,” Armed Forces Journal, Army Times Publishing Company, Springfield, VA, January 2009, p. 35.

33. BGen John W. Nicholson, Deputy Commander of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan stated, “The borders are wide open . . . we don’t have enough forces to secure the population,” as reported by Dexter Filkins, “In Afghan South, Taliban Fill NATO’s Big Gaps,” TheNew York Times, 22 January 2009, p. 1.