Janar Wasito attended
Harvard University where he served as the
President of the Boxing Club and competed
in the Massachusetts Golden Gloves. He completed
Marine Officer Candidate School at Harvard
and was commissioned as a Marine Officer upon
graduation. He served in the Marine Corps
for 4 years and led a rifle platoon and a
weapons platoon. He also served as a rifle
company executive officer and as an assistant
battalion and regimental operations officer.
He received his law degree from Stanford University,
and currently works for a hedge fund in San
Francisco. He serves as a staff member of
Team in Training, a Leukemia charity. He has
completed over 5 Olympic distance triathlons
with Team in Training. He currently resides
in San Diego, and is working on a book about
the 1st Marine Division's use of the Small
Wars Manual in Operation Iraqi Freedom 2.
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At Military.com's invitation, this is the first in a series of articles
for the Military
Opinions section. I am a former Marine officer, and served as
a platoon commander and in other roles with 7th Marine Regiment between
1992 and 1995. Since my time with the Marines, I taught high school,
graduated from Stanford Law School, and have started my own company
in the investment management field. Nonetheless, I remain a student
of the art of war, and am working on a book about the 1st Marine Division
going back into Operation
Iraqi Freedom 2.
My mission in writing the book is to chronicle what the division does
right in a small wars environment for the benefit of other U.S. armed
services and policy makers. Because of the Marines' institutional
history of fighting small wars - which resulted in the publication
of the Small Wars Manual by the Marines in 1940 - the Corps
probably has an edge in this area.
In order to achieve my objective, I am watching units of the Division
go through their work up training at bases in Southern California.
Last month, I observed 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment (1/7), conduct
Convoy Operations and Company Assault training at the Marine Corps
Air Ground Combat Center at 29 Palms, California. The same battalion
is now going through its own "lane training" which is designed to
develop small wars situational decision making skills in small unit
leaders. Then, it will go through Stabilization and Support Operations
(SASO) training at March Air Force Base.
Because units like 1/7 have already served a tour in Iraq in a small
wars environment, conducting a SASO mission, the small unit leaders
have tremendous operational and tactical expertise. Out in the field
at 29 Palms, the Battalion Sergeant Major told me that over 66 percent
of the junior leaders - the fire team leaders, squad leaders, platoon
sergeants, platoon commanders, etc - had served in Operation Iraqi
Freedom 1 in 2003.
In February, I observed 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines (2/2) conduct its
SASO Training aboard March Air Force Base. The exercise staff was
comprised of a core group from Project Metropolis (ProMet), a part
of the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab at Quantico, Virginia. The ProMet
cadre included foreign officers from England, Australia, and other
countries, and was augmented by staff from 1st Marine Division, Division
Schools. 2/2 broke down into Company level patrol bases. The battalion
was task organized for the SASO mission in innovative ways which I
plan to cover in my book, which should be published after the division
completes its participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom 2.
In order to write my book, I am also re-orienting myself into the
Marines' Professional Military Education (PME) framework -- which
is critical to understanding how junior leaders operate on Commander's
Intent in a highly decentralized environment in small wars. The Marine
Corps maintains a recommended reading list for all ranks. In addition
to this list, there are many timely articles, speeches, and new books
which build on this core list of publications. For example, General
Anthony Zinni, USMC (Ret.) gave a speech last year in which he strongly
suggested that the U.S. military needs to be prepared to expand beyond
its traditional role of only "breaking and killing," as he put it.
It needs to expand into the area of the economic, the political, etc.
Of course, this is happening. But the reorientation of an organization
as large as the US military is necessarily a slow process. Even in
the 9 years since I have left the service, I notice many signs of
a changed environment. Many of the predictions made by Col Gary I.
Wilson, USMC (Ret.), and William Lind, in their article on "4th Generation
Warfare" in the Marine Corps Gazette in 1989 have come true in the
intervening 15 years. It is only in the last 31 months since 9-11
that these issues have become daily front page news items. But a large
body of books, articles, and speeches show that a few forward-thinking
military thinkers were really right in predicting the future path
of warfare. Many of these articles are available online.
Last year, Max Boot's book, The Savage Wars of Peace, placed
the current Global War on Terrorism in the historical context of Small
Wars operations, which goes back to the Navy/ Marine Corps operations
in North Africa in the early 1800s. We are really in a new era of
Small Wars, with some changes to the environment. "Fourth Generation
Warfare" basically amounts to Small Wars plus these changes.
The Marines are in the process of revising and updating the Small
Wars Manual, originally published in 1940. Much of this effort
is open source, and available
online. The original Small Wars Manual is still used by
Marines in the field. The Battalion Commander of 1/7, for example,
told me that he kept the book on his desk while conducting his SASO
mission in Najaf, Iraq in 2003. But in the 64 years since the manual
was published, the environment has changed. Technology, transportation,
communications have all facilitated the rise of non state actors,
also described as matrix organizations. Al Qaeda and other terrorist
organizations represent some examples of non state actors. Interestingly,
certain Non Governmental Organizations who are working to help the
Marines in their mission in Iraq also represent non state actors and
matrix organizations. One such organization, the Spirit
of America (SOA) foundation, is raising money to send equipment
to servicemembers in Iraq in order to provide humanitarian aid. Following
a Wall Street Journal article about the organization, Spirit
of America raised $764,408 from 4088 donors in 5 days in response
to a request for $100,000 from Marines in the Al Anbar province in
Iraq for equipment for TV stations.
As I go through the process of writing my book, I am going to work
with Military.com to publish columns and excerpts. I would welcome
feedback. Please email me at Janar@nobetterfriend.org.
I've already written a great deal of my book. In the future, my columns
will cover topics including:
- The role of non-state actors on the Internet in 4th Generation Warfare
- The value of fictional works such as Fields of Fire, Rules of Engagement,
and The Pepperdogs, as predictors of patterns of conflict
- The US Marines Professional Military Education Program (and how
you can use military.com to enhance your educational background and
military career)
- An annotated bibliography of books on Small Wars topics
- Interviews with key small unit leaders in Marine units such as 1/7,
both as they prepare for deployment, and deployed as they conduct
a SASO mission
