Yesterday’s post (and the larger blogsphere discussion) regarding no-go regions in France reminded me that I saw District B13 last week. It is a dizzyingly slick action movie with precious little plot to get in the way of its hipness. In addition to the acrobatics and the explosions, however, I was struck that what plot there was revolved around a near future distopia where France solved the problem of no-go zones by simply walling them off. An especially prescient premise, given it was written and filmed in 2004 before the press frenzy over the 2005 riots.

Within the movie’s neo-ghettos, however, the role of religious extremists is nowhere to be found. Religious and cultural assimiliation isn’t an issue, simple criminality is. While there is supposed to be dramatic tension between the two main characters - one an undercover SWAT officer, the other a resident of the banlieue - it rings false because both are still culturally French. Any deeper tensions between poorer arab and black residents of the banlieues and the wealthier French classes aren’t portrayed.

But it isn’t an academic study, it is an action movie. A damn good one at that. The opening chase sequence is a trip and David Belle’s parkour stylings are exhilerating.

Daniel Pipes posts on the 751 No-Go Zones in France. He even found this link that identifies them all. So, has anyone done the data ninja work to throw these into Google Maps or Google Earth to visualize them? If so, I’d love to know.

Barnett says that we’ve got our own areas of “lost control” - they’re just called Native American Reservations. I’m not so sure if that metaphor is entirely valid. We have a distinct body of laws that govern our interaction with these regions and those citizens that live there. I am not familiar with any similar legal precedent in France (anyone with a greater knowledge, please set me straight on this), which would imply that the no-go zones in France present a greater challenge to the cohesion of the state than Native American Reservations. In the absence of enforcement of the state’s laws, non-state forces will exploit these autonomous zones. Reservations don’t pose a similar problem - even though they occupy a distinct legal status from other American territory - because the laws governing them were written to prevent any exploitation of these regions in manners that could threaten the state.

I haven’t studied this, so all of the above represents a best guess.

Great articles in Monday’s LA Times about the Army’s draft Full Spectrum Operations field manual. It has a greater emphasis on stability operations and SysAdmin functions.

A great passing point:

The new manual does not contradict Rumsfeld’s belief that a smaller American force can defeat a larger enemy military, but it does say that dealing with the collapse of a government is likely to require more troops than the military action itself.

I like seeing this because it points to one of the contradictions produced by the transformed force. It can devestate a state apparatus and dismantle an army, but this success can turn catastrophic as the conflict transitions to stability operations that have larger manpower needs. Previous forces, such as the WWII forces that occupied Germany, needed large numbers of personnel for major combat operations - which meant that they had plenty of bodies available for stabilizing and occupying German territory when it came time for that.

Nice summary of the shift:

Older doctrine divided the Army’s duties into war and other missions, like peacekeeping. The old manual — completed in 2001 after the military’s experience in Bosnia and Somalia — said the Army needed to be ready to conduct offensive operations even during stability missions. The 2007 manual, written during the Iraq experience, argues that even when on offense, the Army needs to be ready to conduct stability operations.

Regarding the end of the assumption of “lesser includeds:”

Previous manuals have argued that if a force is trained for major war, it also will be able to handle counterinsurgency or peacekeeping. The new guidebook will note that units must be ready to do both, but it also will say training for a primarily offensive force should differ from training for stability operations.

This reminds me of comments I heard from a LTC with SOCOM. Discussing the doctrinal semantic differences between irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, and asymmetric warfare, he said that no matter what term you used, the point was that you were trying to identify “the stuff we don’t do well.” For example, there is nothing unconventional about the unconventional warfare if it’s what you’re used to it and trained for it. It’s unconventional because we haven’t been training for it. On the other hand, “this is the stuff I’m used to,” the LTC pointed out, “this is all I’ve been doing for my career, so I don’t find it unconventional at all.” The evolution of the FSO field manual reflects the shift articulated in DoD 3000.5 last year, and we will continue to see these sorts of changes in the future.