Latest CJR -- Ricks

[Spud]

Thought these may be of interest to some on here:

Thomas E. Ricks has spent nearly thirty years in the field, covering violent conflicts from Somalia to Afghanistan, and he has been a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams. After nearly ten years at the paper, he remains loosely affiliated with The Washington Post as a special military correspondent (he took a buyout last year), and is also the author of a blog, The Best Defense. His two books on Iraq are classics.
But in our new cover story, Tara McKelvey wonders if he has grown so close to the new military establishment and their counterinsurgency strategies in both Iraq and Afghanistan that he is more spokesman for them than skeptical journalist.
Meanwhile, the quantity and quality of reporting on Iraq and Iran is threatened, and diminishing resources are not the only problem. The military has changed. The military-journalist relationship in Iraq, for example, got better around 2006 under the command of General David Petraeus, who wanted officers talking to the press, partly as a way to explain his approach to counterinsurgency. But the window is closing. In the editorial in the September/October issue, we ask why.

Cover Story — September / October 2009
Too Close for Comfort?
Tom Ricks and the military’s new philosophical embeds
By Tara McKelvey
http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/too_close_for_comfort.php?page=all

Editorial — September / October 2009
Truth? Yes, Sir!
Why we need a clearer view of both our wars
By The Editors
http://www.cjr.org/editorial/truth_yes_sir.php

[Michael C]

A flaw in declaring Rick's the lackey boy of the military is that it assumes that to be "impartial" is synonymous with being critical. And, Ricks is far from uncritical to anyone who reads his blog posts portending a disaster (still) in Iraq.

I would go further. Even in Fiasco, one can see his embrace of the concepts of population-centric COIN. Joining CNAS, and supporting wise generals who see the efficacy of pop-centric COIN is almost predictable.

[Ken White]

if one must do or assist in the doing of counterinsurgency efforts. Nor is there any question that any competent Army must be able to do that job; or that the US Army was woefully and unforgivably not prepared to do it in the last few years.

The real question is; should one seek situations wherein to apply population centric COIN TTP or should one merely know how to do that if necessary and reserve application for those occasions when all else has failed and it absolutely cannot be avoided...

What do Tom Ricks, those wise Generals and CNAS have to say on that score?

[Cavguy]

From Jamie McIntyre, a competing reporter ...

http://www.thelineofdeparture.com/2009/09/10/cjr%E2%80%99s-errant-dart/


CJR’s Errant Dart

CJR’s Errant Dart
By Jamie McIntyre Thursday, September 10th, 2009 9:38 pm
Posted in Media Watch, On War

There is inescapable irony in the criticism leveled at Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Tom Ricks in the current issue of Columbia Journalism Review. (“Too Close for Comfort?”)

At a time when serious fact-based reporting is being supplanted by superficial tabloid sensationalism, the venerable CJR has focused its critical eye on some of the most acclaimed reporting and analysis of the Iraq war, and found it wanting.

And the primary charge against Tom Ricks seems to be that he’s done too much research, talked to too many people, knows too much history, and is unafraid to say what he really thinks.

Now I “competed” against Tom Ricks for the past 16 years, and I didn’t always agree with his conclusions.

But that said, I find the criticism that Ricks may be “too close” to his sources to provide an independent dispassionate analysis, to be the kind of facile charge that is easy to make, and hard to shake.

If you don’t like what a reporter is saying, or if the story does not affirm your previously held belief, it’s all too easy to dismiss it with the assertion that the reporter has lost his independence. In short, it’s a cheap shot.

Challenge me on my facts, question my conclusions, hold me accountable for reporting that falls short, but don’t suggest just because I have spent time talking to people who know more about something than I do, I’ve been snowed; that somehow, despite my years of experience, I have lost my critical faculties, the very skepticism that is the bedrock of any good reporter.

Believe me, Ricks has lost none of his skepticism or independence over the years. Just the opposite. The CJR’s problem seems to be that after some very thorough research and firsthand reporting, Ricks has simply come to some conclusions the article’s author doesn’t agree with.

The magazine’s cover story was written by Tara McKelvey, a senior editor at The American Prospect and the author of Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.

Among the things that bother McKelvey is that Ricks appears to have softened his harsh judgments of some U.S. commanders in his recent book The Gamble compared to his first Iraq war book Fiasco. In particular, Gen. Ray Odierno. What she doesn’t seem to recognize is that Gen. Odierno changed from the first book to the second. He learned from his mistakes, and Ricks’ reporting captures that.

Tom Ricks has two Pulitzer prizes, a pair of acclaimed books that are required reading for military officers, and his own blog. He certainly doesn’t need me to defend him. And I fully realize many people will see this as “circling the wagons” in defense of a Washington celebrity journalist.

So let me be clear that I am not objecting to a critical review of Ricks’ reporting. I firmly believe there needs to be more accountability in journalism, and no reporter, no matter how celebrated, gets a free ride.

But let’s stick to challenging the accuracy of his facts or the rigor of his arguments, and put to the rest the canard that Ricks is suffering from some infatuation with the generals he’s covering. It’s hardly the case.

[Michael C]

Ken- Totally agree that COIN should reserved for situations where it is absolutely needed. I would also argue that many of the generals who now embrace COIN--GEN Petraues in particular--were some of the fiercest critics of Iraq because they saw how it would end, in COIN.

As for Afghanistan, I think we had to go in there and the resulting insurgency was almost forgone. Realistically, Bush could not have sat in America and only lobbed cruise missiles at Afghanistan. The republicans levelled huge charges again Clinton that he caused 9/11 cause he failed to deal with Afghanistan. So basically our involvement there, and the insurgency that followed, were realities of the domestic agenda.

[William F. Owen]

.....one can see his embrace of the concepts of population-centric COIN. Joining CNAS, and supporting wise generals who see the efficacy of pop-centric COIN is almost predictable.

So what is POP-centric COIN? If it just means regurgitating the mantra of "protect the population," it is utterly meaningless, and profoundly stupid. Yes, there will be times when that needs to be done (Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia etc.) To extrapolate that as a corner stone of so called "COIN," is intellectually lazy and poor guidance.

As far as I can see CNAS are actually part of the problem, and it is extremely debatable as to what actually did cause the reductions in violence in Iraq. The AL An-Bar Awakening is pure Colonial deal making or the oldest school. Nothing to do with the new-COIN crowd at all - though they are keen to take the credit.

[karaka]

From the horse's mouth: (http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Assessment_Redacted_092109.pdf)


New Operational Culture: Population-centric COIN.

ISAF must operate differently. Preoccupied with force protection, ISAF has operated in a manner that distances itself, both physically and psychologically, from the people they seek to protect. The Afghan people have paid the price, and the mission has been put at risk. ISAF, with the ANSF, must shift its approach to bring seccurity and normalcy to the people and shield them from insurgent violence, corruption, and coercion, ultimately enabling GIRoA to gain the trust and confidence of the people while reducing the influence of insurgents. Hard-earned credibility and face to face relationships, rather than close combat, will achieve success. This requires enabling Afghan counterparts to meet the needs of the people at the community level through dynamic partnership, engaged leadership, de-centralized decision making, and a fundamental shift in priorities.

The rest is pages 2-12 to 2-14. Or, everything James Gavrilis writes about in The Mayor of Ar Rutbah. (http://coinenirak.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/foreign-policy-nov-decembre-2005-the-mayor-of-ar-rutbah.pdf)

[Bill Moore]

As far as I can see CNAS are actually part of the problem, and it is extremely debatable as to what actually did cause the reductions in violence in Iraq. The AL An-Bar Awakening is pure Colonial deal making or the oldest school. Nothing to do with the new-COIN crowd at all - though they are keen to take the credit.

WILF, in your view would you be satisfied if they took the word "centric" out of population centric, and just get back to the basics that the population is part of the environment we have to deal with, and what role the population will play will depend on the particular context of that conflict?

The population is normally key terrain, but I agree that the following two mantra's are over used and overly simplistic (perhaps dangerously so):

1. Through, by and with
2. Population Centric

We have done all this before in almost every conflict as required (some commanders did it well such as Abrams, others such as Westmoreland, not so well). IMO it is our warfighting doctrine, especially the new fangled EBO based doctrine, which was initially tied to some supposed mystical capability to see all, know all, be able to influence all that has blinded us to reality instead of enabling the force. We would probably be better off looking at our doctrine that was developed in the 1970's and previously.

Someone wrote a short paper a while back (I think it was MAX161) that we didn't give our doctrine (older doctrine) a chance, so we don't know if it worked our not. I think that is a fair comment.

[William F. Owen]

WILF, in your view would you be satisfied if they took the word "centric" out of population centric, and just get back to the basics that the population is part of the environment we have to deal with, and what role the population will play will depend on the particular context of that conflict?
BILL, yes I would be satisfied if they took out the word "centric" but I would also get rid of the word "population" as well.


Populations have always been part of war.
Modern policies make current demands to limit civilian deaths. That is it! It is no more complex than that.
The ability to FIND to kill of capture him is best enabled by some civilian support. Friendly civilians are generally more likely to provide useful info that hostile. - so military action should not alienate civilians, when and where their support is useful or even required.


None of the above is new. It's all 3,000 years old. I believe in a unitary model of war, and population is merely a context or that modifies the application of force as an instrument of policy. If you think that's useful, give CvC the credit and not CNAS.

[Michael C]

WILF, what Karaka posted and what is in the FM 3-24 Counter-Insurgency roughly equal population-centric COIN. Along with that, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and some articles in Military Review.

You said, "None of the above is new. It's all 3,000 years old." I don't think CNAS, or the individual authors associated with the new theories, have ever disputed this. They strive to change contemporary US Army doctrine, but they repeatedly stress that successful policies are not new, they are old. They hold up successful past COIN as the examples.

The only thing they might dispute is crediting CvC. CvC did a lot of theorizing about inter-state wars, but I tend to side with John Keegan who views his approach as very limited. CvC, it seems to me although I have not studied him as extensively as you, was very confused about irregular warfare and populations and his policies were not for them.

[Ken White]

...they repeatedly stress that successful policies are not new, they are old. They hold up successful past COIN as the examples.Can you give me an example of a successful 'COIN operation' since WW II by the US where a large number of troops were committed to assist another nation?

Or one by any western nation in another nation or area even when that western nation was the de-jure government of the territory involved in which the TTP used would be acceptable today?

[tequila]

Can you give me an example of a successful 'COIN operation' since WW II by the US where a large number of troops were committed to assist another nation?


Does Iraq in 2006-2008 not count? The Sunni insurgency was defeated by the U.S. and its Iraqi government allies.

[Ken White]

Don't think so. Was it defeated or temporarily co-opted? What about the other, non-Sunni minor insurgencies that are also now semi dormant? Then there's the Kurdish problem. What about the dissident Sadrists?

I'll grant you that it apparently comes closer to being a 'successful' operation to date than any other. We have never publicly stated the real goals -- the WMD bit was so much fluff and Saddam was just a good target -- but I believe one of about a dozen goals was long term basing of adequate size and utility in the ME. We have other bases but all have shortfalls of one kind or another; thus far it looks as though that goal may not be achieved. I don't think that's an insurmountable problem but if it was a goal, it wasn't attained. There are some strategic goals that I think were achieved and some seemingly not. Getting the British to return to the Gulf didn't fly. Keeping French, German and Russian commercial interests out or at least subordinate to American commercial interests apparently didn't work. We temporarily stopped the switch of the oil trade into Euros but it now looks as though that could happen...

Thus we cannot truly answer the real question due to unknowns and in the end, to be successful, the benefit to the US has to outweigh the cost. I suspect it will take a decade or two to fully answer that...

My point to MichaelC and all COIN fans is that it is an extremely costly way to do business, is rarely as effective as we'd like and has not really produced any glaring success stories to be held up as examples. And Malaya is a terrible example. Comparing Malaya and Viet Nam as an academic exercise may be fun -- but it avoids reality...

[William F. Owen]

WILF, what Karaka posted and what is in the FM 3-24 Counter-Insurgency roughly equal population-centric COIN. Along with that, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and some articles in Military Review.

OK, but I think FM23-4 is not fit for purpose and I do not think much of "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife."

You said, "None of the above is new. It's all 3,000 years old." I don't think CNAS, or the individual authors associated with the new theories, have ever disputed this. They strive to change contemporary US Army doctrine, but they repeatedly stress that successful policies are not new, they are old. They hold up successful past COIN as the examples.
Sorry, but some very much wish to inject novelty and insight into COIN. That's why they are called "new theories." ...and they are using a whole new language to try and appear original.

The only thing they might dispute is crediting CvC. CvC did a lot of theorizing about inter-state wars, but I tend to side with John Keegan who views his approach as very limited. CvC, it seems to me although I have not studied him as extensively as you, was very confused about irregular warfare and populations and his policies were not for them.
If they do dispute it, it is because they have not read CvC or understood him. Keegan certainly did not and nor did Van Creveld.
CvC wrote about War. Not War just between states. There has never been an armed conflict in the entire span of human history to which the majority (if not all) of his observations did not apply.

He was not confused in any way by regular and irregular warfare. He just saw no point in their differentiation. War is War.

As concerns populations,
"War is a setting forth of policy with an admixture of other means,"
Policy is pretty much relevant to populations is it not? What more would you like to add?

[Michael C]

Tequile answered my first argument by saying Iraq circa 2006-2008. Vietnam would be the example of a US failure, same with Somalia. And you already discounted Malaya so... I don't disagree with you.

Unfortunately, my Army is waging to counter-insurgencies right now. Whether or not I agree with the strategic policy of getting involved in messy political situations or invasions is not the issue, ending the violence is. In that case, I could look at the example of messy violent political situations where the US has done poorly, like most of Vietnam or Algeria or Afghanistan under the Russians or Iraq in the beginning, and see what not to do. Then I can see what enabled Western forces to at least do ok in Malaya, the Philippines, Kosovo, Bosnia and copy them.

I didn't decide to invade either Iraq or Afghanistan. But I do believe a precipitous withdrawal under the wrong circumstances would harm our credibility seriously. The solution in the interim is something called population-centric COIN.

[Michael C]

OK (citing Wilf),
but I think FM23-4 is not fit for purpose and I do not think much of "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife."

Not surprised, but for most of my fellow officers they are the books that they read and say, "OK these are things I can do." I would love to know your recommendations on books or articles that provide actionable tips for currently serving officers.


Sorry, but some very much wish to inject novelty and insight into COIN. That's why they are called "new theories." ...and they are using a whole new language to try and appear original.

Except straight from the horse's mouth FM 3-24: "Insurgency and its tactics are as old as warfare itself." Also, the most commonly cited counter-insurgency experts is David Galula and he published a long time ago.


Keegan certainly did not and nor did Van Creveld.
I do not know enough on this front to dispute you assessment. All I have ever read is introductions or summaries of his work. Based on the fact that all his writings explain every conflict, it wouldn't surprise me if they were just vague enough to be able to be interpreted to every conflict. As I said, I haven't read him though.

Unfortunately, I see Clausewitz more as the father of WWI and the Cold War and less useful for messy political wars. That is just my opinion I haven't read him, I only know who he has influenced.

[William F. Owen]

Not surprised, but for most of my fellow officers they are the books that they read and say, "OK these are things I can do." I would love to know your recommendations on books or articles that provide actionable tips for currently serving officers.
The books and actionable tips should be contained in the Formation and Theatre Commanders guidance and orders. - that's the point! You cannot have highly specific, context critical guidance in books. The Brits wrote manuals for each theatre. - well only Malaya - but after that all the writing was theatre specific.



Except straight from the horse's mouth FM 3-24: "Insurgency and its tactics are as old as warfare itself." Also, the most commonly cited counter-insurgency experts is David Galula and he published a long time ago.
Insurgency and it's tactics are as old as warfare. - so how come the US is now suddenly learning about it? It's the Counter-insurgency ideas that are up for grabs.
Galula, IIRC, dates from 1964.


Unfortunately, I see Clausewitz more as the father of WWI and the Cold War and less useful for messy political wars. That is just my opinion I haven't read him, I only know who he has influenced.
Huh?? How on earth you can come to that conclusion is beyond me. Go and look at the politics of the time Clausewitz was writing or the Politics of the classical ages with which he was familiar. Messy beyond beleif - as ALL politics is.
Clausewitz's writings had nothing do do with the conduct of WW1. You cannot blame Clausewitz for Wars conduct.

Clausewitz would certainly have understood 911 better than most. He is the best possible perspective to explain and interpret modern conflicts. What people don't like is that his observations forces them to recognise certain fundamental problems with their understanding of strategy.

[Ken White]

I could look at the example of messy violent political situations where the US has done poorly, like most of Vietnam...Good catch and caveat on the "most of." The pre 1963 effort was okay as was the post 1970 period -- we just screwed up the interim by an excessive yet inadequate number of troops. Excessive in that there were too many poorly trained people bombing about doing more harm than good. Inadequate because we did not even then possess enough troops to cover the area and population. An even more important factor was the government was not us. I would note the same factors prevail in Afghanistan today...
...Then I can see what enabled Western forces to at least do ok in Malaya, the Philippines, Kosovo, Bosnia and copy them.I suggest that Malaya is a bad example because, once again, we are not the government as the UK was in Malaya. Add to that the fact many techniques employed by the British will not be employed by us for various reasons. The Philippines are time dependent; now, we and they are doing well. Against the Huks, the Philippines did okay. Us in the early 20th century -- we did fairly well but it took us a while to learn and it took a long time, time that may not be available now or in the future. Kosovo and Bosnia are bad examples of anything and everything. Classic how not to do it. The 82d was doing okay in Bosnia initially and then BG Ric Sanchez came in and messed it up. All those SSGs out playing Village Mayor were pulled back in to forts and the edict was issued that no patrol would go out with less than a field grade officer in charge. They did alright as well in Kosovo until they were told to stop being population centric. Some people adapt better than others. So do some units. One of my pet Generals, old Airborne head, once told me that "...Airborne units are a lot of fun but they aren't the Army." True dat. Very true...
I didn't decide to invade either Iraq or Afghanistan. But I do believe a precipitous withdrawal under the wrong circumstances would harm our credibility seriously. The solution in the interim is something called population-centric COIN.I very strongly agree on the former, we cannot withdraw too soon. On the latter, I agree with your ideal, I really do but I also know the reality -- the US Army is not going to do that because it cannot due to training inadequacies, temperament and the fact that it is a foreign body in the eyes of Afghans. Even if it could and would do it, the Army does not have adequate numbers for that process to work in a nation like Afghanistan. Nor does it or can it ever have adequate local knowledge.

Population centric COIN is a great theory -- anyone who tries can make the precepts work at a local level but to make it an effective process for a nation you must have adequate strength, local knowledge and both unity and continuity of purpose. With the US Army if Afghanistan or most other places (and especially with a coalition...) you will almost certainly never have any of those and yet you must have all to prevail in the population centric COIN mode. :(

[Ken White]

Also, the most commonly cited counter-insurgency experts is David Galula and he published a long time ago.Sniff. A long time ago. A LONG time ago. Hmmmph. I bought his book, first edition, in 1964 at the Smoke Bomb Hill bookstore as a 30-something Platoon Sergeant.

Long time ago indeed... :mad:

(Ken exits left to procure another refill mumbling something about "...young whippersnappers." :D: )

P.S.

On a serious note:

Most of what Galula wrote, as is true of Clausewitz and others, is poorly understood and very poorly applied. With good reason; times change and no two wars are alike. Galula in particular applies French practice and logic primarily to North Africans and to a lesser extent to Viet Namese. Those ideas are not universally applicable. Study them all but do so critically, try not to agree with them but to pick holes in their arguments. No one has all the answers...

[slapout9]

Sniff. A long time ago. A LONG time ago. Hmmmph. I bought his book, first edition, in 1964 at the Smoke Bomb Hill bookstore as a 30-something Platoon Sergeant.

Long time ago indeed... :mad:



I know that bookstore.....it was still there when I was there in the early 70's. Didn't buy Galula but did get some other stuff:). Also didn;t Galula Loose his wars......twice as a matter of fact???:eek: just asking....:eek:


Didn;t CvC die before he finished the book???? didn't his wife write a letter warning about the manuscript being nothing but "A Great Mass"?? just asking?

[Ken White]

But look at the bright side, Boyd didn't write a book... :cool:

Some say Sun Tzu's butler or son or somebody actually wrote his... :D

[Michael C]

Sniff. A long time ago. A LONG time ago. Hmmmph. I bought his book, first edition, in 1964 at the Smoke Bomb Hill bookstore as a 30-something Platoon Sergeant.

Long time ago indeed... :mad:

(Ken exits left to procure another refill mumbling something about "...young whippersnappers." :D: )

P.S.

On a serious note:

Most of what Galula wrote, as is true of Clausewitz and others, is poorly understood and very poorly applied. With good reason; times change and no two wars are alike. Galula in particular applies French practice and logic primarily to North Africans and to a lesser extent to Viet Namese. Those ideas are not universally applicable. Study them all but do so critically, try not to agree with them but to pick holes in their arguments. No one has all the answers...

All I can say is I apologize for making you feel old. :(

[Ken White]

However, truth be told, you didn't have much to do with making me feel old. :cool:

That started long, long ago when I was a Bn CSM (who did not worry about uniforms, haircuts or police call). I was counseling a SSG * who was born the day I landed in Korea. Been downhill ever since... :wry:

(His 'crime' was a noticeable AWOL rate; found out he was not letting people go on leave "because there was a CALFEX or a DRF layout or some other foolishness coming up." There's always something coming up -- no reason to refuse people leave)

[jmm99]

The French military in effect won in Algeria because the guerrilla forces were on the ropes. Some of the French generals felt they were stabbed in the back because of the political settlement. So, then, the generals' revolt, etc.

The reasons for the political settlement were (1) the Algerian rebels were not an existential threat to France itself, although they were a deadly nuisance; (2) continuance of the war was hurting France both diplomatically and economically; and (3) Algeria was not a prime factor in DeGaulle's plans for France's future. So, France "de-colonialized" Algeria, even though it was legally part of France proper.

The Galula monograph at Rand (free in the pdf download), Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958 (http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG478-1/), is quite good because he gets down to the nuts and bolts of what he did as a company commander - and what worked and what didn't.

Putting the insurgent in the baker's oven (it worked) would not be within UCMJ bounds today. :D

Best

Mike

PS: And tis said that Caesar's scribe and ____ (we won't go there), wrote his Commentraries. Just some gossip to go with Ken's.

[Michael C]

That started long, long ago when I was a Bn CSM (who did not worry about uniforms, haircuts or police call). I was counseling a SSG * who was born the day I landed in Korea. Been downhill ever since... :wry:


I believe you put another post about heresy regarding PT at all hours of hte day. Not worrying about uniforms and haircuts, that is heresy! (A heresy and commonsense I wish we could all have.)

[Polarbear1605]

Putting the insurgent in the baker's oven (it worked) would not be within UCMJ bounds today. :D

Actually, I like the oven idea because it was a ruse. I also understand what the Field Manual says about detainees. So the questions then becomes; How does the Company Commander get the infomation he needs when fighting a counter insurgence? I really think we need a separate SOP for handling "detainees" in an insurgence. ruse = a wily subterfuge; sounds much better than "stick him in the oven" and should be authorized.

Pacification in Algeria should be manditory reading for Lts, Capts and especially, Generals

[William F. Owen]

Didn;t CvC die before he finished the book???? didn't his wife write a letter warning about the manuscript being nothing but "A Great Mass"?? just asking?

Very true and there is also the issue of the "revisions" he never carried out and the re-writes he never did - so as a work it is far from perfect. It is also strange in the more than the 150 years since his death, no one else has done better.

[slapout9]

Very true and there is also the issue of the "revisions" he never carried out and the re-writes he never did - so as a work it is far from perfect.

Wilf, this appears to be your mission in Life.....to finish it.....so where is the book or CD?

[William F. Owen]

Wilf, this appears to be your mission in Life.....to finish it.....so where is the book or CD?

No it's not. We have all the essential work and many good Scholars have made it very accessible - Smith, Gray, Echevarria. I merely want folks to read it.

More over, to sound like a stuck record, CvC should not be read in isolation or just taken at face value. His value is as part of a broad education - and not a "How to win wars" cookbook, which is how people try and use him.

My mission, if I had one... is to get soldiers and politicians to take Military Thought seriously. War is a serious subject and it requires study.

[slapout9]

My mission, if I had one... is to get soldiers and politicians to take Military Thought seriously. War is a serious subject and it requires study.
And could be helped along by some books and CD's:wry:

[Michael C]

It seems to me, and this is just my generalized thoughts on interactions with fellow officers, that the people who study war the most and take theory and strategy the most seriously are the most strident proponents of population-centric COIN. Take McChrystal and Petraues, they are frequently regarded for how intelligent they both are and their impressive amount of reading. Look at Kilcullen and Nagl, they are some of the smartest and deeply read in the field of contemporary historians.

[Steve the Planner]

I usually find Tom Ricks to be as mu8ch a provocateur as a journalist, but to the extent there is concern about him being a lackey of the military, his latest for Daily Beast is directly contrary.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-19/the-generals-arent-necessarily-right/?cid=hp:mainpromo2

In that article, he explains how FDR faced off against all the big boys on going to North Africa in 1943, instead of jumping ashore at Normandy.

The generals thought his goal in North Africa was just domestic grandstanding, but it accomplished a lot, including proving that the US military was not yet ready to take on Normandy in 1943, and needed an extra year of seasoning. His point, from that example, is that the generals are not always right.


The irony of all this is that we now know the generals were wrong in opposing Operation Torch—not just strategically but militarily. Roosevelt was right on both counts. It was important to Stalin that we get into the war, and doing so directly aided the Russians, by pulling German aircraft from the Eastern Front to the taxing task of supplying the Africa Corps across the Mediterranean by air. We also know now that the U.S. military was hardly prepared to fight a seasoned enemy on the ground in Europe and that it needed to take several small steps, such as amphibious landings in Africa, in order to learn how to get across the beach in Normandy much later. The defeat of the U.S. Army by the Germans at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia (remember the early scenes of the movie Patton?) provided a needed shock to the Army. Training was tightened up, and lackluster generals like Lloyd Fredendall were replaced by aggressive officers like Patton. Even then, the invasion of Sicily the following summer provided another needed shakedown, and gave American soldiers more valuable seasoning.

[Tom Odom]

Ricks and history is at best a lose connection. His analysis essentially boils it down to an FDR versus the US generals when that was hardly the case. The British wanted the US on the ground in the Mediterranean and would so argue successfully for the Italian Campaign with of course Anzio as a poster child event.

Simple statements like FDR was right and the generals were wrong make nice blog copy and poor history.

Tom

[William F. Owen]

Simple statements like FDR was right and the generals were wrong make nice blog copy and poor history.

Concur - thanks Tom, seeing this I can ditch my 300 + word rebuttal of that simplistic and highly inaccurate statement :)

[tequila]

I remember Eliot Cohen making a similar argument in 2002, just in time to dismiss "whinging" generals in the face of the invasion of Iraq. I didn't read the entirety of this, but his argument that Churchill was, in fact, a master military strategist made me laugh out loud several times (yes, please disregard the failed Norway intervention, the diversion of troops from North Africa to successive disaster in Greece and Crete, the decision to defend Singapore, etc) .

[Steve the Planner]

Tom's comment hits it:


Simple statements like FDR was right and the generals were wrong make nice blog copy and poor history.

As does Tequila's description of Churchill.

Tom Ricks: Part provocateur, and part journalist. Certainly, he would rather be at the center of a maelstrom than to quibble about the details, and, at least in my opinion, anybody willing to publicly drive a debate about highly-debatable issues is OK. Then comes the debate...

Steve

[Michael C]

But we can use the words, Ricks and History to describe his two books certainly? I mean, maybe his analogy in one daily beast article was poor, but that doesn't discount the entirety of his work does it?

[Tom Odom]

But we can use the words, Ricks and History to describe his two books certainly? I mean, maybe his analogy in one daily beast article was poor, but that doesn't discount the entirety of his work does it?

I would describe it more as historical journalism (a parallel to historical fiction) rather than military history. I say that because he seems to have a theme and then the history is melded to it rather than the reverse. He comes close but does not get to the center of the reality he describes.

As an indicator I would point to his comments that he was surprised that troops would say that Afghanistan was a harder fight physically than Iraq. He commented that he thought Kabul was much more comfortable than Baghdad. That is true from what I know of Afghanistan and what I have experienced here. But I also know that humping a combat load up a mountain in high altitudes can be a soul destroyer, even when no one is trying to kill you.

Tom