i have no idea what tag to use for this neural flatulence
I was thinking about the question posed here for discussion in the context of The Runaway General and the appointment of Petraeus to head ISAF. (Wow, he'll be a busy man.)
I didn't really talk about it much when it happened last week, but I followed it closely and have very mixed feelings about Hastings' Rolling Stone article and the behavior/quotes from McChrystal & his staff.
One one hand, McChrystal was insubordinate. He had to go*. I spent an entire day reading and re-reading the article and thinking to myself, WTAF, this is a reporter for a relatively liberal, generally anti-war magazine, why did you and your aides not keep your traps shut?!
On the other, I think even a casual reader can see that Hastings had an agenda from the start. He obviously is anti-war and anti-counterinsurgency. Not surprising. He's writing for Rolling Stone. I don't say that to denigrate him in any way, just as a reminder that we all bring biases to the table, and it's good to keep them in mind when we're reading a RS article, a WaPo article, a WSJ article, or a blog. [You probably know this if you've been here for any amount of time, but it bears repeating: I am anti-war. I didn't have strong feelings about US troops deploying to Afghanistan in 2001/2002, but I protested the invasion of Iraq (and continued to protest the war for all of Bush's administration).]
I don't think Hastings is evil, although he's being portrayed as a hero or a villain, depending on where you look. I think he's simply a reporter, one who did not need to have a long-term relationship with the soldiers he'd be reporting on, and thus had no reason to pull punches. I think he probably chose the quotes that told the story he wanted to tell - he shadowed McChrystal for a month; you can't tell me he only heard insults and complaints the entire time.
I also think people need to remember who they're talking to. Even when they're on leave in Paris and drinking alcohol for the first time in weeks or months. Loose lips and all. Especially if you're subject to the UCMJ.
Purely on the boots-on-the-ground level, soldiers' and grunts' mistrust of the rules of engagement McChrystal endorsed is clear. Whether COIN is working is not clear, and that is communicated to the reader. But Hastings put forth no viable alternative. And McChrystal's comments just made the military (and by extension, the current military strategy under McChrystal's auspices) look bad to the average American, who is most likely completely disconnected from our all-volunteer military if they don't have a family member or close friend serving. In that way, I think Hastings did a disservice to the soldiers who are serving, because we support them poorly enough as it is.
[I equate the absence of popular support with a(n eventual) change in policy that would lead to the withdrawal of troops - because the withdrawal of combat troops is going to begin in July 2011; how many "support" staff and soldiers will remain, and for how long is not clear. Of course, it is entirely possible that American (un)popular opinion is irrelevant, and the only way that American military forces will be withdrawn is if funding for their deployment is cut, which is the way Congress forced the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. But I doubt that will happen - although we rarely learn from history, some elected officials realized that most of the legislators who voted not to fund continued military action in Vietnam went on to NOT be re-elected to another term.]
So anyway. My brain makes leaps sometimes, and the logic is not always obvious. But the logic in this case is McChrystal's ouster -> Petraeus in -> Petraeus wrote the Army's book on COIN and applied it in Iraq, will apply it (modified somewhat) to Afghanistan
Yeah.
Abu Muqawama asked his question, and my first thought was YES. Counterinsurgency is a response to operational difficulties encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the need for it highlights a larger problem within US foreign and defense policy. But I am a) not a policy or COIN wonk and b) not interested in the penis jokes that were interspersed in the comment threads there, so I'm spewing my thoughts here.
I think a significant problem is that US foreign policy has, in many respects, come to be dictated by defense policy, or at least the two have become so intertwined that they are difficult to separate. In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq (and possibly so for Afghanistan, although I am less familiar with it) the disconnect between State and Defense in strategizing and planning widened into a gaping chasm. I do not know if it was a Powell/Rumsfeld issue, or their differing personal philosophies allowed an already existing gulf to grow, but we saw the result in the clusterfuck of the initial occupation of Iraq and subsequent escalation of insurgents and lack of political or social progress.
My feeling is that a chasm like that existed between McChrystal, Eikenberry, and Holbrooke, making the marriage of the military and political in Afghanistan rocky at best. Add in Karzai, whose governing is corrupt and inept, extending little beyond city limits, and the probability of success plummets.
My question, though, is this: if COIN's goal is a) to win over the people and b) to establish a political/institutional link between the government/capital and the villager/citizen, is it realistic to expect it to work in a country like Afghanistan the way it did in Iraq? (That is, if you believe that COIN is what worked in Iraq, rather than the Awakening; there is some debate on the matter.) Iraq's insurgents are based in mostly cities and towns, with a centralized population that wanted the return of basic amenities and dignities that had been absent since (or before) the US invasion. In comparison, a region like the Afghanistan/Pakistan border is remote, with tribal society that has been only loosely administered by Afghanistan or Pakistan (or Britain, during the colonial era), and no such link may be desired.
And while I was pondering that, this appeared. And, okay, if, as Exum suggests, it's less about what the US military is doing and more about what individuals on the ground are doing, then COIN will ultimately never be successful. And why are we there still, in that case?
*sigh*
At that point in my mental circumlocutions, my brain started hurting, so I went back to counting cells and focal adhesions under the microscope, because as boring as it sounds, these are metrics that I have complete confidence in.
*I sometimes wondered how he got the job in the first place. This is a man who personally helped cover up the blue-on-blue fire that killed Pat Tillman. And detainee abuse occurred under his command.
I didn't really talk about it much when it happened last week, but I followed it closely and have very mixed feelings about Hastings' Rolling Stone article and the behavior/quotes from McChrystal & his staff.
One one hand, McChrystal was insubordinate. He had to go*. I spent an entire day reading and re-reading the article and thinking to myself, WTAF, this is a reporter for a relatively liberal, generally anti-war magazine, why did you and your aides not keep your traps shut?!
On the other, I think even a casual reader can see that Hastings had an agenda from the start. He obviously is anti-war and anti-counterinsurgency. Not surprising. He's writing for Rolling Stone. I don't say that to denigrate him in any way, just as a reminder that we all bring biases to the table, and it's good to keep them in mind when we're reading a RS article, a WaPo article, a WSJ article, or a blog. [You probably know this if you've been here for any amount of time, but it bears repeating: I am anti-war. I didn't have strong feelings about US troops deploying to Afghanistan in 2001/2002, but I protested the invasion of Iraq (and continued to protest the war for all of Bush's administration).]
I don't think Hastings is evil, although he's being portrayed as a hero or a villain, depending on where you look. I think he's simply a reporter, one who did not need to have a long-term relationship with the soldiers he'd be reporting on, and thus had no reason to pull punches. I think he probably chose the quotes that told the story he wanted to tell - he shadowed McChrystal for a month; you can't tell me he only heard insults and complaints the entire time.
I also think people need to remember who they're talking to. Even when they're on leave in Paris and drinking alcohol for the first time in weeks or months. Loose lips and all. Especially if you're subject to the UCMJ.
Purely on the boots-on-the-ground level, soldiers' and grunts' mistrust of the rules of engagement McChrystal endorsed is clear. Whether COIN is working is not clear, and that is communicated to the reader. But Hastings put forth no viable alternative. And McChrystal's comments just made the military (and by extension, the current military strategy under McChrystal's auspices) look bad to the average American, who is most likely completely disconnected from our all-volunteer military if they don't have a family member or close friend serving. In that way, I think Hastings did a disservice to the soldiers who are serving, because we support them poorly enough as it is.
[I equate the absence of popular support with a(n eventual) change in policy that would lead to the withdrawal of troops - because the withdrawal of combat troops is going to begin in July 2011; how many "support" staff and soldiers will remain, and for how long is not clear. Of course, it is entirely possible that American (un)popular opinion is irrelevant, and the only way that American military forces will be withdrawn is if funding for their deployment is cut, which is the way Congress forced the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam. But I doubt that will happen - although we rarely learn from history, some elected officials realized that most of the legislators who voted not to fund continued military action in Vietnam went on to NOT be re-elected to another term.]
So anyway. My brain makes leaps sometimes, and the logic is not always obvious. But the logic in this case is McChrystal's ouster -> Petraeus in -> Petraeus wrote the Army's book on COIN and applied it in Iraq, will apply it (modified somewhat) to Afghanistan
Yeah.
Abu Muqawama asked his question, and my first thought was YES. Counterinsurgency is a response to operational difficulties encountered in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the need for it highlights a larger problem within US foreign and defense policy. But I am a) not a policy or COIN wonk and b) not interested in the penis jokes that were interspersed in the comment threads there, so I'm spewing my thoughts here.
I think a significant problem is that US foreign policy has, in many respects, come to be dictated by defense policy, or at least the two have become so intertwined that they are difficult to separate. In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq (and possibly so for Afghanistan, although I am less familiar with it) the disconnect between State and Defense in strategizing and planning widened into a gaping chasm. I do not know if it was a Powell/Rumsfeld issue, or their differing personal philosophies allowed an already existing gulf to grow, but we saw the result in the clusterfuck of the initial occupation of Iraq and subsequent escalation of insurgents and lack of political or social progress.
My feeling is that a chasm like that existed between McChrystal, Eikenberry, and Holbrooke, making the marriage of the military and political in Afghanistan rocky at best. Add in Karzai, whose governing is corrupt and inept, extending little beyond city limits, and the probability of success plummets.
My question, though, is this: if COIN's goal is a) to win over the people and b) to establish a political/institutional link between the government/capital and the villager/citizen, is it realistic to expect it to work in a country like Afghanistan the way it did in Iraq? (That is, if you believe that COIN is what worked in Iraq, rather than the Awakening; there is some debate on the matter.) Iraq's insurgents are based in mostly cities and towns, with a centralized population that wanted the return of basic amenities and dignities that had been absent since (or before) the US invasion. In comparison, a region like the Afghanistan/Pakistan border is remote, with tribal society that has been only loosely administered by Afghanistan or Pakistan (or Britain, during the colonial era), and no such link may be desired.
And while I was pondering that, this appeared. And, okay, if, as Exum suggests, it's less about what the US military is doing and more about what individuals on the ground are doing, then COIN will ultimately never be successful. And why are we there still, in that case?
*sigh*
At that point in my mental circumlocutions, my brain started hurting, so I went back to counting cells and focal adhesions under the microscope, because as boring as it sounds, these are metrics that I have complete confidence in.
*I sometimes wondered how he got the job in the first place. This is a man who personally helped cover up the blue-on-blue fire that killed Pat Tillman. And detainee abuse occurred under his command.