View Full Version : 2010 USFK Irregular Warfare Conference
Well, the first SOC-K conference is only five days away and I'm very excited to be going. I will be honored to be in the company of great men :lifter
From the website: This year’s topics include Irregular Warfare themes and the Korean Theater of Operation. Our conference serves to broaden people’s perspective on international relations and issues critical to improving strategic planning and the application of Irregular Warfare on the Korean peninsula and throughout Asia.
Among the guest speakers are:
# MG (Ret) Geoffrey Lambert
# BG (Ret) Russ Howard
# COL David Maxwell
# Col Martin Pinto
# Lt Col Dean Newman
This is the first conference of this type that I will be attending. I have no idea how many people are coming, but I hope I will have the opportunity to meet and share some conversation with service members.
Is anyone else from the board attending?
Gentlemen,
today the conference kicked off; it was great.
There were many very interesting presentations on various subjects pertaining to irregular and unconventional warfare.
I was very fortunate to hear about Col. Pinto's experiences in the Philippines. A truly remarkable man, with a great sense of humor.
Also attending were Dr. Johnson from the Naval Postgraduate School, who gave a fascinating presentation on information operations and how the US strategy has, supposedly, been failing miserably in implementing successful information operations in Afghanistan. Beyond this, he also touched on the importance of stability operations before going into a COIN based strategy.
There was also a very good presentation by Mr. Rendon of the Rendon Group, based out of Washington D.C. - He did an excellent job at illustrating the fast paced and ambiguous context in which we are living and operating in today.
While the presentations were absolutely outstanding, I think the highlight of the day was actually being among and meeting so many men of high caliber. I talked to Special Forces Soldiers, Navy SEALs, an Air Force SERE specialist and many others; from enlisted men to senior officers. All of the service members I met were extremely professional and humble about their service. Furthermore, they were more than willing to sit down and talk with me about my personal aspirations.
All of this just reconfirms my high opinion of the US SOF community, and I am very, very grateful for the opportunity to attend the conference.
If anyone would like me to say hello to someone they know are attending, send me a PM.
I will provide more updates and thoughts as the conference moves along. Please feel free to reel me in and let me know if my excitement is ill expressed and these types of posts don't belong on the board.
The Reaper
09-28-2010, 07:36
COL Maxwell is one of the smartest people I know.
TR
Had the fortune of talking with him briefly today. He gave one of the other speaker's a run for their money on the definitions of IW vs. UW and whether they are tactics or strategies.
He will be giving a presentation on "Preparing for Irregular Threats on the Korean Peninsula" tomorrow. Looking forward to it.
Well, the second day of the conference was just as good, if not better than the first. We started out with a Briefing by Col. Maxwell on "Preparing for Irregular Threats on the Korean Peninsula" and, as TR mentioned, Col. Maxwell is a very knowledgeable man. One could really tell that he had many years of hands-on experience in SF, while at the same time having an extensive academic background to back up his arguments. Outstanding presentation, the main thesis of which seemed to be that, while we have done a lot of planning for various contingencies of collapse in North Korea, we have done very little actual preparation.
After Col. Maxwell we heard BG (Ret) Russ Howard on "Contemplating Irregular Warfare in a Collapsed North Korea" -- Mr. Howard, for those of you that don't know him, was an SF Commander in Vietnam from 1970-72. An outstanding individual, with a vast pool of experience and a great sense of humor. He told me not to get too intimidated by all the high ranking brass. Speaking of that sense of humor, it's really great for me as an outsider to see how tight knit the SOF community really is. People are constantly cracking jokes with each other - it's a great atmosphere!
Mr. Howard's presentation continued Col. Maxwell's train of thought, namely that we are ill prepared for dealing with a collapse of North Korea, which is becoming more and more likely.
The next briefing was by MG (Ret) Geoffrey Lambert on "IW Opportunities during the Reunification of Korea". Mr. Lambert did a great job at illustrating some of the irregular warfare conditions that we might see before, during, and after a collapse. He also talked about how the Combined Unconventional Warfare Task Force (CUWTF) might fit into the picture.
We then heard from a gentlemen named Dr. Scobell, of the RAND Corporation. The topic was "China's Lessons from the Korean War and What this Means for the Korean Peninsula in the 21st Century". He did an excellent job of explaining the relevance of the Korean War to China, especially with regard to the United States.
Lastly, we heard from Dr. Brian Myers, a very interesting and comparatively young scholar who specializes in North Korean studies. He gave a truly fascinating briefing on North Korea and the driving forces behind the status quo there. He explained in very plain terms what the narrative is in nK and how Koreans (north and south) relate to each other. One of his main theses was that, contrary to popular opinion, the conflict on the peninsula is not one of capitalism vs. hardline communism, but rather one of hardline nationalism vs. moderate nationalism. Very thought provoking and insightful brief.
This conference is truly phenomenal, and I can't stress how grateful I am to the SOF community at SOC-KOR for allowing me to attend. Being (merely) an undergraduate student with ambitions of one day becoming an SF Soldier, I am truly in awe at the type of people I am surrounded with here. At one point I was sitting in a group with about six general officers, while General Sharp was just a few feet away, giving his thoughts to the audience.
Being a layman to both the military world, as well as to the higher tiers of strategic thought, hearing all of these briefings back to back is like drinking from a firehose. Still, I try to take notes and soak up as much as I can.
To add value to this thread, if anyone is interested in the details of a particular presentation, feel free to pm me and I will give you the details to the best of my recollection. I can also provide the slides to the presentations, which are probably of more interest than my recollections :D. Seeing as they are unclassified and were handed out to us, I think this is ok. By all means, let me know if you think it is inappropriate for me to share the slides with third parties.
v/r
So, the third and final day of the conference...
We started out with a brief by Dr. Bruce Bechtol, on "The North Korean Evolving Threat: How will the ROK Counter It?". This was a very "hands-on" brief, in the sense that the audience gained a better understanding of the actual military capabilities of nK. It was interesting hearing about how their technology is ancient in today's context, and how - partly because of this - they have been shifting their focus to creating more and more light infantry units. It seems nK actually has the largest number of SOF in the world, with about 180 000 Soldiers. One person brought up the argument that "light infantry can hardly be considered SOF"; Bechtol countered that by saying that if you apply the US standard of SOF, very few Soldiers in the international arena measure up. Despite this, nK would be using it's light infantry in fairly unconventional ways in case of a conflict. Moreover, they receive a high degree of training comparatively, so it may indeed be legitimate to speak of SOF.
The next presentation was given by a fairly young man; this was a gentlemen who had defected/escaped from nK and who is now living in S. Korea, studying at a university. It was a very personal briefing and gave the audience a much, much better understanding of "what it's really like". He talked a lot about how incredibly indoctrinated the north Koreans are.
The famines there have people cooking soup with tree bark and grass on a regular basis; kids lie down in the street to die from starvation; people are executed publicly for slaughtering animals for food.
After this we had a gentleman named Dr. Linton help us view "North Korea Through the Eyes of Medicine". He gave an overview of the N. Korean "healthcare system" and expounded on the types of issues that people there are dealing with. As many of you may know, tuberculosis is a huge issue in N. Korea and unfortunately they are unable to treat the patients in many many cases. One detail that stuck out to me personally was that in the few clinics that have x-ray machines - old, old east European models, I might add - the doctors get extra rice and even some beer from the government because, due to the fact that there is no film and no developer available, the doctors have to look directly into the x-rays, which leads to them contracting leukemia after a few years of doing this.
We then had, from what I understand, one of the leading experts on N. Korea speak to us about "The Role of Digital Communication in Influencing North Korean People". Dr. Lankov explained how neither appeasement strategies nor sanctions will be able to solve the problems with nK and how, in his opinion, the only way of effecting change was through the N. Korean people themselves. This would occur by bringing information in - and virtually any information about the outside world would do - By catering to the N. Korean way of thought and focusing on exposing the lies perpetuated by the regime in regards to nationalism and history, it may be possible to slowly turn the citizens of N. Korea on to the ugly truth, namely that more or less everything they believe about the world and their leader is a lie. This would not only increase the awareness of the N. Korean people and subsequently the pressure on the regime, but also serve to slowly prepare them for life in a free world. Thinking about how N. Koreans will deal with their new found freedom is an interesting sociological question. They are so far from the highly educated, industrialized and technologically advanced South Koreans as one could imagine. Looking at the pictures of every day life in Korea one has the impression of looking at pictures from the early 20th century, if that. An indeed, N. Korea is just that, a feudalistic dynasty (based on hardline nationalism and race theory).
The conference was concluded by a nice presentation by Korean SWC - a martial arts demonstration, that had a lot of stones being broken by fists, elbows, and heads, as well as lots of flips and kicks. Quite impressive.
Again, I can't stress the high quality of the conference. Beyond that, I was also able to attain my first challenge coin, albeit not having earned it by spending time on a team. Nevertheless, I was assured by veteran SF Soldiers that it would probably hold its on in a coin challenge, so I am not ready and confident to meet some more SF Soldiers :D
...we heard BG (Ret) Russ Howard...Mr. Howard, for those of you that don't know him, was an SF Commander in Vietnam from 1970-72. Then-LTC Howard was the 3rd Bn Commander in Training Group when I went through the FA 39 graduate program...he served in the 7th Group during the period 70-72...I don't recall him mentioning Vietnam service and he spent quite a bit of time with us...he is a very bright man and very competent...
I don't recall him mentioning Vietnam service and he spent quite a bit of time with us...he is a very bright man and very competent...
Sir, now that you bring it up, I must admit that I may have jumped to conclusions after reading his bio and, in doing so, misrepresented his service. I just assumed that someone who served as a detachment commander during that timeframe would have served in Vietnam. My mistake. In any case, Vietnam or not, he is a great man, who served our nation proudly for many years. I am glad to have met him.