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    Small Wars Journal SWJED's Avatar
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    Default Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort

    5 February Washington Post - Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort by Tom Ricks.

    Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders -- in an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.

    Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys." They are smart colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight universities and combat experience in Iraq.

    Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and is letting them try to wage the war their way...

    Petraeus, who along with the group's members declined to be interviewed for this article, has chosen as his chief adviser on counterinsurgency operations an outspoken officer in the Australian Army. Lt. Col. David Kilcullen holds a PhD in anthropology, for which he studied Islamic extremism in Indonesia...

    Kilcullen, the counterinsurgency adviser, wrote recently on the Web site Small Wars Journal, "All that the new strategy can do is give us a fighting chance of success, and it certainly does give us that."...

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    Default Smart Troopers, Dumb Press

    MSM implies in a subtle way that it is rare for military personnel to be educated/intelligent. All the team is lacking is an old hippy who has had to shoot a few men in his day and as Forrest Gump would say, " and that's all I have to say about that."

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    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
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    It's perculiar that Ricks referred to LtCol Kilcullen as a quirky anthropologist first, and then as an officer of the AUS Army.

    I can onyl imagine the backlash from the 1/3 who don't get it. I just pray that they are not in positions of significant influence.

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    Council Member bismark17's Avatar
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    Default Re:

    Interesting article. From what I am reading in Poole's latest book and from a few threads here it sounds like the local Iraqi Police and Army is heavily infiltrated with militias. Getting rid of FOBs and setting up strongpoints with the locals sounds great but I'm not sure I would like to be bunking up with them....

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    The local cops sure, the national police and Army havge traditionally not been a big problem as far as advisor/Iraqi relationships. I am fan of this idea personally. As one of the paradoxes nlisted is " The more secure you are the less security you have".

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    Former Member George L. Singleton's Avatar
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    Default Lt. Colonel (Dr.) David Kilcullen, Australian Army

    Let me suggest we get a few things clarified:

    1. Winston Groom, of Mobile, Alabama, who I personally like, is a University of Alabama graduate, as am I, and is of course the author of FORREST GUMP. Groom is a many time accolated, world recognized author and was a Captain, USA in Vietnam.

    2. Lt. Colonel (Dr.) David Kilcullen, Australian Army is of course a PhD anthropologist, with current expert knowledge both hands on in Iraq and academically dealing with Islam in various settings and forms. There is no reason to be dull and deny his academic focus which operates to compliment his military identity,which military side paid for his PhD.

    3. Being a maverick and operating literally and in a think tank sense outside the box is desperated needed in all walks of life, worldwide, but especially in our War on Terrorism today. It is good to know we have the likes of Lt. Colonel David Kilcullen working for General Petraeus now.

    Let's kick the old school, hide bound, military academy ring knocker thinking and snide remarks and find solutions to save lives and shorten this war on terrormism and in Iraq/Afghanistan, whose lifespan will last for generations to come, whether the yellow journalism practioners like it or not. "It's a fact" as Forest Gump would say!

    The writer of this note served 1963-1965 as a young USAF office with the US Embassy then in Karachi, Pakistan. He is now retired as a reservist from HQ USSOCOM. He is a mean old coot, some would say. GS.
    Last edited by George L. Singleton; 02-05-2007 at 02:42 PM.

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    Council Member marct's Avatar
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    Default

    I think it's also interesting to look at the disciplines involved. Just reading the article, I felt that a "Ph.D." was being hailed almost as if it was a technology golden BB. I'm still undecided if it is a good thing hat everyone also has in the field experience. On the one hand, it means that they can operate well in a military environment. On the other hand, it means that their thinking will still be influenced by the military institution even if it is in reaction against the older norms. I guess we'll just have to wit and see.

    Marc
    Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
    Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
    Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
    Senior Research Fellow,
    The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
    Carleton University
    http://marctyrrell.com/

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    Small Wars Journal SWJED's Avatar
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    Default The Brain Trust

    The Brain Trust - MilBlogs.

    The WaPo headlines: "Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort"

    The only appropriate response might be "Well, duh!"

    But seriously folks... no offense to the fine folks profiled therein, but try finding a senior officer in the military without an advanced degree.

    These guys might be exceptional, but they aren't the exception in that department. There's a bit of myth perpetuation here - the reality is the military invests time and money in developing the talents of the right folks for the right jobs - and sometimes they get it right.

    And in spite of the article's "but the job is too big for these guys or anyone else" tone, I think the right people have indeed been chosen for this task - a conclusion not just based on the evidence of wisdom exhibited in the highlighted words of this paragraph:

    Petraeus, who along with the group's members declined to be interviewed for this article, has chosen as his chief adviser on counterinsurgency operations an outspoken officer in the Australian Army. Lt. Col. David Kilcullen holds a PhD in anthropology, for which he studied Islamic extremism in Indonesia.

    Kilcullen has served in Cyprus, Papua New Guinea and East Timor and most recently was chief strategist for the State Department's counterterrorism office, lent by the Australian government. His 2006 essay "Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency" was read by Petraeus, who sent it rocketing around the Army via e-mail. Among Kilcullen's dictums: "Rank is nothing: talent is everything" -- a subversive thought in an organization as hierarchical as the U.S. military.

    And his Don't confuse the surge with the strategy entry at the Small Wars Journal blog was recently recommended by one of Mrs Greyhawk's favorite military thinkers.

    You might also want to make time for A Framework for thinking about Iraq Strategy and Two Schools of Classical Counterinsurgency...

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    Council Member CSC2005's Avatar
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    While Tom Ricks did play up on the liberal stereotype of the military being uneducated and needing Ivy League policy makers to make the big decisions, I still give Gen Petraeus credit for bringing in a hand-picked group of creative thinkers. I have been through too many OPTs where the focus was on process and not creative operational design. I would love to read a study on how these guys work out in a year or so from now.

    My hunch is that Petraeus picked these officers because of their intellectual/operational ability, not just because they had PhDs. I am sure there are plenty of PhDs in the Army who were not picked. You have to admit that putting a foreign officer on your senior staff is a pretty bold move in wartime and annoyed many of the normal staff officer types.

    I am surprised John Nagl did not make the list.

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    Nagl's playing a lead role in ensuring Army MiTTs/MTTs/PiTTs are being trained properly before being sent over. I suspect he has a direct link to Gen Petraeus.

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    Quote Originally Posted by CSC2005 View Post
    While Tom Ricks did play up on the liberal stereotype of the military being uneducated and needing Ivy League policy makers to make the big decisions, I still give Gen Petraeus credit for bringing in a hand-picked group of creative thinkers.
    CSC,

    I disagree that Ricks is trying to portray the military as being uneducated.

    Instead, I see Ricks trying to 1) garner support for effort that Petraeus is trying to undertake and 2) convince the military that there is a tremendous value added in having officers with PhDs.

    Looking at my first point, having both read Fiasco and then having had a chance to hear him speak about the book in person, Ricks wants to see the US succeed in Iraq and is very critical of past mistakes that have been made. Clearly, he sees Petraues as a success story, and highlighting some of the differences that he and his assembled team could potentially provide is a reason for someone to give the new strategy a chance (one that Ricks sees as having a chance of succeeding), that it's not just "more of the same."

    For the second point, the fact that you have someone overtly reaching out to the "intellectual" community within the military is not the status quo (nor do most senior officers have PhDs - some form of civilian masters degrees, probably, although this number is quickly diminishing and becoming the exception due to our personnel policies implemented in the late 90s; these are the commanders that will make the decisions a decade from now about the worth of advanced civilian education, and it is easier for someone to discount the value of grad school when it didn't play a part in their career advancement). GEN Petraeus did the exact same thing as the 101 ABN DIV CDR. However, he had to pull mostly O-4s and O-5s as a mere division commander .

    Given how just two short years ago the Army was pulling officers out of CGSC early to send them to Iraq and the SecDef was explicitly looking at how officer education could be shortened/abbreviated, now is the time to make the case how critical education is to the military mission, and articles like this can potentially move the public and military in the direction where advanced education shouldn't be the exception and pursued at the risk of derailing one's career. I believe Ricks wants to portray that this should be more than just a fad (also, being based out of DC, the military personnel that Ricks tends to deal in the policy world with are those with advanced education, and so he is clearly cognizant of the fact that many military members are well educated).

    Lastly, here's a very apropos article from LTC Nagl (who's commanding a battalion right now) on the topic of education requirements across the spectrum of ranks.

    Cheers,

    Shek
    Last edited by Shek; 02-06-2007 at 02:21 PM.

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    Default The Petraeus Thinkers: Five Challenges

    Herschel Smith discusses the issues raised in this thread at his Captain's Journal web log - The Petraeus Thinkers: Five Challenges.

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    Former Member George L. Singleton's Avatar
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    Default Characteristics of repeated lying and tribal loyalties

    Quote Originally Posted by SWJED View Post
    Herschel Smith discusses the issues raised in this thread at his Captain's Journal web log - The Petraeus Thinkers: Five Challenges.
    For those of you who have yet to take a minute to read this Captain's Journal blog, you guys and gals now literally fighting this war for all of us, I urge you now to do so.

    My views dating from 1963-1965 stationed in Karachi @ our then US Embassy and ever since concur with much or most of what this blog says, but I am simplier and more blunt spoken:

    1. Both uneducated and even educated Muslims, be they Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, of the UAE, name any Muslim world nation, are flat out, everyday, all the time liars. They make up b.s. to suit the moment and are totally unable in most cases to deal in reality.

    2. I conclued 40 years ago in Pakistan they did this for two simple reasons:
    a) To "get along with" what they thought a Westerner wanted to hear and be told, despite the grim facts of real life in their part of the world.
    b) To appeal to any/a Westerner's "tourist sense" in hopes of getting you to buy something that was not as it seemed in their lying presentation.

    3. Culturally, tribalism and ethic, sub-sets of culture that date back long before Islam existed, run very deep. If they could, for example, the Pakhtuns would form their own economically illogical nation out of parts of mainly Pakistan and Afghanistan. Ditto the boys in Balochistan, where Pakistan has it's own hot small war running largely out of control today. The bulk of these fellows are uneducated or undereducated, many youth today cannot/could not afford the uniform required of a/as child to attend for instance a Pakistani public school, but the Madrass schools will take them in, totally free, without such requirements, and educate and brain wash them ASAP, turning out ready made suicide bombers and terrorists. All funded of course, in the main, with Saudi Wahabbi money, the most extreme Sunnis Islam.

    I have never been in Iraq, but have been several times in Iran. On Iraq, which is mainly Arab in composition as I understand, but then split between Sunni and Shiia, in the main, Islam, you have wild tribal characteristics that run back to the Old Testament argument of who was Abraham's "favored" son, Ishamael, born of Haggar, or Isaac, born of Sarah.

    Understand that most Arabs can't even read so only a semi-literate to a literate Arab Muslim would even know or care about or understand that this early simple dicotomy of Ishmael vs. Isaac was used by Muhammed as the foundation stone to claim the "origin" of Islam from our common worship of the same God "ancestry."

    Pakistan is mostly non-Arab, as is Iran, as you all know. No words wasted here, but the Islamic characteristic of huge lies and wild made up stories for whatever purpose, of late, to defame the West in general and the US/UK specifically, is the order of the day, clearly.

    The Islamic characteristic of lying as a form of daily life dates back in my lifetime to my days in Pakistan, 40 years ago, and goes on today unabated, part of the "lore and culture" for lack of a sharper definition.

    Again, the Captain's Journal blog is worth the read. While he invites comments, and I saw none, I think this larger forum would be the better place to comment back to the Captain's Journal blog, which is why this statement is my comment on that journal blog.

    George Singleton, Colonel, USAF, Ret. (6 years active duty up front, the rest mainly individual reserve with regular forces at the JCS level, total service 32 years)
    Former Commander, Det. 2, 6937th Comm Gp, old USAFSS, attached to the US Air Attache Office, American Embassy, Karachi, then West Pakistan, 1963-1965; former International Banking Officer, Asia (incl. SW Asia) Division, Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co., NYC, now part of JP Morgan Chase Bank; Assisant Deputy Commander for "the" Desert Storm Airlift out of Charleston AFB, SC, 1991; retired (reserve wise) from duty with HQ USSOCOM, formerly USREDCOM; detached reserve duty on TDY orders (repeatedly) with HQFORSCOM when/while then Lt. Gen. Colin Powell, USA was very "briefly", mainly on paper, the CG; TDY orders periodically for two years on war plans staff, joint/interservice/NATO, under Admiral Kelso, of Tailhook fame, while he was then CINCLANT out of Norfolk, VA. US Department of Veterans Affairs, Area National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) Acting Manager, based out of Bham VAMC, 1993/1994. A coaltion of VA; DOD; the US Public Health Service (PHS): and FEMA which deals with actual operable plans for both domestic and international terrorist, natural, or war disasters. NDMS responded from across the nation with teams to the World Trade Towers both in 1993 and in 2001, as a small example. NDMS also sent teams a year ago to Kashmir to help with earthquake relief. Only meant as info basic background not meant as an old coot's bragging. You guys know more in a year of today's small wars than we did in a lifetime!
    Last edited by George L. Singleton; 02-08-2007 at 01:08 PM.

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    Council Member 120mm's Avatar
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    I captured one "factoid" right away that I agreed with: I do believe that if we rolled into Iraq acting like "Billy Bad Ass", the end result would've been less US AND Iraqi deaths. Instead, we went in with a relatively soft image (though in reality we were killing a LOT of people) and our public face was "liberation from Saddam" not at war with Iraq.

    I think this was perceived as weak, and encouraged problems.

    In the movie "Unforgiven", William Munny leaves town shouting about how he was going to kill everyone he sees, their wives, kids and dogs. Of course, he kills no-one.

    It reminds me of the parable of the "two kings". The king who always rewarded was killed when it was his turn to punish. The king who always punished was lauded, when he started rewarding.

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    Former Member George L. Singleton's Avatar
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    Default War was with Baathis (Nazis) Party headed by Saddam

    To amplify your good remarks. The war was against the Baathis Party, made up of specific tribes, all Sunnis, of which party Saddam was the dictator and head. Baathist Party dates back well before WW II and is 100% built on the Nazi model. Hitler and his Nazi regime were/are popular in Iraq among the Baathists for a few simple reasons:

    1. Antisemitism appeals to radical Sunni Baathists, before, during, and ever since WW II. They flatly hate Jews, long before the founding of Israel the Baathist hated Jews.

    2. An early Baathis Mufti in fact became a General in the Nazi SS and went from today's Iraq to Nazi Germany to command his Muslim storm troopers as part of Hitlers army against the USSR/Russians.

    3. De-Baathification is better understood as de-Nazification. That is what it is.

    However, the US and our allies, even at the end of WW II, did not totally dismantle either the German nor the Japanes police at home nor all their troops in the field immediately. We in fact used the in place Japanese Army initially to help maintain law and order in what is today Malaysia and South China, as we had insufficient forces in these areas to do the security job then needed. Just one example.

    Cheers,
    George Singleton

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    Council Member Stan's Avatar
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    Default Simplier and more blunt spoken !

    Greetings George !

    2. I conclued 40 years ago in Pakistan they did this for two simple reasons:
    a) To "get along with" what they thought a Westerner wanted to hear and be told, despite the grim facts of real life in their part of the world.
    b) To appeal to any/a Westerner's "tourist sense" in hopes of getting you to buy something that was not as it seemed in their lying presentation.
    A great summation that applies to nearly all of Sub-Sahara (and darn few Arabs there).

    I would watch our State counterparts (who dare not go outside the embassy walls during social and political upheaval) send their drivers and gardners to gather info

    Once info in hand, they would begin the arduous task of writing the day's report (your first reason above). The Zairian merely gave his "patron" exactly what he thought his patron wanted to hear. Tha fact that is was nowhere near true, meant little.

    Regards, Stan

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    Council Member Tom Odom's Avatar
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    Default Simplistic Analysis

    George and 120,

    I disagree with both of you. Both of you are trapped in the dillemma of what was the objective of the war. 120, general officers I respect still debate the "hard versus soft approach"; the very debate is tied to the lack of a clear objective for the war.

    George,

    Simple slogans like all Muslims are liars are essentially worse than useless because they obviate the need for any thinking. As for Baath=Nazism, that is equally simplistic and that very vein of simplistic thinking led Bremer to make simply stupid decisions: disband the Army, purge all Baath.

    I would question the statement All Baathists Hate All Jews, especially the statement before Israel became an independent country.

    As for service in the Waffen SS or Wehrmacht; that itself is a long list. The Free Officer Movements in the Middle East--Iraq, Syria, Egypt--were more anti-British or anti-French than pro-Nazi. As for contamination by association, consider that Raziel one of the 2 founders of the Stern Gang actually went so far as to initiate contact with the Nazis in the fight to kick the Brits out of Palestine.

    Best

    Tom

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