The McCrystal collection (catch all)

[SWJ Blog]

Listen, learn, lead: Gen. Stanley McChrystal on TED

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[SWJ Blog]

Gen McChrystal Shares Insights about Campaigns

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[davidbfpo]

The thread's title is a slight variation on General McChrystal's book title 'My Share of the Task: A Memoir'.

Earlier this week Dave D. added a post on SWJ Blog, referring to a book review by Gary Hart, a former US Senator, which had appeared in The National Interest:http://nationalinterest.org/bookrevi...l-way-war-8149

Dave cited the review in part:

Unlike Tolstoy's families, uninteresting books are uninteresting in their own way; interesting books all operate on several levels. Retired U.S. Army general Stanley McChrystal’s My Share of the Task operates on three levels: first, the level of military memoir; second, as a detailed, even intimate, inside perspective on the concurrent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; and third, and perhaps most important historically, as an account of the U.S. military’s transition from traditional wars between nation-states to the unconventional and irregular insurgency warfare of the early twenty-first century...

It would be a great surprise if this book does not become required reading at U.S. (and perhaps other) military academies and even more so in the network of command and staff colleges for rising officers. There is much to be learned here about strategy, tactics and doctrine, as well as the necessity for their adaptability in often rapidly changing circumstances. This is especially true as our military has been transitioning into an era marked by increased integration of services and commands and the rise of special operations...

I enjoyed Gary Hart's review and now cite McChrystal's own words on Afghanistan:

I had a nagging feeling that a whole world of Afghan power politics . . . was churning outside our view. I felt like we were high-school students who had wandered into a mafia-owned bar, dangerously unaware of the tensions that filled the room and the authorities who controlled it.

(Later). I’d watched as a focus on the enemy in Afghanistan had made little dent in the insurgency’s strength over the past eight years and, conversely, had served to antagonize Afghans. Not only was Afghans’ allegiance critical, but I did not think we would defeat the Taliban solely by depleting their ranks. We would win by making them irrelevant by limiting their ability to influence the lives of Afghans, positively or negatively. We needed to choke off their access . . . to the population.

IIRC SWC has been rather critical of him in the past, judging from the title of the threads: An Open Letter to McChrystal (started July 2010), McChrystal did it on purpose (started July 2010), vietnam mccrystal (RFI for his 1987 thesis), Obama Angry at McCrystal Speech (July 2009) and McKiernan replaced (by McChrystal in May 2009)

I have not read his book, although one Amazon reviewer compared it to the memoirs of Grant and Slim. Link:http://www.amazon.com/Share-Task-Gen...ley+McChrystal

[davidbfpo]

A lengthy interview in FP and has some interesting passages, notably on the development of SOF in Iraq:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discus...kill?page=show