Time to hold the US generals accountable for Afg. and Iraq

[Bob's World]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/op...lies.html?_r=2

Another good current take on the situation.

And that is why it’s time to rethink everything we’re doing out there. What the Middle East needs most from America today are modern schools and hard truths, and we haven’t found a way to offer either. Because Hanson is right: What ails the Middle East today truly is a toxic mix of tribalism, Shiite-Sunni sectarianism, fundamentalism and oil — oil that constantly tempts us to intervene or to prop up dictators.

AND

In Afghanistan, I laugh out loud whenever I hear Obama administration officials explaining that we just need to train more Afghan soldiers to fight and then we can leave. Is there anything funnier? Afghan men need to be trained to fight? They defeated the British and the Soviets!

The problem is that we turned a blind eye as President Hamid Karzai stole the election and operated a corrupt regime. Then President Obama declared that our policy was to surge U.S. troops to clear out the Taliban so “good” Afghan government could come in and take our place. There is no such government. Our problem is not that Afghans don’t know the way to fight. It is that not enough have the will to fight for the government they have. How many would fight for Karzai if we didn’t pay them?

I don't agree with all of Tom Friedman's arguments, but I do agree with his point. We have a policy problem, not a military problem. Our military problem is that we are over employing the military in efforts to make un-workable policy work. Our WAYs are inappropriate, so we find ourselves applying ever increasing military MEANs into the mix to make it balance out. We find ourselves now weary and confused as to why we have a military at war to sustain a nation at peace, at least at a peace as we have defined it.

In a recent conversation with a highly regarded political/policy insider and advisor I suggested as much, and he stared at me in outraged shock at my suggestion that we needed less military action and more focus on how we best reform our foreign policies for the world we actually live in today, and proclaimed "that would be admitting that terrorism works!!"

Well sir, violence does work. "War is the act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."

A converse of that is, that a populace will employ acts of violence against a government that imposes an unacceptable will upon them when given no legal recourse to address their concerns.

Violence is a sword that cuts both ways.

[JMA]

They defeated the British and the Soviets!

Fascinating comment. I would be interested in your definition of 'defeated'.

[Bob's World]

Fascinating comment. I would be interested in your definition of 'defeated'.

You would have to ask Tom Friedman to get his intended definition, as that is his statement not mine.

But yes, they made them pack up and go home. When one is being occupied by a much more powerful nation, that pretty much stacks up to "defeat" of the same.

Like in all conflicts, it is a cost benefit equation. They made the cost exceed the benefit.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by JMA

There lies the inherent weakness in most militaries (which have to rely on mobilisation in time of war). You can produce soldiers in a matter of months from scratch but not so with senior NCOs and senior officers. The inability in peace time to 'test' officers on the way up also contributes to those able to 'game' the system to get promoted to senior officer level.

This is no doubt true, but while all senior officers are political to some extent or they wouldn't be senior officers, that doesn't mean they can't lead a fight. Some can, some not so well. We're all a product of our past, and only the exceptional can adapt effectively to new situations they haven't been trained for. You may recall the U.S. General during the early years of OIF who publically stated after the insurgency started, "we are not trained for this type of fight, and we didn't war game for it." That was a true statement, but of course the Army couldn't take a time out to adjust it training, it needed to adjust to while fighting. In my opinion it seemed to adapt slower in both Afghanistan and Iraq than it did during previous conflicts (Vietnam may be the exception). Ten plus years later it is clear that a significant level of adaptation took place, so my argument is we adapted slower than we should have, not that we have failed to adapt.

The U.S. Army was quite simply inep when it first started conducting operations in North Africa during WWII, but leaders learned or were fired, training and tactics were modified and in a short period of time became a combat capable Army. Not only did the Army adapt rapidly, but so did our special operations. In less time than it takes a member to go through the Special Forces Qualification Course today we stood up and starting employing the OSS. Some hard lessons were learned during the early years, but the SAS logo "who dares wins" rings true when it comes to special operations. High risk operations mean failure may be the norm, but it is worth the risk. That mind set doesn't exist anymore, and probably won't since political parties will exploit any failure for all its worth in the court of public opinion instead of collectively explaining to the American people that is the nature of these operations.

The Army that overthrew Saddam was quite good, but that same Army wasn't so good the day after when the nature of the fight changed. That same Army that went into Afghanistan two years prior wasn't that good, because they were not trained to fight in that terrain or against that type of foe. They did O.K., but that was largely due to technical and fire power advantages, not tactical superiority.

General Petreaus turned the fight around in Iraq , but failed to turn the fight around in Afghanistan. It appeared that he tried to replicate the same methodology he applied in Iraq, which in my view is one reason our COIN doctrine is so dangerous. While it spells out every situation is unique, it still recommends a one size fit all approach (clear, hold, build).

I think the biggest flaw in our structure is a system enabled by information technology to facilitate micromanagement/control, that prohibits Bns and COs from adapting. They have relatively little freedom of movement compared to their peers of yesteryear, and that inhibits learning and adaption at the tactical level.

At the strategic level, I'll leave that to Bob Jones since I think he is hitting the right notes in general on that one. Not sure what the answer is to this, perhaps burning Georgetown to the ground so it no longer produce this current crop of policy advisors. Perhaps electing former senior military officers and NCOs into office (but most have too much honor to enter politics) to help change the culture. As a nation we still have near unlimited potential if we would just learn to apply the power we do have more effectively.

[Surferbeetle]

Perhaps electing former senior military officers and NCOs into office (but most have too much honor to enter politics) to help change the culture.

Bill,

Rothkopf's referenced article covers a number of bases...perhaps one of those could be seen as warning shot for future aspirants attempting to capitalize on this theme.

It will be interesting to see how many vet's make it into office in November...putting the nation's welfare before personal gain, still apparently a novel concept in some quarters of the country.

[Surferbeetle]

Some insight into the stupid parochialism still evident on all sides as the nation burns. All of these yahoo's need to do some real work for once, pull a tour, and learn something about the importance of teamwork and sacrifice...

Lucky or Good? By Joshua Green and Peter Coy on March 21, 2012, Bloomberg Businessweek

.... halted the worst downturn since the Great Depression and rescued the financial sector with a plan that drew on private, rather than public, funds to recapitalize ailing banks. Despite the best efforts of an intractable Congress, [] kept the government from shutting down or defaulting on its debt, which bought the economy time to heal.

But [] and [] advisers also failed to recognize the shape and scope of the crisis and hesitated to push for new jobs programs once they did (FIG. 1). Even with overwhelming assistance from the Federal Reserve, growth remains tepid and unemployment, though falling, remains high at 8.3 percent.

[davidbfpo]

Patrick Porter, an Australian and Reader in Strategic Studies at Reading University (UK); writes an irregular blog and his current post is 'The Neocons Made Me Do It: Iraq and the Alibi of Liberal Hawks'; note it is not possible to add comments:http://offshorebalancer.wordpress.co...liberal-hawks/

As Tom Friedman, NYT columnist, has appeared before here I was struck by this:

As the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman told Ha’aretz in May 2003: ‘Iraq was the war neoconservatives wanted… the war the neoconservatives marketed…. I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office [in Washington]) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.’

For the record, Thomas Friedman also supported war in 2003.

As did the author he admits.

IMHO a good balance to the original FP Blog.