I guess we don’t want them to get any red army ideas. Go figure.

Jawa Report:

So, let’s assume you’ve occupied a third-world nation and you have to build an army from scratch. Time is tight and resources are scarce. The public at home is complaining loudly about the cost of the occupation and the slow rate of progress in getting the army trained and ready.

There is some good news. The indigenous male population of the occupied nation is thoroughly familiar with the Kalashnikov family of rifles, one of the most reliable, durable and cost-efficient weapons on the planet. Scores of young men coming into the army are experienced in operating and maintaining these types of weapons, and the country’s arsenals have these exact weapons stacked up like cordwood, along with tons of spare parts, ammunition and magazines.

So, of course, the intelligent thing to do, in this time of tight budgets, tight timetables and training challenges–but plentiful Kalashnikovs–is to take away the Kalashnikovs and replace them with expensive, notoriously-temperamental weapons almost completely foreign to the soldiers and armorers of Iraq… brilliant.

Blackfive:

Bob Owens seems to think the recent decision by the Iraqi Army to trade in their faithful AKs for the M-16-type weapons is fishy. I don’t have anything like an inside line on this; I had nothing to do with anyone involved in the decision, wasn’t aware of it until I read it in the press, and don’t have any ties to Colt or other weapon merchants. I haven’t talked to anybody in the military about this issue.

That said, why would it be a good idea besides making money for contractors? Here’s a reason: it creates another interoperability between the Iraqi Army and the NATO supply chain.

Envision an army trained by the United States, with extensive counterinsurgency experience, an internal structure increasingly in line with the NATO standard (cf. the new NCO academy) — an Arab, Muslim army that integrates Sunnis and Shi’ites in cooperation toward a goal of a modern state open to peaceful trade and prosperity. Now imagine this army in a future world with a happier Iraq, and no longer needing such large force numbers internally. Now imagine that army can tie into NATO supply chains, and partially deploy in support of future Coalitions dealing with furter COIN operations — an army that, like the army of El Salvador, remembers kindly American sacrifices that brought its people out of tyranny and chaos.

We’ve talked a lot about what future challenges face the world. Imagine what that army would be worth, in a decade or two. What investment would be worth having that army, that ally?

Personally I’m more inclined to agree with Blackfive, even though the real motivator here might be the almighty dollar. Anything to cement ties to the U.S. among the fledging Iraqi government and military is A-OK in my book.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Foreign Policy, Iraq, military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.