What Are You Currently Reading? 2012

[Bob's World]

"A Different Kind of War - The United States Army in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM October 2001 - September 2005". Dr. Donald P Wright, May 2010. Link:http://www.amazon.com/Different-Kind...2087775&sr=1-1

If you want a peek into the details, from the Army perspective, of how we got where we are today, the actions taken, the thinking and intentions, the early signs that we were on the wrong track, etc, this is a fascinating read and a great resource.

Not sure where they are available, I was fortunate to pick up a copy while at Leavenworth last week.

The sections on Pages 268-9 on "Measuring Progress" and "Enabling Good Governance: The Constitutional Loya Jirga" discussing the era (where I believe we made a hard right turn in the wrong direction on a road paved with good intentions) of late 2003 and early 2004 are telling.

The Bush Administration saw the accelerated development of Afghan security forces in January 2004 as the key to transition, funding the $2.2B "Accelerating Success in Afghanistan;" the key to "begin decreasing the number of US troops in Afghanistan as soon as possible."

Meanwhile no one seemed to question why Karzai had a Constitutional Commission prepare a constitution in ADVANCE of the Dec '03 Loya Jirga:

Tensions flared over the strength of the presidency in the new system to be established by the constitution. But the disconnect was ultimately ratified by consensus (my translation, by the Northern Alliance majority seeking to secure their monopoly on governance) rather than by individual ballot.

Then, following a summary of the successes of building greater ANA security forces, the Constitutional Loya Jirga, and:

the creation of a new strategic-level headquarters in Afghanistan that introduced a new approach. CFC-A's counterinsurgency campaign focused on winning the support of the Afghan people to ensure that much of the progress made since 2001 was not undone by a growing enemy threat"

(emphasis added).

Despite these successes, Taliban and al-Qaeda forces continued to oppose the Coalition and the ATA as the spring of 2004 ended. As the summer began, the number of attacks continued to rise..

You can't make this stuff up. We had just put legal authority to illegitimate, Karzai-led, Northern Alliance based ATA, and were ramping up our efforts to create a centralized security force to secure this centralized system of governance; all with unprecedented powers vested in the new President. Successes. Yet the insurgency grew in response. We were deluding ourselves then, and we continue to delude ourselves today and refuse to make the cause and effect connections between our actions and their results as we are so blinded by our own good intentions.

This is a good resource, and appears to be candid, detailed and accurate. Also filled with dozens of naive incongruities such as the ones laid out on these critical two pages.

[carl]

"A Different Kind of War - The United States Army in Operation ENDURING FREEDOM October 2001 - September 2005". Dr. Donald P Wright, May 2010. Link:http://www.amazon.com/Different-Kind...2087775&sr=1-1

Here it is for free in PDF form, courtesy of the USA.

usacac.army.mil/CAC2/CSI/docs/DifferentKindofWar.pdf

Just cut and paste.

[pvebber]

REgarding Human face of war - I picked up the kindle edition for 15$.

Great suggestion - I really enjoyed it. Found myself really thinking about why some of the criticisms of assumptions raised "Struck home" with me (i.e. I was guilty of). Got me questioning other assumptions I work with.

[EPA]

Currently reading Leading Up and All In about Gen Petraeus. A little disappointed with All In. Not so much with the book itself by more with the flow and structure the author is using. There's not much of a natural structure and makes for a disjointed read.

Pete

[Mike in Hilo]

David Elliott, The Vietnamese War. Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1975. Concise Edition. I had previously read excerpts, but finally bought the book, albeit in abridged form.

This is a must read for serious students of the Vietnam War. Elliott's main sources are the widely cited and compelling Rand interviews of communist defectors and POWs, captured documents, and some minor additions from the less credible official Province History. the result is the insiders' chronicle of the evolution of the revolutionary movement in one Deltaic province, Dinh Tuong.

The insights are noteworthy: The near destruction of Revolutionary combat forces and cadre by 1969-'70 is attributed to the massive acceleration of kinetic activity that resulted not only in devastating attrition, but the literal, physical depopulation of the rural base of the revolution as peasants fled for their lives to escape allied (mainly US) bombing and shelling, and headed for the safer GVN held areas. COIN in the sense of "draining the swamp," but little else of the substance of, say, FM 3-24. The same massive dislocations of the war, such as the changes in settlement patterns/radical urbanization, also rendered obsolete the old feudal relationships that purportedly provided the grievances on which the Revolution had originally fed, destroying the landlord class as such and taking the old grievance of land tenure essentially off the table; and creating opportunities that led to the formation of a new, peasant bourgeoisie plurality. In the final offensive, Elliott notes, the transit of Revolutionary forces was made more difficult by a populace no longer disposed to be helpful. But Elliott touches upon another, more prosaic explanation for this shift in loyalty. Universal GVN male conscription (not authorized until the aftermath of the Tet offensive), at a time when decimation of the communist units had removed the alternative, resulted in the overnight conversion of the bulk of rural families into ARVN and RF/PF dependents.

The Revolutionary base areas were never eradicated, though, and were ultimately re-infiltrated by NVA personnel for both main and local forces. But a real eyeopener was the incredible--even allowing for some exaggeration-- rebound in cadre strength, the (presumably local) Party members operating in Dinh Tuong to 7000 at war's end in 1975. And these had been drawn from a shrunken base. The Party compensated for erosion in popular support by limiting recruitment largely to the poorest peasant class, because these were less likely to forsake, under pressure or blandishment, the status and power that Party membership bestowed. A commitment less widespread, yet deeper, as Elliott put it.

A caveat: As the Rand interviewees' commitment had been sufficiently firm to merit Party membership, narratives may demonstrate a degree of self-justificatory adherence to the Party line. Example: North-South ethnic friction, a potential challenge to Party dogma on Southern impetus for reunification, is touched upon but dismissed as insignificant. Yet traditional, Southern disdain toward Northerners was a very real issue within the general population, likely contributing to the distaste with which Southerners viewed the Diem regime (and subsequent neo-Diemist governments) and its representatives; and no doubt feeding the backlash against NVA as well. (Elliott is not alone in sidestepping the ethnic issue. Since installing Diem, the US had found it impossible to appeal, without ridicule, to Southern ethnicity as a rallying point against Northern aggression, in the face of disproportionate representation of Northerners in the GVN civil service and officer corps.)

The book invites comparison with other highly laudable single province studies, Race's War Comes to Long An and Bergerud's Dynamics of Defeat. Neither provides comparable analysis of the dissolution of the old social order and consequent removal of the old grievances and shifting of loyalties. In this respect, Elliott's work is the more lucid in its conclusions.

[jmm99]

I must have gone to the same book sale.

I was more than satisfied with Elliott, The Vietnamese War. Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta 1930-1975 Concise Edition (your link was underlined but not alive); and appreciated your review of the book confirming my impressions. I wasn't there; you were - and I appreciate that as well.

If possible, you and Cavguy should get together - since he's in Hawaii now - and see if you and he could put together an article on counter-revolutionary warfare comparing Vietnam and Iraq-Astan.

Regards

Mike

[Mike in Hilo]

I appreciate the comment, Mike, and your suggestion. I ought to point out, though, that to us on the Big Island, Oahu is a world away....

Cheers,
Mike.