Bush's new generals in Iraq
Posted by Helena Cobban
January 10, 2007 4:52 PM EST | Link
Filed in Iraq-2007-Q1 , Military occupations
- Note to readers: This week I started a new arrangement whereby I shall be cross-posting some JWN posts to "The Notion", a group blog hosted by the venerable New-York-based mag, "The Nation." My goal is to disseminate my writing more broadly, and bring some more readers back here to JWN. JWN is still absolutely my primary blog. I'll be putting a lot more things here than I send over there, and also paying a lot more attention to the comments discussions here than there.
Anyway, I posted an early, ways shorter version of this post over at "The Notion" shortly before noon. (One of their requirements is that my posts there be much shorter than many of my posts here turn out to be... Including the present one.)
So anyway, I'll see how it goes. I just want to assure stalwart JWN folks that my main place is still right here. (And I far prefer the comments discussions here.)
Several people have recently written fairly glowing accounts of the "brainy" and essentially anti-inflammatory role the US military's new command team in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and his number two, Lt.-Gen. Ray Odierno , may bring to their work there. Okay, to be fair, most of these accounts have centered on Petraeus-- who has, I should note, long cultivated his relationship with the press. Thus, we have had Juan Cole : "Petraeus is among the real experts on counter-insurgency, and did a fine job... when he was in charge of Mosul"; and Trudy Rubin : "one of the Army's smartest and most creative generals", and many others...
However, very few of these people in Petraeus's personal cheering section seem to have dug much deeper-- either into Petraeus's own strategic thought, as reflected in the new counter-insurgency manual he helped write during his latest gig as commander of the army's "Combined Arms Center" in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; or into the professional record of the man who will be in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq under his leadership, Ray Odierno .
A first stab at understanding what Odierno might bring to his new job should start with the record of his service as commander of the 4th Infantry Division during its time in Iraq, March 2003 through April 2004. The WaPo's Thom Ricks wrote a lot about that at the time, and has included a lot of information about Odierno in his recent book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq If you have a copy of the book, then go first to pp. 232-4, and then to pp.279-91. If you don't have a copy, you could go to that Amazon.com link there, and do a "Search inside the book" for either "Odierno" or "H & I".
H&I, short for "Harrassment and Interdiction", was just one of the aggressive tactics Odierno used in the portion of the Sunni Triangle where the 4th ID was operating...
On p. 234, Ricks refers to an article Odierno later published in Field Artillery magazine:
He wrote that he often responded with heavy firepower: "We used our Paladins [155 millimeter self-propelled howitzer systems] the entire time we were there," he said [probably, "wrote", not "said" ~HC]. "Most nights we fired H&I fires... what I call 'proactive' counter-fire." His conclusion was that "artillery plays a significant role in counter-insurgency operations." That assertion is at odds with the great body of successful counterinsurgency practice, which holds that firepower should be as restrained as possible, which is difficult to do with the long-range, indirect fire of artillery.It should go without saying that there is no such thing as "counter-"fire that is "proactive", i.e., pre-emptive. Basically, what Odierno was writing about there was a mode of operating inside Iraq that included going around firing wildly with some pretty heavy artillery pieces simply to "harrass" and, often pre-emptively, "interdict" any suspected or possibly even quite imaginary opponents. (Okay, that was just about the same thing that Bush did in ordering the whole invasion of Iraq, in the first place. To that extent, we could certainly note the unity of approach between the commander-in-chief and Ray Odierno, at that time.)
Over the pages that followed that quote, Ricks also writes a lot about the lethal, esclatory excesses committed by one of the brigade commanders working under Odierno in the 4th ID, Col. David Hogg. That portion of the book is worth reading, too.
On p.232-3, Ricks writes of the 4th ID under Odierno,
Again and again, internal Army reports and commanders in iterviews said that this unit-- a heavy armored division, despite its name-- used ham-fisted approaches that may have appeared to pacify its area in the short term, but in the process alienated large parts of the population.So here's my question: Why on earth should we be expected to believe that Ray Odierno-- a man who spent the vast majority of his career rising up inside the "massive land force" portions of the US Army-- has had a complete character/professional makeover since April 2004, and that he is now going to go into Iraq with Petraeus and conduct any kind of a "brainy", culturally and politically sensitive counter-insurgency campaign?
"The 4th ID was bad," said one Army intelligence officer who worked with them. "These guys are looking for a fight," he remembered thinking. "I saw so many instances of abuses of civilians, intimidating civilians, our jaws dropped."
"Fourth ID fueled the insurgency," added an Army psychological operations officer...
"they are going through neighborhoods, knocking on doors at two in the morning without actionable intelligence," said a senior officer. "That's how you create new insurgents."
A general who served in Iraq, speaking on background, said flatly, "The 4th ID-- what they did was a crime."
Especially, if we consider Odierno's record alongside the content in the new counter-insurgency manual that Petraeus has just helped author along with a Marines general. (Ricks's book makes quite clear that at the beginning of the current US-Iraq war, the US Marines were generally much better at counter-insurgency than the Army... Mainly because the Marines have always planned to operate in smaller units and "live with the people" as much as possible, while throughout the Cold War the Army had become accustomed, in Europe, to operating in very large unites, with very large weapons, and living in a very large and comfortable encampments... To that extent, for Petraeus to work on this new manual with a Marines general iindicates that he was trying, a little belatedly, to get some of the Marines' parctices and lessons systeamtized also for the Army.)
In today's WaPo, David Ignatius came close to joining the "cheering Petraeus" gang in this column, in which his lead was this:
What makes sense in Iraq? The political debate is becoming sharply polarized again, as President Bush campaigns for a new "surge" strategy. But some useful military guideposts can be found in a new field manual of counterinsurgency warfare prepared by the general who is about to take command of U.S. forces in Baghdad.Picking up on the widespread "Petraeus as brainiac" theme, Ignatius quotes approvingly from the quote-- from an anoymous Special Forces officer-- that's the epigraph at the head of Chapter 1: ""Counterinsurgency is not just thinking man's warfare -- it is the graduate level of war."
Ignatius also writes,
For my part, I've spent some time reading the whole of that crucial, doctrine-defining first chapter of the manual... And it so happens I have made a few notes on it, which I shall attach to this post in table form, below.My favorite part of the manual, which I suspect Petraeus had a big hand in drafting, is a section titled "Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations." The headings give the flavor of these unconventional ideas: "Sometimes, the More You Protect Your Force, the Less Secure You May Be." (Green Zone residents, please note: "If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents.") "Sometimes Doing Nothing Is the Best Reaction." "Some of the Best Weapons for Counterinsurgents Do Not Shoot." And this military version of the Zen riddle: "The More Successful the Counterinsurgency Is, the Less Force Can Be Used and the More Risk Must Be Accepted." (As the host nation takes control, "Soldiers and Marines may also have to accept more risk to maintain involvement with the people.")
The abiding lesson of this manual comes in one of Petraeus's paradoxes, and it ought to be engraved as the cornerstone of U.S. policy going forward, regardless of whether there is a troop surge: "The Host Nation Doing Something Tolerably Is Normally Better than Us Doing It Well." In making this point, Petraeus cites the godfather of counterinsurgency warriors, Gen. Creighton Abrams, who said when he was U.S. commander in Vietnam in 1971: " We can't run this thing. . . . They've got to run it."
Bottom lines:
1. Petraeus and his co-authors were spelling out a doctrine for situations-- which perhaps they see as occurring many places in the future, in addition to Iraq and Afghanistan-- in which the US military will be helping friendly host governments to battle local counter-insurgencies. (None or almost none of the examples cited in Ch. 1 related to Afghanistan.)Final bottom line: Petraus may have tried very hard both to be a brainiac and to produce a doctrine that allows a foreign occupying force to suppress the forces of a deeply rooted and very multifacted national resistance movement-- and to do so in a way that looks a little "democratic" and senstive... But he fails.
2. The doctrine assumes a wide permission for the US military to "eliminate" any "extremists" that it judges to be violent and/or unwilling ever to reconcile with the host government.
3. The doctrine asserts that the US military commanders in any such situation should lead the whole "COIN" effort, subsuming the efforts of local US embassy staff, NGOs, and even the host government under their leadership.
4. The manual attempts to engage with fundamental issues in democratic theory like "the consent of the governed",the primacy of political control over the military, and national sovereignty. However, the US military is what it is; and the manual importantly flunks all these conceptual challenges.
What's more, if it's going to be Ray Odierno who implements this COIN doctrine in Iraq, then its failure in practice is likely to swift and fairly decisive.
The table containing my comments on the COIN manual text follows:
| Text of the US Army and Marine Corps'
December 2006
manual on Counterinsurgency
|
HC notes |
|
| 1-4 |
Long-term success in COIN depends on the
people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to the government’s
rule.(1) Achieving this condition requires the government to eliminate
as many causes of the insurgency as feasible. This can include eliminating
those extremists whose beliefs prevent them from ever reconciling with the
government.(2) Over time, counterinsurgents aim to enable a country
or regime to provide the security and rule of law that allow establishment
of social services and growth of economic activity. COIN thus involves the
application of national power in the political, military, economic, social,
information, and infrastructure fields and disciplines. Political and military
leaders and planners should never underestimate its scale and complexity;
moreover, they should recognize that the Armed Forces cannot succeed in COIN
alone. |
1. Buried in here is an assumption
that the "host nation" that's being supported by the US COIN people doesn't
start off enjoying the consent of the governed. We could definitely
return to John Locke here and his dictum that the legitimacy of any government
stems from the consent of the governed. COIN operations try to
"win" that consent through coercive military means. 2. Here we have the highest-level "permission" given in the manual for extra-judicial executions. Who, I wonder, is to act as the "judge and jury" in this process of determining that any given "extremist" holds such beliefs? Even in the Spanish Inquisition, provision was made for active investigation into, and engagement with, the beliefs of the heterodox. |
| 1-14 |
Before most COIN operations begin, insurgents
have seized and exploited the initiative, to some degree at the least. Therefore,
counterinsurgents undertake offensive and defensive operations to regain the
initiative and create a secure environment. However, killing insurgents—while
necessary, especially with respect to extremists—by itself cannot defeat
an insurgency .(1) Gaining and retaining the initiative requires counterinsurgents
to address the insurgency’s causes through stability operations as well.
This initially involves securing and controlling the local populace(2)
and providing for essential services. As security improves, military resources
contribute to supporting government reforms and reconstruction projects.
As counterinsurgents gain the initiative, offensive operations focus on
eliminating the insurgent cadre(3) , while defensive operations focus
on protecting the populace and infrastructure from direct attacks. As
counterinsurgents establish military ascendancy, stability operations expand
across the area of operations (AO) and eventually predominate. Victory
is achieved when the populace consents to the government’s legitimacy and
stops actively and passively supporting the insurgency.(4) |
1. So here, the manual goes beyond
telling commanders that winning at COIN might require killing some kinds
of "extremists", as in para 1-4 above, to telling them that it "necessary"
to kill "extremists" (and by grammatical implication there, all of 'em.) Ah, but but we are at least told that just doing this, by itself, can't deafet the insurgency. I'm relieved to learn this. Otherwise, commanders who've read the manual might think they could just go on killing people until there's no-one left to withhold her/his "consent" from the government. 2. Right, "controlling" the local populace is definitely a key to this view of COIN. 3. Here, we learn that the "elimination" (i.e. assassination) operations are to be extended to the entirety of the "insurgent cadre." This doesn't sound very discriminating to me. 4. "We will launch asassinations and other forms of violence against this population until, by God, they grant their consent!" |
| 1-17 |
Before World War I, insurgencies were mostly
conservative; insurgents were usually concerned with defending hearth, home,
monarchies, and traditional religion. Governments were seldom able to completely
defeat these insurgencies; violence would recur when conditions favored a
rebellion. For example, the history of the British Isles includes many
recurring insurgencies by subjugated peoples based on ethnic identities.(1)
Another example of a conservative insurgency is the early 19th century
Spanish uprising against Napoleon that sapped French strength and contributed
significantly to Napoleon’s defeat. |
1. Yeah, and don't forget about that
pesky little UDI movement that some of the white settler locals in
North America launched against London's colonial rule in the 18th century. |
| 1-21 |
While some Cold War insurgencies persisted
after the Soviet Union’s collapse, many new ones appeared. These new insurgencies
typically emerged from civil wars or the collapse of states no longer propped
up by Cold War rivalries. Power vacuums breed insurgencies. Similar conditions
exist when regimes are changed by force or circumstances. Recently, ideologies
based on extremist forms of religious or ethnic identities have replaced ideologies
based on secular revolutionary ideals. These new forms of old, strongly held
beliefs define the identities of the most dangerous combatants in these new
internal wars. These conflicts resemble the wars of religion in Europe before
and after the Reformation of the 16th century. People have replaced nonfunctioning
national identities with traditional sources of unity and identity.(1)
When countering an insurgency during the Cold War, the United States normally
focused on increasing a threatened but friendly government’s ability to defend
itself and on encouraging political and economic reforms to undercut support
for the insurgency. Today, when countering an insurgency growing from state
collapse or failure, counterinsurgents often face a more daunting task: helping
friendly forces reestablish political order and legitimacy where these conditions
may no longer exist.(2) |
1. Actually, this whole paragraph is an
attempt to say that nationalism is no longer a motivating force for insurgents--
with, most likely, special reference to Iraq. I beg to differe. 2. We might note that it was the US invasion and occupation of Iraq that brought about :state collapse" in Iraq-- and most Iraqis know that. So for the USmilitary now to seek to position themselves as "helping [to] reestablish political order and legitimacy" is inherently a very tough sell. Perhaps the authors of this manual think Iraqis are stupid? |
| 1-76 |
The central mechanism through which ideologies
are expressed and absorbed is the narrative. A narrative is an organizational
scheme expressed in story form.(1) Narratives are central to representing
identity, particularly the collective identity of religious sects, ethnic
groupings, and tribal elements. Stories about a community’s history provide
models of how actions and consequences are linked. Stories are often the basis
for strategies and actions, as well as for interpreting others’ intentions.
Insurgent organizations like Al Qaeda use narratives very effectively in developing
legitimating ideologies. In the Al Qaeda narrative, for example, Osama bin
Laden depicts himself as a man purified in the mountains of Afghanistan who
is gathering and inspiring followers and punishing infidels. In the collective
imagination of Bin Laden and his followers, they are agents of Islamic history
who will reverse the decline of the umma [Muslim community] and bring about
its inevitable triumph over Western imperialism. For them, Islam can be renewed
both politically and theologically only through jihad [holy war] as they define
it. |
1. See also my recent
JWN post
about the importance of narrative in Iraq. |
| 1-81 |
Many religious extremists believe that the
conversion, subjugation, or destruction of their ideological opponents is
inevitable. Violent extremists and terrorists are often willing to use whatever
means necessary, even violence against their own followers, to meet their
political goals. Nevertheless, they often pursue their ends in highly pragmatic
ways based on realistic assumptions. Not all Islamic insurgents or terrorists
are fighting for a global revolution . Some are purs[u]ing regional goals,
such as a establishing a Sunni Arab-dominated Iraq or replacing Israel with
an Arab Palestinian state. And militant groups with nationalist as well as
religious agendas seek cease fires and participate in elections when such
actions support their interests. |
The whole of this paragraph--
and the two that follow--show the authors wrestling with the problem of which
kinds of insurgents might one day be ready to sit down at a negotiating table,
and which not. (for the impact of this determination, see my note 2
to para 1-1 above.) They seem pretty confused. I guess that's
a result of their heavy reliance on the intellectually vacuous discourse
of anti-"extremism". |
| 1-83 |
The rigid worldview of such extremist groups
means that friendly actions intended to create good will among the populace
are unlikely to affect them. Similarly, if a group’s ideology is so strong
that it dominates all other issues, dialog and negotiation will probably
prove unproductive. The challenge for counterinsurgents in such cases is
to identify the various insurgent groups and determine their motivations.
Commanders can then determine the best course of action for each group.
This includes identifying the groups with goals flexible enough
to allow productive negotiations and determining how to eliminate the extremists
without alienating the populace. |
Here, the authors identify the single most
important political determination that leaders of counter-insurgency projects
need to make. But should this determination be made by the military
commanders, or by the political echelon? I would say, overwhelmingly
the political echelon. These guys say the military. |
| 1-108 |
In almost every case, counterinsurgents
face a populace containing an active minority supporting the government and
an equally small militant faction opposing it. Success requires the government
to be accepted as legitimate by most of that uncommitted middle, which also
includes passive supporters of both sides. (See figure 1-2.) Because
of the ease of sowing disorder, it is usually not enough for counterinsurgents
to get 51 percent of popular support; a solid majority is often essential.
However, a passive populace may be all that is necessary for a well-supported
insurgency to seize political power. [A graphic titled "Figure 1-2.
Support for an insurgency" follows. It shows that "whatever the cause",
there will always be an active minority for it, an active minority
against it, and a much larger "middle" described as the "neutral or passive
majority."] of the country. an insurgency. |
Boy! Leavenworth does social science! |
| At 1-112 |
HISTORICAL PRINCIPLES FOR COUNTERINSURGENCY |
|
| At 1-113-120 |
Legitimacy Is the Main Objective. |
Correct. |
| 1-113 |
The primary objective of any COIN operation
is to foster development of effective governance by a legitimate government(1)
. Counterinsurgents achieve this objective by the balanced application of
both military and nonmilitary means. All governments rule through a combination
of consent and coercion.(2) Governments described as “legitimate”
rule primarily with the consent of the governed; those described as “illegitimate”
tend to rely mainly or entirely on coercion. Citizens of the latter obey
the state for fear of the consequences of doing otherwise, rather than because
they voluntarily accept its rule. A government that derives its
powers from the governed tends to be accepted by its citizens as legitimate.
It still uses coercion —for example, against criminals—but most of its citizens
voluntarily accept its governance. |
1. Right-- except where it isn't--
in the US's incitement of Fateh and others to undermine the effectiveness
of rule by the elected Hamas government in Palestine... or in the case of
the Contras. Oh, I forgot. Those were both fundamentally US-instigated
insurgency operations, not COIN. (2) A little bit of a re-writing of John Locke, I'd say. But then, in the last sentence, they try to sort it out. Note there, though, how the language of criminalization is used to exclude people from the concern normally given to all bona-fide citizens. |
| 1-114 |
In Western liberal tradition, a government
that derives its just powers from the people and responds to their desires
while looking out for their welfare is accepted as legitimate. In contrast,
theocratic societies fuse political and religious authority; political figures
are accepted as legitimate because the populace views them as implementing
the will of God. Medieval monarchies claimed “the divine right of kings.”
Imperial China governed with “the mandate of heaven.” Since the 1979 revolution,
Iran has operated under the “rule of the jurists [theocratic judges].” In
other societies, “might makes right.” And sometimes, the ability of a
state to provide security—albeit without freedoms associated with Western
democracies —can give it enough legitimacy to govern in the people's eyes,
particularly if they have experienced a serious breakdown of order. |
This last sentence is actually quite insightful--
and of course, particularly relevant to Iraq. |
| 1-115 |
Legitimacy makes it easier for a state to
carry out its key functions. These include the authority to regulate social
relationships, extract resources, and take actions in the public’s name
. Legitimate governments can develop these capabilities more easily; this
situation usually allows them to competently manage, coordinate, and sustain
collective security as well as political, economic, and social development.
Conversely, illegitimate states (sometimes called “police states”)
typically cannot regulate society or can do so only by applying overwhelming
coercion. Legitimate governance is inherently stable; the societal support
it engenders allows it to adequately manage the internal problems, change,
and conflict that affect individual and collective well-being. Conversely,
governance that is not legitimate is inherently unstable; as soon as the
state’s coercive power is disrupted, the populace ceases to obey it. Thus
legitimate governments tend to be resilient and exercise better governance; illegitimate ones tend to be fragile and porrly administered. |
In general, this is an interesting and well-argued
paragraph. However, the first two items on that list of a state's "key functions"
express a strongly state-centric view of the human condition. I suppose
one should expect nothing else from a military organization. |
| 1-116 |
Six possible indicators of legitimacy that
can be used to analyze threats to stability include the following:
|
Not a bad list, though the first item isn't
so much an "indicator of legitimacy" as a "key function of government", and
therefore a source of legitimacy. (Which is a major reason why
the Maliki government has so little popular legitimacy right now.) Also, I wonder about the fourth of those indicators there (re corruption.) The way it reads now, if the government isn't marked by enough corruption, then it loses legitimacy. Maybe it should read, "Corruption absent, or kept beneath a minimal level" -- but then, surely it would be a source of legitimacy, rather than an indicator thereof. Then, too, iIf there is a very high level of official corruption-- as in present-day Iraq-- that surely represents something about the lack of faith even among present-day office-holders in the longterm sustainability of the government structure. So I suppose in that way it is an indicator of a high degree of failure of the US political project in Iraq. |
| 1-118 |
In working to understand the [legitimacy]
problem, commanders and staffs determine what the HN population defines as
effective and legitimate governance. This understanding continues to evolve
as information is developed. Commanders and staffs must continually
diagnose what they understand legitimacy to mean to the HN [= "host nation"]
population. The population’s expectations will influence all ensuing
operations. Additionally, planners may also consider perceptions of legitimacy held by outside supporters
of the HN government and the insurgents. Differences between U.S., local,
and international visions of legitimacy can further complicate operations.
But the most important attitude remains that of the HN population. In the
end, its members determine the ultimate victor. |
Here again, it is military commanders who
are being given responsibility for making essentially political judgments. |
| 1-119 |
The presence of the rule of law is a
major factor in assuring voluntary acceptance of a government’s authority
and therefore its legitimacy. A government’s respect for preexisting
and impersonal legal rules can provide the key to gaining it widespread,
enduring societal support. Such government respect for rules—ideally ones
recorded in a constitution and in laws adopted through a credible, democratic
process —is the essence of the rule of law. As such, it is a powerful potential
tool for counterinsurgents. |
Oops! Too bad about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo,
etc, eh? |
| 1-120 |
Military action can address the symptoms
of a loss of legitimacy. In some cases, it can eliminate substantial numbers
of insurgents. However, success in the form of a durable peace requires restoring
legitimacy, which, in turn, requires the use of all instruments of national
power. A COIN effort cannot achieve lasting success without the HN government
achieving legitimacy. |
The crux of the problem in Iraq, indeed. |
| At 1-121-122 |
Unity of Effort Is Essential |
|
| 1-121 |
Unity of effort must be present at every
echelon of a COIN operation. Otherwise, well-intentioned but uncoordinated
actions can cancel each other or provide vulnerabilities for insurgents to
exploit. Ideally, a single counterinsurgent leader has authority over all
government agencies involved in COIN operations. Usually, however, military
commanders work to achieve unity of effort through liaison with leaders of
a wide variety of nonmilitary agencies. The U.S. Ambassador and country team,
along with senior HN representatives, must be key players in higher level
planning; similar connections are needed throughout the chain of command. |
I read this para as (slightly indirectly)
making the case that the local US military commander in any theater should
be the one finally in charge. The US Ambassador and his/her staff,
and the "senior HN representatives" are brought into planning efforts under
the senior US commander's leadership. (Re Iraq: So much for the HN's
"sovereignty", huh?) |
| At 1-123 |
Political Factors Are Primary |
Nothing to argue with here. But why,
then, should the military be the ones calling all the shots and making all
the complex political judgments and decisions involved? |
| At 1-134-6 |
Counterinsurgents Should Prepare for
a Long-Term Commitment |
|
| 1-134 |
Insurgencies are protracted by nature. Thus,
COIN operations always demand considerable expenditures of time and resources.
The populace may prefer the HN government to the insurgents; however, people
do not actively support a government unless they are convinced that the counterinsurgents
have the means, ability, stamina, and will to win. The insurgents’ primary
battle is against the HN government, not the United States(1); however,
U.S. support can be crucial to building public faith in that government’s
viability. The populace must have confidence in the staying power of both
the counterinsurgents and the HN government(2) . Insurgents and local
populations often believe that a few casualties or a few years will cause
the United States to abandon a COIN effort. Constant reaffirmations of commitment,
backed by deeds, can overcome that perception and bolster faith in the steadfastness
of U.S. support. But even the strongest U.S. commitment will not succeed
if the populace does not perceive the HN government as having similar will
and stamina. U.S. forces must help create that capacity and sustain that
impression. |
1. In Iraq, incorrect. Many other
places, too. 2. A correct judgment. But why should the US citizenry go on supporting this bullying and heavily militarized global policy of ours, anyway? |
| 1-135 |
Preparing for a protracted COIN effort requires
establishing headquarters and support structures designed for long-term operations.
Planning and commitments should be based on sustainable operating tempo and
personnel tempo limits for the various components of the force. (Operating
tempo and personnel tempo are defined in the glossary.) Even in situations
where the U.S. goal is reducing its military force levels as quickly as possible,
some support for HN institutions usually remains for a long time.(1) |
1. Like in Vietnam? |
| 1-136 |
At the strategic level, gaining and maintaining
U.S. public support for a protracted deployment is critical.(1) Only
the most senior military officers are involved in this process at all.
It is properly a political activity.(2) However, military leaders typically
take care to ensure that their actions and statements are forthright. They
also ensure that the conduct of operations neither makes it harder for elected
leaders to maintain public support nor undermines public confidence. |
1. Right. But you already lost it. 2. Right-- so why on earth should it be acceptable for the generals, whose comfy salaries and considerable perks are paid for from the citizen's dime, to engage in this propaganda? |
Helena,
Your thoughtful article deserves much credit for its timeley debunking of a "counter-insurgency" doctrine written by an American general of an American military that has never had much, if any, success at such endeavors. I'd like to add a lot more support for your overall thesis, but let me just put in a few words here as one who once underwent quite a bit of training in how to "Vietnamize" Vietnamese and who thus finds the notion of "Iraqifying" Iraqis ludicrous beyond belief.
In the first place, the Orwellian misnomer "H & I" ("Harrassment and Interdiction") in reality means "Free-Fire Zones" and don't ever let anyone tell you differently. I remember many nights on watch in our base command center when the duty officer would go up to a large acetate map on the wall and randomly insert pins in it, after which some of my fellow enlisted men would copy down co-ordinates that our base artillery would use that night to send high-explosive ordnance off into the night to detonate somewhere. As the base translator/interpreter, I also had occasion to work with our base doctor who often had to treat some of the local peasantry who suffered terrible injuries when those randomly fired nocturnal projectiles of ours would come out of nowhere in the dark to blow off an appendage or pepper their faces and chests with shrapnel. The American military's absurd idea of "helping" someone by hurting them never ceased to disgust me, which explains why I got out of the military at my earliest opportunity.
Still, before deploying to the Southern part of Vietnam -- where America had set up a series of failing puppet governments with no native legitimacy -- I received eight months of intensive language study at the Defense Language Institute as well as three months of "counter insurgency" training at Coronado Island near San Diego, California -- just so that I could teach South Vietnamese naval personnel how to install, maintain, and operate small boat electrical systems. In light of this experience, then, I would first demand to know of General David Petraeus why he did not send his soldiers through equivalent courses in Arabic and use the "counter-insurgency" doctines we already had thirty-five years ago. Not that any of this would have worked any better than it did the last time, but at least it might have saved the taxpaying public -- and suck-up stenogaphers like Mr. Ignatius -- the awful, bankrupt embarassment of buying yet another disastrous pig-in-a-poke from yet another self-promoting ticket-puncher whose last assignment in Iraq supposedly "trained" the Iraqi death-squad militia "security forces" that he now proposes to eliminate (with the help of the Kurdish Peshmerga militia) upon his return. Unless I miss my guess, more Iraqi "insurgents" have read this "new" manual (after digesting Mao's three simple strategies, of course) than American "stander-uppers" have. What a colossal farce!
General Petraeus will get another star; George W. Bush will get another couple of months; the Air Force and Navy will get to play a larger role bombing urban residential areas; and America will just sink deeper into the bloody morass it has made of Iraq. We foreign invaders don't "do" counter-insurgency. We do suppression, repression, and occupation of sullen natives who will use America for whatever they can get out of us while hating and despising us for generations. I cannot express in strong enough language -- and I know some pretty strong language -- how much I oppose yet another pathetic and terrible escalation of a failed enterprise whose story we already know from the last time we lived through it in Southeast Asia. General Petraeus has nothing new to add to this story of bungled imperial conquest. He doesn't even appear to have read our previous version of it.
Helena - I think your comments on the new manual are perceptive and fair, but I think the point to pay attention to is the crucial difference between what the manual indicates the troops should be doing in Iraq (focusing on providing security for Iraqis) and what the troops typically have understood as their mission ("killing people and blowing things up") and largely have been doing.
The shift may not be what you or I would have prescribed, but to the extent that more Iraqis and American troops survive because of the shift in mission, the better.
And, of course, the sooner the troops leave Iraq the better for all of us -- even though it is highly likely that there will continue to be much more blood shed.
Great work Helena, thanks.
Amen, Michael.
PowerPoint = end of American civilization.
http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/iraq-strategy011007.pdf
"Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.
We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region."
IMHO, this is a declaration of war on Iran. Other opinions?
There is nothing in the oration of the GOP's Himself, just concluded, 2130 EST, about "new generals," -- or anything about "old generals" either, for that matter.
If one was a Napoleon Buonaparte, or even only a Douglas MacArthur, I daresay one might consider this an auspicious moment to attempt to wrest power from demonstrably incompetent chickenhawks, just as the learned glossator of the counterinsugency manual of Doctor-cum-General Petræus of Princeton and West Point seems to think the author glossed might seriously want to undertake.
Myself, I don't think we like in quite such interesting and neo-exceptional times as THAT. Probably it will all end tamely enough, Dr.-cum-Gen. Petræus going along with Crawford tamely enough -- only yet another GOP hired hand -- and nothing much coming of it at the end of the day.
"Here, the authors identify the single most important political determination that leaders of counter-insurgency projects need to make. But should this determination be made by the military commanders, or by the political echelon? I would say, overwhelmingly the political echelon. These guys say the military.
and
"Here again, it is military commanders who are being given responsibility for making essentially political judgments."
and
I read this para[graph] as (slightly indirectly) making the case that the local US military commander in any theater should be the one finally in charge. The US Ambassador and his/her staff, and the "senior H[ost]N[ation] representatives" are brought into planning efforts under the senior US commander's leadership. (Re Iraq: So much for the HN's "sovereignty", huh?)
Stirrin' stuff, had one the soul of a militant Buonaparte confronting the feckless chickenhawk Directory!
But when one has only the soul of a Dr. Petræus of Princeton and a Gen. Petræus of West Point confronting feckless chickenhawk Rancho Crawford? I fear Napoleonic excitement is not reasonably to be looked for.
Nor Success and Victory either.
But God knows best.
John:
When stymied and frustrated in Vietnam, Nixon and Kissinger lashed out at "enemy sanctuaries" in neighboring Cambodia and Laos; so I have no doubt that a similarly trapped and desperate George W. Bush -- at the goading of Israel and its neocon supporters in America -- may also opt to "get in some last licks" at Iran and Syria before the American people pull the plug on this reckless adventurism for the next twenty years. I hope none of this awful escalation happens. Still, drowning men will grasp frantically at anything floating nearby for just one more last breath of life; and in that ridiculous repetition of canards, non-sequiturs, red-herrings and straw men that he thinks of as a "speech to the nation," we can see George W. Bush and his presidency going down for the third time. Whom will he try to take down with him in his petty and vindictive little Gotterdammerung?
All this reminds me of the uproar of protest that raged in America after Nixon's "secret" assault on Cambodia became publicly known. As you may recall, Ohio national guardsmen fired on and killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio, in memoriam of which Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young sang:
"Gotta get down to it,
Soldiers are cutting us down.
It should've been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?"
"Tin drummers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming.
Four dead in Ohio."
We know now. And we've got nowhere to run from the knowledge. I can't believe I have to live through all this again.
Ha Ha Michael - you live too long, you have to watch the reruns!!
Some are better than others. I can still enjoy Barbara Eden.
Helena
I trust everybody has read Frank Kitson "Low Intensity Warfare" It appeared in 1970 at the beginning of the Irish war.
The "customers who bought also bought" contains a list of fine books on the subject of warfare.
We find out what happened to John Nagl.
General Petraeus had a british Brigadier on his staff at Combined Arms Centre, who caused a stir a few months ago by criticising the US tactics to date.