Why JIEDDO is not only about Afghanistan

To Lt. Gen. Mike Barbero, JIEDDO ¹Afghanistan. With budgetary knives out everywhere, many of the war-time programs across the Pentagon run the risk of being tucked away into bureaucratic obscurity or closed down altogether. That is, if they don’t reinvent themselves first. That’s what the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, which occupies a suite of offices in Crystal City, and has spent $18 billion since 2006, is attempting to do today. Barbero, the three-star Army general who today leads JIEDDO, the end of the war in Afghanistan in the next year or two does not mean the capability JIEDDO provides should go away. The future, he says, is dangerous – and global. Some believe JIEDDO is a hammer looking for a nail, and want to see it folded into a permanent, albeit separate set of capabilities peppered across the Defense Department. But Barbero contends JIEDDO is still a much needed capability because IEDs and the threat the networks who build them pose aren’t going away. The U.S., he says, must retain the ability to counter the threats from IEDs. And JIEDDO, started in 2006 to stop the number one killer of troops in both war zones, is the organization for the job.

"It’s about a global challenge," Barbero told Situation Report in a recent interview.

The IED threat is growing stronger as groups converge operations. In Africa, for example, the convergence of groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and Mali, al-Shabab in Somalia and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, in Northern Africa, at least in terms of the operations in which they work together, represents a strengthening of the IED threat, Barbero says. The mounting evidence that groups such as these communicate with each other to plan operations has resulted in a number of high-profile attacks from Nigeria to Algeria to Somalia and Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula.

"We see the convergence of these networks in Africa," he said, "coordinating on sharing [information], but also setting up training facilities and starting to work in direct coordination between them. And that is a pattern." Barbero said he sees a similar trend on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. "I think it is a trend that is going to continue." Continued below.

By the way, a new Global Terrorism Index, released yesterday, shows the top 10 countries affected by terrorism: Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria, Thailand, Russia, Philippines. FP’s Passport blog’s Josh Keating on the report: "The good news in the study is that the number of attacks seems to have leveled out since peaking in 2007. The bad news is that there were still more than four times more attacks in 2011 than in the first full year of the war on terrorism." http://bit.ly/Viy5G8

Amanda Dory will talk about restoring democracy to Northern Mali this morning. Dory, the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary for Africa, will speak before Senate Foreign Relations’ subcomm on African affairs at 9:00 to talk about the latest developments in Mali and how to "reclaim the north." We’re told she’ll be echoing much of what Gen. Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, said at an event Monday (in which the moderator was said to have big-footed the Q&A). The U.N. today, meanwhile, considered a mission for African forces in Mali early next year. http://1.usa.gov/WGebWy

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Situation Report, where we always feel as if we have big shoes to fill. Follow me @glubold. Or hit me anytime at gordon.lubold@foreignpolicy.com. And sign up for Situation Report here: http://bit.ly/NCN9uN or just send me an e-mail and I’ll put you on the list.

"Do I have to change my business cards now because we’re no longer using the term "strategic communications"? Asked a strategic communications official in a voicemail after yesterday’s piece on how the Pentagon is ending use of the term "strategic communications."

SecDef Watch. A big decision from President Obama on a slew of jobs is coming, though water-cooler wisdom suggests it won’t be this week, but next. Of course, we’ve been wrong before. For the Pentagon’s number one job, most short lists now include Chuck Hagel, who has appeal as a no-nonsense Republican, but for whom the Pentagon learning curve would be rather steep. Sen. John Kerry is still in the mix as well, but his sights are on SecState, and Obama said this week he had not made a decision on that job as of yet. Ash Carter, now the Pentagon’s number two, is still thought to really want the job, but may not get it. And Michele Flournoy, a favorite among some, is still seen by many others as not-yet-ready-for-primetime. But a strong surrogate for Obama during the campaign, she’ll likely land somewhere, perhaps south of the Pentagon’s top job.

The E-Ring’s Kevin Baron writes: "Who is Chuck Hagel, again?" A quick primer. http://bit.ly/OX1zJd

This is not a completely crazy idea: Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is still in play.

In the dark. People inside the Pentagon seem to be as much in the dark about who will replace Panetta as their civilian overseers across the river. "We’re wondering all that ourselves," said one. "We’re not being consulted on this, believe it or not," the person half-joked.

The WSJ reports that Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough is a candidate for WH chief of staff. Why is this important? It may suggest a focus on foreign policy in Obama’s second term, despite his pledge to do "nation-building at home." The WSJ’s Peter Nicholas and Colleen McCain Nelson write: "Recent presidents have spent second terms pursuing foreign-policy breakthroughs. President Bill Clinton sought peace agreements in the Middle East. President Ronald Reagan pursued arms-reduction agreements with the Soviet Union in international summits aimed at smoothing superpower relations." http://bit.ly/UFvSId

Part of Panetta’s speech at Walter Reed yesterday seemed to be about Assistant Press Secretary Carl Woog. In a speech about praising leaders at Walter Reed for the work they do, Panetta touched on a problem he sees in society — people unable to reach out and talk to each other. "Now, this — in many ways, it’s a changing society. This is my theory and my theory alone, but, you know, part of the problem of working off BlackBerrys and working off computers is that you’re focused on that element and you don’t reach out as much to talk to one another, and to just communicate with one another. And it’s when you do that, when you talk to one another, that you understand what the problems are."

At that moment, Woog was seen thumbing out answers to queries on his own BlackBerry. http://1.usa.gov/SFUEXO

What do Adm. Mike Mullen, Bob Gates, Madeleine Albright, Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold Brown, Samuel Berger, Frank Carlucci, Sam Nunn, Ike Skelton, Paul Volcker, John Warner, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, and Paul O’Neill all have in common? They all signed a letter, published in a full-page ad in the WSJ this morning titled, "Addressing our debt is a national security imperative." The message from the Coalition for Fiscal and National Security is essentially that: the nation’s debt must be stabilized if the U.S. is to maintain global leadership and anything short of that goal is "insufficient." The ad includes this line: "Our leaders should use the consensus against going over the fiscal cliff as an opportunity to agree now on a framework for significant fiscal reform in 2013. Another ‘kicking of the can’ —  the lowest common denominator of what both parties can currently accept, without any structural reforms that truly address the nation’s problems — is not acceptable."

Seen on Ridge Road near the Pentagon: "0-200mph" on the back of a red ‘Vette. License plate holder: "U.S. Navy Master Chief."

If our scooter had a license plate: "0-37mph"

JIEDDO, continued. Barbero likes a PowerPoint slide that shows the IED trends for October and the work JIEDDO is doing for each of the combatant commands. Excepting Afghanistan or Iraq, a chart on the page shows that Southern Command actually topped all the other commands in October in terms of the number of IED incidents — with 24 detonations, 114 finds, and 22 caches. Central Command comes in second, with 105 detonations, 46 finds, and six caches found in October (again, not including IED events in Afghanistan or Iraq). Pacific Command and Africa Command come in third and fourth. More than 500 IED events occur outside Iraq and Afghanistan monthly, according to JIEDDO – a data point that he uses to help make his case for JIEDDO’s future. He’ll testify this month on Capitol Hill.

Coming tomorrow: Why JIEDDO says "whole-of-government" shouldn’t make people roll their eyes, and the fight to use dye in Pakistan to prevent homemade explosives material from crossing the border into Afghanistan.

Noting

• Danger Room: Blackwater hosts U.S. Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan. http://bit.ly/11CqA32
• Intelnews: Swiss intel employee stole millions of classified pages. http://bit.ly/Xq8np6
• Military Times: SOCOM wants more say on deployed operators. http://bit.ly/VrJTaY
• Reuters: Dunford faces challenges of winding down war. http://bit.ly/Vk0dst
• HuffPo: U.S. to allies: make good on Afghan pledges. http://huff.to/SxA62v
• Jerusalem Post: Iran claims it has U.S. drone. http://bit.ly/TJlMmB