The Home Game Has Arrived: Lessons from the 10th Asymmetric Threat Symposium

 

Last week I was privileged to attend the 10th Asymmetric Threat Symposium. It’s not the first of these I’ve attended but was clearly the best. Maybe the participants felt less restrained by politics and thus spoke more directly to the issues we truly face. Or maybe the quality of experts is rising. For whatever reason, the event was candid and sobering, even for me. The event was held near our nation’s capitol and was sponsored by CACI International, the Center for Security Policy, and ISW (Institute for the Study of War). The title:  What Does It Take to Protect America? Combatting Global Asymmetric Threats.

While the rules of the event require that comments be shared without attribution, I’m pleased to offer a recap for our readers. You can read the agenda and see information about prior versions at www.asymmetricthreat.net. The speakers and panelists were impressive. In fact, I counted 36 stars on the shoulders (Admirals and Generals) of about a dozen participants, both active and retired, not to mention academic and civilian experts.

There were many important points covered and I’ll recap just a few:

First, the question was asked and answered. Are we already at war?

Army Fires 120,000 Soldiers Amid Budget Cuts

 

Warns of ‘significant’ harm to troops and nations

The Army has disclosed that it has cut 80,000 soldiers since 2010 and plans to reduce the force by another 40,000 by the end of 2017, bringing the total active number of troops to 450,000, according to a report to Congress that was recently released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

“Nearly every Army installation will experience reductions of some size,” according to the report, which was obtained and released by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

EDITORIAL: End Clinton-era military base gun ban

The destruction of the U.S. military didn’t begin just under Obama (or Bush). The Clintons paved the way for disarmament. The same thing that happened in Tennessee and in Fort Hood and is bound to continue happening elsewhere.

From 2009 with relevancy today:

 

Time after time, public murder sprees occur in “gun-free zones” – public places where citizens are not legally able to carry guns. The list is long, including massacres at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School along with many less deadly attacks. Last week’s slaughter at Fort Hood Army base in Texas was no different – except that one man bears responsibility for the ugly reality that the men and women charged with defending America were deliberately left defenseless when a terrorist opened fire.

1st Cavalry soldiers headed to Poland, Baltics

WASHINGTON — Approximately 600 soldiers from the Army’s 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division will deploy to Poland and the Baltic states to help reassure European allies who feel threatened by Russian military moves, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.

The troops and their equipment — which include M-1 Abrams tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored personnel carriers — will go to Europe in October for a three-month series of training exercises.

Generals forced to retire for Afghan breach

Have two more fallen from the U.S. Military purge tree? This comes just days after the second-in-command of the US nuclear arsenal was suspended, pending investigation for ‘gambling’. Although this is a major breach and lives were unfortunately lost, consider the following:

Did the leadership at Fort Hood or the Navy base in D.C. get canned for those breaches?

What about the other insider attacks lately on soldiers from the foreign soldiers the U.S. armed forces trains?

What about the previous attacks on U.S. Military bases from the outside by terrorist groups throughout the last decade?

Maybe it is the case, maybe it’s not.

WASHINGTON — In a rare move, the top Marine on Monday forced two generals into retirement after concluding they should be held to account for failing to secure a base in Afghanistan against a Taliban attack that killed two Marines.

Gen. James Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said in announcing his decision that Maj. Gen. Charles M. Gurganus and Maj. Gen. Gregg A. Sturdevant “did not take adequate force protection measures” at Camp Bastion, a sprawling British-run airfield in southwestern Afghanistan that was the Taliban target.