U.S. Army in Logar province, Afghanistan. Photo by David Axe.

by DAVID AXE

Three years ago I launched War Is Boring as a way of gathering in one place all of my freelance reporting on military subjects. Today, that humble blog has evolved into a genuine news enterprise that sponsors and publishes young reporters working in the world’s war zones. We also feature comics, satire and commentary.

In recent months, we’ve covered Somali piracy, the Afghan elections, the U.S. “surge” into Afghanistan and realistic training in the U.S. meant to prepare Special Forces for Afghan combat duty.

For all its increasing sophistication, War Is Boring remains a labor of love for all involved. The site’s Google ads help pay for Web-hosting, but we pay travel expenses out of our own pockets. It ain’t cheap. In 2009, WIB reporters shelled out no less than $10,000 to bring you exclusive content from Gabon, Djibouti, Afghanistan and across the U.S. and Europe.  Even after selling freelance pieces to other media outlets, we’re still deep in the red.

Over the years, WIB readers have ponied up several thousand dollars to help underwrite our work. Now we’re asking you to donate, once again. Starting in February, War Is Boring will send three teams into Afghanistan to cover combat, reconstruction, counter-insurgency strategy, logistics and the plight of Afghan civilians. (more…)

War Is Boring’s youngest contributor, Kevin Knodell, is on a school trip to the UAE, where he’ll be exploring security topics while no doubt mulling lucrative real-estate deals and working on his tan. You can read about his classmates’ exploits at Pacific Lutheran University’s Sojourner blog.

Photo by Kevin Knodell

by KEVIN KNODELL

Dubai is very much an international city. A quick stroll through the old city or the souks — the markets — make this abundantly clear. One minute you feel like you’re in Mumbai, the next it’s like you’re in Kabul. In my time here, I’ve encountered Iranians, Indians, Afghans, Pakistanis, Kenyans, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Italians and countless others. The Emirati are outnumbered roughly four to one by expats.

Dubai tries to sell itself as an international hub where cultures come together in harmony. A lot of visitors embrace this idea. But the more you talk to the people and watch how they interact, the clearer the problems become. Dubai really is a diverse city, but throughout the Emirates there is also an unspoken racism. This place is no melting pot.

The people live in largely segregated housing projects, sticking with others of their own ethnic backgrounds. Filipinos stick with other Filipinos, Indians with other Indians, Pakistanis with Pakistanis, and the majority of the Emirati prefer to stay in their enclaves rather than mix with the “commoners.”

That’s not to say it never happens. I did witness intercultural interactions from time to time. Unfortunately, they seem to be exceptions to the rule. Still, the UAE remains very much an international center, drawing people from all over the world looking for opportunity. The potential for cultural growth and exchange is immense.

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War Is Boring’s only female correspondent Una Moore is on the ground in Kabul, interning with an aid group while blogging about civil society, women’s issues and the war’s toll on civilians.

Kabul streets. Photo by Una Moore.

by UNA MOORE

My colleagues and I needed to speak with a member of the Afghan parliament, so we piled into the office car with our driver and sped off in the direction of the parliamentary office building. Driving through Kabul’s potholed, chaotic roads, our little car was dwarfed by the vehicles of other organizations: wide, high-riding SUVs, some with thick antennas on their hoods.

I asked a colleague about the antennas. “They disable some IEDs and suicide bombs and shut off cell phones, which are often used as detonators,” he said.

We hit traffic and reached our destination late. As I waited to be searched by the guards at the complex gate, I gazed down the road. Through the snow fog, I could just make out the shape of Darulaman palace. The mountains just beyond blended into the gray.

It was time to go in.  A colleague turned to me. “Don’t worry,” he said, “You won’t be searched; you’re a woman.” Sure enough, I was waved through by the grinning guards.

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by DAVID AXE

The latest from resident cartoonist Jonathan Hughes. Background here. Comics archives here.

by KYLE MIZOKAMI

* Al-Qaeda-in-the-Arabian-Peninsula spokesman, Gitmo alumnus, urges jihad

* India turning Andaman and Nicobar islands into amphibious warfare training sites

* When does hacking turn into cyber war?

* France agrees to sell Mistral assault ship to Russia

* Iran starts production of new stealthy attack drones

HH-60 at Bagram, Afghanistan. Photo by David Axe.

by DAVID AXE

For most of its near-future airplane needs, the U.S. Air Force will buy upgraded versions of current airplanes, according to service officials. The air branch will build gunship, Special Forces and electronic-warfare versions of the C-130J, update its oldest C-17 airlifters and replace today’s HH-60 rescue choppers with newer models of the same helicopter. Only the fighter force will get large numbers of new-design planes, in the form of the F-35A.

This is sound thinking, and echoes what the Navy is doing with its surface fleet and the Army with its helicopter force and tanks. But there’s risk. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz told Air Force Magazine that the HH-60 is “a pretty good airplane. It’s not a perfect rescue airplane, but it can operate at altitude. It’s a resilient airframe. It’s proven.”

The folks who fly HH-60s in Afghanistan might beg to differ. Under-powered for its size and over-burdened with armor and weapons, the HH-60 can’t reach 9,000 feet under normal circumstances. In Afghanistan’s flat, low south, where some HH-60s are based, that’s not a problem. In the mountainous north, even routine rescues can pose huge challenges. For one mountain rescue, the 33rd Rescue Squadron had to strip all the weapons and armor from their aircraft. Luckily, they weren’t hit by enemy fire. If they had been …

Point is, proven weapons are great for budgetary and planning purposes. But if a proven weapon is proven to have deficiencies, continuing to rely on it might save money, and cost lives.

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Guinea troops. Zim Telegraph photo.

by DAVID AXE

The emerging U.S. military strategy for Africa stresses partnership over direct intervention. In other words, we team up with African armies, boost their training and equipment, then let them handle their continent’s security problems themselves. It’s a proxy approach.

There’s at least on big potential pitfall. In Africa, as in Latin America, armies can be major destabilizing elements within their own governments. In Guinea, Army officers have backed coup leaders striving for military government. Just last week, the Guinean government arrested army Colonel Moussa Keita for backing an exiled coup leader.

I asked Major General William Garrett, commander of U.S. Army Africa, how his force avoids inadvertently boosting the wrong people. “AFRICOM and U.S. Army Africa focus and apply resources based on policy guidance from the U.S. government,” Garrett said:

Currently, the top five priorities for U.S. government engagement in Africa are: supporting strong and stable democracies and good governance; fostering sustained economic growth and development; strengthening public health; preventing, mitigating, and resolving armed conflict; and helping to address transnational challenges.

When applying resources, AFRICOM and U.S. Army Africa work shoulder-to-shoulder with our military and non-military partners as part of a larger U.S. and international effort. This comprehensive approach is the best way to prevent the challenges that you mention in your question.

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Sudan-backed rebel. U.N. photo.

by DAVID AXE

Things are looking up for Chad and Sudan, whose shared border — in and around Darfur — has been a seething conflict zone for seven years. This year, the two countries agreed to jointly patrol the border to tamp down on allegedly government-backed rebel groups that threaten both governments. Sudan will take the lead in the joint force for the first six months.

With relations improving, Chadian president Idriss Deby is slated to visit Khartoum this week, for the first time in six years. Darfur and border security will surely dominate the agenda.

Some Chadians are skeptical that the two countries can build lasting ties. “People say this is a way for Deby to trap Sudan,” our correspondent Mahamat Tahir Issa says. In other words, the diplomatic gestures could be cover for continuing state-sponsored rebel attacks.

On a related note, Chad is chafing under the continued presence of a large U.N. peacekeeping force. Rumor has it Chad wants the U.N. blue berets out within six months. Deby could be serious about the U.N. departure, or his apparent displeasure could be a negotiating tactic.

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Sea Fighter. Photo via New Wars.

by DAVID AXE

For years, the U.S. Navy has struggled to field new warships capable of operating in shallow, crowded, coastal waters, while also boosting the number of ships in the fleet. Today, the Navy operates some 280 warships. For nearly five years, senior Navy officers have insisted they need 313. With shipbuilding budgets flat and the cost of vessels rising, the Navy has been unable to grow the fleet. Meanwhile, the sea service still hasn’t made much progress in building the near-shore “littoral” combat fleet it has long envisioned. Large, blue-water warships still dominate the fleet.

A vessel exists that could solve both problems, boosting the fleet’s numbers while also filling that niche, near-shore gap. An experimental catamaran dubbed Sea Fighter, currently owned by the Office of Naval Research, has the potential to make an effective, affordable littoral warship. But the four-year-old vessel, built at a cost of just $60 million, has been deliberately buried under artificial restrictions by admirals and their political supporters, who prefer costlier and frankly riskier solutions to the Navy’s problems.

Sea Fighter is a 260-foot-long, aluminum-hulled, wave-piercing catamaran displacing short of 1,000 tons and drawing just 12 feet, according to Navy figures. The catamaran was the brainchild of Duncan Hunter, a Congressman from California. Hunter, who has strong ties to California shipbuilders, inserted language into defense legislation to build the ship in 2005. Hunter’s wife christened the ship upon her completion in 2006. Sea Fighter was the “fastest ship in the Navy by a huge margin,” Hunter said in 2007, while arguing for more added funds to continue developing the vessel. He also praised the catamaran’s small crew. It was, he said, exactly the kind of ship the Navy needed.

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Injured Somali man. Photo by David Axe.

by DAVID AXE

Lawyers, Guns and Money points out a recent report from Simon Fraser University claiming that today’s wars are less bloody than at any point in the 20th century. “The average war today is fought by smaller armies and impacts less territory than conflicts of the Cold War era,” the Human Security Report 2009 posits. “Smaller wars mean fewer war deaths and less impact on nationwide mortality rates.”

“Dramatic long-term improvements in public health in the developing world have steadily reduced mortality rates in peacetime — and saved countless lives in wartime,” the report continues. “Major increases in the level, scope, and effectiveness of humanitarian assistance to war-affected populations in countries in conflict since the end of the Cold War have reduced wartime death tolls still further.”

The bottom line is that “today’s armed conflicts rarely generate enough fatalities to reverse the long-term downward trend in peacetime mortality that has become the norm for most of the developing world.”

True, but the grizzled old war correspondent deep inside me demands to know, “So what?” The global trend, while interesting as an isolated statistic, does nothing to diminish the suffering of those populations still caught in seemingly endless and awful conflicts. Tell a Somali, a refugee in eastern Chad or the average resident of Baghdad or Kandahar that wars are getting nicer, and they’re liable to laugh, then rage, then cry.

Afghan woman. Creative Commons photo.

by UNA MOORE

United Nations human rights experts share the unease Afghan civil society representatives voiced in London last week about the protection of women’s human rights during peace negotiations with the Taliban.

The body that monitors the implementation of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) released a statement on Friday expressing concern over the exclusion of women from high level decision-making at and during preparations for last week’s London conference and the “absence of clear strategies to protect women’s rights in the process of the discussions leading to negotiations with representatives of the Taliban.”

Afghan women were not included in the Afghan government’s official delegation to the London conference and only one Afghan woman was permitted to speak on behalf of civil society as part of the official conference program.

At tandem non-governmental events, Afghan women — aid workers, human rights activists and elected officials — repeatedly stressed that any negotiations with the Taliban must involve Afghan women and be conducted with strict pre-conditions, including the acceptance of the Afghan constitution by all parties.

Read the rest at U.N. Dispatch.

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War Is Boring’s youngest contributor, Kevin Knodell, is on a school trip to the UAE, where he’ll be exploring security topics while no doubt mulling lucrative real-estate deals and working on his tan. You can read about his classmates’ exploits at Pacific Lutheran University’s Sojourner blog.

Abdul. Photo by Cameron Cowles.

by KEVIN KNODELL

The UAE’s expat population is filled with people looking for a new start. They come for a variety of reasons. Some expats come looking for adventure, to be someplace different. For many, coming here is a way to escape poverty or war in their home countries. There are sizable populations from war-torn regions, including Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Lebanon. For such people, the UAE is a refuge.

Abdul works a shop by the Dubai creek. Abdul, an Afghan, is an easygoing man who is happy to bargain and chat. Before coming to Dubai, Abdul served with the Afghan National Army fighting against the Taliban. One of the other Afghans working the shop with Abdul works as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, spending his off-time in the relative safety of Dubai. Abdul’s brother remains in Afghanistan serving with Special Forces.

As an English speaker, Abdul worked closely with American troops as an impromptu interpreter between his commander and American commanders. During his stint, he participated in several combat operations. During an air-assault operation, he says he was shot in the leg while repelling out of a helicopter. Shortly after, he decided to make a new life in Dubai. He says that Afghanistan is a very dangerous place for those who worked with the Americans, and that there are many who would like to see him dead.

Abdul has mixed feelings about living in Dubai. He says that he dislikes the greed and arrogance he sees in Dubai. “Here, if they see me dressed like this,” he says, referring to his traditional Afghan clothes, “they see me as nothing.” He says the people are driven mad by their obsession with money, and complains about the expensive cars and sunglasses. He says he wishes people could appreciate the little things more, and be less driven by materialism. “This is my main problem with this place” he says. All things considered though, Abdul says he likes it in Dubai. “It’s very safe here” he says.

Still, he still speaks longingly of his home in the Afghanistan. He says that back home, people don’t judge each other based upon their wealth. He misses the simple life there, where people don’t rely on cars, and are not constantly in a mad rush. He smiles as he recalls the mountains of Afghanistan, and hiking through them to go from village to village. However, he says over and over, “I can never go back to Afghanistan. I can never go home”

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Art by Matt Bors.

by DAVID AXE

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama advocated ending the 17-year-old Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy for gays in the military. Subsequently, Joint Chiefs chair Admiral Mike Mullen said a repeal of the policy — in which gays could serve, as long as they never admitted being gay — was the right thing to do.

Now Naval Academy prof Claude Berube, a War Is Boring favorite, has a proposal: replace Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell with “Didn’t Know, Don’t Care.”

Didn’t Know Don’t Care would be based on individual competency. It would not be about special privileges for any one group. Rather, it is about the freedom of individuals to serve. There are standards in the Navy as reflected by fitness reports or other assessments. The one question we should ask is: Can this individual do the job?