Bill--

You are so right that there is no CT concept at work when war goes down. In fact, when there is a major military operation (and sometimes not so major but greater than an El Sal or exercise) even if there is an ambassador in country he is not in charge of the military. In the first Gulf War, as I wrote in an eariler book (Civil Military Operations in the New World), there was no ambassador in Kuwait or Iraq and the ambassadors in Turkey and Saudi supported GENs Schwartzkopf and Galvin (who was in support of the former). A real problem comes when there is dual authority between State and DoD as in Iraq. Hopefully, the Petraeus/Crocker co-consulship will work well, but if it does, it will be because the two men are working very hard to make it work. The real question, in my mind, is why no president in living memory has ever done the finger pointing exercise that Max Thurman did with Carl Stiner and Wayne Downing putting Stiner in charge of all operations in Panama. The President can do that as he does in his appointment letter to ambassadors and he could do it without the restriction regarding military operations. Unfortunately, he hasn't told either Petraeus or Crocker that he is in charge (nor, I might add, is the Chain of Command/Commo clean). Thus all resolution of disputes will have to be done by the President if they are to be resolved.

A final word on CTs. If you have a strong ambassador (like Ed Corr in El Salvador) then the CT will work well - the ambassador is its commander. If you have a weak ambassador (like Arthur Davis in Panama), then the CT is just a BOGSAT (bunch of guys sitting around a table - with apologies to Jeff Fuller who coined the term and who I haven't seen since we worked on the USSOCOM Joint Mission Analysis nearly 20 years ago).

Cheers

John