Via Tyler Cowen, a neat map that renames US states after countries that have similar GDPs to the state in question. Note that Iran, allegedly about to embark on a campaign of world domination, has the same approximate level of economic output as Alabama. Elsewhere in the region, Saudi Arabia is like Tennessee, Israel is like Oregon, and Turkey is like Washington. I don’t like Alabama’s odds in a big for hegemony against those three. Puts things in perspective.

Use of airstrikes way up in Iraq. Colin Kahl forecasts even more in the future:

“Part of this is announcing our presence to the adversary,” said Kahl, who recently returned from a trip to the air operations center. “Across this calendar year you will see a reduction in U.S. forces, so there will be fewer troops to support Iraqi forces. One would expect a continued level of airstrikes because of offensive operations, and as U.S. forces begin to draw down you may see even more airstrikes.”

Increased reliance on firepower as a substitute for adequate manpower strikes me as a classic COIN no-no, but Kahl seems to approve and even told USA Today last week that due to increased carefulness, the civil toll is being reduced: “You saw a lot more damage to the civilian population in 2004 than you’re seeing now. Even though you have a huge uptick in offensive operations, it looks like the military is taking greater care not to harm civilians.” Obviously, I hope that’s right. It’s my understanding, however, that the Defense Department still doesn’t count civilian casualties so I don’t really understand how they would know whether or not you’re seeing a reduction in damage to the civilian population. In my book, the first step in “taking greater care” to avoid something is to measure what’s happening.

Josh Marshall notes Joe Lieberman fishing for Jewish votes on behalf of John McCain in Florida:

”The Democratic Party, I believe, respectfully, has left the strongest roots of its foreign policy and national security,” Lieberman said, adding that McCain “has always believed that Israel is our natural ally, from the beginning of its modern existence to this day in the war against Islamic extremists and terrorists.”

Now I assume that most practical Democratic Party politicians are going to want to deny that there’s any real difference between the parties here. But I think Lieberman’s probably correct to see a disagreement here between people with the Lieberman/McCain worldview and sensible people. As Lieberman/McCain see it, Israel has long been the subject of terrorist attacks perpetrated by Muslims. Then, on September 11, 2001 the United States was hit by Muslim terrorists. Ergo, the US and Israel are allies in a common war against a common threat.

On a different, more accurate account, while there are unquestionably some points of ideological similarity between Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda these should all be seen as separate entities with discrete agendas. It’s a huge mistake to, for example, assume that every Hamas militant or supporter shares anything resembling the grandiose overall al-Qaeda vision. Hamas and Hezbollah both arise in the context of concrete national conflicts and thus have different textures and aims from al-Qaeda (and, for that matter, from each other). The effort to run all these groups together has been a useful way for Israeli politicians to try to secure US support for their policies, and has been politically expedient for many American politicians, but it’s ultimately founded on serious analytical errors and, as such, doesn’t lead either Israel or the United States to adopt smart policies that serves our respective countries respective interests.

Lt. Col. John Nagl’s excellent book, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, which came out several years ago was sufficiently well-regarded in military circles that it got him tapped to work on the Counterinsurgency Field Manual that David Petraeus was working on pre-surge. But now he’s retiring to go work instead at the centrist CNAS think tank where Hillary Clinton’s future assistant secretaries are cooling their heels. This, in turn, has produced a lot of interesting commentary. James Fallows remarks:

Petraeus, as is obvious, has been greeted as a savior by politicians of both parties. The striking thing that Nagl’s resignation illustrates is that younger officers in the Petraeus model and, like Nagl, around Petraeus himself are faring nowhere near as well. The other most famous case, too resonant and complicated to do more than mention at the moment, involves Col. H.R. McMaster: author of Dereliction of Duty, a book that has had tremendous influence within the military. (More on McMaster here.) He has been a successful combat leader in Iraq but, as every serving officer knows, he has twice been “passed over” for promotion to general. Unfortunately there are a lot of other examples, involving not just Petraeus’s own coterie but promising-yet-stifled officers more generally.

Fred Kaplan puts this in the context of a larger retention problem the Army is having with its mid-level officers, an issue explored in even more depth by Andrew Tilgman here.

All of which makes me curious to see what, exactly, Nagl will wind up saying and doing once he’s at CNAS free and clear of the obligations of active duty service. In my view, the smart counterinsurgency set — Petraeus, Nagl, McMaster, T.X. Hammes, David Kilcullen, and all the rest (guys who, unlike seemingly everyone else who writes about these issues I’ve never met) — tend to outline the requirements for successful counterinsurgency in terms that make it clear to me that successful counterinsurgency is almost never going to happen and almost never going to be worth the cost. But they themselves don’t see it that way. Instead, you get analysis that very much reflects the “can-do” spirit of America in general and the Army in particular.

And of course a can-do spirit is precisely what you want from a soldier. But from an analytic perspective, there’s a real issue here: Who’s going to do the kind of stuff Nagl says the military needs to be doing? Kaplan concludes:

The Army is so desperate to retain good captains that it’s offering $35,000 bonuses if they stay in the service for another term. For many officers, that’s not enough; money isn’t really the issue, and if it were, they could make much more on the outside. Can’t the Army come up with another incentive to officers like John Nagl—maybe offer them the lure of a stable life?

Presumably the Army could to more to offer the lure of a stable life to key officers. But conducting the counterinsurgency warfare pretty clearly isn’t compatible with all officers having stable lives. Someone needs to rotate in-and-out of Iraq and Afghanistan. And, presumably, one would want our top counterinsurgency people doing that rotating. But nobody really wants, personally, to engage in a multi-decade counterinsurgency operation in Iraq. And yet that’s what the COIN people seem to think would be necessary to get the job done.