What really happened during the surge year 2007?

[JMA]

We will never know the "truth" of these things, but we would be better served as we move forward if we were willing to consider a range of possible reasons things played the way they did. This will give us greater flexibility in efforts to sustain stability, and also help avoid us painting to small of a doctrinal box that future efforts will be shaped by.

Not sure I agree.

If you don't why things happened you will not know what worked.

What sort of doctrine would it be if it was said... "we did this in Iraq but we don't know if it worked but nevertheless you should consider it as an option in future interventions".

[davidbfpo]

Emma Sky's interview via SWJ has this short comment on the surge:

The change in the approach of the US military during the Surge helped persuade Iraqis to shift their strategic calculus - and reinforced these positive developments. The Surge was a key factor – but it was not the only factor that brought down the violence in Iraq. It is important to recognize the impact of US military tactics, but to put this within a strategic perspective.

Link:http://www.global-politics.co.uk/blo...aq_emmasky_rt/

Captured here as her perspective as a political adviser in OEF is important.

[Jedburgh]

International Security, Summer 2012: Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?

Why did violence decline in Iraq in 2007? Many policymakers and scholars credit the “surge,” or the program of U.S. reinforcements and doctrinal changes that began in January 2007. Others cite the voluntary insurgent standdowns of the Sunni Awakening or say that the violence had simply run its course with the end of a wave of sectarian cleansing; still others credit an interaction between the surge and the Awakening. The difference matters for policy and scholarship, yet this debate has not moved from hypothesis to test. An assessment of the competing claims based on recently declassified data on violence at local levels and information gathered from seventy structured interviews with coalition participants finds little support for the cleansing or Awakening theses. Instead, a synergistic interaction between the surge and the Awakening was required for violence to drop as quickly and widely as it did: both were necessary; neither was sufficient. U.S. policy thus played an important role in reducing the violence in Iraq in 2007, but Iraq provides no evidence that similar methods will produce similar results elsewhere without local equivalents of the Sunni Awakening.

[carl]

The study Jed linked to is very well done and very persuasive.