Armed Humanitarians by Nathan Hodge Read Free Book Online Page B

was one of the reporters invited to the February 2006 drafting session for the counterinsurgency manual. “To be honest, I think a big part of that was not that they were desperate for our opinions, but they wanted to socialize the document to a certain extent,” he said. “And reporters are going to write about it if they have access to it and access to the people who are writing it.”
    The military’s embrace of counterinsurgency was not, however, a strictly top-down affair. In many respects, it was a grassroots movement. As many career soldiers returned from frustrating first tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, they began searching for new intellectual guidance that would explain how to set things right.
    In generations past, the military’s middle management—the noncommissioned officers, platoon leaders and company commanders—had limited say about how the military organized, trained, and equipped. They had few forums for a free and open discussion of the problems they faced in the field. Of course, they might consider submitting articles to military journals such as the Naval Institute’s Proceedings or the Army’s Parameters quarterly, but these publications have a fairly long lead time, limited space, and strict editorial guidelines. Professional conferences like the Association of the United States Army symposia offered some outlet for professional discussion, but little opportunity for dissident opinions.
    In the post-9/11 era, however, a new generation of professional soldier was able tap the power of the Internet. In 2005 and 2006, as the official counterinsurgency doctrine took shape, the middle ranks of the military, the men and women who were most heavily engaged in nation building, began using Web 2.0 tools—digital communication, e-mail, and social networking—to share their experiences. And the shift to nation building took on a whole new momentum. In 2000, Army Majors Nate Allen and Tony Burgess created a Web site, Companycommand.com, that was modeled on a hunting-and-fishing discussion forum and was meant to serve as a professional forum for young officers. On Companycommand.com, officers could trade tips on everything from navigating Army bureaucracy to negotiating with village elders. The Web site, which allowed open discussion threads, quickly caught on; a year later, Allen and Burgess founded a site for lieutenants, Platoonleader.org. 5
    The sites were an extraordinary networking tool for junior officers and a medium for immediate and open exchange. The Army establishment, however, was terrified about these discussions taking place on the civilian Internet, potentially in full view of the enemy, although officers were supposed to be self-policing in virtual chat rooms. Eventually both sites were firewalled and brought onto Army servers. To log on, a person needed an Army Knowledge Online account, an official Army e-mail address. The forums continued to be useful for sharing practical advice, but they were not always the best venue for debate. Everything posted would be potentially visible to the person’s chain of command.
    What the counterinsurgency movement needed was a more freewheeling and unmoderated forum. On official Defense Department sites, users were logged in under their full names and ranks, and people who held unpopular opinions or questioned established policies couldn’t do so without fear of retribution. Perhaps more important, the counterinsurgency proponents wanted a forum where they could engage communities outside the military: from academia, from nongovernmental organizations, even from the media. After all, nation building demanded civilian expertise as much as it required technical military proficiency.
    At the senior level, there was Warlord Loop, an invitation-only e-mail list founded by a retired Army colonel, John Collins. The discussion group included senior military officers, some experienced NCOs, plus a smattering of