General Petraeus: collection

[wm]

Fred Talpiot, we tend not to like "drive by postings" here. You might do well to introduce yourself. Here

Or put another way, thank god the war news day has become quiet enough that these issues are hot topics of discussion. Something must be going well.

Hack, it can't going so well for the media if they need to add this stuff to get enough column inches to satisfy their advdertisers.

and never forget when stacking angels on pin heads, put the small ones on last...

I didn't know they taught casuistry at A & M.

[Ken White]

I didn't know they taught casuistry at A & M.

that's what it was called so they labeled it 'American Political Speech 101'...

[Eden]

Yep, September. Time to beat the dead horse again.

If the Armed Forces can be equally prepared for both COIN and conventional ("it's easy...the clouds are fluffy...the British Army handled it just fine...I believe we can) why did SEC Gates in the latest NDS specifically say we'll have to accept risk by concentrating on the wars we are currently fighting? Why is field artillery broken? Why have we virtually stopped training for conventional warfighting above the company/battalion level?

Look, being prepared for war at any level goes well beyond training in the field or on the ranges. It includes buying the right type of equipment, training staffs, building force structure, allocating time in institutional courses, writing doctrine, allowing senior leaders the chance to move around units larger than battalions, building the right type of logistical pipelines. To say that we can have companies or maneuver battalions trained for both coin and con misses the point. To say that all we need is enough time or money ignores the fact that we have neither.

People say we can be prepared for both. I look around and see that we have apparently stopped preparing for conventional warfighting. I would love to have somebody point out to me how we are keeping our powder dry should a conflict arise with larger stakes than those bet on Iraq or Afghanistan.

I remember in the first Gulf War how the British Army absolutely gutted itself to field a single armored division. Just as one example, whole regiments of operational tanks in Germany had to be cannibalized to provide spares for the Gulf. I'm afraid we are heading toward a similar crunch.

Choosing between COIN and Con is not a false dichotomy. It's moot to say that armed forces can be prepared equally for both; armed forces won't, not in the real world of constrained resources.

[William F. Owen]

If the Armed Forces can be equally prepared for both COIN and conventional ("it's easy...the clouds are fluffy...the British Army handled it just fine...I believe we can) why did SEC Gates in the latest NDS specifically say we'll have to accept risk by concentrating on the wars we are currently fighting? Why is field artillery broken? Why have we virtually stopped training for conventional warfighting above the company/battalion level?

I don't think anyone said it was easy. It's perfectly doable, and you may have to do both. It's not a choice. As to all the problems, these are the result of choices.

To say that we can have companies or maneuver battalions trained for both coin and con misses the point. To say that all we need is enough time or money ignores the fact that we have neither.

Then you have to choose, and the choice must be explicitly recognised as that cause by limited resources and not the US fighting man as being too stupid to achieve the require level of competency.

I remember in the first Gulf War how the British Army absolutely gutted itself to field a single armored division. Just as one example, whole regiments of operational tanks in Germany had to be cannibalized to provide spares for the Gulf. I'm afraid we are heading toward a similar crunch.

A problem that was caused solely by deploying a 1 BR Corps Division, outside the 1 BR Corps area, into a desert. Do something you have never planned for or resourced and problems are sure to occur.

Choosing between COIN and Con is not a false dichotomy. It's moot to say that armed forces can be prepared equally for both; armed forces won't, not in the real world of constrained resources.

I agree. It's not a false dichotomy. It just means you CON army is badly suited to the more prevalent form of conflict and your COIN Army might not/cannot fulfil its actual reason for being. Until I joined this forum it never occurred to me that it was even an issue.

[Hacksaw]

Eden,

You are mixing up the arguement. While in the midst of a war, you prepare for that war and that has nothing to do with the article or this thread...

This thread is about beyond OIF & OEF, and determining the aim point so that it drives DOTMLPF/resource allocation...

The position of those of us who don't think the sky is falling, is the following...

We can have an Army fully competent in conventional/high end , without throwing out the COIN baby with the bath water. This is especially true if you reward/promote those of such traits that have some flexibility of thought (did I hear anyone say well rounded warrior).

Really what is it about what has worked in Iraq that is in direct opposition to successful conventional warfighting, really name the task and tell me how an adjustment of conditions or standards wouldn't update it. Not to mention, exactly which fight can you envision that we win and won't need to transition to stability or other "unconventional" operations.

Now if you want to have a debate no the proper balance/weighting of unit training and DOTMLPF is appropriate given our best guess about the future... OK that is a discussion worthy of the brain cells we'd expend.

However, if a person advocates that the catastrophic threat of a conventional defeat mandates that we return to the good ole days of the mid 80s to early 2000s, then they fail to recognize that Irregular War is the most regular of all other types of irregular activity (unless we include bowel activity).

Speaking of which I must end NOW!

[Argos]

Here is my main criticism of Bacevich's piece:

Classifying the two sides of the debate as Crusaders vs. Conservatives seems remarkably unfair.

In Bacevich's description the "Crusaders" become COIN ideologues instead of what they should be viewed as: COIN innovators. I don't mean innovators in the sense that they have re-invented the wheel here (how groundbreaking the operations and tactics behind the "Surge" strategy are is the subject of another conversation).

Petraeus, Nagl, McMaster, and those like them haven't fought for COIN because its always the right answer- they have argued that a COIN strategy is best for THIS war. None of them strike me as so committed as seeing COIN as the panacea to future conflicts. Moreover, these innovators are as aware as anyone of just how hard and resource intensive COIN can be. To successfully implement a COIN strategy in every future conflict would be expensive, counterproductive, and maybe even dangerous.

Nagl, for example, has recently been pushing to increase US training capacity (more of a FID capability). The COIN innovators dont qualify as COIN ideologues: they are asymmetrically focused, perhaps, but not blinded by a crusade for COIN. To suggest otherwise, as I read Bacevich doing, seems to miss the point: strategic flexibility is the only cure to a rigid adherence to prior assumptions- this will be even more true in the future.

[jkm_101_fso]

Bacevich is a guy that I have incredible respect for. He, more than anyone, has reason to study and understand this era of conflict; not only because of his profession, but also his personal loss. I reference him a lot in my grad school work and was relatively impressed with this article. He left me a little wanting for solutions, but maybe that was his point.

The military remains a hierarchical organization in which orders come from the top down. Yet as the officer corps grapples with its experience in Iraq, fresh ideas are coming from the bottom up. In today’s Army, the most-creative thinkers are not generals but mid-career officers—lieutenant colonels and colonels.

...and CPTs and LTs

Nonetheless, the Great Debate is unfolding in plain view in publications outside the Pentagon’s purview, among them print magazines such as Armed Forces Journal, the Web-based Small Wars Journal, and the counterinsurgency blog Abu Muqawama.

Hey, all right!

First, why, after its promising start, did Operation Iraqi Freedom go so badly wrong?

Where do we start?

The protagonists fall into two camps: Crusaders and Conservatives.

He called us Crusaders. I can live with that.

Typical of this generation is Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, once the top U.S. commander in Baghdad, who in late 2003 was still describing the brewing insurgency as “strategically and operationally insignificant,” when the lowliest buck sergeant knew otherwise.

Amen

After serving in Iraq as a battalion operations officer, Nagl helped rewrite the Army’s counterinsurgency manual and commanded the unit that prepares U.S. soldiers to train Iraqi security forces. (Earlier this year, he left the Army to accept a position with a Washington think tank.)

The think tank is CNAS, who offer a "Bacevich Fellowship", established in memory of the author's son.

It also implies changing the culture of the officer corps. An Army that since Vietnam has self-consciously cultivated a battle-oriented warrior ethos will instead emphasize, in Nagl’s words, “the intellectual tools necessary to foster host-nation political and economic development.”

Not to insinuate that the Army doesn't need Warriors...just ones that are independent thinkers and decision makers, requiring a whole host of abilities. We aren't there yet, but we are getting better.

According to the emerging Petrae*us Doctrine, the Army (like it or not) is entering an era in which armed conflict will be protracted, ambiguous, and continuous—with the application of force becoming a lesser part of the soldier’s repertoire.

Leading to the discussion of the criticality (or not) of diminishing "combat skills" for many in the Army. Particularly guys like me, who have all but forgotten the basics of our jobs; like how to compute manual Artillery safety. Partly my fault, but an epidemic, nonetheless.

All of this forms a backdrop to Gentile’s core concern: that an infatuation with stability operations will lead the Army to reinvent itself as “a constabulary,” adept perhaps at nation-building but shorn of adequate capacity for conventional war-fighting.

I don't know if "constabulary" is the right word. Maybe semantics, but how do we define the role of "constabulary" in COIN. When I think of Constabulary Force, I can only think of post WWII Germany. Iraq and AFG are totally different; kinetic fights exist, we have an actual enemy there, etc. The only similarity would be population control/basic policing, right?

The concern is not idle. A recent article in Army magazine notes that the Army’s National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, long “renowned for its force-on-force conventional warfare maneuver training,” has now “switched gears,” focusing exclusively on counter*insurgency warfare. Rather than practicing how to attack the hill, its trainees now learn about “spending money instead of blood, and negotiating the cultural labyrinth through rapport and rapprochement.”

But this is the fight right now. If NTC maintained a Force on Force only approach, the Army would be remiss in not training its' units for their missions. It would only make sense this is going on.

The officer corps itself recognizes that conventional-warfare capabilities are already eroding. In a widely circulated white paper, three former brigade commanders declare that the Army’s field-artillery branch—which plays a limited role in stability operations, but is crucial when there is serious fighting to be done—may soon be all but incapable of providing accurate and timely fire support. Field artillery, the authors write, has become a “dead branch walking.”

Note what I said previously. The FA is pursuing other routes to "stay relevant", but it's not easy. I see we've picked up the "EWO" mission for our warrants. Innovations like Excalibur will help us in our fight to stay relevant, as well. I'm an opposer of any advocate of the FA picking up the FID or MTT mission solely. I don't think that would ever happen. Although right now, I'd argue the Army is leaning on the FA pretty heavily to fill Transition Teams. In regards to the COIN fight, I don't think we are as "dead" as other branches, namely the ADA and CHEM Corps. I would argue the point "FA plays a limited role"...maybe from the Schoolhouse view, but FA Soldiers are totally engaged, doing a plethora of jobs, some they are trained for, some not.

Observers differ on whether the Long War’s underlying purpose is democratic transformation or imperial domination: Did the Bush administration invade Iraq to liberate that country or to control it?

Can't we do both?

When Gentile charges Nagl with believing that there are “no limits to what American military power … can accomplish,” his real gripe is with the likes of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

So is mine. It's a fine line. Remember that this is an all volunteer force. If a jingoistic FP becomes the standard, we might not have as many volunteers.

The effect of Nagl’s military reforms, Gentile believes, will be to reduce or preclude that possibility, allowing questions of the second order (How should we organize our Army?) to crowd out those of the first (What should be our Army’s purpose?).

I think there are not only viable solutions to this quandary, but literal comprimises that we can make. What about organizing conventional "war-fighting" divisions or brigades and organize others as COIN units? Why wouldn't this be a legitimate option? Of course, if we are in a long and protracted COIN war, the "conventional" units won't have to deploy, in theory. In a conventional fight, do the COIN units stay home? That is the first red flag I can think of.

Kudos to Bacevich for keeping this flame burning bright for all of us to debate.

[jmm99]

BBC
Page last updated at 13:11 GMT, Thursday, 11 September 2008 14:11 UK
No victory in Iraq, says Petraeus
The outgoing commander of US troops in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, has said that he will never declare victory there.....
.....
He said he did not know that he would ever use the word "victory": "This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade... it's not war with a simple slogan."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7610405.stm

At same link, a one minute video clip.

[mmx1]

I think the article makes a lot more sense when paralleled with the cover article of the same issue:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810/mccain
which attempts to continue the Vietnam/Iraq analogy into parallels between McCain and his father, who remained optimistic about Abrams' improvements in Vietnam up until Saigon fell, with the implication that "your father was grossly wrong about South Vietnam, isn't the same true about Iraq?"

[William F. Owen]

I think the article makes a lot more sense when paralleled with the cover article of the same issue:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810/mccain
which attempts to continue the Vietnam/Iraq analogy into parallels between McCain and his father, who remained optimistic about Abrams' improvements in Vietnam up until Saigon fell, with the implication that "your father was grossly wrong about South Vietnam, isn't the same true about Iraq?"

The only similarity I can see between the "SE Asian conflicts" people short-hand as "Vietnam" and Iraq is that both involved Americans. Am I missing something? Drawing parallels between the two is not something that any serious student of military history or science should be doing.

...and if they are, is it true and is it useful?

[mmx1]

The only similarity I can see between the "SE Asian conflicts" people short-hand as "Vietnam" and Iraq is that both involved Americans. Am I missing something? Drawing parallels between the two is not something that any serious student of military history or science should be doing.

...and if they are, is it true and is it useful?

Well, it's useful for any number of political reasons, though from the standpoint of the murky American relationship with limited war there are certainly more parallels to be drawn than about the conflicts themselves.

It just struck me reading Goldberg's article that hmm.... I heard this argument before....about 20 pages ago made by Bacevich concerning the tie between "Crusaders" and Vietnam revisionists. I did not mean to say it would make any more sense of his arguments, just place them in the context that I believe he and the editors of the Atlantic intended them to be read.

[yamiyugikun]

Hi,

While I was doing another paper for school out of curiosity, I found this podcast online of a lecture that Gen. Petraeus gave yesterday at Harvard. It's very amazing and I highly recommend checking it out, since I saw a blog here posted on Petraeus and leadership. Please let me know what you think

http://www.vamortgagecenter.com/blog...ch-at-harvard/


Naomi

[yamiyugikun]

Hi everyone,

Here is the link to another lecture that Gen. Petraeus gave a few days ago at KSU. Here it is:

http://ome.ksu.edu/lectures/landon/bio/petraeus.html

Naomi

[IntelTrooper]

This might have been shown earlier, but at the current time (2200 PST) General Petraeus is giving a presentation at the World Affairs Council on CSPAN.

None of his presentation would surprise anyone here, but it's always interesting to watch a master of his trade talk about his topic of passion. He's also incredibly humble and presents the truth, warts and all. I often wonder how he made it so far in the Army.

[Greyhawk]

You reminded me of an old story...

E9 to E5: Don't ask why - just do it!

E5 to E9: C'mon - you didn't make E9 by never asking "why"...

E9 to E5: No - but that's damn sure how I made E6.

But yeah, honest leadership is always appreciated.

[yamiyugikun]

I just watched the entire lecture at the World Affairs site from a link to the full length video on youtube. Here it is: http://wacsf.vportal.net/?fileid=5876

I was very amazed by the presentation, but I'm a civilian and find military things foreign and fascinating.

[Eden]

Is it just me, or has General Petraeus completely dropped off the radar scope? The military 'faces' of Afghanistan seem to have become Mullen and McChrystal. Why has Petraeus turned invisible in the debate over troop levels, strategy, and tactics all of a sudden? Any insights from the group?

[MikeF]

Is it just me, or has General Petraeus completely dropped off the radar scope? The military 'faces' of Afghanistan seem to have become Mullen and McChrystal. Why has Petraeus turned invisible in the debate over troop levels, strategy, and tactics all of a sudden? Any insights from the group?

He's probably busy working behind the scenes right now trying to balance the political and military efforts. Once his thinik tank group finishes their work (similar to what many are doing here on SWC), I'm sure he'll go public to start framing and selling the way ahead.

One question that I was considering. Since AFRICOM has stood up, I wonder how well the horizontal communication is between the the two commands, state, and the NSC regarding AQ? I imagine that coordination would be a full time job just coordinating.

v/r

Mike

[Ken White]

to fix CentCom?

[Hacksaw]

Ever heard of Humpty Dumpty

Not enough king's horses and men for that job